Koko's Rambling

Trust His Heart

2008-11-16T14:05:00.002+08:00

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T13:59:00.003+08:00

Few companies can make an announcement and take the world by storm. But google is one of them. I wasn't that excited when they announced Google Android. But now that they launched Google Chrome, it began to make more sense.
After all, one key thing that makes iPhone a worldwide success was Safari. If google can prove that Chrome is indeed a fresh new look at browser, then Android will be something worthwhile too since I believe components from chrome will find their way into Android.
And I love the comic introducing Chrome.

An Inspirational Prayer

2008-08-27T10:53:00.002+08:00

Last week during the sermon, the preacher read out a very inspirational prayer.
Spent a bit of time to search, and found this:

I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity and God gave me brawn and brain to work.
I asked for courage and God gave me dangers to overcome.
I asked for patience God placed me in situations where I was forced to wait.
I asked for love and God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for favors and God gave me opportunities.
I asked for everything so I could enjoy life. Instead, He gave me life so I could enjoy everything.
I received nothing I wanted I received everything I needed.
My prayer has been answered.

It doesn't seems to be written by a famous figure. But a really good one indeed.

Test posting from iPod Touch

2008-08-24T10:23:00.002+08:00

Test posting from iPod touch. :)

Desktops - Simple program to create multiple desktops

2008-08-23T20:06:00.004+08:00

Here's a quite cool utility to create virtual desktops in Windows.

Using E51 as 3G modem for EEE PC 1000H

2008-08-19T20:12:00.003+08:00

I just got myself a brand new eeePC 1000H and I just love this sweet little thing.
As always, I was looking around to maximize its connectivity option.
At home its Wifi connection works flawlessly. Just enter my WPA password and there it goes connected to the internet.
Trying to push it a little bit further, I started to think a condition where I only got my E51 with me and no Wifi zone nearby and I need to connect to the internet.
The 1000H can connect to the phone by bluetooth and then the phone can connect to the internet through HSDPA/3G/GPRS network.
Turned out it wasn't that difficult, just need a few googling and the connection can be set up.
For my memory and the benefit of everyone here are the steps:

Download Nokia E51 Bluetooth Modem Driver here.

Pair the phone and the eeePC.
- Turn on the phone and PC bluetooth. Make sure the phone is discoverable.
- Double click the bluetooth icon in the tray icon.
- In the left pane of My Bluetooth Places, select Add a Bluetooth Device.
- Select the E51 phone in the select phone dialog.
- In the Bluetooth service selection, tick the Dial-Up Networking.
- It will take some time for the System to set up Bluetooth Modem device for the first time. Once ready the wizard will create a new shortcut in My Bluetooth Places.
- Cancel the dial-up process since we're not ready yet.

Add the APN additional setting.
- Go to Control Panel -> Phone And Modem Options
- Go to Modems tab. Select the Bluetooth Modem and click Properties.
- Go to Advanced tab. In the Extra initialization commands textbox, enter:
  
  at+cgdcont=1,"ip","sunsurf"
  
  sunsurf is myy M1 line APN. You should change it with your own APN.

In My Bluetooth Places,double click the Dial-Up Networking icon just created.

In the Dial Up Networking dialog, enter *99# for the number to dial. Leave the username and password blank. Then click Dial button.

And there you go. You're now connected to the internet via bluetooth to the phone.

My Fedora Journey Begins

2008-08-10T08:55:00.003+08:00

I have always wanted to play around with linux. But as with blogging, my passion died fast and I ended up with Linux partition lying idle occupying precious disk space in my PC.

PC virtualisation to the rescue... Now that I've upgraded my PC to AMD dual core X2 5000+ and 2 GB RAM, my PC is powerful enough to run virtual PC and doesn't sound tortured at it. (My old Celeron CPU utilisation peaked followed by sounds of CPU fan spinning at full speed)

Thanks to Sun Developer Day 2008, I got to know Sun's new acquisition of Innotek that provides VirtualBox for free.
Here's my reason for picking it:
- Small download size
- Can run on multiple platform
- Free
- Easy installation and configuration

So, with it my Linux journey began...

Hello Again

2008-08-10T08:48:00.003+08:00

Hello again there...
That was a (very, very) long hiatus... 1.5+ years... (sigh)
Maybe blogging wasn't for me after all.
Anyway, I'm beginning to get interested in put in writing my thoughts again.
So here goes... Hopefully it will lasts...

How to access web services with NTLM authentication using AXIS 1

2007-01-24T15:25:00.001+08:00

I know Axis 1 is a bit old, but my project is still using it... So, here goes:

You need at least axis 1.2, so, if you're on lower version then too bad...
You need commons-codec and commons-httpclient library in addition to the requirements of axis.
Edit the generated stub, to include the following lines:
protected org.apache.axis.client.Call createCall() throws java.rmi.RemoteException {
try {
org.apache.axis.client.Call _call = super._createCall();
super.setUsername("MY_DOMAIN\\myuser");
super.setPassword("mypassword");
Add client-config.wsdd file into your classpath containing the following entries:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<deployment name="defaultClientConfig"
xmlns="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/"
xmlns:java="http://xml.apache.org/axis/wsdd/providers/java">
  <globalConfiguration>
    <parameter name="disablePrettyXML" value="true"/>
  </globalConfiguration>
  <transport name="http" pivot="java:org.apache.axis.transport.http.CommonsHTTPSender"/>
  
  <transport name="local" pivot="java:org.apache.axis.transport.local.LocalSender"/>
  <transport name="java" pivot="java:org.apache.axis.transport.java.JavaSender"/>
</deployment>

No Silver Bullet

2006-10-13T08:46:00.001+08:00

As I have spent most of my career doing programming, I've come across some people who over-zealously get behind a programming language and claim that it is a panacea to all of your computing problem. I think they better read this wonderful essay by Frederick P Brooks, titled There's No Silver Bullet.

I Love My Finepix

2006-10-12T19:46:00.001+08:00

I Know I should've put this before. But I intend to keep my identity secret and the photos I took with my camera most of them are of me or my wife. So I can't post it. Anyway, this is a sample night shot of the last lantern festival in chinese garden.
I know that the camera could produce much better pic. But this one is good enough. And I didn't take it using tripod.

Windows NT/2000/XP: How to Make Any Program as Service

2006-10-12T15:39:00.001+08:00

Sometimes you want to make your program as Windows service.
In this case, a vendor came to us with a solution involving a VB script that we're supposed to run it in our user's PC.
The problem with VB script is that you need to run it in a command prompt and some times the user accidentally close the window, which means the script will no longer working.
The solution is by making a the call to CScript.exe as a service and this link is telling you step-by-step instruction of how to do that.
You can download the necessary instsvr.exe and srvany.exe there too.

JasperReport: Subreport not showing

2006-09-22T09:45:00.001+08:00

Another mystery case surfaced.
A report has 2 subreports. 1 of them shows up. The other doesn't.
Turns out the other report is placed in the Last Page Footer band.
Moving it to the Summary band makes it appear.

Must remember this. (That's why I put it here, I can always search here later)

JasperReport: Couldn't load file xxx Error

2006-09-22T09:36:00.001+08:00

I'm new to hands on with JasperReport.
I compiled my jrxml file using iReport 0.5.1. Then I'm trying to run my report deployed in Tomcat. But then I got this error: Couldn't load file xxx.jasper.
In the stacktrace it also displayed some ClassCastException.
That hints a class version mismatch....

Turns out the jasper report jar file in my Tomcat is of version 0.6.8, while iReport 0.5.1 using jasper report jar version 1.0.1.
So, I need to use iReport 0.5.0 that uses jasper report 0.6.7 and upgrade it to 0.6.8 then compile the report using it.

Now it works fine... One lesson learned.

The King and his advisor

2006-08-30T16:27:00.001+08:00

Once upon a time there was a king living with a wise advisor.
One day he went hunting and his dog bit him at his finger.
Feeling angry and disturbed he asked his advisor, "What does this mean?"
His advisor said, "It's a good thing. Do not worry sir."
It turned out that the bite was worsening and eventually the wound got bigger and his finger has to be amputated.
He asked his advisor again, and his advisor said "It's a good thing sir. Please do not over-reacting."
Angry at the answer that he received, the king threw the advisor to the jail.

After some times had passed, the king went hunting to the jungle again.
He went to deep into the jungle and got separated from his soldiers.
In the jungle, an ancient tribe captured him and bring him over to their place.
They are about to kill him and sacrifice him to their god when their cleric saw that the king was missing one finger.
The king was deemed an unworthy sacrifice since he lost one limb, so the tribe released him again.

Returning to his palace, the king realized that if it wasn't because of his missing finger he would have been dead.
He then remembered his advisor in jail that he put there because of the remark.
He released his advisor, told him his experience, and apologized for throwing him to jail.
To his surprise, he didn't see his advisor got upset at him and he asked him why.
The wise advisor said, "Sir, if you didn't put me in jail, I would've come with you in your hunting journey and got captured along with you. But I wouldn't be able to come alive since I have complete limbs."

Story ends there....

A very good short story that I heard this morning at the radio.
It said that, when we're looking through things from the right perspective, you can always see that everything happens to you for a good reason...
Now, this is something that I don't wanna forget...

Better Known Camera Shop in Singapore

2006-08-29T08:41:00.001+08:00

Following are the list of some better known camera shop around Singapore:

1. Alan Photo, e-mail: alanfoto@singnet.com.sg

#01-38 Sim Lim Square, Tel: 6336 0922
#05-20 Funan Digitalife Mall, Tel: 6883 0922

This is the shop where I bought my Fuji F30 last time. The shop is smaller compared to some of the other camera shops in Sim Lim. But they gave me the best price.

2. Lord's Camera, e-mail: lordscom@singnet.com.sg

304 Orchard Road #01-79 Lucky Plaza, Tel: 6235 4605

This is the only shop recommended to patronize while you're at Lucky plaza. Yesterday I brought my wife's cousin's husband there and he bought Canon EX850 flash. He said, the price is comparable to the well known camera shop in Hong Kong. Last time I can also get a good price for Nikon lense for my friend.

3. Cathay Photo, e-mail: email@cathayphoto.com.sg

#01-11/14 Peninsula Plaza, Tel: 6337 4274
#02-215/216 Marina Square, 6 Raffles Boulevard, Tel: 6339 6188

4. John 3:16, e-mail: richardgan@pacific.net.sg

#05-46 Funan Digitalife Mall, Tel: 6337 2877 / 6337 1897

Never had a chance to come and patronize this shop but my friend said that the shop gives honest advises about things when you ask around there.

5. MS Colour, e-mail: sales@mscolor.com.sg

Block 711 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8, #01-3501C, Tel: 6457 6380

Only come there once to do some price checking. They gave a good price. But the location is sooo far....

Even after knowing the list of good camera shops above, you should do your own research before you go and ask around. It's always better if you don't appear clueless when you come.

My New Finepix F30

2006-08-28T15:25:00.001+08:00

Last Saturday I just bought my first brand new digital camera.

You might notice I specifically put the words brand-new there. Because the previous digicam that I used was not brand new when I bought it.
It was a Nikon Coolpix 3100 camera and I bought it secondhand from an auction website. It served me good for more than two years.

The Saturday before that me and my wife went to the Singapore Night Safari hoping we could take some photos that good enough to be put in our friendster...
Yes, we're that vain.... But, things weren't going as planned. Even after equipped with tripod, we only managed a handful of good enough photos.
And it was like really embarassing, because we need to stand still for about 5 seconds to take each photo; holding out our smile and everything.
We didn't even dare to blink. Most of the photos were really blurred and have motion traces.

With that result, I managed to get my wife's blessing to get new digicam.

Actually I wanted to get another second-hand but my wife always has something against it.
Even after many-many times I bought second-hand items without any problem, she always worried that the item must have some problems that make the seller want to sell them...
While me thinks that we paid certain premium just to get that 'brand-new' status of the item.

Anyway, the world will be more peaceful without me-and-wife quarrelling. So, off we went to Sim Lim Square to get a new digicam.

In the days before that of course I do my due diligence of reviewing of our options.
I managed to shortlist our option to Canon Powershot A700 and Fuji Finepix F30.
Then I spent the week before to read lots of reviews of the 2 cameras.
A700 being great overall camera with lots of manual control, 6x optical zoom, and uses standard AA baterry.
F30 being the best point-and-shoot camera for low light condition (which is the downfall of our previous camera), ease-of-use, and has some manual control.

Up to the last day, my choice still swayed to the A700.
But then it come across me that even if A700 has lots of manual control and potentially it can deliver great result, eventually if we want to take our pictures, we would most probably asked someone else to take that shoot for us.
If it is not that easy to use, then it's no use. Then recently Canon just announced the successor of the model, which has image stabilizer.
So people say that the 6x optical zoom is in need of the IS if you want to zoom to the max and don't want the photo to be blurred by your hand shaking during taking the shot.
And lastly the all metal body frame of F30 really nicer to hold than the half plastic body of A700.
So, that's why we came home from Sim Lim bringing F30 with us. So far, it really live up to the expectation.
We don't even miss our old Coolpix.

Next time if I post some photos, then it must've came from the brand new Finepix F30.
Hopefully you'll think the same about the pic quality...

About me and this blog

2006-08-28T14:22:00.001+08:00

Let's begin by talking about me and this blog.

You can call me Koko, an Indonesian, today I'm 28, married, no kids.
My family call me with that name, my wife calls me that. So can you.
I'm an Indonesian but currently reside in Singapore.

In this blog I intend to talk about things that come across me during my day-to-day life.
So, it might be some movie or TV program that I watched; news that I happened to hear; books or comics that I read; travelling that I'd like to do more often than I actually do; computer and gadget related things that I find interesting; or even computer programming things that I do for a living.

I consider myself to be one of the most un-creative person. Hence, it explains the blog name and url. When I decided to sign up, I paused for a long time to decide on the blog name and url. Even after that I can only came up with such an interesting blog name and url.

Koko's Rambling... sure it describes enough of the blog, not really interesting...

Hello

2006-08-28T13:16:00.001+08:00

Hello world...
This is my first foray into the journey of blogging.
Hopefully I have the passion and energy to make this long lasting.
I will write more later when I have free time.

Koko