Setting up development environment

Spring Tool Suite - Spring tool suite is eclipse based IDE, which is 100% open source comes with integrated plugins to easy development of spring based apps, m2 eclipse and tomcat optimized for spring apps. As underlying platform is eclipse,one can integrate any plugins that they were fond of using in eclipse.
Download - http://www.springsource.org/sts
http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=67452


Useful plugins -
MoreUnit - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/moreunit
Eclemma - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/eclemma-java-code-coverage
junithelper - http://code.google.comS/p/junithelper/
sql explorer - http://www.sqlexplorer.org/
               http://www.sqlexplorer.org/screenshots.php
Eclipse Bulk Import -http://code.nomad-labs.com/eclipse-bulk-import/
m2eclipse -http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/maven-integration-eclipse
AnyEdit Tools - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/anyedit-tools
Spring IDE - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/spring-ide
Subclipse - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/subclipse
Eclipse Color Theme - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/eclipse-color-theme
Eclipse Metrics - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/eclipse-metrics
Tane (refactoring) - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/tane-eclipse-refactorings
Infinitest  - http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/infinitest
Struts Tools - http://market.eclipsesource.com/yoxos/node/org.jboss.tools.struts_feature.feature.group
JBoss Tools (Helios - jsf, hibernate, Freemarker, ESB) -http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/jboss-tools-1
WindowBuilder Pro GUI Designer -http://marketplace.eclipse.org/content/windowbuilder-pro-gui-designer
jd- eclipse (java decompiler) - http://java.decompiler.free.fr/?q=jdeclipse 

Google Web Toolkit SDK 2.0.0, Google Webtoolkit(GWT) Tooling, Google Plugin for Eclipse 2.2  - These are plugins for GWT, available at eclipse market places
Groovy eclipse plugin - http://groovy.codehaus.org/
Springsource tool suits
 JDT Decompiler

Selecting the jvm to be used to run eclipse -
  eclipse -vm "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_06\bin\javaw"

It's generally a good idea to explicitly specify which Java VM to use when running Eclipse. This is achieved with the "-vm" command line argument as illustrated above. If you don't use "-vm", Eclipse will look on the O/S path. When you install other Java-based products, they may change your path and could result in a different Java VM being used when you next launch Eclipse.

Providing proxy settings in Helios- Settings can be edited at the following path - Windos -> Preferences  -> General -> Network Connections

Firefox - As a developer you will need the following add Ons - Fastest Fox, Firebug, IE Tab, IE View, iMacros , YSlow, JavaScript Debugger, View Source Chart,Web Developer,Toggle Web Developer Toolbar,ColorZilla,FlashFirebug,XPath Checker (For xpath with name space),FirePath (Xpath without name space),fox tab, themes menu, MacOSX Theme,printpdf, save as pdf., memory fox, Easy YouTube Video Downloader 6.4

MS DOS - Command to view the value of a system variable - echo %jvariable_name%
    Command to set the value of a system variable  - set  variable_name  "variable_value"
    Command to view the value of all the variables  - set

Tools - Fiddler (Tool to log Http(s) traffic), windows grep (To use grep in windows), sdedit (Tool to create sequence diagram)

Useful info -

1. Converting html pages to PDF
2. Creating eclipse templates of toString, equals, hashCode and compareTo implementation using org.apache.commons.lang
3. Identifying whether RAM upgrade is needed