Steve On Java

Recently I have been doing a lot of research, experimentation, and processing of videos for the Silicon Valley JavaFX User Group.  We decided from day 1 that we wanted to take things up a notch by providing high quality web streaming of our events.  It makes particular sense for us, because the JavaFX community is spread all around the world, and we want to be able to reach as wide of an audience as possible.  However, once you have everything setup the overhead is minimal, so it is worthwhile to do for any user group or event.

Video setup for the first SvJugFx meeting with myself (left) and Keith Combs (right) running the rig.

Because this is a fairly in depth subject, I am going to cover it in a 4 part blog series.  Here are the topics (links will be added as each entry is published):

• Part 1 : Introduction – You are reading it!
• Part 2 : Hardware – This will give you an idea what hardware you need (including how to reuse what you have available).
• Part 3 : Broadcasting – A step-by-step guide on how to stream video live from your event and tools to let your remote audience interact.
• Part 4 : Post-processing – How to take the video assets you have and process them for upload complete with slides.

By the end of this series you will be able to walk in to almost any venue and do live streaming on the spot.  You will also be able to post-process professional videos like Hinkmond’s February JavaFX Mobile talk.

Please drop feedback or comments below on anything specific you are interested on hearing me cover beyond what I have already mentioned!

This is a little off my usual set of topics, but something that hopefully others will find valuable, since there is such little information about this on the net.

Let’s say that you have are launching a new portal website for a Java technology project (such as projavafx.com), and have the following constraints/desires:

1. You need a site that can handle dynamic content, access controls, forums, blogs, etc.
2. The underlying portal technology needs to be Java-based.  No way you are hacking PHP (been there, never again…)
3. You are on a budget.  It is a choice between server hosting and paying your cable bill, and not having the latter would impact your happiness more than the former.

So, with those constraints, you might be brave enough to try putting Liferay Portal on a Shared Tomcat Hosting plan.  Would a dedicated VPS be easier?  Sure, but you also pay more $$$ per bandwidth/disk/cpu.

(I am intentionally not mentioned any hosting companies by name, but if you look around you should be able to find shared Tomcat hosting for under $10/month.)

What to Download

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