ACCESS and PalmSource Announce the ACCESS Linux Platform - Press Release

Linux officially at the Palm of your hand? AWESOME!

Now that is a good direction Palm. Harness the power of open source.

Wired News: TextPayMe: Elminating IOU

Another take on the m-commerce thing. Same slow pace of adoption.

Basically, TextPayMe its a virtual wallet created via linking your credit card/bank account. Nothing new here, same system implemented in the Philippines a year or two ago.

I have a feeling something is bound to dominate the m-commerce space. The technology is here. Somebody has to mashup the bits and pieces together.

Wired News: My First Screen Kiss

This seems to be common in Japan, which is a year or two ahead of us in terms of keitai technology. There video calls are the norm, not the exception I guess.

Now that 3G is finally here, stupidly expensive rates aside, maybe next valentine will be seeing a few people smooching their cell phones on the streets of Makati.

Which makes me asks the question. Is it mandatory for 3G or 3.5G phones to be drool proof?

With this kind of technology, long distance relationships just might be the next big thing. Afterall, most Web 2.0 apps are geared toward mashups of social networking apps.

Oh my beloved,
Give me thy lips...
End our conversation,
with your sweet screen kiss...
-nox (of the future)

Valentines Day.

Valentines Day.
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Spread the love!

Melvin, finally succumb to the allure of the mac. Bitten by the mac bug, he's now a fellow iBook totting lad happily counting the good looking women in Singapore.

And no, I did not influence him to buy an iBook. :D

PalmBible by Yih-Chun Hu - A free Bible reader under the GPL license

Probably the best app on the Treo right now. Be enlightened and be free.

"Firefly" (2002/I)

Just finished watching the entire season over the weekend. That was a GREAT sci-fi series. Wonder why the network doofusly canceled it.


Take my love.
Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care, I’m still free.
You can’t take the sky from me.

Take me out
to the black.
Tell ‘em I ain’t comin’ back.
Burn the land and boil the sea.
You can’t take the sky from me.

Have no place
I can be
Since I found Serenity.
But you can’t take the sky from me.
-Theme from Firefly

Lower back, waist area hurts like hell. The expected result of playing basketball after being sedentary for good while.

And yes, what the world needs now, is love sweet love...

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Wired News: Forget Jobs, Let's Worship Woz

Nice article. Sheds some facts about Woz, his tendency towards simple and open designs. Unattached to his money in normal ways, and never forgetting the fact that great people are where they are because they are standing on the shoulder of giants. Very NGO'ish geek. I like that.

Woz rocks!

Russell Beattie Notebook ? MaxDox Redux - Create your own mobile Java e-books

This could be a great mobile content product. Retail tagalog novelas per chapter download. hehehehe.

Pwede rin comics. Pugad baboy downloads!

I Retail mo baby, yeah!

AIDS virus attacked inside & out. Seems there is now a possible cure for HIV/AIDS! Hopefully, this gives hope to millions of people afflicted by the virus.

CoverflowRemote. This is salling clicker script to enable you to control Coverflow via your bluetooth enabled phone.

Wirelessly SWEEEEEET!

Found this out via the Diggnation (Episode 27) Vidcast ove iTunes

CoverFlow

Don’t know about you, but I find browsing a list of album names somewhat uninspiring, to say the least. One of the big attractions of a physical album is the beautiful packaging and aesthetic appeal, something that’s sorely missed with the digital equivalent.

CoverFlow aims to bring that aesthetic appeal to your mp3 collection. It allows you to browse your albums complete with beautiful artwork pulled from any sources it can find, whether that’s buried in your song tags, collected via Synergy, or looked up on Amazon.

Screenshot of CoverFlow on bookah below:

Blue afternoon sky...

Blue afternoon sky...
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Passing over the magallanes flyover. Loving the warm blue afternoon sky. In just a short while, hopefully the stars won't be too shy, begging you to smile even if happiness seems light years away. Its still a beatiful world.

Novell Linux Desktop Demonstration Videos | Linux Edge... It could also be the state of XGL and the shape of things to come.... Check out the cool videos. Finally, something to harness the power of those GPU's while you wiggle woogle your desktop windows on a boring day.

Oh goodie! Lookie here!
Linux running on a Treo!




Hope it still allows you to make/recieve phone calls. :D

Hack the Treo!

Mobile Monday USA

The Mobile Monday USA. mission is to cultivate and accelerate US mobile and telecom sectors through leadership, technology, government relations, research, education, mentoring, investment, recruitment, networking and promotion.

Wondering if we also have a local version of this. Mobile Tuesday perhaps?

Stellarium Astronomy Software: Sort of like the reverse of Google Earth (which allow you to view the earth in 3D), this one looks up to the sky. Linux/Mac/Windows versions available.

Its kind of weird looking at the stars on a computer screen in broad daylight. On the other hand, its a much cheaper, albeit free alternative to buying one of those fancy telescopes.

Scrap my last entry regarding doing a separate install of SJAS on OS X.

The latest netbeans 5.0 and SJAS 8.2 bundle now allows you to specificy a different destination dir for SJAS.

I'm begining to like netbeans. :D

p.s.

adding a Vi plugin for netbeans would really make my day.

Santa, if I promised that I would be a good boy this year, can I have one of these Lego.com: Mindstorms NXT.

Please?

Glassfish on Mac OS X

Yay! Curious, I coerced my bookah to download the JDK 1.5 for the Mac OS X. I unpacked the tarball from http://glassfish.dev.java.net.

As mentioned before it bails out on ant -f setup.xml, complaining it didn't find any JDK 1.5 compatible JVM. The fix is to do the following (take note that setenv is csh or tcsh shell dependent):

setenv JAVA_HOME /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Home
setenv PATH .:$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

And viola! ant -f setup.xml will happily run along.

I love my mac!

SJAS on Mac OS X - Google Search doesn't really help that much if you want to run SJAS 8 on OS X. For now aside from compiling Glassfish (which requires JDK 1.5), you are stuck with downloading netbeans4 with the SJAS 8 bundle from netbeans.org.

Anyway, I don't have JDK 1.5 on the iBook yet. And since netbeans doesn't have a VI plugin or keybinding, and to save disk space I don't want both netbeans and SJAS installed.

The solution is to install netbeans4 with the SJAS bundle, copy the SunAppServer8.1 directory to a new location and modify the appserver startup scripts to point to a new SJAS directory (in my case /usr/local/SunAppServer8.1). After some tweaking, found out you only have to modify the following files to point the the new SJAS directory of your choosing:

/usr/local/SunAppServer8.1/config/asenv.conf
/usr/local/SunAppServer8.1/bin/asadmin
/usr/local/SunAppServer8.1/domains/domain1/bin/startserv
/usr/local/SunAppServer8.1/domains/domain1/bin/stopserv

After which you can now delete the Netbeans4 app installed on your Applications dir.

It still boggles the mind why Netbeans doesn't include VI keybindings.

JavaPolis - The Architecture of the Brazilian Health System

I learned a few things about Brazil today:

- Free health care for every citizen!
- Electronic voting for the past few years. Results within 24 hours!
- Has a team of Java developers that can generate an application to be used by millions of users in just a span of four months!
- They dig open source!

The Philippine health care system immaculately pales in comparison.

Just noticed the lady in front of the jeepney wearing a T-shirt with tihs print at the back "Just tiis for all.".

Only in the Philippines.

Peter Pan

Currently importing some family photos from the Treo to iPhoto. Sometimes I wish I lived in nevernever land. A part of me doesn't want to grow old. Going home with a bright and witty 4 year old, an infectiously funny 1 year old, and a smiling lovely caring wife makes you hope that moments like this last forever.

Father and Son

Father and Son
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Just hanging out with Janro. Waiting for Barney to sing the "I love you, you love me!" song.



On another note, the Treo 650 makes it so easy to capture and blog moments like this. No extra software require. Its simply an MMS sent to a specified flicker email address which is configured to post the photo and blog entry to blogger. Best of all the service is entirely free! Your only cost is the MMS charge which is P3.00 for Globe I think. :-D

Just got this from the mail: Ynzal eCatalog is now selling the latest 12" model iBooks at around 61k and if you are a UP student/staff/educator I would say RUN, do not walk and get the the iBook at a discounted price of P54,207 only.

And no, for the record I am not a Mac fanatic. There is nothing to love about what probably is the best integration of software and hardware, embedded power of unix underneath and the slickest, and the most user friendly GUI the planet has ever seen.

And I swear I would only agree reluctantly that I am a mac fanatic if you give me a fully loaded MacBook Pro due out 2nd week of february.

BenQ 50: A treo in this form factor would be reaallllly nice.



On the meantime, am still dreaming of a flat rate P500/month unlimited data (GPRS) plan. That would remove the need for a wifi accessory.

And oh, if 3G would be that affordable and phones that runs OS like linux/bsd would be widely available. That would definitely be a signal that the Age of Personal Content Sharing has come. I imagine the mobile phones of the future "serving/sharing content". Heck, making apache run on mobile phones would be a good start.

Bobby D

Bobby D
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Currently listening a bunch of songs by Bob Dylan, while on my way home via the MRT. Over the years I have somehow grown more and more interested in his music. Simply put, just listening to some of his songs, you could learn a lot about life. Granted he lived in an era where both lyrics and music matters.



Everybody else is making love,

Or expecting rain.

-Bob Dylan (Desolation Row)

From Paul Graham: How to Do What You Love. Something to read on the way home. Believe me, this man writes stuff worth reading.

Tsk tsk tsk. It seems Bayantel has no plans of installing/transferring our DSL line from munoz to tandang sora due to unavailability of a slot.

Looks like Smart Wifi is the way to go. Wonder if Globe broadband is available in our area? or Destiny cable internet?

Grrr. Tried to use the contact us feature of Globe's unlimited data plan service: get-visibility.com, and this is what I get:

Active Server Pages error 'ASP 0126'

Include file not found

/get-visibility/contactussendmail.asp, line 2

The include file 'include/adovbs.inc' was not found.

Ack! Looks like they don't like inquiries or sales.

Basement.org: Taking RSS Beyond Headlines : Part One

A cool list of alternative uses for RSS feeds. Got it via digg.com feed.

If I have time, it would be nice to develop/add the things below to the list:

1. Social Network Aware (or appended to those dating services): fertility cycle feed. Where women could publish their menstrual cycle. Imagine the possibilities. Napkin makers would love this.

2. MRT stored value ticket availability feed. Pretty handy to know which station has one available. Since until now those MRT vending machines are just glorified displays, and they often ran out of SVT cards. Btw, why don't they put those vending machines in malls or other public places. This would GREATLY shorten the line and fasten the queue during rush hours.

3. DTI suggested retail prices for commodities. This would be awesome! Tulong sa mga maybahay.

4. Pampers availability. Simply because E.Q. sucks. Everytime we tried E.Q. due to pampers unavailability on our suki grocery stores, Our youngest, Janro, would overflow the diaper overnight, and worse it doesn't stay dry. Imagine the implications.

5. Lotto winning numbers: just in case tumaya ako.

6. For G-Cash and Smart Money: Available cash-in/cash-out points per area. Should help a bit in accelarating adoption.

7. Philippine Points of Interest (POI) feed. User submitted, containing lat and long data. Per area, per category etc. I even have a name -> PinoyPOI (TM) hehehe

Been lusting for this -> mytreo.net/store > Seidio 2 in 1 HIGH END InEar Noise Isolating Headset for Treo 650 (NEW!) I tried the iBuds silicon contraption for regular headsets and it still has the tendency to fall off with minimal movement.

Wonder if there would a local store that sells this headset?

Glass Off, Glass On

For the past few months I had been moaning about bitter sweet headaches and occasional nasuea particularly in the afternoons after work or whenever I spend an insane amount of time staring at the computer (which, more often than not happens on a daily basis).

So last friday we decided its time for me to seek help with a nearby refraction man (TM). We found a good shop at SM North, Acebedo Optical which offers some nice discounts at the moment. Consultation is at P200.00 and free if you buy a lens or a frame afterwards.

Anyway, after a few questions regarding what was my line of work, I was made to wear a clunky eye contraption (no digital gizmo available?) and asked to read a seemingly random alphabet from a canvass a few feet away from me. Right eye was tested first. I could still read the 7th row quite clearly but when it came to 8th row the letters appeared to be fuzzy tho still readable. The refraction man popped in a grade 50 lens on the contraption and lo behold the 8th row looked sharp and crystal clear! He explained that my dominant right eye must have been overworked and might the culprit of the bitter sweet headaches. We tested the left eye next and settled in for a grade 25 lens. He also recommended I get a non glare type of lens since I tend towork in from of a computer most of the time.

Next we were ushered to a display rack to try which frame would match my not-so-boy-next-door looks, long tarnished when the first acne left a scar on my pristine face. The ones with a rim make me look like an Einstein fanatic ready to shout E=mc2 at the push of a button. My lovey suggested I should go for the rimless design. I then choose the titanium kind, which was really light and comfortableb to wear. Total cost after discount: P5000.00 for both lens and frame. Ouch!

Conclusion: The past three days had been headache free. My eyes doesn't feel as tired like before, even after prolonged computer use. I should have done this sooner. Nevermind the pocketache inflicted afterwards.

Just tried this on the Treo 650 -> KMaps Location Services Platform

Unfortunately I couldn't make it view the Philippine map. Still searching for Philipine map layers and attempt to draw it on top of the Google map via the public API.


How does it feel?
How does it feel?
Your on your own...
No direction home!
-Boy Dylan (Like A Rolling Stone)

Web 2.0 Yahoo! Buzz Images and News

Yahoo News Mash-up Visual mode.

Globe 3G

Globe 3G
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Yesterday, was at the two towers and saw Globe's 3G demo booth at the bridge connecting the two buildings. With two lovely models inviting passerbys to try the 3G service, I coerced my companion to try the demo.



We tried a few streaming services, a handfull from ABS-CBN and while its not as good as an offline video (like the one played via TCPMP) in terms of picture quality, its still fairly viewable. Wonder how this compares with MobiTV?



Next we tried the video conf feature, was able to see the person on the other end (just a few feet away), a bit pixelated, although recognizable. If the bandwidth speed claimed is higher than dsl, maybe its the hardware at fault? Or maybe the choice of video streaming format for mobile devices?



Next we browsed a laptop assumed to be using the 3G service and it seems to be DSL'ish enough. I wasn't able to do a hands-on test on the lappy due to the person currently using it seems pre-occupied with his webmail.



According to the booth attendant, no definite launch date yet, but certainly it will be on 2006. No idea yet on pricing or packages that will be offered.

Sun Microsystems' Fab Four Reunites. One of the truly admirable company of our time. Some excerpts below:

Sun and Apple

Content to let his comrades do most of the talking, Joy became particularly animated when the informal conversation turned to Apple. He revealed that that there had been "six very close encounters" between the two companies, and called it a "personal disappointment" that Sun and Apple had never been able to complete a deal.

"As far as I know, we also almost bought Apple once," he said, to the audience's general glee. "We almost merged with Apple two other times." In addition, Sun, Apple, and Microsoft nearly agreed on a common filing protocol; Apple and Sun talked about sharing a software interface; and Sun tried to get Apple to move to the SPARC architecture.

Imagine OS X running on a SPARC processor! Or dtrace goodness on OS X!

Google's PDA website optimizer. No that is not the official name, just made it up.

Enter any url and it will try to format the content suitable for your PDA or any mobile device with a web browser. Similar to webxcope. Give it a spin!

Pinoytechblog.com - Pinoytechblog.com, a bit different today.

seems the domain expired?

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

nox @ work! again! happy 2006 everyone! enjoy life!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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....

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!

Overview of Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8.

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

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.

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...

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?

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!

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.

10 kilogram bundle of joy

10 kilogram bundle of joy
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Janro with his refreshingly infectious smile.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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)

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

hampas

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

nakaukit na lang sa panaginip

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

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.