Network slows down

Another day when Streamyx aka the default ISP in Malaysia, screw up again. I am on leaves and my network slows like hell.

Now everything just slow downs.

my class is ignorant of version control tools

I am taking class, as I told many time, and this time doesn't involve cobol. Thank Goodness.

But it is software engineering. Which is cool, because Mr Gary shows how they do things in industry. But I have the whole class, puzzled as Mr Gary introduce, version control, erm actually software configuration management.

It is puzzling to me, how they can't know it. On the other hand, people is quite ignorant of existence of version control, and other software development tools I suspect.

One interesting notes is, it is very quite different from what I observe in Open Source. Not just tools, but policy.

Linux in Lowyat?

Okay, this is a bit misleading......
But it is a little adventure after going to lowyat with several barcampers after barcamp today.

It is interesting to see some sales person in Lowyat, promoting linux on minilaptops instead of windows xp. It is really refreshing. So I do saw linux in lowyat. But it is in minilaptops.

Which also interesting because acer have their model that look surprisingly like eeepc. And Ftec have their smart book, their with both the windows xp version and linux version, but the sales person forget the password. Honestly the smart book is ugly, look olpc'ish, but price like the eeepc.

It is sad though I only saw the eeepc 901 series running on windows not linux.

Barcamp Malaysia: Day 2. Final until the next barcamp

Final is interesting. I am chilling most of the time.
Events
1) Open Source The way forward.
Ditesh Kumar have a good talk in Open Source in Malaysia, and many things i don't know is there. And good introduction to the open source community.

Make me want to join the community more. 

2) Mathematics in The web
It is a bit on the fails sites. Maybe there is not enough explaination, and very philosophical. Maybe not many familiar with advance math involve.

3) Lightning talk
Why my attempts in Stand Up Comedy can be describe in 2 words. EPIC FAIL!!1!!!!
Many have shared their knowledge and adventure. Some with p0rn stashing, some in RPMs, some in open source electronics designs. It is good.
 And the Parody of Web 2.0 By Eugene. IS VERY GOOD!!!!

I hope to join more of this, activity. To the Barcamp Team Nice Work

Barcamp Malaysia: Day 1

Basically the event for day one works quite well. And Some events is pretty intense. Of Course there is many interesting people to look out for.

The Events(That I got in)
1) Introduction to Android Platform
Generally the speaker is able to give good information on android and experience. But unfortunately in wrong time. And really, while it is very nice feature, I think I will wait and see on android before looking for a mobile platform

2) The OpenMalaysia Blog story
Love the presentation, and also one of the most intense. It explains what happening in the odf standardization process in malaysia. And the future of the blog. Looks like tomorrow we have interesting open source session.

Got a lot of open source user there too.

3) Mobile Future.
It is very general, but the N95 is cool, lack the wow factor still, cool. Leave a lot of question unanswered. But it is ok.

4) The Blogging in Malaysia.
Not much happening, more on discussion.

The People
We have problogger, like Hong Kiat, and LiewCF.  Not to mention Josh Lim of Advertlets.

Many Web developer. Not surprisingly a lot of PHP developer. But the organizer Kamal is a Ruby Developer. Azraii, is a secondary school student, and he can do Django, with his project. I will say keep up the good work.



We have startup, web 2.0 style.
We have very good idea around, and very nice to talk about their idea.
Have to say, they are passionate. And some are very interesting product as well. Not to mention interesting problem.

The Bad
We really need wireless internet to properly qualify to be a tech event. But otherwise, it is pretty cool.

Finish the cobol training: The postmortem

During the training. I found out a few thing.

1. My programming skills is getting rusty. Throughout course, I produce some worst code, with the worst design.
2. And I cannot work under stress, which is bad. Because my working environment is like that
3. I really cannot handle global variable. Especially when you only have that to use. 
4. mainframe is hard to automate stuff. 
5. in fact, jcl can be a pain.
6. but able to see other ways system works is interesting.
7. and cics is really interesting to see and work with, surprisingly familiar!!!
8. and ibm book is important!!!!
9. still I really prefer, more open, modern development platform, aka linux and other open source *nix, and their programming languages and tools
   
10. now i need to rest

the pidgin facebook plugin surprise me

http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/

Since facebook didn't release their chat api yet. Somebody have figure out ways to connect facebook chat with pidgin.

And suprisingly it have quite a number of features that work.
When there is friend request from facebook, i am able to add it via pidgin.

Interesting indeed

My Reading List

So I got a few book, with many ebooks which I accumulate on my Links.
I got 3 books that I have that I didn't read, which I actually bought

Which is:
1) Programming Collective Intelligence, from O'reily.
Which is about machine learning. What nice is, it is very practical with enough theoretical background for newbies.
2) AI Application Programming.
A book which is on AI, which is again very practical. And very straight to the point.
3) The Difference Engine.
A scifi novel from William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, which started the steampunk movement.

Then I have a list of free ebooks that I accumulate
 http://del.icio.us/sweemeng/ebooks

Was in my commandline fetishes

Turnout that my default chat client pidgin have crash again.
Since I have join some rooms in irc. I need other client.

I install weechat and irrsi.
Look interesting

Finally able to relax

After 2 weeks of, working frantically on course work. On cobol.
Finally I can relax a little. This is the final busy week. Which I hope is not busy, anymore.
Until I go back to the office anyway.

So I actually have time to do my own thing, in the weekend. Some book I have I never manage to finish the chapter I am reading. Now I probably can..............

Bought a linux based wireless router wrt54gl

I finally bought my wireless router. A wrt54gl.
Which run linux. And installed tomato firmware on it. Only to found out It is easy.

More on that later

Trying to get a wireless router

I am surveying a wireless router on the market. Only to realize that, suprisingly these router is quite cheap. I can get one for RM149, in Mid Valley. And found a linux router from dlink(or was it linksys) for RM2++.

The thing is, I don't just want a wireless router to use. Yeah true that I want to get one. But just buy a router to use is not satisfactory. What I really want, is something hackable.......

So what I have on my list is.

•  WRT54GL. The old WRT54G, don't support third party firmware anymore.
•  There is a netgear have recently release wgr614l. Which openly support open firmware

Otherwise there is, a table of hardware from openwrt.

Which goes to another problem. I want my router to be moddable. But yet, I am lazy. One one hand there is Openwrt, which is a linux distro, with many package. Including python!!!!. On the other hand there is tomato. Which runs linux but, it is pretty much just a linux, with other package. But easy enough for most people to use.