Project 1

Due date: Fri, 4 Sep
Individual project

Objectives

• Installation of and familiarity with required software
  
• An understanding of the HTTP protocol
  
• Initial experiments with web service access
  

Part 1: Installing cURL

cURL is a command-line data transfer tool that supports HTTP, among several other common protocols. Therefore, it can play the role of a command-line web user agent (commonly called browser).

You should set up cURL in at least one of the following ways:

• It should be installed by default on Mac OS X.
• Install using the package management system for your platform, e.g., sudo apt-get install curl ca-certificates on Ubuntu.
• Download an appropriate version for your platform with SSL support.
• Use it remotely by logging on to one of the departmental hosts, random.cs.luc.edu or infinity.cs.luc.edu.

Test the HTTPS support of your cURL installation as follows. You need your own Delicious account or your own Twitter account.

• curl -u yourid https://api.del.icio.us/v1/tags/get
  
• curl -u yourid https://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline.xml

cURL will prompt you for the password. In either case, you should see a response in XML format (with lots of angular brackets). If you see any error messages pertaining to missing SSL support, double-check your installation and try again. If you don't have any bookmarks or friends, your response will be essentially empty, for example, <posts user="yourid" ...> </posts>, but that's still a successful interaction with the service.

Part 2: Installing Eclipse

We are using Yoxos to manage our Eclipse configurations. In particular, I have created a configuration for this class. To obtain a distribution for your OS based on this configuration:

• http://ondemand.yoxos.com/geteclipse/start
• Public Profiles > Loyola University Chicago
• select complete-javaee-fall2009
• press green arrow
• press start download button

(You can also manage your own configurations on Yoxos and use this one as a starting point.)

If Eclipse runs out of memory, please follow these directions.

• Increasing the heap size for Eclipse
• Increasing the permgen size for Eclipse

Deliverables

• Screenshot or other form of transcript of your successful access to the Delicious or Twitter web service.
• Screenshot of your Eclipse configuration showing the successful execution of a HelloYourname Java project that prints Hello Yourname.

Please follow these online submission instructions. Submission by email, especially to the mailing list, is highly discouraged.