CocoaLab has released a free copy of Become An Xcoder Book. Perfect for newbies like me. Covers XCode 2.0. Nice!

Man vs. Machine

Dexter (first name basis :D), commented that Migs is already working on meme aggregation, and asks if that is what I have in mind.

I think Migs is doing the Google News like approach, where an application does the uber-cool meme tracking. While mine is contemplating on a simpler Digg/Slashdot, social network'ish like approach. For a quick background, Google News selection relies on a computer program running on top of several machines. Digg/Slashdot on the other hand relies on reproductive-determinism-end-result (humans), to submit stories that they think the world wide web should care about.

Mine is just an online application that lets me create my own planets/blogosphere. Grouping the blogs I like and apply my own naming convention.

E.g.

Group 1 (will spit out an rss aggreate of feed 1 to 3)
- feed1
- feed2
- feed3

Group 2 (will spit out an rss aggregate of feed 4 -5 )
- feed4
- feed5

...


It easily allows you to do recursion

e.g.
Mega Group (rss aggregate of group1 and 2)
- group1
- group2


Then you could now do some nifty (should be plugin like) context analysis per blog group. For example you analize the group and check which words are most often mentioned (lucene indexed?) and somewhat getting a pulse of your blogosphere. Or maybe analize the links and hook up with del.icio.us for some tagging goodness, technorati plugin? feedburner? tag cloud? rojo like?

The grouping would also help a lot of RSS-feed-dependent-space-shifting mobile applications like quicknews.

Maybe such a tool already exist? Or does the future belongs to A.I. algorithms which you can directly ask "What's hot on the Filipino blogosphere?". I think the whole RSS thing has reached the point of irrevesible complexity and is in dire need of simplification. Simplifiying it would mean more room to focus on complicating other things. :D

Globe GPRS (includes MMS) services down for the moment. Hopefully they are fixing the long standing problem of incorrect WAP charges. If you are on Globe and would to like to use WAP (to browse wap sites outside of globe) better inform (call cust care) before attempting to do so, else each WAP card/page will be charged to you at Premium MMS download rates. It takes about minium of 2 days for them to fix your settings. It boggles the mind why the fix can't be applied to all subscribers. Oh well, such is life...

Some say WAP has gone the way of the dodos. Subplanted with real mobile browsers for smartphones. The truth is, its still the most cost effective way for doing mobile apps, not for mass adoption but for internal mobile applications. You get the benefit of forms (UI) that would work on dinosaur grade (but cheap) WAP capable phones like the Nokia 6310i. Added bonus you can cram more transactions per peso, which your CFO would really like.


Cmon' and WAP me, WAP me, WAP me...
Baby, I'm yours cmon' and WAP me...
I'm gonna save you some money, money, money...
So baby....
- M.Y.M.P. (Make Your Mobile Proud)

Standing Still

Standing Still
Originally uploaded by nocs.

What's on her mind? Looking for Ken? Pondering the faith of the Filipino nation? Hungry? Happy? Wondering if the legend of Pinochio was true? Waiting for a silicon implant? Dreaming of Adobo? Lusting for cup of freshly brewed coffee? Puzzled with Sex and the City?



Sigh... Walang magawa. Waiting for my lovey to make up her mind. Ahhh... Women...



Love is real, real is love...

-John Lennon

Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing - Google Video




A 1972 documentary of the pre-cursor of the internet the ARPANET. Checkout how they explained what it is via a chalkboard. A glimpse of the early ATM like machines! its nice to go back in time and see how things were. Fascinating.

Simon Brown is doing a series of articles comparing web application frameworks. Good sweep of current goods in this arena. For the moment i'm sticking with springs webapp framework. It's not yet covered in the article tho. Check it out at http://static.springframework.org/spring/docs/1.2.x/reference/mvc.html

I'm stubbornly sticking with the XML/XSLT way of doing things. I still think its the best way to decouple presentation layer from the rest of the tier. Hence sticking with the resin application server. Which, aside from its simplicity, offers a pretty decent XML/XSLT transformation engine. I don't know if that still applies up to this day, but it certainly was 2 or was it 3 years ago? when I benchmarked it against other xml/xslt transformator.

SCIFI.COM | Battlestar Galactica

"There are those who believe... that life here... began out there. Far across the universe. With tribes of humans... who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians... or the Toltecs... or the Mayans... that they may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids... or the lost civilizations of Lemuria... or Atlantis... Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man... who even now fight to survive... somewhere beyond the heavens."

Am halfway thru season 1. I like it. Its a complete package, with sex, politics, war and its science fiction revolving around a fledging group of species in the vast region of space. Spaceships! Its a we reap what we sow themed space adventure. But damn just like the pre-maturely canned Firefly series, rocking plot and wonderfully executed.

Heck even my one year old likes it. Both of us rooting for Galactica's viper squadron whenever Cylon's appear and its time for some space grade dogfights.

eJamming



Latency issues aside. This is one cool concept. Except of course that nothing replaces a real live jamming session. Ahhhhh... reminiscing the days my guitar feedback would annoy my bandmate to no end. This would interface nicely with modern guitars like the Gibson model with an ethernet port. The user interface is GarageBand'ish too, which makes it easy to use.

However, if we bring the latency issues back, it would be hard to make this thing work in real life. What would be more ideal I guess, is a cvs like system with a really cool web frontend for collaborating music. Think open source way of creating music. That would really rock.

Planets

Planets

Nice to see techscene.free.net.ph up and running again!

Anyway, am probably keeping the pinoy techscene mirror I had setup at http://mobileindie.com/planet/ for personal purposes. Mainly, for the RSS feed (and yes, even OPML for those who dig that stuff) generated by planetplanet backend. The resulting aggregated RSS content nicely matches my preffered method of keeping up with content that I'm interested in, via space shifting the content: from the web to a mobile device like the treo. With this setup, downtimes like the the train ride home becomes productive. Makes the boring commute fun, and gives you an excuse not give up your seat since you are busy reading. The last part was a joke. I still tend to be a gentleman every now and then.

Back to planets and rss feeds. It would be nice to have an online service that let's you group your feeds, give it decent names and produces the aggregated feed for you. That way you could group your feeds the way you like them, and it would be easier to manage and work nicely with your space shifting needs.

With this kind of service you can now throw in context analysis to get what's hot on your planet like rss groups. Mashup with tagging deliciousness etc. That would be cool. To have another simple way of managing rss feeds and to be able to get a pulse on each group you choose.

treonox
(enjoying an afternoon train ride home, with Jimi Hendrix's guitar silently weeping in the background)

Tomboy meets Leaftag



Tomboy is nifty wiki based notetaking application written in mono.

Leaftag for now is represented by a library for tagging just about anything on your desktop.

Tomboy + Leaftag = Terribly sweet!

Box.net - Free Online File Storage, Internet File Sharing, RSS Sharing, Access Documents & Files Anywhere, Backup Data, Share Files

Got this from Russell Beattie's blog. If you don't have a server out there that you can store your data into, and was happily experimenting with that GMail-turned-online-disk-space plugins, this could be just the thing for you.

The site has some recipes for success. Really easy signup process (tm). The website is simple yet pleasing to the eye. The name is short and sweet and clearly defines the value proposition.

Will take it for a spin. :D

Comic Life

Software Wars




War, what is it good for?

Comic Life



Life is good.
-nox (proud daddy)

YouTube - OSX Dual Booted on IBM Thinkpad



Cool! Thinkpad + OS X = Rugged low cost kickass mobile workstation.

Do you wanna? Do you wanna?


Oh listen, do you want to know a secret?
- Beatles

Sketching out a strategy - O'Reilly Mac DevCenter Blog. Google bought @Last Software makers of the really cool 3D design application SketchUp.

Lots of exciting possibilities!

Comma Sutra



LOL!

Under 30, on the Cutting Edge. This crop of fresh faces is poised to shake up the tech world. Here's their advice to wannabe entrepreneurs

Want to know what's hot in technology? Follow the money. That's what we did to find a fresh crop of tech's best young entrepreneurs. We surveyed dozens of VC firms, from Sequoia Capital in Silicon Valley to Austin Ventures in Texas to Battery Ventures in Boston, to find out who's generating buzz and getting funded -- if not bought.

You have Skype's Janus Friis there, the company was bought by eBay for a cool $2.6 billion. Interesting bunch of people. Definitely a good read.

A to G 1.2 - MacUpdate. Handy utility to sync your address book to your Gmail account via the import feature. Its basically produces a CSV (comma separated values) file that fits nicely into Gmail import address book format.

Now if only theres a G to A utility in case there is a need to restore the address book in the near future.

Google Mars. I kid you not.



Funny, a few days ago i blogged about Earth having sex with Mars. Can't wait for the 3D desktop client edition. :D

I missed late nights with Smoothjazz.Com - Where Smooth Meets Jazz streaming at the background during the 4 month broadband hiatus.

Current daytime music is dominated by With the Lights Out by the late Cobain. Late night with soothing jazz music on the other hand lowers the overall SGBR (Spouse Going Ballistic Risk). I don't want to use headphones as it makes it hard to hear if Janro or Rojan woke up for another bottle of milk.

Jazz me up...

Leaftag - ChippyWiki

This is exactly what I had in mind a few months back. Slap an F-Spot like interface where you can easily narrow down items and you've got a really nice application that can titilate the wet corners of the mind.

Think del.icio.us applied to your files on the desktop. Add to that an F-Spot interface instead of the current Gnome file manager. It would change the way you deal with your files. Add smart search folders via the beagle backend. Do a tag team with the nat friedman's dashboard project. That would be really sweet.

Patience is a virtue.

Broadband rushing thru our apartment's vein once again. An added bonus, for the same package were getting a speed bump. Sweet! Not so sweet on the otherhand is they no longer give static public IP's. Tunneling kung-fu all over again if I want to locate the home machine from the net.

The new X-Men 3 trailer totally rocks!!! too bad I can't try the pixel packed goodness of the HD version.

On the other hand, since Jay has crossed the line (got married), he took with him the Linksys WRT54G. Back to Ad-Hoc mode for our wireless fix.

Its good timing tho. Just in time for another juvenile attempt on social technopreneurship.

Once again, we are all but packets in the internet called life...

Apple - Movie Trailers

I doofusly tried the HD encoded formats. Unbearable viewing experience predictably followed. :D

Gary V. and Leah Salonga on iTunes. I'm no fan of either. Dunno how long it has been there. Just happy to see a kababayan there. Global filipinos on the rise. It might be old news to you iTunes loving folks tho. Wonder if there are other filipino artist there aside from the typical fil-ams.

Foodoroma, Episode 1

Foodoroma, Episode 1
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Janro sporting his new Jose Rizal inspired hairdo. Fun bonding time and giving him an early taste of long fabled takosa tradition of doing the groceries on weekends.

Quicksilver Changes Everything
at
The Apple Blog

This is an app that should be ported to Gnome now that it has a working spotlight like desktop search engine via beagle. Basically its an extensible application launcher. It simplifies the whole launching thing on the desktop. No need to wade thru icons, menus or folders to run your application. This is as close as you would get to manly CLI paradise. Its hard to describe what it does in words, you have to experience it to appreciate the beauty of this application.

It doesn changes everything. It simply rocks!

Ultra Mobile PC - Experience how the Ultra-Mobile PC works

I think this is microsofts answer to Nokia's 770 Internet Tablet!

Btw, or better yet, why not run linux/*bsd/tiger on those UMPC thingies.

UMPC == another jargon from hell.

Why don't they just use simpler catchy names?

Ultra-Mobile PC - Hardware a.k.a the microsoft origami project.

I haven't digested all the press releases yet. Apparently MS copying Apple's marketing tactic has paid off. Super secret announcements style that steve and co has mastered so well is now also being copied by bill and co.


The problem with Microsoft is that they have no taste.
- Steve Jobs

MRT Quickies

MRT Quickies

Noticed the one way ticket machines (TM) at the North Station finally usable. Wish they also had the same for stored values. And it really, really would help if they put some of them on major malls or other places frequented by the train loving public.

Finally had a different program displayed on the public tv screens. Was really getting tired hearing the same artist moaning for the past few weeks.


This post brought to you by a southbound train and a treonox.

OPML == The most horrific abuse of xml known to man. :D

Am getting a blank page at the pinoy techscene site http://techscene.free.net.ph for two days now. And to fulfill my pinoy tech news fix I decided to setup a planet pinoytechscene mirror. Managed to get the OPML file from Jan Alonzo's blog.

Planet Pinoy Techscene.

pinoy techscene seems down for today?

hmmmnn... where is that opml file...

Youtube.com is cool!

Check out this videos!

YouTube - Racecar simulator videogame.

The rumored widescreen ipod video

TV via IP (IPTV) delivery is quickly becoming a practical reality.

Tango Icon Gallery - Tango Desktop Project

If your artistically challenged like me, but have no choice but also do frontend thingies, tango is a great place to look for slick looking icons for both desktop and webtop use.

Do the tango!

u*blog again

u*blog again

After a few days of using it to post to both wordpress and blogger, I can definitely say this freeware Palm application rocks!

While blogging via email would suffice, there is one thing it can't do at the moment: edit previously posted blog entries. A dedicated blogging client like u*blog allows you to edit your previous blog postings. I also like the fact that it has a handy icon that let's you connect/disconnect your GPRS connection inside the application. The interface is amazingly very simple to use and allows you to define handy tag shortcuts.

The only minor gripe is the setup process. It would be nice for it to include sensible defaults for popular blogging engines. The u*blog website provides a pretty straightforward reference at the moment. It would also be nice to include basic help instructions inside the app to guide new users.

All in all, once you set it up, its pretty stable and you would be happily blogging while mobile with your network enabled palm device. And of course, did I forgot to tell you its FREE?


cheers!

treonox
(MRT, on my way home)

Earth having sex with Mars

Earth having sex with Mars

Yep, that's not too farfetched. Just one of the things that came up during The Long Now Foundation's (TLNF) seminar about the asteriod threat in the next 100,000 years. Its based on the idea that pieces of rock from both planets (as an effect of asteroid explosions) containing living organisms that could survive in space, could have seeded life from Mars to Earth, from Earth to Mars, or maybe cross polination perhaps?

Lots of other interesting stuff on TLNF's website. Basically stuff that needs long term thinking. The seminar topics are distributed in audio (mp3) form, and can be downloaded for free.

Its nice to have something like these to ponder from time to time. It gives one a different perspective about current life problems. Problems bigger than our own, bigger the our country. Heck, its not even global, like the asteriod threat, its universal! A problem every living organism in the universe would inevitably face. Resistance is futile.

Interestingly, the solution to the asteriod threat brings about huge ethical and moral implications. For example, if we only focus on blasting every threat in space, it could very well be the an excuse to build nuclear weapons in space (which might have a greater chance of endangering the human race). Also, if all we can do is deflect an asteriods path, who decides which place on earth should take the impact. Let alone who decides if the public should know if such a threat is detected in advance. Imagine the panic and pandemonium upon hearing your local station announcing an extinction level event.

The threat is very real tho. And we don't have the capability yet to monitor space effective enough to have realiable early warning protocols in place. A direct impact of 200 kilometer sized asteriod is enough to wipe out the human race and force another evolution. The ocean would boil, for some time the sun would not be able to penetrate the atmosphere, and a lot more armageddon like scenarios.

The good news is, its not likely to happen anytime soon. Nobody can predict the future. Its just one of those things that would be nice to think about during a star starry night.

Writing On Air: Jim Paredes is migrating to australia and would return to fight another day. Sad, but he really had very valid reasons there. Not to mention we are all given freedom to make our own decisions.

The topic of leaving the Philippines is very timely tho. Not a week would go by that me and my lovey would also discuss going abroad to work and eventually migrate to another country. To finally stop living in a world of ideals and get a grip on reality.

What's next? Is there really no hope? We continue to ponder...

u*blog testing

u*blog testing

testing u*blog...

Revision 2

Feeling inspired, I decided to resurrect the bicolano.org website. It has been dormant for almost a year now after we replaced both hdisk and OS on the colo server. The database has gone with the Dodos along with the erratic hdisk.

Last time we had a community driven bulletin board format. It has an ambitious goal of being a one stop shop on the net for everything Bicol. It was quite ok, with around a hundred registered users with half of them active, but didn't gather enough steam as I hoped it would be. We failed in reaching out/tapping the academe,NGO, and other communities. It was a bit technology centric, as most of the main contributors were developers. It was a good learning experience tho, so it wasn't a wasted effort.

So now we try a different approach, less ambitious goals, broader in scope, but the same noble idea: empowering the bicolano community!

If youre a bicolano, do visit http://bicolano.org, post an article, or leave a comment, get involved! Payt sana!

Summary log

Spent a good chunk of time fixing an open-relayed mail server today. A ton of spammers had a field day with that server. mailq revealed why the poor thing is having an asthma attack.

The ventolin-like cure is good old rejecting of all mails not destined for that domain. Add some FQDN checking and amavis-clamav-spamassasin loving.

Tonight would be some Joomla CMS PHP-powered template wrestling. Good thing was able to download that G4 optimized firefox version, the stock one had a tendency to be a CPU hog. Couldn't use Safari as it lacks the nifty web dev plugin exclusive to firefox.

Tommorow, will take a stab with a little SOAP derby. Crossing my fingers the given API doc would be a bit nearer to reality. The last encounter didn't mention that the hash keys should be converted to uppercase. Javadabadoo...

That's all folks.

This post brought to you by u*blog (hope it works TM).

p.s.
it didn't work. using tried and tested email method via versamail instead.

Dylan Wilk

Yesterdays MS NGO DayKeynote Speaker was Mr. Dylan Wilk, Englishman of Gawad Kalinga fame. The man who sold his BMW to fund making a village for poor Filipino folks. Inspirational talk there. He emphasized that what our country need is heroism not charityand giving should be the next trend in fashion. He mentioned how England was similar to the Philipines, a generation ago. Then the wealthy people started to get involved and it became a trend to give out lands and help the poor. He also mentioned their government was the last to react. But nevertheless, these changes has a great impact in rebuilding that nation.

What strikes me the most (ashamed even), is this generous man is not a Filipino, and yet he says that his only regret in life is spending 30 years just watching everything from TV, and not getting involved.

Fake modesty aside, after that keynote, I feel like an enlightened moron with a renewed love for this nation.

TIME: Life in the Googleplex Photo Essay

Checkout the employee desktop! Really a cool place to work/have fun.

Workshop

Workshop
Originally uploaded by nocs.

Currently attending an NGO Day workshop in Ortigas. This is seeing the other side of the coin. Its nice to see what current MS projects are there for the Filipino community as part of their CSR program.



On another note, I learned a new term in this workshop: Social Entrepreneur. This closely resembles my idea on what I want to be. The idea of helping people, and at the same time earn a little in the process. Win-win situations, finding sustainable business models where both sides would benefit.



I want to be a Social Technopreneur!

Long Now > Shop > Free Downloads > Seminar Downloads

Interesting stuff there, like the The Asteroid Threat Over the Next 100,000 Years.

Mobile-review.com 3GSM Congress - Symbian, Linux, Windows
mobile

GTK+ on Palm devices via the Access Linux Platform. Sweet.

Why I passed up the chance to work at Apple ~ Authentic Boredom

Good points to ponder there. As a family man, I had been to similar situations in the past. Albeit with a different twist: Go abroad or stay here with the family.

There are really things that money just can't buy.

But nothing is constant except change. Lets see how long it would be till we decided that its time to go to a land where there is more milk and honey.

Corrupted Partition: Time for Philippines to have a Mobile VAS Clearing House?

Hmmmmnnnn... Been whining about that for the past 3 years. The current state of acquiring an access code is a major bottleneck for CP's.

Disected MacBook Pro. Took just a few hours after he received the item.

Two words...

Mac Porn!

The First Bootable OSx86 10.4.4 DVD ? cavemonkey50.com

Hmmmmnnnnn... When Apple moved to Intel, I think this is enevitable.

Podbop nets big prize at MashupCamp | CNET News.com

The winner gets to take home a Sun Niagara server. Servergasm...

Apple to hold special event on Feb. 28

Ohhh boy... here we go again!

The Daily Blog It - Cloning Music:Ely Buendia- Cursor

Ely's take on the whole piracy thing. Couldn't find the MB link. Seems he now has a column there.

Superproxy

Superproxy
Originally uploaded by nocs.

What kind of computers will kids like Janro have in the future? Would laptops still be practical in an increasingly mobile world? Will the ancient keyboard ever be replaced by newer input methods? With the advent of video recorder phones, will blogs be replaced by videocasts? Will the current text-dominated-web be replaced by visually richer multimedia-content-on-demand services? Will door bells/buzzers be obsolete?



When?

A year/months ago, we complained to Globe about incorrect WAP over GPRS charging (using a prepaid sim). Sometime reaching as high as 30-40 pesos per transaction! At some point in time they corrected the error and promised to refund the incorrectc harges. Now we are reviving our WAP application.

Hot damn! I really need a GPRS counter.

Some statistics:

2 wap cards cost 58 centavos
3 wap cards cost 96 centavos

Each card not more than 1k. Following the 15 centavos per kb charging I really was expecting not more than 50 for the 3 wap cards. The average size for our wap application. Of course I failed to count the necessary? headers. Its not exactly divisible by 15, so am also wondering how exactly do they count the traffic? or is VAT computed?

Wonder if a mobile WAP browser application with traffic statistics exist?

A Look at GNOME 2.14.

I seldom use Gnome these days. But its exciting to see its progress from time to time. Hopefully Cairo/XGL/Compiz will be available soonish too. Maybe at 2.16?

Adding -Xmx512m to your VM config for your JUnit test on Eclipse would spare you the agony of pulling your hair due to out of memory errors on your unit tests executed via the IDE. Sigh... my old fashioned ant build script has those and am now wondering why Eclipse doesn't make it the default VM config parameter? I've wasted half a day figuring out why my unit tests wouldn't run on the IDE but run when invoked thru good old command line.

Above config can be added to Eclipse by right clicking your JUnit test file and selecting Run As->Run... from the menu, select Arguments and add those to your VM arguments input box.

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.