Dominik at 6 months

February 25th, 2007 at 11:31 · Filed Under Dietrich, Dominik, Family, Photography · Comment 

These photos were taken on February 22. N could push up his body up high with his hands on the floor. He could also roll to his side but a little clumsy.

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Dietrich at 27 months

February 25th, 2007 at 11:25 · Filed Under Dietrich, Family, Photography · Comment 

These photos were taken on February 22.

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Developing web applications with AWS

February 24th, 2007 at 15:20 · Filed Under Ada, Software Development, Web · 1 Comment 

What is AWS? AWS or Ada Web Server is a complete web application framework written completely in Ada and allows development of application with an embedded web server. The application is self-contained with an embedded server. That means, the application is also a web application that can be controlled and manipulated using any web browsers on any clients that connect to it. And more, you don’t need any web server like Apache anymore.

My current job involving developing a web application using Ada and AWS only and there will be Ajax using server push technology in AWS. I was developing some web applications using AdaCGI. One drawback about using AdaCGI is that if there is a minor format changes in the html code, the entire application needs to be re-compiled again.

I was not totally familiar with AWS before I joined the US-based company but I was familiar already working with mails using AWS with the SMTP and POP protocol. I am beginning to understand the mechanism of the http protocol in AWS and I hope to write about this with more details in near future. I am beginning to love this job already and I believe I will be busy in the mud hole mingling with Ada, AWS and Ajax.

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OpenSUSE

February 23rd, 2007 at 13:19 · Filed Under Computing, Linux · 1 Comment 

I had been away from SUSE and the Linux community for quite some time ever since I moved my computing/working platform to Mac OS X. I stumbled upon OpenSUSE a moment ago when I visited a David’s new blog.

I had been SUSE’s fan but I started to deviate after it was bought over by Novell. Since then, I found their products lagging. Many packages in SUSE distro were outdated, the online update would break the stability and etc. I moved to Fedora and it was not better than SUSE in the online update. Again, FC5 broke the stability and usability of my system. I had even downloaded FC6 but never installed on my system. Why? Because I am quite happy with Sun’s Solaris 10.

The reasons I moved away from Linux are:

  1. the maintenance of software packages is tedious and sometimes mind-bogging, fearing the new software packages would break some dependencies or functionalities of the system or some application software.
  2. the update of kernel is troublesome, so getting some devices to work on a distro is very much dependent to the kernel installed. Updating to a new kernel may break system integrity, sometimes.
  3. The UI of the graphical desktop is never as good as Mac OS X! and it is also very difficult to keep abreast with the latest releases.
  4. Software configuration on many distros are different. For example, some distro uses /var/www as the root directory of Apache, some uses /svr/www.

I love the way Mac OS X handles things. They are standardized among many of its own releases. Mac OS X has a clean cut in system administration.

Now I am having the urge to download OpenSUSE for a try. I hope OpenSUSE will resurrect my faith for Linux.

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Training Journal #2

February 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 · Filed Under Karate, Training Journal · Comment 

After reading many replies from Sensei and after watching 6-year-old Senato performing Seisan, I feel ashamed of my training. He is seen performing Seisan with fluidity like the water flowing in the stream and the stability of a mountain. This is very good for a 6-year-old!

The other thing that hits my mind is the hip rotation to generate power. According to my understanding from Sensei’s explanation, Uechi-ryu Zankai generate power internally and I have also read about Uechi-ryu is an internal system comparing to most other conventional karate system. When Sensei mentioned about high possibilities to damage the bones and especially the joints with continuous application of twisting into a strike, snapping the power out with a hip twist, etc.; that reminds me of an article I read from the Internet. The article mentioned about how hip twisting in most karate techniques, particularly Shorin-ryu, could damage the female reproductive organ. On second thought, I think this is possible because the sharp and powerful hip twisting techniques can have serious medical implication to the reproductive organ such as the ovary. This powerful hip rotation techniques were developed by male martial artists according to the physiology of male. Whilst the Wing-Chun system which generates power from internal is much safer for the women. Wing-Chun was developed by a female martial artist according to the female physiology. Uechi techniques have more Wing-Chun resemblance in one way or another.

It will be interesting to learn the Uechi way of internal power generation system.

I tried to learn Seisan but it was difficult to learn the kata from the videos which Sensei sent to me. They were in small size (320 x 240). Certain moves and hand gestures could not be seen clearly. Only if it is not troublesome, can Sensei please send me some DVDs?

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Protected: Sensei reply #3 - Terms and Phrases

February 18th, 2007 at 18:58 · Filed Under Karate, Training Journal · Enter your password to view comments 

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Protected: Sensei reply #3 - Training philosophies

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Protected: Sensei reply #2 - TJ #1

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Protected: Sensei reply #1 - TJ #1

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Happy Chinese New Year

February 18th, 2007 at 0:41 · Filed Under At Work, Blogging, Days in My Life, General · 2 Comments 

Our warmest wishes to all friends and visitors, may the new year of Pig be prosperous and peaceful and to bring you abundance of health, happiness and wealth.

I have a handful during the last week of the Dog year because of my new job and the cross-training in karate. My sensei in Okinawa requested me to write my training journal for him two weeks ago and I could not find time for it. I may post less often but I will find some time for it.

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Protected: Training Journal #1

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Dmitry’s haircut

February 11th, 2007 at 15:45 · Filed Under Critiques, Days in My Life, Dmitry · Comment 

It was always an ordeal to have Dmitry to have his haircut. After the dawn practice, we took D to the “Lorong Bukit Senjuan Scissor Man” for a haircut. He was the first to have his haircut instead of me. To our surprise, he cooperated very well. He got onto a raised seat and let the barber to wrap around him a towel and a long cloth. The barber applied talcum powder around his neck and started the cut.

Everything was so smooth. Then it was Dietrich’s turn. But he broke into tears and tantrum. After many attempts of persuasion, we gave up. Then it was my turn.

Everything went nicely until my wife asked the barber to shave the back of Dmitry’s head after my haircut. The barber became impatient and unfriendly. He said he had little time for such trimming and we should go to hair saloon. He was only doing men’s haircut and this job done well by the girls in the saloon. The trimming would not take more than a minute but this middle-aged “pakcik” was so upset about it. What an excellent customer relations he had!

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OMG! Sanchin monsters!

February 9th, 2007 at 14:02 · Filed Under Karate, Kata and Bunkai · 4 Comments 

Oh My God! I could not believe this if I did not see this video with my own eye! Jay forwarded the link to me and when I watched the video, it really gave me the shock of my life. They sounded like monsters from some horror sci-fi movies.

I think the guy with the “boom” hair is the instructor. I wonder how can these people be fooled by his so called karate Sanchin. Instead of blocks and punches, you can see lots of strange moves, and especially, pay attention to their fingers and the way the making the grasp. And the entire Sanchin kata is wrong!

These guys are really fanatic and Jay said they could die when they are 50. But I think they might die before 50 if they continue doing this!

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