i seriously think that bayanihan linux should shift its efforts on making a filipino centric version of Ubuntu... slap a java sdk on this thing and you have one really complete windows replacement that can cover a wide range of users...

IMHO... KDE sucks...

after a crazy attempt to do semi-fine grained layering of persistence, business logic, front-end friendly wrappers with spring i was puzzled on how to proceed creating unit tests that would work on all layers... each layer has its own applicationcontext.xml file aptly named applicationcontext-orm.xml, applicationcontext-manager.xml and applicationcontext-wrapper.xml... my utility class for loading the application context file could only accept a single string... calling it twice would result in spring only remembering the last applicationcontext invoked...

RTFM as always... and true enough (obviously) there is support for loading those context files contained in a string array... my crappy spring application context utility class ended looking like this:

/*
 * Created on Aug 1, 2004
 *
 * Author Rogelio M. Nocom Jr.
 *
 */
package com.mobileindie.spring;


import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.springframework.context.ApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;



/**
 * @author nox
 * 
 * based on Richard Hightowers article "orm without the container" 
 *  
 */
public class ApplicationContextFactory {

    // logger
    private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(ApplicationContextFactory.class);
    
    // path and filename of application context
    private static Object contextObject = null;
    
    // make sure we are not loading twice...
    private static int count = 0;

    public static void init(String _contextObject) {
        if (count >0) {
            log.error("Can't initialize the application context twice: THIS SHOULD ONLY HAPPEN DURING TESTING");
        }
        contextObject = _contextObject;
        count++;
    }
    
    public static void init(String[] _contextObject) {
        if (count >0) {
            log.error("Can't initialize the application context twice: THIS SHOULD ONLY HAPPEN DURING TESTING");
        }
        contextObject = _contextObject;
        count++;
    }
    
    public static ApplicationContext getApplicationContext() {
        if (contextObject == null) {
            throw new IllegalStateException("Application context not initialized");
        }
        else if (contextObject instanceof String) {
            String contextPath = (String) contextObject;
            return new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(contextPath);
        }
        else if (contextObject instanceof String[]) {
            String[] contextPath = (String[]) contextObject;
            return new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext(contextPath);
        }
        else {
            throw new IllegalStateException("Context must be initialized via String or String[]");
        }
    }
}

in another ubuntu related news...

maybe if the philippine government would be wise enough to promote the use of open source on all government owned schools there *might* be a pretty good chance that we could have something similar to these:



here's the link to the original blog entry...

probably dont need to say this... but ubuntu just rocks! hoary is rather slick!

a few tips on upgrading...

make sure you update warty to the latest first before changing all the warty to hoary definitions on your sources.list... this is my current sources.list:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
## The following lines pertain to supported packages:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted

## The following lines pertain to security updates:
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted

## Uncomment after release to continue getting updates:
# deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-updates main restricted

## IMPORTANT:
## Software from the following repositories are ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by
## the Ubuntu team, and may not be under a free licence. This means that
## software in these repositories WILL NOT receive any review or updates
## from the Ubuntu security team either. These packages are provided as a
## service to our users and nothing more.

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'universe' and
## 'multiverse' repositories:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe multiverse

## Uncomment the following line to add Java software:
deb http://jrfonseca.dyndns.org/debian/ ./

## deb http://ubuntu.tower.net.de/ubuntu/ hoary java
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

works quite well with the degatto, although i havent tested the internal modem yet... to use the ndiswrapper i have to apt-get the latest 2.6.10 kernel as the stock 2.6.8 kernel doesnt have the module with it... after that added ndiswrapper-utils and do the usual ndiswrapper -i to load the binary drivers of my el cheapo CB54G MSI wireless lan card...

obligatory screenshot below:

my lappy is now so hoary...

go figure! ;-)

my 1 year 2 months 17 days old degatto is already suffering from short term memory loss :( ... ntp seems to be a alleviate the problem but annoying nevertheless..

am also *this* close in wiping out this gentoo on the degatto and replacing it with ubuntu... compiling on your main workstation seems to get in me after almost a year of of compiling and updating everything every weekend... should be absolutely fine on servers but on a workstation, its really a very different story...

since using ubuntu on the machine at work daily for a few months, it certainly seems less bloated than other distros... yes, gentoo lets you optimize and customize to the max but at a certain point seems unnecessary/overkill for a moderately modern machine... hmmnn... must be getting old, modifying build parameters doesnt excite me as they used to...

The Broadband Blog ? SIP: Fun and Frolics in Communications... will pluck you later...

Meralco: Appliance Calculator (a.k.a. M.A.C.) seems pretty handy...it doesnt seem to include transmision charge, system loss charge, distribution charge, supply charge, metering charge, CERA etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc...

Managed to compile Muine Music Player... rather sweet! clean and uncluttered... anti-skins kick-ass music player!



has panel notification support... great for screen-size-challenged individuals like me...

due to the relatively new found joy in having a working distcc setup again. i decided to upgrade my current Evolution 2.0.2 to evolution 2.0.3... which, based on the changelogs would offer better imap handling... true enough imap handling was improved (a tad faster than the former version)... the downside, i can no longer load my calendar, contacts and todo's since evolution-data-server would crash at every attempt... *sigh* the perils of being an open-source upgrade-happy junkie...

luckily, i remembered doing this before the upgrade -> tar cvjf ~/backup/evolution.012105.tbz ~/.evolution

as brutally candid this jaredean java guro may seem... he can sure put code where his mouth is... however, that is not the point... what is to be applauded is his unselfish effort of doing example driven articles like this -> Jared's Tech Blogs: Additional Info for ActiveMQ...

SwingingThePendulum - GNOME Live! presentation from nat friedman... insightful... a more recent one by seth nickel here -> experimental culture...

manong's tv enabled tricyle!



pardon my poor clie's camera... that glowing white rectangle is the mini tv showing channel 7's evening news program... and since am nothing but an indigent-pda-toting consultant, all i could give manong was an extra 2 pesos (added to the usual 18 peso fare) and a compliment "galeng ng tricyle mo manong! merong tv on board! mamaya ipo-post ko ito sa aking blog. malay mo balang araw may maka discover po sainyo at mapanood kayo sa tv!"...

P.S. manong is available for an interview from monday to saturday... just look for him at the tricycle loading spot at the corner of Cyberzone at the back of SM North Edsa...

Common Dreams... fascinating views... hope we could come up with a local version of this...

Componentizing Spring and Hibernate Development - Confluence... will read this later...

the new JDO seems really neat too... will tackle that one little by little...

finally managed to have a bit of time to properly setup distcc on the degatto... now all the software packages compiling on this gentoo based machine is off-loaded to a freebsd based workstation... this makes the degatto fans a bit happy since the less load on the cpu means less heat... its probably doing its paean of thanks to distcc by now...

from sachachua: Digital Pinay 2005: A great leap _backward_ in promoting women in IT... wtf! PCS has caused quite a stir in the local IT community... major blunder!

stumbled upon this story Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?... what troubles me more is the reality that there are a lot of misinformed people (parents mind you) that needs a lot of enlightenment... i dont know if this article is a joke... but any level headed parent should think twice before even considering these things... anyway, it was filed under the "Internet Idiocy" category... you be the judge... ;)

should be in the amusement category if you ask me... :)

the joy's of parenthood... currently, this girl is the only homo sapien that can push the limits of my patience and max out the happiness meter in me...



all else considered... being a dad rocks!

another truly awesome webapp ->map.search.ch