9vx, run plan9 in a sandbox

http://swtch.com/9vx/

Plan 9 is an interesting Operating System, created in Bell Lab. Essentially by people that created UNIX.

In my opinion Plan 9 is an interesting operating system. Because it is unix in extreme form. Where everything thing is a file. Meaning everything including the network interface. Like unix it means that, there is consistent way to access an OS resource. Don't expect it to function like one. And don't expect it to look nice. What really interesting of plan 9 is the internal and the design.

Previously you can either install Plan 9 natively on machine, or use qemu to run it. Which is not hard. But now somebody have ported Plan 9 to vx32, sandboxing library. Which is something like vmware. And is very interesting piece of software, but that is for another post.

Currently it runs on *nix, which include os x, linux and bsd. Go to the links.

Download it. To run it, in directory, you unzipped. in terminal type. ./9vx.Linux if you use linux. ./9vx.FreeBSD for bsd ./9vx.OSX for os x And Have fun then!!!!!

Fall in love with abstract shooter

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/

I found this games on synaptic. Which is interesting, because 1 it is a 2d shooter. 2 it is really different. And did I tell you it is free, as in free beer and speech.

It is a game by Saba. He is a game creator that create game, that is simple. And with very interesting graphics too. Not to mention very fast pace.

A few game that I will actually recommends is:
1) Gunroar which is a shooter, with you as gunboat. Sinking enemy fleet.
2) Tumiki fighter features a world build on toy building blocks.
3) Titanion, is a game ala gatagga. just more fast pace, and more nicer graphics

Linux gems: pkill

I have been playing this game, tumiki fighter, and gunroar. Which is really an interesting game, but that's another story. What really sucks is sometime it is hard to close the program.

Previously I do this way.
In terminal I type:

ps -A

Then
kill -9 proc_id.

On the other hand, there is pkill.
Which is useful, because instead of process id. We can kill process via program name.
And it is like kill too.

So to pkill a process. In terminal, it would be
pkill -9 program-name

or you can
pkill -9 partofname

Realize that cobol is boring

Sometime I can't help to think that cobol is boring.
It is almost always the same thing. Every time.

It require us to do things we don't do anymore. Text formating is a pain. Size of integer have to be initialized. It is long...............

Thought of my web accounts

I noticed today that, I am really into, the web 2.0 thingy. I mean, I have 3 social networking account, 2 active, and I swear I have more. I have twitter. I have tumblr(which I forget my password). I have 2 blog. And a few instant messenging account.

Some is useful, I have friends which uses facebook, the rest use friendster. I have those who swore by live messenger. And some stick with Yahoo messenger. I got overhead, when I have twitter. Which I am the only user among friends. Or secondlife, which I am the only one. I don't have much friend who blogs. Though a lot go for forum.

The thing is, this is useful. But provided, one, you have other friends that use it. And probably that is the only way, to know, what is new among friends. But really, Second Life while cool, but, really to be useful, it is social in nature. Without friends join in. It pretty much meaningless.

Maybe this is a sign that, I really need a life?

Get Adobe Air working on Hardy 64 bit redux

Finally got adobe air working. And it is really not hard
It is from here the links below.
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=72&catid=677&threadid=1349878&enterthread=y

The big idea is, unzip your adobe air sdk somewhere. Then download some .air file.
then unzip the .air file somewhere. Then on console

$PATH_TO_YOU_AIR_SDK/bin/adl -nodebug $PATH_OF_DOT_UNZIPPED_AIR_FILE/META-INF/AIR/application.xml $PATH_OF_DOT_UNZIPPED_AIR_FILE

So what twirl works,
doomi a to-do list, works with compiz on.

Got Adobe Air working on hardy 64 bit(will try make it better later)

Got adobe air linux alpha working on 64 bit. The trick is, get the sdk, it will have the program call adl to run an air application. But you will need unzip the .air file first.

Will post more detail later.

What happens.......................

Here's what I have been doing within last week:

- Was trying skype, after a very long time. Suprisingly works on my 64 bit hardy. But they give us the version 2.0, where as there is testing version of skype 4.0 for windows.
Which is a disgraced!!!!!

- Was trying to install adobe air. One it doesn't work on 64 bit. And it didn't even allow installation on 64 bit linux environment, even we have a 32 bit compatibility environment installed. And was trying on wine. Only to find out that twirl won't work.

- On the positive side, there is an interesting plugin for facebook chat.
http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/
So far it is working. Wonder how it works.......

Opera 9.5 on Ubuntu hardy 64bit

Opera is one of the very good browser one can find, it is based on standard, and but proprietary. And have a few interesting features that others don't have. Such as the speed dial

The older version of opera, do not have a 64 bit version. 

Now that, opera just release their latest version, now it have a 64 bit version. Previously I have to have a 32 bit compatibility environment. But now it work out of the box. 

Not much changes I can see really. It seems I missed a lot of thing. 

http://www.opera.com/docs/changelogs/linux/950/

One thing I do like is, now rendering of certain page is correct. Which is good. And of course 64 bit support. Speed dial, that is one of the very nice features

One I don't like is, the opera widget don't really work, I wonder why. I kinda missed that, I save my bookmark directly to del.icio.us from firefox. But can't do it in Opera.

To be fair, opera is unique in its own ways. It just that I missed one or two features in Firefox 3.0 in Opera, such as typing keyword in address instead of partial address. Compared to IE7. Opera is a lot better. At least I can save the page I visited, when I close the browser, like in Firefox 3.0, but unlike in IE7 that annoys me.

Suddenly the widget work again, facebook and twitter widget, that is certainly interesting!!!

Barcamp in malaysia

Next month 26-27 of july, there is be a barcamp
http://barcamp.org/BarCampMalaysia

Barcamp is an event where people share knowledge and ideas. And it happens to be free too. So everybody is welcomed............

Or who ever who is interested in the game werewolf. Are welcome too!!!!!

Working with dinosaur, aka cobol programming

Thus One have begin programming in cobol. Programming in cobol on Mainframe, enlighten me in many way.

Another, many things that I took for granted in programming, I really miss dearly

• Interactive terminal is very useful, because on z/os everything is done on batches. So I have to submit the job, and wait for result then go to the sdsf utility to see the printout, luckily on screen. On unix(in my case linux), result is shown immediately, after compilation.
  
• And because of it, the jcl, tend to do more than one job. In my case, there is this compile and link JCL file, that well compile and link.
  
• On z/os, the utility program look as if it is obsfucated. The compilation program is based on a long acronym. I don't even remember the name. But there is always a way to define userfriendly name.
  
• There is no easy way to pass parameter. On unix it is done easily, but not on mainframe.
  
• Worst there is no good development environment. On unix there exist emacs and vi. For programming, here I consider only console environment. It is a pain.
• You realize that the platform is dated, even the JCL is keep the same models where it is from, the punch card, which means it is only 80 char wide and start with //
  
• On cobol, you realize the program is long, you define the variable in the beginning. So one have to think of the variable first.
  
• And it is too verbose.
  
• There is no easy way, that I find now that able to print multiline string. As in python, hell even in c there is "/n".
  
• Like the mainframe. The design looks very dated. I mean, who use move to assign variable anymore. This not assembly....................
  

Programming in mainframe provide interesting challenge. But it is also a pain, in many many way. Make it the last platform of choice to software development. One might not use it, unless forced to. Which is my case actually, because I cannot breach a contract(It seems fun that time, regretting now.) On other case, it is really the critical legacy apps. Which a bank have a lot. That they are force to keep it.

I actually understand why Djikstra is right, why the tao of programming is right. I begin to understand UNIX, a bit more. Most of the language that rank below of my personal list like perl, java and ruby, get high points now, except basic, which I still think too restricted. Because of restriction on cobol, I also like Lisp many more.........

Strange experience but it is true................

Changed into streamyx

My dad decide to change to streamyx broadband, which is a pain to install on ubuntu, for some funny reason the network manager didn't detect properly the modem. Second, they give a useless installation cd. And make mistake assume that we need to dial a number. Which They didn't!!!!!!

So now, the end result is, I now registered with second life, which I will need to take sometime to hack out some script on my free time. And realize that there are not many vendor support linux, in the mmorpg side. But it's fine, I don't play much anyway.

But I still have a few plan with me, one is, getting a wireless access point, I saw a version from d-link that runs linux. Which is good, because it would be hackable, maybe after I burn the firmware. But probably not hosting a server yet. The electricity bill is heavy now, probably a adhoc one but not a permanent server.

By then it is suprisingly fast, maybe people in my community is not that tech savvy. Which is a good thing.

Joined barcamp

I joined barcampmalaysia, which now I realize That I have no idea how to contribute, maybe go the meeting next time?

Or should I share a little adventure in appengine, or computer history?

hating my self for screwing up

Am I too serious to me, or critical to my self.......................................
I think I am too critical to my self, am I?

But it is me.........................