Playing around with Apache Camel

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I have been playing around with Apache Camel for a couple of projects recently, and so far I’m very impressed. Camel is one of a number of frameworks that seem to have sprung up over the past few years in response to the book Enterprise Integration Patterns by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf. It attempts to provide mechanisms to support all the patterns described in the book. And it does so very well, from what I have experienced so far. So I thought I would mention a couple of things I have done with it.

A simple content-based router

The problem I was trying to solve was that a legacy application was designed to listen to a WebSphere MQ queue, which would contain requests for a variety of operations. A new application had been developed to handle a subset of these operations. I couldn’t have both applications listening to the same queue, so I needed to divert particular operation request messages to a separate new queue.

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Relocating to The Rock

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After a little over 10 years working in banking in London, I have been offered a job in Gibraltar in the world of online gaming. Or iGaming, as the industry likes to call itself. It’s a booming industry in Gibraltar, which I think means that quite a few folks will be making similar moves in the near future.

As far as I an tell, there is very little first hand information available online for anyone thinking of moving out there. I’m thinking I might try to relate some of my experiences of the process of becoming an ex-pat, in the hope that others might find my mistakes and successes educational or just plain amusing.

At last, a decent Flickr gallery plugin for WordPress

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For some time now, I have been frustrated by the gallery plugins that I have been using. For one thing they don’t seem to have worked very well, but more than that I have found it frustrating duplicating photos across multiple sites. I have this blog here, where I like to show what I have been up to, but I also have a Flickr account and a Facebook account. I feel like I shouldn’t have to upload the same photos to all three. So what I have been looking for is a WordPress gallery plugin that could link to photo sets on Flickr. And at last it seems that a few options are available.

I have been playing with a few today, and I think I have found one that works just how I want it to. My personal winner is the Flickr Gallery plugin for WordPress. You can also check out the Flickr Gallery project web site for more detail.

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The Holiday Rentals Adviser

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As the Rental Retreats holiday property management business has grown, my brother Antony has gained all sorts of experience in how to manage your own buy to let holiday property. So he has started holiday rentals property management blog where he will be discussing topics such as the earning potential of your holiday property, how to make sure that customers choose your holiday property over the competition, and how to market your property yourself.

Flashpacking Tibbster

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The Flashpacking Tibbster is blogging his way around South America.

Pete Tibbitts used to work with me when our Halifax Treasury team was very small. I think it was just Pete, Glenn and myself working as developers at the time. Pete was a young-un, so obviously he moved on after a while and took up a career as an IBM consultant. That mostly seemed to involve developing apps for the DVLA in Swansea. Well, he decided that it would be nice to take a break from the rat race, so he blagged himself a career break from IBM and has headed off to spend a year traveling around South America. He’s currently in Columbia, blogging about the people he meets and learning Spanish. I must admit I’m a bit envious!

Rental Retreats goes live

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My brother (Ant/Antony/Spike) bought himself a few properties in Portugal a year or two back. There are self catering apartments such as the Nina apartment in Sao Martinho do Porto, which is a very nice little seaside town, and Clementine apartment in Nazare nearby, among others. He has also started managing flats for other folks who buy out that way. As the portfolio of his own and managed properties grew, it seemed like a good idea to set up a web site. So I did.

If you’re thinking of heading out in the direction of Portugal (particularly the Silver Coast), please take a look at the web site. Hopefully you can find a nice place to stay. If you’re thinking of buying your own property in the area, why not drop him a note? He knows the area well and is friendly with a few estate agents, so he might be able to provide some useful guidance.

Now I just need to get myself out there and find out for myself whether Sao Martinho do Porto is as nice as everyone says it is!

Micronesia 2009 – Truk Lagoon (Chuuk)

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In January 2009 Leanne and I made our way to the South Pacific. Our first stop was just over a week in Chuuk where we were diving the wrecks of Truk Lagoon. This is where the Americans sank about 50 Japanese ships during World War II. Most of these ships are at safe sport diving depths, and now they have become a fascinating tourist attraction for divers from all over the world. The best feature of these wrecks is that somehow they still have most of the artifacts that sank with them. This includes tanks, tools, guns, ammunition, ceramics, bottles and just about anything else you could imagine people needing on a ship. Finding all of these items on the ships gives a real feel of what it might have been like to be on them,  and sometimes the horror of the attack that caused them to sink.

Rio de Janeiro Maru

Nippo Maru

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Micronesia 2009 – Palau

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In January 2009 Leanne and I headed to the South Pacific for a bit of a diving holiday. After just over a week diving the wrecks of Truk Lagoon we moved on to Palau, where we were able to see all sorts of big life: turtles, sharks, mantas and napoleon wrasse.

Thusha and Katherine’s Wedding

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On the 12th April 2008, my old school chum Thusha and his girlfriend Katherine got themselves married at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. I didn’t manage to get any photos of the ceremony, but there are a few snaps taken during the ceilidh in the evening that seem to have come out reasonably well.