While the capabilities of Apache Web Server and PHP are almost limitless, there are many advantages to developing web applications in Java. The power and portability of the Java Virtual Machine is being used more and more to its seemingly unlimited potential every year. The J2EE APIs provide an enormous amount of useful, reusable code, and the increasing prevalence of Servlets and Servlet Frameworks such as Struts all provide ample reason for a software developer to explore the capabilities of Java on the Web.

To that end, the simplest way to utilize Java in a Web application is through the use of Servlets and Java Server Pages. These both require the installation of a Servlet container that provides a bridge or translation layer between the raw HTTP request and the server-side processing in Java. These Servlet containers come in various forms, but the easiest to get started for the beginner is the Apache Foundation's open-source Tomcat servlet container. Installing it on the Mac OS X platform could not be easier.

The concept of a secondary, external hard drive is pretty basic. Using one increases the long-term storage capacity of a computer. However, looking beyond that, an external hard drive can provide much more than extra closet space.

The following walks through how to create a second, portable, bootable drive. The basic idea is to create a second “computer” without the fuss or expense of entirely new hardware. Additionally, when finished, this external drive will boot any Intel-based Mac capable of running Mac OS X (in this case, Leopard). I have used this portable drive to boot older and newer iMacs and MacBooks. This has the effect of being able to sit at any recent Mac and have the same experience, run the same software, access the same files with little to no hassle.