Fixing Eclipse Ganymede Startup Problems

If by chance, you are like me, and the first time that you ran Eclipse Ganymede, you were greeted with an exception screen like this one:



Here are the steps necessary to resolve that issue:

1.) Navigate to your $ECLIPSE_HOME directory (the directory where you installed Eclipse)
2.) Copy your eclipse.ini file, for backup purposes
3.) Open your eclipse.ini file and modify it to look similar to this:




4.) Try to start up Eclipse again, and hopefully your problem should be solved

The main problem seems to be that the initial settings does not allocate enough memory for Eclipse to run. By adjusting the memory settings, by using the example eclipse.ini file that I have shown, you are giving Eclipse enough memory to start up.

This interesting thing is that this issue does not seem to affect all installations. The "vanilla" Eclipse Ganymede that I obtained from Eclipse worked on one of my machines, but not on another.

If this helps, please pay it forward.

Thanks

Eclipse Ganymede Released Today

Well, the the Eclipse Community has done it again. Today is the day that they will be releasing their annual simultaneous release of the Eclipse Platform. Sticking with the moons of Jupiter, this year's simultaneous release, code named Ganymede, will include 23 seperate projects - not that you have to download and use all 23 projects, it is just that you can be assured that these projects are compatible with each other.

One of the biggest features / enhancements to the Eclipse Platform is the introduction of P2. P2 is the new provisioning platform that is used to manage OSGi bundles / Eclipse plugins, and the replacement for the Update Manager. There has been a lot of discussion with varying views on P2 - some in favor, others not.

I have not used it enough to form an official opinion, but at first glance I can say that the Update Manager was narrowly scoped in that it's purpose was really surrounding Eclipse Plugins. The idea of p2 is to not only be used to manage Eclipse Plugins, but also to manage OSGi bundles as a whole, which means that it can be used for any OSGi based application. I am also interested in trying their bundle pooling approach to managing Eclipse plugins versus the extension location approach, which I have been using up until now.

Here is information on how to Get Started with p2.

Here is where you will be able to download Eclipse Ganymede...as soon as the link is enabled.

Happy Coding!!!

Firefox 3 Download Day

The Mozilla Foundation has declared tomorrow, June 17th 2008, as Download Day. In an attempt to set a Guiness World Record for software downloads, they are encouraging everyone to participate by downloading Firefox 3 tomorrow.

I have been a fan of the Firefox Browser for a number of years now, however I will admit, that only recently have I started using their latest release candidate. This is because there are some add ons in Firefox, that I just cannot live without. Thankfully, the following add ons are now available and supported for the Firefox 3 platform:

Delicious BookMarks
If you are not familiar with the social networking site del.icio.us, it is a site that you can set and share bookmarks. By creating bookmarks and tagging them, those bookmarks become searchable by the social community. This is a great, but I really use it to keep my bookmarks in sync with the many computers that I work on. With this add on, you can log into your del.icio.us account, and use your bookmarks in Firefox.

FireGestures
In my view, Mouse Gestures is another one of those productivity boosters that is great to have in your arsenal. Instead of relying on clicking different buttons in the toolbar or using the Menu system in Firefox, you can simply use the mouse, and wave it across the screen while holding down the right click button, and Firefox will do your bidding. This is one of those features that I often take for granted on my machine, and expect to be available on others. I am disappointed often when I try to perform a Mouse Gesture, only to be greeted with the Context Menu that comes up when you right click on a web page.

Good luck Mozilla Foundation in breaking that Guiness World Record. You can count on my support.