Integrate Maven into Eclipse via m2eclipse

Maven is a useful cross-language tool that enables the user to import dependencies into a project and will automatically resolve transitive dependencies. Maven can be used as a command-line tool; however, to unlock its true potential, you should integrate it into Eclipse.

1.In the Eclipse IDE, navigate through the Help menu to Install New Software.

2.Navigate to the m2eclipse plugin page on the Eclipse website located athttp://eclipse.org/m2e/download/ in order to obtain the latest release information. Copy the latest release information to the clipboard (Ctrl+C).

3.In the Eclipse IDE, click the Add button in order to add the new software repository location for m2eclipse.

4.Choose an appropriate name (e.g., “m2eclipse Plugin”), and enter it into the Name field. Paste the copied repository location into the Location field. Click OK.

5.In the resulting drop-down list, select all available entries in order to install the complete plugin. Click Next.

6.For each item chosen in the drop-down list, you may review the details of the software to be installed. Do this, if you choose, and then click Next.

7.Read and accept the licensing terms, and click Finish.

8.You will be prompted with an Installing Software progress bar. It is necessary to wait for this installation operation to complete in order to use the m2eclipse plugin. If you would like to do other work while waiting for the installation to complete, you may click the Run in Background button.

9.After the software installation is complete, it is necessary to restart Eclipse by clicking Yes when prompted.

10.To check that the m2eclipse plugin is installed, create a new Maven Project.

Now that you have the m2eclipse plugin added to Eclipse, you are well on your way to being more productive by using Maven to resolve dependencies in your Eclipse projects.

Via[Tech-Recipes]

Read More

How to Install Spring Plugin in Eclipse

The Spring Framework contains many useful tools and plugins for a developer using Java. It is popularly used in conjunction with the Eclipse IDE for rapid, effective Java development. In order to use Spring with Eclipse, one must either download a specialized version of Eclipse which comes pre-integrated with Spring or install the Spring software in an existing version of Eclipse. This tech-recipe will guide you through the latter.

1.In the Eclipse IDE, navigate through the Help menu in order to Install New Software.

2.In the Eclipse IDE, click the Add button in order to add the new software repository location for Spring.

3.Choose an appropriate name (e.g., Spring Plugin), and enter it into the Name field. Paste the following repository location into the Location field: http://dist.springsource.com/snapshot/TOOLS/composite/e3.7. Click OK. Please note that this repository location is for Eclipse version 3.7, but guides exist for other versions as well.

4.In the resulting plugin list, choose all required list elements and optional items that you may wish to install. Click Next.

5.For each item chosen in the drop-down list, you may review the details of the software to be installed. Do this if you choose, and then click Next.

6.Read and accept the licensing terms. Click Finish.

7.You will be prompted with an Installing Software progress bar. It is necessary to wait for this installation operation to complete in order to use the Spring plugin. If you would like to do other work while waiting for the installation, you may click the Run in Background button.

8.After the software installation is complete, it is necessary to restart Eclipse. When prompted, choose Yes.

9.You should now be able to view the Spring perspective in Eclipse and start developing Spring applications.

Via[Tech-Recipes]

Read More

Run Commands in the Windows Explorer Address Bar

Stupid Geek Tricks: Run Commands in the Windows Explorer Address Bar

Here’s a fun little tip for you: did you know that you can run commands from the address bar in Windows Explorer? It’s true — any app that you could run on the command line can be run from the address bar, including opening a new command prompt.

For instance, if you were to type cmd into the address bar, you would end up opening a command prompt with the current path already set to whatever the current folder is. Useful.

You can also run other commands, like opening a file in the current folder with Notepad. Imagine that you have a file on your desktop called test.txt and you want to open it. From the Desktop folder in Explorer, type notepad test.txt into the address bar, and hit the enter key.

Just like that, Notepad will open the file. Easy!

You could also use other commands directly from the address bar — for instance, if you wanted to see a directory listing of the current directory in the command prompt, you could use cmd /k dir in the address bar. Obviously that would be silly, but you can do it.

Via[HowToGeek]

Read More

How to Encrypt and Password Protect Your USB Drives Without Extra Software

BitLocker is a lesser-known technology included in Windows that allows you to both password protect and encrypt the contents of your storage mediums.

Note: BitLocker requires Windows 8 Pro.

Turning On BitLocker for a Removable Drive

Open explorer and right click on your removable drive to open the context menu, then click on Turn on BitLocker.

When the wizard starts up you will need to check the “Use a password to unlock the drive” checkbox.

Then go ahead and type in a password and click next.

Now you will need to choose where you want to save the recovery key incase you forget the password for your drive. Usually you would only be able to either print it or save it to a file, however starting with Windows 8 you can also back it up to your Microsoft account, which I chose to do.

You then have to choose whether your drive is already in use or if it is new. Then click next.

Finally, you can click the Start encrypting button.

Unlocking the Drive

When you plug in the encrypted drive you will get a notification saying that it is BitLocker-protected.  Click on it.

You will then be asked for the password. Once you have typed it in, click on the Unlock button.

That’s all there is to it.

Via[HowToGeek]

Read More

How to Solve Common Tomcat Problems in Windows

Everything does not always go smoothly in development. Tomcat consists of a fantastic set of tools for developing in JSP, but issues can arise getting it running. I have described a few of the issues I encountered when trying to get my Tomcat installation working.

Page not displaying or Page cannot be found

You have seen this error before on websites when a page is deleted or when the server simply cannot find it your request.

We will apply this principle to your local machine and make sure your web files are in the correct location on your file system.

1.Make sure that you entered the URL correctly to connect. Depending on how you set everything up, the normal URL is the following:

http://localhost

If you need the default port 8080, try the following instead:

http://localhost:8080

If you connect to this default root directory and it contains no files or server pages, you should see a page from Tomcat letting you know you have navigated to the correct root directory.

Make sure the URL you are using is actually pointing to an existing directory. Double check on your file explorer to see if it is there.

HTTP 404 status or Cannot connect to server

The message you see may be different depending on what browser you are using. These errors messages are typically an issue with Tomcat running itself and not problems with the files, folders, or paths.

To solve this one, you can do a few basic checks for simple mistakes:

1.Make sure that Tomcat is actually running. It will normally show up in your processes as java.exe*32 which you can check by CTRL+ALT+DEL and selecting the Processes tab. Scroll down to find the process.

2.Make sure Tomcat is running on a port that is not being used in that moment by another program or service. It may be necessary to change Tomcat’s port which is 8080 by default. Skype and many other programs also attempt to use port 8080. If you are having problems, change Tomcat’s port to be safe.

Navigate to C:\tomcat\conf and open server.xml with Notepad++ or Notepad.

Find all instances of the port that Tomcat is currently using (8080 by default) and replace it with a port that is between 1024 and 9999. Using a simple find and replace within your text editor might be fastest.

Restart Tomcat and be sure to reflect the new port in your URL. In this example we used port 1025.

http://localhost:1025

Via[Tech-Reciep]

Read More

Samsung cuts price of Galaxy Tab 2

 Samsung seems to be on a price cutting spree. The company has cut the price of both the versions of its Galaxy Tab 2 in India. Galaxy Tab 2 P3110, which was launched in India earlier this month at Rs 13,900, now costs Rs 12,750 officially and comes with a free Bluetooth headset. Samsung has also reduced the price of Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 to Rs 16,499 from Rs 19,500. 

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 comes with a 7-inch PLS touchscreen with 1024x600p resolution and approximately 170ppi pixel density. The device ships with Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) layered with TouchWiz UI out-of-the-box and is upgradeable to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). It is powered by a dual-core 1GHz processor coupled with 1GB RAM and comes with 16GB onboard memory, with microSD support up to 32GB. 

The Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 sports a 3.15MP camera on the back, while a VGA unit is located in front. Connectivity suite of the device consists of 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 and microUSB 2.0. This device is powered by a 4,000mAh battery that offers up to 30 hours of talk time over 2G network. 

Galaxy Tab 2 P3110 shares all the hardware specifications with the P3100 model, but does not support 3G internet access. The other difference is that it is powered by Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) out-of-the-box. 

Earlier in February, Samsung slashed the prices of its two flagship smartphones - Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III. This was followed by a price cut of Galaxy Camera, launched in the country just two months ago.

Via[TechGig]

Read More

Transparent 3D computer unveiled

A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the Technology, Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye movements.

The design was inspired by what he sees as a human need to interact with things.

"Spatial memory, where the body intuitively remembers where things are, is a very human skill," he said.

Translating this to the digital world will enable people to use computers more easily as well as complete more complex tasks.

"If you are working on a document you can pick it up and flip through it like a book," he said.

For more precise tasks, where hand gestures are not accurate, there is a touchpad. It will allow, for example architects to manipulate 3D models.

Via[TechGig]

Read More

Facebook CEO wants school kids to learn coding

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates,Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter creator Jack Dorsey are among the tech luminaries appearing in a new video promoting the teaching and learning of computer coding in schools.


Titled "What most schools don't teach," the video released online begins with Zuckerberg, Gates and other tech icons recalling the time they got their start in coding. For some, that was in sixth grade. For others, such as Ruchi Sanghvi,Facebook's first female engineer, that happened in college. Freshman year, first semester, intro to computer science, to be exact. 

Dorsey, who also founded and runs the mobile payments startup Square, said in an interview that he didn't grow up being a programmer. 

"I wanted to work on ideas. In order to see them grow, I had to learn how to code," Dorsey told The Associated Press. "I think there is a lack of desire, there is a lack of push to teach people how to program and how to code. It's not all that dissimilar to learning a foreign language. It's just a way to instruct a machine on what to do. It empowers people to start a business, to start a project, to really speak to a daily issue that they are having or other people are having." 

Running less than six minutes, the video promotes Code.org, a nonprofit foundation created last year to help computer programming education grow. 

"The first time I actually had something come up and say `hello world,' and I made a computer do that, that was just astonishing," Gabe Newell, president of video game studio Valve, recalls in the video. 

But it's not just tech leaders promoting programming in the video. Chris Bosh, of the Miami Heat basketball team, says about coding: "I know it can be intimidating, a lot of things are intimidating, but, you know, what isn't?" 

Code.org was founded by tech entrepreneur Hadi Partovi, an early investor in Facebook, Dropbox and the vacation rental site Airbnb. The nonprofit wants to address an oft-cited problem among technology companies - not enough computer science graduates to fill a growing number of programming jobs. The group laments that many schools don't even offer classes in programming. 

"Our policy is literally to hire as many talented engineers as we can find," Zuckerberg says in the video. "The whole limit of the system is just the there just aren't enough people who are trained and have these skills today."

Via[TechGig]

Read More

Combine Multiple RSS Feeds into One

Do you need a quick and easy way to mash up multiple RSS feeds into a single feed? There are many reasons why you may need to combine multiple RSS feeds, such as:

• You may write for or own more than one blog and you want to make it easy for readers to subscribe to all of your RSS feeds at once.
• You may want to combine multiple blog feeds into a single RSS feed for better organization, and to make them easier to read in your favorite RSS feed reader or by email.

There are various tools available for this task, but the best and easiest is ChimpFeedr. It’s a simple tool that combines the RSS feeds that you choose into a single feed.

Head over to the ChimpFeedr website and begin adding your RSS feeds one-by-one.

2. You can choose to resize the images in your feeds if you’d like. You can scale down images larger than the width that you choose (in pixels).

3. Click on the “Chomp Chomp!” button when you’re done; then give your mix a name and click on “start mixing.”

4. You’ll be given a URL for your aggregator RSS feeds, which you can use as you please. A good RSS to email tool would be great if you want to read your feed by email.

You may even consider IFTTT, the awesome Web automation tool. You can create a recipe that will send your ChimpFeedr RSS feed to your email, or even to another service like Evernote, Pocket, Dropbox, and more.

Combining your RSS feeds into a single feed is as easy as that!

Via[MakeTechEasier]

Read More

How to Use Your iPad or Tablet as a Second Monitor with iDisplay

We could all do with some extra screen space from time to time. It can be a battle to manage all of the windows you have open at any one time. Having a second monitor is not something that everyone is able to do, be it in terms of space or finances, but if you are packing a tablet you already have your second screen ready to go.

Whether you have an iPad or an Android tablet, there are a number of ways in which you can transform your touchscreen device into some extra desktop real estate. Weighing in at an average of 7 to 9 inches, using your tablet as a second monitor is something that has certain limitations; you are not going to want to use it to edit large spreadsheets, for example.

There are a number of ways in which you can put your tablet to good use, and we have looked at how Air Display does the job for iPad, iPhone and Android owners. While this is a solid solution, there is the slight drawback that the app will set you back $9.99. Thankfully there are cheaper options available as well.

Getting Set up

Whether you’re working with an iOS or an Android device, the process of using your tablet in this way is very similar. You will need to install a client app on your tablet or phone, as well as server software for your Mac or PC.

One of the first things you might want to consider is just how the setup is going to work. If you have ever used more than one regular monitor connected to the same computer, all you really have to worry about is which monitor is going to be the primary one.

To some extent, the same thing is true when working with a tablet. However, there are very few tablets that have a built-in stand, so for the sake of practicality – you don’t want to just lean your tablet up against the side of your monitor – you will want to come up with some sort of mounting solution.

There are various cases available for Android and iOS tablets that either include a stand (such as Griffin’s Survivor range) or can be converted into one (such as Apple’s Smart Cover), as well as more advanced desk mounts.

A simple solution also exists in the form of Belkin’s FlipBlade for Tablets which can be used with virtually any make of tablet.

Introducing iDisplay

iDisplay is available for Android and iOS, and there is server software available for Windows and OS X. The only real requirement is that your tablet and computer are connected to the same wireless network – although as you’ll see, users of Windows 7 and earlier have access to more options than anyone using Windows 8 (this should change as updates are released).

Both the Android and iOS versions, will set you back $4.99 . We are going to focus on how to get the Android up and running, but the process is very similar between the two platforms.

Download and install the free desktop software for your Mac or PC – if you are using Windows you may find that you are warned about the installation of a new display driver, and you will be prompted to restart. While you’re waiting for the restart, you can set about installing the mobile app.

You will then need to launch the desktop app, allow it through your firewall, before turning your attention to your tablet.

Mobile App

Grab yourself a copy of iDisplay from the App Store or Google Play. When you launch the app, you will see a list of computers that have been detected running the iDisplay desktop software.

Tap the entry for your computer and there will be a slight delay while a connection is established. On your computer, click the ‘Always allow’ or ‘Allow once’ button to permit the connection.

What happens next depends entirely on which version of Windows you’re using. If you have made the jump to Windows 8, you’re limited to reproducing your main monitor on your tablet – at least with the Android version of the app – but with Windows 7 and its predecessors, you can gain an extra monitor to use however you want.

Just as with dual monitors, you can configure the arrangement of your tablet in relation to your monitor. Right click the system tray icon and select Settings followed by ‘Display arrangement’ before moving the displays around to reflect the setup you’re using.

Once this has been done, you can drag window off the edge of your monitor and they will reappear on the screen of your tablet or phone.

iDisplay in Action

So what can you use your secondary tablet display for? There is an element of delay to contend with, so you’re not going to want to use this setup for anything too graphically intensive or time sensitive – it’s not really ideal for enhancing your gaming experience.

But what iDisplay can be used for is monitoring your inbox, keeping Twitter or Facebook separate from all of the other windows you may have open, housing a system monitoring tool, and so on. Any small widget that you want to keep an eye on can be moved from your main desktop onto your mobile device, freeing up space while ensuring you can see whatever you need to.

Via[HowToGeek]

Read More