Monday, January 16, 2006

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Oh goodie, netbeans mobility pack now available for the mac platform. NetBeans
ThinkGeek :: Freedom Keepsafe... Should be quite usable for those of us who seem to have short term memory when it comes to our gadgets. The device is a proximity based system and would set off an alarm when you are a few meters apart from your favorite gadget.

Priced $29.99. Maybe some enterprising pinoy could come up with a similar but inexpensive version.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Salling Software - Salling Clicker for Mac. This is one really nifty software. It allows you to wirelessly control your Mac/PC via a bluetooth enabled cellphone.

With the Treo, I could for example browse my iTunes collection and select an Playlist/Artist etc on the iBook. It can even suport DVD controls so you can control the movie you are watching from a distance.

Groovy...
Wake up when my alarm clock goes off on 43 Things

On the top of my New Year resolution. Pretty hard for somebody nocturnal.
Wake up when my alarm clock goes off on 43 Things

On the top of my New Year resolution. Pretty hard for somebody nocturnal.
Palm Presentation. Slick! The next age of mobility.

Mobile Indie! Independently mobile!
- nox
Animated Weather for PDA's. Too bad it only covers the US. Wala bang PAGASA to have something similar for the Philippines?

For the meantime am relying on Yahoo's weather forecast via http://wap.oa.yahoo.com synced daily via Avantgo.

Weather, weather lang yan...

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Apple's SF keynote was finished at last. Drool on the new intel based macintosh(es). That magnetic power cord is a really nifty and practical touch as well as the built in iSight. its the simple things like these that makes macs one of the best bang for the buck machines.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Loving the Treo 650. No wifi and around 23mb or usable memory. But really a kick-ass convergent device.

Mobile video is definitely the trend of the year. I managed to watch an entire season of CSI Las Vegas whilst riding the MRT. Currently halfway thru Bob Dylan's No Direction Home dvd directed by Martin Scorsese. Highly recommendable. That man really has the pulse of the younger generation during his time.

Also managed to find the much sought after sony ericsson mp3 headset (priced nicely at P400) that is compatible with the Treo. The only minor gripe was my ear wasn't designed for those regular earphones, so I can only use the headphones when not mobile. For now am looking around for those in-ear silicon caps that you can plug into your ear canal :D.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Hula on FreeBSD. Not much luck making it run on our dev server yet. Tried both the gethula script and manual patching method. Will take another stab at the weekend.

Beastie is having a hard time learning to hula.
The shape of things to come

Checking out Engadget's coverage of this years CES at Las Vegas.

Those huge plasma and lcd dijavascript:void(0);splays certainly makes me drool. But my modest means are still light years away in the possibility of owning one.

To a certain degree, I do hope we have something like those nationwide highspeed data networks they have in the US. That could really boost countryside development and finally bring the internet to those that need it the most.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Its only 8:30am. And am on my second cup of coffee. Am plowing thru last year's codebase. Since monday mundane, managed to get up early (5am!) as a part of my new year resolution to do some lifehacks. Early bird catches the wiggly worm. Riding the wild elmo before breakfast would be a nice too, and should be done often. But still fairly nauseated by the whole waking up early thing. I still can't let go of sleeping at 3am, or at the very least 1am. There's something about the nocturnal nature of us software engineers that is so damn hard to change. As if doing all nighters were the sine qua non. Lets see where this goes.

Monday, January 02, 2006

New year again. Whew! That was fast!

Looking forward outside the room inside my mind.

Pwede ba, itigil muna...
Ang pag-ikot ng mundo..
- Eraserheads (Spoliarium)

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Sunday, December 18, 2005

LibriVox ? LibriVox Catalog: Acoustical liberation of books in the public domain.

Just what the world needs.

Spread the love.

Merry Christmas! Everybody! Happy new year too!


Thursday, December 15, 2005

Gmail Mobile!

Been using gmail a lot using an email client and rarely do I use a regular browser to access my mail. So was surprised that it now has a mobile page specially designed for mobile devices -> http://m.gmail.com

Just in time for the holiday season. Thanks Google!

BeJUG - Transactional J2EE Apps with Spring


Wicked use of flash. Instead of just having a powerpoint download, this uses flash to present both the slide and the speaker to a web audience.

Imagine a world where the best teachers would make their lessons available for everyone! Opensource based education! Pancit-eating promdi's like me has now access to the same type of lessons as their Fetuccini-eating metro manila counterpart.

Of course the Internet as it is, has more or less has the features I described above. The problem is how do you bring the Internet to the poor or bringing the poor to the Internet.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Linux successfully installed on Treo 650 - Engadget - www.engadget.com.



It would take a while before it would become usable. Elsewhere Palm announced the move to Linux for the Palm OS. Hopefully they follow nokia's path and opensource the sdk like what they did for maemo.
Found the download link at last -> Google Earth for Mac OS X Beta. Lazy web at its finest.

Ganda talaga ng mansion ni Mang Hefner. :D



Google Earth for Mac OS X: it's here

Cool! I can once again drool over Hefner's place.

Btw, The download link given has exceeded its bandwidth allotment. Bummer... Can't find the official link on earth.google.com either.

Monday, December 12, 2005

get-visibility.com, unlimited gprs plans for globe. their answer to pldt's weroam service.

the weroam wireless sierra card have no xp 64bit driver. so our mobile executive is using a spare bluetooth enabled phone to act as a conduit for dialup networking. this works well if you have other gadgets that can also take advantage of the unlimited gprs connection. frustrating if the laptop was your only device.

hopefully sierra could come up with the drivers soon. checking lazy web if those sony erricson pcmcia gsm modems have 64bit xp support.

Friday, December 09, 2005

LBS again...

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have an RSS feed of all points of interests (POI) in the Philippines (with location information). This can be arranged via categories.

Next step is to find a decent vector map that can be overlayed perhaps on top of Google map.

The RSS feed can be voluntary and for free. Meaning establishments could register their location and maybe a bunch of other metadata.

- Name
- Category (Pre-defined? Restaurant, Motel etc)
- Website!
- Contact Person
- Contact Numbers

This would fit nicely into the scheme of things since POI's aren't mobile. Maybe we could place shotcode stickers there or a code of some sort where you can send the code via sms to indicate where you are. That way your social network could be notified of your location. This eliminates the need to triangulate your location or require the user to have a GPS device of some sort.

This would enable you to perhaps ask a bartender at a new bar what their Location Code is and send it via SMS indicating you want to send the an MMS map to all your friends on the way to there. Maybe business cards would perhaps include your Location Code so that your associates can know the locatino of your office. Nice isn't it? The Location Code can just be a simple concatination of your latitude and lontitude to make it easy to decode.

This could immensely change the way you search things on the internet. Radius can be included as a search parameter.

Or maybe hire somebody with a GPS reciever to go to POI's and record their metadata.

Now to find somebody to fund this idea.


Everywhere you go, you shout it!
There's no need to be shy, about it now...
- U2 (Original of the Species)

Thursday, December 08, 2005

John Lennon documentary playing on TV currently. Rockin' musician. Genuine ability to blend thoughtful lyrics and pleasant melodies.

Somewhere out there, my guitar gently weeps. Damnably missing the good old electric guitar. Make no mistake, I have absolutely no musical talent whatsoever.


Imagine all the people,
Livin life in peace...
-John Lennon

Typical 1am routine


Typical 1am routine
Originally uploaded by nocs.
Coffee and bread to calm the stomach. Search engines to feed the starving mind.



Always loving the serenity of early dawn. A time when thoughts can wander freely. Bandwith all mine.



The terminal blinks, seducing the subconcious. Hands that dance in vi restrained rythms. A new day begins.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Cyberspace Santa, would really love a copy of this.

The Apple Store (U.S.) - The Sims 2 by Aspyr

With the introduction of genetics in Sims 2, you can control your sims over a lifetime and pass their sims' DNA down from one generation to the next. The sims evolve by genetically passing on physical and personality traits. Create and play your own virtual sitcom by choosing one of five different aspirations--Popularity, Fortune, Family, Knowledge or Romance. These aspirations in life cause your sims to have wants and fears. Will you give them a long successful existence or leave their life in shambles?

The Sims 2 also opens up endless new creative possibilities. Make your own sim films with the new movie-making feature. Create the cast, set the stage, take control of the camera and capture your own screenplay in action. Zoom in close with the new camera to see every last detail.


Wish ko lang....

Monday, December 05, 2005

Aardvark'd Trailer: Twelve Weeks with Geeks - Google Video.

Four interns are brought into Manhattan and given 12 weeks to design, develop, debug and ship a program that will change the way computer geeks around the world fix their friends' computers. Boondoggle Films presents a journey through the world of software development from the perspective of a unique upstart, four quirky interns, and the world of The Geek.

Would love to watch this film. A 320x320 version would do.

Btw, this is the first time I tried out Google Video (beta) and man it does rock!

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Overview of Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8.

Jolly Kamote! This is hot! Check out the collaboration tool. Truly, we live in exciting times.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Adobo Blogging in Real time.


Adobo Blogging in Real time.
Originally uploaded by nocs.
1 kilo pork

2 large potatoes

4 medium sized onions

Lots of garlic

Half bottle of Silver swan soy sauce

Half cup of vinegar

Half liter of drinking water



Cut pork and potatoes into bite size chunks. Mix everything in a large frying pan. Let it boil and simmer until pork is tender and the kitchen is filled with hunger inducing aroma. Hopefully everything was mixed just right. Marvel at finally demystifying one of the best kept secret of modern day Filipino takosas.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Testing the company PLDT WeROAM account for our mobile executive. Feels just like dialup. According to some forums Globe's similar service seems to be better.

The SIM does work when you put it to another phone with bluetooth and use it as a wireless GPRS modem. Works great with the treo after fiddling a bit with the weroam apn and corresponding settings. Too bad you can't make phonecalls or recieve text with this SIM.

Waiting in vain that this type of data service could be offered for P500 a month or less...

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Roaming charges: Can you base my location now?

Another stab at the enevitable copulation of the web and the nextgen GPS enabled cellphone.

Location-based software has held concepts of safety and privacy in counterbalance since its inception. Mologogo.com and other Web 2.0 contenders are now entering a third concept into the mix: social convenience, fueled by technology.

LBS integration to web pop culture hits like Flickr is not so farfetched. The basic computer bundled with GPS can open posibilities like DNS traversal based on your geographic location. The mighty Google would likely consider giving you search results in relevance to where you are located.

Exciting? Scary? Kalokohan?


Saturday, November 26, 2005

Treonaut

5th day with the treo 650. Finding the builtin thumboard convenient and weirdly usable for both two or one hand typing. Remarkably stable, it does help to be a late adopter. Lovin the chat like interface for SMS. It helps a lot in picking up where you left off on your last conversation. Great battery life, finished a 40 minute vidcast, played a bunch of mp3 songs, halfway thru an ebook and several RSS feeds and it still has 17 percent left. Dunno how it fares for cellebabad scenarios, as I havent found someone foolish enough to test it with me. A pleasant surprise, your GPRS connection settings are automatically configured. No more fiddling around with GPRS chat scripts.

It also plays nicely with Tiger. No problem syncing via the USB cable or bluetooth. This has no wifi, unlike my old clie. So the most practical means of getting avantgo content is via syncing with an internet enabled computer.

Not treo sprcific, Avantgo's RSS support is a most welcome feature. Now you only need one mobile web content manager for handling RSS and web clippings for sites designed for mobile devices. The best part is that the software and service is free (up to 3mb). The wireless option also lets you choose which channel gets updated. Quite useful to cut down GPRS connectivity costs.

The bundled Realplayer is quite capable of handling mp3s, and the freeware Tcpmp is an insanely reliable video player that can play movied at 30fps.

Photoblogging is also an easy to do on the treo. Am using flickr and blogger combo to simplify posting a photo taken from the treo to flicker and to my blog. Can be done via MMS or as a versamail attachment. Although the former would be cheaper since MMS messages are billed on a flat per transaction rate. Unlike email which is billed per kb.

The usual Palm PIM goodies had also recieved some nice updates. Color coded calendar entries makes it easier to group events.

The main killer app would be PSSH, which works smoothly with the treo (just like isaw and cheap red wine). This allows you to login to your ssh enabled server whenever and wherever you like as long as your location is covered by your celco.

More on this treonatical adventures later. For now all I can say is: its a damn slick and functional convergent device.

cheers!

nox

Rojan and Me.


Rojan and Me.
Originally uploaded by nocs.
To be hugged and kissed, to hear her sweet voice say "I love you Dad!", PRICELESS... Life is good. There still is hope.



Am the happiest father in the world!

Friday, November 25, 2005

Market! Market!


Market! Market!
Originally uploaded by nocs.
Family fun at the mall. Trying out if this place has something for cheapskates like us.



Yes the guy wouldn't move. Obviously we haven't put anything on his box yet. When it does, the kids love it to the max. Ah yes, you can just watch em' for free.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Gary Mercado blogs about the newIpod Nano on INQ7.net. The wonderment does start when you hear the songs and how Apple managed to make it so simple. Simply, music in you pocket.

Now, I still don't own an Ipod. But Kiyosaki is the one to blame. I want the next purchase in my "want" category list to come from my asset column. Suddenly paying 20k plus for an ipod video doesn't appeal that much anymore.

Must resist, must resist...


Heto na ang pinakahihintay natin...
Heto na tayo magkayakap sa dilim...
-APO Hiking Society (playing on an imaginary ipod)

Disconnected

No DSL connection yet on the new apartment. Bayantel can't commit a timeframe, as it depends on the availabiliy of a slot on our area. Other than that, loving the only one jeepney ride routine from the MRT. Its actually much cheaper than the tricycle ride when we were in munoz.

On another news, seriously pondering kiyosakis' book "rich dad, poor dad". So true, we direly need to teach our kids the value of financial literacy early in life. Truly worth reading.

Also got a new tool/toy! Allows me to ssh into our servers in virtually any area where there is cellphone coverage. Provides audio/video entertainment, manage my schedule, and yes, can also handle phonecalls. An added bonus, it doesnt run on windows :D

Cheers!

Nox

Disconnected

No DSL connection yet on the new apartment. Bayantel can't commit a timeframe, as it depends on the availabiliy of a slot on our area. Other than that, loving the only one jeepney ride routine from the MRT. Its actually much cheaper than the tricycle ride when we were in munoz.

On another news, seriously pondering kiyosakis' book "rich dad, poor dad". So true, we direly need to teach our kids the value of financial literacy early in life. Truly worth reading.

Also got a new tool/toy! Allows me to ssh into our servers in virtually any area where there is cellphone coverage. Provides audio/video entertainment, manage my schedule, and yes, can also handle phonecalls. An added bonus, it doesnt run on windows :D

Cheers!

Nox

Monday, November 21, 2005

MacDevCenter.com: Getting the Video out of Your New iPod--for Cheap!... all you need is a videocam A/V to RCA converter! no need to buy those expensive ipod video accessory. they basically just switched the default video output (yellow) with the right stereo (red).

still hoping santa would give me an ipod so i can test this undocumented feature.

found the recent discussion on pinoyjug regarding code/application performance rather amusing.

somebody was foolishly pitting his flawed arguments against a bunch of battle hardened veterans. looking on it on another perspective, some developers would probably take a lifetime to finally "get it". these are the types who doesn't understand you can go to from point A to point E without going thru point B,C, and D. in short clearly lacking instincts. worse this typical stereotype would defend to death that you need to go thru B,C, and D to in order to go from A to E.

for example, why waste your time which looping construct is faster (while(true) || for(;;))? isn't it common sense that you should be looking more at what is executed inside those loops?

simple, readable and elegant code is the key to creating "tune-able code". focus first on making the code work correctly and predictably. then do your benchmarking. premature optimization is the root of all evil.

me? nahhh, am no guru. but man, i've got instincts.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Opera Mobile Platform. AJAX gone mobile. Ohhhhhh. Titilating.
5 days of flu, 1 day for moving to the new apartment, 3 days without an internet connection. Life is still good.

I held the new ipod in my hand. But my credit card didn't comply. Forever out of reach.


Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Just got off from a phone call. Was rather uneasy since I haven't been into that situation for the longest time. So weird that I keep forgetting am talking to a foreigner. Crappy cellphone reception didn't help much either.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Slashdot | MD5 Collision Source Code Released.

Patrick Stach has also announced the availability of the source code. Jolly Kamote! 45 minutes to find MD5 collisions on a 1.6ghz P4!!! Take note that is for finding the collision. Incorporating it to various MD5 attack algorithms is another thing. nevertheless might improve those algorithms by a certain magnitude.


Neck still hurts.
-nox
Stiff Necks

what a way to start a great morning. anyway managed to find out why the backup imap files are showing up as a bunch of empty emails yesterday (no header data, so subject and to fields are annoyingly empty.). chown'in the imap user dir to its rightful owner did the trick.

onwards to trying out a new webmail imap client. previously used horde. but attracted to the oven fresh goodness of hula and zimbra. downloading the sources as we speak. google seems to indicate uphill wrestling building those two on FreeBSD. but a rather nice excuse to refresh unix build debugging skills.

back to my stiff neck. hurts like hell. crossing mmy fingers salonpas would help a bit.

Monday, November 14, 2005

i posted about the free vmware player a while ago. it is interesting to note that you can save the state of your virtual machine with vmware. imagine using your ipod as a portable storage of your virtual machine. you can hook up to your home machine do your thing, save your vm, go to your office, plug your ipod then continue where you left off. that feature is taken a bit farther by IBM research in a project called soulpad.


SoulPad is a portable storage device containing the software stack shown below. The three-layer SoulPad software stack enables a paradigm of mobile computing where a user can suspend his computing environment on one PC and resume it on another PC that he may have never seen before. The PC boots an auto-configuring operating system from the SoulPad, starts a virtual machine monitor, and resumes a suspended virtual machine that has the user's entire personal computing environment, which includes the user's files, user's operating system, installed applications, desktop configuration as well as all running applications and open windows. Essentially, SoulPad enables a user to hibernate a PC session to a pocket form-factor device and carry the device to some another PC and resume his session on that PC. SoulPad has minimal dependencies on PCs that can be used to resume a user session. In specific, PCs are neither required to be network connected, nor have any pre-installed software. The only requirement is the support of a high speed local connection to a SoulPad device for an acceptable suspend/resume times and acceptable runtime performance. Our approach differs from Internet Suspend/Resume in several ways: we do not require a known software stack on the PC and also do not rely on network connectivity to fetch suspended virtual machines. In our first prototype, we installed the SoulPad software stack on off-the-shelf hard disks with USB 2.0 interfaces. Since USB 2.0 provides power, we do not need a separate battery to power the SoulPad. In addition, USB 2.0 is fast enough that the performance bottleneck is not the communication link between the SoulPad and the PC. Further, many PC BIOSes support the ability to boot directly from USB disks simplifying the resume operation to one of connecting the SoulPad over USB 2.0 and instructing the PC BIOS to boot from USB. Since the SoulPad device carries the entire personal computing state of a user, it is important that the storage capacity of the device be large enough to hold all of the content that the user needs. Many USB hard disks are based on the same technology as disks on laptop computers, and have similar capacities. Given the popularity of laptop computers, we believe that the capacities of USB hard disks are adequate for a majority of the user population. Since it is possible that the user may lose his SoulPad, we encrypt sensitive data on the SoulPad, namely the virtual machine state using the AES128 block cipher.


nah, just one of the excuses am coming up to justify/convince the love of my life that I need an ipod. hehehehe.


Somewhere over the rainbow...
-Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwo'ole

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Handwritten Web Interfaces



Holy kamote (again)!DUB - DENIM! An Informal Tool For Early Stage Web Site and UI Design. Available in Windows, Unix, and OS X. (Courtesy of Java's WORA). Check out the video. That was a very slick wacom tablet used for "drawing" the web interface there! More awesome was the fact that the system was able to understand his handwritting.

Someday interface designers are going to rule the application development landscape. Hopefully that leaves a few highly skilled backend developers benefiting from the enevitable scarcity.

Friday, November 11, 2005

IBM T43, probably the best linux/*bsd intel laptop. more power, less weight category. now if only priced at $999 or lower. might be possible since the acquisition by lenovo. even the older T42 or the ultra portable X* models are just perfect for real mobile use.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

if you like ebooks and like me have developed a habit of reading them on your daily commute, check out Cory Doctorow's Literary Works. available for FREE on various PDA friendly formats.
Architosh: News >Tidbits: Apple patent shows company possibly preparing for OS War. Excerpts below:

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the first operating system is selected from the set consisting of Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.

23. The method of claim 20, wherein the second operating system is selected from the set consisting of Mac OS X, Linux, and Microsoft Windows.


is this true? how does it compare to the current virtualization technologies employed today? not surprising however, since the mac os has both rosetta and virtual pc available today.

we live in exciting times.

Monday, November 07, 2005

LBS: Web 2.0

In relation to my previous post on pareng migs (feeling close) blog about Google Map API and LBS. Wouldn't it be super slick if social networking services are enhanced with LBS? Voluntary perhaps, something the user can REALLY turn off/on or restricted to his first degree friends? Emphasis on REALLY turn off/on unlike mobile spam.

How about instant messaging. Add a plugin to the Google desktop sidebar to display the location on google map whoever you are currently chatting with. Can be whacked on Jabber. Although the current Philippine layers are restricted to 20k feet?. It would still be fun to map out where everybody is on the archipelago, or any other place around the world for that matter.

LBS can be text based too! Imagine finding out the nearest cash-in/cash-out for your Smart Money or G-Cash within your location. Make any willing soul to advertise himself as a mobile cash-in/cash-out agent by turning on his LBS. Should make adoption a bit faster. Hmmmnn. I have blogged about this feature before. How about the nearest Botika (Medicine Store). Even the nearest manong who can deliver the tastiest isaw. By this time you should know how isaw goes so well even with the cheapest red wine. The possibilities are endless, lots and lots of ideas to titilate the wet corners of the mind.

Yes, privacy issues and a ton of other things. But you can release early, release often. Follow the opensource model. More people scrutinizing the model, more chances of securing.

LBS is going to be the next big wave. Time to take your surf board out. Let Filipino's take the lead on this one.


Pinoy, ikaw ay pinoy!
Ipakita sa mundo.
Kung ano ang kaya mo...
-Orange and Lemons (Pinoy Ako, Big Brother theme song)

Potent Little Soldiers

Whilst waiting for my lovey', I scanned the contents of the cosmo? magazine and found this interesting fact:

"The average count of those little soldiers that a male releases after taking a ride on the wild elmo, is good enough to impregnate all the women in the US, twice!".

Ok. No mention of the wild elmo there. It was described pretty much straightforward. Got that wild elmo thing on nat friedman's post regarding Teen Sex and the Linux Desktop. It was in response to Mathew Szulik, Red Hat chief executive article saying that the Desktop Linux is like teenage sex. He said "The desktop (probably the linux one) has become a lot like teenage sex: a lot of people are talking about it but not many people are doing it."

IMHO, Opensource desktop especially GNOME is a lot like casual sex. Not as wild, as intimate and mind blowing as OS X. Not as worse, or as crappy like a Windows experience either. Good enough for regular use, and plenty of areas to experiment/improve with. Probably mixing the two here (desktop and sex), but you get the drift.

Going back to the potent little soldiers. Just like em', opensource desktop is potent enough to be on most desktops. Unfortunately, success rate is not yet that high. What we need is more power, less weight, every woman's dream.

this is to inform the public that the iPod, is the gadget I want for Christmas!



and of course, world peace!


p.s.
now accepting gifts this early.
Google Maps API in Java - Migs Paraz - Random Takes

slick! pasted my comments below:


cool migs!

it would be great if one can store his/here whereabouts privately/publicly whenever the urge strikes. sort of like checking where have i been for the past few days, weeks, months and maybe years!!! or bundled with mobile blogging you can store your location together with your blog post. imagine adding this to something like onlife (www.ethomaz.com/onlife).

hopefully LBS of telcos can be opened to soonish to 3rd party developers ;)
Google touts new features in desktop tool | CNET News.com

holy kamote! just like the opensource dashboard project. very soon when wearable computing is the norm, we could have search agents of varying functionality beaming results back to our goggles or contact lenses perhaps. everybody will in some point be connected to the net. dunno if thats good or bad news. after all, we are all but packets in the internet called life.


you really freak me out,
i'm so afraid of you.
-Weezer (Freak Me Out)

Sunday, November 06, 2005

more googledesktop news: Inside Google Desktop

moving out, moving on after staying more than 3 years on our current apartment. the place is a bit bigger and has ample space where the kids could run about. excited but unfortunately, Bayantel has no way of determining when a DSL slot would be available in the new apartment. that might mean out of the grid whenever am home till christmas. maybe its time to configure that old dialup modem and stick it to the FreeBSD box in the office.

DSL downgraded to dialup, just like good old days.


Looking up I saw nothing but blue in the bluest skies.
-Gin Blossoms

Thursday, November 03, 2005

hampas

ihampas mo sa hangin
ang nagpupumilit na damdamin
iduyan mo sa kawalan
hinagpis ng nakaraan

nakaukit na lang sa panaginip

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

HOWTO Rip DVD Movies To Your iPod Using Free Software. Actually not just for iPods. Same software can be used to make your DVD collection available to your Palm or PocketPC device via TCPMP. Actually the PDA's have long had the capability of viewing movies on the go. The only problem is the limitation in terms of storage. Now put a 4 gig flash drive (like the one found in nano) and stick it to a treo and you have an all in one device to rule em all (adding a wifi adapter wouldn't hurt either). On the software side, allow it to sync with itunes and you have an all time winner for the highest technolust ratings the world has yet to see. Price it at not higher than $299 please.

And if isn't too much make it widescreen and follow the T3 design. The treo thumboard remains, but the screen can be "expanded" for a wide screen viewing experience. Make the battery last for 5 hours on video.

Yes am talking about an iPod + Treo offspring.


Everywhere you go you shout it
You don't have to be shy about it..
-U2: Origin of the Species

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Sarcasm

In my youth, a bully once asked me.

"Can I have a word with you?"

In which I gleefully replied.

"You can have two. Fuck and you."

Rounded, random, and seemingly cute face art forcibly installed on my face moments later.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

AvantGo for RSS. about time. been waiting for this feature. I currently use Hand RSS on my Palm powered clie.



now only one app to use for Internet clips and RSS feeds. Interesting "slideshow" feature to view RSS embedded images.

Friday, October 21, 2005

New browser gives taste of Web 2.0 | CNET News.com.

Browse...
Feed...
Blog...

Browser wars! Browser wars! Browser wars!

Till all there is left, is one browser to rule em all...

The mind of the married man.
-nox
VMware Player: could probably restore your faith in humanity, nevermind the recent fad of visiting mendiola nowadays.



But wait, I forgot to mention its free! If you don't have an existing virtual machine config, you can get one here here.


Emulate the style,
Competition smile...
-Gin Blossoms

Fresh from Canada, my good friend Jay bought me a Linksys WRT54G wireless broadband from Villman at a discounted price of P3.7k. He couldn't bear my poor man's access point setup (a.k.a. adhoc mode), and he will be staying at our house for a couple of days and direly need to connect his toshiba lappy to the net.

Now would be a good time to try out the OpenWRT project! Next step would be to save for an NLSU2, which would be perfect for a 24x7 home server with relatively low power consumption.


I'm high and I'm hopeless
So help me to get untied...
-Gin Blossoms
The Million Dollar Homepage - Own a piece of internet history!. Great idea! hmmnnn...

1 peso per pixel local version available today! contact me for payment details and own a piece of philippine internet history!


Wouldn't it be nice...
- Beach Boys

Thursday, October 20, 2005

sweet gulay! just saw from a fellow MRT passenger a tiger airways ad stating around P328.00 pesos for a one way fare to singapore or macau.

at least prices are going down in that area. wouldn't it be nice if all prices go down.


Wouldn't it be nice...
-Beach Boys

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Apple - Aperture - Quick Tours... am not a pro photographer, but this new photo editing app from apple is slick. Core Image all the way baby.

Check out the product tours!

Now how can I afford a Canon 20D and that new high-res 15inch Powerbook?


Only in dreams...
-Weezer

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Unix Mages: a free downloadable eBook for those newbies wanting to learn unix. Lots of humorous tidbits there. All in all a nice guide to learning unix.

Just remember, don't forget to NEVER execute this command as root -> "rm -rf /"

Friday, October 14, 2005

Diva: a Cairo/Mono based open source iMovie killer...



It seems GNOME is attracting a good bunch of desktop applications nowadays. F-Spot, Tomboy, Muine, Banshee and now Diva, definitely a nice step towards opensource conquering the desktop segment.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

50 First Dates (2004) currently showing on HBO. Its a wonderful romantic comedy of a guy who makes the girl of his dreams fall for him every single day. Must have seen this more than 3 times already, and it still manages to somehow to send a few butterflies into my stomach.

Ah, love... Exactly what the world needs now. Fortunately for me, I already found the love of my life, the only living mammal able to look straight into my soul and strip me down to the bare human kernel. Thats limbic-system-overload for the discovery-loving-anatomical-travelog-fanatic in you.


And all these years, I never really knew what love is.
Till I found you...
- Bamboo

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

Zimbra Collaboration Suite. Slick and AJAX based. Will give this a spin. Check out the demo. Novell has something similar called Hula, though not yet as polished as Zimbra.



Hmmnn... I think Web 2.0 is moving towards Sun's slogan -> "The Network is the Computer".

Friday, September 30, 2005

World Wind on Linux.

[WW2D] [..] is cross-platform, free and open-source version of NASA World Wind software, see http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov for details. WW2D allows you to explore Earth using satellite imagery, topographic maps and image from other data sources also providing large placenames and boundaries database and allowing you to install community-made add-ons for even more information about our planet.
In basic configuration WW2D uses images from Blue Marble (1 km/pixel), LandSat7 (15 m/pixel), USGS Topo Maps, USGS Digital Ortho imagery, USGS Urban Area imagery.

WW2D is designed to dynamically download needed data from internet, however you can download data you want for faster access and offline usage.

Runs on Linux via Mono. Cool!

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

This was bound to happen.

Mobile GMaps - Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth on your mobile phone!

What is MGMaps?

Mobile GMaps is a free piece of software that displays Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth maps and satellite imagery on Java J2ME-enabled mobile phones or other devices.


The world in the palm of your hand.

Friday, September 23, 2005

Move over Google Sidebar | CNET News.com. Another addition to the Desktop Search Wars (TM). The opensource community has something similar in alpha/beta? state via Dashboard.

Sabi nga ni ka edong, it will only be a matter of time before there would be a technology that can search your brain. Now that would be terribly Google-rrific!


"Resistance is futile..." - Startrek

Thursday, September 22, 2005

From a Bancnet AD today:


G-Cash Bancnet tie-up

Sept 23, 2005: very soon you will be able to transfer funds from your ATM account in a BancNet-member bank to your or somebody else's G-Cash wallet.

Just go to any BancNet ATM, log on to www.bancnetonline.com or text through BancNet Mobile Banking.

Choose which account to debit from linked to the ATM Card, select (BANK) as your destination bank (Asia United Bank) as the destination bank and enter your Globe cellphone and the desired amount to be transferred.

Regular Interbank Fund Transfer fees will apply.


Sound's eerily similar to an idea we had been pushing thru in a not so distant past.

Didn't I tell you everything is possible in this
deja vu? - Roxette

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Law enforcement agencies deny raids on local Internet shops - INQ7.net... hmmmnn... Confusing... Wonder who is responsible for spreading FUD among PC users? With most shops closing and switching to linux, the online gaming companies are probably scratching their heads due to lost sales.

On the bright side:

NOW! is the time for opensource to spring into action! This would also mean more kids being exposed to FOSS. Which is probably better than them getting rather too addicted to online games. A typical opensource *Linux/*BSD is probably good enough for "typical" desktop use.


"Gusto mo ba? Gusto mo ba? Sumama!" - eraserheads

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Some nagging thoughts on m-commerce.

I think G-Cash and Smart Money (S-Money) should augment their platform with LBS (location based services). Users should be able to inquire the nearest cash-in and cash-out center based on their location. Or should be able to locate users within their proximity willing to do cash-in/cash-out.

The ability to locate other users willing to do cash-in/cash-out could work by allowing them to text their cash-in/cash-out availability (ala instant messenger status). They have the option to turn the feature on or off and indicate perhaps the amount they can currently cash-in/cash out. This has the potential of accelerating the adoption rate of m-commerce in the Philippines.

Of course nothing beats making short access codes and m-commerce API's somehow more accessible to modern day pinoy technopreneurs.


Am not like them, but I can pretend. -Nirvana

Monday, September 19, 2005

When I first got a taste of Mac OS X via bookah, I sorely missed the tomboy application. It is a personal wiki of sorts, and could readily kick your current post-it note app. It was only available on the linux platform and uses GNOME-Mono combo and is generally Beagle friendly. Tomboyless, I immediately felt the urge to port or manage to create something similar on OS X but as always haven't managed to find the time to do so (as if).

While browsing to Apple's dashboard download repository this morning, I stumbled upon inkspotting : WikityWidget



Problem solved. Works nicely and best of all FREE! It doesn't support Spotlight at the moment, so you search using the widget itself. Still, all in all a nice addition to my dashboard collection.
And yes, I turned 28 last Saturday. And what better way to start it than a seemingly endless series of group hugs and kisses. Ah, life is good. I cooked my infamous spaghetti and bundled it with barbecue and everyone was pretty happy.

Rock on!

Sunday, September 18, 2005

The GNOME Journal: GOCollab -- Peer to Peer Document Collaboration. Technologies like this will greatly accelarate the adoption of opensource technologies.

What we need is a collaboration standard/spec that opensource apps can take advantage of. Realtime collaboration is also one of the next big thing in the nearby future.
Onlife, very slick! it automatically creates the record of the most common apps you use (safari, mail, etc.).

Hmmnn... Taking this for a spin.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Yesterday, day two at linuxworld PH.

- Met with Melvin Vivas Java Developer/Photographer extraordinaire and Ian Dexter of PhilRICE LTSP'ed ubuntu workstation fame.
- Attended mysql replication sessions. Postgresql also have this even prior to 8.x but it was a non-free solution. Should check if the current 8.x version has replication built-in.
- Had a chat with emacs loving Zak and Claire. Nah, still Vi for me. hehehe.
- Had fun at the microsoft booth. Tried my best not to look too pleased with the scenario. Hopefully get some pictures up by today.
- Also attended the linux audio sessions. Trommler was slick! And it seems audacity could really cut it. Althought you need some background on sound engineering to take full advantage of its features. Nevertheless, it proves that linux could rock!
- Went home a bit inspired to try out music editing on GarageBand. Unfortunately I couldn't understand how to input even a basic drum loop on Garageband. The input is asking for musical notes. Bummer...

More non-sense linux world news later.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I went to the LINUX WORLD Philippines conference at the Dusit Hotel in Makati and have some uhmmn non-sense comments.

While having an opensource event is great, its pretty ironic that the participation fee is quite expensive! At P3.5k (students), P5.5k (government/NGO/academe) and P6.5k (Corporate/Individuals) it doesn't exactly fit into the idea of opensource as a less costly alternative to the propriety solutions from redmond. To make matters worse, the registration process was a mess. If I had known they wouldn't be strict on ID's, we should have registered as students and shaved off P2k on the registration fee. Also, all the sessions seems to be open to the public? My gulay! Better yet, we should have walked-in, and just have lunch at nearby food stalls. Generally they should have lowered the participation fee or even have it for free to entice more participants. The organizers also failed to provide conference kits and would not even hand you out the topic listings if you don't ask for one. The opensource company exhibitors also suck in a way that they don't even hand out sample cd's. I mean it wouldn't hurt if at least redhat, sun and novell/suse would have something to give to potential users.

On the other hand, some interesting topics on day one: FAI (Fully Automatic Installation) for debian. The LTSP front end management tool by the good folks at ASTI's bayanihan linux (Although, I am curious why it has to be QT dependent. It would be nice if it would be cross distro and cross platform perhaps). IPTraf and PAM were also discussed.

It was also nice to see the faces of some people on the now defunct pinoy tech scene (which I asked migs for the opml, which he gladly gave, so I can revive it when my schedule eases up a bit, hopefully this weekend again, and this time I want talking heads). Shook hands with clair ching and zak elep. Also seen some familiar local opensource figures there like Jijo, and Dom. Throw in a bunch of ph-freebsd guys like jimmy and barry. I didn't get a chance to say hi as my introvert alter ego kicked in. Aside from the fact that i'm nowadays a promiscuous opensource unix lover/user, so that probably was a factor too.

The good thing is I didn't feel too akward being the only(?) Mac toting user there, not because Mac OS X is unix underneath (a variant of unix resulting from the of Mach and FreeBSD), but because... microsoft was there, giving away an xbox and with a bunch of testosterone inducing representatives to try to win you over to the dark side of the force. Although in scenarios like this, it makes you wonder why opensource choose to have penguins and cute little daemons instead? hmmmmnn... At least were getting there, I remember the Redhat booth having a big banner with a slogan like "fsck me?" (should have taken a picture). But then again that might send a wrong message to potential redhat users... does it need fsck lovin?

Wonder what tomorrow brings?

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Rojan can rock!



Taking a break after debugging a malfunctioning dbms session.



Too old to be a rockstar, too young to give up being a rockstar... hehehe

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Yay! I might be sent to the upcoming Linux World Expo at the Dusit hotel September 14-16, 2005.

What I find ironic is that for an Open Source event the registration fee is a bonafide wallet punisher.

They should invite Alanis to sing Ironic there.
PROPAGATION_REQUIRED is a necessity if you invoke or spit out native sql using spring frameworks Session object. Else, you would have dbms sessions closed pre-maturely.

Monday, September 05, 2005

Installing the Java 1.4.2 Release 2 DP4 for Tiger from ADC Member Site seems to fix the gradual slowing down of the Eclipse IDE (including the entire OS) after prolonged use.

Hopefully this means I don't have to Restart Eclipse every 3hrs or so.
Bug 95475 - Eclipse get progressively slow under Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Turns out, am not the only one with this problem. Time to try XCode's Java support perhaps?
downloading jdub's planet repository. hopefully will have planetpinoy very soon.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Deggy and Bookah Comic Strip:



Expect more non-sense comic strips to follow. Another peek outside the room inside my mind.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Google Talk!, seems to work with iChat. Have no luck making iChat work with Yahoo via jabber tho.

Monday, August 22, 2005

I think I finally found the words that best describes a Mac: "Its a creativity machine. Designed to bring out the creative creature in you!"

ChickenPox by: Jun Lisondra is out! You can download it for free! Reminds me of the good old IRC days at the #forum channel of PDI. Mabuhay ka pareng elmo!
addendum to the render/encoding farm concept, it could have a feature where you can inquire the status of your encoding job via SMS, WAP or via the internet!

hmmmmmnnn... pweeedeee!!! (ka edong effect)
Now if only there is an equivalent tool like ffmpegX for linux or *BSD's! Command line would even be preferred. That would mean easy to use video editing via iMovie and encoding to VCD/DVD via an idle unix powered generic PC!!!

The workflow would be like this Capture/Edit via iMovie (or whatever video editing tool you prefer). Then encoding on a unix PC which should produce a disc image ready for burning on any popular CD/DVD burning software. Ah, even an "encoding farm" would not be a remote possibility. With an "encoding farm", I can even rent it out to Video editors eh?

Yeah... Am a technopreneur wanabeee!
Another oddity of the MacOS X is when copying over a shared drive (WinXP host), it bails out if the size of the file(s) you are copying is greater than your current amount of local hard disk space. Internally it uses samba (SMB), but can't find yet if there is a setting that could resolve this problem.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

While editing a family movie is fun on iMovie, making a vcd copy of your work is another story. Encoding takes time and hard disk space and CPU processing power. Too bad the external USB enclosure (GL811USB chipset from Genesys Logic) doesn't work with MacOS X, it could at least help in the hard disk space dilema. On the encoding front will try this out: ffmpegX a DVD, SVCD, VCD, CVD, VOB, DivX, XviD, H.264, PSP, MP4, MOV encoder for Mac OSX. as other iMovie to VCD solutions is rather frustrating for an amateur video editor like me.