Update: I'm getting reports that this has been fixed in Java 1.6 (aka Java 6).  So, I tested this with the latest Java 1.6 32-bit in Ubuntu Edgy, and apps seem to be working fine under Beryl.  So, you may not need to go to all the trouble below.  The latest Java 1.6 for AMD64 on Ubuntu Edgy, however, still doesn't work for me under Beryl.

I love Java Web Start.  I think it does a very good job of solving many of the Java distribution issues.  It supports automatic updating of apps at the jar level, including dependencies.  It really makes life easy for the end user, and really is pretty easy to implement for the developer.

But, if you are running Ubuntu Linux for AMD64 like I am, it won't work out of the box with the 64 bit JVM.  For whatever reason, Sun hasn't ported it.  Not that I'm complaining.  Now that Sun freed Java, we all have no one to blame but ourselves.

I recently built an AMD 64-bit dual core machine, and installed Ubuntu Edgy for x86-64 on it.  One thing I found (and had read elsewhere) is that 64-bit Eclipse is buggy.  It hangs and dies usually within 30 minutes, and sometimes on a few minutes.  And I found the performance improvements to be hardly noticable, so not worth the hassle of frequent crashes.

My solution was to switch back to the 32 bit Eclipse.  Not hard, but not dirt simple.  First install the 32-bit JVM ia32-sun-java5-bin.

 I decided about a year ago I wanted to get my weblog and website fixed and running again.   I went down the Java portal (JSR-168) route, since Java is my strongest language.  After much, much work, I just wasn't able to find a solution I was happy with.  The open source Java portals are all nice, but they all have one limitation or another that I am just not happy with.  I spent many hours trying to fix each portal, to turn it into something I would like.  In the end, I just couldn't find a fit.  At some future date, I'll make an entry covering all t

Last night I tried out Wurm Online for the first time. Wurm Online is a MMORPG (like Everquest or Ultima Online) written entirely in java. I spotted it on the latest Swing Sightings. WO is at a very early alpha state. But, none-the-less...WOW. This thing will knock your socks off. It totally blows away any concept of Java being strictly a server-side technology.

I just read a post on Debashish Chakrabarty's blog titled "Primer: Difference between javac and JIT". It contains a very good explanation of what Just In Time (JIT) compilation is and how it relates to HotSpot JVMs. HotSpot JVMs identify sections of code that are worth taking the time to compile from bytecode to machine code. These sections of code are referred to as hotspots.

There is an excellent LookAndFeel by Stefan Krause called XPLookAndFeel. It is limited to running on WindowsXP because of various licensing issues.

I was just reading an excellent entry on Andrew C. Oliver's blog titled "Ballmer debunked" where Andrew analyzes an interview with Microsoft's Steve Ballmer. Andrew says something I just love in reference to Balmer's claims of Microsoft's innovation: "I mean comon(sic) C# smells like coffee". That's just great.

Today I was looking around java.net, the new Java community site created by Sun. According to a post by Karsten Lentzch on Java Desktop:

JGoodies is excited to announce the open sourcing of two of its projects: Looks and Forms. Read more on the JGoodies project page on java.net

This may seem like a trivial entry to some, but I had a terrible time figuring out how to get the Jetty integrated JBoss distribution to look like your standard webserver. It took me so much time, I promised myself I would publish directions to make it easier for others.

A) JBoss-Jetty runs on port 80
B) JBoss-Jetty has a root context (the base application for the website, such as http://dmartin.org).

A) wasn't hard to figure out.