CMS

I am not much of a web guy at all, but lately I had no choice. Had to work on a small project and I was forced to look into a good CMS. I went through a lot of them. Mostly php based ones, which are very famous and strongly suggested by my fellow friends. They were all cool.

But then I got to plone. Plone is a open source cms built on top of zope. I think this is the best CMS I have seen thus far. It is more then just a simple CMS, there is a hell lot more to it then being a simple CMS. I also liked the fact that I can develop stuff for it, more like addons, using python and take advantage of zope application framework. I had to less concentrate on the presentation layer and could do more on the business logic of the stuff I worked on. I really enjoyed the last 3 months I spend working with zope and plone.

Also it is worth to note that companies like Lufthansa, Nokia, eBay and also Nasa have adopted plone on various levels. I think even Ubuntu is using plone on their web site.

News

Been a while since I blogged now. Anyway Just came across this news while reading through digg. Thought this is something worth to be noted. "Mobile phone companies join forces on Linux"....

Ctrl+C

Break!

Sexy looks

This is still an experimental work in progress for the translation project for GNOME. Aim of the project is to have a functional UI in Dhivehi for the Linux OS. Hopefully.

Friday

Its a Friday and its a Friday. Anyone wants fries with that?

Message from Maldivian Linux User Group

We've planned an initial meeting for the discussion of the translation project.
Everyone interested to join are welcome and I urge to tell anyone else who might
as well be interested in coming over.

Venu: West Park
Date: Friday, 19th May 2006
Time: 16:00
Props: MRF 20/- for the coffee.

I'll keep it organized. Meet you then. Thank you!.

gedit on drugs

Been working on this dhivehification for gnome for the last few days. Mostly experimenting. Finally I think I now know how to setup a working model and a path. Meaning what is needed and how to go about this.

Today I was able to transform the GUI to have the widgets mirrored so that we would have the RTL looks, etc.. The screen shot posted here is using a po file I edited for gedit for thaana and Hebrew gtk20 mo file. This file is responsible for the RTL stuff on the widgets, tool bars,menus etc. I have not started work on our own version of this file yet. Also the dv_MV file bug issues are still pending. Good news again is we are moving, progress day by day. What is lacking is man power as of now. It would really help if others took interest and joined? aaah, in anycase lets see how things go. I like to be optimistic what ever anyone has to say about these kinds of work; what the hell its fun anyway.

gedit in dhivehi :: testing

This is work in progress. Still a lot to be fixed. Good news is now we can start work on the translation. Also need to fix the Right to Left stuff. Ah! my work is done for the day; need a rest.

First locale test

Ok, here is the screen shot of the first dv_MV locale test. I know its wrong and still far from complete, but its started. So now I just need a few more days and some extra help before I can upload the first version.

Language names in translation status pages

Today we got the following mail; which really made me happy.

Hi Carlos,

can you please add the following language names to the translation status pages:

dv Divehi
gn Guarani
zh_HK Chinese (Hong Kong)


Thanks,
Christian

This means we are officially added to the gnome translation project . Inn and I are now involved, but we hope to get as many helping hands we can get. First thing I think was to correct the name from Divehi to Dhivehi. I think the reason for this mistake is cos its listed as Divehi at ISO 639 registration authority. So I have already requested this to be changed.

As i have posted in my previous post nothing can be moved before we create the locale, so first thing is first. Also inn has setup a mailing list and the MLUG web site back up. So if anyone is interested please sign in to the list. We hope to make this a platform for us to communicate.

Linux and ތާނަ

with the recent linux distro's thaana enable keyboard is shipped, I have tested on ubuntu and fedora. this is a very good improvement, should have done this long ago. anyway so what's the next step? after having a few chats with people who are interested I decided to go on with localization project. been try'n to do it for long; but did not find the time. so where goes. tonight I signed up with the gnome translation project after having a look into the translation teams did not find an entry for thaana or dhivehi. so I thought i'd sign up and start. this is middle of the night; almost morning. and wala after about one hour or so my dear old friend inn calls up. hmmm! asking me about the mail. I was happy to find out he had already signed up for this and was waiting for an answer. this is good news. guess i am not the only one and even the first. this is good.

so what next? where do we go from here. I guess we need to start the work, first step is to create locale definition file for dv_MV. Once this is created then we have a start. next will be to find people and time to translate the apps. we don't need a very big team for this, but all the help we can get will be good. so anyone interested in the project (already couple of guys have talked to me on this over msn; which really got me started) drop me a mail or to inn. lets say a week from today we meet up; next week end.by then we all would have done our research and home works as well? i

vision 2020

here is mine: when all CEO's of all major companies of Maldives will be orin. all ministers will be orin and we have to pay our rents to orin too. We will go to ori land and serve as maids and labors and get paid 110 USD. when our national anthem will be sung in ori bas. we will teach in ori medium. all ladies will wear ori saalhi. our names will have the initials fanando, etc. all maldivians will smell like orin.

Thanks to the people who are making this a reality now. who are working so hard to make this a reality. long live ori'n

Blocked?

This is a common case at work environments. No longer the sys admins are stupid. They can monitor and block all most all traffic in and out of the network. Well; hmm! Even if they are not smart enough, now we have very cool software's (farewells) that can do it. But does this stop you from going in and out? Well to some level yes and no.

ok, here is one case. Lets say; like in my case irc is blocked. hmmm! easy ey change port? No its not just port blocking. In my case its blocked at the protocol level. the firewall filters all traffic and looks for any irc stuff. this makes it impossible for you to get in even using a BNC. so now what? here is one solution.

if you have a shell account else where, then this is no hard job. Maybe you can ask a friend to give you one. anyway, here is what I did

ssh -L 6667:eu.undernet.org:6667 yourshell.com -l user

where yourshell.com is where you have a shell account access. once you do this, you'd be asked for the password and now you are having an established connection. now what's next? Simply run xchat and type /server localhost. so what's the point? well on a shell too you have things like BitchX; but not a GUI client running locally. thats it. enjoy.

Not knowing is better

Some things are better left unknown. When you get involved with some things and you find out how people plan; it gets into you. Makes you wonder about what they do, and some times why they don't do things. You wish you can change that, but better not. Its not your business and if you peek in, you become part of the loop. I encountered such an event today, and I so much wished I was not there at all. I wish I did not hear what I heard and knew.

Its much better to be left in a corner; with a box to play with and a good internet connection. That is the best thing you can ask for. Read; learn and try. Nothing like R&D jobs. I just heard this statement "Just remember, no to everything". This came from some people across the room, just before they left for a meeting. Now that's something I learned some times back; guess I am not the only one. But to be honest, I don't even want to be the one who will have to say "yes" or even "no". I think I am more happy to choose what I like to do and do it. Dump anything I don't wanna get involved with. I'd rather not know all the crap and feel helpless and frustrated cos I got to know something. Its not my job, so why should I even care? But still it gets into you. I repeat ; it makes you wonder how some people "think"! daaa! err! err! Core dumb! End.

Dhivehi SMS

Today Wataniya has launched the first thaana sms for its customers. This is enabled using a midlet. It works fine on most of the phones in the market; O2 phones are among some of the phones which does not support this yet. Once a SMS is compiled using this application; you can send the SMS to just about anyone (again to most phones). Even if the other person does not have the application installed they still will be able to read the SMS in a kinda letin format.

The Art of saying "No"

One of the hardest things that you face is to say "no". This is true for some people and for others; its the opposite. I have sat down at meetings with some people who's very first word is "no". You propose anything or ask a question; the answer will be "NO". At first I really hated this; but at later stages started to realize that this is a better approach.

At work; especially when you work to provide others solutions. Everyone comes to you with their problems. If you start to say "yes" to all problems, then the end result is you will end up not providing anyone with a solution. So here you have to choose between priorities and stuff. Thus resulting to say a lot of "No"'s. And this is no easy job as it sounds. You don't want them to say "no" to you, when you go to them. So the trick here is you have to put it in such a way that, the "no" does not come back to you. Well.. "NO"!

Wi-Fi and Linux

Well; one area where Linux is really bad is support for Wi-Fi cards. There just have not been good support for this in Linux so far. I don't think we have native support for this in the kernel (yet). I tried to get mine working but it always gave me issues, and finally I did not want to waste enough time trying to fix it. I hope this will be fixed soon. I guess this is one the way. There have been few good developments on the Wi-Fi support for Linux lately.

da mosque

This is a wonder; I've been coming to work and now living in hulhumale' for more then a year now. This mosque was being constructed back then too; and even today. This is one of the first constructions that begin in the island. I was also told that this is funded by some Arab country (assumption: so no money issues must be there ).

another year; few more to go

I was born today 31 years ago. geez!

Work in progress

Today, the week started off with a Monday. Seems yesterday was celebrated as the day Maldives converted to Islam? hmmm! When? Who? daa? No one really knows what happened, but still we know the date; cool ey? Anyway, not my problem. Why should I even complain cos I had 3 days off.

Finally I got what I have been working on for the last one week done. I liked the project, and I think end of it was just the start of another major work. The thing I like about these kinds of projects is that it does not involve dealing with DB's. No forms; or fancy looking web pages. Just good old plan backend processes, and cross platform connectivity. A nice java front end, that can run on anything; from a web browser to a mobile phone, backends with Perl and python. Next a combination of GNU tools; running on Linux. This is far more exciting for me then digging into SQL and playing with style sheets. Anyway I am looking forward to the next level of this work; I think I'd really celebrate once this one is done.

dhivehi bas, arabi bas; same same bas?

Now I am not much of a language guy, but here is something that was talked over a tea with some friends. Any new word which needs to be imported to dhivehi is taken from Arabic or Urdu. The rules are as follows if the word exists in Arabic, use it. If the word is an English word; invent a word. Example words like "terminal"; is now called "gematha" or something. Words like tragedy is taken from Arabic , I guess its called "kaarisaa" or something. Finally my view on this is ; words (bas as we call it) should not be invented or created by one person or group of 2 or 6 individuals. Or a ministry or a department. The language does not belong to the government or any organization.

Some other things to note are words like "bitu" is used by everyone for years now. But this word you will not find in the official "Radheef". But words like "saaskaf" which was invented a few years back is listed. New words which is being used include "partey"; I think this is adopted now. Other example include "salhi"; the meaning of this has changed over the years,but this is not reflect in the official books. Now I don't know much about these stuff; this is just my view. I might be wrong and very wrong. One of the recent words that I came across was "karaaseebu"; I don't know from where this came, but sounds like a nice word. I was told that this means corrupt.

Google logo

I read this story on digg, seems the very first google logo was designed using gimp. Thought this is something worth to be noted.

cute

Murder, Death!

Born on the street maybe, not valued by anyone. Just a domestic pest for most. Would be just a few weeks old or max a month. I was stuck in the rain. Its almost midnight. Few cars and people on the road parked my bike and stopped near this house to get shelter from the rain. My eyes got coughed up on a cat cross the street, Maybe like me, trying to hide from the pouring rain. I can see its worm and safe. But not for long. This three couple who were on the nightly bike rides invaded the little kittens shelter. One girl noticed the kitten and pointed to maybe what it seem, her boy friend. He was quick to save her. Kicked the kitten out on the road. Poor thingy tried to get back, but they showed no mercy. Really kicked it hard this time. And seems the girls enjoyed the bravery of the guys, who were bullying the helpless kitten.

I watched the drama. Was pissed but what good was I. Me and them no difference. I watched and did not do anything. The poor thing slowly walked in pain to flee from the kicking. It stopped in the middle of the road, maybe the pain and the cold. It some how just stopped right there. On the yellow line. I knew what was to be next. Few cars. Lucky so far? The first two saw it and skipped it. The third car saw the kitten; and it speeded towards it. I can tell that, cos I saw it. It ran over. The kitten still moved its legs. It was painful to see that. I saw another car speeding, it looked as if it would not have seen the kitten for sure. But it took away the pain for sure. Now its dead. Dead for real.. Free, free to the other side. Death, may not be the thing but this time I thought for myself.. Its better then living like that then to die? I was feeling guilty too. I was no less then the rest of them. I just witnessed the murder of a little helpless kitten by civilized humans.

He said, they said and she said.

My life, my ways, my choices, my blog. Some people still don't get it. You don't find me interested in you, do you?

ActiveX saves the day

Recently I was asked to implement the receipt printing module for a web based POS. This application runs on the internal network. So first it seems it had two straight methods. To use flash to do it, or just use a java applet. The simple print page method was not what we needed. There had the need to send some special printer commands and etc. Basically I needed direct access to the printer.

So on and off I worked on the applet, since I was no flash guy. At the end I realized it was a bad choice. It was so hard to access the printer directly from an applet. Maybe its my lack of java experience, which made it hard. Anyway I have this java dude; who is paid for a contract java job. So I asked him; for his expert advise. Well; he too kinda agreed with me. So not to waste any more time; (since I wasted enough playing around) I decided to make an activex object for the job. Since the application runs internally and they run on IE; no complications. Not the best way to do it; but it worked like a charm. So This time the activex saved my day.

X(ed)

I finally got FC5, fully working on my notebook. I got all the devices working. Patched everything. I liked the new package manager, though it took me a while to figure out what had been changed and how to go about it. The next thing I wanted to test was the new looks of the accelerated X stuff. This was not bundled with FC5 so I had to do a little bit of work.

Its XGL and AIGLX. Getting AIGLX was not so much of a trouble, but it did spoil some stuff. Namely after I got it working with the cool drop shadow and the jelly like window movements, my remote desktop stuff won't work. I was not able to use rdesktop to connect to windows machines. Well it did work; but the window does not refresh, so it was a waste. Besides that the performance was ok; maybe cos I had a ATI card. I had some issues with the metacity window manager a bit, and yeah I still use gnome. I got it fixed too with out much problems.

The next was XGL, man this was not so easy as I thought it world; it did give me a lot of issues trying to get it working on my box. But once I got it working; I would have to say it was worth all the trouble I went through to replace loads of libraries. I would have to say I liked the performance, though it crashed a few times. compiz was ok; it had cool (very cool) effects that I really loved to show off. Thats it, in anycase still its way too early to have them working on the desktop. Its ok for a test or to show off. Its just not ready yet.

Information

This web log hasn't been updated due to: global warming

fools day

here is the best I found today.
look at slashdot, this really was something you don't see everyday. Basterd guys. :P

www.mitf.net Down

www.mitf.net Has been there for some times, though not very active. It has done loads of contributions to development of thaana on computers. Starting from the Unicode fonts and information and small tools. A lot of others who have contributed to implementing thaana on various levels into applications and OS's has used www.mitf.net on many projects. It was sad that we did not have many who contributed to this project, and it has kinda faded off.

Jaa has been one of the contributors to MITF.NET and also seems to be still active in his contributions and developments. I am really happy to see such projects. His recent work include the online radheef using AJAX. I guess still there is a lot of work to be done, and not many are active. We can't depend on NCIT to get them done. Until now its been done by individuals and I guess that will be the case too, just that its not moving as fast as it should be.

Fedora Core 5 out

FC5 is out and ready. I still have not tried it, but soon will upgrade my OS from FC4 to FC5.

ވިކިޕީޑިއާ އަށް މަރުހަބާ

Thaana pages are started off in wikipedia. Its slowly growing. It would be great if we can have more contributors.

GUI's

UI is important, one of they factors to the success of a application. Users always seem to like applications which are "user friendly". This drives developers to work more on the UI's and also to follow some common standards.

<- [Screenshot GNOME on Linux]

Windows seems to be the most leading OS when it comes to UI's. I will agree to the fact that OS X is far better. The reason why I would say Windows is leading, cos its the most acceptable thus far to most people. The concept of software should be seen more as cars. Once you learn how to drive one car, you should be able to drive the rest. Does not matter who manufactures the car. If this was the case, it would be perfect, slowly I think this is becoming a reality. Web applications have taken a good side to this. Most web based applications look and feel the same, regardless of the OS. This is also true for Java based applications. If this was the case for all the rest; things would have been so much better.

[Screenshot of Windows Vista]

In the Linux world, the UI issue is not really going where it should go. I agree over the last 3 years or so we have seen a major leap in the GUI's. KDE and GNOME has improves a lot. But the fact that KDE is based on QT and GNOME is based on GTK again raises so many issues, which should not be. Application portability has been limited due to the presentation layer of applications. Most of the code relating to the business logic and others can easily be ported, but when it comes to the UI's, there you get the problem. If only all OS's followed some basic standards. Life would have been so much easy. Maybe I am dreaming.

[Screenshot of KDE on Linux]

[Screenshot of OS X Tiger]

[Finally Enlightenment on Linux]

Walk in the Rain

I took the 23:30 ferry to home. When I got here; it was raining. Waited for a while; for the rain to stop, then thought i'd take a walk. I should do this more often; if only I can control the rain too. Ah! I can feel that this is a good start of a good week end.

And yeah I came online and saw some of the comments on the previous post. And here is what I have to say. Baaaa! Why are you guys so interested in what I do, get over it. Sad thing is that the site has changed; I got to know the reason behind it too. I think it was good, and I liked the humor (though some ppl can't take it). Too bad its changed now. But that's how things are ; few people appreciate good stuff, and loads of people will always be there to comment and criticize. Its hard to do things then to say stuff. That's how it is, and will be. Next if and when you tell them that; the next thing you will hear from them is a bunch of "F" words. They are just different group of people and I fully understand them. "Restakpaa" :)

Best mv blog of the month

http://maldiviansexstories.blogspot.com/
this is a new entry into the mv blogs; its a good read. Sometimes taking very sensitive topics of the social issues that most of us tend to ignore.

One ruby a day keeps the python away

Its a sad thing, but I think ruby has done what java did to smalltalk. Python was the other side, the real world, people who took the red pill reached there. And.. In the end.. It did not matter. According to many python would have taken over the world, but there were a few small flaws that prevented it from happening. Every few years Languages are replaced with better ones. Like C was taken over by C++, and then it being taken over by Java. That's how it works. There is not one or two who compete in this race, and brains behind them. But then again I know its not the language what matters; if you know how to program language really does not matter much. This is true to some level, but if that's the case linux would have been developed with Perl or basic, instead of C. The tools you use DOES matter to some level, especially when it comes to developing enterprise solutions; where time is a factor and maintainability of code does give a fu*k.

Perl is almost gone, replaced by python and ruby. Perl was a good language, very good one to get things done fast. But a lot of the best features in Perl has been taken into python and ruby plus improved. Even as I write this I know there will be many who might disagree with me. But that's ok, Perl was very much used as a system scripting language, but now its almost replaced by python. Example the system administration scripts that come with Red Hat Linux and other flavors of Linux. Like wise I think Ruby will make its way on top of Python. I can almost see that happen now. I've used python for almost 6 months now for most of my small time scripting needs, and I loved it. I will still continue to use python. After spending some time playing with ruby I feel ruby will soon take over. Ruby seems to have originated from Japan. Ruby is a killer language of today, it has taken all the good stuff from Perl, smalltalk and languages like lisp. One of the advantages I found with ruby is that its easy to learn and its really a neat language.

Here an AJAX, there an AJAX, everywhere an AJAX

Ok; the new cool thing (well not really new) , the most talked on the web now is AJAX. Seems AJAX is taking over the web. So many concepts about web development has taken a big turn with technologies like AJAX and web development frameworks.

As most of you already know, AJAX is Asynchronous JavaScript And XML. It is a Web development technique for creating interactive web applications. A lot of contribution or its very existence is from Micro$oft. The best use I find with AJAX is to replacement to the old java applets.

Below is an example of what might be possible (might take a while(LOT) to load...)

Welcome back to the machines

I had decided to quit IT and make my way into products development as part of marketing team. This was almost finalized until one of my mentors came down from the mother company. I have been requested to stay back. So I guess I am stuck doing the same old work. So I agreed and decided to move on again, hmmm! Do I have a choice? Yeah I do. But I think I will listen to people who are better experienced and see how it goes. Same old pets and gems. Oh well; so much for the change....

Red is the Bull

Its almost a month since I quit smoking. I found another potential addiction; which is Red Bull. Red Bull is the brand name of an Austrian carbonated soft drink. Sold as an energy drink to combat mental and physical fatigue, it contains, per 250 ml serving, about 27 grams of sugar, 1000 mg of taurine, 600 mg of glucuronolactone, B-complex vitamins and 80 mg of caffeine (the average cup [8 oz] of coffee contains 100 mg or as much as three cans of Coke).

Seems its not recommended to consume more then 2 cans of Red Bulls per day. I also came across the following notice.

Cautions: Contains caffeine. Not recommended for children, pregnant or breast-feeding women, caffeine sensitive persons or to be mixed with alcohol. Do not consume more than 500 ml per day.

A friend warned me about it, and that was the reason why I looked into it. This can't be. I mean why is always have to be this way. Things you like and enjoy always seem to be bad for you? This is not possible.

Google less week

I had a chat with primary0 two nights back, we talked about search engines. He suggested that yahoo and msn is some times better then google... I have never tested this before. Anyway I have decided to experiment based on that chat we had. A google-less week.

Bye bye IT/IS

I guess its time. I have decided to move away from being an IT guy, as far as my job is concerned. Loads of reasons, but I think the move is good. Its anyway closely related to IT. My experience in IT and teclcoms would help me with this new job that I will be taking up (and the reason why I got it). Guess this year is a year of changes, and so far it's been good. Kinda feel paranoid about the whole thing, but I think I should move on.

The new job; if all goes well will be more exciting. I know there will be loads of new stuff to learn and experience. Plus most of all there is a lot I want to get done, and challenges to myself. To bring ideas into reality.

Ruby on Rails

Almost a month, and I think I am in love again. Ruby on Rails is the answer to my prayers. The type of framework that truly makes "life easy", and increases productivity. With things like added and easy use to ajax functionalities; I can now conclude the days of form based programming is over for me.

A guy in my work place wants me to go to JBoss with java, but after working on ruby on rails; no way. I refuse to spend more time coding UI's and DB stuff as I use to.

script/generate ajax_scaffold life :)

Fasy Live in Male'

picture by sk

People, I don't mean to offend any other musician in Maldives, but I would say no one comes close to Fasy. I mean this guy rocks... He rocks... I think even in this region there will be a few guitar players who can play like him.

I went to Fasy's concert with Simon and Mohamed. Simon use to be in the same band as Fasy back in the early 90's. I use to go watch them play those days. I always loved fasy's music. No one even then played like him. He proved his point again last night. When he played the songs from 12 years back... The songs like blue tears, final revelation, painted in black are songs they use to play back in 1993/4. Even as of today, I have not heard any maldivian music, close to them. Well, maybe one or two. But these were songs done 12 years back. I don't think many will remember them or will know those songs. But it sure did make me, kinda trip way back in to the 90's. I was really happy to see him perform again. Been a long time, last was in KL (Malaysia), when we use to go to this pub where Fasy played. We were in the same class and house mates back then. It was an honor to know this guy.

I have not seen such a good support from the audience in Maldives, at a show. I know everyone enjoyed the music and was happy to know Maldivians can rock and roll too. I know there are very good bands, but I would have to say that Fasy was exceptional. His music is really good.

Computers were women

Yes, its true. Computers were women. Computers and woman go a long way. Back in the early days of computing when projects like the ENAIC started, calculations were done by humans. The name “Computers” was used by the US Army to a group of over 80 women working at the University of Pennsylvania during World War II calculating ballistics trajectories - complex differential equations - by hand. When the Army agreed to fund an experimental project, the first all-electronic digital computer, six "Computers" were selected in 1945 to be its first programmers. They were Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum.

This year marks the 60^th year after the birth of ENAIC, the worlds first All Electronic Computer. Feb 14^th of 1946 was the day. So no problem even if you geeks buy flowers and chocolates to the girls on the 14th of Feb, its justified. Its just to say thanks for contributing to the “love” of our lives: the computers.

So What Happened?

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.....

- Fingon Anwamanë -

Cocoon

I was sleeping in my dreams, just as it was in reality. The same place and same old things. Not to talk about the same old people. A voice boomed, and from my dreams I woke up to another dream. Only this more real. Now this is the road that I want to walk on, for the rest of my life. Enlightened and happy. I don't no longer want to be a cocoon but I am one. Waiting for the butterfly?

When will I see you again? I want to go back to my sleep. I want to hear the same old song be played over and over again. Now where did it all end up to? I have no idea. I only know I like it, and this is me. This is it, its done and decided. Blame it on me, I will take the blame. Its my fault. Sorry, I really am.

Surgeon General

Dear Surgeon General ,

I don't smoke anymore. Tonight I had my last. YEAH! hear me, my last one! Leave me ALONE! go away.

Still silent movies

silent movies are still haunting me. its like 5:17 am, my local time and I have office at 9:00 am.. what am I doing here? someone please switch off that tv. i guess its not possible. -the end-

Anti-drug show?

Tonight I while coming back home; I called a friend, he said he was at a cafe'. So I go there and there was this music show which was going on. Seem to be an anti-drug show. WoW! That's good thing. They should do this more often. shoud they? I mean I don't mind and have no problem with shows, but for me its just a big joke.

I have seen these kinda shows for like more then 10 years now. I have been also involved in some at some level, or known people who are. The funny part is everyone! I mean everyone refers to it as "drug show". I don't know if they mean it or now. Also I might be wrong here, but half of the guys who play music are high on some sort of drug or maybe on weed. Not to mention the crowd. Good work guys! As my friend was telling me some 2 days back, if one would write a letter to the authorities saying I want to import heroin for a anti-drug awareness program and show it off and all, they would say; Yeah go on do it. You wanna have a DJ call it an anti-drug DJ and its permitted. By the way I think DJ's are not such a bad idea. People should get more of that sort of entertainment. Not just coffee houses. What do you expect? They will just take coffee and smoke a ciggy and stop there (or maybe go to some anti-drug show). People and kids of today need more then that guys. You can't stop them, unless you think like them.

I know a lot of people will be against my way of thinking, but this is just my view. People should be made aware of what is what, and the effects and everything about them. Not just slogans say'n "say no to drugs".What does that mean? Nothing. What do u call drugs? Which is which?

Silent movies

Something about them. Which is hard to explain. Its effective and it has infected me. I think I can feel the change too. I don't like color or sound anymore. But I hope I don't look for images in white noise.

Gabriel vs TVM

Latest news is TVM is taking over Gabriel.. scores are very close. .... and ... TVM saves the day. I love you TVM. I really do... good show boys and girls.

mvblogosphere

http://www.mvblogs.org/ is a project started by Senn, Shahee, Simon and Inn (3si). If you are a Maldivian blogger you might want to check this out. Cool work guys..

email reminded of school

Today I got a mail titled "Attitude for weekend", from our HR manager sent to all the staff, which said..

Guys – Just a little work on attitude. Have fun. Here is what you need to do. We all need to work on our attitude, don’t we?

• If a = 1%, b = 2%, c = 3%, etcetera, what does ‘attitude’ add up to? ….. (Work it out & see for yourself – ask NO questions just think about it)
  

Cheers

This totally reminded me of the school programming assignments that we use to do (when you do programming 101 kinda subjects). Ok. . . since it reminded me of programming exercise, I did exactly the same.

#! /usr/bin/python

#
import string

alp=''

for per in range(97,123):

alp = alp + (chr(per))

didisaid = string.lower("attitude")

l = len (didisaid)

total=0

for cal in range(0,l):

c = didisaid[cal]

val = alp.find(c) +1

print c,"=",val

total = total + val

print "total value for :",didisaid," =",total,"%"

digg vs Slashdot

Yeah; even before I start off, they both work in different styles. Totally agreed. I have been visiting Slashdot daily for my news. Its been like that for over 5 years now. Slashdot is also set has my default web site on my browser. Digg has been around for a while, I use to visit it once in a while, but lately Digg has taken over slashdot on my browser. I think digg is far better then slash in terms of news. Example there is this news about Korean police and army robots, I read that 2 days back at digg, just only today hit slashdot. So this does not make it better then slashdot, well no. I also read about this first mid last year on about plans for this project, maybe on slash. But this is my view, I follow both and I think digg is more up to date then slashdot. But slashdot got amazing comments and members. There is humor and a lot of informative content on it, that's the plus point.

Who knows it might turn out to be another yahoo and google kinda thing. There was yahoo and now there is google. There still is yahoo. bla bla bla.

Fedora Core 5 Test 2 Out

Not a new thingy; but its out again. here (and i saw this today)

The ship island

I was reading digg.com a while back and saw this post. Which lead me to this page. Its an interesting one, about a man who build an eco space creating ship, sort of like an island. The guy has a good point in it besides the work he did. If its an island you can't own it. Even in Maldives. The gov will claim it; or some times won't even let you create one.Even though Umar Zahir and Some others made it. I live in a man made island now; hulhumale'. The gov will make good money out of this place and is a good place to live too. Anyway point I wanna bring is, what if this kinda thing is done here in Maldives. We have safari boats, where tourists can come and stay. Its hard to get a resort island these days, funny policies they have. The highest bidder always gets it, so you need money, loads of em. And some times it won't even be worth it. I don't know, maybe the experts in this area will know better.

It is a cool thing if someone really tried these kinda things in Maldives, a floating island concept. You can have a house or even many rooms like in resort islands, etc. Or just live there. Have it off hulhumale'. You have a ferry every 30 mins to Male'. Keep it docketed in the hulhumale' lagoon or even in far away lagoon. Anyway just a crazy thought.

NeXT?

So what was NeXT ? Well Mac OS X :) I am thinking of switching to Apple for my desktop needs (been way too long), so was just thinking and reading a bit. If its a worth move to make? Well for the last few years now my desktop runs on Linux, I get almost everything I need to get done on Linux. I don't play games. So no need of Windows. I don't do graphics so not much need to all those fancy s/w. If I needed gimp is always there. For word processing and other office work, I use OpenOffice. As an email client I use evolution. For a browser firefox. vim is my choice of editor. So everything is there. Ah and I use GNOME and a Mac OS X theme. Kinda used to it and like it as well.

So why switch? Just wanna give it a try and see. I thought about it and I think Mac OS will be a far better choice in terms of a desktop machine. OS X is far better then X and GNOME combined. All the needed applications are there. Besides that its based on unix. So I'd have the console if I needed it. I always have a Linux box under my table, so can always work on it remotely. So thats it.

As for Mac OS X. Its the next level of NeXT after apple computers bought NeXT, which was based on UNIX and with the famous GUI. A lot of Window managers were clones of NeXT like the afterstep and window maker. Its also worth to note that the worlds first web page was hosted on NeXT as well.

Friday the 13th

I don't know how many peple actually still believe in this. But seems all over the globe the Friday which happens to be a 13th is considered unlucky. hmmmm! Never really knew why it was so. Never even bothered to find out, until today.

"The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia, a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen." , WOW. These humans, crazy creatures ey.

According to wikipedia, The origin of the Friday the 13th superstition has been linked to the belief that there were 13 people at The Last Supper of Jesus, who was crucified on Good Friday, but it probably originated in medieval times. It has also been linked to the fact that a lunisolar calendar must have 13 months in some years, while the solar Gregorian calendar and lunar Islamic calendar always have 12 months in a year. Another suggestion is that the belief originated in a Norse myth about twelve gods having a feast in Valhalla. The mischievous Loki gate-crashed the party as an uninvited 13th guest and arranged for Hod, the blind god of darkness, to throw a branch of mistletoe at Balder, the god of joy and gladness. Balder was killed instantly and the Earth was plunged into darkness and mourning as a result.

Madagascar

I saw the movie a few months back, again saw a review of it on TV; suppose to be one of the best of 2005. I loved the penguins. Daaa! cos they represent Linux! Bingo. I think it did. Seems the movie was rendered on Linux and on the GNOME desktop. If you noticed and watched the movie; the part where the penguins take over the ship and hack into the navigation system(HP-UX) of the ship was cool too.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Nothingness! Anyway Last few days I have been practcing the art of doing nothing. During which time I spend most of my nights just watching TV and some times browsing. Almost half of the day is spend on bed (sleeping). Wake up to my girl friends phone calls. She drops in and cooks or brings some food over. So I don't even have to go out or cook! Anyway... after a chat with a friend I met online... the question popped up. "Why is there something rather then nothing?". So it seems we are not the only people who have asked this questions. Millions and maybe millions of times.

After a bit of read ups I came across this...

In Les Misérables, Victor Hugo contrasts universal negation with universal affirmation:

All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word ‘no.’ To ‘no’ there is only one answer and that is ‘yes.’ Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread. (1862, pt. 2, bk. 7, ch. 6).

As far as simplicity, there is a tie between the nihilistic rule ‘Always answer no!’ and the inflationary rule ‘Always answer yes!’. Neither rule makes for serious metaphysics.

[root@localhost] # uptime

Ok, you got the service up now what? next level is to keep them up and running. This involves a lot of hard work. Getting something up is just 20% of the work completed. The rest is the real challenge. It sure is fun to break into something; but trust me keeping something up is more fun. Even if you think in terms to intruders into a system. If you want to keep your systems up, you need to think like people who want to break in too. This takes time and effort. It does not happen over night. Its like a war you fight. The whole point in it is though you loose a battle, does not mean you lost the war. You learn from the battles you loose and add to our experience. To keep the so called “hackers” is just one part of it. There is a whole lot more then them to having an ideal “100% uptime service”.

There is a whole aspect of things you need to know and know well. Starting from the simple hardware, the network to the software. Everything about the system. Yes, things like even power. Daa! you thought you were an IT guy and you don’t have anything to do with power. Hello, wake up buddy, welcome to the real world. Your systems should have redundant power and everything else. Ah don’t forget the air conditioning. Yes! what if that fails, and over heats your systems? you need to think and visualize everything. I mean everything. What if someone trips over the power cable? I can go on and on. A lot of times most of the simple things are ignored. It takes mistakes to be done, for one to learn and experience all that. I had my bitter side of it too. Which is good. I’ve learned and still am, and a whole lot more to digest. Its easy to say then to get all those in place. Neat and documented cables and diagrams and well documented scripts. Organize the backups and schedules. Everything becomes a nightmare at a point, but then aaah some how it slowly starts to make sense and fit in some place. If one can achieve a system that is 100% fail proof I will be a slave to that person. I mean I think thats something which is practically impossible. But at the same time, I would say we should never stop working to achieve this.

It all comes down to the users. Yes. Bob Dylan says “you got to serve some body”. We server the users, they maybe the users, customers, what ever you call em. I’d say the users to make it short. Keeping those applications up is damn a lot of fun. You don’t care what garbage they enter or process. As long as you have them up thats the job. That keep you happy, and during the whole process you learn so much. Thats the excitement. What if the database crashes what if the machine has a hardware fault? How to achieve the optimal performance? Planing your systems such that if something crashes it fails over to the rest and how to get the faulty system back up ASAP. What if during that time something goes wrong with another node? daaa! things that sound crazy, but someone needs to figure them out. Clustering is one method where it saves your ass from all those troubles. Managing fail overs and fail backs and load balancing, etc. Keeping it all up is enough the challenge. What about the challenge and the fact that if it goes down and under worst case scenario; how to get them backup again. Do you have the backups, how about hardware and infrastructure? Ah still I need to think and work on an alarm system. Stuff like auto SMS when something goes wrong, kinda like alert systems for all the services from the power to the applications, services and intruder alerts.

Anyway I just thought of all this cos I am one frustrated systems administrator. A lot of times not many people in Maldives in the IT sector has to think to this level. I don’t know if its a blessing or a curse. But I sure would be happy to see more people who will think and get the dirty work done and who are really interested to do that, then to talk about having “hacking days”. I feel they can do a lot more. Maybe I am wrong ? I know so much of talent is out there, we need that to be utilized and given a chance.

Faith version 0.2a

It's Eid for all Muslims. Eid mukaarik? Ok! So what is it all about? Kinda like a celebration of the end of the Hajj also referred to as The Festival of Sacrifice? So what's the story behind this? What sacrifice? Well I think it goes way back to the old days of Ibrahim. The Qur'an describes Ibrahim as follows:

"Surely Ibrahim was an example, obedient to Allah, by nature upright, and he was not of the polytheists. He was grateful for Our bounties. We chose him and guided him unto a right path. We gave him good in this world, and in the next he will most surely be among the righteous."

And "We made him (Ibrahim) pure in this world and in the hereafter; he is most surely among the righteous. When his Lord said to him, 'Submit,' he said, 'I submit myself to the Lord of the Worlds.'"

.... Now one of his biggest trials was to kill his own son (only son). Sacrifice him to Allah (god). And he did obey god. WOW! I mean I can't do it! Damn right I won't (sorry god, but that explains a lot). But Ibrahim did. Well he did not get to execute the command. Just typed it on the console. And god was more then happy. Since Ibrahim submitted to god and was willing to do this, god finally revealed to him that his sacrifice was fulfilled. He proved his faith to the GOD. hmmmmm! Ok! So as a substitute goats or some other animal was sacrificed. Now where were the animal rights people back then and now? So I guess that's the thingy! So what am I suppose to sacrifice on this day! You can't even get a live chicken now. Plus the bird flu! Oh oh! God how about fish? What if I go fishing and kill a fish? Will it please you god? I mean god, please understand we don't get goats and camels here! bzzzzzzz! god? bzzzzzzzzz! ya habeebee?

Influenza or the Common Cold?

aaaachooo! bang! bang! ? ! I don't know how I got this thing, the doc I saw today said it was an upper respiratory tract infection. I guess she ment it was more a common cold, with all due respect to her, I don't think I am going through that. I mean freaking things been after me for almost a week now. I can hardly talk! and yeah I simply can't talk. This morning when I walked in to the office, met an old buddy and tried to talk for the first time today. The f**king voice simply won't come out. Now this is starting to bug me! Come on!

So I am stuck at home with the TV. The news networks are very good! :) My parents called up asked about some shit on the net AGAIN on FM about me, and some other issues. Well what more can I say ? daaa! I simply told my dad; "nothing new". Who cares. I mean some people just want me to dance to the drum beats they play! ah aah! that an't gonna happen baby! no way!. Anyway I think I got better stuff to do and enjoy then to answer to stupid questions and so called "gas games". Plus most DOGS do bark, but was a bit disappointed cos other innocent people are being dragged into this shit.

woof! woof! aaachoo! hehehe! anyway please someone find a cure for this! help! bang! bang! goes my chest! I can't even F**KING smoke. Imagine that!

Games?

I did a bit of a thinking and realized games is addictive. hehehe! yeah! "thinking". Anyway this time I was kinda shocked to see and realize how much people are addicted to slot machines. I was in a casino with some of the guys; and it was amazing how much time and money people spend on these games.

Being there; I gave it a try as well. First round was a big blow, lost about 5 USD. Which is ok, and good. Second round with the same amount some how I got close to a 300. This was pure luck I would say. I did give a few more tries like 5 times but it was just a waste. But keep aside the slot machines, even though you loose money a game of black jack is not a bad idea once a year.

Hmmm! woof! woof! grrrrrr! :)

Happy Holidays

me is the off! me go! me say bye bye! me also say enjoy and happy new year 2006!

Note: Last year same date, I stayed up late and went to sleep very late. Woke up to a tsunami! I wonder what I will wake up to today!?!#!

Google and Python

Google has hired the creator of Python , Guido van Rossum. This has not yet been officially announched by google, but according to this news groups postings, its true.

It is a cool move, since google already is using python for its projects, including the new versions of blogger.

How can you tell if your boss is a "BAD BOSS"?

Does your boss:

• Ignore "people" issues such as support, development and conflict?
• Criticize, downplay or ignore your ideas; or take credit for your work?
• Lack necessary knowledge, skills or experience in your field or profession?
• Ignore serious problems or make them worse?
• Measure results based only on things that can be easily counted?
• Hire unqualified employees, vendors or consultants?
• Do the nitty-gritty, detailed work in your department?
• Insult, taunt, harass, or threaten you; or snap, shout or curse at you?
• Expect you to agree with her or his ideas, or give you incorrect information?
• Gossip with your peers or encourage infighting and internal competition?
• Use company assets inappropriately or unethically?
• Work against company goals and programs while pretending to support them?
• Appear to have different personalities on different day

If you report to a bad boss, know these four things:

1. Some bosses want to be bad and they're not going to change.
2. Bad bosses know how to get away with what they're doing.
3. You're not imagining it--it is really happening.
4. You are not the problem.
   

Information source

An Orgy of Linu(x)

Is it the looks or the feel? What ever it is; its simply very cool. From a handful of linu(x) distros like Slack, debian and redhat we have evolved to new stage. Now we get so many of them. Most of them are oriented to specific user(s) or applications. I knew we had load of them; at a point in time I had the count too. But later on I lost it, now today I was shocked to see this page.

http://shots.osdir.com/index_thumbs.php

One PC two users?

Well; its nothing new multiuser and multitasking, bla bla stuff. We all have seen and experienced it but this is something new for me and thought worth a look at. The concept is to have two users using single PC at the same time. Not at a server level; or remotely connected, but simply using two different desktop environments and applications, etc on one PC. This has been done at various levels using various methods; but this one seem to be cheap and fun.

So if at home; or office you need to share a machine,now all you need is a dual-head video card and an extra USB keyboard and mouse. This is done using a software called Desktop Multiplier and runs on the Linux OS. If the PC is powerful enough it can even support more then 2. Extra hardware needed will be USB hubs or PCI cards.

This will be real good application to be used at a place like a school or at a cyber cafe'.

Time for the big break

We have been having a good year; I’d say 2005 was one of the best years so far. Things have been smooth and I had fun and good times. Learned so much; achieved most of my goals. This year I would consider to be a year of experience and learning. Getting to know new people; learning new things and experimenting and most of all got to know the real dark side of life. Things which should be digested, not ignored. Learning to fight back, and stand up and ignoring bull shit! Don’t let those get in your way. Drive and feel the wind, who cares; as long as you enjoy the ride. Let the cars hiss by and horn! Even if they spray water at you; at that speed you’d dry up in no time.

I am off in a few days for my annual leave. I guess I’d have a good new year celebration . We did plan for a trip; all those fun party nights. Sad thing is not all got to join the trip. Some of my friends will join me and we plan to have a good time. I am really looking forward for the year end break. End of so much and I hope start of better things. truly a journey of self experience.

The bad snake

"Python programming: be the snake, eat the ruby, and throw the perls to the C" this was the topic of today when I went into the #python channel on undernet. I totally support this.

I've been into python for some time now; Perl is ok and cool; though most will say its the thingy. Well for me I think it does not matter what language you use. Its getting it done, and how fast you get it done, and the maintainability. As for my work; I often have to write small scripts to do odd jobs on the systems; and I found Python to be a life saver. Its easy to develop in Python, its fast to develop and it looks neat! Yeah! Bloody neat compared to Perl (most) scripts.

Last night I got some small scripts done again; to automate the process of mailing all staff bills to their emails as html mails. This was simple, but had to do a lot of odd stuff that might have taken me lot of time if "I" were to do it in Perl or other shell scripts. Plus Python scripts run on windows, *nix and on my phone as well. So its a good toy language too, to play around with.

I have not done major big projects with Python and which involves heavy usage for the GUI's and DB's but I think it's high time I should do that. So next question is Microsoft coming up with a "Python#" ?!? hehe

Hi old buddy!

Long time no see. Still on Linux(obviously) and on Dhiraagu ADSL. Ah! Got ya! Since when did you move to Firefox? I thought Konqueror was the choice. Anyway cool! No Worries! End of transmission! End of Story! I give up! Thanks!

"little knowledge is dangerous" ?!?

Ok! I got a call from primary0 a while back; and has explained me this story behind the DOSS. The real story behind this is that; they have accused me, primary0 and sigey of DOSS'n their site. So obviously we will look into the matter.

primary0 has told me that he found logs of my ip going to thebalaabodu.com. Ok next question is why? here is the explanation. I was asked by a friend to download all the pics on the forum. After all that's the reason why everyone seems to join the site. So after a quick look into. I figured out that the pics were hosted in a folder on the site. So I simply did a wget for the .jpg files.

wget -m -r -l1 --no-parent -A.jpg http://www.thebalaabodu.com/4rum/files/

that was the command. Simply what this will do is connect to the site; and download the files with the extension .jpg. When run this. It will go through the dir and download all files. Next time its run; it will do the same; but will not download the files which is already in my HDD. So basically its a kinda mirror thingy which happens for the pics.

This these guys has considered as a "hacking attempt"; come on its good to be paranoid but this is way too much. They don't know the difference between a DOSS attacking and someone connecting and downloading pics. Besides they had this folder open. And it was for public; so I don't see anything wrong. What's the big deal. This is very simple. It does not do anything harmful but just download pics. Don't they want people to download pics? Ok if they say yes! Ok I admit I did it! But is this such a big deal?

I think what really happended is the timing. Seems these guys has offended Business man like Jabir and gov officials like Mr.FJ. So obviously they will try to attack them as well. My guess is they bought off the hosting service during the same period of time when I did the download. So its not nice to say someone bought off their hosting; it looks much cool, to say he ISP guys hacked into them! That's the real explanation behind what really happen'd. But I am sure they know this by now, but they just don't want to accept it since they have gone this far. Also its not so cool to admit that Jabir really messed them up. But I am sure if Jabir and FJ did this; they will be really laugh'n their ass off now. Cos these guys did not even know what hit them, and they are running after us.

Dear Mr. Jabir

With reference to the post below
http://www.thebalaabodu.com/4rum/viewtopic.php?t=2&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3825 ; on the balaabodu. It seems we are exposed now. Sorry I did not give the money to primary0. Sigey is happy with the 10K he got. I think the 20K was not enough and the site is backup again! So now that they know you paid me 30K! LOL this has got very dangerous!

Also the site is back up again! So we need to do something about it! Lets bring it down again. This time the charges will be doubled! and the next time the charges will be tripled, and so forth. I am sure we can STOP them someday! hehehe!

Anyone else who needs a hacker for Rent please do mail me (but make sure you have 30K for a start)! LOL

Also according to balaabodu the latest technology is to DOSS a site! WOW ey!

Note: This is the most fun thing I ever been accused of. And I am enjoying this. Also in the process I am hoping that I will make good connections with Mr. Jabir and might get to go to his resort on week ends. Well Mr. Jabir what do you think? Can I? Can I? Please?

x0780 range test

Here is the first script to test the thaana with Symbian using Python.


from appuifw import *

def tha_input():
first_list = [' '.join(thaa_char[i:i+11]) for i in range(0,50,11)]
y = popup_menu(first_list, u'select Thaana char')
if y is not None:
x = popup_menu(thaa_char[11*y:11*(y+1)], u'select Thaana char')
if x is not None:
t.add(thaa_char[11*y + x])

thaa_char = [unichr(0x0780+i) for i in range(50)] # 50 thaana chars

app.body = t = Text()
app.menu = [(u'thaana', tha_input), (u'clear screen', t.clear)]

# wait for user to exit program
import e32
lock = e32.Ao_lock()
app.exit_key_handler=lock.signal
lock.wait()

Symbian and Thaana : Work in progress

Maybe a joke; but I still am into Thaana even when it comes to phones. Been trying to implement it on a phone. Starting with SMS. I've got the usual NOKIA 6600 phone which comes with Symbian OS. It already supports sms in languages like Arabic and Hebrew. Why not Thaana? After I experimented around. I found out by default it comes with a unicode font. Unfortunately; no Thaana code pages. So the next option was to upload a font which got thaana in it and make it the system default font for the phone. After some reading up, I am able to get a font installed; but still I can' get it to display Thaana correctly. On the symbian the fonts are not vector based but bitmaps. So It won't be that hard.

Next is to come up with a way to write and send sms through the phone. Right now I am doing that through the PC through bluetooth. The approach I am planning to take is to develop python scripts for this function. I still have no idea how the UI can be like. But hope to get this done; with in the next week. Anyone interested to join?

primary0 talks to the most hated forum of maldives

primary0 has a post on his blog which is very interesting.

Xbox 360 in the shops

Xbox 360 out and its not expensive, $299 and $399 : difference an extra storage disk.

"While most of the early buyers will be attracted to the photo-realistic graphics of the games, the Xbox 360 is more than just about games

The console can play music, display photos and show DVDs, signalling Microsoft's aim to make the 360 the heart of the entertainment system in the home." -BBC-

People don't READ emails!

Today in office, we got spammed like hell. Not from outside, but from inside.

What really happened was the company is getting new speed boats and the HR came up with the great idea of opening a contest for naming boats. This was announced in a mail; which was sent to a group in the email server which included all employees. But in the mail; it clearly says,


HOW DOES IT WORK?

• Send in the names to HR by e-mail hr@company name dot com
• Think of 5 different names with its meaning
• Submit before the closing

but seems no one noticed or read the first point and the reply was sent back to the all employees account which sends the mail to everyone (all the names that everyone suggested started to flood, this was fun though).Seems like half of the company is suggesting names; imagine the result. The best part was even the CEO did the same.

I need not say it.

Well; I've been browsing over this week end. I came across a blog which had a very similar feeling and point of view as I am having now. I would like to change some to accommodate to my feelings and views, but I guess the message is there. Not many people think about these things but I guess it's an everyday part of most of us.

Here are the links

http://middlemanager.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/10/25/reverse-pyramid-management.html

and

http://middlemanager.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/11/03/does-your-manager-make-you-want-to-work-part-1.html

没有我不是汉语

这是我的第一个中国岗位; 如果您能读这您然后是汉语或您翻译这, 然后您是真正地对我感兴趣。 或者您知道汉语。 在任何情况下如同您能猜测; 我是非常委员会。 我采取了从工作5 天。 那么在家整天和设法出去工作。 工作为7 到8 月和我需要断裂。
这个岗位是用中文; 提醒我中国朋友我有后面在学院, 我没有大多数他们的联络和失去的轨道他们。 但我知道我错过他们和非常学会从他们。 如此这是为您人花花公子。

A for Apple: in Maldives

Foucs Computers has got Apple Mac's in the show room now. Seems they are selling Mac's. On display are iMac's, Power Mac's and PowerBooks too. This was good news. Finally a good desktop environment. The question now everyone is waiting for is: will mac's make it? I think still Mac's are a bit expensive for most Maldivians plus they are too used to the PC's. Now only the rich kids use the Mac's and these guys get them down from other countries. For Office; I don't think except your boss who can spend extra money without questions being asked will get mac's. I feel the Maldivian Office environments are not yet ready to use Mac's as the desktop platform. It will be great if they do. iPods has a market :) and Surprisingly no Mac Mini's in the show room.

I have also got information from friends that another party who has got authorized dealership for Mac's is opening an Apple Store. Lets see how this goes. In any case this is exciting news. I would like to get one of those G5's.

another sms script

this works with a gprs router/modem attched to your box. can be easily modified to work with mobile phones as well. just replace the telnet part with maybe with a serial connection or connect throug bluetooth. then use the AT commands. In this case I am using a SARIAN 2000 Series EDGE Router, connect through eth. the script here works with xchat. so ppl just need to send you the msg !sms number message

#!/usr/bin/perl
#sms send script from xchat by darkm00n

use Net::Telnet ();

IRC::register("darkm00nSMS",1.0,"","");

IRC::add_message_handler("PRIVMSG", "privmsg_handler");
IRC::print("[darkm00n SMS Loaded]");

sub privmsg_handler {
$irc_message = shift(@_);
$irc_message =~ ~ /:(.*)!(.*@.*).*(#.*) :(.*)/;
$irc_nick = lc $1;

my @msgs = split(' ', $irc_message);

if ($msgs[3] eq ":!sms") {
$t = new Net::Telnet (Timeout => 10, Prompt => '/ss32263>/');
$t->open("192.168.0.99");
$t->login("username","password");
$words = @msgs;

$text= " ";
for ($r=5;$r<=$words;$r++){
$text = $text . " " . $msgs[$r];
}

$number = $msgs[4];
@lines = $t->cmd('sendsms '. $number . ' "'. $text . ' - darkm00n sms script-"');
$t->close;
sleep(1);
IRC::print(@lines);
}

return 0;
}

thaana for xchat

was in IRC tonight; and thought i'd have some fun with perl. so here is a little perl script for xchat which you can use to type in thaana. you need to have a thaana unicode font installed. then after you load this perl script. type /thaana swlWmc. might be useful.

---------------------- xcthaana.pl-------------------------------------------------

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

## thaana for x-chat
## v1.0 by darkm00n

IRC::register("thaana", "1.0", "", "");
IRC::print("[thaana Loaded]");
IRC::add_command_handler("thaana", "thaana");


sub thaana
{
$in=shift;
$out="";
for ( $i=0; $i <= length($in); $i++){
$_=substr($in,$i,1);
#convert thaana
if ("A" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A2}"; };
if ("B" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079E}"; };
if ("C" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0797}"; };
if ("D" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0791}"; };
if ("E" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AD}"; };
if ("F" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079F}"; };
if ("G" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A3}"; };
if ("H" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0799}"; };
if ("I" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A9}"; };
if ("J" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079B}"; };
if ("K" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079A}"; };
if ("L" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0785}"; };
if ("M" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0789}"; };
if ("N" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078F}"; };
if ("O" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AF}"; };
if ("P" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0795}"; };
if ("Q" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A4}"; };
if ("R" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079C}"; };
if ("S" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0781}"; };
if ("T" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0793}"; };
if ("U" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AB}"; };
if ("V" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A5}"; };
if ("W" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A7}"; };
if ("X" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0798}"; };
if ("Y" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A0}"; };
if ("Z" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A1}"; };
if ("a" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0787}"; };
if ("b" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0784}"; };
if ("c" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07B0}"; };
if ("d" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078B}"; };
if ("e" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AC}"; };
if ("f" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078A}"; };
if ("g" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078E}"; };
if ("h" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0780}"; };
if ("i" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A8}"; };
if ("j" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0796}"; };
if ("k" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0786}"; };
if ("l" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078D}"; };
if ("m" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0789}"; };
if ("n" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0782}"; };
if ("o" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AE}"; };
if ("p" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0795}"; };
if ("q" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A4}"; };
if ("r" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0783}"; };
if ("s" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0790}"; };
if ("t" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{078C}"; };
if ("u" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07AA}"; };
if ("v" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0788}"; };
if ("w" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{07A6}"; };
if ("x" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{079D}"; };
if ("y" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0794}"; };
if ("z" eq $_ ) { $_ = "\x{0792}"; };
$out=$out.$_;
}
IRC::command($out);
return 1;
}

released?

ever been in jail? i have once; for like 17 days. when i came out it was a feeling of freedom; but what i feel now is beyond that too. just for some reason i feel free! but sad part is freedom too comes with responsibilities. i’ve like spend a few years in a state of mind; from which i am free now. i hope :)

just one wish; want to enjoy this for a while; and catch up on TV and books, etc. Why? its not the time; but it’s the state of mind in which you dive into them. self confidence is the next thing which needs to be patched. my version is buggy. when you are told for a long time that everything you do is wrong, and nothing will be right; you start to believe it. now thats not a very good thing ey? anyway wish me luck. i am no more scared or pissed; just happy and optimistic. i really do feel good. :P

14 years from now; my work is done. if i live long enough. i guess you have to go through bad to get to good. as one of my very good friend says; all ugly things are made by people who are trying to make something beautiful, i can’t remember the real words though. so its a stage in life and a process where you just experience hurt, guilt, frustrations, etc... but important thing i always believed in was not to give up. never to give up on what you believe and whom you love. don’t let them down or give up on them, and never to bring your own selfish reasons for an excuse to dump or hurt them. end of the day; they are what reflects you, and who will be your strength. somethings are momentary; like money, sex, fame and etc. if one decides to hang on to it and seek it; then i guess all hopes are gone. one day you will wake up; and realize what you have lost. worst part is then it’s too late. days pass by for each of us. we won’t be the same in 20 years.

one good experience i’ve learned is don’t hold on to people who don’t hold on to others. if someone who comes to you by dumping someone else, will do the same to you too. look for people who have a moral and have ethics. who are willing to sacrifice their own happiness over their own self. never depend on someone who is self centered; trying to hold on to people like this will result in a major chaos. if you don’t love you own family; you won’t love anything else. no matter what you say or do. now i am happy to know i have a family whom i can always depend on and have learned so much from. now the challenge is to make my children feel the same and say the same. damn!

To Java or NOT to Java?

I have been grinding my brain off over a simple issues. But I wonder if it’s simple anymore. By tomorrow I need to decide on If I would say Java is my choice for corporate development or Mirco$oft dot Net. Now this is way too simple if it was a personnel choice, I would say Java. Why Java. hey! it’s cool too. Java simple is cool thats the first things. But there is a lot more then Java being a cool platform. Things I like about Java include, starting from source code for the core libraries being open. I still feel Java us a better platform then ASP when it comes to Web Services and preferred by more people. Better integration with SQL servers like Oracle in terms of things like writing of stored procedures. Java is more future proof unlike M$ stuff; example codes written in VB 6 is now old and can’t be easily ported to dot Net. When doing stuff beyond forms and windows, dot Net just can’t beat Java. Java runs on other planets, dot Net has yet to leave Terra Firma; stupid reason but it’s the fact. Good integration and support with UML tools.

I can go; but the sad part is with all these advantages; who will develop the applications in Java her in Maldives? I am finding it hard to get even developers to do simple php stuff; keep aside Java. So just wondering if I decide to make Java I guess it’s cool and good; but not practical. But lets see; to now Java is the choice.... HELP!

Dieting season

Dieting season has start. today is the second day of the season of this year. yesterday couple of us sat in front of my apartment; watching the bikes hiss by. Man male’ sure has a lot of people compared to the land space we have; unbelievable.

Allmost everyone gets all ready for a bike ride around 5 and there is a continuous flow of guys until the magrib prayer calls. As the time closes by; you’d find some crazy guys speeding down. I guess it’s the hunger that drives. Few girls come out at this time; as it’s assumed they are busy preparing food for the final call. So it’s not much of a show to watch. People are active and this is the health time of the year. you diet all day; and at night you go for sports. Biggest difference you will notice is we don’t get people smoking out on the roads during the day (except for a few whom I know); and everyone has an excuse to be carefree and angry.

Paul Allen's Octopus in Maldives

Billionaire Paul Allen (Microsoft's co founder) owns the world's largest yacht (it's more like a cruise liner) and cost a whopping $200 million. I was told by a friend last week that it's here in Maldives. Today I saw it near male' just off feydhoo finolhu. hmmmmm! Software surely pays off.

Anyway here is some info about the Octopus

Octopus cost Allen over US$200 million and has Permanent crew of 60, including several former Navy Seals.It has two helicopters, seven boats, a 10 man submarine and a remote controlled vehicle for crawling on the Ocean floor. The submarine has the capacity to sleep eight for up to two weeks underwater.

On average, owners must spend a minimum of 10 percent of the purchase price every year to keep these yachts in good working condition and cover crew salaries. Therefore “Octopus” which cost Allen US$200 million requires a US$20 million annual budget.

Sir; Miss, Please Leave me ALONE!

I really wonder why people just can't seem to understand the words : "Live and Let Live". What the hell is wrong with some of us. They just can't follow this; they have to peek in and pass a comments or worse, create trouble for others. What ever it is; my life is mine; and what I do is my business; as long as I don't cross your line; don't cross into mine. Simple I want to be left alone. Again: what I do and whom I hang around and do is strictly my OWN and PRIVATE BUSINESS. If you don't like it then it's your problem.

Console fun!

here is something thing fun and maybe explored...

this is small python script.

import unicodedata

u = unichr(1962) + unichr(1925) + unichr(1958) + unichr(1924) + unichr(1963) + unichr(1934) + unichr(1958) + unichr(1922)

for i, c in enumerate(u):
print i, '%04x' % ord(c), unicodedata.category(c),
print unicodedata.name(c)

print u

Another IT event

I guess most of you would have seen some posters on the roads with IITF or some thing. Which says "coming soon" and with some pink art work. Seems this is an IT event which will be held soon. Commercial one; so don't expect to find any thing interesting but will be worth to check out. Seems companies like Dhiraagu, STO and Wataniya might take part.

What the F**K; MySQL and SCO?

Many of you already would have this story about MySQL and the SCO partnership. Well this sure was a surprise to me and a lot of others. SCO is one hated company by a lot of open source guys. SCO have been attacked many times too by these people. So why? Why did MySQL do this? Obvious answer will be MONEY?

MySQL has been the choice of many of us for the past few years; now I wonder if this will be the same? hmmm! I guess nothing much will change, still people will use it. That's what I feel but I don't like the move. It should have stayed as it was. Maybe it's time to think about Postgres.

Shoot me AGAIN!

I know I will be attacked for saying this. But I just can't keep quite. As everyone knows we have a optic fiber network laid in male' by ibone: this is mainly used for cable TV now. This is also use for internet. This can also be use for a lot of other data and voice needs. Example WAN connectivity, etc.

OK! As we all know another network is coming up. Which is the government network. This was said to connect all gov offices and related places. This is good; even though they still don't have the software to be used; once the network is done; they can ping from one office to other. Which is still ok! Anyway that's a different story. What ever it is this is a good move. I hope the project will be a success; I know in terms of the network it won't be an issue. My concern is the right software solution and project management. I was told that they are gonna move to a .NET based solution and Windows based. hmmmm! It's cool too: A lot of money that is and so much security issues. If I was to have a say in this; I would say why not go for a *nix based back end. So many other governments already have. The applications should be web based; and I guess a good solution will be to go for java. Something like Tomcat maybe. Anyway those guys will know better. Also its good money to be spend; some people just love to spend.

Now here comes the best part. I was also told that the Police or the NSS, wants to install cameras all over male'. This is good ey! Eyes. I totally agree: "sulhamaslahathu" is the key word here. Anyway again! Optic fiber came in to play. Seems they are also gonna lay "YET YEN YANATHER FIBER NETWORK"! Yeah! You read right! Another fiber network. This is no surprise; for some people who know security; they have different wires and different machines for LAN and internet! LOL! I mean I just can't stop laughing when ever I talk and here about it. Security ey! I guess even NSA won't have this secure networks. It's good being paranoid. But man this is 2005! And for god sake we have things like IPSec and so many other methods of securing networks. Anyway, same excuse maybe would have come to the new fiber network for the eyes. But dudes the government is already spending money on a network. Then why? Are we having excess money here? Come on; there must be some logical explanation here! Right now it is not! By the way I wonder who's brilliant idea it is and who approved such a thing. Maybe I won't know shit about these sorts of things; but anyone with a logical thinking will agree with me that this is stupid.

I was also told by one guy in that team that they have already decided to go with JB for this project. I don't think still they have got the proposals but this is already being processed maybe. So another big money project! Good good! And yeah! I know even when I write this; the guys in Blue and Green (FM and TM) will get back at me.

Bring it on! But try to talk some sense and justify a point rather then getting personnel. Anyway I don't really give a damn now abt what they write; nothing new now. Plus I know the guys are jobless and need to be paid for articles. So I do understand them as well. But one question here is: I am publishing this under my NAME! Not some stupid Maldives or the propaganda machine's name. Which they can't. They still won't come out. If they are so confident and know they on the right path; then why not be honest and open. Tell the world who you are. Why are you hiding? Must be reasons ey? They just can't! And won't. And we all know the reasons. Anyway that's abt that.