Java Thinking

I've installed Ubuntu 8.10 on my Dell 1525. I had 8.04 and I could have upgraded but I like having a clean install, and because with Linux its so easy! When I'm done I'll share my backup and re-install scripts via google-code. I've got /home on a separate partition so the installation really just means running the installer from CD, and then re-installing all of my favourite software. This is just one place where Linux is nifty - all the software is in a repository and installing it can be done from the command line so it can be scripted. And you get the latest versions automatically. No 'download and run setup.exe and click through the wizards'. I'm happy to report that suspend and resume is almost instant - even when disconnected from the network. I haven't installed any extra software yet, so we'll see if it regresses when I have the full compliment of wares (with 8.04 and all of my added software, resuming took ages when disconnected from the net...

It is a good time for releases: Ubuntu 8.10 Grails-1.0.4 Intellij IDEA 8.0 Netbeans 6.5 Looking around the train platform today I wondered when telecommuting is going to make a significant impact. Everyone needs to be somewhere else - and that puts a lot of strain on the public transport infrastructure. I've had few jobs I couldn't have done from home effectively with decent video, voice and remote control software. Being in an office *would* be far superior if teams were effective, but from my experience most of them are dysfunctional. I think part of the problem here is that managers measure productivity by the time spent at your desk, not by your actual achievements. Know any companies that have effective management, well run teams, good career path and its fun to work? Let me know, because I'm always looking. I was just listening to an episode of Agile Toolkit and it just makes agile seem like a whole different world. I'd love to spend some time at some of the...

Something was using a port on my windows machine and consequently I couldn't run one of our applications - I came across this article which shows how to identify what application is using a port. This was extremely quick and useful and let me know which processes to kill via task manager. It worked without having to install any software. Working with the ArcGIS Server 9.3 javascript REST apis is a breeze compared to the 9.2 JSF components. The Javascript API makes working with ArcGIS a simple Javascript exercise without huge proprietary knowledge required. To get started, you'll want to check out these resources: Javascript API samples API Reference Wow, SpringSource has acquired G2One ! If I thought I wanted to work for SpringSource before, this doubles that feeling! Spring, Groovy and Grails has made Java development more enjoyable for me, and a heck of a lot more productive. If you haven't seen StackOverflow yet, head over there and have a look. I like it a lot. Thi...

When Firefox 3 came out, I remember reading a lot of fuss about the AwesomeBar - a lot of people complained about it. Well, I loved it when I first saw it, and I still love it. Occasionally I have to fire up IE6 to check some rendering and thats when I really notice how much I like the awesome bar. Last week I mentioned disk performance and my attention has just been brought to this posting about kitting a developer machine out with SSD for great performance gains. The author compares several different machines and concludes that SSD is the way forward. Looking on the Dell site, it looks like 64GB SSD would add AUD$1000 - a bit rich for me, and for some reason you can't have both a hard disk and SSD. I'd be interested to know why, because it would be nice to combine cheap mass storage (7200 rpm hard disk) and expensive small fast storage. On my personal projects it has become obvious that it isn't just about one language anymore (java, groovy, python, javascript etc). It ...

I was happy to see ' Compile on Save ' added to Netbeans. This is a feature I've always appreciated in Eclipse, its always worked and always made for a good experience. This was one of the top items preventing me from moving away from Eclipse. I want to play with it in Netbeans, and see if it measures up. Speaking of Netbeans, the Maven plugin is awesome! It makes it easy to add a dependency to your project, through an easy to use autocompleteing dialog. With so many Java libraries around, this is the way we should have always been doing dependency management. The linked article doesn't really show how to add libraries, but try right clicking on the 'lib' directory in your project. Notice you can also download all javadoc and sources for your dependencies. So easy!! I'm enjoying using Netbeans 6.5 for Grails development now. I haven't explored the functionality all that much, but using just the basics is effective. Hopefully this support will grow quick...