Bye Bye 2005

Today is 31st December 2005, the last day of the year. It rained in the afternoon. Is time for me to say goodbye to the year 2005, feeling a bit sad with this, because time flies.

I still keep some free coupons, so I have to clear it up today, watch a free movie, have free drinks... no plan for today but there is no celebration for the new year eve.

I quickly read through my 2005 blog, and it seems like I don't do much these years.

Bye! Bye! 2005!

Wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.

Can't Skypeout

I didn't notice that after I have upgrade the Skype to a later version (1.3.0.17) on my OS X, I can't Skypeout again. Not just Skypeout, I can't make skype call to my friend online.

I thought is the new Skype problem, but I have deleted the older version from my hard disk, so I upgrade to the beta version (1.4), and is not working too.

When skypeout it just keep show connecting, but I can't hang up the call.

When skype to online friends, it shows 'Playback error'.

My friend told me could be the sound setting, but all my application is working ok except the Skype, but I remember I install a soundflower software which can redirect the audio to another application, I though I can use it as my skype recorder.

After i uninstall the soundflower using OS X Package Manager, the skype is working again, including skypeout, seems like skype confuse with sunflower.

Soundflower is an open source software.

Is Christmas, 2005

Normally I don't invite people to join in party, I am just lazy to do that. This year is a bit different, I ask some friends to join in our Christmas eve celebration, some did turn up, some didn't, but is good enough. We have sandwich, mee, curry chicken, dessert, volka lime juice, main course should be BBQ chicken. The best part should the the gift exchange session after 12 midnight, where everyone get together. I get a nice organizer, but I use PDA these days, but still a good present for Christmas. The chicken wings are nice, but just too lazy too BBQ it. All people left at 1am plus, hope everyone have great time.

Secret behind the wardrobe

Sleep late yesterday night, but can't sleep well, keep dreaming.The scene from the movie Narnia keep showing in my mind. There is a secret entrance lead to the world of Narnia, behind the wardrobe. If everyone can fly (or fight) when he/she step on the land of Narnia, can we magnified the secret world (Narnia), keep everyone trained and send them back to the real world. Or is there any library which can open the door and link to the secret world, unleash the power. I must be thinking too much these days.

I like (free) movie

Nothing can make me happier, other than watching a good (free) movie. I am quite lucky today, don't have to queue up for a movie ticket. I have this complementary movie ticket (20th century fox) from a friend, can't use it in Amcorp Mall's cinema, I think the lady at the ticket counter don't border to check for me. I try it at 1Utama TGV cinema. Seems like they accept, I get a ticket for the movie, 'The Chronicles of Narnia' (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), just about 10 minutes before the movie started, and is a center seat, may be is those people who have make the booking but never turn up. The movie is about 2 hours, shorter than the 'King Kong', but longer that normal feature film. Is not that interested as what I expected, but not that bad at all. I enjoy the movie, because is free! People like free things, just like open source software.

Which database I know?

A friend call me this morning, ask which database I know? I thought I am going to answer him, I don't know much about database, because I am a programmer and not database administrator. I suddenly know what he means, so I told him I know Postgresql, Informix and Oracle.

All these database are installed and used in our development environment, I have installed most of it by myself many years ago, mostly old version which are outdated, eg. Informix 5(?), Oracle 8.

Install Oracle 8 on Linux operating system is not an easy task, you need to patch the system, at the middle of the installation process. I think Oracle people don't write good installer on Linux, may be they don't have good software people who familiar with Linux development, I hope they have improve by now.

Normally programmer focus on programming, we left SQL queries to the database administrator. We don't know much about database optimization, it need a professional to do it. That is the ideal case, normally we have to play both roles.

I know how to compile postgresql and mysql database, does it consider a special skills? I even do software packaging for postgresql on Linux and Solaris. I know some other database like Cloudscape, if you have forgotten, it is a embedded database purely written in java, and is open source. Cloudscape can store a java object as a data field, eg. a java method (function). Cloudscape source code has pass to apache, will be Derby next time.



I know another database(?) call netisam (from Sun, and no more supported by Sun), I bet not one heard it before, even if you know about it, you should have erase it from you memory, because netisam don't support JDBC, ODBC, even SQL queries! (I put a question mark after the database) and no more supported by Sun. Then how it works? If you have worked on Informix ESQL/C before, you should know, netisam is just an embedded database.

The worst thing about netisam is, I don't find a open source replacement for it!

Feed Planet Malaysia

Jason from Planet Malaysia include my blog into the website, but he ask me do I have another feed? The atom feed from blogger doesn’t display any content in PlanetMy. Jason didn’t told me what is the difference between my feed and the others. May be PlanetMy don’t know how to handle the different format between atom and RSS.

I suddenly recall, I have another feed from feedburner. The display seems to look better now. The atom feed just display one line in PlanetMY, without any content:

BLUE - People: Antero Taivalsaari

The feedburder’s feed display the title and content:

FuYiChin - People: Antero Taivalsaari
Antero Taivalsaari started the KVM (K Virtual Machine) project while working in Sun Lab …

Link:-
RSS, Atom, And The Syndication Standards Dance

Cinema ticket online

People still don’t get use of online technology?

I though I am going to work on Palm programming, but didn’t. I went for the movie ‘King Kong’ (2005, by Peter Jackson), is hard to get movie tickets from Mid-Valley and KLCC cinemas, is a long queue during holiday seasons.


directed by Peter Jackson, 2005. Is the re-make of the 1933 'King Kong' and not the 1975.

Finally get the ticket from Amcorp Mall cinema, you don’t need to queue up for a ticket, and they don’t use computerize ticketing system like GSC or TGV, they use paper and pen to mark the seats and movie tickets.

Someone should sell a ticketing system to them, but after I thought over again, if the current system works for them, they do not need another system, until their business expanded.

The second question in my mind, since there is online booking system available, like cinemaonline, why people still queue up for hours to buy movie tickets? Is just wasting time queue up at the ticket counter there. The truth is I don’t use online ticketing system too, because normally I don’t go for a movie during peak season.

I suspect a lot of people have book the tickets, but did not turn up and collect the tickets. I hope there is a better system, easier to use, can buy ticket through PDA or mobiles, cut down the long queue. For those people who are not familiar with computerize system, they can stick with the traditional (queue) system.

Singapore Golden Village Multiplexes, use Red Hat Enterprise Linux system as their booking system (replace the earlier Windows Server), may be the volume of their online booking is bigger.

One Touch Treo

Yesterday night, having a chit-chat session with a friend during dinner time. He shows me his Palm Treo 600 smartphone. He show me the sms reader, which display the sms like a instant messenger chat session, access to phone, sms, camera function is so easy, by pressing 1 or 2 button will do. Treo 600 is running PalmOS version 5 on ARM cpu (it should be Texas Instruments OMAP ARM core cpu), I notice there is a PalmOne name on the device. Palm have taken out the ‘One’ and change back to their old name (Palm, and just Palm only). There is a newer and better Treo 650, with better colors and higher resolution display. I don’t really like the idea of mixing PDA function with a phone (but seems like it will be a trend). For Treo itself, I don’t like the keyboard and the antenna, but the Treo is a very impressive smartphone. It is one of the best selling among all their Palm products (Treo 600 sold out one million), there must be some reasons for it. Link:- Treo.net The-gadgeteer review (600) CNet Asia editor’s rating as 9 out of 10! theregister review for Treo 600. Review of Treo 650 on mobiletracker.

People: Antero Taivalsaari

Antero Taivalsaari started the KVM (K Virtual Machine) project while working in Sun Lab, he is one of the coder who write the first implementation of KVM, which was written in C. I have lost track of J2ME development for quite some time. I found this interview(J2ME Luminary Antero Taivalsaari), which is more than a year ago, but is quite interesting for reading. Antero's homepage.

Reading: about palmsource

itweek (6 Oct 2005), is the end in sight for Palm OS? My view: It depends on how good and how fast the next version of palm os, but I don't see a sign of the end of palm os. brighthand.com (21 Oct 2005), Palm OS Is NOT Dead osnews.com (2004), Inverview with George Hoffman on PalmOS 6 sideways shuffle to Linux (2005 Feb). My comment after reading:- Is PalmSource has no clear goal? or they didn't announce? PalmOS is a mixture of Linux, BeOS and PalmOS itself. Take a look at what MacOS (OS X) does, with Mach kernel, unix (BSD) like services runs on top, improve (Aqua) interface from old MacOS, backward compatible with OS 9, and slowly phase out in the future, it is clear. May be they should focus on the PalmOS user interface, runs on Linux, Symbian or whatever kernel.

PalmOS development on OS

After trying very hard on setting up palm development on windows cygwin environment, but fail. Finally I get it running on OS X environment.

You need the prc-tools to compile the palmos program, prc-tools are just gcc cross-compiler for palmos platform, sometimes we just name it as toolchain. prc-tools is available in sourceforge, but there is no os x binaries download. I found some download link for prctools-osx, but is not valid anymore.

Finally I get a copy of prc-tools from here (it doesn't look like an apple site?), package by Zenonez.com, it should be available in Apple ADC too. According to the announcement, Metrowerks has drop m68k palm support in CodeWarrior, so Zenonez.com continue working on the prc-tools on os x.

My first try on Palm Programming (OS X)

Zenonez.com has package everything (including the Palm SDK) together, integrated well with Xcode (OS X Development Tools). I follow the instruction from Zenonez.com to compile MacPalm hello world program, it works. But I can't locate where is the m68k-palmos-gcc compiler. Is 3am after I finish, I should have gone to sleep 2 hours ago.