Random Thoughts and Links

Upgrade HTC Hero to 2.1 with cyanogenmod 1.0

randomike — 2010-05-01T09:49:00Z

Einfachste Anleitung:
http://andreas-lehr.com/blog/archives/229-T-Mobile-HTC-Hero-unlock.html

Kurze Zusammenfassung.

FlashRec installieren und damit das "Amon Ras Hero Recovery Image" flashen. (Zuvor backup!)
BeHero+ 1.2 ROM auf update.zip im root der SD-Karte ablegen
Beim Starten des Handies HOME+SUCHE gedrückt halten
Wipe data
"Apply update.zip" auswählen

Karel Gott

randomike — 2009-07-19T11:02:00Z

Atheist Bus Campaign Austria

Vote for "install cryptsetup by default"

randomike — 2009-07-17T15:43:00Z

Converting Seq[Option[Any]]) to Seq[Any] and removing None values in Scala

randomike — 2009-07-17T09:35:00Z

First idea:

seq.filter(_.isDefined).map(_.get)

Second solution from StackOverFlow

seq.flatMap(x=>x)

Overkill solution:

class NonePurger[T] (val seq:Iterable[Option[T]]) {
def purgeNone():Iterable[T] = seq.flatMap(x=>x);
}
implicit def iterableOption2NonePurger[T](seq:Iterable[Option[T]]):NonePurger[T] = new NonePurger(seq);
seq.purgeNone

Diese Schweizer...

randomike — 2009-06-28T16:16:00Z

Interview mit dem Schweizer Bundespräsidenten:

...
Einwurf des Reporters: "In vier Jahren kann man Diktaturen errichten."
Antwort:
Nicht in der Schweiz. Ich habe mit einem Freund einmal darüber diskutiert, wie man in der Schweiz einen Staatsstreich durchführen könnte. Indem man den Bundesrat entführt? Das merken die Leute doch erst, wenn sie zwei Monate keinen Bundesrat am Fernsehen mehr gesehen haben! Indem man die Nationalbank übernimmt? Aber wo? In Zürich, in Bern? Indem man die Armeeführung an sich reisst? Dann ist die Hälfte der Soldaten krank oder kommt sonst nicht. Ein Putsch in Bern? Da lachen die Leute in Zürich doch nur!

Quelle: Neue Zürcher Zeitung

Speedtest

randomike — 2009-06-24T09:05:00Z

Notes from a presentation in Vienna with the title "How business models change...

randomike — 2009-06-17T08:49:00Z

Talkers:
Florian Haas, LinBit
Thomas Uhl, LiSoG

How can a business model generate revenue?
Two methods with high risks:

Proprietary components: A simple version is free. If you need more, and to use it efficiently you need more, you have to pay for the proprietary parts.
You make software deliberately very complex and difficult to install and use. Therefore everyone needs consulting and training courses. Reduce free available documentation to a minimum.

The power of the community will invested time and money in the number one. Therefore it's important to be number one in our field to get momentum. These 2 methods are dangerous: New people are hindered to get involved into the community. Existing partners may be disappointed about "pseudo" Open Source software.

3 more promising methods:

Insurance: Big companies require a technical contact for problems and support contracts, up to 24/7 support. This leads to a continous income and is a main income for proprietary software vendors, too.
Elevator. Even almost perfect software needs enterprise specific adoptions and training for employees. It's usually cheaper to buy the service than to educate and manage everything inhouse.
Private helicopter: Some features are only interesting for very specific customers in a niche. These features can be offered proprietary. But they must not be useful for the whole community. Additionally the feature can become part of the common use case. Then it should be transfered to the open source codebase.

Other Advantages:
Requirements engineering can be more transparent. Paid features get a higher priority.
Customers can see progress immediately and are more willing to pay on a less formal base, which enables more agile development.

Don't forget: Viral marketing. A community has an invaluable benefit for small companies without big marketing budgets.

#3wordsduringsex

randomike — 2009-05-26T18:43:00Z

My top 20 of #3wordsduringsex on twitter:

Its just blood!
Get out Mom!
You still alive?
Go go gadget...
Who is next?
Did you fart?
Whoops wrong hole.
My water broke
Your name is?
You have both?
Do you swallow?
Lights Camera Action!
Can I join?
I smell gas
Let them watch
Is this legal?
Which hole first?
Next....stop....Driver
We need chocolate
'Yes we can!'

E-Voting bei den ÖH Wahlen.

randomike — 2009-05-19T08:11:00Z

Generelle Bedenken gegen E-Voting:
Bei der elektronischen Abstimmung fällt die Überprüfbarkeit demokratischer Standards weg. Selbst Programmierer unter den Wahlbeobachtern können nicht mehr wirklich feststellen, ob da alles seine Richtigkeit hat. Link

Aber auch bei der technischen Implementierung muss man sich fragen, ob das so OK ist:
Wenn drei der vier Mitglieder der Bundeswahlkommission zusammenarbeiten, könnten sie die Stimmen entschlüsseln und so herausfinden, wer wen elektronisch gewählt hat. Heise Link

Mit der Offenheit und Überprüfbarkeit der Software ist es auch nicht weit her:
Mitglieder von ÖH-Wahlkommissionen wurden bei der Einsichtnahme in den Software-Code enttäuscht. Statt der tatsächlich eingesetzten Software wurde nur ein (angeblich) ähnlicher Code gezeigt. Es handelte sich weder um jene Version, die der A-SIT zur Zertifizierung vorgelegt wurde, noch um jene, die bei dem heute gestarteten E-Voting-Prozess tatsächlich zum Einsatz gelangt. ... Auch der vielleicht wichtigste Vorgang, nämlich die Auszählung der Stimmen, erfolge nicht mit Scytls Software. Welches Programm das genau erledigt, ist nicht ganz sicher. Der zugehörige Quelltext wurde nicht gezeigt. Link

Außerdem hat die Bürgerkarte ein Sicherheitsproblem
Forschern des Seclab der TU Wien gelang es, schwerwiegende Fehler in der - ebenfalls von der A-SIT zertifizierten - Bürkerkartenumgebung (BKU) 'trustdesk basic' aufzuzeigen: Mit einem Demotrojaner gelang es, den Inhalt einer signierten Nachricht unbemerkt auszutauschen. Die Signatur - welche genau das verhindern sollte - erscheint trotzdem als gültig. Eine Funktion wie sie auch beim eVoting zum Schutz der abgegebenen Stimme benutzt wird.Link

Aber auch ohne Wahlbetrug und technische Problemen schaffen sie es die Wahl ungültig zu machen:
Wegen den Bezeichnungen auf elektronischen Stimmzetteln der Uni Wien, könnte sogar die ganze Wahl wiederholt werden müssen. Denn die Kurzbezeichnungen aller Fraktionen fehlen ebenso wie das Wort Europäische" bei der Jungen Europäischen Studentinneninitiative (JES).Link

E-Voting ist eine interessante Idee, aber das Problem zu geringer Wahlbeteiligung liegt sicher nicht am Aufwand zur Wahl zu gehen und ist daher auch nicht technisch zu lösen.

Thoughts about Flash, Flex and Air

randomike — 2009-05-13T06:56:00Z

I would like to try Adobes products, because:

It's the easiest to use RIA platform for developer.
The browser runtime(Flash Player) works much better than competition. In fact for years without big problems. In contrast yesterday the Java6u13-VM didn't start while entering a site with an applet, although the VM is stable enough for BIG, BIG servers.
Mature runtimes are available for all platforms. (Windows, Mac, Solaris, Linux, 64bitLinux!). Valid for Java, too. But not for MS GreyShadow.

However there are some major problems for me:

There is no Flex Builder for Linux. End of story :)
It's a proprietary plattform. No standards that I'm aware of and closed runtime software. That hinders innovation. It's a pain for developers in the long run to work with a black box. Think about the Java VM. Nowadays we like to run Scala, Ruby, Python, and Clojure on it. It can run directly on a virtualization hypervisor (JRockit). It runs in little different flavours on small mobile devices (Android). If there is a problem, we can check the code.
Who needs an open source SDK if the runtime is closed?

I will have a look when
Adobe releases a Flex Builder for Linux
and?/or?
Adobe opens the sources/standardizes the VM.

Update: Someone else has the same opinion: Mike Slinn: Flash Builder, Linux and Winning the RIA War

Git

randomike — 2009-05-02T09:51:00Z

Steps I should do next time I set up a development computer:

Install these packages:
Command line tool : git-core
GUI: gitk, gitg, giggle, git-cola
Nice mergetool: kdiff3

Configure name and email address
git config --global user.name 'MyName'
git config --global user.email 'My(AT)EmailAddress'

Eclipse-Plugin
A plugin for Eclipse is available from JGit Homepage or directly from Update-Site
Activate plugin for imported project:
Team->Share Project -> Git -> Next -> Finish

Shortcuts for often used commands
git config --global alias.st 'status'
git config --global alias.ci 'commit'
git config --global alias.co 'checkout'
git config --global alias.df 'diff'
git config --global alias.lg 'log -p'
git config --global alias.br 'branch'

Colored display of branch (in one line)
export PS1='\[\033[00;32m\]\u\[\033[01m\]@\[\033[00;36m\]\h\[\033[01m\]:
\[\033[00;35m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\[\033[01;33m\]`git branch 2>/dev/null|cut -f2 -
d\* -s`\[\033[00m\]\$ '

oder http://gist.github.com/29138

Google Chrome

randomike — 2009-04-21T19:22:00Z

Google has released a first version of their browser Google Chrome in September 2008.

Now (April 2009) there is still no Linux version available, although they stated "We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too".

That is more than 6 month. Almost an eternity in IT terms.

If you release "beta" software for windows, why not for linux? Especially if it was already planned to support this platform?

Update: A few days after I published this blog entry, Google published an early access version for Linux and Mac. They offer actually 32 and 64 bit versions!

Quotes from "Secrects fo the Rock Star Programmers: Riding the IT Crest"...

randomike — 2009-04-13T20:43:00Z

Best Quotes for me from "Secrects fo the Rock Star Programmers: Riding the IT Crest" by Ed Burns.

Kosuke Kawaguchi
"...the way I get myself motivated is by having users."

Herb Schildt
"All systems of knowledge are hierachical. They all have entry points, and they all have logical patterns of flow that allow you to move from one concept to another. In other words, systems of knowledge can be thought of as having a tree structure. To learn something, you must simply move from branch to branch, node to node. The troube is that sometimes it's not easy to see the structure. This is where a good teacher comes in. A good theater organizes the topic so that it reflects its hierachical structure."

Floyd Marinescu
"...I think we'll go through a phase of domain-specific languages first, where the language itself is a rising abstraction, before we eventually get to the point where we're actually using model tools. It could be 10 to 15 years out"

"If your heart's not in it, then it's time for a change. I've been in situations where I was making more money than I knew what to do with, but I just wasn't happy there. I couldn't motivate myself. Once I switched my job, I was quite the happiest and it was worth making less money to have a better life."

Andy Hunt
"The best place to look for where a bug might be is quite near the last one you found"

A lot of people say, "What's the best thing I can do to enhance my code?" and I say, "Take a big magnet to the hard drive".

Dave Thomas
''My opinion is that everything from high performance financial processing to computer games can actually be expressed fairly elegantly as CRUD programming``

''The major challenge for an innovation ... is to keep the idea alive until the opportunity becomes available"

''So the key thing for a new technology is to find a ninche where it can grow and where people will pay for it. The it can be a healty, stable business.

"If you need complicated tools, then perhaps the technologies you're using are the wrong ones.''

Google AppEngine

randomike — 2009-04-08T18:55:00Z

Jetzt gibt es Google AppEngine auch für die Java-VM. Also auch für Scala! :-). Ich bin mir noch nicht sicher, für welche Zwecke man das verwenden kann.

Anwendung mit sensiblen Daten? Nein
Anwendung mit firmen-internen Daten? Nein
Homepage für Vereine? Mhhh, vielleicht.
Persönliche Homepage? Dafür reicht ein Blog.

Für eine Hobbyseite reichen die "free quota levels" aus:
* CPU Time: 6.5 hours of CPU time per day
* Bandwidth: 1 gigabyte of data transferred in and out of the application per day

Kommerziellen Kosten scheinen nicht hoch zu sein, aber ich kann mich auch täuschen. Muss mich damit noch genauer auseinander setzen.

Outgoing Bandwidth gigabytes $0.12
Incoming Bandwidth gigabytes $0.10
CPU Time CPU hours $0.10
Stored Data gigabytes per month $0.15
Recipients Emailed recipients $0.0001

Scala Libraries and DSLs

randomike — 2009-03-20T14:05:00Z

That's a list of libraries/DSLs for Scala that I'm interested in and want to try out in upcoming project.

XScalaWT
Provide a DSL for programming SWT Dialogs. Main benefit: strong Strong type checking. No need for additional tool/language
Lift
THE framework for web development with Scala. Book available:The Lift Book
Scala Query
Think of LINQ or "A Type-Safe Database Query DSL for Scala"
ScalaCheck
Port of QuickCheck for Haskell + additions.
Scala Modules
Aim to ease handling of OSGI in form of a DSL.