Best freeware - XML editor

As a software developer, I open XML files all the time. I a heavy commercial XML editor. But nothing can compare to a small, thin and free XML editor like 'foxe'.

A great feature is has is the alignment of long XML strings to readable XML format (Shift-F8). It help lot of times when the XML file was generated by some tool and was not readable.

Homepage: http://www.firstobject.com/dn_editor.htm

Best freeware - UMLpad

If you need to draw small UML diagram - you can use 'UML pad' tool. It is much simpler than more known tools like 'Visio' and it is free !

More known tools are much too complex for simple diagram.

Homepage: http://web.tiscali.it/ggbhome

JBoss error: org.jboss.deployment.DeploymentException: Error during deploy

From time to time, deployment to JBoss fail with strange error:

16:31:28,428 WARN [ServiceController] Problem starting service jboss.web.deployment:war=invoker.war,id=1958881146org.jboss.deployment.DeploymentException: Error during deploy; - nested throwable: (javax.naming.NameNotFoundException: comp not bound) at org.jboss.web.AbstractWebDeployer.start(AbstractWebDeployer.java:380) at org.jboss.web.WebModule.startModule(WebModule.java:83) at org.jboss.web.WebModule.startService(WebModule.java:61) at org.jboss.system.ServiceMBeanSupport.jbossInternalStart(ServiceMBeanSupport.java:289)....

The way to overcome this problem is:

1. Remove the deployment manually (delete the folder)
2. Full deploy the application again
3. Sometimes - even restart the machine because the deploy fails due to some missing resource (like port)

Tip: change color contrast in Internet Explorer

If your PC is near a window or you just have headache after reading lot of content from Internet Explorer - you can use the tip below.

Change the color contrast of pages that are displayed by Internet Explorer by using 'user style sheet' feature.

To do so, write HTML file called 'my_style.css' with following content:

*, body, p, th, td, a {
font-size: large !important;
line-height: 200% !important ;
background: black !important ;
color: yellow !important
}

:link, :link * {
cursor : hand ! important;
color : yellow ! important;
text-decoration : underline ! important;
}

Now, open Internet Explorer and follow the steps:

1. Choose 'Tools'
   
2. Choose 'Internet Options'
   
3. Click on 'Accessibility' button
   
4. Mark the checkbox called 'Format document using my style sheet'
   
5. In the text box write the full file name of the style file. Example: 'C:\my_style.css'
   
6. Click 'OK' button
   
7. Click 'OK' again
   

Now the text in the pages will be yellow over black. This is much more readable.

Productivity tip: 2-minutes rule

This is a great movie that explains the two minutes rule. No need to read the GTD book or to implement the whole system. This simple rule can help to overcome the email overload.

I found it very useful. But there are two hard point to do:
(1) Process emails only in chunks and don't check outlook every time email received (very hard to do !)
(2) Do not scan new emails for interesting stuff, just process one by one. Again - very hard to do !

Productivity tip: use Pizza Timer

If you feel tired, easily distracted or just not focused, you can use a "work sprint". Instead of just seating in the cube trying to be focused, start a 20 minutes or 30 minutes of pure work time. Then give yourself some prize (coffee break, surfing the net ...).

I use 'Pizza Timer' freeware to show a timer that go backwards. It is just great freeware and help me to stay focused on hard times (like after lunch).

Site: http://ant4.com/PizzaTimer

Best freeware - performance monitor

I seat long hours on the desktop. I always want to know what my PC is doing and why it works so slow.

The best tool I found is the performance monitor of hexagora. In one small window that s always top most you can see usage of CPU, Disk, Network and Memory. Just great tool !

Site: www.hexagora.com

Eclipse error: The project was not built since its build path is incomplete

More of eclipse pains:

The project was not built since its build path is incomplete. Cannot find the class file for com.hp.qc.db.tables.ISaTableFieldNames. Fix the build path then try building this project.

The magic here is again doing something that cause eclipse to fix its inernal configuration files (usually the '.classpath' file)

• Step (1): Remove/Add some project in "Java Build PathOrder and Export"
• Step (2) Undo the change.

Eclipse error: Project 'X' is missing required Java project: 'Y'

Another annoying eclipse error is the error below while trying to build a project:

Eclipse error: Project 'X' is missing required Java
project: 'Y'

After lot of waste of time (checking that project Y do exists etc), the solution was the old magic:

• Step (1) Remove a project from the "Java Build Path|Order and Export"
• Step (2) Return it again to the screen.
  

This fixed something in the database of eclipse and solved the problem.

ANT Error Message - java.lang.RuntimeException: data starting at XXX is in unknown format

I just wasted entire day on stupid error from ANT:

Build file:
C:\XXXXXX\build.xml
init:
starteam:

rubicon:
lib_selection:
build_td_manifest:
compile:
dist_no_test:

BUILD FAILED
C:\z\qc-project\qcdev\Server\TdCore\build.xml:139:
java.lang.RuntimeException: data starting at 14600 is in unknown format

Finally I found the simple solution - just run 'clean' target from the ANT file and run the main target again. So simple, so frustrating.