adventure @ digital mall , and the interesting conversation

I was surveying for laptop, at digital mall, in a very rare occation where, I am able to go home at 6.

Which I am able to found an interesting, the U60 from gigabyte, interesting machine. Gigabyte provide linux driver too. Key is weird, but it is relatively cheap. But RM 2160. But still interesting.

But interesting part is, conversation with the sales person. Well, I am asking whether formating the machine, will void the OS. Which he ask why. Of course, it begin to be interesting, when I say, I use linux mainly. He was like giving me a stare, or ask why, or say linux is hard to use.

Been there, through that......

Just love IT sales person reaction, when I say I use linux. You know, I might actually get that machine, when it is christmas. Probably not at digitalmall PJ, because they the sales there is mostly not friendly.

I love cURL

Sometime, cURL is a useful tools. And useful to download data from the web.
And scripting to download data. It support major protocol, like ftp, http, https. It is useful for testing, stuff too.

I am working on a pet project, involve twitter, I am try to see how it look like so i download a twitter feed using cURL. And it is really easy. Thanks to the twitter REST interface.

curl --basic --user $username:$password http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.json

All in one line, This is for json, if want xml, the replace json with xml. You might want to save it to a file. You can just redirect to a file. Just replace anything start with the $ with the appropriate value.

curl --basic --user $username:$password http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.json > $filename

Was with the ubuntu-my group

I use ubuntu for sometime, but never really been to the community. Not quite until now.

Today was with the ubuntu-my team, an interesting bunch. The agenda is about foss.my, what to do on that day.

So as usual, I volunteered. And like in uni, I got involve. Except in uni time, I work in the background. Now it could be different.

Love to get involve. It does make my live balance in a way.

Eitherway, we got interesting activities(IMHO anyway), during foss.my. So staytune.

attempt smuggling cygwin: FAIL

So the thing is, the idiots at my company still didn't give me the software. So what happen is, I decide to smuggle x3270 which I used to connect to my mainframe, which runs on linux. But on the other hand, it also have a cygwin version. Actually, the company use other software

So I decide to install it on my portable hard disk. Which works in a way, not in another. Well. the shell works, and so is the individual components. But, it is a pain to combine together. I have to setup the path. Even that, I still cannot mapped / properly.

So in a way, my attempt to put cygwin on my portable hard disk, fails. But still it is an adventuire

I love Python

Python is a programming language, well known to have battery included. It is also full of features, and able to used in many places, from web development to game development, with the ability to extends using c and c++, the possibility is limitless.

How I use python, sometime, I try to code something, to play around with api's.

annoyed by uPnP

So, I have setup vista properly, and they add a few more unnecassary program. So I added a NAS of mine, to vista, so what happen is, vista demand driver for an NAS, actually, it is NAS demand Vista to install a driver.

So install I am, what happen is, it is actually driver for uPnP. Like for what. Worst thing happens is, now my folder on my NAS, now exposed, it can be accessed without password. My NAS is a linux based with samba.

Really, why should they demand to install driver for NAS, it is annoying. I mean, uPnP, is like weak in security. From what I understand, uPnP is dangerous, and Vista should not enable it.

OpenMoko Talk by Ole Tange

Last friday, I have a chance to go to a talk, on OpenMoko on Ole Tange. He is a Software developer, and is involve in opensource in europe. And OpenMoko is a phone which is completely free in free speech.

Basically, I like the talk because, it covers enough details on the phone, which i am going to explore. And it is itself interesting, because of audience participation.

Later in events we are shown the internal of the phone, he actually open up the phone. And we get to play around with it. And it is quite nice. While not quite like Android or iPhone. But it is still nice enough.

It just a pity, that I can't get the real phone with me, but it is really nice that it does. It would be fun, and it happens that I need a new phone too.

a linux guy on vista, part one

Not too long ago, the family PC, fried. So, since the hardware pretty dated, and it is still use windows 98. And an unused linux partition. So i just get a new PC. Which surprisingly ok, in term of spec. And since no one but me, use linux, so it is a vista.

And vista is surprisingly fine, nicer interface, just a tad nicer than xp, but seriously can't we do that in xp. It can preview a windows on taskbar, like, by then beryl have it for sometime, 3d desktop switching, which xgl have it. Really, desktop widgets, which even konfabulator have it, and also linux desktop have it too.

So really, it is not much novelty factor here, unless you only been using windows for sometimes. Worst there is more thing that annoys me like. Desktop effects which annoys me on linux have been disabled on linux, and why on earth I want the same effect on windows. There is no multiple desktop by default. I actually have to google to hunt for software. Which is what is the last time i do it. I miss the fact that on pidgin on linux, everything I types is spell checked. Not much on msn messenger etc. How to auto login to the system anyway.

Really, I don't think It will replace linux as my primary desktop, I tried, but i tends to come back to linux, to do real work. Epic fail, not quite, but vista is not great either.

Identi.ca, we have a winner here.

Not too long ago, I register myself for an account for identi.ca.
Which is an open source alternative to twitter. I stop using it for a while, which is really like not long ago. For the reason that, it can't really integrate with facebook, or other webservice.

Now it is really different. For one, it can post to twitter, which really means a lot of their limitation is gone. So it can post to facebook through twitter. And other service. But not quite posting from the otherway round. So i can't really track, my friends from twitter here.

Here's the interesting part, the features taken out from twitter is in here. So the xmpp posting is in identi.ca, so we can post using gtalk, and track status using identiSpy, or any xmpp client.

The interesting part about this whole thing is, it is open source, so the software can be installed and modified on our server. Which it self really interesting.

Feature wise, I think we have a winner, but will it replace twitter, I don't think so. For one, too many people using twitter already. But it will interesting to see whether, identi.ca is more reliable than twitter.

my identi.ca

Contemplating getting a PC aka hell froze over

My computer is fried, not my laptop, or rather, the home pc, a 4 year old machine, is fried, I think only the power supply dead. By then the PC itself have many problem, usb is a mess, cd-rom unworkable, still using windows 98, and the hard disk capacity is low, with the rate of them filling up the mp3, I am seriously consider changing the whole thing.

What I learn here is, because my family member don't use linux, I do have a linux partition there, but it seems that they still use windows 98 to load websites. And consider that many sites begin to demand ie6 and more, i think it need a better OS, and because nobody else but me using linux, it had to be any windows available. Yes I know Hell Froze Over.

And the licensing is enough to drives me nuts. I mean, you have a OS, that cost a bomb, which don't really do more that previous version of the same OS. And not to mention the Productivity Suite that is expensive. And the software it self, cost half of the computer. It is nuts.