Continuing my lisp adventure

It is been sometime since I reading the lisp book. So now I continuing, with 2 books.
structure and interpretation of computer program
and
How to design program

Really, I noticed how little i know about programming really

Thought on a merdeka day

It is 51 years since our nation Malaysia, receive out independence. Really, are we really independent?

- We are relying foreign country for cash, technology, hell even workforce.
- People are just following like a sheep. Blindly. Based on what people say.
- Everybody is afraid to try new things.
- Really, we are stuck in the past.
- We are arguing non issue, for heaven sake.
- Worst, politician is crazy for power. Some are making nonsense statement.
- Politician are paying lip service to initiatives, like Biotech and MSC.

For heaven sake, we got a country to fix. And we have only 12 years till year 2020

A linux ads

It is really hard to find many marketing push of linux. But sometime what one can find on youtube can be surprising.

This is an ads on linux

This is one for open source

Malaysian governemtn should keep their promise

The malaysian government have promised that, there will not be internet censorship. And they should keep their promised.

It is not even effective. guess what, you think all people get information from internet? THink again.

wesnoth sound issue

For a long time, since I use ubuntu hardy heron, i switch sound off, because it cause it to hang. Now I fixed it.

The solution is, to install libsdl1.2-esd. This would make the sdl library to use esd instead of alsa. And it works with pulse audio too. The command is

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-esd

techie pissed @ government. Interesting............................

I can't help to think that it is interesting. Because Malaysian government block a websites, horribilily. And it pissed of the tech community.

Interesting..............

Malaysia now censor websites!!!!!!

Malaysia begin to censor websites, which is http://malaysiakini.com/. Which is unacceptable!!!!

I cannot believe the malaysian government is so backward in thinking. They block websites.

I cannot allow my country to follow a path of a police state. Not one, not ever.
I recommend that one should use annoynimity software like tor. TO protect themself.

In my job now

Finally got into the office. Into software testing environment for SCOPE.

Oh yeah, it is on mainframe. And cobol. That would be fun.

Installed nepenthes on my laptop

I installed nepenthes on my laptop running on ubuntu, and caught a few mayware within 15 minutes. Imagine that......................

http://www.my-honeynet.org/

Oh yeah, I am helping this guys, they are very nice. And I am currently helping them, in a very very very small way, to help them get more sample

Just finished the course

I finish the course, back to SCOPE on monday..................
Working on project, which is waiting to be assigned on monday.
And it involve "dinosaurs", aka mainframe and cobol.

why I am expecting my quotation mark to be closed automatically, oh great, must be coding too much for the assignment

Xirrus wifi monitor on linux

http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.php

xirrus actually nice enough, to provide a very nice, wifi monitoring, desktop widgets. And the best of all, there is a linux version, on gdesklets. Which cool also, really I prefer them to provide one for screenlets, or even plasma, since linux desktop in my opinion move toward that.

What interesting, it provide information on wifi around me. And my access point seems to jump around.

But really, it also look cool on my desktop......

Epic fail of WirelessKL, and wireless in izzi restaurant

My Boss was treating us, since today is our break. My bad habit breaks in again. I brought my laptop to go online, since izzi restaurant, wifi is free supposedly. Here's what happen.

They is 2 access point, around the area, that I should be access. 1) is the izzi restaurant, 2) wirelesskl. Which I face several problem.
1) Izzi restaurant, was posting in front of the restaurant, there is free wifi. Which
first I have to register,
second, after I register there is a note said, it is provided, for customer that purchace a certain amount.
third, it is not working at all.
2) Wireless KL,
An epic fail, I can't even connect. Nice try Wireless KL, but it failed. Seriously fix it already, I can't use it in barcamp

using twitter from pidgin

I realize that pidgin got more interesting, and more interesting, previously I use pidgin to talk using facebook chat. Which itself is interesting because, because facebook don't really release any, api documentation for facebook chat.

One thing I use now is pidgin-microblog, which is interesting also. Previously, the way to connect to twitter using pidgin, is to use a jabber account like google chat, then add twitter. But ever since, twitter, shut down the jabber service. SO it don't work anymore.

On the other hand, pidgin-microblog, works quite well. 

 

It's still new, but still, it is interesting to see, how creative people be with pidgin

The interesting python function called eval

What did I do
I have this Mini Project as my assignment, which I decide to use python. The assignment require that we have to design a program. And implement it.
Which during the implementation phase, I cheat a little. Actually a lot.

We have to create a calculator, which it need something quite advance, like doing calculus, and  like evaluate 1+2+3. So i decide to cheat  a little by, using sympy to do advance stuff(more on that later, it is good). Another way I cheat is, have all the function, which is not really a cheat, that is I use eval. Which goes to the main story.

eval() that's interesting
eval() is a interesting function, because it takes a string and runs it as python expression. But the catch is, the string must the a valid python expression. For example,in python intrepreter:

>>> eval("1+2+3")

Would evaluate 6. You can call functions:

>>>eval("somefunction()")

But built in function like print, doesn't work . So there is some catch. Some built in function, doesn't seems to work.

I actually use it, because, I get the input in form of string, so a 1+2+3, would look like "1+2+3", which is a string. After I validate, I can just use the string with eval(), to actually execute it.

The danger
Then I realize one thing, eval is powerful, but, it is also a risk, I just realize that, since I am using django(don't ask), it is possible for someone to execute, a command to delete the database(for example). If we are not carefull, it is possible for it to execute system command, using popen. A tried and work example:

eval("popen('ls')")

 Luckily it is just ls, imagine it is something else. On the other hand, it can be handled with proper permission setting. It might also be attempt, in accessing databases.

Conclusion
So if the system is open to other people, try to avoid the eval. Like in django, or actually all applications, other might use.

But I can't help but to think that, such powerful feature exist, is pretty cool.