I don't think NetBeans is the problem, but I thought I should include it.

I have some code that uses the Java logging system to print out some
tracing information.  

logger.finest("This is some tracing info");

So I want to see what is coming out.  

I thought that NetBeans would print it in the output window, but it
doesn't.  That would be ideal.

So I want to look at it in a file that is created.  

I went to the $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib directory and edited the
logging.properties file, adding:

com.squeakydolphin.level = ALL

Thinking this would work, but it doesn't.  There is no file created in my
home directory.  

So then I went to the web and found that TomCat (which is the servlet
container used by NetBeans for development) doesn't use the standard Java
properties file to determine where logging goes.  So I added the following
to the tomcat logging.properties file:

com.squeakydolphin.level = ALL

No logs are generated in the logs directory under tomcat and there is
nothing in my home directory.  

Does anyone know how I turn this stuff on?  

Thanks.