Confirmed!

Today, early in the morning, my boss called me. At first I thought I'm in some kind of trouble as Woon Fei's tone was quite serious (in a way that I thought I was in trouble..haha..silly me)..compared to the others, I think I'm the only one who got confirmed in the shortest period as I once remembered Yih Ching says something about being in the ASIP (Applied Skills Internship Program) is also considered as being under probation..

Here goes my official career commencement! anyway, no salary increment is the only drawback. So I still have to continue doing freelance work for the extra income.

Anyway, praise be to God for all His blessings that He bestowed upon me..

Everyday..

And I..
Was the kind of guy..
Who'd never let you look inside...
I'd smile when I was crying...
I had nothing but a lot to lose...
Thought I had a lot to prove...
In my life, there's no denying..

Goodbye to all my yesterdays...
They're gone...
Goodbye, so long...

And I...
had enough of cryin'...
Bleedin', sweatin', dyin'...
I'm Gonna live my life everyday...
I'm gonna touch the sky...
spread these wings and fly...
I'm gonna live my life everyday

Change, everybody's feeling strange..
Never gonna be the same...
Makes you wonder how the world keeps turning..
Life, learning how to live my life..
Learning how to pick my fights..
Take my shots while I'm still burning..

Goodbye to all those rainy nights...
They're gone..
Goodbye, so long...

And I..
Had enough of cryin'...
Bleedin', sweatin', dyin'...
I'm gonna live my life everyday...
I'm gonna touch the sky..
And I spread these wings and fly..
I'm gonna live my life..

Hit the gas, take the wheel..
I've made myself a deal...
Ain't nothing gonna get in my way..
Everyday

Goodbye to all my yesterdays...
They're gone...

And I...
Had enough of cryin'
Bleedin', sweatin', dyin'..
I'm gonna live my life everyday..
I'm gonna touch the sky..
And spread these wings and fly..
I'm gonna live my life everyday...

How to install Sun's JDK in Fedora 8

By default, Fedora will use GNU's version of JDK which is gcj.

To verify this, check the version by running java -version in the console and it will return
something like this :
java version "1.5.0"
gij (GNU libgcj) version 4.1.2 20070925 (Red Hat 4.1.2-33)

Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


to install Sun's JDK on Fedora 8,

1. Download the Linux self extracting rpm version of JDK from Sun's website.
Let say the rpm name is jdk-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin

2. Fire up the console and change directory to where the downloaded rpm is located

3. Change to root by using su and enter your root's password

4. Change the permission of the file by using chmod 755 jdk-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin

5. Run the file using the command ./jdk-6u3-linux-i586-rpm.bin

6. Scroll all the way down and enter yes

7. Next, enter updatedb; locate javac |grep bin
It will show you a path to the newly installed Sun's JDK.

8. Next, run these commands
/usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/java java /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_03/bin/java 100
/usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/jar jar /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_03/bin/jar 100
/usr/sbin/alternatives --install /usr/bin/javac javac /usr/java/jdk1.6.0_03/bin/javac 100

9. Lastly, to change the default JVM from gcj to Sun's version, run this command
/usr/sbin/alternatives --config java
Select the one that is from Sun and that's it!

Edit: I forgot something. There's a bug but I'm not sure whether it's Sun's or Fedora's.
but here's the fix: enter this command:
sed -i 's/XINERAMA/FAKEEXTN/g' /lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so

Edit 2: The bug seems to be caused by libx11 having problems with assertions.
upgrade libxcb via yum and it should be fixed. The version at the moment of this edit is libxcb-1.0-4.fc8

Path of my future..

Actually, there's not much to say here. Just got back from the movies with a couple of friends. Been doing that like on every weekends since last month.

Well, I'm not going to say anything about the movies here. But I've been wondering. On what my future is like. What,where and who am I going to be. A lot of my friends says that it's still early to think about these stuffs as we've just started out in our careers but I can't help myself not to think about it.

There's a long road in front of me and only God knows what will come in my way. Hope that my faith will sustain me and I will get through somehow.

Java web application Internationalization @ i18n

In order for an application to support i18n, generally, all of the permanent hard-coded text must be turned into labels and the actual text should be stored in a properties file commonly known as Application Resource or Resource Bundle.

The next step is, to declare that the view components (html/jsp/jsf) are using the UTF-8 encoding. This is very important as UTF-8 encoding supports most typeface (fonts) if not all of the languages in the world.

For static html. this can be done by using the meta tag in the

< head >

tag. example:

< meta equiv="Content-Type" content="" charset="utf-8" >

for the jsp/jsf, we can use this scriptlet before the < html > tag:
<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8" %>

if we are using struts as our web framework, we can skip doing the tedious and boring job of adding each of the pages with the scriptlet codes by adding this code in our struts-config.xml:

< controller contenttype="text/html; charset=UTF-8">

For the struts part, it will only work if none of the jsp/jsf skips the controller servlet. (direct linking from page to page without using global forwards).

If the Resource files are in a language that uses characters other than the normal English characters, we must convert them into Unicode ASCII characters. for example, if we have a Resource file that contains Chinese characters. In this case, we must convert it into Unicode ASCII characters.

to do this, we can use the native2ascii program that comes with the JDK itself. If we have already set the environment variable to point to our JDK directory, then we can already invoke the native2ascii command from anywhere.

Anyway, here's an example on how to convert a resource file with Chinese characters named ApplicationResources_cn.properties to Unicode ASCII encoding.

native2ascii -encoding UTF-8 ApplicationResources_zh.properties ApplicationResources_zh.properties.

Open the file again and you will see that the Chinese characters are now converted into sequences of \uxxxx. Don't worry, it will display fine when you deployed it in your web container and run it in your web browser.

Cherating - company trip

I just got back from Cherating, Pahang. It was really tiring but I had a lot of fun although I do feel a bit bored at certain times. It was company trip. Something like a family day where we get into teams and play against each other.

The journey took about 4 hours from KL, from the Patimas office to be exact. Although I only slept for about 4 hours the night before, I didn't feel sleepy at all. Arrived at Suria Beach Resort, Cherating around 5.30pm and checked in. I got the room 231 all for myself as my should be roommate decided not to come (I think, or maybe I am given the room for myself..LOL). Went down to the team 'war cry' at 6 and had dinner at an open air lounge at 8. The food was quite okay and after the selection of games, (I was drafted to play beach soccer. Damn, what I really wanted is to play paintball) i just went back to my room, had a nice warm shower and lay down for a while when later at 12 I decided to go for a walk around the hotel compound. So I went to the lobby with the intent of watching the large TV there (it can tune to channels that the TVs in the hotel rooms don't have) when suddenly a guy (I forgot to ask his name) came and told me that some people invited me to their room and it turns out to be Woon Fei and Jian Li and they invited me to join them playing cards. I don't know what the game was called but it's good enough to kill the time. Around 1am, I went back to my room and tuned in to Cinemax and watched Dragonheart: A New Beginning. Quite a nice movie but it doesn't suit to be labeled as an action film. I went to dreamland around 2.30am.

The next day, I woke up at 730am. Tune in to MTv, took a warm shower, get dressed up and straight away headed to the lounge for breakfast. Chatted with a few guys and later head directly to the games venue. First half of the day, I was already exhausted. It's been a long time since I played any sports. Not to mention that it has been a long time since I exercised (LOL).
By the way, my soccer team loses big time. Most that made up the team are old timers and the yougsters (including me) are not in good shape at all to play stamina draining games like that.

Being sneaky, I went back to my room at 1145am, took another warm shower to ease my aching muscles and took a nap. Woke up at 2pm, missed my lunch (I don't have the appetite to eat anyway with all the muscle cramps and ache) and continued the other half of the day with the tele-matches which aggravated my muscle pain. But I rather enjoyed the tug of war. It's not that tiring. Maybe it's because that during all theses years, only my stamina is drained, and not the strength that I acquired during my younger years practicing the martial arts (LOL). After all is done, I went for a swim at both the sea and later, hotel's swimming pool.

After the dinner and the prize giving ceremony, (my team, the Thundercats got the 2nd place) I hang out with my PSG colleague: Jocelyn, Chen Hao and Yih Ching at the beach, looking at hermit crabs and Anselm went into the waters to see if there's any planctons there (and yeah, there was a lot of them). Later on, we loiter at the lounge having some chit chat with Susan andn Mei Yan. Yih Ching was so enthusiastic on going to the stage for karaoke (i don't do karaokes, I don't have a beautiful voice but Yih Ching's enthusiasm and her really cute face when she smiles made me unable to resist on not to follow..LOL) when some of the other male colleagues (from HPD, i think), got really dead drunk and forced us (not including me, I ran away to the next table just in time) to drink liquor. I was like WTH??? I don't care if it's your birthday or what but forcing people against their will is really wrong. Not to mention that they're making a fool of themselves with their stupid, 'disturbing' and really disgusting acts. Just because of that, we had to cancel the karaoke plan and moved to the lobby. Had a nice chit chat about many things including ghost stories and Anselm joined us again while playing pool (which i lost twice with him, badly.. LOL)

Earlier, we planned to watch the sunrise together but since it was so late (it was 2 am when we went back to our rooms) and I forgot who answered 'no' when I asked again that were we to continue the plan so since I am already determined to see the sunrise at the beach, (it's already 10 years since my last time) i woke up at 530, took a long nice refreshing warm shower,performed the morning prayer and head out to beach. The sky was really clear with only a bit of clouds and it was really starry. I got to see the first light of dawn, it was really beautiful. Red, violet, blue and black in a colour gradient with twinkling stars and I was there sitting on the sand staring at the scenery, enjoying the song of the waves. Around 6am, I went back to my room to pack up my things, and took a nap before the breakfast and around 1030am, we departed back to KL.

and now I'm having stiff muscles and the pain is undescribable. I had a hard time getting myself up from the bed. LOL.

That's all for now. Time to get ready for work.

on anti-hadith...

hmm..i felt being called to write something after reading certain blogs. The one that catched my attention today was a blog that debates on the Quran and the hadith. Seriously I don't understand what's worng with these people.

So here, I just want to write my own knowledge on the subject. I'm lazy to participate in the debate on that blog as most of the replies are nonsensical..most of the are by those anti-hadith group. They even said the way we pray is just a tradition as it is not mentioned in the Quran!

the 2nd of the Pillars of Faith: Have faith in the Rasul.

having faith in the Rasul includes having faith in what He did and said (The Hadith).
If we no longer have faith in it, that the faith is void..(Na'udzubillahi min zalik)

The Rasul (PBUH) said: I have left you two matters, that if you adhere to them, you will not go astray, the Quran, and my Sunnah (Hadith).

the way we perform out prayers is just tradition??Astaghfirullah..
Rasul (PBUH) said: Perform your prayers the way you see I performed it.

if we want to talk about sensitive issues like religous matters, be sure that we have enough knowledge, learn and the correct place and from the correct person. Only by doing that we conforms to the meaning of fair and just: to place something at its correct place.

"And if you have arguments in a matter, then return to Allah (the Quran) and Ar-Rasul(the Hadith), if you have faith in Allah and The Day" - An-Nisa:59

"whoever learns (on religious matters) without a teacher, then Satan will be the teacher" - Al-Hadith

the conclusion: think about it, I'm not even an expert in religious matters, even my basics is not perfect, realizing this, I won't dare debate on things up to the level like those people in do in that blog. Astaghfirullah..

huru-hara

Hari ni adalah hari yg paling huru hara aku pernah rasa. dengan puasa lagi. Kerja modify hard coded text dalam report jadi labels tu adalah satu kerja yg menekan jiwa. why didn't they ask those data entry staffs to do it rather than asking me to carry out that silly job? Why didn't they thought of supporting i18n at the first place when they were developing the application? We claim to be servicing international companies and yet this is like it is the first time an i18n project is carried out?duhh..

Thank God they have the berbuka puasa event today. The tentative is quite ridiculous (karaoke after berbuka puasa? what the heck??) but I'm in for the food anyway and again thank God that the food was really good.

I received my business name cards today. but again, as the title, huru hara..why? okay,they got my name and my title right. But since when did I have a new mobile number?Is the company going to give me a new phone line?and heck, since when did I have a direct line?I rather not have a phone line at my desk. From my past experience, it will only serve as distraction during work..urgh..this is so messed up..

Importance of software documentation

I believe that in regard to this matter, are mostly ignored by software developers in Malaysia.
At the moment, I am to assist the rest of the Java developers team that are working on the eQuity Online internationalization (i18n) project. The thing that really bothers me and nearly made me scream out of anguish is the serious lack of code documentation and also of the quite poor design.

Although the system works fine and marvelously as one of our directors commented during a meeting I attended 2 weeks ago, I found that the code underneath was poorly written and poorly documented. And now we're going to modify it to support i18n and I am pulling my hairs and trying to figure out what each functions do and what's not.

For the love of God, at least put some sensible comment on the codes on what it do and at least provide the Javadoc. It can be auto-generated for God's sake! As if the mixture of scriptlets, html and javascript is not enough to add up the 'coolness' of the codes.

It's more than just spaghetti codes. It is a ball of mud!

So you guy out there whose works have anything to do with software development, do put some thought on this matter!

in between..

Received a call from Jocelyn (Java developer team leader) at 8am sharp asking me where to park her motorbike. Whoa, she actually arrive at the office that early and that time I was still at home getting ready for the day. Talk about fast.

well, ain't much work for today. Today's progress of the BladeCenters started at noon so I had some sweet time surfing the internet for entertainment which I usually don't have much time to during office hours except searching for solutions to any algorithm that I'm developing and to my dismay, I was caught by Jocelyn who was actually sitting next to my partition and she began asking me to help the EO team on some coding task. So much for my sweet time. Anyway, I won't complain as I myself agreed to help. By the way, I don't have much work to do either.

I wonder when will I be really doing some R&D stuffs on that grid computing thing. It does interest me a lot but juggling between two separate job scope for the time is not really easy for me. Have been trying to do some research on my own at home, but other things kept me from it. Anyway, people do say that we shouldn't bring office work to home.

Being a Software Engineer but doing nothing in exception for maintaining existing software is not a good idea for me. This time, I wonder when will we be doing some development of new applications. That, would be the thing that will suit my likings and that would really put to use of my skills.

I wonder......

On MIMOS' BladeCenter

It's my third time going to MIMOS just to supervise the installation of the IBM Blade Center H.
For those who don't know, a Blade Center is categorized as high end server. My company had this contract to provide and maintain the Blade Center for MIMOS for 3 years. The total stuffs adds up to a sum of RM 3.6M. That's the most expensive machine that I've ever handled and helped to install. Each BladeCenter will have 14 blades, each blades are equipped with 2 dual core Opterons and 16GB of ECC RAM. Imagine the processing power that each of the BladeCenter have.

The 7 BladeCenters will be used in the Grid Computing project. The one me and my half time superior will be researching on. Well, I'll going to have a lot of readings on SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) to do before going to the development part. Meanwhile, at the same time, I have to deploy a test machine for the IBFM application internationalization project as we need to do some serious testing before going live and deliver it to Vietnam. Raya is around the corner now and with all that holidays, I'll have pretty limited time work on it. This will be really messy.

Ok. that's all the input for today. Gotta go or else I'll have to squeeze myself through the heavy traffic to get home.

- untitled -

Ever felt like wanting to be reincarnated again?
Well, this is what I feel when I decided to start posting again after the long silence..
Wiped out all the old posts, start out a brand new one again..
What's done is done, so let bygone be bygone..
So here I go..