End of 2008 post: the plan

The plan next year

1. Next years events, foss.my and barcamp
2. Looking for opportunity at the end of the year
3. Lets not get fired
4. Get driving licence.
5. and finally need to be more active in the community . 

Of course, whether  i can achieve it is another matter all together.

End of 2008 post: the summary

What happen to the whole year:

1. My first experience in job interview, 
2. The second interview ends up getting the job
3. Which expose me to mainframe, and cobol, a interesting but painful experience
4. So is the job experience, as the tester. 
5. Before that I graduated from uni, finally.
6. Also have a chance to participate as the volunteer of barcamp in malaysia, and foss.my, a big community events
7. And several mess around me, let's be merry instead
8. And learn more and more.
   

Fun With Linux: bootchart

It is another day where I have a little adventure with my new toy, my eeepc 1000h. What I don't satisfied is the boot time, I got around 40 second on ubuntu on ubuntu using the adam's kernel.

So before to optimize, we need to investigate.

Bootchart is a way to show the boot process, in the end of the boot, you will get a chart, that shows the process.

To install on ubuntu

sudo apt-get install bootchart

The chart generated from the boot process, is stored in /var/log/bootchart. It is a png image.

So the result that I get, from my setup

It is one thing to know, now, how to optimise it?

Adventure with eeePc 1000h, using ubuntu 8.10 intrepid.

Got myself a laptop finally, it is a eeepc 1000h, comes with windows xp, the fun part is, I got it slightly cheaper than most, and 2 gig of ram, which added extra, also 2 year warranty, for RM1845. At lowyat.

It is a machine, that comes with windows xp, which I format it. And I install ubuntu on it.

Step 1:
Download ubuntu, then copy to a pendrive, using unetbootin. The instruction is on the page.

Step 2:
Plug in the pendrive, press  ESC key, when you turn on the computer, then select the pendrive, you should be able to boot into ubuntu.

Step 3:
Setup ubuntu, that is straight forward.

Step 4:
Now install the custom kernel. Using array.org kernel. After this, the wireless should be working. And other hardware too, to be honest, didn't test the camera.

Step 5:
Install the acpi script. Just to make it work nicer.

Step 6:
Now one more thing didn't work well, the sound is not loud. Download the alsa upgrade script

Step 7:
Install netbook remix.

As you see, I didn't use anything that is special, just use instruction from the web. And it works well.

Shopping for laptops(FINALLY)

I know, it is late for Christmas, but finally I afford to get a notebook finally.
Now choice, choice, choice and choice.

Requirement for my lappy involve.

1. Can run linux very well, or rather linux runs on it well. 
2. Screen must be big enough
3. Hard disk space big enough for external libraries.
4. And around RM2000. 

What I have in mind, is eeepc 1000. Considering other option like aspire one, etc. 

Think, Think, Think

So it is a Christmas

So A Merry Christmas To everyone. And A Happy New Year

My first REXX script

This is my first program written in REXX, it is a scripting language used first on mainframe, now have port for major platform from linux to windows and more. This is basically a Julian to Gregorian date converter. At least or form used in the bank. It took me a day to finish it, by then i spent a lot of time Procrastinating. Don't just copy it, the formating is wrong


/* REXX */
START:
  /* SAY IS TO PRINT ON SCREEN */
  SAY "PLEASE ENTER THE JULIAN DATE WITH THE SLASH"
  SAY "(DDD/YYYY)"
  /* PULL IS TO GET INPUT */
  PULL PARM
  /* PARSE IS TO GET THE VARIABLE FROM A STRING */
  /* PARM IS THE INPUT OR THE STRING. THE NEW VARIABLE IS DY AND YR */
  /* SPLIT THE PARM INTO DY AND YR, DELIMITED BY "/" */
  PARSE UPPER VAR PARM DY "/" YR
  /* CALL A FUNCTION */
  YR = CHECK_YEAR(YR)
  /* NOT EQUAL IS /= OR \= OR <> */
  IF YERR /= 1 THEN
     IF CHECK_YDAY(DY,YR) /= 1 THEN
      DO
        /* ANOTHER WAY TO CALL A SUBROUTINE */
       CALL CONVERT DY,YR
       /* || IS THE APPEND OPERATOR, APPEND STRING */ 
       SAY CDY||"/"||CMT||"/"||YR||" (DD/MM/YYYY)"
      END
     ELSE
      DO
       SAY "WRONG DAY!!!!"
      END
  ELSE
    SAY "WRONG YEAR!!!!!"
  EXIT
/* THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE FUNCTION */
CHECK_LEAP: PROCEDURE
  /* MEANS THE ARGUMENT IS PYR*/
  ARG PYR
  LYR = 0
  /* // IS THE MODULUS OPERATION */
  IF (PYR // 100) = 0 THEN
   DO
    IF (PYR // 400) = 0 THEN
      LYR = 1
    END
  ELSE
   DO
    IF (PYR // 4) = 0 THEN
      LYR = 1
    END
  RETURN LYR
/* ANOTHER FUNCTION */
/* EXPOSE MEANS EXPOSE A VARIABLE IN THIS CASE, YERR */ 
CHECK_YEAR: PROCEDURE EXPOSE YERR
  ARG PYR
  YERR = 1
  IF LENGTH(PYR) = 2 THEN
   DO
    IF PYR > 50 THEN
      PYR = 19||PYR
    ELSE
      PYR = 20||PYR
   YERR = 0
   END
  ELSE
   DO
    IF LENGTH(PYR) = 4 THEN
      YERR = 0
   END
  RETURN PYR
CHECK_YDAY: PROCEDURE
  ARG PDY,PYR
  VDY = 1
  IF PDY > 0 & PDY < (366 + CHECK_LEAP(PYR)) THEN
    VDY = 0
  RETURN VDY
CONVERT: PROCEDURE EXPOSE CDY CMT
  /* THE ARGUMENTS OR PARAMETER IS POSITION ORIENTED */
  ARG PDY,PYR
  /* THIS IS A COMPOUND VARIABLE, ACCESS IS BY STEM.TAIL */
  /* DATE IS STEM, TAIL IS THE NUMBER */
  DATE.1=31;DATE.2=28;DATE.3=31;DATE.4=30
  DATE.5=31;DATE.6=30;DATE.7=31;DATE.8=31
  DATE.9=30;DATE.10=31;DATE.11=30;DATE.12=31
  DATE.2=28+CHECK_LEAP(PYR)
  MONTH = 1
  TDY = PDY
  /* THE LOOP */
  /* BY THE WAY INFINITE LOOP IS "DO FOREVER" */
  DO WHILE DATE.MONTH < TDY
    /* NOTICE THE COMPOUND VARIABLE, AND HOW I USE MONTH AS A TAIL */
    TDY = TDY - DATE.MONTH
    MONTH = MONTH + 1
  END
  CDY=TDY
  CMT=MONTH
  RETURN

My Quest of (web service) Convergence

So my quest of web service. Goes a step further. Somebody among my circle using ping.fm. Which is interesting. Because it finally do something I really need. It have

1. Post statuses to several of my social network, aka facebook, friendster(which I rarely use), etc(Blame on my friends) and not to mention identi.ca and twitter
2. Actually update my old blog. 
3. Not to mention my links to delicious, and announce it to the world
4. of course photo from flickr.
   
5. and let me do it from a chat client too.

But there is a problem, Not all service is covered, because now i use picasa web too. But it is ok, it covers almost all that I use. Also it is a updates service, so it is pretty much limited to that. But I can save a lot of time, updating the services that I use.

Was in PC Fair

Today is the time of the year again. Where many shops/company setup booth in KL Convention Center. Where some techie went for bargain. Others, something else. Yup it is PC Fair. And every year I go down. And every year, I bought nothing, and no pictures.

Basically PC Fair is always like the same old stuff. But occasionally we might have some interesting stuff there.
In today case, it is touch screen computer and netbooks. It seems most major laptop vendor in Malaysia produce some form of netbook. HP have one, dell have one, now even Fujitsu produce one.

Most of netbooks is around RM1500 range. But of course there is some touch screen version. That is around, RM2000-RM3000. Fujitsu Shows off their U2010(or was it a U1010), which is RM3600(I think). Either way, it comes with touch screen, which is interesting. And Gigabyte have their m704, which is also RM3000.

What i really like, it is small, and the best part is that, it is touch screen, but one thing is, I am wondering whether these guys works with linux. Seems that the Fujitsu machine is working(from forum anyway). The gigabyte machine not much, mostly because of their VX700 graphics unit. But it is also a tad expensive. So I probably stick with eeepc for now.

Other interesting offering is, software, and GPS. Kingsoft have their office suites, which I am wondering whether people actually bought it. And it seems that there is many people selling Kapersky. Which is interesting, and finally GPS got cheaper, and more mainstream.

Otherwise, it is the same old same old. I still think it is crazy to host PC fair at this time, people don't have their salary in yet.

Was watching The Day The Earth Stood Still

Today lets do something not tech related. 

My company actually a movie night for all the staff. Yes, probably I should stay for one more year too(OK, that is really because of the economy). Oh yeah, sponsored dinner and pop corn too.

By the way, it is "The Day The Earth Stood Still". The movie is OK, not bad, but not good either. A bit mediocre. Generally the story describe about human in general. From our ability to be aggressive to our ability to love and our ability to be humble(actually more like give in).

The thing is the story seems to be disconnected. While the big idea is shown on screen well. But connection between character is not good, other than Helen and Jacob. I mean the character is there, so?  The emphasize of a invasion part take more precedence over the human story.

But the reason behind the whole movies is not clear, or maybe they do. It have too much emphasize of the disaster but not much of the reason.

What really nice about the movies is the special effect. It is nice, not creative, but nice. Gort the robot, definitely have the geek appeal, at least for me anyway. So is the military equipment. The cause for the disaster in the movies, is also very cool.  I keep it for someone that watch it to see.

But sadly the story is not as good. While the effect is nice, the act is ok. The story is very wide, but lack the depth.But it is not a bad story.

Adventure with fedora: day 1

So I installed fedora. Not quite a new user in fedora. Just not use it as much as Ubuntu. Below is my fedora desktop, modified.

First thing I notice is that. It didn't come with open office. Which is interesting. While I don't quite rely on it. I pretty much do all of my work in office. They tend to be crazy when it comes to data security. Well, abiwords is there.

In a way, fedora sounds like linux few years back. When codec have to installed, third party repository have to be added. Which I could understand why. It just that ubuntu mitigate it by having a way to install it more easily.  And it applies to flash as well.


Packagekit is nice package manager. But a bit more simplified. Probably I just get used to synaptic. One difference is in ubuntu/debian, there is meta package to install group software. But on fedora it is group install.

But like linux nowadays, everything works well, in term of hardware. Except ATI is still a pain in the back. Linux is not hard anymore, from a guy who use linux for few years.


There is more to share on my observation on fedora. So there will be more to come

Installing ATI HD 3650 driver on Fedora 10

First thing first, I got a working Fedora 10 installation on my portable hard disk. Everything is fine. Don't have full set of development tools. But it's fine. Until I decided to install Radeon Driver for Fedora 10.

The end result, as people already knows long before. ATI on linux really sucks. Not just I can't use the screen at all, it unusable. It will be hard to fix. For newbie, you may well just reinstall. Because you cannot use a ATI RADEON 3650 HD on linux.

What I discover.
1) Fedora 10 really works very well, without 3d driver from ati.
2) Fedora 10 don't have xorg.conf anymore. It does make driver installation interesting.
3) ATI documentation really sucks at telling what to install reall.
4) To fedora user. What is the equivalent of Build-Essential on fedora anyway?
5) Next time, I will avoid ATI, until somebody ported open source 3d driver for the cards. So I should aim for those card with open source driver.
6) Is there a way for me to login to graphic safe mode, when boot in.
7) I don't know what I did wrong the ubuntu installer can't seems to detect my portable hard disk for installation.
8) you cannot use a ATI RADEON 3650 HD on linux.

I think it is interesting adventure today. Only to remember I don't need to format the installation(Which I already did). I just need to go into virtual terminal and remove the driver(EPIC FAIL!!!!!!)

Yeah conclusion. ATI SUCKS ON LINUX

Friendster Rant

Nowadays I am more on facebook. Friendster, was like almost forgotten. But once in a while I do check it.

The only thing I find. It is been populate with spam. From comments to messages. Spam.

Probably time to ditch it?

Toilet Model For Public Wifi

http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/lets-improve-pay-toilet-model-public-wi-fi

An article by linux journal. On using pay toilet model for public wifi.

Which to me is interesting because. Public wifi is everywhere, and so is public toilet. The only difference is, we can't really pay for cheap labor like the janitor for sysadmin. By then, a sysadmin can be at multiple site, using ssh.

At shopping mall, at Malaysia, some of the toilets is free. I wonder how it would work, here.

from barcampjb: The analysis ala the post mortem.

The good:

• The volunteer is good, they are able to get the good venue and food and others thing needed such as t shirt and goodies and sponsor for barcamp.
  
• We have a few good sessions, we have one of automated trading system, which is good, and informative, so is the talk on UAV, and the talk on microsoft on Azure. 
• The crowd is good, fun loving, talking, there is intense networking around. 
• When we thought that there is no such community in JB, we are wrong. We have seen a number of people in JB. Which is good. 
• We manage to learn a lot.
• At least I manage to link up with several of community member is in JB. 
• Did I tell you, people from JB is nice. 
• We manage to clean up the mess pretty well. It is pretty clean. 
• Powerpoint Karaoke is the best session. 

The bad:

• One thing is the venue where there is 2 wings voices interfering with each other. Kinda annoying. 
• Certain session is from BarcampKL, and Startup Camp, which is ok, because not all in KL, but we need to take note that. We should have newer sessions for the next barcamp, at least for places that held it more than once. 
• It seems we have problem with marketing talk. Probably we should take note of that too.
• Powerpoint Karaoke is too short. 
• A bit feels like nothing special. 

from barcampjb: What happen.

Why I go to barcamp, in JB, which is a 4 hours drive from KL?

Most of it, is to meet up with the, MYCLUG group in JB. There some who is based in JB, and some in Penang it seems. Basically I need to have a vacation, while I need rest, I need recreation too. The guys(and gals) in barcamp in malaysia, is a fun loving bunch. So with where wolves why not.

The crowd in barcamp in jb is more that we thought. Like in KL, we have a group of techies down here.
Which really shock us. And the idea is barcamp is really the conversation with the participant, and volunteer. Of course sometime we tend to get into debate, yes I got into a mini debate with a representative from microsoft, since I am a linux user.

Of course there is very few events in malaysia, that we can learn like barcamp. And from Roni, it seems that we would have a few more interesting events. So stay tuned.

Of course one reason is, it is really fun to be in such a unique events in Malaysia.

from barcampJB: The photo edition.

Got back from barcamp JB yesterday.
Generally the event is good. What the BarcampJB volunteers do a very good, good venue, food. T-shirt. Everything. There is several good talk, from automated mapping using UAV, to automated stock trading system.
We have good crowd, interesting talk.

We have good venue. Very beatiful view.

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

We have a good team here. And yes we are werewolves

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

And not to mention good talk

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

And yes we are all having fun!!!

From barcampjb

From barcampjb

To be continued.

MyOSS meetup on OAuth

Yesterday, was a MyOSS meetup, with a talk on OAuth by Mohan. It is very informative. It is very useful too.

Mohan, is a actually using OAuth in his work. And he shows how OAuth work, and how people do it. It is really informative. And it is really useful. Might use it for my own toy project. Definitely not work.

BTW the video is here
http://qik.com/video/649697

Barcamp JB, I am ready

So check list

1) Sleeping Bag - Check
2) Personal Cleanliness Kit - Check
3) Transportation - Check
4) Friday Leave - Check
5) Werewolf Card - Check
6) Monopoly - Check
7) Map - Check

So barcamp HERE I COME!!!!

Now i need a map around JB.

Barcamp JB aka The (Rail)Road block

Turn out my boss, didn't approve my leave yet. Worst the night train have no more ticket.

Hoping that i can get my leaves today. With minor chance of success.

It seems that going to Menara Cyberport from seems to be far. Plan B is definitely needed.Thus begin operation transporter.

Barcamp JB count down. 5 days.

Barcamp JB on Saturday. And the badge is here!!!!!

See you guys there. 

Post on "Protecting" Software, from a forum: redux

http://cforum4.cari.com.my/viewthread.php?tid=1414311&extra=page%3D1&page=2


The redux for the discussion. Again they bring up the fact that, a software sold at let say RM10k. Sold at pasar malam at RM10. BTW it is chinese.

Which of course interesting, because, finally voice of reason is here. Not me, I am really the voice of unreason. One of it is, about company don't pirate software, because they need support and setup. Some by providing open source support.

So conclusion here, there is hope for people in Malaysia against DRM. There will be a fight, but it is not hard. As awareness is there.