How do I set JAVA_HOME in Ubuntu so it works

I recently installed Ubuntu 9.04. And then I installed eclipse. I am trying to start it from an icon (yes, its via an icon... don't judge!) and am having an issue with setting the JAVA_HOME and PATH variables correctly.

When I kick off from a bash shell, the PATH is correct. But not from the panel in gnome. Of course, in the bash shell, I have both those variables set in ~/.bashrc. However, when I log in via the gdm, that file does not get read. I am trying to figure out what file gets read when I login so I can set the JAVA_HOME variable. I tried adding it to /etc/environment file, but I am at a loss as to how to add $JAVA_HOME/bin to the $PATH variable. For now, I start eclipse via the icon using

/usr/local/eclipse -vm /usr/local/jdk1.6.0_13/bin/java

and that works just fine for me...

Do I need the Java EE editor to work with Tomcat

I am pretty certain that all I have at work is a regular Java IDE and I am able to muck about with Tomcat... mind you, I don't deploy anything onto Tomcat via a 'Server' option. So, how come I can't do that easily with my regular IDE? I tried to install the Java EE development patches via Eclipse and it threw an error at me. I've seen the same requirement for some glassfish tutorials I was following before.

Is it because of that 'Server' feature that I need the EE version of Eclipse? I don't mind installing it, I was just curious. Anyone know?

Hello World BlackBerry Storm Style

As with any new development project, one starts off with a simple 'Hello World' application. And so it is with the BlackBerry and Java code on it. I had a bunch of trouble getting the BlackBerry Eclipse plugin to work properly with Eclipse, but after installing, un-installing and generally cursing the damn thing a few times, I got it to work. I think the big trick was to understand that there are 2 things one needs to install:

• The BlackBerry JDE plugin for Eclipse and
• The BlackBerry Component pack (4.5.0, though I was able to build for the 4.7 device...)
  

A separate post on getting the JDE plugin to work and some questions related to that shortly. For now, here's how I got Hello World to work... I followed the instructions from the Thinking Blackberry blog. Below are the screenshots on the 5930 device running the 4.7 OS. There is also the helpful video put out by the BlackBerry folks themselves that I used as well.

Mobile Application Development

Anyone ever done application development for the mobile platform? I think I've got something going on for the RIM platform. So far, I've got few details that I am not allowed to share... but I have eclipse setup and started working on getting familiar with the RIM Java development tools. I am excited. I've been down this path before and failed. And it was a rough loss.

We (a few other friends) used to sit and wonder at what all we did wrong. We moved on to do other things. One of us works for a search engine, another does QA for a network device manufacturer, another is a Requirements person (he uses terms like MRD). We've learned a tonne since we tried the last time. I think we've learned a lot about how to make businesses work. I just hope we learn a tonne more soon... and succeed. More details to follow. Wish us luck.