Mr Lombardi -
This has got to be the absolutely all time best mapinfo-l response from
MapInfo ever! Now if you have the staying power of Andy.... Super and double
thanks...
It wasn't too long ago that several of the residents on this site were
poopooing MapInfo's addition of JAVA. In my humble opinion "da worm seems
to have turned".
Oracle has escaped ESRI's lock on its spatial qualities and now Linux is
kicking SUN hardware into the gutter of useless old junk. And no matter how
hard SUN wants to shine on AOL and Netscape, Scott's days of glory are
numbered. Microsoft is so black and blue that Scott can not pummel them
much anymore. Who's next?
Linux is going to do it with its superior configurations under JAVA. Hey
there is an alternative for the UNIX-noid and its almost FREE! And I hear
that ESRI's WEB offerings are almost but not quite but someday "we promise"
will be there. Whoops to little and too late.
Loss of SUN's lock on the Unix community and abandonment by Oracle and now
their child, Java, is all grown up and on the loose - that has got to hurt.
MapInfo my bet is going to run fast on its net skills - $15 today going for
$45 sooner than we may all expect. It must be exciting to be in Troy these
days!
MidNight
aka Neil
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Wednesday, March 24, 1999 4:13 PM
Subject: MI Linux and MapXtreme
>
>
>Hi All - I've been following the recent thread regarding Linux and wanted
>to drop in with a few thoughts and my 2 cents. In no particular order:
>
>First off, MapXtreme Java edition is rock solid on Linux. I'm running it on
>my laptop right now with the jdk 1.1.7 from BlackDown
>(http://www.blackdown.org/). VERY STABLE! They now have jdk 1.2 ready for
>download as well.
>
>Next, you don't need to know Java to develop applications with MapXtreme
>Java edition (MXTJ). Margie commented that she has stayed away as it looked
>like Java would be difficult to learn. I hear this from a lot of customers,
>and the analogy I usually make is that you don't need to be a C++ developer
>to develop MapX/MapXtreme applications. C++ is the language used by MapInfo
>to develop the component (MapX), but the component can be used with any
>development tool that can deal with an OCX (Visual basic, Delphi,
>Powerbuilder, HahtSite, ColdFusion ... and C++). Likewise, Java is the
>language used to develop the core components that make up MXTJ, but you
>certainly don't have to use Java to develop your applications. Any
>development tool can be used that can deal with a Java component - the list
>is huge! (Cafe, Bean machine, silverstream, Netscape App Server, Oracle
>AppServer, Net Dynamics, Hahtsite...)
>
>MapXtreme Java edition is only the first product to be released from
>MapInfo based on our versatile Java technology. We have a number of things
>brewing, including a series of Java beans (think components, like MapX.
>Beans are to the Java world what ActiveX objects are to the windows world)
>that will make building desktop mapping applications that will run anywhere
>as easy as building a Visual Basic app with MapX!
>
>OK, back to Linux. For those of you who get the Ziff Davis channel, ZDTV,
>you may be familiar with 'The Screensavers'. I must confess, I'm a regular
>viewer. It's like ESPN for geeks :-) Anyway, Kate and Leo convinced me that
>Linux wasn't rocket science, and to try it out. (Here's a nice Linux guide
>at ZDTV: http://www.zdnet.com/zdtv/screensavers/linux/) Weekend Project -
>Make my laptop dual boot Linux and install MapXtreme Java edition. For
>those who wish to try it out, Here's my diary. And don't be timid - it's
>really quite straight forward. My only prior Linux experience was getting
>the 68k version installed and almost running on my amiga some years ago, so
>I'd put myself in the novice category.
>
>1. If you have a machine that you want to dedicate to linux, skip this
>step. If you have an existing NT/95 machine that you want to dual boot
>Linux, you need this step. You need to create a new partition on your
>harddisk for Linux. I picked up a copy of Partition Magic at CompUsa for 50
>bucks to make this step a no brainer, but there are shareware equivilants.
>Partition Magic is nice in that it can cut out a chunk of free space from
>an existing partition, format the new partition as Linux, and shrink the
>other partition down all in one step. In my case, I had a 5 gig NTFS
>partition on my laptop, 3 gigs were free. I told Partition Magic to make me
>a 1 gig linux partition and a 200 meg 'Swap' partition (for Linux virtual
>memory). Also, I told Partition magic to mark it as a 'Primary' partition.
>This makes your life easier during the next step.
>
>2. Install Linux. If you're hard core, you can download the source and
>compile it yourself, but I took the easy way out and went with a commercial
>distribution. I strongly recommend doing the same, unless you have some
>experience in this area. There are a number of commercial Linux
>distributions around, I went with Red Hat's for 35 bucks. Nice install
>manual. Also, Red Hat adds a lot of value in making the install completely
>painless. I told my bios to boot from the CDROM, stuck the disk in and
>booted, answered some simple install questions, and waited for the install
>to complete. This really impressed me. The install autodetected and
>configured absolutely EVERYTHING in my system, including my PCMCIA modem
>and ethernet card!!
>
>3. Configure LILO. This is the LInux LOader. You can do this as part of the
>install (I did) or later from within Linux). When your system is powered
>up, LILO will be run before any OS is booted. You have the option
>specifying the OS to boot at that time. I configured LILO to start NT by
>default, and Linux as an option.
>
>4. Start Linux and create yourself an account. If you don't have any Unix
>experience, the Red hat install guide explains how. Start X windows with
>the startx command.
>
>5. start netscape and go to BlackDown's website to get a Java VM. Download
>and install it. Instructions are at the BlackDown site. Very straight
>forward install.
>
>6. Download MapXtreme Java edition from
>http://testdrive.mapinfo.com/mapxtremejava There are 2 archives in the
>download area that you will want. The main archive contains the software
>and sample applications. a separate maps archive contains some sample TAB
>files in the event you don't have any map data. The MapXtreme Java edition
>installer is a java application itself. Launch it from the command line
>like this:
>
>jre -cp install.zip install
>
>You should be in the directory where you downloaded the archive to before
>executing that command. The graphical interface will start up and guide you
>through the install. Very straight forward.
>
>7. Time to finally make some maps. Remember, you don't need a web server at
>all. Start the Mapxtreme server from the command line. Here is a smaple
>command line - substitute the path's that are appropriate for your install:
>
>jre -cp /opt/mapinfo/server:. com.mapinfo.mapxtreme.MapXtremeApp -c
>/opt/mapinfo/server/MapXtremeApp.cfg -s /opt/mapinfo/server/Security.cfg -a
> /opt/mapinfo/server/AppSupport.cfg -debug
>
>Now you can run any client application that has the MapJ object in it. Our
>MapXtreme administrator is one such application. It is a Java application
>with a GUI for setting up some preferences for the server. It also allows
>you to load geoset's and tab files. A command line to start this
>administrator would look something like this:
>
>jre -cp
>/opt/mapinfo/server/ThirdParty/symantec/symbeans.jar:/opt/mapinfo/server:.
>com.mapinfo.mapxtreme.admintool.MXTJAdmin
>
>go to the 'Map' tab of the administrator. load world.gst, and in a second
>or two you'll be looking at an interactive map of the world. Congrats. And
>in my case it was still Saturday!
>
>Next up, you may want to have a look in the samples/java directory of your
>installation. There you'll find a standalone Map viewing application
>complete with source code. You can either run it as is, or edit the .Java
>source file, customize the app, and re-compile. Hmm. It's a map viewer of
>sorts. Loads geosets and tabs. Runs anywhere. Wasn't there a recent thread
>like this on the MI-L?
>
>Best of luck Linux heads. Hope to see you all at MapWorld this year. Hey,
>any interest in a Linux Sig?? Let me know. If there's enough interest, I'll
>try to set something up in addition to the already scheduled MapXtreme Java
>sessions.
>
>Steve Lombardi
>Product Line Director - Web Products
>MapInfo Corp.
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
>
>
>
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