Rojan the Swimmer

Rojan the Swimmer
Originally uploaded by nocs

Really happy the way my daughter is progressing with her swimming lessons. I wish I had the same opportunity when I was young. I think the real joy of parenthood is seeing your personal dreams and aspirations fulfilled by your kids.

daddy nox
- My kids make me proud (MKMMP).

Software is abstract

I hate software developers boastfully saying they had been there, done that.

This idiots doesn't realize that software is and always will be abstract. Most of the time skills has to be learned on the job. I'm tempted to ask, where have you been? and what have you done? and what frakin' relevance does that have to the current job at hand.

Nuff' said...

Hello Blog!

Long time no write. If feels like ages since I have written something in this blog.

Work has consumed most of my time. Idealistic, goal driven, eternally geeky people like me tend to fall in so easily. Working with the least concern for personal health, and wealth. A few days ago, reality has thankfully settled back in to my brain, I started jogging and took two weeks off to have time for the most important thing in the world, FAMILY.

So many realizations. In any case, the hardest thing about software development is managing the people. Its usually assholes that kills any project. Its all about the people. No process, no fracking 21'st century project management shit is going to fly or succeed if the assholes greatly outnumber the good guys. But either you see this and go along with the tide, or see this as a challenge, is what separates those who can and those who can't.

Work aside, I miss my family, they are here yet I was there in the office. I miss my kids to bits. I miss doing nothing but sit on the couch and talk with my wife, about our dreams, our plans, and about nothing in particular. Priceless.

Yesterday, I was amazed on my daughter's progress with her swimming lessons. She could now swim from one to the other, still pausing in between, but with proper strokes now. I was so proud! Every little bit of accomplishment delights the heart. My boy on the other hand, was only on his second session, hilariously he would lazily kick the water while mounted on the kick board. At 3, he is still our baby.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas! Happy birthday Jesus! My personal wish is that may God be the center of our lives, the center of our family, and hopes everyday is a Happy Christmas for everyone. :)

Now, thats more like it!

Nokia's n810 web tablet is just too darn sexy.

The bundled GPS will salivate location based services (LBS) dreaming nerds like me.

But actually having a device like that is a distant dream in reality. Need to save, save, and save.


dreamer nox
-Technolusting on a mundane monday afternoon.

The Adventure Continues

The Adventure Continues
Originally uploaded by nocs

Wether I have Hemingway's, or Picasso's, or Casanova's touch is another question reserved for mundane Monday morn.

The real question is, can I really produce readable handwriting? This ancient art long forgotten by my keyboard bound fingerlings.

I didn't go for the planner ones, I'm no manager material, am a fracking 21st century software architect. People who don't plan, but dream of how code will change the world on a daily basis.

moleskinned nox
-is $1 enough as a reward for my handwritten twisted ideas?

Rojan The Ballerina

Rojan The Ballerina
Originally uploaded by nocs

Life is but a never ending stream of events...

A few days back, my daughter turned 6. Can you imagine that! The tiny lovable little creature I once held in my hands not too long ago is now 6 years old.

Nothing worries me now at this stage, than failing to become a good parent. Raising two kids, defies all the laws of the algorithmic universe. There is no design pattern to get hold of. No tried and true exception blocks. This is randomness in its truest meaning.

But other than that, nothing beats having a family to be a witness to your life here in middle-earth.

daddy nox
- life in the parental universe...

Middleware Thoughts

In the ongoing battle with Websphere integration.

JTA seems to work nicely. Although I had only tested connection pool setup and used user transaction config.

Next step is to try XA mode where the JMS guys are hitting a snag.

No luck on running Websphere in OS X . This is where Glassfish rocks, OS X support.

OFW quickies

The past few days was terribly disappointing. I should have listened to my instincts and forget about being idealistic.

Trouble is, I believe people could always change for the better.

But the saying goes, in a foreign land, sometimes you have to be most wary NOT of other cultures, but of your own.

Apparently my so called Kababayan, whom I have been helping, whom I have defended, whom I considered a friend, took a point of no return and unleashed his frackin foul mouth on me, in our own language, for no apparent reason. His sorry excuse is that I raised my voice. Which as a matter of fact he assumed, because I did not. But a sorry excuse nevertheless, because if thats the case, then is it justifiable to do the same for the countless of times he raised his voice?

Sometimes I really don't understand people, crab mentality and jealousy really screws them up.

But life goes on, I had enough of his sensitivity and paranoidal shit.

Anyway, good thing I was brought up to be a better person, at the end of the day, that is more important.

Things that suck.

Websphere + Oracle XA + Hibernate

This buggers are not playing nice, they don't generally get along out of the box.

Some tweaking here and there.

Frack! If you application doesn't require transactions across more than one data source, save yourself the headache and don't bother with XA at all.


dev nox
-having a frackin' bad hair day.

Life Quickies

Currently eating at the new Chinese resto outside our condo. Home baked spaghetti with real tomato sauce, bundled with sunny side egg, ham and hotdog. Loving the taste and the low cost of food here. Will be staying for about an hour and pick-up my daughter from Ballet class.

Tomorrow will be my 30th birthday. Taken my first official leave since I joined the current workplace. We are planning to dine out and visit a tourist spot nearby KL. Should be fun!

Good food, happy, wacky family, what more could I ask for?

PSP still rocking...

Just tried the freeware PSPTube app by a Japanese developer. This is so shiny!

Now I can watch transformer re-runs on the PSP via youtube. My kids are also loving the fact that they can also watch Barney shows hosted on you tube.

This makes the PSP a better value against the iPod. Aside from the awesome games, you can catch up on your RSS feeds (via google reader mobile edition), play music, play movies, and now stream you tube videos directly!

Now if only this thing could also read PDF's.


nostalgic nox
- The old megatron looks so frackin' lame as an oversized pistol.

Life Quickies

- Some frustrations at work. The frackin' code base needs tons of refactoring love. But the fracking T's (SAT, UAT, etc.) are a few weeks away.
- Still so many books to read. So little time.
- Education here in KL is really expensive. International schools that is. Hope its worth every penny. Need to start saving for the next school year and finally decide where my kids will study here or there back home.

Bathroom Quickies

Bathroom Quickies
Originally uploaded by nocs

MMS test. 1, 2, tres...

Pastel Balls

Pastel Balls
Originally uploaded by nocs

And I started clicking the shutter button again. Rediscovering the joys of capturing the beauty in everyday things.

And I am blogging again.

But still the same short burst of words my twisted mind can offer.

My love, My life, My joy.

Good times!
Originally uploaded by nocs

no matter how hard you work,

or how fast you play,

at the end of the day,

when family is there,

life is always ok!

And my boy turned 3!

Janro's 3rd Birthday
Originally uploaded by nocs

A few weeks ago my boy turned 3. It was a relatively simple celebration with her sister, me and my wife spending the entire day together.

A part of me is happy our baby is turning into a bubbly and irresistibly cute little boy and another part also wishing kids doesn't grow up so fast. Time flies so fast.



daddy nox
- hoping and struggling to be the best dad in the world ;-)

Optimus Prime

Am more like a prime lens person. The fantastic 50mm 1.8 I have really produces bright and sharp pictures. But on the 350D its not as wide as I would like it to be. The 24mm is more like what a normal lens should be on a cropped sensor camera.

So am torn between this and a 430ex flash for my next photography purchase.


shutter nox
- clicking the shutter once again.

Thats why we drink it here.

Developers simply don't quietly snore into the middle of the night.
Not with laptops in our hands and design patterns in our hearts.

nox
- Happy Code == (Beer + Code)

Transformers

Transformers == Nostalgia

I feel nostalgic today.

Lots of things I miss. Some things cannot, and should NOT be forgotten. My ROOTS.


nostalgic nox
- staring on my window pane

Job Post

We are in urgent need of Java Developers 3 years or more experience. We need dynamic individuals willing to go into the Banking domain in one of the largest international banks. Be prepared to be an OFW as this is post requires working abroad.

Email me your CV's or post your email in the comment section. This is urgent and be prepared to leave in a month's time.

The Mind of the Married OFW Men

There is nothing to tell.

Skype, because the world is flat.

Just upgraded my Skype mac app. Noticed the shiny animation whenever you toggle show contacts or show history. Now its more Mac-ish than ever.

Skype is an OFW's best friend. You can skype-babad to your hearts content if your family back home is connected to the internet. Although it can't still (yet) substitute being there, it helps a lot to keep your sanity intact. The video is a welcome bonus, I hope in the future it becomes pervasive to mobile devices. 3G video calls is not the way to go, unless you want to burn a hole in your pocket. Not to mention international 3G video Cellco agreements is the exception rather than the norm.

If your are sleeping under the rock, then what the frack! Wake up! Mobile is the way to go. Advertisers must be itching to capture this personalized-direct marketing opportunity.


mobile nox
-- The futre is mobile...

FlickrVision

Shiniest Mashup WTF Web 2.0 I have seen so far.

One of those why didn't I think of that moments.

For the meantime. Am down with the flu.

Wifi beggar no more.

Yes, finally got my own DSL connection since monday.

So am now connected to the world again. So many things to blog. Life goes on pretty fast.

I also finally was able to open my own bank account. And was fascinated with the way they have automated ATMS for accepting cheque deposits here. All you have to do is follow the touchscreen enabled ATM instructions which are pretty much straightforward. The shiny part is when it comes to inserting your cheque to a slot in the machine. Not only will the machine accept your cheque, it will do optical character recognition (OCR) on the cheque and give you a printout of the image of your cheque together with the receipt. The OCR will read your cheque number and issuing bank. Pretty shiny!

I cannot blog about the new workplace. But am learning a lot on the non-technical side of working with a multi-national team as well as learning a new problem domain.

Back to the DSL connection, I miss my netgear wireless router back home. Will scout the computer stores here and buy one if its not too expensive. For the meantime the tethered setup is just fine. I dragged the table from the living room to the bedroom and loving the view outside the window.

Still, I miss my family so much. :(


Hope they can come over soon.


homesick nox
-No more weird looks when I camp out half a day with a laptop sa gilid ng starbucks ordering the cheapest drink...

Furious!

Frack! Someone tried to steal my shoes!

The doofus in me is so complacent that in a nice condo like this, nobody would ever dare touch my stinking shoes. Apparently I am wrong. As I was doing my laundry, I opened the door to get my soiled socks from the shoe cabinet outside. Only to find my work shoes and my 2 year old swatch seasider missing. Good thing the shoe cabinet has some weird design for opening the compartments, so my basketball shoes were not taken.

Fortunately, my flatmate and I decided to look around and lo and behold! My shoes are tucked neatly in the emergency staircase. Probably the thief is thinking of getting back on this later in the wee hours of the morning. Or, after realizing the shoe brand doesn't sound like florshiem or ferragamo decided what the heck, lets leave it here.

Also found out there are no CCTV's in the hallways, and when we went down to report to the security guard, we found no one on the desk.

Oh bugger. Life goes on.

Thank God Almighty I was still able to recover my shoes.


nox
- I love my shoes...

Life updates

Almost a month here.

- Found my own flat. I now live on the 15th floor on place cool enough to pass as a resort. Every block has its own pool. Awesome!
- The new place is 20-30-45 mins away from the office. Depending on the traffic and the alignment of the moon to the sun. Even if they indicate 10 - 20 mins interval, prepare your sanity for 30 to 60 minutes of waiting time for the bus. You can't beat the price tho, if you keep your ticktet, you are good to go anywhere. Each ticket is a whole day pass. Public bus is clean and nice, you get to enjoy the views and see more places compared to riding the train.
- I like the new place better. Something nice to look forward too after a hectic day in the office. I feel safer here than the previous guest flat.
- I get free wifi, and oh men, nothing beats free. No socket nearby tho.
- GPRS is the way to go for international messaging. YM + GPRS = Me chatting with my love ones back home anytime, anywhere. Take that you overpriced Philippine Cellcos!
- Work is ok, nothing I can't handle for the moment. The pressure is on delivering an enterprise app going to be deployed in 40 plus countries, each with varying challenges, one of them is making sure it is still useable in a dialup world. This should be fun.
- My lovey told me they were able to get their passports. Yippeeeee!!! That means they can visit or live with me here!
- Overall am beginning to love this country. First world amenities with 3rd world cost of living. That's redundantly awesome! Shiny!


Pictures to follow.

What's the stitch?

Some recent facts of life:
- I live on the 13th floor.
- Apparently, the number 14 is the one considered unlucky here. So instead of 14th floor you have 13A instead.
- My flatmate is a kind indian whom I until now I'm having trouble remembering and pronouncing his name.
- I need to improve my communication skills. Time to twist my tounge for pronounciations and a slightly modulated voice.
- I have to change my perspective on how to code things. Am used to fast and efficient. But now, the game is steady and stable.
- I have to keep reminding my self of modularization. Focusing on one part/tier of a system alone. I should lessen the entire-lifecycle super developer mentality so common back home.
- I have to appriacte swing. For all its shams and broken dreams, Swing is a fact of Java life.
- I escaped swing by accidentally blurting out hibernate and spring during a team conference. Now I have to defend why spring is needed and that hibernate is optional. I hope I win this framework debate. I am a spring junkie, and I want my POJO's flexible enough not to depend on Hibernate alone. Just in case there are drastic changes in the ORM framework in the future.
- Can't suggest aspectj domain object dependency injection at the moment. Too cutting edge and risky if the mantra is steady and stable.
- Today am probably going to defend why DAO's have to be implemented as interfaces rather than implementations. In a scenario of steady and stable code, I wonder if my argument that DAO's should be coded as an interface so that the actual ORM implementation (Hibernate, TopLink, EJB, JDBC, etc.) would make sense.
- I miss my DSL connnection back home. My flat doesn't have broadband access so am stuck with GPRS for my internet fix.
- I miss skype.
- I definitely appreciate the Treo now more than ever. YM via GPRS is worlds apart from internationl SMS charges. I only spent about 30 pesos a day, for roughly 2 hours of YM sessions. Add to the fact I can now get my email whenever I want to. Hooray for cheap mobile data services!
- I miss my wife and kids so much.
- I wept again last night when my wife told me my son keeps on hugging my picture frame back home.
- I wept some more, when my daughter typed I miss you so much Daddy on YM.
- I wept even more when my wife told me she just finished taking a bath and all the kids are asleep. I miss the parting legs and the parting lips. I miss her whispering I love yous in my ear. I miss our conversations. I miss her explaining to me the mechanics of PBB, and which housemate deserves to stay or not. I miss hugging her for no reason anytime, anywhere just to express what words cannot. I miss listening to her hearbeat after waking up in the morning. I miss feeling the love in close proximity.

homesick nox
-- Enduring the initial pains of becoming a global filipino...

Touchdown

Touchdown at 12:45am.

The last bus has just left.

Next bus 4:30.

Here I am, stuck at the moment. Good thing wifi is free. Can't configure Globe roaming on the Treo. I manually selected available networks but no dice. Either my Globe postpaid isn't yet configured for roaming (as opposed to what I had been told by the helpline), or the trouble is with the Treo.

Haven't slept a wink. Budget travel doesn't guarantee a working recline switch. Imagine the two other person beside you dreamfully taking a nap in a slightly reclined manner, and your stuck with your seat in upright position. Oh well, that's life.

Had my first taste of "Nasi Lemak", spicy! I choosed the beef version. Its like beefsilog aimed squarely for the chili loving Bicolanos. Never thought that rice and fried salted peanuts would actually taste good together. Didn't finish it all however, am still pacing my baby-fat-flaunting stomach.

1.5hrs till the next bus.


sleepy nox
-- miss ko na ang aming kama, at ang malupit kong unan...

Terminal Musings

Different worlds,
different people,
different faces,
different languages,
all waiting,
to fly
neath the moon
and the starry skies...

Samantalang ako,
may naiwan,
luhaan,
excited,
scared,
thrilled,
sad,
slightly looking forward,
antok,
puso ko,
kanina,
slightly nadurog.

Anak ng 365 na tipaklong,
homesick,
shit!
and to think
I haven't left yet,
bakit nga ba,
the world needs pera
And my katabi,
naka macbook pa.

But still,
amidst all of this.
I still miss,
my son's laughter
the witty conversations
with my daughter
The warm embrace
only my wife could offer.

Tonight will definitely be colder.


traveler nox
-- never mind the mosquito bites...

Decisions

Big fish in a small pond, or
Small fish in a big pond.

Or everyone wants to be a frackin' piranha?

Novell Linux Spoof Ad

Hilarious!

JPG Magazine

NatGeo quality photos without the nagging advertisements for now.

I like the theme, keeping it real. No photography/digital art non-sense. They like photos that capture what is "there" instead of an alternate reality depicting photoshop-induced artistry.


shutter nox
-- keepin it real...

Of Doll's and Marriage

Fresh from the inbox. This cracked me up!


A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about. For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would not recover. In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside. She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.

He asked her about the contents. “When we were to be married,” she said, “my grandmother
told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”

The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.

“Honey,” he said, “that explains the doll, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”. “Oh,” she said, “that’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”



husband nox
-- the joys of marriage...

Diggnation Vidcast on PSP

Wooooottt!!!

Am probably the last person to try this, having had the PSP since last year but never really got to try this feature since I was stuck with the 1.5 firmware.

Oh my, this is really shiny!

If I could get smoothjazz.com to stream on this thingy, that would really be rockingly shiny!

Location Free Television in Tokyo

Via Slashdot.

Picture this.

- You are an OFW.
- The Filipino Channel (TFC) for you is an expensive luxury.
- You got $200 plus to spare for a Location Free device (get the cheaper wired only model).
- You got reliable and cheap DSL connection back in the Philipines.
- You got some decent understanding of how TCP/IP works.

With location free, you can watch your favorite local shows (PBA, Teleseryes, etc) on your lappy-tappy, PSP and other supported devices anywhere with an internet connection.

Yes, you can currently time shift almost any video/audio at this current day and age, so why bother with location free? Well, this one is real time, meaning you can watch the local shows live!

Hooray! for the flat world.

Open Source Photography?

Wicked!

Interesting wiki.

Stream iTunes to your PSP

Sweeeeeettt!

With a bit more RSS XML whackery, mt-daapd can probably do the job. :))

Got to refresh my aging PERL kung-fu if the lazy web doesn't have a solution available at the moment.

PSP Update

3.10 Custom Firmware is out!

Tried updating our PSP last night because am interested in the slightly faster browsing experience the new firmware has to offer. Since this is a firmware flash, the risk of bricking is quite real. Fortunately the update process went smoothly and the PSP came out unscathed.

The update lets me for the first time try viewing the videos included in the sample UMD disc. And boy the screen is absolutely gorgeous! The spiderman 2 preview was difinitely shiny to watch on the PSP screen.

The update also updated the audio player. It now have a visual display akin to what you see on modern day media players. Pretty shiny still.

Sony should provide RSS feed reader for text tho. Until now you can only view video and audio RSS feeds. An email client would also add to this handheld's appeal. On the accessory side, an external keyboard will tripple the shiny factor of this little bugger. A driver for the Palm's Universal Keyboard will make this a really sweet machine.

Another app that Sony should add is a VOIP client. PSP with VOIP or Skype integration will really make it rock!

Anyway web browsing is a tad faster. Something that made me do the update in the first place. Still trying to find a decent web based RSS reader as Google still doesn't have a mobile version of its Google Reader app.

Location Free

Wow, this is seriously redundantly shiny!

Its like taking your PSP on steroids.


The network is the computer!

Google Themes

Since I use Google's personalized homepage as the default for all my browsers, the newly added theme-ing feature is rather shiny!

Take it for a spin, for now its restricted to a set of pre-defined themes, but knowing Google, expect user contributed/hacked versions in the future.

Best Career Advice in less than 30 seconds.

This early, I also encourage and tell my kids to do well in school, and someday have their own company. For me its quite important not to limit them by saying "study hard so that you can land a good job after school". I want them to grow up with the entrepreneurial mindset.

And last but not the least, I hope they grow up to be a global Filipino, exploring and learning the new flat world.

Flower Power!

Flower Power
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Haven't blog in a while. Been too busy coding the Philippines coolest online tourism portal lately. I still have a ton of images to process during our Baguio Panagbenga trip.

Here is a teaser for now.

My Current Heroes

In no frackin' particular order.

- Apache mod alias "Redirect" feature. Smashingly shiny! Saved my butt because tiny_mce somehow ain't doing relative url mapping.
- JPEGImageEncode/Decoder and JPEGCodec bundled with most JDK's. Automatic server side image resizing galore. No more excuses to not accept high resolution images.
- The lazy web, for providing algorithms to keep that frackin' image aspect ratio.


Some thoughts, making an application user friendly is like asking a makeup artist to make her model look natural. Its a long and not so easy process.


dev nox
-- drag and drop, resize on demand, server side processing junkie...

Canola!

The Nokia N800 loaded with Canola is terribly sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetttt!!!

However, I still dream of that dastardly result of combining the Sony PSP gaming system and the Maemo OS. That would really be undeniably shiny!

The Myth Of Talent

Worth the read. The download-able article argues that "talent is a set of skills you develop over time through desire". Not the typical "its either you have it or you don't".

Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Watch

Santa, its still a long time till Christmas, but maybe this could give you a headstart.

My fervent dreams of location based apps would definitely benefit from this little bulky bugger. Tracking the distance I walk everyday should be undeniably fun too. :)



gadget nox
-- wishful thinking...

Musings

- Frack! Broke my left eyeglass when am just about to leave the house this morning. Replacement would set me back 700 bucks. That's life.
- Loving NBA Live 2007 on the PSP. Makes me look forward to the train rides on my everday commute. Love the live commentaries and the much improved gameplay. My current season standing: 5 wins - 4 losses. Not bad for a newbie.Next game against the Bucks.

nox
-- on a northbound train...

Rocking Chapel

Family went to the local chapel in our village to hear mass today. Was pleasantly surprised at the end of the mass the local children choir were really awesome singing the song "One Way". Everybody was upbeat with the pop-rockin tune.

We have stayed for over a year in this village, and we are really loving the place. A local chapel within the village is really rockin, since its walking distance from the apartment and the mass schedule is 9am every sunday. Aside from that, its just one jeepney ride from the MRT and pretty much near the wet market so that makes it pretty darn convenient.

For the meantime the song is currently on top of my last song syndrome queue (LSS).


faithful nox
-- singin', One way, Jesus, your the only one that I could live for...

Back to earth.

Ok, am back to work, my mind that is.

My body feels different tho, after 4 days of non-stop walking in Baguio (really impractical not to go around on foot during the Panabenga festivities), its only now that the tired feeling is settling in.

Ok, back to work...

Touchdown in Baguio

Touchdown in Baguio
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Interesting place. Cool weather. Haven't slept a wink yet. Need to catch some Zzzzzs.

Baguio here we come!

Baguio Gear
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Ah the digital age. Back in the day, probably you only have to bring instamatic Kodak film type cameras to record your vacation. Past forward 2007, you have portable video recorder, digital SLR camera and portable gaming gear you can bring with you.

In two hours we will be leaving for Baguio. Our first family outing, just the four of us (Lovey, Rojan and Janro). Hope the kids will enjoy the uber cool weather and the flower (Panagbenga) festival.

Excited!

froggy nox
-- Hopping around in Baguio soon...

Improved Navigation

Woot!

Based on popular demand, we just added categorized views for location and interest pages. Simple modifications, but makes navigating the site much, much, better.

For the record, internet explorer (IE) still sucks! go Firefox!


froggy nox
-- Hop around, look around...

The new Canon 1D Mark III

10 FPS and dual digic III processors? SHINY!

The new accessories like the wireless transmitter is pretty shiny too. Can't find the info how to integrate a GPS into the thing, that would be redundantly shiny.

One of the things to salivate in your dreams. In reality a 5D with a 24-105 IS attached would be good enough for me. But even that is still a distant dream.

Don't get me wrong, the 350D that I have is pretty damn good starter kit. I just wish they made it more ergonomic and provided the adjustment wheel found on the 20D/30D and upward models. With that said, I could say the 30D is what I need and the 5D is what I want. The wife says a family car should be the real priority since the children are growing up, so for short, no other frackin' expense till we get that one.

Now if only I could earn from blabbering blogging... Maybe I should set up my own picture gallery and put some Ad Sense there and pretend number of people would be interested in them. Put up a donate to my 5D fund button if Paypal Philippines would put its act together and finally allow that feature for those of us living here.



shutter nox
-- back to work, nuff said...

Apple's new wireless router.

This Apple guys really gets it! No longer you have to buy a separate SLUG to plug your external storaged device into the network without a host computer.


mac nox
-- now back to work...

Bluer than blue.

Bluer than blue.
Originally uploaded by nocs.

I like how saturating the blue channel in this photo turned out. The correct exposure allowed the photo to retain the detail in the clouds even if I doofus-ly shot it in JPEG instead of RAW.

Solitude

Solitude
Originally uploaded by nocs.

My first stab at black and white. I like how the tiny image of the fisherman is framed nicely within the reflection of the sky. The mountain on the left side gives a cue on the scale I think.

I could imagine myself in place of the fisherman, neath a cloudy sky, thinking of nothing, pondering the mysteries of life and the universe, just me, the boat, the clouds, the view, the cool breeze of the ocean, wondering just how to get back to the frackin' shore.

Transient Objects

Am addicted to XML serialization and deserialization via XStream. It rocks!

One thing to watch out if you are using dependency injection (AspectJ) is to make sure your helper objects are declared transient. Else XStream will complain of stack overflow. So save yourself from countless omit field statements and just declare those injected objects as transient.


dev nox
-- swimming in a sea of XML data...

Firefox rocks on my mac, but...

It frackin' hogs the CPU. Safari on the other hand seems to slowly leaks in to memory, but doesn't hog the CPU that much. The web developer plugin on firefox is a gem of a tool that keeps me coming back to use it from time to time. Wish they could fix the CPU hogging thing so I could use it as my main browser on my poor single core G4 processor.

Enough, whining. Back to coding..


dev nox
-- wishing for a macbook pro...

TomTom Bluetooth GPS Receiver

Update: Of the GPS receivers I mentioned a while ago. The TomTom Bluetooth GPS receiver seems to be the sexiest. Not to mention small and interfaces nicely with most PDA's including my trusty old treo.

Too bad, I don't have Paypal Donate button.

GPS Hunt

I wonder which of this GPS list is the cheapest?

I need one for my location based services (LBS) ideas that still titillates the wet corners of my mind from time to time.


traveller nox
-- no direction home...

SysAd Musings

MRTG reporting something consuming the bandwidth at 80%. After checking the mailq, I have 6K plus deferred messages also holding the CPU hostage (almost 50% ).

One command to rule them all:

postsuper -d ALL deferred

Modern day digital surgery of a machine's electronic artery. They do rhyme, don't they?



sysad nox
-- loving one liners...

MTR

Yes, I had been slacking off my sysadmin required reading and only now discovered this wonderful little bugger. Better than traceroute and ping. I like the live latency updates, and its quite fun using this on a machine connected via GPRS and 3G.


sysad nox
-pingin' and tracin'...

MRT woes

Wondering why its so hard to geta stored value card this days. Seems to go together with the recent announcements that G-Pass conduits now available at all MRT stations. Add to that the recent sightings of future-dressed G-Pass girls with old school megaphones(?) hawking the merits of G-Pass.

Another thing that caught my attention is the 1% deduction for every reload. Aside from the fact that it requires that you have at least 16 pesos balance to use the thing.

Let me see, its more expensive, you don't seem to get a bonus ride, the convenience factor compared to card based entry isn't that noticeable and last but not the least proprietary. Not surprisingly, MRT passengers doesn't seem to line up on those G-Pass booths, so what's keeping them from using it?

mobile nox
- <i>mo-bloggin on a southbound train...</i>

Today's bathroom musings.

In no particular frackin' order:
• IE version 6 below sucks! Period. Its a PITA when its the only browser incorrectly rendering your webpage.
• Good thing am a back end developer, but crossing the front end line is downright unavoidable. That's the time you curse cross browser rendering issues.
• HappySlip on youtube rocks. Now I won't dare leave our toothbrush in the bathroom. Its the "meesst" that haunts you. Love the paean mac song too.

slippy nox
- <i>still cursing IE 6, while singing happyslip's mac song, whilst outside the room inside my mind...</i>

Manila Times HopAround.net Article

Our little baby in beta (hoparound.net) got featured in an online manila times article. Reposting it here.


HopAround.net benefits
microenterprises in Vigan


A local tour guide and car rental operator based in Vigan may not have the knowledge or the resources to promote their services to a potential tourist from the other side of the continent. But soon, even those tasty empanadas created by the town’s manangs can be a byword in the ever-growing global village concept created by Internet technology.

For those who are interested to climb the High Peak in Palauig, Zambales—considered the highest point in Central Luzon at 2,030 meters—can now start with “a click of a mouse” by visiting www.Hop­Around.net, a web portal offering Internet visibility to micro-entrepreneurs in the country, along with the capacity to provide tourism services to local and foreign travelers.

“Entrepreneurs engaged in the tourism industry from all over the country will soon be given a ‘voice’ and a ‘face’ in the worldwide web for all travelers to see with the launch of HopAround,” Philip Camara, president of HopAround.net said.

Micro entrepreneurs in Palauig and nearby Iba who provide 4x4 vehicles, packed meals, camping gear, personal guides, and more, can now make their services visible in the Internet by registering at HopAround.net.

“HopAround’s basic advocacy is ‘Local Economy for Local People.’ The web portal will create new business opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs, referred to as Micro Tourism Service Providers [MTSP], who can provide transport, lodging, meals, guides, gear, packaged tours among others, for tourists,” Philip said.

Because the MTSPs are from the area, they have extensive knowledge of their particular locations and therefore know the most scenic destinations, the most interesting local culture sites, the best out-of-the-way local fare eateries, the most knowledgeable personal guides, the cleanest and most comfortable lodgings, and at the most competitive rates available, offering the tourist a totally different experience from the usual tour and travel packages in the market.

The HopAround website presents popular spots around the Philippines which tourists can review while mapping out their travel plans. Each destination will be linked with registered MTSPs from the chosen locality, each MTSP allocated with an online information box where the MTSPs contact details are posted and a chat window for inquiries provided. The tourist may access the listing of MTSPs and the contact details by clicking on the desired point of interest or location, thereby allowing direct interaction between the MTSP and the tourist or allowing the tourist to post an inquiry in the MTSP’s chat window.

“The more service providers there are enlisted to cater to this growing number of tourists, the better the local tourism industry will be. And since tourism impacts the economy greatly, both people and country will benefit,” he added.



oh yeah, hopefully this will let both foreign and local tourists/travellers find awesome destinations in the Philippines!



froggie nox
-- Life is an adventure. Look around, hop around...

Still Life

Still Life
Originally uploaded by nocs.

The typical workstation scenario. Tools of the trade. Music, light, mountain dew, water, tissue, alcohol, a cup of coffee/tea, keyboard and mouse, and last but not the least, my trusty sidekick/pda.

Its been a week now since I leave the lappy at home. I still miss it. Desktop GNOME, while vastly improved is still no match for the tight integration of apps on OS X. But its close. But this would do, as the iBook is out of warranty and no money to upgrade yet.

On the other hand, the dual core office workstation rocks! My apps compiles twice as fast! Makes me yearn for a core 2 duo macbook or better yet, a macbook pro! Dream on...


worker nox
-- because a clean desk is a sign of sick mind...

Life is an adventure. Look around, hop around...

Yesterday we launched HopAround.net beta!

This is basically an online app that aims to discover the unbeaten path. A different perspective in the online tourism sector. Basically we want to norture and build micro tourism entrepreneurs and build local economy for the local people. By discovering new places to go and micro entrepreneurs, we hope to bring a fresh and less costly approach in discovering the beauty of the Philippines.

We are also adding a pinch of a web 2.0 ingredients: building online communities and social participation. We are working closely with the locals in each province to add content. We are also working hard to throw in there our m-commerce and mobile apps experience. We still have a gazillion long feature list. Stay tuned.

Other than that, we want to be the one of the premier destinations on the net if you want to hop around the Philippine archipelago.


froggie nox
-- The Philippines today, tomorrow the world! The future is mobile, look around, hop around...

The tree and the sky.

The tree and the sky.
Originally uploaded by nocs.

I am the tree,
You are the sky.
Clouds go by,
But my love won't die.


puwetik nox
-- janelletic pa rin...

Photo hacking

Stare
Originally uploaded by nocs.

In some ways digital photography is also like hacking. Like the photographers of the old days hacking film, modern photographers hack thru digital darkrooms (a.k.a. post processing on a computer).

Although my main interest is still capturing whats there (and not faking it), with minimal post processing as much as possible. That means getting the shot right in the first place and just minimal post processing afterwards. On post processing however, I do want to hack up a workflow that makes images that I capture distinctively mine. And am currently beginning to discover the advantages of shooting RAW instead of JPEG.


shutter nox
-- hacking my digital negatives...

PicooZ RC Helicopter

PicooZ
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Sent by good my good friend winston, this litter bugger is really fun to fly around! Fine tuning it is a bit tricky. You have to keep the rear rotor blades perfectly aligned, else the helicopter body will also spin around. Once in flight you can use the left and right trim controls to stabilize the helicopter. The box also include a few strips of silver tape, that you stick on the front for added weight to facilitate forward flight.

What's neat is that its virtually crash proof since the body is made of styro foam and the rotors are made of flexible plastic. Another nice touch is the helicopter charges via the RC remote, so all you need is a 6 AA rechargeable batteries.

Its small enough that you can play it inside the house or and office cubicle for that matter. The blue blinking light inside the body makes it possible to fly this at night. It can also reach two stories high on an open ground. Watch out for the wind, this thing gets easily swept away.

Am 29 and I still love toys, I think thats also the reason why I love hanging out with my two kids, its a good excuse to be a kid again. :D


pilot nox
-- Flying, soaring... Happy that we could be...

Shadow, is my friend. I don't have to make ammends.

Shadow, is my friend.
Originally uploaded by nocs.

I remembered being fascinated with Peter Pan's shadow in my youth. There was a scene in the movie when Peter was trying to catch his own shadow. So last weekend while I was trying out my "home photography" experiments, I noticed my shadow just waiting there for the camera, and so I obliged and gently pressed the shutter.

shadow nox
-- shadows and shapes, make em' shake...

Multi-touch

You all have seen the iPhone keynote. And one to the technologies that makes it shiny, is multi-touch. Some geeky stuff here. This is what I am excited about, Apple innovating and other companies are somehow forced to follow. I smile when reading about people whining about the lack of 3G features, too early to tell if it has set the bar, yada, yada. They just don't get it.


Now to get you a more visual, hands-on experience (got this from iandexter's feed).



Imagine the impact of this technology in the future, not hard to see it implemented in laptops or on OLED displays. This will change the aging current user interfaces and will probably tickle the minds of those in the porn tech industry.

visual nox
-- touchy monday morn.

Lean and mean.

Aside from aiming to lose a few baby fats, I also started trimming the things I bring daily. Am stationing my out of warranty iBook at home for the moment and converted one of the machines at work as my workstation. Was pleasantly surprised how polished the default GNOME environment is on ubuntu. I still hasn't tried making the dual core work on the Pentium D workstation, cat /proc/cpuinfo only shows one processor. More on this later. I would miss the iBook, but since its out of warranty and we don't have a budget for an upgrade, it would be safer it stays home.

For now, am limiting my gear to my trusted Treo and its gullible infra-red keyboard. Might bring my kid's PSP from time to time since it has wi-fi and the built in web browser is quite usable. Besides am enjoying PQ, quite addicting 3D puzzle game. Other than that, I might also take a stab at street photography and do a photo-a-day sort of thing.

This would also force me to setup system to seamlessly pass/share data around my home and work computer. For now, there is no denying how useful the aging CVS is. I haven't tried Sub-version, since work is piled up and that would mean configuration changes and finding out if Eclipse supports it.

It was weird traveling light on my way to the office this morning. Using the regular keyboard brings nostalgic feelings, likewise using a regular mouse as opposed to a laptop's touch pad.

My journey into digital photography

Tribu in the sand


I had always been fascinated by photography but never had a chance to try it till last year when I got the 350D. I percieved film back then to be costly, unlike today's digital. My goal for now is to be the best photographer there is for my wife and kids (FHM models would also be nice). I think my field would be "home photography", people who loves to errr, take pictures of everyday things found in his home. Still lots to learn tho, much of it is understanding the light, if dancing is making love with the dance floor, photography is also making love with the light.

But still, the process of capturing those priceless moments in time is such a great stress reliever after long hours in front of the computer.



Waiter, got milk?


In a way, am also trying to cultivate the creative part in me (more like trying to discover if I had it). Although I have read somewhere that photography is for people who aren't very good at creating art, and if you can't create art, it might be easier just to capture it. But others will surely disagree, as they say that what would separate a photographer from a snap shooter? the photographer composes/creates, the snap shooter simply takes a picture.



The umbrella pose


At the end of the day, I like photography because it forces me to try to find beauty in everyday things.


shutter nox
-- if a picture paints a thousand words...

Today's musings

In no particular order:
• Just watched a CNN clip early this morning regarding the iPhone's appeal on the asian market. Interesting in a way that the it focused on Japan, where the mobile technology is more advanced than any other country in the world. Thanks to its broadband speed mobile data infrastructure, in Japan, the phone not only plays TV, you can use it literally for a train ride, email, IM, browse the internet, GPS your way into Tokyo, buy something from the fruitstand, remotely control your coffee machine, etc., and last but not the least, make a phone call.
• So how does the iPhone stack up to a market like this? With mobile data infrastructure a generation ahead than its GSM/Edge/Wi-fi/Bluetooth combo? The answer is simple, as one japanese in the interview puts it: "its stylish, and I'm curious." And quite frankly, that is just what the iPhone needs to make a dent in the asian market.
• On the other hand, am continously fascinated how advanced mobile technology is in Japan. The degree it becomes an extension of an individual there. From an architect carrying his digital blueprints there, teenagers watching TV, a father paying for his groceries just by placing the phone on top of conduit point of sale device, an old man using the phone's mapping application to navigate downtown tokyo, to a commuter tapping his phone to an train turns-style entrance (drastically minimizes lines), an so much more!
• What makes it so successfull in Japan? Why isn't it yet that wide spread in a flat world? Can the Philippines, the texting capital of the world, also do it? What would it take?

nox
-- Japan is a MobileIndie's wet dream come true.

My manly hands

My manly hands
Originally uploaded by nocs.

In another futile attemp to have a body of decent shape, am determined to conquer the threadmill. This time, am adding a cheap 18lbs dumb bell to the mix.

The strategy is to walk/run at least 15-30 minutes every other day. Shoot! thats already a conservative estimate. Am also determined to finally get rid of still lingering baby fats around my cute belly. I don't care if I lose a pretty functional stabilizer (prop your elbows on your tummy for added instability when taking a picture, you get the drift).

Lets see again where this goes...

athletic nox
-- by all means, wish me luck...

OS X PostgreSQL binary

Since I reformatted my iBook over the weekend (on a very slow DSL connection, go figure.), am still in the process of getting the apps I NEED one by one. I had always loved PostgreSQL (and it has alwasy loved me back), even back in the day, MySQL just doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, I searched the lazy web for a lean and mean binary installer instead of going thru the usual process of installing the OS X dev kit, installing fink, and manually compiling postgres. Turns out, as expected that somebody has done just that. From somebody with a domain ending in .ch, my oh my, the world is now flat indeed!


dev nox
-- Postgres rocks!

He was selling us the future -- mobile, broadband-connected and ubiquitous.

This wired magazine post nailed it squarely on the head. Am a bit amused why some people whine regarding the lack of 3G, among other things, they just don't get it. Steve is selling us the future of mobility. And damn! I like the direction he is going.

Same goes for the Apple computer, it isn't just the hardware, its the combination of all the technologies that makes your computer a tool, rather than a state of the art computing machine. It allows you to think more of the problems you are trying to solve, rather than the computer be a problem in itself. In short, it makes a pretty good effort to get technology out of your way, and that separates it from the rest.


mac nox
-- i love my mac...

Oddities of my digital life.

Shoot, its my 900th post to blogger! :) probably more than a thousand if it included my .plan whinings since circa '96.

Also, here I am, contemplating of formatting my iBook. Everything is backed up and ready to go. Except for one thing, i forgot my yahoo messenger password. And since I only use my my yahoo account for messenger, that means I didn't bother to change it for the past 3 years. Didn't change, also means I don't have clue as to what password I used then. Recover tools doesn't work since I also don't remember data I entered back then. Oh well.

My gulay! I should just frackin' create a new yahoo id and be done with it.


odd nox
-- pondering my digital life...

Welcome to the "Age of Mobility"!

My excitement over the iPhone lies deeper actually. Its the thought that this device could actually trigger the "Age of Mobility". The hype will fuel other phone manufacturers to innovate. Or pressure those other phone companies to "REALLY" innovate. Because from this moment on, every frackin new phone will be judged against the iPhone. That excites me more!

Mark my word. The "Age of Mobility" has began.

mobilenox
- "mobile indie! independently mobile!"

You would never look at other phones the same way again.

Yes, thats right. Just watched the iPhone keynote intro. Man, you really won't look at other phones the same way again. Every other phone model out there looks obsolete compared to the iPhone. It has OS X running on it for starters. The interface is so damn shiny! The connectivity, the audio/video integration, iPhoto managegment, the sweet, sweet little touches that makes your digital life easier, am gonna love a phone like that.

Apple's new iPhone!!!

WOWWWWWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Apple Rocks!!!

Hello 2007!

Ah life...

Stereotypical faster than the blink of an eye, its 2007!

And all we want is world peace!


Later...

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