evolvica.org

Recently I upgraded to Windows 7 which allows me to use the 64 Bit JRE. However, I spent 2 days to get a minimal RCP application to run. Here is the result.

First, do not mix up the JREs and the deployed RCP application. SWT exists for 32 Bit and for 64 Bit – use the appropriate version with your JDK. If you run a 64 Bit JDK, use the 64 Bit Eclipse Helios version, same with the 32 Bit versions. The deployed RCP application will also be 64 Bit and 32 Bit respectively, because the files are copied from the IDE during the deployment process. If you mix up between them you will run into errors like this:

!SUBENTRY 1 org.eclipse.osgi 2 0 2010-08-05 13:59:28.417
!MESSAGE Bundle org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86_64_3.6.0.v3650b [56] was not resolved.
!SUBENTRY 2 org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86_64 2 0 2010-08-05 13:59:28.419
!MESSAGE Platform filter did not match: (& (osgi.ws=win32) (osgi.os=win32) (osgi.arch=x86_64))

and/or this:

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.swt.SWTError
at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.loader.BundleLoader.findClassInternal(BundleLoader.java:506)
at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.loader.BundleLoader.findClass(BundleLoader.java:422)
at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.loader.BundleLoader.findClass(BundleLoader.java:410)
at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.baseadaptor.DefaultClassLoader.loadClass(DefaultClassLoader.java:107)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

But I found myself in a situation where even the correct version of the JRE (64 Bit in my case) didn’t work together with a deployed RCP application from a 64 Bit Helios IDE. The default launching arguments (which can be found on tab “Launching” in the product configuration) are set to:

-os ${target.os} -ws ${target.ws} -arch ${target.arch} -nl ${target.nl} -consoleLog -debug

Unfortunately the placeholder do not seem to be resolved during the deployment. Therefore they end up in the generated eclipse.ini, which looks like this:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.0.v20100507.jar
–launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64_1.1.0.v20100503
-os
${target.os}
-ws
${target.ws}
-arch
${target.arch}
-nl
${target.nl}
-consoleLog
-debug
-noexit
-vmargs
-Xms40m
-Xmx384m

The launch of the RCP application fails, obviously because a system architecture called “${target.arch}” does not exist. Setting the parameters manually resolved finally the problem – although it took me 2 days to figure out what the actual problem was. I suspect that this is a bug in Helios. Here’s what the eclipse.ini should look like:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.0.v20100507.jar
–launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64_1.1.0.v20100503
-os
win32
-ws
win32
-arch
x86_64
-consoleLog
-debug
-vmargs
-Xms40m
-Xmx384m

Simply omitting the operating system parameters will also work:

-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.1.0.v20100507.jar
–launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_64_1.1.0.v20100503
-consoleLog
-debug
-vmargs
-Xms40m
-Xmx384m

Two weeks ago the Black Day arrived, finally. For the very first time in my life I experienced the death of one of my hard disks. Unfortunately it was the one built into my Macbook.  The disk was only 5 months old and it was interesting to see how all running applications died, slowly, one after each other. The guys at the local computer store didn’t complain at all and replaced the drive without any problems.

The next step of course was restoring the data from the backup drive. For backup purposes I use Time Machine, the OS X built-in backup solution by Apple. Time Machine is able to create an OS X installation on a blank disk by accessing the backed up data. All my backup data resides on a Network Attached Storage device. For far, so good, should work like a breeze. At least that’s what I thought. The first attempt to restore my data failed, and so did the second and the third. On a first look, it seemed that Time Machine was not able to read some Japanese help files of iPhoto. Although I don’t care about the Japanese help there does not seem to be a way to exclude certain files from being restored. However, after examing the log files of the restore attempt a little closer, it turned out that the Japanese help wasn’t the one to blame. Time Machine itself is the bad guy – it crashes because it seems to forget to turn off the Standby mode of the Macbook while restoring. I was able to reproduce the behaviour: as long as I move the mouse pointer the restore process keeps on running, but as soon as the screen blanks (the default is 10 minutes), Time Machine crashes!

After searching for a while on the Internet I finally found a solution – I didn’t want to go the obvious way: sitting in front of the laptop for a couple of hours, touching the mouse every 5  minutes. It is possible to set the configuration for power saving via the command line. Before starting the restore job, start the terminal. The tool that saved me is pmset, which lets you set the time until the screen blanks and the disk is turned down. However, a simple

pmset -a  displaysleep 3 disksleep 600 sleep 600

fails, because pmset is not able to write the configuration data (which is not very surprising, when booting from the installation DVD). Used with the force option makes things better:

pmset -a  displaysleep 3 disksleep 600 sleep 600 force

however, Time Machine is still crashing, this time after 3 minutes when the screen goes blank. Only a

pmset -a  displaysleep 600 disksleep 600 sleep 600 force

which keeps the laptop awake for 10 hours seemed to help. But I was wrong: after several hours and around 65 % of the job done Time Machine crashed again, out of the blue. I suspected that it might have something to do with my NAS. I’m not using the official Apple solution Time Capsule but a Synology DiskStation 207+. This NAS can act as Time Capsule replacement having Time Machine support, but maybe some certain feature is not implemented well?

The next step was to try to install from a USB drive instead from the network share. So I copied all Time Machine data from the NAS to an external USB drive. This took about 10 hours. Next installation attempt, this time from the USB drive. The result: same story as before. Time Machine worked for a couple of hours and crashed in the middle of the restore job. What to do next?

The MAC OS X installer offers a so-called migration assistant which is able to migrate data from a Time Machine backup. So I installed Snow Leopard. During the installation the user is asked about migrating data, both from network and from a USB drive. And both methods didn’t work. The network variant didn’t because the migration assitant was not able to access the Time Machine backup. It tried but failed, telling me “unable to access data”. A funny thing: the button that triggers the connection to the network device is disabled after the first try. If you enter a wrong password for the network share – bad luck, you don’t have a second try. The backup on the USB drive wasn’t recognized at all. In addition you cannot influence the detection, it is not possible to tell the migration assistant “Look in this folder!”.

The migration assistant can also be started after installation. This time the USB drive was sucessfully detected and the data could be restored from there. Only one important thing: you need to create a user during installation that is named differently than the one saved in the Time Machine backup. Otherwise the user dat cannot be restored. I created a different user after the installation of Snow Leopard was finished. The migration assistant needs to be started from that account in order to overwrite the account that exists both on the machine and in the Time Machine backup.

Finally that’s the end of the story, end of this nightmare. I somehow sense that nobody at Apple ever tried to actually perform such a restore job. Overall I’m quite disappointed of Time Machine. The story took me one whole week. I’m glad that this was only my private laptop – imagine if this was my business laptop and I would have relied that!

I’m slowly getting used to strange business processes that are established at the Deutsche Bahn, the german railway company. A couple of months ago, ticket machines at the Dresden main station, where I was able to book a trip, pay for the ticket AND finally get my ticket printed were replaced by two kinds of machines. One for booking the trip and for printing some kind of receipt with a bar code. The second one is for scanning the bar code, eating my cash or credit card and finally printing the ticket. I do not understand the justification for having two different machines instead of having a single one. However, I totally understand that the sales department of the machine vendor did an exceptionally great job. Probably they are still in champaige mood and the party is still ongoing …

Yesterday I experienced a new business process at the Leipzig main station. I was in need of a ticket from the airport back to my home town, which (for some unknown reason) cannot be bought at a ticket machine. So I needed to approach someone at the counter. But I had to learn that things have changed. It is not possible any longer to approach someone at the counter. Now the lonely traveller has to pull a numbered ticket from a new number ticket machine (A new machine! Somehow I feel, that this is not a coincidence …). Above the counters there are brand-new screens which tell you what numbered traveller is next to be allowed to approach the counter. Unfortunately this leads to much longer waiting times than before, mainly because people tend to pull a ticket, notice that waiting for their number to be called takes too long and leave. In turn, this leads to counter assitants sitting there and waiting for “their” traveller with the right number (who already left). I had the funny situation that the majority of counters had no traveller in front of them to offer its service although there were plenty of them waiting to be called … In addition, travellers hang around in the counter hall, waiting and doing other things which leads to the case that it takes quite a while for most people to find out that their number has been called and which counter is the one to be approached. I wonder if one should carry out a scientific investigation on how much the waiting time has increased …

I’m currently sitting at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport waiting for a connecting flight – wired to an obviously Samsung-sponsored charging station. Besides the fact, that the business lounge behind the security check at gate D57 does not offer power supply (or it did, but I was just too stupid to figure out what the strange button on the fourth side beside the three power plugs was meant to do) for my thirsty laptop which ran out of power, I wonder if those charging stations could be embedded into some kind of business model in the future. There is locally provided internet access for which I have to pay for, there are music download opportunities at airports for which I have to pay for, so why not locally provided power supply for the modern nomad? Maybe this will not be introduced during the next couple of months, but think ahead a couple of years. When resources becoming shorter and energy more important and more expensive (as it did in the past), this could definitely be a future business. Imagine a traveller getting off a long flight, the battery of his/her iPod is down and – there’s a rescueing charging station nearby. Insert one Euro and have your mobile gadget recharged, first ten minutes are free (to keep you addicted to your locally bought music…)!

As we had quite a lot of requests for extending the submission deadline for the MDPLE 2009 workshop, we agreed to set a new deadline. It is now april the 16th 2009. You can find all related information including the full Call for Papers at http://www.feasiple.de/workshop_en.html.

Oh, yes, nearly forgot to mention, that there’s still a chance to submit an article to this years Traceability Workshop at the European Conference on Model-Driven Architecture. You can find more information at its homepage at http://www.modelbased.net/ecmda-traceability.

… you might consider submitting an article to this years International Workshop on Model-Driven Product Line Engineering. Find more and information here at http://www.feasiple.de/workshop_en.html.

Sorry, I had to take down all the downloads for Evolvica. All the links pointing from external sites are dead now. This is because someone bombed the the server with download requests for the Win32 version over and over again causing about 120 GB traffic in 12 hours. Normally I have about 2 GB traffic per month. Don’t know yet how much this will cost in the end …