Many new happenings
Yes I know I haven’t blogged in a while but things have been very busy since I came back from Sri Lanka and I’ve been trying up to finish my personal projects along with scanning film. So let’s begin each item.
Mistakes and lessons while traveling
The death of the language maker..
Dennis M. Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011)
Another great engineer of the computing world has once again passed away. This time it’s Dennis M. Ritchie whose work have enabled the possible creation of today’s modern software and in fact can be considered the Homo Saipiens aka modern man of computer languages but let’s not forget this other work namely Unix. The grandfather of all Linux operating system flavor that which we all depend on today to run all the massive servers that keep modern society going.
Sadly I only found out about his death just this morning but he had already passed away on the 12th. I guess his death didn’t warrant the same media attention as Steve jobs. But any programmer worth his weight in salt would definitely know who Dennis M. Ritchie is and how his work had paved the way for the modern software world.
I fondly remember how I studied c programming back when I was in secondary school and how i desperately searched for any book on programming languages, I only found bits and pieces because Labuan was a rathole where books on anything technological was as rare as pure gold. So I only managed to find it after reaching university and even though I was very familiar with c programming at that point but I still found it a wonderful book to read as it shows how elegant the c language was and how it truly put the power of the computer at the hands of the software developer without using mnemonic as it were with assembly language. Now this was a great man whose work had greatly enriched my life…..
You will greatly be missed though your passing has been a quiet event but know this, many of your life works are the foundation of today’s modern software.
The death of an icon maker….
Rest in peace oh great sage. Most people would remember as the man who herald a new age of computing, as the man who gave what the people wanted, the man who set a new standard for others to follow but I remember him as the man who after being usurped from his seat of great authority returned to his kingdom and struck those who had done him great wrong and begun building a great empire.
It is sad that you have left us but know this, you have made your mark on this age and I hope your legacy will live on. You left us too soon but a last, even great men must have their rest. So rest in peace oh great sage.
Ipad 2 and travel shooters
Enjoying my ipad 2
Yes, I finally broke down and bought an ipad 2. I ordered the wifi 64gig version online as stores were constantly sold out, an added bonus when ordering online is free laser etching on the back and free DHL shipping~~!
But I’ll be honest for weeks I had literally daydream about how I use it to replace my notebook whenever I travelled, how I would be able to easily upload photos to smugmug and maybe even do some light editing and so, as well as buy online books and magazines which are cheaper, consume less space and better for the environment. So my expectations was that it would herald a new age of computing in my life.
But life doesn’t always turn out the way we hopefully expected….
Setting up VPN on the iMac (OSX Snow leopard 10.6.8)
Previously I had tried to setup a VPN on my iMac but the information I found throughout the web was very mis-mashed and most of them were either for Linux or Windows. There were very few clear guides on how to setup a VPN server on an iMac though I did find a great starting guide.
The only problem with this guide is that is doesn’t go far enough in explaining about fixing the CHAP auth problem unless you are up to reading all the comments afterwords like I did and then it’s still not totally clear how to fully resolve it. That’s where this article comes in, I’ll be going through briefly on how to setup a VPN server on Snow leopard 10.6.8 and will include the other details not mentioned in other articles.
Disclaimer: Do this at your own risk. I will not be responsible for anyone who screws up their entire computer or network as a result of this.
I’m finally back online with my imac!
Finally found the time to do anything personal! My imac had been repaired a week ago but work was still very heavy and any free time I had was spent making changes to the way I stored data on my imac. You see, like everyone, I had stored all my data all over the place on my imac and when it it developed some problem I had to bring it back to the apple shop. This posed a number of problems, because I didn’t want the apple staff or anyone else going through my personal data so I copied all the data from my imac to an external harddisk and the deleted them from the imac.
Once I got the imac back, I decided to centralized all my data into a truecrypt drive making backup and security very easy, if I want to backup my data, I simply copied the truecrypt container along with all my data in one step, instead of looking for them all over (in docs, in photos, and etc). This also has the main benefit of ensuring that even if my computer were stolen, they couldn’t get to any of my personal info because it would be encrypted. This truecrypt archive is mounted at all times and programmed it in such a way that whenever the imac rebooted, it would ask for the password in order to mount the truecrypt container. So if they would to steal my computer, they would need to unplug hence shutting it down and unmounting the container file. Though had this been a notebook, then I would have a problem with them just stealing the notebook and being able to access all my data since the truecrypt file would still be mounted.
This took a while to setup since I needed to reroute all path for programs into the truecrypt container instead. Hence why I haven’t made any updates even after getting back my imac as I was busy setting it up and ensuring it worked properly, this is especially true with rerouting all my folder locations for lightroom which was a pain in the ass to do correctly.
Now I am just working on editing the photos and etc. So yeah! This is one hell of a backlog >_<
UPDATE: I soon found out later that OS X has it’s owm built-in encrypt folder function called FileVault. It encrypts your home folder with your user password and its completely transparent. Also, if you’re apple computer goes to sleep, it will automatically lock it so anyone who steals it won’t be able to get the data even if they extracted the hard disk and use it on another computer or try to mount it as an external because the home folder is encrypted and decryption is handled in memory (*this of course has its own problems but unless you’re guarding top secret info, it will serve most conventional purposes).
So the point of the lesson? Explore your OS’s built in security else you might end up recreating the wheel again. Though FileVault has it’s drawback, it only encrypts the home folder and you cannot select the level of encryption but encryption and decryption is done seamlessly with only a small performance penalty but it’s the perfect solution for apple notebooks! Another advantage of FileVault over truecrypt is you don’t have to worry about space usage since FileVault is actually a sparse disk image that can grow and shrink. Although I think I’ll continue to use truecrypt for my imac since it’s already set up.
Bored at work.
I know I only started working at my new job but already they have nothing for me to work on. I mean I managed to complete my previous program in time for testing and all but already after that they seem to have nothing else to give me except more boring reading.
“Here read up on something regarding memory debuggers”. They tell me.
“Valgrind.” Was my reply, best memory debugger I’ve seen so far and its Open Source. “If you don’t like that, then use mpatrol but be warned it requires we insert special codes throughout the program while Valgrind doesn’t and works with debugger information instead.”
and what was their reply? “Research memory debugger nonetheless….”
Aside from that they also want me to look at some codes regarding IPC made by their China branch. Which sadly has no documentation nor comments and the function names are no better. What’s worse I only have the header files and compiled library, in short I’m flying blind here………. >_<
I’m so bored…..no actual coding work to do……only reading source codes……..
I’m still alive~~
I seem to get into this very often...
So what have I’ve been up to lately? Well getting my life in order I guess. The reason why I haven’t been posting much lately was because my whole group was retrenched, right after Super GT (At least I managed to use the company’s T1 line to upload all my photos before they made the group redundant).
Hence my lack of posts, though that’s not to say I was inactive. I did go to Bon Odori 2010 just to relax and forget my worries for a while.
It’s funny, 2 years in this company and I get retrenched again. Damn just my luck. At least they gave quite a nice severance package (a few months even though I only worked for 2 years) as compared to my last employer who basically didn’t give shit but what do you expect from an MNC operating in a free-trade zone?
This is a job requirement?
Yup, its great to be us.
Yesterday came across an interesting classified posted by a software company in Penang (I will not name the company from fear of getting sued by said company for defamation, its real common for victims to be sued by criminals in this country).
They were looking for an IT developer, listed were the usual expected requirements such as “must be fluent in Cantonese and Hokkian” and etc but you know what really caught me by surprise?
Trust me.
Trust me. Go to mac and never go back. I would know, I’m still there. ^_^
At last I have Snowy!!!
I finally have it! The apple shop rang me up last night to let me know my copy of Snow leopard had arrived and like a snow leopard, I sprang into action (Driving like a mad man to Mid valley through after work rush hour) to pick it up!
After coming home, I proceeded to install this little gem, installation was somewhat hassle free (my macbook wouldn’t accept the DVD and kept spitting it out but I managed to get the installation going after using my external DVD player) and took about 2~3 hours which I spent playing my PS3.
I also noticed after installation that it had reclaimed 10 gigabyte of free space Sweeet! Though I haven’t noticed any speed improvement yet but I haven’t really tested it out yet (it was a working night).
YES! Snow Leopard! This 28th of August 2009!
I can’t wait for it! Another good operating system! Unlike that crap Windows!
The Best day of my whole computing career was when I decided to literally toss out my windows computer out the real window and buy an Apple computer, I have never looked back since! Best use of my money on a computer EVER!
Also, I’m a sucker for snow leopards in general
What happens when……..
When you combine a game like Call of Duty 4 with cute fuzzy animals along the bread base of an intriguing story line of Metal gear solid 4 with a dash of Pixer like CG?
You get something call Cat Shit one (in Japan but in the US it’s call Apocalypse Meow.)
This series is actually a pilot CG series to show case Japan’s current technical ability at CG or as I like to call it, “proof of ability”.
Enjoy
You know…..
When I announced long ago that I would not help or assist anyone with their Windows PC computer related problem anymore, it seems people did not take heed of my advice.
That if you find the urge to throw your computer outside the real physical windows that let’s in sunlight, then its very well time that you get either a Linux base system or a damn apple computer. But time and time again people still call me up and its very obvious that their frustration with the “Windows OS” is growing with each problem they face.
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Another new annoucement from photokina 2008. I had just recently gotten the hang of Adobe photoshop cs3 and here today they have announce a new version. Adobe photoshop cs4.
Another reason to get a less stressful job and a Mac
I used to get such same urges when I was working with PCs and providing tech support to virtually the whole of Labuan (Its a pretty small island).
But joke aside, this is actually a real problem known as Office rage in which the crappy life of working for 8 hours in front of a computer causes people to lose their tempers. Humans are creatures meant to be out and doing some work, not a bunch of cave dwellers originally. But I guess with life we have to adapt, although some do not adapt as well as others.
Pleasant dreams, I know I have.
The new windows
Microsoft demos ‘Touch windows” by BBC
For some strange reason, after watching the video link in that article, I can’t help but remember this
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