Its been a while since I last made an entry to this blog. Too much work and other stuff going on in my life over the past 1/2 a year..... Almost forgot about this blog, until someone left a comment and I got an email notification. :P
That spurred me on to update this as perhaps its too much of a coincident that what I am working on recently is related to email notifications. :) Stay tuned for more information.....
Technology is a double edge sword. As new technology makes it possible to create innovations like cost effective solar panels to support and sustain us, we get closer using technology for achieving a more renewable and sustainable planet. Unfortunately, for every step forward, it is human nature to stray.
Russia recently tested a vacuum bomb ..... from this article it says that this new and bigger bomb is made possible via nanotechnology.
The bomb is smaller than the MOAB, employing nanotechnology to double the heat from a blast, according to the Russian military officer.I have always though of advances and applications in nanotech as positive advancements form mankind (e.g. nanofilters for water filtration to remove the need for chemical treatment, reduce petroleum usage, etc) ..... I guess this adds a new twist to it
Lists and sets, 2 very simple concepts but at the core of many many computer programs.
I simply love the idea behind listphile
Simple, yet opens up a whole new world for developing mashups. I have a couple of prototypes written in .Net that does something similar => get a list of stuff and simply make it consumable via RSS. Originally i wanted to use it together with in Mashup with Google sets to create basic catalogues that are ready for use in rapid prototyping (Think of it as sample Northwind database on RSS crack :P). But Listphile did it and added in a dash of collaboration, really cool.Listphile is a powerful tool for organizing and collaborating around structured information. Call it a database tool, if you will (but please don't scare anyone away).
Listphile was borne of curiosity, and the belief that we learn more effectively when we have a framework for collaboration and knowledge sharing.
People are stupid - Even when there's a positive benefit to creating good metadata, people steadfastly refuse to exercise care and diligence in their metadata creation.Constrain the metadata to a collaborative list that is managed by a community will certainly be the first step to better metadata and eventually a more semantic web.
Lately I have been looking around for a new computer (Funded not by me of course :P). Looking at getting some 64bit cpu power and picking a suitable OS. After listening to this Hanselman minutes podcast, I sort of decided that going 64bit Vista is a good idea, especially since I intend to be running VPCs off it.
Came across this site recently.
NOSO is a real-world platform for temporary disengagement from social networking environments. The NOSO experience offers a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with other NO Friends.With all the craze over social networks and such, this site remind me of a subtle point of meeting people .... its not always about connections.
It not often that Singapore gets positive limelight in IT news (Yup I am refering to Odex...) but this article certainly sounds like something which will make IT people take a second look.
To make flying more enjoyable for its passengers, Singapore Airlines Ltd. is adding bigger screens, more in-flight movies and a PC, running Red Hat Inc.'s distribution of the Linux operating system, in every seat on its newest planes.That by itself is nothing really special, but the following is what I guess really makes it stand out.
KrisWorld can also be used as a PC and includes Sun Microsystems Inc.'s StarOffice application suite, which offers a word processor, spreadsheet, and a presentation program. Every seat is fitted with a USB (Universal Serial Bus) port that lets passengers access documents carried on a thumb drive or portable hard disk.
Event Driven Architecture (EDA)
is a software architecture pattern promoting the production, detection, consumption of, and reaction to events. - WikipediaThis area has recently caught my interest. Previously when I was still at Cornet Technologies, the framework which I had developed had an "aspect of delivering data" which seemed to be a mismatch with the SOA approach that it was based off. After looking through this glossary, EDA seems like a natural fit to it. Guess I will be looking more into this area in the coming weeks.
Its been a while since I last had to do any manual html composing. Instead of sticking to the regular dreamweaver, for this time round, I took a look around to see what good open source alternatives are available. Heres the latest configuration of my "enviroment".
Firefox with the following plugins
.... Since I last made a post. Moved to Sydney recently to do my Postgrad in research and lets just say that internet access is now a limited resource. Just started my scholarship internship at First Data International too.
Hopefully once things get settled down for me I will get the time to blog a little more.
Michael made a post on his blog recently about pros and cons of working for a small business.
I am not sure about other industries, but for the IT industry, I personally think it boils down to what you intend to achieve with your career and your appetite for risks. A job acts as a spring board and transition phase to your future plans. Its always good to start a little career planning early and adapting as and when the opportunities arises ... especially if you are still below the age of 30.
A mistake many people make when deciding on this question is that they see it as a final choice, instead of a just a transition. A good counter question to ask is 'Do the pros or cons matter as long as it lets you get to your goals faster?'.
Wow the iPhone is looks great in the ad. Would be great to see what other products will emerge from this new next level benchmark in mobile phones.
Ask.com just had a relaunch of their website. My first impression is that it looks and feels like Google.... with a touch of Yahoo.
Its certainly a vast improvement over the original and while the little touches on the UI like skins that are nice to have. Interestingly, the search results returned feels more personal compared to what I can find from a Google search. I could actually find some of the old web sites of friends just by searching for their names; some thing which I cannot find in Google. The search customization panel on the left is also a nice touch compared to Google's which is located at the top and bottom.
For now, I think I will stick to Google search.
The past 2 weeks have been really busy, both for my work life and in the technology sector. From cool tech conferences like where2.0, new stuff like Google mashup, Street views on both Google maps and Live Search, interesting Bill Gates and Steve Jobs interview and so on..... talk about information overload :P
Going on that, Google Gears would likely be something that will help me heaps. Reading feeds to keep updated on happenings in the IT world, especially on a Monday morning can certainly be overwhelming. Now with Google Gears, I can actually get a head start while transiting to office.
Coming up next.... Goggle reader on a tablet PC.
Having read a recent BBC news article about scratch I cannot help but take a step back and look at what the term programming actually means.
These days with 4GL programming languages, tools like workflow(WF), languages like ruby etc, how do you actually define the job title of a programmer? What are the skills that a good or decent programmer should have?Computer programming has been traditionally seen as something that is beyond most people - it's only for a special group with technical expertise and experience -Professor Mitchel Resnick
Heres my take on what are the basic technical expertise required (not in any order of importance):
Lately, I have become acutely aware of certain incidents at a local tertiary institution's library. Amazingly at this world class library(Names are left out to protect the guilty :P), with all the IT and high-tech systems, they are unable to track some books that have been dropped into their book drops.
Technically speaking there are 101 things that can go wrong when a book is dropped into a book drop. Obviously a book drop is for the user's convenience, but imagine what happens when a book you have returned is marked as lost.....
What happens when the lifts in a building breaks down every other day? What happens if the automatic glass doors only detect you and opens 9 of 10 times when u walk towards it? This really highlights a crucial aspect for any system that aims to make activities in our daily lives convenience, it has to be reliable...... and when it screws up, there had better be proper procedures to follow and people who have sufficient brains or responsibility to take the required actions.
Although having to take unjust responsibility for a missing book is not as painful as slamming your face into a glass door, its definitely worth the inconvenience of by-passing the whole book drop system. This is often made more so by individuals who operate that system and couldn't care less that its causing the end users problems..... =>picture a security guard that finds his daily entertainment by guessing who is the next person to walk into the defective glass door
Maybe I am not geeky enough, but sometimes I do give a blank look when some of my friends take about cool new devices, gadgets..... and well simply tech stuff. Why? I guess the main reason was that besides for the cool factor, I did not really see the cause for that technology.
This particular article about Dr Krause who has spent the last 40 years collecting sounds and currently hoping to include it in Google Earth is something I totally emphasize with. While the technology and concepts in it is not new, his ideas gives a cause for using them.
During my undergraduate days in ANU, I worked with many a few wonderful people in the cultural and heritage faculty as part of my research paper for digital heritage. Their views and opinions opened my eyes to a new perspective on technology. While I was busy with sorting out the technical aspects of using semantic web technologies for preserving cultural information, they provide me with their views and visions of what preserving heritage is all about .... giving my research direction and well .... simply a 'cause' to follow.
