Reset PRAM in Mac OS without holding keys at startup

This command is the functional equivalent of holding down command-option-p-r at start up.  It resets the machine's PRAM. 

% sudo nvram boot-args='-p -r'

My 2009 Mac mini was having problems starting up (light on but no ding or gray apple screen).  I have not seen this startup problem since resetting the PRAM.  Hopefully this fixes the problem.

Setting up IE VM images in VirtualBox on Mac

Get images from here:
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

Extract the zip File

VirtualBox > File > Import Appliance  , select the .ovf file

Settings > System > Base Memory > 2048 MB
2 CPU

Snapshot now, so it's easy to restore when the license expires.  If you do this later, snapshot restore may not be sufficient to relicense the install.

In WIN7

Network Location: Home

Virtual Box > Devices > Install Guest Additions CD

Virtual Box> Devices > Shared Clipboard > Bidirectional
Virtual Box> Devices > Drag and Drop > Bidirectional

WIN7 > Explorer > Run Guest Additions.exe , will restart

WIN7 Edit C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
add entry for host os:
    ifconfig to get the Default Gateway IP
 

Test ping
Test IE

Update spotlight index

http://osxdaily.com/2012/02/02/reindex-spotlight-from-the-command-line/
sudo mdutil -E /

Change the UID of files

Occasionally, the Centrify client on my corporate mac changes the UID associated with my username.  This breaks nearly everthing.  Solution is to do the following as root:

identify the old uid with %ls -ln

identify the new uid with %id -u

% find / -user -exec chown -vh {} ;

Setting up IntelliJ IDEA to run Spring Applications with Jetty

- I needed Servlet 3.0 features (like config through ServletContainerInitializer interface), but unfortunately Gradle's Jetty plugin (as of v2.4) uses Jetty 6, so it doesn't support Servlet 3.0. So I'm not bothering.

- Instead, I used the third party plugin gretty:  http://akhikhl.github.io/gretty-doc/Getting-started.html

- Had problems using gretty with the IDEA's Default Gradle Wrapper (gradle 1.8):

Error:Unable to load class 'org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.typehandling.ShortTypeHandling'.
Possible causes for this unexpected error include:

• Gradle's dependency cache may be corrupt (this sometimes occurs after a network connection timeout.)

Re-download dependencies and sync project (requires network)

The state of a Gradle build process (daemon) may be corrupt. Stopping all Gradle daemons may solve this problem.

Stop Gradle build processes (requires restart)
In the case of corrupt Gradle processes, you can also try closing the IDE and then killing all Java processes.
So instead I switched to using Local Gradle Distribution (2.4).

Use gradle appStart to start the server.
Use gradle appStop to stop the server.

IntelliJ 14 CE not updating Maven Repository Indices

Was seeing errors when trying to update Maven repositories in IntelliJ 14 CE

Preferences / Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Maven > Repositories

All of the Remote Repositories where showing 'Error'.

Hitting Update worked occasionally (like maybe 1/20 times)

Saw this in the Event Log

10:14:25 AM Unindexed remote maven repositories found. Disable...
            The following repositories used in your gradle projects were not indexed yet:
            http://download.java.net/maven/2
            http://maven.springframework.org/milestone
            http://maven.springframework.org/release
            If you want to use dependency completion for these repositories artifacts,
            Open Repositories List, select required repositories and press "Update" button (show balloon)

Also saw Exceptions in idea.log (Help / Show Log in Finder)

Tried alternative WI-FI and Ethernet connections, including the hotspot on my phone.  No change.

On ths advice of these Threads:
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-102693
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-138029

I removed the -Xmx512m Setting under Preferences / Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Maven > Importing > VM options for Importer

Intially, this seemed to work ... but alas I think it was a coincidence.  It worked fine on the first attempt to update repo1.maven.org, but failed on the others...and ultimately failed when retrying repo1.maven.org.

Then Tried changing the Maven Importing JRE:

Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools > Maven > Importing > JDK for Importer

from the Default (Use Internal JRE (1.6) ) to the JDK 1.8 I had installed.

Again, this seemed to work initially....but failed on second attempt.

Then I tried killing the RemoteMavenServer (java process found using ps aux | grep maven).  This also made the first download attempt work, but subsequent downloads failed.  I suspect changing the -Xmx and JRE in the above attempts was restarting Java ..... and triggering the same effect as killing the maven process.  The problem seems to be in the interaction between IDEA and the external maven process.

For now, my solution is to kill any existing RemoteMavenServer process before clicking the 'Update' button.  An easy way to do this it to make some trivial change in VM Options for Importer .... which causes IDEA to restart the external maven process.

This problem is well characterized here:
https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-138029

Hope JetBrains fixes this one soon.

IntelliJ Gradle not resolving dependencies

Followed the typical process of setting up a simple Gradle project in IntelliJ  IDEA 14 ....but dependencies were not resolving.  Upon hitting the refresh button, each of the gradle dependencies were underlined red....no useful feedback in logs or console.

I eventually figured out the problem:  Intellij was configured for Gradle offline mode.

Preferences >> Build, Execution & Deployment > Build Tools > Gradle >> Offline Work

Global Gradle Settings was set to 'Offline Work'.  I have no idea why, may have been due to a sketchy WI-FI connection I was using.

After unchecking the box and refreshing the Gradle project, I'm back on track.

I found it very useful to download and install Gradle for the command line (using gvm)  so I could test Gradle independent of IntelliJ.  I had no problems using command line gradle to download dependencies....telling me the problem was with IDEA.

It was also helpful to run Gradle tasks (like compileJavaTest) directly using IntelliJ.  While, 'Refresh' produces no useful console output, running Gradle tasks do.... and in this case the error told me the problem was 'Offline Mode'.