JoergM.com

The Problem

XMind is a very nice mind mapping software. It is platform independent and it’s free. I started using it at work on a Windows PC. When I installed it on my Mac I had a bad surprise. When starting it, it stopped immediately with a message that the JVM terminated.

Xmind is based on Eclipse RCP. Eclipse itself is using the Carbon framework on the Mac for it’s GUI. But Carbon is not supported on 64 Bit. But Java 1.6 on the Mac does only work on 64 Bit. So it will of course not work.

The Solution

You don’t need to uninstall Java 6 in order to run XMind. It turned out the solution was much simpler. You have to tell the XMind app what JVM to use. To do this use your favorite text editor and open the following file (I recommend VI ):

/Applications/XMind.app/Contents/Info.plist


Look for the following text and uncomment the -vm option:

<!-- to use a specific Java version (instead of the platform's default) uncomment
         the following options:-->
<string>-vm</string>
<string>/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5.0/Commands/java</string>

Make sure it points to the right JVM. I had to change it to 1.5.0 as it did only point to Current, which was 1.6.

Save, start XMind again and have fun creating Your mindmaps.

Jurgen Appelo of noop.nl had a nice post of the books he was reading recently called “My Book Slide“. He is reading a lot. I found some of the books were the same I was reading lately. So here is My Book Slide:

Sep. 2008

Robert C. Martin: Clean Code *****

Not much to say about this book except You have to read it. It is already a classic.

Oct. 2008

Neal Ford: The Productive Programmer ***

Nice book about all those little habits that make a difference in ones productivity. My favorite quote is: “There are people running their computers and others that are just walking them.”

Nov. 2008

Dan Roam: The Back of the Napkin **

Small book about explaining things visually. Dan Roam explains some easy to remember methods on how to find the right picture. For whatever reason I was expecting more of this book than it delivered.

Dec. 2008

Tom DeMarco: Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies ****

Great read. Nice little patterns of what are good or bad behaviours in projects. Each pattern is really short, only 2-3 pages. So it’s an ideal book to read in small breaks. The only drawback is that they are trying to follow the “Pattern-Trend”.

Nicholas Carr: The Big Switch **

Nicholas explains the analogy between utilization of electricity in the early twentieth century and the current situation in our industry. Some nice ideas, but most of it not as new or revolutionary as the cover promisses.

Roman Pichler: Scrum ****

The bestselling german book on scrum. Explains scrum very well and has also some good ideas on how to scale scrum.

Jan. 2009

Andy Hunt: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning – Refactor Your Wetware *****

This is my book of the year so far. It explains a lot around how we think and how we learn. It shows ways to improve this for everybody in a language that software developers can easily understand. But the best thing in the book is the Dreyfus-model. It explained some phenomenons I was wondering about for a long time.

Rothman, Derby: Behind Closed Doors ****

They are using the concept of story telling to explain important techniques of management. I found a lot of tips for my work. The book is just a bit short, not even 200 pages.

Currently reading

Pete McBreen: Software Craftsmanship

I like the concept of software developers being craftsmen since the I first read about it was in The Pragmatic Programmer of Hunt and Thomas. So I am curious, what this book will say about it.

Hello World is often the starting point for new experiences in software development. So I decided to keep this first Wordpress headline. I welcome everybody on my blog, even if probably nobody is going to read this entry for the next 6 months I still think there has to be a starting post.

This is my first Blog. I am thinking about blogging since years, but never really found it important enough to start. What has changed now? Some good friends of mine started or restarted blogging a few weeks ago and I decided to use this energy and start my own blog too. Please do also visit their Blogs. They are mentioned in my Blogroll.

What will you be able to read about here?

Well, first of all everything related to my passion software development. This includes:

• Java/Groovy related tips or just random experiences
• Stuff about software development infrastructure
• Thoughts on software development methodologies (related to agile and scrum, as I am a Scrummaster)

You will of course also find some gadget stuff that I stumbled upon, and yes this will probably include some praise for Apple.

I hope you will be entertained or even get some value out of what I am writing here.

Yours sincerely

Joerg