JMS testing with HermesJMS

HermesJMS is a handy tool that can be used to visually interact with JMS destinations (JMS Queues or JMS Topics).  I find it convenient for ad hoc testing of JMS applications.  I use it to monitor the status of JMS Queues, browse their contents, and to drop messages onto queues for testing purposes.  

When viewing a message in a JMS Queue, HermesJMS shows you the JMS headers and the value of the message payload, even if the payload is a serialization of a custom Java object.   For example, in my current consulting engagement, we had a situation where we had a bad message stuck at the front of one of our JMS Queues (and due to invalid configuration our app kept processing that same message over and over, rather than proceeding onto the next message in the queue).  Through the WebLogic Console we were able to see that there was a message in the queue that wasn't getting processed, but we couldn't see the actual content of the message that was causing it to get stuck.  By connecting HermesJMS to the queue we could view the message payload and as a result identify and fix the issue.

Browse Queue Contents

The screenshot below shows an example of what browsing messages in a JMS Queue looks like:

The table lists the JMS messages currently in the queue and the JMS headers for each message.  Below the table is then a text rendering of the actual payload (typically a serialized Java object).  In this example the payload is a Java class called HermesDemo with two properties, foo and bar (which I creatively concocted for this blog post :)


Drag Messages Between Queues

Another handy feature of HermesJMS is that you can easily copy messages between queues.  For example, if I click on the top message in the demo/Queue on my local machine I can drag it over to a queue in my testing environment (UAT):

HermesJMS asks me to confirm the action and then copies the message over.  HermesJMS will automatically handle any necessary mapping if the JMS Destination names differ between the source and the target queues.  I find this drag and drop feature quite handy for ad hoc testing JMS applications in multiple environments.  I produce a message on one of my local queues and then drag it as needed onto a corresponding queue in the environment I want to test.  

Build Message Stores

HermesJMS also has a feature where you can build so called stores; that work off of a database rather than an actual JMS destination.  Using this feature you can build a database of various JMS messages and have them ready for dragging over to a remote destination anytime you need to test a specific condition in one of your JMS applications.

XML Export/Import

Alternatively HermesJMS allows you to export messages to XML files, for later import into queues/topics. To do this, you simply click on a message in the queue and select Save as XML... from the Messages menu, then give it a file name and hit save.  To import the message to a queue you click on the JMS Queue and select Send XML Encoded Messages from the Messages menu and then select the XML file to import from on your hard drive:

Note: if the JMS Destination name does not match between the source and target queues you will need to edit the XML and update the value to match that of the target queue.  

In our example the exported DemoClass.xml file looks like this:

where the value of the object tag is an object serialization + Base64 encoding of the following Java class:

When you export a message from a Queue to XML, HermesJMS handles the serialization magic for you and writes it out to the XML file.   If you want to create a new XML message from scratch (e.g. when adding the first message for a queue), you can build the serialization string using the SerializeHermesDemoClass in my Github repo (just modify the main method to use whatever class you want to serialize).

Setup Instructions

Below are basic instructions for getting HermesJMS set up.  In my case I am using WebLogic as the application server.  Setup for other app servers is similar; you just need to use the ContextFactory and jar files specific to that app server.  If you go to hermesjms.com you will find setup instructions for many app servers under the Providers menu.

1. Download and install HermesJMS, either directly from Sourceforge or as part of SoapUI install.
2. Start HermesJMS by running hermes.bat/hermes.sh.
3. Create a ClasspathGroup for your app server jar files 
1. Select Option and Preferences
2. Click on the Providers tab
3. Right-click on Classpath Groups and select Add Group and give it a name (e.g. JarDependencies)
4. Click the + sign and right-click on Library and select Add Jars and find the jar files you want to import.  In our case that is weblogic.jar, wlclient.jar, and HermesDemo.jar, which has the custom Java class used in our demo.  If you want HermesJMS to show the contents of a custom Java object in your JMS Queue, it needs to have the corresponding class file on its classpath.  You can either add the jar here, or alternatively edit hermes.bat/hermes.sh and add it where the CLASSPATH variable gets set.
   
4. Next we need to create a Session for JNDI browsing the JMS server 
1. On the Preferences screen, click the Sessions tab.
2. Give the session a name, corresponding to the JMS server you are pointing it to.
3. Select the Plug In matching your app server.  In our case it is BEA WebLogic.
4. Under Loader, select your JarDependencies and under Class select hermes.JNDIConnectionFactory.
5. Populate the binding, initialContextFactory, providerUrl, and security properties as appropriate for your app server.  For WebLogic the properties are:
   
6. If the destination names don't get auto-populated, right-click under Destinations and add the names of JMS Queues/Topics you want to connect to on the JMS Server.

Note: If you are using WebLogic you can alternatively download this pre-populated hermes-config.xml file and put it in your .hermes directory (replacing the default one that HermesJMS puts there during install).  Before you run HermesJMS make sure you edit the file and change the following:

• Update the providerUrl value to match the server and port of your JMS Server.
• Set the securityCredentials and securityPrincipal values to mach your username and password.
• Edit the library paths for JarDepdencies and make sure they point to wherever you have these jar files on your machine.

In Conclusion

I hope this overview and these setup instructions help you get going with HermesJMS.  Once you have it working, interacting with your JMS destinations is a breeze, and testing a given JMS app can be as simple as a drag and drop.

If you need to run a suite of JMS tests, e.g. for sanity testing or load testing, you can use SoapUI, which knows how to interact with HermesJMS.  I may write a future blog post demonstrating this integration.  For SoapUI basics, see this blog post.

All the examples used for this blog post can be seen in this Github repo.

Happy JMSing!

Visually Import SSL Certificates to Java Keystores

Working with SSL certs in Java, in particular those self-signed ones frequently found in dev & QA environments, usually means dealing with the command line keytool that comes with Java.  Either to add a certificate to a keystore (JKS file) or to add a new certificate authority to your truststore (cacerts file).  If you are tired of reading the keytool help or googling what the exact import command looks like (and have forgotten it in the year or so since you last had to deal with it), I recommend the GUI tool Portecle.  It makes it very easy to view the contents of a keystore/truststore file and to import new certificates, and it allows you to download public certificates right from within the tool.

To add a public key certificate to a keystore, open up the JKS file in Portecle, select Examine SSL/TLS Connection and type in the hostname and port number of the https site you would like add certificate from.  Then hit the PEM encoding button and save the certificate to a file.   Next click the Import Trusted Certificate button and select the file you exported and hit save.  That's it!

To add a trust for a new certificate authority in your truststore you open up your cacerts file (password most likely 'changeit') and add the CA certificate file via the Import Trusted Certificate button.  You will need to locate the CA certificate file on your app server and convert it to PEM format if it is not already in that format.  For example in WebLogic the CA file is located in the [WebLogic Home]/server/lib directory (CertGenCA.der by default).  In IIS you can export the CA file to PEM format through the IIS Management Console.  After importing the CA file to your cacerts file your JVM should trust certificates issued by that CA.

Quickly Launch Remote Desktop Connections on Mac OS X

At work and at home I have a few PC servers that I frequently need to remote connect to. My Mac launcher application of choice is Alfred. I wanted to be able to use it to instantly launch connections to those servers without needing to type in anything but the first few letters of the server name. Getting this setup on Mac OS X is a bit of a hassle, but here is basically what I do:

• I use the Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac to connect to the PC servers.
• After installing the client and typing in the name of the server I want to connect to I go to preferences and customize the connection:

• Under the Login tab I enter account information
• Under the Display tab I specify my preferred remote desktop size
• Sometimes I tweak some of the other settings, but those two are of main importance

• Then I go to File and Save As... and save this connection as a .rdp file on my Mac
• Now I can double-click on the file to be instantly connected to the remote server
• Problem is that application launchers don't really know how to run .rdp files, so I want to take it a step further and create a runnable Mac Application for each .rdp file.  To do this I use an open source program called Platypus, that a coworker of mine told me about.  
• Unfortunately Platypus does not know how to run .rdp files, but it does know how create Applications that launch shell scripts.  Hence, I create a simple shell script to launch my remote desktop connection.  E.g. if I want to launch SteiniServer.rdp, then my script would look like this:
  
  open "/Applications/Remote Desktop Connection.app" ~/Documents/RDC/SteiniServer.rdp
  
  
• Then I save the script on my computer in a file called rdcSteiniServer.sh
• Now I open Platypus and use it to create a Mac Application with the following settings:

(If you want to add a custom icon for your application you can right-click the image and choose Select Image File...)
        

The only thing that really matters is selecting Script Type Shell and the path to your script.

• Then I hit Create and select:

• Now I am ready to launch my remote connection with Alfred, which I do like this:

• Basically, I activate Alfred (Ctrl-A for me) and as soon as I have typed in RDC it finds the RDC Steini Server Application and when I hit enter I am automatically logged into the remote PC server without having to type in anything else.

If you have a simpler way of achieving the same I am eager to hear :-)

Web Service Testing with soapUI

For a few years now I have used the open source application soapUI to simplify Web Service testing.  Both to test services that I have written and to test external services that I have had to consume.  In this post I'll cover the basic types of testing you can do with soapUI and provide some practical tips on how to use soapUI when working with Web Services.  If you don't want to go through the detailed examples I suggest jumping straight to the Practical Tips section at the end.

Getting Started

After downloading and installing soapUI the easiest way to get started is to create a new project from an initial WSDL or WADL.  For demonstration purposes I'll use the free Weather Web Service at http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx.  We will create a test for each operation in this SOAP Web Service.  We will also create a Test Suite, that allows us to run all our tests at the click of a button.  Furthermore, we will create a Load Test for our Test Suite and a Mock Service to simulate the functionality of the Web Service.

To do this go to File and select New soapUI Project.  Populate the New soapUI Project screen in the following manner and click OK:

Basically, paste the URL to the web service WSDL file into the Initial WSDL/WADL field and additionally check the field to generate a MockService.  SoapUI will now load the Web Service definition and ask you questions about how to create the MockService:

For this demonstration change the path to "/WeatherMock" and check the Starts the MockService immediately checkbox, but otherwise accept the defaults.  After clicking OK, specify the name of the Mock Service as "Weather MockService" (or a name of your choice) and click OK again. 

This will complete generating artifacts for the SOAP 1.2 version of the GlobalWeather Web Service.
Next you will be asked the exact same questions, for the SOAP 1.1 version.  Since we don't plan to use SOAP 1.1 you can just hit Cancel.  (I haven't found a way to configure soapUI to only generate artifacts for SOAP 1.2.  If you know how to, please let me know! :)

Running Tests

To execute a given test, drill down to the requests that soapUI auto-generated and insert values that make sense for the given Web Service operation.  In our case, in the Navigator on the left, click on GlobalWeatherSoap12, then GetCitiesByCountry and then double-click on Request 1.
We'll set the Country name as Iceland and then hit the green arrow button to execute the test.

Voila, you should get results back from the Web Service, a list of Icelandic cities.  To check if the Web Service response is valid (conforms to the WSDL), right-click in the results window and click Validate.

Lets give this test the name "City Test".  (Right-click Request 1 and select rename) 
Then do a similar test for the GetWeather operation.  Click on GetWeather and then double-click on Request 1. Put in "Reykjavik" for CityName and "Iceland" for CountryName and run the test.  Also rename the test to "Weather Test".  After running the test, the results should look something like this:

Build a TestSuite

Now that we have created two tests, lets add them to a TestSuite so we can easily re-run them at any time.  In the Navigator on the left, right-click GlobalWeatherSoap12 and select Generate TestSuite.  Select Use existing Requests in interface, and check Generates a default LoadTest for each created TestCase and Single TestCase with one Request for each Operation:  

After clicking OK give the TestSuite the name "Weather TestSuite".   Double-click on GlobalWeatherSoap12 TestSuite under Weather TestSuite to show the TestCase editor.
Then click the green arrow button to run the TestSuite.  If all goes well you should be presented with a results-screen like this, indicating a successful test run:

If the TestSuite run fails you'll see FAILED at the top instead of FINISHED and you should get a message explaining why a given test failed.

Add Assertions

To make the tests more meaningful lets add some assertions to validate the responses from the Web Service we are calling.  You do this by opening up the test Request Editor (double-click on a given test step under TestSuite in the Navigator) and then click the plus-sign next to the green arrow button (second from the left).

For both tests lets add the assertion called SOAP Response, to ensure the Web Service is returning a valid SOAP response.  Then add the assertion called Response SLA and specify the response time as 2000 ms.  That basically means that we are going to consider the test a failure if we don't get a response within two seconds.  Lastly, lets add some content validation by selecting a Contains validation.  For the GetCitiesByCountry operation add the string "Iceland" as the content to expect in the response, and for the GetWeather operation add the string "Success". 

Then run the TestSuite again to make sure you get success-results.

Run a Load Test

When we created the TestSuite in last step, we told soapUI to generate a Load Test as well.  You'll find it under the TestSuite in the Navigator on the left, under the heading Load Test.  The default name is LoadTest 1.  Double click on it in the Navigator to open it up.  Before running the LoadTest you can tweak such parameters as number of concurrent threads to run, length of the test-run, and delay between tests.  Once you have made the desired configurations hit the green arrow button to run the Load Test:

In this sample, 5 concurrent threads are running the TestSuite for 60 seconds with a random wait of up to 1 second between the start of each test.
You can track the progress of the load test with the progress bar in the upper right corner.  If it reaches a 100% without reporting any test errors you are good to go.

Use the Mock Service

Back when we imported the Weather Web Service we told soapUI to generate and start a Mock Service.  That service can now be accessed at http://localhost:8088/WeatherMock.  This is  convenient for example if you are developing against a Web Service that has been designed (WSDL/WADL available) but not yet implemented.  Then you can have the Mock return an actual Web Service response to test your code even though the actual implementation hasn't been completed.  A default response has already been generated (under WeatherMock Service,  GetCitiesByCountry, and Response 1), which you can edit as you like.

You can also have the Mock service return different responses depending on which request it receives.  To demonstrate this, lets create two new MockResponses for the GetWeather operation:

• Click on GetWeather under the Weather MockSerive in the Navigator and select New MockResponse.  
• Give it the name "ReykjavikWeatherResponse".  Accept the automatically generated response, but put the value "Reykjavik" in the GetWeatherResult tag.  (Or even better copy the actual response from calling GetWeather for Reykjavik, which should give you a fully valid response).  
• Create another response called AkureyriWeatherResponse and put the text "Akureyri" in the GetWeatherResult tag.  

Now put logic in the Mock service for when to return each response:

• Double-click on GetWeather in the Navigator to show the MockOperation Editor.  
• Select ReykjavikWeatherResponse under MockResponses.
• Select QUERY_MATCH under Dispatch.
• Click the plus sign to add a new match. 
• Give it the name "Reykjavik". 
• Select Reykjavik and then populate the XPath value with:
  
  declare namespace web='http://www.webserviceX.NET';
  declare namespace soap='http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope';
  /soap:Envelope/soap:Body/web:GetWeather/web:CityName
  
  This XPath query will grab the value from the CityName tag.
• Under Expected Value enter "Reykjavik".
• Under Dispatch to, select ReykjavikWeatherResponse.
• Repeat the same steps to create a Match that returns AkureyriWeatherResponse when the city name in the request is Akureyri.

Now you can test your mock Match-logic by opening up your GetWeather test and adding http://localhost:8088/WeatherMock as the endpoint to use (select the current endpoint in the dropdown and pick add new endpoint...).  Then run the test and play around with changing the city name in the request to get different responses from the Mock service.

Additionally, if you want to test your client-side error handling you can have soapUI generate a soap:Fault response and have your Mock return it.  You do that by creating a MockResponse and then clicking the apostrophe icon in the MockResponse Editor.  Then edit the auto generated response as appropriate.

Practical Tips: What to use soapUI for

Now that we have covered the basics of soapUI, here are some practical tips for putting it to use during your software development.

Test Web Services You Have to Consume

When consuming external services, before delving into code, use soapUI to "kick the tires" of the Web Service.  This especially applies when consuming newly written services.  Rather than potentially spending hours pulling your hair over why your client code isn't working, spend a few minutes with soapUI validating and getting familiar with the Web Service you are about to consume. In particular:

• Create and run simple tests for key Web Service operations
• Make sure there are no security/access problems
• Is the web service using some proprietary authentication protocol (NTLMv2 comes to mind) that might give you trouble during implementation?
  
• Have soapUI validate that responses conform to the Web Service contract (WSDL/WADL)
• Visually inspect responses 
• Do they make sense or are they some illegible auto generated garble that should really be cleaned up and restructured by the Web Service developer? 
• Do the responses meet your needs?
• Test a few boundary cases
• Does the Web Service implement proper error handling?  Or does it blow up with an HTTP 500 error or some non SOAP compliant text message?  Does the level of error reporting meet your needs?
• Add all your tests to a TestSuite.  That way you can quickly "ping" the Web Service to make sure everything is working on the other end.  When a problem arises, taking your code out of the loop is a good way to make sure the issue is on the remote end and not with your own code.

When developing against a newly written external Web Service, it is very rare that the Web Service works 100% out of the box as expected.  There is usually a fair amount of communication needed between the Web Service developer and the client-side developer to tweak things until the Web Service works as needed.  By using soapUI, you can inspect the Web Service right at the time it is delivered to you, and quickly spot things that may need to be fixed.  I usually take 5 or 10 minutes to do so and almost always have a list of things that need to be modified.  The response time for getting those changes implemented is usually very short, as the Web Service developer is still engaged in the project and things fresh in his mind.  If I don't get back to him/her until some weeks later when I finally get around to implementing my client-side code, the other developer has probably moved onto other things and/or forgotten why he implemented the service in a certain way.   

Lastly, if you have received a WSDL/WADL file, but the service hasn't actually been implemented, and you NEED to start implementation against the service (not ideal), then consider using soapUI to create a Mock service from the WSDL/WADL file.  That way you can have your code hit the Mock service and at least get some preliminary feedback on whether your client code is working.  Since creating a Mock service is really a breeze with soapUI it can sometimes be more practical than implementing Mock objects in your code.

Test Your Own Web Services

When writing a Web Service for others to consume it can be handy to have a soapUI TestSuite to sanity test your service.  Of course you should still write unit and integration tests for your code, but having a good soapUI TestSuite can be quick and easy way to find out if all your services are running as expected.  When you get that 4 AM phone call saying that something is broke, fire up soapUI and at the click of a button sanity test all of your Web Service operations.  If you are smart, you'll hand the TestSuite over to a support team so that you only get woken when the issue truly is on your end ;-)  Just make sure to add proper assertions for Web Service responses and include SLA assertions to test that things are not running dead slow.

If you are concerned about the performance of your Web Service or whether it can handle a given load, then a soapUI Load Test can be a convenient way to test that.  Set the number of threads to imitate the expected number of concurrent users for your service and add SLA assertions to make sure all requests are handled in a timely fashion.  Of course generating all the load from a single machine does not quite imitate real traffic, so for truer numbers consider having coworkers assist you in running simultaneous Load Tests from multiple machines.

Easily Size and Arrange Windows on Mac OS X

One idiosyncrasy of Mac OS X is that application windows can only be sized from their lower right corner, and Mac OS does not have any kind of "snap windows into place" feature similar to Windows 7.  At work I have the pleasure of working on a large 27" iMac screen, so I frequently arrange two apps side by side while working, or might even have more than 2 apps visible on the screen at any given time.   Arranging that kind of setup is tedious when done manually with the mouse, but with a nifty little tool called Divvy the task becomes quite easy.   As can be seen in the Divvy in Action video on their site, when activated, Divvy overlays a grid on your screen and can be used to visually size an application to a specific portion of the screen.  That is great, but what I found faster and easier was to assign global OS X shortcuts to window arranging operations I frequently use and let Divvy do its magic without bringing up the grid panel at all.  Creating shortcuts is covered towards the end of the video, but to make them global you need to check the "Global Shortcut" check box.  Here is a screen shot of some of the configurations I set up:

For example if I need to have an application fill the left 50% of my screen I just hit ctrl-shift-1 (with the app in focus) and it will jump right into place.  While developing, I often arrange things so that my IDE uses the entire right-side of the screen, the website I am testing covers the upper left-side of the screen and the application sever console (logging output) covers the lower left-side.  To put the windows in place I simply put them in focus one at a time and hit ctrl-shift-2, ctrl-shift-3 and ctrl-shift-4, in that order, and the apps snap into place, filling the screen like this:

No space is wasted on the screen and no annoying mouse-dragging operations are needed. Of course you can assign whatever keyboard shortcuts make sense to you.
Divvy is not freeware, but low cost, and can be used in demo mode (periodically pops up a registration message) if you don't want to cough up the $14.  It supports multiple monitors and is available for Windows too.

Evernote - A "shoe box" organizer that works

I have been an iPhone owner since the iPhone 3G was released in the USA on July 11, 2008. Why do I remember the exact day? Because I was one of the nerds that stood in line outside Tuttle Mall, in Columbus, Ohio, way before the AT&T store opened! Anywho, I often get asked what my favorite iPhone app is. Having tried out a fair share of apps from the App Store, I have to say my all time favorite is Evernote.

If you are the type of person that tends to forget things, loose things, and hates to spend a long time organizing information, then this is app is for you! And you don't really need to have an iPhone to use it. It is available for all major smart phones. Plus you can use it directly through www.evernote.com, or via multiple Web Browser addons or use one of the many thick client versions they have for all major operating systems.

If I need to remember anything for later (a store receipt, notes from a lecture, a good deal I see in the paper, a shopping list, recipe from a friend, a note from my kids' school, the name of a good wine bottle,.. you name it) I simply snap a picture of what I want to remember and send it to my Evernote account via the Evernote iPhone App.  If I feel up for it I might tag the note (e.g. Recipe) and add a descriptive title (e.g. "Chili Recipe from Bob").  But often I am to lazy to do that, and it typically doesn't matter.  I just file it and forget it.  What Evernote does when it files my note is to automatically perform OCR on the picture and store any text it extracts as metadata along with the note.  So if Bob showed me a handwritten recipe that he had titled "Bob's kick ass Chili" then that piece of text (granted it is written in legible writing) would automatically be stored in the metadata index for the note.  So if years later I searched my Evernote account for "Chili", or "Bob" AND "Chili" I would find the recipe.

To me, Evernote is the shoe box method for organizing, that actually works!  Meaning, you can get away with throwing all your junk into one large shoe box and thanks to Evernote's powerful search capabilities have it at your fingertip anytime you need it.  Feeling left out at a chili cooking party? Just whip out your cell phone and say "One second, I have a better recipe!" and voila you are the star of the party! ;-)

For more info on Evernote, check out one of their many introductory videos on www.evernote.com.  Then sign up and get an account!  The basic account is free and should be sufficient for most users.

Join MP3 files with a UNIX shell command

I have been listening to a lot of audio books lately, which I have typically imported from CDs onto my iPhone via iTunes. Most of the Icelandic audio CDs I have listened to are in MP3 format and described in the SMIL markup language, which iTunes has no concept of. The files are named 01.mp3, 02.mp3, ... and so on and are void of any ID3 information, with all the metadata in those .smil files. Anywho, to my frustration once imported into iTunes, neither iTunes nor my iPhone have the good sense of playing the files in the correct order. Why they play them in some arbitrary order other than by file name, I have no idea, and iTunes does not seem to have any way of changing the play order. So I figured I needed some way to join the files into a single MP3 file so iTunes/iPhone couldn't mess up the order. After googling around for products to join MP3 files and mainly finding shareware software that I wasn't willing to pay for, I stumbled up on the fact that since MP3 is a streaming format you can simply concatenate MP3 files using the good old Unix cat command! So I came up with the following one-liner to join the files together (in alphabetic order), which happily runs on my Mac:

find /Volumes/My\ Disc/*.mp3 -exec cat {} >> MyAudioBook.mp3 \;

Where "/Volumes/My\ Disc/" is the Mac CD drive, and MyAudioBook.mp3 is the final output file that can be imported into iTunes.
Anyways, I figured I'd share this one, as I have to admit I was surprised to learn that MP3 files could simply be "cat"ed together :-)

Don't Click, SlickRun!

I recently discovered the Windows utility SlickRun, thanks to a comment from Jim Holmes in this blog entry from Jeff Blankenburg. I have to say that I absolutely love this utility and at this point can't imagine work without it! It has saved me numerous mouse-clicks and tedious search and navigation through Windows menus. If you are unfamiliar with this utility it basically allows you to start almost any application or file on your computer with just a few strokes on your keyboard. For example if I type "[W]-q memlogin" it opens up my IDE (unfortunately BEA Workshop) with the Membership-Login project that I am currently working on. Or if I type "[W]-q wls" it starts my WebLogic Server instance. Or if I type "[W]-q wikip la lakers" it will fire up my default web browser and take me to the Wikipedia entry for The Los Angeles Lakers (where "la lakers" is a dynamic search term). The words "memlogin", "wls" and "wikip" are keywords (SlickRun calls them MagicWords) that I have configured to fire up stuff that I care about. I can type those directly into the SlickRun prompt (see image at the top of this blog entry) which can be placed anywhere on your screen. I have mine auto-hide and then use the "[W]-q" key sequence to bring the SlickRun program into focus ([W] being the Windows Key on my keyboard).
I spent some time creating keywords for pretty much anything I use at work. Here are some of things I have set up:

• Keyword for every Java project I have worked on at my current client.


• Keyword for each Wiki page I maintain at my current client


• Keyword for each website I frequent. Using the "$W$" marker to plug search parameters into URLs that have query strings.


• Keyword for each application I regularly use (MS Office apps, FireFox, XMLSpy, Cygwin, WinMerge, NoteTab, Toad, Putty, SoapUI, JMeter, Eclipse, etc.)


• Keywords for folders I frequently need to access on my computer (My Documents, c:\user_projects, etc). The keywords will open up the appropriate folder in Windows Explorer.


• Keywords for my most frequently used Windows operations. For example to go to standby, to shutdown, to put on the screen saver, or to open up the display configuration (which my docking station keeps getting messed up).

If you are tired of mouse-clicks and menu navigation I suggest you give this tool a try. It just might make your workday a little more productive. It can't hurt to give it a try, it is free! Be forewarned though that the product could be a little more polished, especially their setup screen which did some funny things for me, but once you get it all set up it does work very well.