If you are getting out of memory errors when running Maven you can increase the amount of memory used.
You only need to set the environment variable MAVEN_OPTS, e.g. MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx512m if you want to use 512 MB of memory.
Carlos Sanchez's Weblog
software at the end of the universe
Carlos Sanchez's Weblog 
Good tip. I find I usually get out of memory errors, when I am running tests or compiling in Maven. I usually fork junit to avoid the problem.
Excellent tip. I got this error while building a war file with several large images (jpegs) in it.
This tip solved it – I know of no other solution.