A Great Time Waster...

I wonder.. if the one image will say it all....

Hehehe... This has been taking up a lot of my time for nearly a week now. I love it!

P/S: This photo was taken with my Sigma 17-70mm lens.

Upgrade Exercise - Phase 2: 90% Completed

Finally.. The HDD was installed in the laptop. It took me a while to get the pin slotted on the HDD connector pins as I "forgot" that I had to swap it from the old HDD to the new one. Kekeke...

Anyway, my laptop is not really a Vista, it's just made to look like Vista. :P I did try out a transformation pack to convert it to Windows 7 but found that there were some graphic glitches whenever I played videos or started some applications.

As you can see, I was still trying to install some photo-editing software but my DVD-drive is acting a bit funky and so, couldn't get the installer to run off the DVD properly. Grrrr...

So, that leads me to the next part. Now that I've upgraded my laptop, I suddenly heard a loud whirring noise from the fan... which means, I still need to clean the internals of this laptop!!!

Reading the manuals and some sites, it will not be an easy feat. Not only that, I've got to get a can of compressed air to really clear all that dust and grime accumulated for the last 5 yrs.. :P

I'm tired....

Upgrade Exercise - Phase 1 Completed

*Phew*...

Not that the laptop upgrading exercise was so hard to do but I always feel a tinge of excitement and fear whenever I touch my PCs or laptops. Hence, I often break out in a cold sweat for the first 2 minutes or so. :P

I finally got my new 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD under budget. I spent RM352 for both pieces of hardware - which is great!! I had expected to pay > RM400 as it was hard to get a notebook IDE HDD these days as most of the notebook HDD sold are SATA.

Anyway, the easy part is done. The next task on my list is to change my hard disk and re-install all the stuff I had.

I think I will do that another day, as I've got to compile the updates and drivers.. *headache*

Delayed Publishing

Hate to use a techie term but I've finally figured out Blogger's "delayed publishing", in the sense that I've figured out Blogger's Post Options for a blog entry.

"Delayed publishing" is perhaps a feature in most publishing systems, where you may want to delay the release or publishing of an article or item to a future date even when the article or item has been created completely.

The reasons why this feature is set so that you can have some sort of scheduled release of articles without manually having to do it. Basically, the system where you publish your article in is smart enough to delay the publishing based on a set date and time.

This is different from drafts where your article is not at the completed stage and hence, even when you save your article, it would not publish until you hit the publish button. And, if the schedule is set right, the article would be published at the preset date and time.

Sorry for being so techie... The curse of working in the ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and Portal space for the past few years...

Anyway, I've tried this option previously and it didn't work out. After I hit the "Publish Post" button, the article was published anyway, displaying the future date and time correctly but in reality, the article wasn't supposed to be published yet.

1. First Things First..
If you expand the Post Options link a the bottom of the editor in Blogger, you are able to set the Post date and time of your entry.

Click the image for a bigger view

2. Set the Post date and time
Set the date and time to the future date. For example, if I wish to have this article published on 4th July 2009, I'll set it based on the date format configured.

The tricky bit is for time, as it follows the 24-hour format, which means 12am is actually 00:00, while 7:00pm is actually 19:00

Once all of this is set, just hit the Publish Post button like you normally do, sit back and relax. ;-)

Oh yeah... Blogger will indicate to you that the article's publishing will be scheduled...

Hope the tip helps. BTW, did you know that this article's publishing was scheduled too... (^_^)

Keeping An Eye Out

Snoopygirl & Rustyboy keeping an eye out

I know...It's been a while since my last update. I've been preoccupied with some stuff which came in from the client. The stuff which we discussed has been given the OK and so, we're more or less scrambling to finish it.

Beyond the usual development and testing rounds, there's also a whole lot of documents to prepare or update. I'm not sure about you but some developers find documentation a great pain. This is not the standard code documentation but the business documents which we pass to the client/user. So, the tough part is to write it simple enough so that the users can understand it. However, to ensure if the user reads it is another matter.

So, aside from that... I've been... keeping an eye out for...

• latest technical articles from my usual haunts - developerWorks, JavaWorld, javalobby, infoQ
• deals for the upcoming DCIM 2009 @ MidValley (27th - 29th March)
  
• Earth hour... please switch off your lights for 1 hour on 28th March 2009
  
• cool events to bring myself and camera - Balloon Fiesta, DCIM
• technical articles on mobile telecommunication stuff
• opportunities (LOL!!)

From last week's list...

1. The tag was in Facebook. So, that is done. (^^)

2. I have to edit the photos from Katherine's wedding last weekend. Oh yeah, have to zip and send those mugshots photos to some friends.

3. Yes, yes.. Man United lost... We can't win them all sometimes. :-)

Some Gears...

This is somewhat of a filler post as I'm still doing some post-processing work on some pics I took over the weekend.

Anyway, I got this "pressie" some weeks back as a surprise. I never expected to get this thing but now that I do, I believe that I will have to put the gift to good use. And posting about it is one of the ways. LOL!!

Yeap, it's my new DSLR lens - Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 MkII!! It's one of the cheapest lens to get out of the Canon range and a good addition to a budding gear collector.

With an f/stop of f/1.8, you can imagine that the aperture setting is wide enough to capture some really creamy bokeh pics like this:

I took this photo with nothing more than my fluorescent table lamp as the light source in my room at 1/8sec!! Of course, I didn't use f/1.8 but at such low-light conditions at ISO 100 or 200, this lens was really amazing!

As my first prime lens, the focal length of 50mm makes this useful for taking portraits due to the optics involved, i.e. less moving parts. Hence, the quality of the pics taken are often a lot more superior to those taken with zoom lens.

I've actually had my eye on the 50mm compact macro lens but when I saw the price tag of RM1XXX, I'd figure that I can temporarily set aside my love for macro while I build up my basic skills. So, I'm quite content to play around with this for a while. (^.^)

Nevertheless, my gears list grows everyday... And I plan to get the following:

• 1 spare battery
• "Walkabout" Zoom Lens - 55-250mm/18-200mm
  
• External Flash
• Wide Angle Lens for those lovely architectural and landscape shots - 10-22mm
• Filters - Neutral Density, Circular Polarizer
• A solid camera/laptop bag
• A steady tripod (least important as I got one free with my camera)
  

Yes, some friends remarked that this is an expensive hobby but it's a very fulfilling one for the soul but not the hip pocket, I'm afraid.

Software Conflict - VMWare Server 2.0 vs Apache Tomcat

This post is solely for software developers...

I just spent around 30minutes trying to figure out why my 'ol reliable Apache Tomcat failed to start up properly. Granted that it's been 6 months since I've used it. LOL!!! I had been "flirting" around with another application server... IBM to be exact.

After updating my version of Tomcat (previously, it was at 5.5.23 but now it's 5.5.27), the server still failed to start up.

Digging through the logs, I found the following:

17-Nov-2008 17:36:57 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer await
SEVERE: StandardServer.await: create[8005]:
java.net.BindException: Address already in use: JVM_Bind
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketBind(Native Method)
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.bind(PlainSocketImpl.java:359)
at java.net.ServerSocket.bind(ServerSocket.java:319)
at java.net.ServerSocket.(ServerSocket.java:185)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.await(StandardServer.java:363)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.await(Catalina.java:616)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:576)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:295)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:433)


The main error to take note is the Address already in use: JVM_Bind. This usually signals to me that a port is in use.

Executing a netstat - a command at the command prompt, I found out that port 8005 WAS IN USE!!

Hmmmm...

Then, I suddenly remembered that I've just recently upgraded my VMWare Server application from 1.x to 2.0.x. The new version of VMWare Server utilizes a web-based console which is installed in a "light" Apache Tomcat too. This Apache Tomcat came embedded with VMWare Server installation package.

Now, in order to minimize conflict, I had to modify the settings for the external Apache Tomcat server, which is found at [TOMCAT-INSTALLATION-FOLDER]/conf/server.xml.

Look for the following line,

<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">
....



Modify this port from "8005" to whatever non-conflicting number you can find. I would suggest 8006. (^___^)

The reason why I would suggest modifying the external Apache Tomcat instead of VMWare's Apache Tomcat is that the VMWare Server application starts up automatically. Since I'm already familiar with good 'ol Apache Tomcat, we might as well modify that file.

Grrrr.. *sigh*... It's just Monday Blues...

Weekends Are For Relaxing

It is obvious that we work for the weekends, i.e. we spend all our waking time to make a living for ourselves. Of course, we also "work" for the weekends.

Unlike my dogs who take time out to relax everyday, I can only relax during the weekends. I wished that there were more days in a week where we can just relax. Somehow, I'm thinking about France and how those folks work about 3-4 days per week.

Anyway, in Malaysia, most companies will enforce a 5 day work-week. However, some unfortunate modern slaves (to coin's zewt's favourite description of modern-day office workers), have to put in 5.5days per week. :-(

So, in this 2 or 1.5 days of bliss, how do we Malaysians spend our time? Most will just stay home to catch up on chores as well as spend quality time with family. Others have a jam-packed schedule of shopping, yumcha/makan with friends as well as those gym fanatics; who will put in 2-3hrs at the gym in sweaty heaven. (^__^)

My latest weekend activity is just to go out and snap as many interesting photos as I can.

Since EV's favourite past time is to go "jalan-jalan cari makan" or walkabout looking for nice eats; these days, I tend to take more photos of food... Hmmm...

This weekend happened to be the start of the Malaysian school holidays. So, you would expect most malls around PJ and KL to be jammed packed with window-shoppers and their kids. Yep, it's like a zoo out there.

Honda's ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovation MObility) robot happened to be in town this weekend and me, being the ultrageek, managed to squeeze some time to see ASIMO in action! **claps hand with glee**

Before that, I had to do something for EV. She needed a lift to KL Sentral as she had a flight to Miri for work, and so, I obliged to give her a lift - provided she chia me breakfast. (^___^)

We went to this restaurant in Taman Tun Dr Ismail which is famous for their Ipoh Hor Fun. It used to be situated at the shop lots where Pizza Hut was but they have relocated to the row of shoplots next to the DBKL office in TTDI.

We had the Ipoh Hor Fun soup, with Steamed Breansprouts and Chicken. It was heavenly. If you are not watching your cholesterol points, you may just try the steamed chicken skin which is like a piece of silk just sliding down your throat. *slurp*

Breakfast came to RM23, which included drinks. Why it was so pricey, well, we ordered the steamed chicken drumstick + thigh combination... KEKEKEKEE

After dropping EV off, I "rushed" over to 1Utama to see if I could see ASIMO in action. When I got there, a sizeable crowd gathered in front of the stage and I was very lucky to be able to grab a spot at the right-side of the stage. The show started at 11:30 and I was there at around 11:55am. Talk about luck...

The doors opened, and ASIMO steps out to greet the crowd!!

I thought ASIMO would have been a lot bigger but it was no larger than a 10-year-old kid.

ASIMO in action, more pictures here.

ASIMO is a technological marvel in robotics as it moves in a very human-like manner. Now, you're wondering why a car manufacturer is pouring money into research for a robot but this robot has many uses in manufacturing as well as for other medical-related uses.

Research into ASIMO's mobility is helping scientist understand better the mechanics of movement, things we take for granted each day. By developing a robot which can move freely on its own, in future, perhaps quardipelgics or amputees may make use of robotics to gain the ability to move freely again.

Anyway, more information about ASIMO can be found here --> http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/.

The geek in me was very happy to see this in action. However, I was quite sad that I couldn't get any merchanise. Would have been nice to have a little ASIMO on my work desk.

Feel Good Friday - Loco Roco 2!!!

One of my favourite PSP games will be released soon!! Loco Roco 2!!!

The game is addictive and is quite innovative as you move the "blob" using the L1 and L2 controls on the PSP.

I played this game non-stop for a few days just to get through the levels to see the end. The music was great too. It reminded me of another few great games from Namco - Katamari series (Katamari Damacy, We love Katamari, Me and My Katamari).

So, I'm patiently waiting for this game to be announced... (^__________^)

Have a great weekend folks!

Microsoft Excel Bug??

Don't mind me changing fonts for a few posts as I'm wondering which font I should stick my blog with since I'm quite fed-up with "Verdana" lately.

Interesting.... I got this piece of news that Microsoft Excel 2007 has a calculation bug from The Age as I was scouring for news from OZ-land. Anyway, I did try out the test and it did offer a glitch!!

Give it a go.

Test as follows,

1. 77.1 * 850
2. 10.2 * 6425
3. 20.4 * 3212.5

The answer provided by Excel 2007 is 100000. The correct answer should be 65535.

According to David Gainer's latest blog entry, this bug is being fixed and should be available as a patch, downloadable later. I'm not sure if it would be bundled with the normal "Patch Tuesday" round of patches, but we'll see. ;-)

And just to show you that I wasn't kidding, here's the screenshot I took a while ago...

Click on the image for a larger pic...

Looks like someone needs to teach Excel 2007 some maths? (^ ^)

:-)

Wow! I can't believe that this little ":-)" has turned a quarter of a century old.

Hehehe.. We tend to use it a lot in e-mails and during our chats. Heck, even my little chatbox has the smiley.

Anyway, Happy 25th B'day :-)!!!

It's an icon of the computing age. :-P

(^ ^)

The Penguin Meets The Oracle

I've not done a technical post for a looonnnnngggggg time.

It is high time that I write something geeky as I am a big geek after all. (^^)

Anyway, I've been dying to try my hand in installing Oracle on Linux. I always came close but due to some hardware limitation, I ran into a lot of problems. What to do when you're given a machine which only has the capability to run MySQL and you're asked to install Oracle??

Oh well, my torture weapons of choice today are as follows,

1. CentOS 5 - A open source version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
2. VMWare Server 1.0 - My virtualization software so that I run this off my laptop
3. Oracle 9i (9.2.0.4) for Linux x86

I began life by creating a new virtual machine and installing CentOS. The Linux installation went pretty smooth but as usual, I had to customize a few services and software to be installed - development libraries which you always need as some software depends on it.

Anyway, do take note that unlike the Windows installation, Oracle requires that for *nix based systems, some pre-installation steps need to take place. Note: Although the steps were outlined for RHELAS3, the pre-install steps are pretty relevant. Do check out the Oracle Installation Guide for more information.

However, since I'm running CentOS 5, naturally, a few things need to be changed or else you'll run into some library issues.

1. Change the LD_ASSUME_KERNEL environment variable in the user oracle's profile to match the current version of your kernel by running the command "uname -a". Edit the oracle user's ".bash_profile" file.

LD_ASSUME_KERNEL = 2.6.18; export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL

2. Create a symbolic link for the libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2 to your server's current version of libstdc++
ln -s /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6.0.8 /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2

3. Install the libXp library as this caused a lot of funny issues with my installer.
yum install libXp

NOTE: Ensure that you are "root" when executing the commands.

4. Create the libcwait.so file as follows
- Ensure that you are "oracle" user
- Ensure that gcc is installed by issuing the "locate" command.
- Create a file called "libcwait.c" in the home directory
- Enter the following content and save it.

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 
pid_t
__libc_wait (int *status)
{
int res;
asm volatile ("pushl %%ebx\n\t"
   "movl %2, %%ebx\n\t"
   "movl %1, %%eax\n\t"
   "int $0x80\n\t"
   "popl %%ebx"
   : "=a" (res)
   : "i" (__NR_wait4), "0" (WAIT_ANY), "c" (status), "d" (0),
     "S" (0));
return res;
}

- create the environment variable LD_PRELOAD as follows at the commandline

export LD_PRELOAD=/home/oracle/libcwait.so

- compile the file as follows
gcc -o -shared $HOME/libcwait.so -O -g $HOME/libcwait.c

Once this is complete, you may run the Oracle Universal Installer from Disk1 of the installation directories.

All hail the penguin God... **Ohhhhmmmmmmmm**

P/S: Unfortunately, I ran out of diskspace in the virtual machine before I could even install the software. I've got to move some stuff around before I can start my Oracle install. Oh well.....

UPDATE: The LD_PRELOAD variable should be entered in the oracle user's profile.