My mission: installing Firefox 6.0.2 which does have support for the GWT Dev-mode plugin, but not remove the newest version of Firefox.

These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10, 64-bit, but should apply to any Linux distribution and chip architecture as long as you download the appropriate binary distribution of Firefox.

Installing Firefox 6.0.2

Download binary from: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/6.0.2/linux-x86_64/en-US/firefox-6.0.2.tar.bz2 (you can browse available releases, by navigating your browser to the URL http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases)

Execute the following commands (in a terminal, as root or through sudo);

tar xvf firefox-6.0.2.tar.bz2
mv firefox /opt/firefox6.0.2

Next, make sure your user has ownership of the directory by typing (still in the terminal, as root or through sudo):

chown askarby:askarby /opt/firefox6.0.2 -R

You would, however, have to substitute askarby:askarby for something different – unless your Linux user happens to be named askarby and be in the user group named askarby.

Preventing Firefox from updating itself

To disable Firefox’s automatic update functionality, we need to do the following two things. Edit the file /opt/firefox6.0.2/defaults/pref/channel-prefs.js, and first of all, comment out (add two slashes) the existing line, so that it says:

//pref("app.update.channel", "update");

next, append the following lines to the end of the file:

// Disable Auto Updates
lockPref(”app.update.enabled”, false);
lockPref(”extensions.update.enabled”, false);

Multiple Firefox profiles

Next, to launch your Firefox 6.0.2 version of Firefox, do NOT simply execute the command ./firefox as this will launch your default firefox install. Instead, execute the following command:

/opt/firefox6.0.2/firefox -no-remote -P ff60

The -no-remote argument allows you to run multiple instances of firefox under different profiles. The -P ff60 defines that you want to run firefox under a profile called ff60 (that name can be anything). A better, and more complete explanation of supported command line arguments for Firefox can be found at: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Command_line_arguments.

Since this is the first time launching with the ff60 profile. and it does not exist, you should be presented with a dialog. Please follow these steps to create the profile:

1. Click the Create Profile… button
2. Click the Next button on the first page of the wizard dialog presented.
3. In the field underneath the “Enter new profile name:” label, enter ff60 (or whatever name you desided to give your profile, it must match the name passed to the argument).
4. Click the Finish button
5. Select the ff60 profile in the list box to the right of the buttons
6. Click the Start Firefox button

Setting up Eclipse

To ease things, let’s create a small script that launches the Firefox browser with our profile arguments. In a terminal, type the following commands:

touch /opt/firefox6.0.2/launch.sh
cat "#!/bin/bash" >> /opt/firefox6.0.2/launch.sh
cat "/opt/firefox6.0.2/firefox -no-remote -P ff60 $1" >> /opt/firefox6.0.2/launch.sh
chmod +x /opt/firefox6.0.2/launch.sh

1. Open Eclipse in a workspace with a GWT project.
2. Start a GWT Development mode session for your project
3. In the Development Mode view:
1. Right-click upon the URL, usually something like: http://localhost:8080/module/hostpage.html?gwt.codesvr=127.0.0.1:9997
2. Hover over the Open With-sub menu, then click upon the Add a Browser item
3. Enter the name of your browser in the Name field, I would suggest “Firefox 6.0.2″ (disregarding the quotation marks)
4. Enter the location of our launch-script for the Firefox broser into the Location field, that would be “/opt/firefox6.0.2/launch.sh” (also disregarding the quotation marks)

Conclusion

You should now be able to launch your GWT application by right clicking upon the URL in the Development Mode view, and selecting the Firefox 6.0.2 browser item. The browser should appear, and present the “Download the GWT Developer Plugin For Firefox”-message, and not the “Sorry, the GWT Developer Plugin only supports Firefox 3.0 – 6.0 at present”-message.

Firefox 6.0.2 alongside 7.0.1

 

Let’s hope that Google will get aligned with the Mozilla release train soon. Until then, this workaround will have to do.

This morning, when starting my JBoss AS 5.1, I was greated by the following message:

Failed to read schema document ‘http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd’, because 1) could not find the document; 2) the document could not be read; 3) the root element of the document is not <xsd:schema>.

Well, that sucked!

I havn’t come up with any workaround, sure switching to version 1.0 of the XSD does solve the problem, but introduces a few new issues. Removing the XSD validation doesn’t make any difference what so ever.

Note to self, and Sun (well, now Oracle) – If you want to expose XSD or schemas in general (to the public) make sure it’s available at all times.

Open question: does anyone know a workaround for this issues?

Yes, I have owned an AppleTV, and yes I do own a iMac 27″ beast with a beautiful design, great usability and what not.

I have no intention of saying that what Steve Jobs did was to create any of these products, but he was one of the driving forces behind them. I don’t think there’s anyone in the industry (the IT-business one, that is) who disregards his involvement in the creation of them… but the loss of him does not prevent design prodigies as Jonathan Ive from designing great Apple hardware. Neither does it mean that the talented software developers at Apple are prevented from creating software that emphasizes usability, sleekness and captivate it’s users.

But… I am worried that Apple has lost it’s main driver, a person that settled for nothing less than perfection (or what he believed it being).

Let’s face it, the thing that Steve Jobs did for me was:

• Start the Smart Phone market. The iPhone started everything, which has lead to me having an awesome Android phone. Yes, I am aware of the fact that there was Palm and Windows Mobile  prior to that… but calling those Smart Phones…well, not going into that.
• Make people aware of the fact that there’s something else on the computer market than just Microsoft. Sure, they may dominate the market… but Apple did stir something up, and it doesn’t seem like the waters will settle any time soon (or ever, even).
• Entertain me… Steve bought Pixar, and lead feature length 3D animation films into the main stream market. Quite an amazing task, one only comparable by the similar task Walt Disney took on when creating “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” back in 1938.
• Challenge everyone in the IT business to make great IT projects… and in term challenge me.

Everybody has over the last couple of days shown their respect to the loss of a genius in the business. A memorial page is up on Apple’s website, Google not only had a line saying “Steve Jobs – 1955-2011″ at their frontpage, but also desided to postpone their expected launch of their Nexus Prime Phone and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

I’m looking forward to seeing who will “step up” to the plate and take over the task of being the main innovator in the industry. I guess time will only tell.

Rest in Peace, Steve

You will be missed.

This is yet another re-invention of my blog. I think this makes it a third, in 3 years – that’s not too bad, but the other times I’ve had my blog it’s ended up as a dumping ground for my notes from various technology conferences. That would not be too bad either, if I hadn’t decided to abondoning it after the various conventions.

So what’s the motivation for resuming the bloggity?

Well, I’ve become mildly addicted to cocain tweeting – but 140 characters doesn’t seem to convey a message very clearly – hence me picking up this medium again, and being slightly more verbose than 140 characters.

I should probably make a memorial speech for Mr. Jobs, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Stay tuned for more updates!