Eclipse StartOnFirstThread Error (and fix!)

This appears to be an issue with the JVM under Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5), but I started getting the following error within Eclipse when using the ResourceBundleEditor plugin:

StartOnFirstThread Error Message

It also apparently happens with other plugins/apps and is an issue with the AWT kit in the new JVM. After pouring through all of my Eclipse config files and determining that I definitely was NOT specifying StartOnFirstThread anywhere, I found this fix:

Within the Eclipse application bundle, in the file Contents/MacOS/eclipse.ini, add this line:

-Djava.awt.headless=true

Save the file, and restart Eclipse. Problem solved.

Home Backups

I just setup some bash scripts leveraging rsync and triggered via cron to not only keep my external hard-drives backed up to their relative backups, but also to keep my wife’s laptop (MacBook) backed up to an external drive attached to my desktop (PowerMac).

/usr/bin/backup:
#!/bin/bash
rsync /Users/emma/ -avz -e ssh 'modoc@andromeda.local:/Volumes/MBP\ Backup/tongari/Users/emma/'
rsync /Applications/ -avz -e ssh 'modoc@andromeda.local:/Volumes/MBP\ Backup/tongari/Applications/'

/etc/crontab
# minute hour mday month wday who command
30 5 * * * emma /bin/bash /usr/bin/backup

And with ssh keys setup correctly, it should just work.