I finally got the demos to run after figuring out that they had the
wrong database port (19092 instead of 29092) configured by default.

The Vehicle Incident Report application runs fine, except for
responsiveness.

Should I expect over a second delay between clicking a button and
something displaying on the screen when it is running on local host,
with a p4 2.6ghz machine running linux with 1.5GB of memory in Firefox
1.0.7?

On the first impression, I don't mind (initial loading I expect), but
subsequent impressions I would expect things to be lightning fast.

Sometimes they are lightning fast, if, for example, I swap between two
pages in quick succession but if I click on the tabs from left to right
then towards the left again, zzzz.

I have tried setting up the HTTP monitor but the timestamps recorded
are pretty useless for this sort of thing, having a resolution of
minutes (microseconds or even seconds would have been handy)

I have captured the TCP packets on local host using

tcpdump -A -s 256 -i lo 'tcp port 28080 and (((ip[2:2] -
((ip[0]&0xf)<<2)) - ((tcp[12]&0xf0)>>2)) != 0)'

and filtered them a bit.

For example, in the VIR app, I clicked on each of the tabs one after
the other and then generated the following output by looking for POST
then looking for the next GET. (on the assumption the first
communication is the POST and the last communicatoin is a GET - not
entirely true, I am sure, but good enough for illustration purposes).

As you can see, the delays between the post and the GET can be quite
long.

18:04:29.288087    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Profile.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:04:29.820572    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
18:04:30.849785    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/SearchAVehicle.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:04:31.269366    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
18:04:32.381863    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Profile.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:04:38.014451    GET
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/theme/com/sun/rave/web/ui/defaulttheme-gray/javascript/table.js
HTTP/1.1
18:04:40.852971    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Vehicles.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:04:49.233314    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
18:04:53.156757    POST /VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Help.jsp
HTTP/1.1
18:04:58.777153    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
18:05:00.288716    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Vehicles.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:05:05.938047    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1
18:05:06.934621    POST
/VehicleIncidentReportApplication/faces/Profile.jsp HTTP/1.1
18:05:07.320218    GET /favicon.ico HTTP/1.1

There is no way I am going to proceed with this app using jsCreator if
this is how fast they run.

Where would I start looking?
Any help would be appreciated.