For this session it will be helpful if you can come to the session with uPortal 2.6 RC 1 (or later if another release becomes available) installed and running on a laptop machine. Computers are not provided by the conference and will be required to get the most value out of the session.
Other versions of uPortal may be used, however, it's typically helpful to have the same version of software as the instructor and your neighbor and so I am trying to recommend everyone use uPortal 2.6 RC1.
In case you have not gotten uPortal up and running before, you will also need to have the JDK version 1.5.x or 1.6.x, Ant (1.6.x or 1.7.x), any Servlet Spec 2.3 or above container should work (uPortal is set up out of the box to deploy to Tomcat) and a database (hsqldb 1.8.x works if you do not already have a db you are using). The uPortal Quickstart may be used, however the instructor will be using uPortal from the source distribution.
After you have uPortal running, please install and have available the Eclipse development environment. Most uPortal users already use Eclipse, so all development will be shown in Eclipse. If you prefer to use another IDE or just a text editor, please be aware that you may run into problems the instructor and your neighbors can not help you with. You may also find the Spring IDE Eclipse Plugin useful.
To recap, please come prepared with the following packages installed, configured and running:
Java Development Kit 1.5.0.x or 1.6.0.x
Ant 1.6.x or 1.7.x
Tomcat 5.5.23
A database (possibly HSQLDB 1.8.0.x)
uPortal 2.6 RC1 (or later if available)
Eclipse 3.2.2
Spring IDE Eclipse plugin