KeepResident is a very effective Eclipse plugin (for Windows) that eliminates mystery slowdowns often experienced by Eclipse users. It makes Eclipse snappy by encouraging the Windows virtual memory manager to keep the JVM process memory in RAM.
Most of my talks include several demos using Eclipse. To save time, I get Eclipse up and running with the right projects opened before going to my talks. However, when I bring up Eclipse from the minimized state, it takes about a minute before running at the full speed (and with so many people watching, a minute feels like an eternity!). Further, during the presentations, Eclipse often becomes irresponsive for a few seconds. With the KeepResident plugin, those delays are virtually gone.
AspectJ in Action
Good tip Ramnivas! I will try it out at home. Pity that one needs this kind of thing on Windows. I need to change my home workstation to Linux as well!
PS. Love your book! Busy reading it atm.
I use another technique where I switch off the Windows swap file which makes all applications much faster to swap between. See http://jroller.com/page/oburn/20041030#running_on_bare_metal.
Of course, you need enough RAM to do this.