灿烂光辉
人一生中，有过多少灿烂光辉？
有些人，一生无法拥有灿烂光辉，别说只有过一刹那的灿烂。好多人穷一生劳碌辛苦，也没能有灿烂光辉让生命活得更精彩。
灿烂光辉，不需要，也不一定要有丰富的物质。它只要有真诚的爱情或友情，那怕生活不富裕，也能活出灿烂光辉！
Human Disgrace
The shooting in Burma (now Myanmar) is an extreme cruel and disheartening act of a government and a disgrace of the human race on the earth in the 21st century. I am very disturbed by the news I read from the newspaper.
The military government of Burma does not deserve to rule the country. Burma has been a country practicing Buddhism which spread Buddha’s philosophy and compassion. How can this happen? Greed?
Weapons should be pointed outward to any possible incoming threat which will harm the country. Weapons should not be pointed inward to their own people. Killing their own country men is a crime which cannot and will not be tolerated by any God and by human race.
Today, humanity is lost. Do we, the almighty human, deserve to live and rule the wonderful mother earth?
Ubuntu Feisty Fawn
A few months ago, when fornax‘s hard disk was dead, I upgraded it from 40GB to 160GB and installed Debian Etch. Debian Etch has once again boosted my confidence about Linux. The graphical desktop was working up to my expectation. It could support up to 1280 x 1024 resolution! Upgrading Debian is easier compared to other Linux distros like SuSE, RedHat and etc. Actually, I quite like Debian to power fornax as an alternative development platform and also for some general purpose computing and testing purposes. I did not blog about my Debian installation a few months ago. I should blog about Ubuntu installation to record my experience.
Today, after some months, reinstalled fornax again with Ubuntu 7.04, code named Feisty Fawn. The UI is even more superb than Debian. Everything has been nicely done and packaged. To my surprised, I can run KDE applications from Gnome’s menu. This could not be done in Debian and some other Linux. How nice!
As the matter of fact, I did not like Gnome very much because KDE applications would not appear in Gome’s menu. Ubuntu has changed my perceptual experience about Gnome and once again Linux!
I find Ubuntu has more human touch than any other Linux distros. I also find that Ubuntu is very closely competitive with Mac OS X!
Really, I have download Ubuntu’s alternate install CD in June but I had never had a good reason to install Ubuntu over Debian. This morning, I had to install and configure many software, for instance, Subversion, apache and many other software development tools; it gave me a good reason to install Ubuntu. Not because Debian did not have all these software packages (Ubuntu is based on Debian), it was because I had to do most of the tasks which were almost like installing a fresh system.
Ubuntu’s installation is easier than Debian and faster. I had it up and running in less than 20 minutes!
Now, fornax has once again become my Linux development platform as well as SCM (Source Code Management) server. Oh! I run ktorrent for downloading movies as well. It really flies and sucking all the bandwidth. I have to stopped ktorrent whenever I want to work on Internet.
My dream dictionary
Have you ever had a dream dictionary of yours?
I recall my old schooling days when one day, my sister Jenny presented me a dictionary. It’s an Oxford English dictionary. I was so happy. Ever since then, I started to read my dictionary. My second dictionary was presented to me by Jenny again when I accepted my first job offer as a computer programmer on the east coast about 16 years ago. It was an Oxford English mini dictionary, great for traveling.
When I was having my sabbatical karate training on Okinawa, I saw a huge dictionary in my sensei’s (teacher) house. It was about 5 inches thick, 1 foot wide and 2 feet long! It was hardcover. I could not remember the title of the dictionary but it was certainly splendid to see such a huge dictionary! That’s a dictionary of my dream.
I forgot to ask my teacher where he bought this huge dictionary from. I will email him this week to find out. I can’t find any of such huge dream dictionary in on-line bookstore. Perhaps someone can give me a hint?
Alright. That’s a dictionary I dream to have. Do you have a dream and you do not know how to interpret your dream?
Last night, I had a dream. I dreamt I was teaching Dmitry to read a dictionary. What did the dream mean? According to Dream Dictionary, the interpretation of my dream is:
To dream that you are referring to a dictionary, signifies you will depend too much upon the opinion and suggestions of others for the clear management of your own affairs, which could be done with proper dispatch if your own will was given play.
It is quite true that some of the time (may be most of the time), I depend too much upon someone’s opinion and suggestions when I need to get involved in something serious, sometimes not so serious though. I hope I will not pass this bad quality to my children as my dream implied.
Notebook computer batteries lifecycle
I have heard from many vendors giving all sort of statement on how to care for your notebook computer or cellphone batteries. I have also searched the web and found countless number of articles about batteries.
One discovery I found out recently was when I acquired a new Apple MacBook two months ago. I installed a widget called iStat Pro.
At one of the section, I noticed an information about charge cycles. Whenever, I charged my MacBook’s battery, the charge cycle will increase by one. It will increase even though if I plugin external power for 1 second.
During charging, the positive active material is oxidized, producing electrons and the negative active material is reduced, consuming electrons. Every charge cycle will oxidize and reduce the positive and negative electrodes respectively in the battery. This is the cause of the degrading of the battery health. To maximize your battery health:
- Make sure your battery is fully discharged before begin charging again.
- Make sure your battery is fully charged before unplugging your charger.
- If you plan to use your notebook computer for a long time, make sure computer is connected to external power source even though the battery is fully charged. The charger in most modern equipment such as Apple MacBook has intelligent charger. It will stop charging when the battery is fully charged.
- If you plan to use your notebook computer for extended long period of time, charge your battery to full and unplug it from your computer and work with external power source.
- If you plan not to use your notebook computer for a long time (more than a day), charge your battery to full and power down. Do not put your notebook computer to sleep or hibernation. When the computer is sleeping or hibernating, it withdraw power from its battery to preserve the contents of its memory. The battery power will be drained off in a few days time.
Adrenaline Hack
Wow! I’ve done it! Yes! Yes! Yes!
After a successful hack to receive a server-push JPEG stream from a video server (more story here), the next challenge for me was to display the JPEG in a GUI window.
I have been trying to get Carbon binding to work with gnat 4.3 on xcode but I am forced to abandon it for a while. I switched my target to GtkAda which will require X11 on Mac OS X. One plus side is that my application will be platform independent if I use Gtk/GtkAda. That means my application can be compiled and run on Linux, Solaris and Windows with the platform-independent GUI. More business may be and hopefully.
I was working to get GtkAda to work on my Mac since yesterday but I had corrupted some of the files I installed with Fink. Fortunately, I have a backup (actually I copied) on my MacBook but I guess I won’t need it anymore since the Gtk+2 and GtkAda are working on my Mac Mini. I will delete the copy on my MacBook later and install it with the working Gtk+/GtkAda.
I spent the entire morning and noon to write a single window, stripped down application to display the JPEG image I downloaded using the application I worked on earlier. I could not get the result. After many hours of hacking, I finally got it to work!
It is so rewarding to see it happens and I have got a good dose of adrenaline today. The feeling is difficult to describe. So it is difficult for other people to feel the excitement and the rewarding state of mind I am into.
The next challenge is to write an experimental application to continuously receive multiple streams of JPEG images and display them in multiple frames in a window, the last and toughest task with parallelism involving socket and GUI. After this, comes the serious software development by integrating all these experimental applications into a nice GUI application.
Inferior Education
I went to a friend’s shop downtown to collect my new pair of eye glasses this evening. My friend asked me if I knew anyone who could write some software. Of course, I asked him what kind of software. He told me it was his wife who required the service. I threw him more questions and found out that his wife, who is a teacher, is studying for her master degree in Information Technology at one of the local national university. This is one of the government’s program to upgrade the teachers’ competency.
Being a software professional and having the ethics of a software engineer, I told him to tell his wife to do his own homework. He continued to tell me more about his wife’s course. She will graduate next year and now she is doing her project/thesis for the final. She is willing to pay for 3rd party to help her to finish her project.
Holy sh!t. Teachers will catch students who cheat in their exam and schools will expel these cheating students. Now, a teacher is cheating to complete her homework so that she can graduate. And the worst part is that she is willing to pay and she will be back to school to teach!
What is wrong with our education? She is just the tip of an iceberg. How many of them out there are contracting 3rd parties or friends to help with their projects? What kind of inferior tertiary education we have in our country? Imagine a teacher like this going back to the school to teach our young children. This is sub-standard education with intelligently incompetent and lazy teachers in the teaching force.
I had worked with some fresh college students from TARC (Tengku Abdul Rahman College). I remember a few years back, one of them, a girl, just finished her form six was doing Accountancy and she could not catch up with her coursework. She was in despair and faced tremendous pressure. In one of the discussion session, we talked about their problems. Apparently, their incompetency in English language was one of the major cause. I advised her to quit or find another course which she had more interest in. She did not know what she really liked so she did not choose another course. She decided to quit instead.
After she quit, she applied to the teacher training program at her home town in Kluang. I was wondering if I ever did the right thing to advise her to quit. She joined the teaching career. That’s worst! A sub-standard, incompetent girl going to be a teacher!
Many young people whom I encountered in University or colleges have no aim in their life. They have no ambition. They don’t know what they want to be in the future. Some are worse, they don’t even know what they really like or interested. So, many of them end up in wrong course. And university and colleges do not care. They will just “sell” their education to everyone regardless of their interest and ambition.
I have lesser confidence in Malaysia’s education now after yesterday encounter.
Oh yeah! I asked my friend why did his wife choose IT which she could not do well? He told me she wanted a business management course but the seat were full and the government sent her to IT! What the ….? What does our government know about education? Is it just to obtain a degree? I think, politicians should never be allowed to handle education. Let those who have Ph.D. in education and we should see what would happen!
I should have quoted her an amount for helping her to complete her software project as long as she could pay me well. Who cares? But my SE ethic tells me not. Otherwise, I could have made another thousands ringgit out of her! 
Skynet’s bad service
I was really angry with Skynet service. I ordered some goods from one of my vendor in KL. My vendor sent out the package on last Wednesday (September 12). According to the online tracking Skynet provided, my package arrived in Melaka hub the next day. Because of Thursday was a public holiday in Melaka, so the package was not delivered to me on the same day.
The tracking indicated my package was out for delivery but it never arrived. I called Skynet’s Melaka office in the afternoon around 2PM. A Malay lady answered my call and assured that it would be delivered to me by late afternoon around 4PM. I waited until 5:30PM and still no sign of it. I called the office and no one answering the phone.
The next day, when I realized it was 1:30PM and my package still not arrived, I called the office but no one pick up. It was Saturday and office was opened half day. I noticed there was a missed call on my cell phone. I immediately called the number and it appeared to be one of Skynet’s delivery man. He told me he could not deliver to me because it was Saturday and their office was opened half day only. He then told me to go to his office to collect my package as he was still in the office. I argued with him why my package was here in Melaka since Thursday and still not delivered until today, he hang up on me. What a rude delivery man!
On Monday, there was no call even though I had sent feedback and complaints to Skynet via their website. No one called me at all. Until around 3:30PM, the Melaka office called me and asked me where was the address. I received the package at 4:20PM.
The delay could affect my business as my client could become impatient waiting for his goods and cancel his order. And I would lose the deal and profit! Who’s going to be responsible for this?
Skynet claims to deliver F.A.R. (Fast, Accurate and Reliable) service on their website. Skynet has also obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification in June 2006 and wanting a Quality Management System (QMS) in their network not just a certificate of recognition. But what kind of inferior, slow and rude service do they provide!
My vendor paid Skynet to deliver the package to my desk. They told me to collect from their office instead. And my vendor was going to charge me for the delivery cost. No way! I would demand a money back for the slow and inaccurate service. Don’t they have the GIS (Geographic Information System) to help them to get around places?
Until this hour as I write this post, they still haven’t updated their database to indicate the package has been delivered to me. Fast? Accurate? Reliable? BULLSH!T
Here’s the screenshot of the tracking:
Grandpa’s 75th Birthday
Today we celebrated grandpa’s 75th birthday. We did not celebrate his birthday last year as we were busy with Dominik’s arrival. Mee’s return coincides with his birthday and she has not celebrated with him so many years.
Uechi-Ryu Zankai Shubukan
One month ago, on August 17 night, we went to Toyama Sensei’s Shubukan (修武館) Dojo at Zakimi (座喜味), Okinawa. Here are some photos I extracted from the video. You can read more about our training at Zakimi dojo here.
Dantai no Seichin
Dantai no Seiryu
Performing Seisan kata to Toyama Sensei
A Petition To Apple
I have been on and off using Ada (gnat) on Mac OS X. The folks at MacAda.org are doing a great job. Thanks to Jim Hoppers, Andrew Reynolds, Mike Feldman and others.
It has been years since Apple rolled out Xcode, an integrated development environment. Xcode is heavily centered around Objective C and Cocoa. MacAda.org, a group of Ada enthusiasts, took on a NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) with Apple and integrate Ada, based on gnat, into Xcode. This is very encouraging for developers who develop on Ada to switch to Mac.
I have been developing some Ada standard tools (console applications without GUI) on Mac with Xcode. I am kind of on and off of Ada on the Mac. Every each time when I come back with a project with Ada on the Mac, I will find inconsistencies and between Ada and Xcode.
The support of Ada-Carbon is really hard to follow up with. Even the MacAda’s website does not provide enough information and a proper link to the Carbon binding. The easiest way to develop a GUI application using Ada on Mac is using GtkAda. But getting GtkAda built and installed will require tremendously arduous work to build and install Gtk+ first. And running the GtkAda application will require X11 and of course Gtk+. The application will not be Mac native application.
I (and many others too) would love to see Apple really makes serious consideration to incorporate Ada into Xcode as a de facto standard. Here’s the list:
- Makes Ada comes with Apple’s Xcode so that there will be a consistency with every updates from Apple and not from 3rd party website such as MacAda.
- Enable Xcode to create Cocoa and Carbon projects with Ada bindings.
- Support Core Data Application project using Ada.
Any Mac Ada developers who wish to add to the list, please feel free to post your comments. Thank you!
Happy Fasting!
Argh! I forgot yesterday was the beginning of the fasting month for the Muslims. I wish all my muslim friends and students “Selamat Berpuasa” (Happy or Safe Fasting).
Server-Push JPEG Stream
I am working on a video server project since last week. This project is to develop a client software running on Mac OS X to control a video server and to retrieve streams of JPEG images from it. And of course, I am going to develop with Ada together with AWS (Ada Web Server).
Up to this point, I am able to connect to the video server with AWS and retrieve a stream of JPEG images from the video server. I have been able to manually extract JPEG images from the stream identified by SOI (0xFFD8) and EOI (0xFFD9). But some of the images extracted from the stream are not recognized as JPEG file while some images appeared to be corrupted. I am totally puzzled by this behavior.
Could it be the size of the stream buffer (512 bytes) causing the corruption? Could it be the output of the received stream to a disk file delay the receiving process?
Here’s a snip of my Ada code:
...
Data : Ada.Streams.Stream_Element_Array (1 .. 512);
...
loop
AWS.CLient.Read_Some (Connection, Data, Offset);
exit when Offset < Data'First or Count > 512_000;
Ada.Streams.Stream_IO.Write (File_Handler, Data);
Count := Count + Integer (Offset);
end loop;
...
It is quite fun spending entire day hacking the server-push stream and the JPEG images. It has been a long time since my last hacking. Welcome back to the reality!
Another Sweet Reminiscence
Last night, it was a surprised to receive some photos from Sensei. They were taken at the Torri Station Beach Party more than a month ago on Okinawa.
It was a nice and sweet reminiscence of the great time there. The photos have lightened up me a bit. I have been busy with some projects including the new dojo. There were a lot of things in my head and in addition of the cold, I was a little stressed out and the photos came in just in time. 
Two love birds, Sensei and his wife, Sumako Sempai
Nano Calcium
Yesterday, LA, 3 dinos, my sister Mee and I were at Jusco shopping mall to get some groceries to prepare an evening dinner to celebrate Dominik’s Chinese birthday. When we were at the diary products section, there was a promotional stall to promote Anlene yoghurt. I was there to try the free samples with Richie. Then Mee came along and she tasted the sample too. The promotion girl approached us and introduced us the “Nano Calcium” in the yoghurt product she was promoting.
Oh dear! She picked the wrong person not knowing my sister is a research scientist (microbiology and cancer research). She is a Ph.D. in this field and has very strong command in her research area. She is doing her Master in Law (Patent) and is a scientific advisor to two law firms in New York and London. That innocent girl just picked the wrong customer! Of course, my sister started burbling about the “Nano Calcium” and she gave the girl a look in her eyes disagreeing the “Nano Calcium”.
There are many websites promoting “Nano Calcium” in their nutrition supplement products.
Calcium is a chemical element in the periodic table and has the symbol “Ca” and atomic number 20. Its atomic radius is 180 pm (picometer), 194 pm (calculated radius) and 174 pm (covalent radius).
1 picometer is 1×10−12 m while 1 nanometer is 1×10−9 m.
That means, 180 pm is 1.8×10-10 and still smaller than 1 nanometer (1×10−9 m)!
Marketing hypes! Ignorant consumers will get overexcited with the term and thinking that will be a real benefit to them as nowadays many people are talking about Nanotechnology. Calcium is calcium and there is no such thing that atomic or molecular structures can be shrunk further beyond the law of physics.
That reminds me a few years ago when one of the water filter marketed by Diamond can produce “Energy Water”. Water is water, how can a simple filtration system energize the water molecules to become “Energy Water”?
To our surprises, that girl approached my sister again to get her opinion about Calcium supplements which her uncle told her to take. Mee and LA educated this innocent girl about a good and balanced diets. Hopefully, she will listen to their advice and follow it.
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