wahlau's online hut

while reading the updates made by Sacha in Tapei regarding the latest ARM-based netbooks (with snapdragon chip), i suddenly start thinking the choice of OS on this platform. Since it is an arm-based system, most likely we will get linux variants running on it with perhaps customized specialized interfaces. For some prototype or first hand screenshot, take a look at the pictures taken by Sacha (German entry, but pictures and visual speak more than words :) ).

so far i only have one problem after upgrading to Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex - my VPN via pptp stopped working. It is actually a known issue since months, but so far only tweaks and hacks available from many people. Ubuntu has not released any patch for pptp/Network Manager... funny, but i have no idea why.

while leaving my room for work today, i plugged the charger to my nokia 770 - the first generation of the Nokia Internet Tablets. It came to my mind that i have not really used it since quite some time. Even during the last holiday, it was only used for mahjong. :) The last time i tried to really use it, was the time we got lost somewhere near Hamburg - and it kept crashing that i gave up searching for something there.

Ever found hard to read some online slides given in different tutorials or conferences, and missed the talk because of busy schedule or expensive conference fees? Today i came across a site that might change things a little. Videolectures feature lecture talks on many computer science related topics, with video and slides together (maybe not all). I find this extremely useful, because most of the time the talks' slides contain only the important points, and reading them does not really tell you much.

i was watching the tv a few days ago, and saw this interesting not-so-new news - Tom Tom, the leading navigation system company released a new product/system end of last year. The system is able to process traffic jam information, based on the anonymous mobile phone information collected in different base stations. The press release can be read here.

how do you feel when you are still up at 4am in the morning, working on things you never feel will finish nor end, just because you cannot sleep 4 hours ago?

Well the chips/biscuits do taste pretty nice, so that is a plus :) else, i am hoping to retire earlier today from work - did manage to review another chapter of writing for my student, while did some reading and now figuring out what to do next.

perhaps should go back to bed ;) 

while settling somethings for a student, i came across the java swingx project... and basically i saw some nice demo and example done by Joshua and his colleagues. What really caught my attention is the Aerith demonstration. It has really nice interface and "bling-bling" (if you would like to call it), so produced desktop applications have more eye catching effects, and most important of all, better usability. Sometimes we think such stuffs are just eye candy, without realising they do provide an elevated user-friendliness or intuitive level.

If you have time, go give swingx a try. There are even nightly builds of these libraries, and i believe we can learn a lot from their source code and examples.