wahlau's online hut

Chrome Extensions Mini Hackathon

Chrome Extensions Mini Hackathon
----------------------------------------
10:30am - Building chrome extensions (a step by step presentation with examples)
11:30pm - Mini hackathon.
13:30pm - Lunch is served.

And after that, MyOSS meetup :)

There is reason for word 'More...'

Lately been busy with works and so on. Also here is my new venture with Syed Syahrul, the owner of Idea Buzz . A vidcast talk show style, review gadget, website, and promoting stuff in bahasa style. Yeah, I know, why bahasa Malaysia? Just because there are plenty tech site reviewing it in English, and we want to gather the Bahasa Malaysia crowd.

We recorded it in a photography studio - Pohon Minda. Now currently we have 8 episodes and hosted the video on Vimeo. Please subscribe to our channel here at http://vimeo.com/channels/ideabuzz and start promoting it. We do it because of our passion and love about gadget.

For the record we need some sponsor and if you have any info or contacts that they like to put the product to review on, please contact me.

If you also have any comments and feedback, go to Idea Buzz.

Morsetexter is an application to send SMS using morse code for symbian V2.X phones. It is not for latest symbian phone such as symbian 3rd or 5th versions. This application is good to amateur radio operators to sharpen their morse code sending skills. To iphone users, try iditdah from KB1OOO.
http://code.google.com/p/morsetexter/

Friends VOIP Project using Trixbox. He shared this document for comments and feedback If you have any interested about the VOIP project contact the author directly, organizer and leader of the project by email address sheikh1976@gmail.com
http://www.scribd.com/doc/28092403/Project-VoIP-2010
and
http://www.slideshare.net/sheikh1976/project-voip-2010

Thunderbird 2.0 reached EOL Aug 2009 but Thunderbird 3.0 still does not have all the stuff and attractions for an upgrade, so here I am still using Thunderbird 2.0. What is Thunderbird?

Its an Email client, Calendering, Task and Contact Management. Allows access to Email accounts via POP or IMAP. It also supports GMail accounts, Unix mailbox and Newsgroup account access. A really great application to work with.

Some of the must have add-ons for my Thunderbird 2:

1. Contacts Sidebar 0.7 - Allows me to forward VCards and access via F4 the addresses, copy and paste info of the VCard into email.
2. Lightning 0.9 - The calendar and task Manager
3. FG Printers 0.4.4 - Format printing if the calendars
4. VCS Support 0.6.3.1 - Allows me to import/export VCS calendars
5. Automatic Export 0.3.0 - Allows automatic backup of the calendars

Other optional add-on:

1. Provider for Google Calendar
2. Bidi Mail UI
3. PGP
4. Thunderbrowse

There is a great forum at MozillaZine for updates and help.

How this things work ?

When you send a message to "73s" using your APRS setup, the 73s computer will pickup the message that you sent and relay it out to Twitter. For more information, visit http://73s.org.

Ham radio and linux is my main passion right now. im writing this post to encourage all ham radio operators to consider using open source operating system for their everyday task such as controlling their rigs, logging, plotting, creating new electronic circuits, designing new antennas, encoding or decoding morse code, psk31, rtty, APRS tracking system and much more.
LinuxJournal magazine has already covered linux and ham radio on their past edition. Check out http://www.linuxjournal.com/ham. Thanks to David A. Lane, KG4GIY. One of Fedora members also wrote a guide to amateur radio on his website, http://jjmcd.fedorapeople.org/amateur-radio-guide/. Ubuntu got it's own wiki for amateur radio, https://wiki.ubuntu.com/AmateurRadio.



Quote of the day

"A Linux box is both a powerful communications platform and a really neat gadget! What ham could resist? - Jerry KF6VB"

This post will soon be deleted
EAVB_RNFVYMOPON

Pity PubSubHubBub and rssCloud are such instant pingers.

Related posts:

1. Selenium for your web application testing

Jalan Astaka - Photo Credit - Doug Chung

Another year, a new season of Paintball action. Paintball in Malaysia is really picking up, last year there were two full leagues, this year it has expanded to 4: MyNPL, MPOC, CPCL and for East Malaysia, Sabah Paintball League. It certainly gives us players alot more choice in which weekends to play, but doesnt bode well for our budgets!

Team Feva Division decided to play the first leg of MyNPL in Division 4 (the entry level division) because we only played 1 leg last year. Together with the original team of Verat, Gilbert, Doc Henry, Kevin and myself, we have guesting with us is Miguel a new player and Cikgu from Infidelz.

During the Captains meeting on Friday night, which I attended with Captain Gilbert, all the teams needed to draw lots, to pick out the order of play. Interestingly enough Feva was picked as team 'D1' which would be the first team to play on game day.

I didnt have much sleep the night before, which was OK, cos we had to meet early at 6:30am, to setup our tables at the players paddock. Did our last minute strategizing and warming up and couldn't wait to start our first match.
All 3 Fields for all Divisions had the same layout

Match #1 - MK&Co - Snake Right

We started well against a new team 'MK&Co'. I dove right into Snake 1, there was no mirror (another person in their Snake 1), but there was someone in the Back Right (BR) Temple covering the Snake side. Luckily I had Dr Henry to back me up to force BR in. So I moved up to S2, and shot out a guy across in their Carwash.

I then looked down the tape, and the BR dude was still there. Tried to snap with him, but he hit a pellet on my arm. I asked for a paintcheck, and the marshal said "Play On!" - it was a bounce, as the pellet did not burst on impact.

By this time, there was not much sound on the field except from BR. So I peeked out, and confirmed that BR was the only one left. Cikgu who was guesting for us from Team Infidelz was moving up the Doritos on the left. Verat was moving up the center. Henry was still behind me. I burst up from S2, moved towards BR, and had to weave in because I saw the guy look at me down the tape. Doc fired, so he went back in. But as I wrapped around the BR to the right to take him out, I got shot by friendly fire on my right shoulder. Fortunately Cikgu and others cleaned him out.

So Feva won with 98 points, with only me as a casualty.

Match #2 - Outrecs 360 - Snake Right

We were feeling confident, and decided to play the same game for the next opponent: Team Outrecs360 from Multimedia University Melaka. Unfortunately as I dove into the snake, I saw that their snake player and Back Right was quite exposed, so I slowed down to try to take them out. Unfortunately someone else saw me and marked me out.

Kevin who was playing my Snake Back was also taken out relatively quickly after that, which meant our right flank was completely exposed to their Snake player to exploit. Gilbert who was playing Back Left was taken out next by the snake guy who had moved up to S3. Miguel playing Center Back, and also a first time tournament player, spotted their snake move up to our Snake dorito, and managed to snap him out. Kudos!

However he felt a hit on his right forearm, and asked for a paintcheck. The Marshal came over while Miguel waited, and the marshal said "You're OUT!" and surprisingly called a 1 for 1, meaning calling a penalty for playing on. This was strange because Miguel actually stopped his play when he asked for the paintcheck. So the ref went ahead and pulled Cikgu out from the carwash, and the Outrecs captured our flag.

Ah well, smeg happens. At least we got 3 of them.

Match #3 Fai Long Unitar - Snake Left

The next match was against Fai Long Unitar. I dove into the snake (on the left hand side), bumped up immediately to snake 2 and looked inside. Saw an enemy in the left brick and shot him out. Then looked down the tape on the left side, and managed to shoot out their Left Back on the hopper.

I didn't detect a snake player, reloaded, and I decided to move up. Just when I leant forward to pass the knucle, I got shot on my mask. I did not realise it then but there was a player on their Tower by the snake, who then moved to the snake dorito.

Kevin moved up from his carwash onto D4, to take her out.

Match #4 Xtreme Estrogen - Snake Right

We were sharing the players tent with an all girls team from Singapore called Xtreme Estrogen. Very happy and positive, the girls were relatively new in tournaments with two of their team members having joined less than a week ago.

We had a long wait of about an hour before we were up against the Estrogens. I delayed my entry to the snake and opted for the Dorito instead, but that was a mistake. I could see the Center Back, and tried to mark her out. But while I was concentrating on that, their Back Right lobbed a few to mark me out.

Doc had a great game battling his mirror at the Right Back. This allowed Cikgu to mark her from the carwash. However it was almost immediately filled by their Center Back, and Doc had to do battle with her too.

Cikgu then marked out the Left Back and their D3 player. After a while Doc got their Right Back out. He also managed to hit their Snake 1, and with the snake tape clear, moved down the tape to take out their Dorito 2 player.

Match #5 KKTM PJ Wild Hunters - Snake Left

In Field 2, we were up against the Wild Hunters. I dove straight into S1 and didn't have any resistance along the snake tape, so moved to S2. From there I had a really nice view, and shot out their Dorito player almost immediately.

Surprisingly another player did a funky slide into the Carwash, right in my line of fire. He got into cover OK, but he must have dropped his marker. As he was reaching out to collect it, I sprayed a few pellets, and it hit his hand. Ouch, that must have hurt.

Doug managed to catch me in action! Thats me peeking out of the snake S2

I moved up to S3, and took out their Right Back player. As I exited the snake, there was no one else, and we captured their flag.

Fortunately for us, Doug Chung dropped by and took some pictures of us.

Match #6 Kito Unitar - Snake Left

Against Kito, I took a break while Gilbert took over the snake duties. He delayed his dive into the snake, opting to post up on their snake player in the Tower. This was him looking on:

Which paid off, because their Snake at S1 was looking in at the S1 knuckle which made it really easy for Gilbert to shower him with alot of pellets in the gap between the Cake and the horizontal bar. So with their S1 out, Gilbert moved into the snake.

Miguel managed to mark out their D2 player, while Cikgu moved all the way to D3 to take out the Left Brick. Doc ran out from his back position and cleaned up Back Right:

The great thing about this match was that Kito until that match was undefeated. Unfortunately we initiated a losing streak for them all the way till Sunday morning after this.

Match #7 Gladiators - Snake Left

In Field 3, we were up against the Gladiators who up to that time was doing well. I dove into S1 and moved up immediately to S2. I assumed there was a player in S1, but noticed that their Left Back was in furious battle with Doc behind me. So furious he didnt notice me pop to the left and fire a few pellets which hit his loader.

I then quietly snuck up S3, and tried to snap out the player at their S1. But nobody was there, and when I looked up, Cikgu already grabbed the flag and was on the way back. How strange.

This pic was taken just before Cikgu ran down to cleanup and capture the flag:


Kevo shooting down the lanes

Match #8 - KKTM PJ Rlid 3 - Snake Right

For the last game of the day, we were up against another KKTM PJ team, 'Rlid 3'. Doug has an excellent sequence of our breakout. Quite proud of it, cos it shows all of us advancing with guns up.





I went straight for the snake, but was pinned down by their Snake Dorito player. fortunately someone got him out, so I could advance without any resistance. I looked inside at S3, and saw someone in the center brick. Was firing a few pellets at him when another person decided to run towards the middle center bunkers. Unfortunately for him it was right in my line of fire, so he was taken out. Went back to the center bunker, and took him out too.

I saw another person move up and hid into D2, but at my angle, I couldn't get him. So I crawled to the middle of the last segment of the snake, popped up and fired 4 pellets at their D2 player who was then called out.

Snuck out the end of the snake, and found that there was no one else left, so I collected the flag and brought it home:

By 1:30pm, it was the end of Day #1. We dropped a game, but fortunately so did all the other teams. So for the first time, Feva Division was seeded #1 for the knockout stage on Sunday!

#1: Feva Division: 698 points.
#2: UiTM Shah Alam: 690 points.
#3: Outrecs 360: 680 points - they were the ones who beat us at game #3.
etc ...
The standings after Day #1

Day 2

Day 2 began with us meeting up at 6:30am again in Astaka, sorting out our gear and getting this ready. We were again playing in the first game of the day as the 1st team from the prelims would be playing the 16th.

Sweet 16 - Fai Long Unitar

So up against us was Fai Long Unitar which we played in our 3rd match yesterday.

Sweet 16 - Game 1 - Fai Long - Snake Right

I delayed my dive into the snake, to shout out the tall dude who managed to make it into the small Snake Dorito. His loader was exposed, and it was really easy to pick it out. Someone else managed to mark my mirror at tall can. So I dove into snake and went all the way to S3. It was really tiring - to crawl the entire length of the snake.

When I emerged from S3, I then proceeded to shoot out their guy at Dorito 1. I wrapped further around the and saw and marked out their Centre brick. I then continued crawling and at the end of the snake, I saw someone at their Back Dorito and also took him out.

It was most satisfying, especially after that arduous crawl.

It was also tiring, so I took a rest for next game.

Sweet 16 - Fai Long - Game 2 - Snake Left

While I sat out in this game, I could see a relatively conservative breakout from our side. Kev managed to lob their tall and aggressive Snake 1 player from the carwash early on. We held our ground for quite a long while. Kev then did an amazing run towards the tall middle spike. We thought he would stay there, but he kept going heading to a large empty space in the middle. He was shot out Tropic Thunder style.

Doc then went into Snake 1 and moved up taking out the Back Right across field. One of them was moving up to the Dorito2 the same time Cikgu made his run past the carwash. Doc hit the Dorito 2 player, but I saw them pulling out Cikgu as well! It was strange but it was only apparent after the game when we found out that it was Miguels' pellet which bounced off a bunker to hit Cikgu.

So we won two games for the best of three knockout round, which meant we proceed to the next stage, the Quarter Finals!

Quarter Finals - Mospeada

Mospeada was a team we hadn't played in the preliminary rounds. They were solid, and certainly gave us a huge fright.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada - Game 1 - Snake Right

The first game, I dove straight into the snake, and moved up immediately to S2. I couldnt see anything in the field, but heard activity down the snake tape on my right. There was a guy in their Snake 1 who was battling with Doc. So I waited in position, and timed my rhythm, and when I felt it was right, I popped out, shot two pellets and went back in. I managed to hit the snake player who was concentrating on a target further behind and therefore the stream was higher than me.

So with the Snake player eliminated, I could move up to S3 to take out the center brick. I could hear pellets hitting my bunker and when I peaked out, I saw someone in the tower posting up on me. So I called for help, and luckily Cikgu was close by in the carwash and able to hear me. I told him that there was a player in the tower, and he put some pressure on him. I then snapped out of the cake, and hit the player out.

I then peeked around the corner, and was harrassed by their Left Back. I told Cikgu the location, and he went hunting and marked their LB out. So it was quite a successful game communication wise.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada - Game 2 - Snake Left

I didnt make it to the snake this time, but played in the small dorito just behind the snake. Their Back Left, Snake Can and Back Right were showering me with pellets, so I couldnt move. Unfortunately I exposed too much of my left side and their LB lobbed one over and hit me out.

I don't quite recall what happened after, but I do know that Cikgu and I were shot out relatively early on. Our team held strong, and it was a draw at the end. So we had to play one more game for this best of 3 stage.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada - Game 3 - Snake Right

I dont recall what happened in this game, but we lost the game. So with the status at Win - Draw - Loss, its a tie breaker of 1 versus 1 with 2 minutes each round, till a single winner emerges.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada vs Doc Henry - Round #1 1 vs 1

Doc started conservatively, staying at the center back, and moving up through the cans and ending at snake Maya. The Mospeada player was also very defensive, which meant that the game ended in a draw after 2 minutes.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada vs Capt Gilbert - Round #2 1 vs 1

Gilbert moved up quickly, and the Mospeada player was very aggressive, taking alot of risks between bunkers. Gilbert probably had alot more chances but any movement was risky, and the game also ended as a draw at the end of 2 minutes.

Quarter Finals - Mospeada vs Verat - Round #3 1 vs 1

Verat was up next, and moved relatively quietly to the center can. He then saw the Mospeada guy move up from their Back Dorito and then Verat unleashed his Rain of Terror. He just let it pour down on the poor guy, with a period of rapid firing, and the Marshalls called "Out!" which meant we were through to the next round!!


Thanks to Nat's camera from Team Xtreme Estrogen to capture this moment of pure bromance

Semi Finals - CMX Badai

The top 4 teams have been identified; #8 CMX Badai, #7 Gladiators, #6 Ethos and #1 Feva. We were up against CMX Badai.

Semi Finals - CMX Badai - Game 1 - Snake Right

I dove into the snake, bumped up easily to S2, and managed to mark out their Center Back. I tried to replicate what I did in Fai Long's first game, but as I moved up to the final bar of the snake, their Snake Can spotted me and shot me out. Silly me, I didnt check.

Fortunately Doc battled with the Snake Can and marked him out, and controlled the game from the snake side. We won the first round.

Semi Finals - CMX Badai - Game 2 - Snake Left

The problem of getting shot out is that the refs marshal you out, and make sure that you go straight to the dead box. So I couldnt see what was happening after I got shot out relatively early on in S1. I dont know what happened in this game, but we lost.

Semi Finals - CMX Badai - Game 3 - Snake Right

In this game, I planned to stop by the Snake Can to easily take out their snake player as he dove in. However my shoes lost traction, and I went tumbling past the can. I scrambled / crawled back in, but a pellet hit my marker grip so I was called out.

Gilbert in the carwash did a great job in showering their Snake 2 player eventually getting him out. Verat and Doc then formed a squad to run down the snake tape, to clear up the remaning players. There was at least one at D50.

So we Won - Lost - Won, which meant we are in the Finals to decide on 1st and 2nd placement! W00t! [12:22pm]

Finals - Gladiators

On exiting the field for the last Semi Finals, we were told that the finals will be played in 10 minutes! Argh. Our over aged bodies were screaming, considering we played multiple 3 games in each stage. Our opponents were the Gladiators which we beat easily during the prelims.

Finals - Gladiators - Game 1 - Snake Right

I was shot out early diving into the snake. After a while, Doc did a run down the snake but their S2 took him out, and he bundled out, and hurt his 'Tailors Muscle' along his thigh - it cramped up after getting shot.

Eventually, it was only Verat who was deep in their territory, and one of their players in ours. Their player captured our flag, and thought that he was the only one left on the field, so he lowered his marker and started to sprint towards his home. Verat noticed him, and easily shot him out. Verat then went to retrieve our flag (which was not necessary) but before he could work out what to do, the time was up.

In his own words:
"i terforgot ma, split second decision anyway, if i take flag i may loose the fellow, so my mind made up for the stalking & kill. actually im glad time out coz i took the wrong flag n i was totally blurred.. like not enuf oksigen in brain.. black out. even the ref in front of me was puzzled with wrong flag at hand. not sure so i just dont move lor. phewww... even the US pros made mistakes like these"So the first game was a Draw.

Finals - Gladiators - Game 2 - Snake Left

I meant to stop at the Snake Can and post up there, but for some strange reason, as I was running and gunning, trying to hit the center back, I found myself in the Snake Dorito. Looking across the field, I could see their Back Right shooting right back at me. Their Left Back was also peeking above the Temple in the Left Back and lobbing some shots at me.

I engaged their RB for quite a while, using up a pod. Then I saw the LB getting more aggressive. I also noticed that there was no sound from my Back Left, who was Gilbert. He got shot out early too. So I switched hands and tried engaging with LB.

Then I heard a slide behind me and was so relieved when Verat filled in the Back Left to back me up. This gave me a whole lot of confidence and fired more shots at LB. Unfortunately he got the better chance, and gave me a headshot. :(

Verat at LB, Cikgu at Doritos and Kev at carwash was holding up but their Snake player kept pushing.

Verat recalled:
"remembered today, when Gilbert was out, he shouted "I'M OUT!!" which gave me a good head start to cover his position from my center back before 2 opponents started attacking from that flank. held my ground as long as possible. but got pulled out by Ref due to an interesting circumstance."The interesting circumstance was a spectator outside the field, said something which affected play, causing the Marshal to call Verat out. With our LB gone, the defence broke and we lost the second game.

Finals - Gladiators - Game 3 - Snake Right

Karu, who was competing in D3 pleaded to me this time to go straight into the snake this time. so as promised, I dove into S1. I looked behind, and saw that Doc (recovered enough) had the tape under control, and I heard him say "Go go!" So I went to S2.

In Snake 2, I surveyed the scene. It was strangely devoid of any enemy positions. Then I saw a guy at D1, but he was hiding well. So I tried lobbing him. In the meantime, the sound of pellets hitting my bunker became louder and louder, but I tuned that out. I just concentrated on hitting the only person I could see at D1. Unfortunately in doing so, I extended the barrel too much, and one of the 4 remaining guns on me marked my barrel. So the Marshal came over and pulled me out.

While I was with Doc in the deadbox, Gilbert was in the Doritos, Miguel at the Carwash and Verat Center Back holding strong. We needed a win, but when I saw Gilbert being called out my hopes dwindled as we had no runner left to finish this game off.

So we lost the game, and therefore, like ISSC which we played a few months ago, Feva could only muster up 1st Runner up for Division 4.

At 1:31pm, I twitted:
I am pooped. #mynpl
And we were. We had to play almost the maximum of 11 games, plus the 3x 1vs1 games. We could have won, but we did not have the remaining endurance to finish off the finals.

All the winners for MyNPL Division 4 - Round 1

Feva Division and guests: standing - yk, Miguel, Doc Henry, Kevin - sitting - Verat, Gilbert, Cikgu

Overall it was an awesome experience yet again, and we look forward to Melaka in a few weeks!

yk

[I forgot that I had this post in Draft for a month now. Sorry for the delay!]

I follow some aspects of Getting Things Done (GTD) and one of the most important concepts for me is having a reliable mechanism for collecting new things that need some sort of action, and then filing into appropriate systems to manage and review. I only have two review systems, Trac and Datebk on my Palm phone.

If a task is not added to one of these systems, its unlikely to be reviewed, and likely to be forgotten.

I'm generally ok with getting a tasked filed for digital collections (email/Skype etc.). Palm on a phone has greatly helped in quickly dealing with filing phone related tasks such as text messages and calls. My paper collection mechanism sadly such as mail, has been woeful. It's been one two many times, in which I've missed due dates because it's hidden in a pile of stuff (stack of papers) and not reviewed.

Being sick for most of last week, creating a system and sorting out paper was a good mindless yet productive exercise.

Inbox Tray

I organized it into three simple trays:

Top

Stuff that has not been reviewed and filed into my review systems.

Middle

Stuff that has been reviewed and filed as a task. This means that this stack of paper isn't a mindless pile of stuff. When I do my review and management of tasks I'll get to one of these in right order of priority and urgency.

Bottom

Filing and archiving. There is a low priority file or archive task attached to them, just needs to be filed to relevant folder.

Transparent folders

In the middle tray, pieces of paper often need to be grouped together. I refer to these as current project folders. Invoices with checks and receipts, contracts with amendments and so on. Transparent plastic folders are perfect for this task, as it's very easy to quickly put them in, and also see at glance what's in it (saves time on labeling). I use sticky notes within these folders for additional reference information.

When you're done with them, some like the one shown here, even have binding holes to easily file them into a proper binded folder.

Finally these plastic folders are a lot easier to deal with then binded folders when you need to pull them out and reference it quickly to take some action. You can easily pull them out of the tray, or have some sort of container within easy reach. The most important point here is that what is contained in these plastic folders and trays is not "stuff". Except for the top box, they're already organized in my trusted and often reviewed systems.

Report For SCO 505 System Tuning
Report summary for SCO 505 System tuning. A job that I had done on 10th and 14th December 2004. Share this for reference to others. I will write detail about each items and compare it with Linux commands.
The report
The system has been monitored on one day basis at approximately on 6 hours and below the finding:
a. Run the sar command to monitor memory utilization, CPU load and Hard disk cache and write buffer.
b. Checking the root file system / and found inadequate disk space for virtual disk buffer to spare for any spooling process like printing services.
c. Cheking the log files and log rotation as well as the cron (task scheduler) jobs.
d. Check the network LISTEN state to identify any unusable ports and services.
e. Check the backup on offline system and found the tape drive could not be read and suspected the tape drive malfunction and also likely the device may not perform fully functional on the task to write to the tape.
f. Prepare the backup for / and /etc and any configuration file for easy future recovery task.
Tuning and Improvement Done
1. System File Cleanup
dfspace
/var/adm/var/spool
- Null log files and spool file which are not necessary
/tmp and /var/tmp to be checked for any large unnecessry file that exhausted the / root directory.
2. Processes
- Stop non used services and remove from auto startup
- it is recorded that previous service from 31 open port and services has been reduce to 18 ports and services.
3. Kernel Tuning (NBUF)
- change from current default 6652K to 268288K
- reason for kernel tuning (increase the buffer cache) to the recommendation of the physical memory, that likely reported by SCO Unix for better performance.
- Recompile the kernel
4. Installed the monitoring Utility Using SCO Skunware 98 CD
- Installed top (to view and monitor active process in text mode)
- Installed the sarcheck to monitor hardware performance

The NoSQL/relational database debate has been going on for quite some time. MariaDB, like MySQL is relational. And if you read these series of blog posts, you’ll realise that if you use MySQL correctly, you can achieve quite a lot.

1. It all starts with Kellan Elliott-McCrea with his introductory post on Using, Abusing and Scaling MySQL at Flickr. Follow the entire series.
2. He starts of the series with Ticket Servers: Distributed Unique Primary Keys on the Cheap. Flickr scales using shards, and ticket servers give unique integers to serve as PKs.
3. Richard Crowley talks about OpenDNS MySQL abuses. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but it shows MySQL getting the job done.
4. Mikhail Panchenko talks about using The Federated engine for his series.

If you’re using the Federated engine, know that MySQL disables FEDERATED by default. In MariaDB 5.1.42, you get FederatedX, which is a maintained fork of FEDERATED, by the author himself! Bugs are fixed, and this is a supported engine, so if you’re using the FEDERATED engine, it might be wise to try out FederatedX.

I’d also like to bring to attention, an interesting essay by Dennis Forbes: Getting Real about NoSQL and the SQL-Isn’t-Scalable Lie. Monty says: “NoSQL is for very smart people who need a very sharp knife. People who are not capable of mastering SQL should not even attempt to try out NoSQL.”

Related posts:

1. MySQL Ecosystem – complementary talks at the conference?
2. MariaDB 5.1.42 released!
3. MySQL 5.1.26-rc released, and developer resources thoughts

A few notes about the MySQL Conference & Expo 2010.

1. Check out the schedule. Its more packed than you can imagine. You’re going to want to be in many places at once, by the looks of it.
2. O’Reilly Radar has an interview with Ronald Bradford: MySQL migration and risk management. You’ll get a teaser as to Ronald’s thoughts, and a bit of information about his two talks at the conference on migrating from Oracle to MySQL. He has swanky titles for them: Ignition and Liftoff! Expect a lot of technical meat in both these talks…
3. The idea of “mini-tutorials”. Some talks take longer than 45 minutes to deliver, so why not have 90 minute sessions? Ronald’s is a good example of this, though it’s spread over 2 days. We have more:
   • Don Beesing and John Powell talking on Where it’s at: GeoSpatial MySQL Part 1 and Part 2.
   • Tobias Asplund and Konstantin Osipov will talk about everything stored procedures in their 2 part series.
   • Peter Zaitsev will speak about InnoDB Architecture and Performance Optimization and the complementary Part 2.
   • And if you’re interested in Gearman, there’s a spread over the three days, about it! Join Giuseppe Maxia and Eric Day to run you through: Getting Started with Gearman for MySQL, followed by Boosting Database Performance with Gearman and finally Gearman MySQL Hacks, or Everything You Wanted to Do with a Database Server and You Never Dared to Hope.

So, have you registered yet? Early bird registrations ends March 15 2010.

Related posts:

1. MySQL Ecosystem – complementary talks at the conference?
2. MySQL Conference Update: Grid is up, go promote and register!
3. o’reilly mysql conference & expo 2010

Position is the key. There is difference when P1 modem inside and outside (balcony) of my house. Inside Outside I been using P1 since Aug 2009, and the signal mostly strong when placing the modem inside house. The signal is significantly difference this couple of days, might be due to P1 Network Upgrade Exercise (9-12 March 2010). Anyway hope better signal while streaming Arsenal games

Marina Mahathir, daughter of former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir, is crying foul in The Column That Wasn’t. Apparently, she has a Musings column in the local daily, The Star, and her column will be amiss for a week, due to the sensitive nature of the article. A few things to note:

1. The only bit of The Star that I read, is The Star Online: Nation, their business section, and occasionally their tech pull-out. I have never read Marina’s column before.
2. The Home Ministry has already issued a show-cause letter to The Star, and I guess they don’t want another one hanging on their shoulders.
3. Malaysia has the Printing Presses and Publications Act, enacted by none other than Marina’s father, Dr. Mahathir. If you are in print media, you apply for a license, every year, and KDN will grant/deny you. The Star is a public listed company, and the last thing they want is a suspension of their printing license. Guess what – Dr. Mahathir had already meted such a draconian ruling once before.
4. It was around the time of Operation Lalang, that Dr. Mahathir suspended The Star for a period of a year. In December 1987, he amended the act, aiming it at the individuals and the groups who abused the government’s liberal attitude, saying “Being liberal to them is like offering a flower to a monkey. The monkey would rather tear the flower apart than appreciate its beauty.” This is a short extract from Malaysian Maverick, by Barry Wain (currently not for sale in Malaysia, as its being held by the Home Ministry — reading it, you can understand why they would need to protect the interests of the ruling party).
5. Marina goes on to say: “But still there is room for courage, to stand up for freedom of speech. If we capitulate every time, then why bother publishing at all?” By now, such an articulate woman would know, that Malaysia lacks freedom of speech. The Sedition Act is called upon quite easily, and whom did they all learn this from? Her father. The printed press has always been controlled – those in the press will argue that things have improved, but Malaysians with a modicum of understanding by and large look at the press as controlled, and pro-government. But they have to be, right?
6. She continues: “And as many have pointed out, what is the point of censoring the mainstream media when there is the freewheeling internet?” Exactly. She says she has continued to write her column for the last 20+ years, because of “many loyal readers who don’t necessarily read anything online”. What is the reach of The Star? 1 million? In a population of 28 million. I’m willing to bet that The Star gets quite a lot of online readers, and the older population are also, reading stuff on the Internet. Malaysiakini with its pay-wall, has an incredible number of subscribers and readers. There are other avenues, and the online medium is the place the Printing Presses and Publications Act cannot touch. Censorship in itself, cannot happen, thanks to the MSC Bill of Guarantees (for which, we must thank Dr. Mahathir for). But freedom of speech, can/may be curtailed thanks to the Communications & Multimedia Act (CMA) (for which, we must also thank Dr. Mahathir). Sedition, offensive content, etc. are all things you can be charged for. You remember #yorais? Participated in it? You could be in violation of Section 211 of the CMA 1998.
7. Questioning The Star’s self-respect, is silly. They respect their shareholders, advertisers, employees, and readers. That’s why they didn’t publish something the Home Ministry might take offence to. After all, her beef should be with her father – he taught them how.
8. Reading through her article, I appreciate her honesty and her questioning of issues that are pertinent to many Malaysians. My opinion of her column has clearly changed – maybe I will start reading it regularly. She’s also on Twitter – with a protected account nonetheless – @netraKL.
9. Assuming the Home Ministry really did not want such an article published, they’ve probably got Marina Mahathir a lot more readers, just by trying to censure her. That is something the National Front has never learned. History, all but, repeats itself.

Related posts:

1. Bloggers face draconian anti-terrorism laws in Malaysia
2. Blogger registration, or becoming an international laughing stock?
3. Suara Keadilan and Harakah banned but still online

OK, by far I have tested so many rom for my HTC Dream aka G1. And the latest is OpenEclair ROM. For me Eclair is the best ROM but is not intend to be fit on my G1. After a month using OpenEclair, I give up. Mainly because of these reasons :-

1. Too slow - From the startup boot, to even to recognize the call screen to popup. This is include, the browser, map and gmail.

2. Sucked up my battery into half a day usage. Mind you, I am using 2300mAH battery. The Live Wallpaper is somewhat a resource hunger and will quickly drain your battery.

I want to use CyanogenMod 4.2.x but lately cyanogen busy with his BaconMod. So I searched the XDA Forum, about to try Super D ROM, with some nice feedback from user.

I stumble this polish rom cooker named Laszlo, and he make a wonderful themed rom, that is super fast! One is Donut by Laszlo and Eclair R5. Want to try eclair but I think I need a stable, usable day-to-day phone. I wipe OpenEclair and flash to Donut by Laszlo. So fast, flick from screen to screen is responsive, and most important is stable. Not even a force close since I have flashed it.

Now an update Donut by Laszlo 1.2. Just update it and as usual it is fast. Head to l-rom.googlecode.com/ and download it there.

We planned for a company meeting to be in Iceland, with just about a month’s notice. You can do that, when you’re a fairly small company. Having been back from London during the winter, where it was snowing in the New Year, I was not exactly jumping high to visit Iceland. Ice? Gasp.

It was not exactly easy to get to Iceland: KUL – SIN – FRA – CPH – KEF. Five countries, in a little over a day (would have been about it, had it not been due to a delayed flight from Copenhagen — seemed that the plane was snowed in from Iceland). Upon getting my boarding pass for the last leg, I was asked by the SAS ticketing agent if I’d like a window seat – I naturally replied aisle, and he confirmed my choice with me, as if shocked. Then I realised, there might be some interesting sights from the plane, so I took his advice and got a window seat. Icelandair is nice! (in comparison to Lufthansa). Odd plane though – they run Windows (noticed from the mouse pointer), but the entire entertainment system is touchscreen based. Their magazine made a special mention that their playing cards were mentioned in Monocle’s Travel Top Fifty 2009/2010; they were for sale for 3 euros. I figured I’ll pick it up on the way back. Anyway, the view from the window seat? Completely amazing.

I arrived for the meeting on Friday, so missed a bit of the first day. It was pretty much in time for dinner, when I arrived at the Radisson SAS 1919 (important detail – there are 2 Radisson hotels here), so we headed to a restaurant called the Viking Village. Here we tried shark, had some nice lamb, and tried skyr, which they seemingly adulterated with something rather sweet along the way!

The next day, we had dinner at Orange. Before we stumbled upon it, we somehow found that on the 2nd floor, there was also the Malaysian Embassy. Very interesting :) Orange was beautiful, and Monty got us a tasting platter – something like a 5 course dinner, matched with appropriate wines, for each course! We ate like kings. It started with langoustines, then we had whale (which I think tastes a little like beef, maybe a little rare beef?). After that we had beef, and we got some pre-dessert strawberry foam, followed finally by our dessert (another variation of skyr). Being Friday, we all headed out for some drinks, so it was a night infused with lots of salmiakki, whiskey, and beer (this after the wines we had!).

Dinner on Sunday was at Hereford Steakhouse. For me, it started with a Cognac-infused langoustine soup, and for my main, I decided that I’d go for a steak and lobster tail. Skipped dessert, as I was pretty damn tired from the night before.

Monday was an excursion day. We tried our hand at horse riding. These Icelandic horses are apparently quite pony-sized, due to living in extreme conditions, thus eating less. We rode for about two hours, and it was the first time for me (and many of us). Let’s say I now have new respect for horse riders, and those folk at the races. You’d think it was cold; but the coldest part was stopping, giving the horses a break, and allowing the few to have a smoke break. I failed at getting my horse tied once we reached the stables – maybe I just had a stubborn horse (it was apparently a willing horse, not one for beginners). Consequently, I hurt a finger on my left hand, making it rather difficult to type!

The Blue Lagoon. Another photo, showing the steam.

For me, our visit to The Blue Lagoon was the highlight of the trip. I absolutely loved it. This alone, is worth visiting Iceland for. We were told that we’d be bored within an hour. Rubbish. We spent a good three to four hours there. They have a steam room, a sauna (which was a bit too cool for my liking), and of course, the geothermal spa. If more time permitted, I would have probably gone for a massage; apparently you can get one done while in the water. They clay-like mud, is quite relaxing when applied to skin. Your head is above water, but your body is submerged in the warm water. So when the cold winds do come, you still feel quite nice. Lifting your body up a little out of the water is also fun – kind of like “hot/cold treatments”. The experience is truly indescribable – you must experience it for yourself. Before going in, we decided to also grab lunch here – a day of lamb. Well presented, and very tasty, especially with the accompanying wine. Beware the bus journey: it took us over an hour to reach Reykjavik!

Monday’s dinner was at a restaurant close-by to the hotel. It was at Laekjarbrekka, situated a little on top of a hill. This place screamed romantic diners and fancy dining. They had good value for money sets, so I grabbed the langoustine set. It started off with a most amazing langoustine soup, flavoured with cream and Cognac, and we moved quite quickly to the main course (pictured), which consisted of langoustines, a langoustine tempura, and a baked/puff pastry item filled with langoustine. Paired with some rose wine, and a few shots of vodka before (I’m told that if you feel a cold coming, you should have some vodka – keeps the gremlins at bay), this was a most excellent meal. Dessert was home-made ice-cream, and again the presentation was fabulous. Truly a restaurant to take your romantic date to.

Anyway, the entire set of photos is on Flickr: Reykjavik, Iceland.

A few other notes:

• You can buy shark meat at the airport.
• Whale meat you need to visit Noatun.
• The airport Skybus is cheaper when you buy a return ticket. But when the flight leaves at 7am, you’ll have to get a taxi to the bus terminal, and then board the bus to the airport from there.
• Keflavik airport was voted #4 best European airport in 2008. Beware, their security insists you remove all electronic items from your hand carry. Cables included. This process can take some unnecessary time.
• Credit cards are accepted everywhere – taxis, kebab shops, pizza parlours, the post office, etc. I have yet to see Icelandic krona, because I survived quite well without it. If your transaction is under-1000kr, you may not even be required to sign the docket.
• The Keflavik airport does not have free WiFi. Power plugs are non-existent at the waiting lounges, but there’s plenty of power at the coffee places before you hit your departure gates.
• Nightlife is pretty disappointing if its not a weekend. Even on March 1, to celebrate the end of “beer prohibition” (beer was only legal in 1989, afaik), the crowds were not all that great. In fact, not many bars were open, even!

All in all, it was great fun meeting everyone (a lot of old colleagues from MySQL now work at Monty Program), I think the meeting was rather productive (I’ll write about that in another post), and the time outside of the meeting was simply fabulous. Good choice for a meeting Monty!

Related posts:

1. Cathay Pacific Economy: seats = fail
2. Malaysian Airlines have had service improvements
3. The Apple Store Malaysia Phone Experience

From a terminal window;

To view all device drivers and the module names
$ lspci -k

To view a specific device (e.g. 03:00)
$ lspci -vv -s 03:00

To view all the loaded modules (The letter 'K' is uppercase in Kernel)
$ lsmod
$ lspci -k |grep Kernel

This is a short(?) talk on django, how to build a site from ground up

This is a talk on how to build a site from ground up using Django. This will cover Django's basic, and covers some of the useful feature. If you are planning to attend the talk, it will be nice to have a working Django installation, or at least bring a notebook which can run Django.

http://www.slideshare.net/sweemenghacker/a-hands-on-guide-to-django

http://bitbucket.org/sweemeng/barcamp-malacca/

 

This event is only open to HackerSpace KL Members. To know more about HackerSpace KL, please visit this site: http://www.hackerspace.my/about-us , To be a member of HackerSpace KL , file a pledge here : http://www.hackerspace.my/about-us/hackerspacekl-pledge-page