Recently I installed JDK 6 on my CentOS instance. I noticed a weird service called jexec running on all run levels:
jexec 0:on 1:on 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:on 6:on
Googled and found this installation notes from Sun:
A new service script, named jexec, is added to /etc/init.d. This script allows users to directly execute any standalone JAR file that has an execution permission set.
OK, so it’s for executing jar files.. A tiny little bit more convenient than using java -jar, but no thanks, especially on a server.
One less thing to worry about: chkconfig –level 0123456 jexec off 
ssong Java Java, linux, vps
Needed a VPS for one of my websites, so I’ve been doing some research on various hosts and plans. Here is what I found, as a side-by-side comparison matrix. From various sources, the hosting companies listed here generally seem to have good reputation:
| |
Linode (XEN) |
RimuHosting (XEN) |
eApps (Virtuozzo) |
WiredTree (Virtuozzo, managed) |
LiquidWeb (Virtuozzo, managed) |
SliceHost (XEN) |
| Plan |
360 |
VPS1 |
VPS2 |
standard |
standard plus |
standard max |
VPS384 |
VPS Basic |
256 slice |
| Memory |
360MB |
160MB |
400MB |
160MB |
288MB |
432MB |
384MB |
384MB |
256MB |
| Disk |
12GB |
4GB |
4GB |
2GB |
4GB |
6GB |
40GB |
20GB |
10GB |
| Transfer |
200GB |
30GB |
40GB |
30GB |
60GB |
90GB |
600GB |
200GB |
100GB |
| IP |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
| Price |
$20 |
$20 |
$30 |
$10 |
$20 |
$30 |
$44 |
$60 |
$20 |
My budget was around $20-$30 month, so I only listed the lower end plans of each host. Hopefully this can be helpful for someone who is looking for an entry-level VPS. Guess what host I chose at the end? 
Update: I ended up choosing Linode. I narrowed down to slicehost & linode; both hosts look good and have good reviews at webhostingtalk. Slicehost’s website and management console are more appealing. But slicehost only provides 64 bit environment, which uses more memory than a 32-bit system. Here is a comparison. Also see this thread at slicehost forum: Might I have to say goodbye to Slicehost? (64-bit vs. 32-bit). Linode provides both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Besides, linode provides more resources for the same 20 bucks (especially memory: 360MB vs 256MB); linode has data centers at four different locations to choose from while slicehost has only one. So far I’m a happy customer with Linode.
ssong Web Hosting vps, Web Hosting
Doing some research on cross platform GUI application libraries. We have a few choices, such as Java, wxWidgets and Qt.
The following applications use wxWidgets, which is a thin wrapper like SWT.
- Dropbox: the hot new kid in the online storage market
- filezilla (used to use MFC and Windows only)
- MadEdit
- JD-GUI: a Java decompiler
- Audacity
- xCHM
According to this post and the official Qt In Use page, these applications use Qt:
- Opera
- Google Earth
- Skype
- Photoshop Elements
- KDE, Qtopia, OPIE
- Mathematica
- VLC media player
In addition, these applications use Qt as well:
In the Java world, we have two choices: Swing and SWT. Swing is light weight; it does its own painting, so it’s easy to change a Swing application’s look and feel, but it may not look native. While SWT is heavy weight: it’s a thin wrapper around OS widgets, so an SWT application looks native to its underlying OS platform. SWT cannot be used in Java applets because of this, but not many people care about applets anyway.
These applications use Swing:
- MagicDraw (uses JIDE)
- DbVisualizer (uses JIDE)
- IntelliJ IDEA
- NetBeans IDE
- FreeMind
- Yong Zhong Office suite
These applications use SWT:
- Azureus: the popular BT client
I’ll update the list when new information becomes available. I’m interested in finding out what’s being used in Google (such as Chrome) and Mozilla (Firefox and Thunderbird).
ssong Software Development cross platform, Software Development, toolkit