Build Environment

1. Use Linux to write your code. You'll have thousands of free tools to use to aid in your development. Tools like sed, awk, and grep are indespensible. If you really don't want to, consider Cygwin as an alternative.
2. Go easy on packages. Don't install JAVA, Tomcat, Maven, etc through eclipse packages. Often you will need to use different versions and combinations of these tools and packages will really make it hard to tweak your environment.

To be continued...