Miles to go ...

Arun Gupta is a GlassFish Evangelist focusing on Web Tier at Sun. He was the spec lead for APIs in the Java platform, committer in multiple Open Source projects, participated in standard bodies and contributed to Java EE and SE releases.

http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20080430 Wednesday April 30, 2008

OSX #8: Java SE 6 U5 on Mac OS X Leopard


Yesterday, Apple released Java SE version 1.6.0_05 for 64-bit Intel-based Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later. Download it here!

It's restricted to 64-bit machines and Charles is unhappy about it. Hopefully, they'll release a 32-bit version as well.

Type "sw_vers" in a terminal to check the Mac OS X version as shown below:

~ >sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.5.2
BuildVersion:   9C31
Alternatively, "About This Mac" in the Apple menu shows you the version as well as shown below:



Anyway, after verifying the system requirements, download 57MB bundle and install it following the standard instructions.


And now successfully installed:



It gets installed in "/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0" and shows the version number as:

/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home/bin >./java -version
java version "1.6.0_05"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_05-b13-120)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 1.6.0_05-b13-52, mixed mode)

The default Java version can be changed by using "Java Preferences" as shown below:
/Applications/Utilities/Java/Java Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS >./"Java Preferences"
The following window shows up:



Pick the version of your choice and that should get you going!

These are the days before JavaOne and all my demos on this machine have been tested using the default J2SE 5. But I'll play with the new release after JavaOne anyway :)

Do you know sign up for GlassFish Day is FREE and gives you access to JavaOne pavilion as well ? Do it now!

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips on this blog are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20080115 Tuesday January 15, 2008

OSX #7: Upgrading Mac OS X from Tiger to Leopard

Did you buy a new or refurbished Macintosh computer on or after Oct 1, 2007 ?
And it does not have Mac OS v10.5 Leopard ?
And would like to upgrade ?
And save money ?

See if you qualify (new or refurbished). If you do, then you can upgrade using a Single-User Upgrade Kit at the cost of $9.95. This offer expires Jan 26, 2008.

Read more details in Mac OS X Leopard Up-to-Date Program.

I ordered mine last week, got the delivery in 3 days and upgraded this morning. Really simple! Now I'm using Mac OS v10.5 Leopad on my MacBook Pro :)

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips on this blog are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20080104 Friday January 04, 2008

OSX #6: Organizing your Dock & Dashboard

Dock is the Windows Start Bar equivalent in MacOS. However if a program is installed on your MacBook, unlike Windows, you'll need to explicitly add it to the Dock.
To add an icon to Dock: Just click on the Finder icon in Dock, Finder Icon, locate the installed program and drag/drop the icon to Dock. This can be done from the Desktop as well.
To remove an icon from Dock: just drag it away from the Dock onto the desktop; the icon will disappear in a poof of smoke Icon deleted from Dock

Mac DashboardDashboard is Windows Sidebar equivalent in MacOS - it is used for hosting widgets and activated by the default keyboard shortcut of F12.  

To add widgets to Dashboard: Some common widgets are included with the OS itself and can be enabled by clicking on the + button in left-bottom corner of the screen when Dashboard is visible. More widgets can be downloaded from here or by clicking on +, "Manage Widgets..." and "More Widgets...". MacBook Dock - Manage Widgets

To remove widgets from Dashboard: Deleting a widget requires you to hold the Option key over a widget which enables a X in the left-top corner of the widget. Just click on the X and the widget will disappear.

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips on this blog are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20071226 Wednesday December 26, 2007

OSX #5: Alt-Tabbing in Mac (Switching between windows on Mac)

Alt-Tabbing in Windows shows currently open windows and allows to select one of them which then becomes the active window. If there are 3 Firefox windows, then it'll show 3 icons. A slightly different behavior is available in Mac where it shows one icon for all the open windows of an application and then provide a different keyboard shortcut to switch between all the windows of that application.

Switch between different applications: Command+Tab (for example if you have Firefox, Thunderbird and other applications). Shift+Command+Tab moves in the reverse direction.
Switch between different windows of the same application: Command+~ (for example if you have multiple windows of Firefox). Shift+Command+~ moves in the reverse direction.

However if the application is minimized then it is not activated (which is bizarre)!

If you are holding the command key and hit Q then that particular application will quit, if you hit H then that application will hide (go behind all the applications?).

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20071224 Monday December 24, 2007

OSX #4: How to forcibly kill an application on Mac ?

The Task Manager in Microsoft Windows is multipurpose. However the most common use, IMHO, is to kill a misbehaving application or that is "Not Responding".  This is called as "Force Quit" on Mac and can be achieved by calling Command+Option+Esc which brings up a window like:

Force Quit window

Then you select the application that you would like to shutdown and click on "Force Quit" button. As in Windows, you will loose any unsaved data.

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20071223 Sunday December 23, 2007

OSX #3: How to eject CD/DVD in Mac ?

  1. If there is a CD in your drive, then there will be an icon on your desktop as shown below:

    Mac CD Icon
  2. Go to "File" menu in the menu bar and click "Eject <DISK LABEL>" as shown below:

    Mac CD Eject

    Alternatively you can press Command+E in that window.

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20071221 Friday December 21, 2007

OSX #2: How to capture screen on Mac ?

  1. Capture a portion of the screen: Press Command+Shift+4 and the pointer turns into a bull's eye. Select area of the screen that you wish to capture. That part of the screen is captured and saved as PNG file on your Desktop "Picture 1.png" as shown below:

    Screenshot Capture Image
  2. Capture the entire screen: Command+Shift+3 captures the entire screen.
  3. Capture a highlighted window: Command+Shift+4, Space, (cursor turns into a camera), Click in the highlighted window.
Now Control+Command+Shift+ 3 or 4 will copy the captured image in Clipboard memory instead of creating a file on the Desktop. All of these keyboard shortcuts can be easly customized by going to Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts as shown below:

screen capture default keyboard shortcuts

A complete archive of all Mac OS X tips on this blog are available here.

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http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/date/20071220 Thursday December 20, 2007

OSX #1: Getting Started with a Mac for a Windows User

MacBook Image I got a new Apple MacBook Pro (Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160 GB HDD and other good stuff) and excited about that! However I've been a Windows user all along and this is my first interaction with a Mac.

So here are some basic tips/tools to get you started if you are in the same situation:

  • Start with Mac101 - This will get you familiar with Mac, basic terminology, some keyboard hints and other misc stuff.
  • Keyboard mappings between a Windows and Mac keyboard are very different. It would help to print out the mappings and keep them handy. It can take more than a day to get used to the new mappings. Some specific ones are:
    • "Right-click"ing is not intuitive - Enable Two-Finger Click on the Trackpad
    • No Forward Delete key, Mac equivalent is Fn + Delete
    • No dedicated Home, Page Up or Page Down keys, Instead use Fn + Cursor keys
  • Install the following tools
Also read 10 tips for Mac users switching from Windows and a more comprehensive list at Switch to The Mac.

The box came installed with Tiger (Mac OSX 10.4) as opposed to Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5). Leopard Updates are available for $9.95 until Jan 4th, 2007.

Some other striking difference in the terms of UI are:

  • The menus, instead of stacked to each window, are always available at the top.
  • "Windows Control Panel" is available as "System Preferences" on Dock (the toolbar which is, by default, at the bottom of the screen).
  • Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons are to the left instead of to the right.
  • Maximize button only maximizes to the required extent instead of occupying the entire desktop.
  • Important keyboard shortcuts
    • F9 - Shows all open windows
    • F10 - Shows all open windows for the current application (every thing else is greyed out)
    • F11 - Hides all windows and shows the Desktop
    • F12 - Show Dashboard

Here are some other tasks that I tried:

  • iMovie is really cool, I could easily create a movie (with in-built camera) and upload a video directly to youtube. Really good intuitive interface.
  • Create clean HTML pages (like this blog): TextEdit (the default editor) adds redundant markers and viewing HTML source code is not intuitive/easy. So does NeoOffice. Microsoft Front Page is really good at that and I've thoroughly enjoyed editing my blogs using it. So I'm looking for something comparable on Mac. I found this HTML editor shootout  but most of the editors seem to require some manual addition of HTML tags. Googling further, I found KompoZer (based on Nvu) and liking it so far. Part of the reason is that the look-and-feel is quite like FrontPage ;-)

These tips will at least get you started where you can check Email, IM and Web, view your documents, import key settings from Firefox/Thunderbird and unleash the potential of GlassFish and NetBeans. Lots of other tips are available here, here and here. I'll post more as I learn them. Feel free to post your favorite tool/tip/guidance here.

A complete archive will be available here.

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