December 30, 2007

EclipseToNetBeans: Updates

The EclipseToNetBeans community docs project which I started around a couple of months back has grown steadily. We have 4 contributions now- thanks a lot to Kristian Rink, David R. Heffelfinger for taking such a lot of interest in this effort.

A need was felt that to better reflect the objective of this effort, we had to modify the project title to something like "Migrating your Eclipse projects to NetBeans". Hence, after some discussions on the Community Docs alias and Patrick, James chipping in with their thoughts, suggestions the project is now renamed.

For the latest information on the project, please visit the project wiki page.


How to be a part of this effort?

  • Discuss with us here - dev@userguide.netbeans.org (instructions for subscribing are available here
  • Have an idea for a doc? Let me know
  • Any other questions? Ask..

December 29, 2007

RunTerminal Plugin: Opening the terminal from NetBeans


The Run Terminal plugin allows you to open a terminal window from NetBeans

December 28, 2007

NetBeans: The only T-Shirt I need!

I love T-Shirts which reflect me, my attitude and my likes. I recently got a set of 3 NetBeans T-Shirts from James Branam, (Sun Microsystems, Czech Republic).

Now, I am gonna proudly wear the T-Shirt with NetBeans all over it.


After all, its a product I enjoy using and its a project I enjoy working with.


No, this is not a street map!

December 21, 2007

Cluster Computing, Distributed Computing, Grid Computing

Cluster Computing, Distributed Computing, Grid Computing- are terms which you shall often come across if you have worked on things related to Parallel Computing.

Though there is plenty of information regarding each, but I hardly found a satisfactory resource explaining the differences between the three.

Confused, I posted my query "Theoretical Differences: Cluster Computing, Distributed Computing, Grid Computing" to the Open MPI users mailing list.

Hi all!

I am a bit hazy about the differences between Distributed Computing
and Cluster Computing.

This document here
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/grid/library/gr-heritage/ is a nice
read on Grid Computing and it also has few lines about important
differences from Cluster Computing.

The archives are here at http://www.open-mpi.org/community/lists/users/2007/12/4740.php

The bottom line was Jeff's "I think the community really only has general ideas about what exactly those terms mean"

Any of you have a better explanation? Please let me know!

NB Community Docs: Web Services with NetBeans for Eclipse Users

"Web-Services with NetBeans (for Eclipse users)" is the latest contribution to the NetBeans Community Docs

As the author points it out "Moving from Eclipse to NetBeans is, from a SOAP/WS developers point of view, a step likely to make quite some things easier, once you got along with the differences between the two tools"

Eclipse

Running in NetBeans


Go ahead and check it out here

Also, have a look at the EclipseToNetBeans effort

December 18, 2007

Linux Reader: Reading Linux Partitions from Windows

DiskInternals Linux Reader is a new easy way to read the data on your Linux partitions from Windows. This program plays the role of a bridge between your Windows and Ext2/Ext3 Linux file systems

I remember using another program which was written using Delphi which could do the same job. I just can't recall the name of the application. Anyone?

NB Community Docs: Cross-platform Mobile Software Application Development

Cross-platform Mobile Software Application Development is a new tutorial in the NetBeans Community Docs which shows you how you can write computer software applications that run not only on one, but on most of the common mobile phone operating systems.

So, if you are a developer who is interested in writing such cross-platform apps, go ahead and check it out!


NB Community Docs: Enterprise Applications for GlassFish using Maven and NetBeans

Wouter van Reeven has contributed this tutorial "Developing Enterprise Applications for GlassFish using Maven and NetBeans" which, as the name suggests shows you how you can develop a simple enterprise application on NetBeans 6 and it uses the new Maven support.


Wouter, like all other fellow contributors managed to take time out from his busy schedule to contribute to the Community Docs. It is because of enthusiastic people like him that the Community Docs is growing from strength to strength. It just takes a bit of time and loads of enthusiasm to become a contributor.

Have an Idea? Write in to me and we shall take it from there.

See you!

December 16, 2007

Article: How about some IcedTea instead of Coffee?

My latest article "How about some IcedTea instead of Coffee?" (published in Linux For You, December 2007) gives a brief overview of the IcedTea project



Unfortunately, an online copy is not available. However, I am willing to share a personal copy in case someone wants to have a look

December 15, 2007

Swing with JRuby Part II: Packaging JRuby Desktop Application

The latest contribution to the NetBeans Community Docs is "Swing with JRuby Part II: Packaging JRuby Desktop Application" which has been contributed by Teera Kanokkanjanarat

The goal of this tutorial is to show you how you can package JRuby desktop application to a distributable Jar file.



Make sure you check it out here

NB Community Docs Spotlight: Varun Nischal

Hi all!

The NetBeans Community Docs spotlight is once again off to the Indian subcontinent where we have spotted the community's newest contributor- Varun Nischal.


Varun is from Noida, India and is an undergraduate in Computer Science and Engineering, currently in pre-final year at Jaypee Institute of Information Technology University, Noida.

Varun is the author of "Checking out from CVS and doing headless builds" and he is very passionate about NetBeans which is amply demonstrated on his blog called "prOgramming bOnds" where he along with his friends blog almost regularly on all things related to NetBeans.

He started using NetBeans since May this year, and this is what he has to say about NetBeans:

I feel proud to have adopted this IDE for all my Java related work as well as for programming contests, like the ACM ICPC. Its because of this IDE, that my confidence in coding in Java got a boost.


Welcome Varun to the NetBeans Community Docs and looking forward to more contributions from you!

Knol-by-knol, Wikipedia killer?

Here is Google's newest offering:

Views from around the web:

December 13, 2007

Checking out from CVS and doing headless builds

Varun Nischal from India is the newest contributor to the NetBeans Community Docs with his document "Checking out from CVS and doing headless builds"

This is 1 more down from the Wish list. You have a wish?

New Looking netbeans.org


Check out www.netbeans.org

Sun Tech Days 2008: Hyderabad


Be there!

FOSS.IN 2007 Slides Available

FOSS.IN 2007 slides are now available for download here

Viewing the slides will not in anyway mitigate the losses incurred by those who have not attended the event, still they will surely be more than a reminder that they have missed something really big.

NetBeans 6.0 is out: why should developers use it?

My blog entry on Free Software Magazine is my first write up on NetBeans advocacy.

Here is an excerpt :

The free software age is all about giving the freedom to choose: flexibility to choose the best out of a variety of almost-the-best software is one of the hallmarks of this era. On the flip side, a newbie to this world often faces a choice overload. Should she go for Fedora or Ubuntu or Debian, GNOME or KDE, NetBeans or Eclipse, Open MPI or Open MP or PVM? We have loyalists on every side swearing by their product—and they are not wrong. It is tough to make a choice. However, with time, based on usage preferences, a choice is made and she finds her favourite distro, development tools and the like.

At the moment, two IDEs are dominant in the free software world: Eclipse and NetBeans. Being a NetBeans fan (and part of the NetBeans community), I will explain why in my opinion it’s NetBeans is a fantastic choice.

Be sure to check it out.