Raible Designs

Tomcat 4.1.24: No More OutOfMemory Errors

I know I'm probably jinxing myself, but I'm going to say it anyway. I just checked my catalina.out file (a.k.a. Tomcat's log file) and I haven't had an OutOfMemory error since I upgraded to Tomcat 4.1.24. I was getting them all the time with Tomcat 4.1.18. Hopefully you've seen the same stability increase. I'm sure this site will crash with an OutOfMemory error as soon as I finish this post! ;0)

Update: I send a message to Keith to verify that Tomcat hasn't crashed since Saturday night. Here is his response.

The cron job hasn't had to restart it, and there are no out 
of memory errors in the log.  I can't find any sign that it
failed since then.

Keith

Sweeeeeettt!!

Gentoo Linux

A friend hooked me up today with some knowledge I didn't have. He told me about Gentoo Linux, which, according to him, is 3-4 times faster than any current Linux distribution! Wow - that's a LOT faster. This might mean that my 300 MHz, 256 MB (RAM) machine is usable again. Here's some snippets from our IM conversation.

You build from the command line through lynx, then update your kernel through a tool called 'emerge'. Want cvs? type 'emerge cvs'. Want jboss, type 'emerge jboss'. Basically, you emerge what you want and ignore all the rest of the stuff you typically get in a pre-canned, pre-built linux os.
...
works great on intel, sun, powerpc and the mac.
...
no more rpms and tar balls. just emerge. Each week, if I want to update all the apps I have emerged on my machine, I type, as root, two commands "emerge sync" (updates my portage tree), then, "emerge -u world". This says, look at all the apps I've emerged, and update them. Emerge then finds the tar balls, pulls them down, unpacks, compiles into the kernel and goes onto the next one. Want OpenOffice? 'emerge openoffice' (this takes about 8 hours to compile).

Sounds very cool - has anyone tried it?

J2EE 1.4 Installs just fine on OS X

I downloaded the Linux version of the J2EE 1.4 Beta today to install on OS X. I found that it installed flawlessly with the following nice little message:

[minime:~/Desktop] matt% ./j2sdkee-1_4-beta-linux.sh                            
Using /var/tmp as temporary directory...                                        
Searching for Java(TM) 2 Platform, Standard Edition...                          
Initializing InstallShield Wizard...                                            
running on mac

Cool! Now to see if I can get the Adventure Builder reference application running on the Mac. I also found this interesting article on the new JSP and servlet capabilities in J2EE 1.4.

[ANNOUNCE] JDK 1.4.1 for OS X has been Released! (finally)

Don't give me the credit, Matthew Porter hooked me up with the news:

Yes, it is true. Java 1.4.1 for Mac OS X is finally out. Run System Update to get it! Also, check out Apple's Java page.

Downloading now...

Eclipse RC1

Damn, just when I got everything upgraded to M5, a new version of Eclipse is released. Oh well, I started using M5 and JDK 1.4.1 Preview 10 on OS X today and while the JDK works pretty well, Eclipse did crash on me once. I wish I could get the fonts down to WinXP's size - they're so *huge* on the Mac. My biggest pet peeve right now - the font size in the left navigation window. I've reduced the size of the rest of the fonts, but can't seem to fix this one. Is Eclipse a FontBitch?

RE: How do they do it?

Dominic writes, "How in the world do they (Java bloggers) not lose their mind doing all these non-work related projects/activities such as: writing books, opensource development, consulting, etc." Since I do a lot of non-work related activity, I left a comment on his site, basically saying that I have no time-management skills and that the only way I get stuff done is to stretch the bounds of my relationship with my wife. This is because usually I tell her "I have to work tonight" and I get on the computer around 7 PM and join her in bed around midnight or 1. Then I get up at 4 and head into the office, only to do it again the next night (if necessary). I find this really sucks, particularly if I'm working a 40-hour week in 4 days. Since I have a new deadline looming (edit/return Wrox Chapters by Monday), I'm going to try something a bit different. I'm going to work an hour and a 1/2 at night (5:30-7), and then again in the morning (4-5:30) . I'll work an 8 hour day, getting off at 3, then I'll hit the gym and be home by 5. That's just this week, we'll see how it goes. In reality, I've found that the following things work the best for "getting things done."

• Quit blogging and reading blogs. Same goes for e-mail - this can save 1-3 hours a day for me.
• Plan your day and leave your computer/location when you say you're going to.
• If you're reading a book or writing a paper - take it to the library. Go early and stay all day.
• For me, working on Windows is a good 2-3 times faster than working on my Mac or Linux. Stay with the OS that you're most productive on.
• When something small comes up that you need to do, just do it.

OK, now I'm going to follow a bit of my own advice and close Outlook and Phoenix.

CVS through an HTTP Proxy?

Anyone know how to access a CVS server (i.e. SourceForge) though an HTTP Proxy? I need to get the latest CVS version of XDoclet at work and I can only get out via a proxy. Thanks in advance.

Upgrading to Struts 1.1?

My opinion is "of course!" But that's party due to the fact that I'm an upgrade-happy developer. I'll upgrade just to be on the bleeding edge and know that I'm not missing anything. However, I do end up "backing out" of some upgrades. It's fun though, how else are you going to learn? TheServerSide.com has a new article discussing if you should upgrade to Struts 1.1 - check it out. I'm on the nightly build.

Java Server Faces Public Draft and EA download is available. I saw this last night, but Rick Salsa beat me to the punch on weblogging it. I was hoping to download and play around with it today, and give my opinion, but alas, the release I'm doing is taking a bit longer than expected.

Web Builder Conference 2002. Is anyone else going? We're having a Annual Shareholders Meeting in Vegas the weekend before, and I'm going to attend the conference the following week (Sept. 9 - 11). It'll be my first "reporting" experience, so watch this site for updates/reviews. I was one of the first to register so I'll have wireless internet access throughout the conference. My 3 goals for the experience are (1) win, (2) have fun, and (3) get some roller development done. Of course, if I'm accomplishing #1, then #2 is taken care of and #3 might slip a little.

Update on Netscape 7. It sucks worse than I originally thought - it installed on my WinXP box, but won't run - similar to OS X 10.2. The one successfull install? On Red Hat 7.3.