Fast Food vs. Slow Food
Last night was raining heavily for some hours. This morning was a great time to fill up the car’s tank becuase the low temperature would make the gasoline denser, causing it more worth the money. After filling up the tank, we went to the town for breakfast. Then we hang around at grandma’s for a while till late morning.
On our way home, I asked mom what’s for lunch. Dmitry was quick to answer, “I like to have KFC.” No KFC I told him. “Then, I want McDonald”, he quickly suggested another option. “No fast food dear.”, I said. “I don’t like slow food!”, acclaimed Dmitry in disappointment.
Slow food? Yes. He knows the opposite of fast is slow and he invented the term, “slow food”.
He suggested to have noodle but we had noodle for lunch yesterday together with grandma after going to the temple to visit aunt Angie. So it went on and not too long after that, mom suggested Indian rice. Yippee! Indian rice. We went to Paya Ikan to buy a packet of Indian rice to share. Yes, 5 of us sharing a big packet of Indian rice with curry and chicken with chili!
多难兴邦
温爷爷在北川中学黑板上写的四个大字：“多难兴邦”。这四个字已经铭刻在忆万中国人心中。这四个字也给了我很大的回响。
一个国家灾难重重，必能训练出超强的毅力和团结力以应付重重灾难。一个人如果困难重重，也必能训练出超强的毅力和顺应能力。所以，当一个人遇上重重困难时，千万要记得温爷爷的四个字：“多难兴邦”！绝对要理性起来，绝不能灰心和放弃。
好一个“多难兴邦（人）”！
Change is inevitable
All living things, including human beings, go through many stages of metamorphosis through out their entire life time. From fetus to baby, to toddler, to child, to adolescence, to adult, to middle age, to old age and to corpse. Together with this physical and physiological changes, our mental and behavior change in capacity and capability to adept to our needs in the ever evolving and challenging environment.
Welcome to BloggerWave
BloggerWave is aiming to be Europe largest advertising media on blogs. Europe is one large potential market after U.S. If you own a blog and wish to make money with your blog, BloggerWave is the right place to start. I have just become a fan of BloggerWave and starting to make more money by writing posts for it. Why not join me to blog your way to some extra income?
Can’t build AWS in Ubuntu
About two weeks ago, I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron in VMware Fusion on my MacBook (running Leopard). After some playing around with Ubuntu on my MacBook, I began to install software components such as the Ada compiler so that I could do testing on my MacBook without switching to the Ubuntu box.
I am working on a web-enabled application developed with AWS (Ada Web Server). This application is developed on Mac OS X. Building and testing on mac OS X has no problem at all. To compile the source on Ubuntu, I need AWS. So, I tried to install AWS packages from Ubuntu but found only broken dependencies. Then I decided to build one myself. The build has failed because the gnat (Ada compiler) from Ubuntu is 4.2. It lacks two Ada packages, a-calfor.ad[sb] (Ada.Calendar.Formatting) and a-catizo.ad[sb] (Ada.Calendar.Time_Zones). AWS depends on these to build.
I posted to comp.lang.ada and AWS list. It looks like I have no choice but to bootstrap gnat-4.3 myself or install from Ubuntu Intrepid or wait for the next Ubuntu release of gnat-4.3.
HOWTO - Clone your Mac OS X hard drive
First of all, why do I need to clone the hard drive? Good question though. Here are a few possible answers:
- I have too much money to spend for a spare hard drive to clone my Mac hard drive.
- I want to have a bootable external hard drive, installing on an external USB hard drive is not possible.
- I want to upgrade my Mac’s hard drive, and I don’t want to do the installations and setup all over again
Obviously number 3 is my answer. I acquired a bigger capacity hard drive to upgrade my current 120GB hard drive in my MacBook. After some Googling around, I found an answer.
There is an Apple utility program called Apple restore or asr located in /usr/sbin. Connect your external USB hard drive and format it using Disk Utility. Open the Terminal in Applications -> Utilities. Type the following command line into the Terminal to copy your hard drive over your external drive.
% sudo asr -source /Volumes/OSX BOOT VOLUME NAME/ -target /Volumes/TARGET VOLUME NAME/
Replace “OSX BOOT VOLUME NAME” and “TARGET VOLUME NAME” with actual volume names. asr will take quite some time to copy the contents of hard drive to external hard drive. Get a cuppa, pop in your iPod earphone and relax.
When asr completes the execution, it will print a message:
asr: did not copy blessed information to target, which may have missing or out-of-date blessed folder information.
Then, bless your target drive with this:
% sudo bless -folder /Volumes/TARGET VOLUME NAME/System/Library/CoreServices
Now, the hard drive is bootable. Restart your Mac and hold down “option” key. A screen will appear allowing to choose which volume to boot from.
Hacker and Cracker
I received an email from my sister, M. In her email, she pointed out I should not label myself as “hacker”. Well, I could not agree to her opinion so I decided to write this post entry to clear the name for all hackers.
Many people have watched too much Hollywood movies and have developed a perception that hackers are bad guys. They do not understand, nor can distinguish the difference between Hacker and Cracker.
Very well, Hacker and Cracker are like Good Sorcerer and Bad Sorcerer. Hackers are generally referring to a group of programmers or software engineers who dwell into codes of a computer system to find faults or loop holes so that the functionality, usually, security of the computer system can be improved. Hackers are also contributing to many open source device drivers to be used in open source software such as Linux. They study how a device communicates with a computer system without any documentation from the manufacturer (sometimes, some device manufacturers are reluctant to release technical information fearing their competitors may steal their secrets) and write codes to allow the device to communicate with the operating system.
Some hackers visit websites to look for security loop holes and put a file there to indicate their successful hack. Usually, they cause no disruption or damage but to alert system administrator of such security vulnerabilities. One of my website was hacked by hacker from Turkey last week. No damage or disruption caused but simply alerted me of security vulnerability. I quickly corrected the security flaw.
Hackers also study computer codes (binary or source) to learn about a computer software system so to rebuild another similar computer software system for the interest of know-how or to improve the software system. Instead of hacking, reverse engineering best described this type of activity.
Crackers, on the other hand, have the intention to harm or steal. They look for security vulnerabilities to get access into your computer system to cause disruption or steal your information for illicit purposes. Their ultimate goal is to cause damage or to gain something from you to be used for illicit activities, such as stealing your financial accounts or credit cards data for their financial gain.
There are many hacker organizations, for instance, BlackHat. It holds many international technical conferences and training around the world to improve information security.
Laypersons who do not understand the meaning of hacker generally think hacker is a bad guy. Being a hacker myself (sometimes), I just want to clear the name for hackers. And to show the good nature of a hacker, please read here and here.
Another happy new Mac user
To follow up my article, “Am I a Mac advocate?”
Just came back from a business meeting which I delivered an Apple MacBook to a customer. She is a mutual fund manager and is totally new to Apple. The moment she took out her new MacBook from the box, her impression was “Wow! It is so beautiful, sleek and … “, something words could not describe.
I spent some hours to guide her using a Mac and she caught on quite well. She was most impressed when I showed her how I could help her using her Mac via iChat. Totally amazed, how iChat could allow her to share her screen to me and I could guide her to use her Mac and some applications over the Internet.
Another happy Mac user.
Malaysia tertiary education - A systemic failure
One common thing I found especially in Computer Science (and engineering faculty where programming is taught) in all my visits to most Malaysian universities, none of their programming courses is ever impressive to me. The state universities are slightly better than private universities. Yet, still many of them do not teach proper programming concepts. Most of the programming courses teach C or Java as an introductory to programming. The worst thing is that these lecturers have not even mastered the language themselves.
One common thread is that, students are often given an assignment to use other programming languages like Visual Basic which they have not been taught any lesson. Students have to pick up the language themselves.
As the result, many local university graduates do not have proper training in programming and the worst, lack of systematic discipline and systematic reasoning skills. I have personally experienced this with interns and projects seeded to universities.
Some of these graduates will continue doing their master degree in the comfort of the university environment, simply they cannot find a job, they become assistant lecturers. This begins the vicious cycle. A student without proper training in programming gets into the teaching system and begins to teach improper method to younger students!
This is a systemic failure in our local education system. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I once knew a student from TARC (Tar College). She was doing accounting after her STPM. She was suffering because she could not catch up with the course work due to bad command of English. After some lengthy discussions, she finally decided to quit. Good for her. But, do you know what? She applied and was admitted into teacher training program. By now, I guess, she is teaching in the primary or secondary school. There goes another vicious cycle. A sub-standard teaching the younger generation to be sub-standards!
Mathematics - The Systematic Reasoning
I remembered the way my mathematic teachers taught maths in class. Although none of them explained why we must learn maths, as it was the way supposed to be, they taught me systematic problem solving. I began to appreciate the beauty of mathematics when I started immersing myself in programming. The algorithm development and language constructs which are based on mathematics fascinate me with its beauty.
A good programming language teaches us systematic discipline and systematic reasoning. The first programming language which I learned was Commodore BASIC. I hated that. I learned half way (as the matter of fact, 2 days) and I switched to Apple Basic. In the mid 1980s, Apple II was the most popular home computer after Commodore VIC 20. Apple II that ran Apple DOS caught on the wagon very fast. The most common programming tool on Apple II was of course Apple BASIC. That was my first programming language and I had written many programs with it.
Then I was exposed to FORTRAN 77. The language construct was pretty much like Apple BASIC. I caught on with FORTRAN pretty fast. Then under some influences from friends whom I met at the computer center, I learned Apple Pascal. We challenged one another to increase the boot speed of Apple DOS. We rewrote Apple DOS with Apple Pascal and evidently increased the booting speed of Apple DOS.
Pascal is a very structured language (compared to Apple BASIC and FORTRAN 77) invented by Professor Niklaus Wirth to teach students programming and systematic reasoning. The structural construct of the language enable the programmer to think of the problem in a structural approach. Pascal cultivates structural discipline in solving programming problems. Pascal has provided me most of the necessary training in systematic discipline and systematic reasoning in solving problems.
When CP/M was introduced on Apple II, I was able to use UCSD Pascal on CP/M enabled Apple II machines. It won’t be long before IBM and IBM compatibles (8086) stirred up a turmoil with MS-DOS. Then, Turbo Pascal (by Borland) emerged. Turbo Pascal was the lightest and fastest compiler at that time. I became addicted in writing computer programs with Turbo Pascal.
Then I caught on with C and C++ and began to develop software with Borland’s Turbo C/C++ compiler. When MS Windows became a de-facto standard on every desktop computers, I dwelled into Borland’s Delphi (based on Object Pascal) to develop GUI applications.
During Apple CP/M era, I was exposed to Ada. I discovered Ada compiler by accident in another computer shop. I bought the program without thinking twice. Of course, it was a pirated copy. There was no copyright law then. But thanks to the pirated Ada compiler, otherwise I would not know such beautiful programming language has ever existed!
In 1995, I started to learn Ada when books were available. In no time, I fell in love with Ada until today. Whenever I was told or perhaps requested to look at computer programs written in any other languages, e.g. PHP, Visual Basic, C/C++ and etc., I feel that represent an insult to mind trained in systematic reasoning as in Pascal papers which Professor Wirth wrote.
Ada and Pascal are very alike because Ada developers had adopted Pascal’s structural language construct. Both Ada and Pascal clearly represent logical expression without any difficulties. Both languages are constructed heavily based on mathematic concepts and thus enforce systematic discipline and systematic reasoning.
Am I a Mac advocate?
Yes, I am!
I started to use an Apple iBook with Mac OS X five years ago. And ever since then, I do my daily works like emailing, web browsing, IM/Skype, appointment, todo, word processing, spreadsheet and almost everything on Mac. Today, I am a total Mac advocate and I also develop software for Mac. Most of the Mac applications I worked on are easily ported to any UNIX systems such as Linux and Solaris or vice versa.
I have switched many people from Windows to Mac. I have helped businesses to switch from Windows to Mac. And the result? They are happy Mac users and I am a happy Mac advocate. Supporting customers in Mac is ever easier and hassle free compare to Windows. Supporting Linux and Solaris mostly as a server together with server applications cannot be compared in that way because the application area and environment are totally different.
Although the initial investment is higher comparing to any other Wintel (Windows and Intel) PC, Mac gives you awesome user experience you can never enjoy with Wintel. The end result, ROI or Return of Investment is higher.
Read my other article about Mac in business here.
My new blog title
As you can see, I have a new blog title “Pragmatic Revelations”. I also like my old title “The Eccentric Logic of An Eclectic Mind”. Actually, I am a little too sentiment to change to the new blog title and not using the old one. When M emailed me she preferred the old title, I did agree with her that my old title is more catchy. But at the same time, I also like Pragmatic Revelations. How greedy I am!
When I write something and come out of some nice ideas, I become sentimental and get attached to them very quickly. So, in order to not losing both, I come out another idea. A little confusing though but I think it matches the new title.
If you notice the title on your browser window, it reads “Pragmatic Revelations ⊃ The Eccentric Logic of An Eclectic Mind”. To help readers understand better, “The Eccentric Logic of An Eclectic Mind”, meaning the unconventional (or unusual or odd) way of logical reasoning of a mind made up of or combining elements from a variety of sources. The dictionary precisely describes “Pragmatic” and “Revelations” so I do not want to repeat their meanings here. Now…
(Super set) A ⊇ B means every element of B is also element of A. A ⊃ B means A ⊇ B but A ≠ B.
Got it?
Re-branding
Celebrating 2 years of blogging with over 1 million hits, I decided to re-brand my blog. I like the blog title “The Eccentric Logic of An Eclectic Mind” which represents the state of my mind during a period of time. I love the picture banners I made from photographs which I took on Okinawa last July/August. But this is time to move forward to a better state of mind and brand of course.
Here is the screen shot (click to enlarge) of The Eccentric Logic of An Eclectic Mind for remembrance.
Nokia 6300 - Review
After 3 months of using my Nokia 6300, (read about why I acquire a Nokia 6300 here) I think I am able to write a fair review about it. Aesthetically, the phone is beautiful. The thickness is just nice, not too slim but slim enough to be put in shirt pocket and nice to hold in the hand. The metallic covers give a sophisticated feel and look.
The phone has all the basic functions if your main objective is to make and receive calls, SMS and MMS. No 3G. The 2MP camera takes crisp photos if you ever need to take some photos to record certain events. Very handy for image recording.
The screen is bright and clear, color is vivid. The phone comes with nice original Nokia theme but I preferred something to look more sophisticated. I downloaded the FM digital clock theme.
The phone has all the basic functions of a real phone with applications such as Address Book, Calendar, Notes, To-Do List, Timer, Stop Watch and Alarm Clock. I choose this simple phone because I do not need 3G and video call, although they are very tempting. It will be a waste to pay more for 3G and video call which I don’t require often. Furthermore, the 3G speed in Malaysia sucks!
The battery lasts for 5 days (max) on me because I do not use my phone often. Most of my communications are done with emails, Skype and iChat on the computer which essentially cost next to zero. If you are busy with your phone whole day, I guess the battery will not last a day.
The Nokia 6300 is Bluetooth enabled. Perfect for me to sync with my Mac which requires a little hacking. To sync with Mac, please read here.
The latest model, 6301, looks exactly the same except that it is WIFI enabled. Again, it is another unnecessary spending because WIFI hotspots in Malaysia really sucks! If you are using it with your home WIFI, I don’t see any reason for not having a computer which can outperform the phone in terms of web browsing and email.
To rate it, I give it 9.5 out of 10! It is a nice phone to own. Give it a try.
Let’s mourn for China
Let us observe 3 minutes of silence too…
Mourning
At 14:28 CST today, one week after the Sichuan/Wenchuan Earthquake, China will mourn for three days. The Chinese National Flag and Regional Flags of Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR will be raised at half mast. The Chinese public observe a period of silence to express mourning; vehicles, vessels, trains and air-defense alarms will sound followed by 3 minutes of silence.
Let us mourn and pray for those who lost their lives in the earthquake.
The aftermath
It has been a week after Sichuan, center China, was hit by the worst earthquake in 30 years with a magnitude of 8.0 on the Richter scale. Over ten of thousands lost their lives in this quake. The golden 72-hour has passed.
There are many articles and blogs about the suffering of the Chinese people and that’s enough and I am not going to write another one. I was going to write but my heart was so heavy and sorrow after reading articles and blogs on the Internet. I am deeply touched by the heroes who went for rescue. I am deeply touched by pictures and reports of the dead and survivors. I am deeply touched by the Premier of China, Mr. Wen Jiabao. His orders and words echoed so powerfully in my heart that China has risen to be a powerful giant nation.
Virtualization - Installing Ubuntu Linux with VMware on MacBook
I have successfully installed 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Linux on my Mac Book. Out of my expectation, the installation was rather quick and easy compared to installing Solaris 10. I had tried installing Solaris 10 on my Mac Book. Solaris installation was successful but I couldn’t boot into it. I wondered why.
My Mac Book sports an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz with 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive. I am too skeptical to have 2 physical partitions on my hard drive. Thanks to VMWare Fusion, I can create virtual partition with it. After I have installed VMware Fusion 1.1.1, I created a Ubuntu-64-bit virtual partition and installed Ubuntu from the ISO disk image. With VMware Fusion, I can install directly from the disk image without having to burn a CD or DVD.
Since my Mac Book is codenamed Uranus, I called my Ubuntu on Mac Book, Uranus-Zeta. The idea is from the ζ-ring of Uranus
Like Linux, Mac OS X is a UNIX like operating system. Why do I need Linux? Well, there are a number of reasons. One being you can and another to learn new things. But these are not the reasons to motivate me. Being a software developer developing cross-platform software, I do tests on multiple platforms. Having Linux to run on my MacBook means I can develop and test my software on both Mac OS X and Linux environment without switching to my Linux/Solaris boxes. Another important reason is that I see the needs to support my clients on Linux arise and soon Solaris. Having the ability to run three different operating systems on one machine can be productive and versatile for me.
The other obvious reason is that I have a Core 2 Duo. Meaning I am having two 64-bit CPUs in one processor. It will be a waste of resources if I don’t utilize the computing power I already have. Assigning each CPU to run different operating systems and tasks is called virtualization.
With VMware Fusion, I can run Linux and Solaris side-by-side with Mac OS X without the need to boot into anyone of them at one time. This is a great feature when supporting clients in Mac OS X, Linux and Solaris.
Here are some screen shots (click to enlarge) of Uranus-Zeta:
Mind your own business!
After Myanmar was hit by typhoon, China was hit by the worst earthquake in 30 years on May 12. Many people died in these disasters. International societies are offering aids to Myanmar and China. This is moved by compassion and humanity. When our friends or neighbors are in need of assistance, we help.
So, Malaysia government offers aids to Myanmar and China. Good course. But don’t ask the people to donate. Where is all the money the tax payers paid? What is all the money the country has earned from exporting oil and other commodities?
The Malaysia government can’t even take care of the scarcity of rice in the country. It can’t even feed its own people now, and yet it offers help and urge the “Rakyat” (the people) to donate! Shame on you and mind your own business!
Sugar from Brazil
Brazil is the world largest producer and exporter of sugar, particularly ICUMSA 45. Sugar from Brazil is highly sought after by buyers around the world. ICUMSA 45, the highly refined sparkling white sugar which is used in manufacturing food stuffs, is even sold off before it is produced. At one time, Brazilian sugar production has sent the world sugar price to plummet to five cents a pound.
More than half of the sugar produced in Brazil is supplied to domestic foodstuffs manufacturers, for domestic consumption and ethanol production. Brazil has increased her annual sugar production because export has outweighed domestic consumption.
High Sea Sugar supplies sugar and molasses directly from the mills.
Queue up please!
When grandma, Dmitry and I were at the immigration department to renew our passport, I noticed a group of students from Kolej Yayasan Saad at the department to apply for their passports too. One infuriating scenario was that these students were treated like VIPs and they did not have to queue up. They were escorted by immigration officers into the counter to apply their passport. Ordinary people were waiting for their numbers to be called outside the counter.
Why did they have such privilege? Isn’t supposed to teach these school children to queue up and to play fair in the society? I guessed these students really enjoyed being a VIP and roamed in the corridor of power! What a bunch spoilt brats!
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This site also includes a learning center to help you through the web hosting jargon words, hosting scams, marketing gimmicks used by web hosting providers to lure and lock in customers. The site provides comprehensive advice and FAQs to guide you selecting a web host and to avoid pitfalls and tricks.
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Take a look before you jump!
I want to break free (and I have)
For many years I lived with a dream to build my own dream place and finally I had. The achievement was satisfying until the reality struck and I was forced to let go all I had built and owned. So, today, I broke everything into pieces. It took hard work and courage to built, but it was harder and took greater courage to break. What a short-lived dream but gratifying. I wanted to break free and I finally had my wish came through today. I am a free man, alas.
Life still goes on…
云也退
这么多年的感叹，岂能一言道尽。所以一时心血来潮，在夜深人静的这一刻，写了一首诗：
风散云也退、
雨烟隐山丠、
大江急奔腾、
旭日湖中沉。
2008年5月1日贺文耀著。
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