Author: admin

Switching from Fedora to Debian

Fedora is good, and gets updated every 6 months, but sometimes I think it is too fast for me. In every new version, they will change some daemon that breaks a lot of things that I have painfully set up in the previous version. After thinking about it, I try to use Debian. After few weeks using it, I already felt comfortable with it. I am also happy because I found a nearby Debian mirror in Thailand (http://www.debianclub.org) which is very fast to access from my home. Here are some things that you may need to know about debian:

Network configuration is at /etc/network/interfaces
Some useful apt-get commands are:
– apt-get install packagename
– apt-get remove packagename
– apt-get clean (otherwise you will use a large disk space for package cache)

some useful dpkg commands:
– dpkg -l to list all installed packages
– dpkg -L packagename to list files in that package
– dpkg -S /path/to/file to check to which package that file belongs

Another useful command is update-alternatives to update alternatives for a program (use this after installing java, etc)

I found a link about someone asking for Debian tips (he is a FreeBSD guy), and the answers he gets is quite good, I think the answers are applicable to anyone switching from another Unix or another Linux distro to debian): http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/234.

Adobe Flex Builder 3 Expiring too Fast

My friend installed the exact same DMG image to install the beta version of Adobe Flex Builder 3 beta 2, but when tried to use it, it says that the Beta has expired. We have the exact same hardware, and same software (Mac OS X, 10.4/Tiger). The Flex Builder does not show when it expired in the message (only: Beta Expired). It took me quite a long time to realize that the SDK says:

computer:~ tc3$ /Applications/Adobe\ Flex\ Builder\ 3/sdks/3.0.0/bin/mxmlc thinkcubic.mxml
Loading configuration file /Applications/Adobe Flex Builder 3/sdks/3.0.0/frameworks/flex-config.xml
This beta will expire on Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 ICT 1465.
Error: Beta expired.

While it should be

Loading configuration file /Users/tc4/flex/frameworks/flex-config.xml
This beta will expire on Thu Jan 31 00:00:00 ICT 2008.

It expires 543 years ago!. So why does this happen?. One hint: he is Thai. He prefers to use the Thai language on his computer. Thai people use Buddhist calendar, which differs 543 years from the Gregorian calendar.
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Useful Thai Sites in English

I just moved to Chiang Mai Thailand last month, and I really need a lot of information about this city, but the problem is that most stuff are written in Thai. Here are some English Language sites that I find useful (especially Chiang Mai related):

Don’t forget, Nokia Maps has a map of Chiang Mai for free. You can read more about it here

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Funding Small Open Source Project

I have a small open source project, Symbianbible, a bible reader for the Symbian Platform. This is a small project, with many users, and I am the only developer. Currently, I have ported this application to every Symbian version that Nokia has (Series 60, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Series 80, Series 90). In this post, I am going to tell the story of how I got the funding to port this program for multiple Symbian platforms.

Since the first release, many people asked, “can you port it to device X?”. Buying every phone models (at least one for each platform) and their accessories (such as memory card, card reader, Bluetooth adapter, etc) is expensive, so I wrote in my FAQ, that I would only port if there are some people that donate or lend me their phone.
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Internet Connection in Bali

As an Indonesian person, I have to admit that this is my first time going to Bali. I have gone to some other island in Indonesia, and even abroad, but this is my first time to Bali. Everybody knows that Bali is beautiful, and everything is quite cheap, so I won’t talk about it.

Instead, I will talk about information technology (IT) in Bali, specifically about Internet access and mobile stuff. Internet Access is quite easy to get, four stars and five stars hotels provide Internet access over WIFI, and sometimes I can find it at dining places. You can also access the Internet through GPRS or through 3G data connection with your cell phone. Starter pack for GSM is very cheap, but the internet access cost is quite expensive (25 rupiahs/kb, or about 2.8 USD/megabyte, at current rate).
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Deleting Localization from Mac OS X Applications

Well behaved mac applications stores their localization info on the Resources folder inside their application bundle. This localization can be deleted using finder (or you can add one too if you like). I have noticed that almost all applications from Apple (such as iTunes, iMovieHD, etc), comes with many languages, and when I delete these uneeded languages, I got about 1,3 Gigabytes free space. That may not seem much, but since I am running out of disk space, it helps me a lot.
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Your Phone Number Might Get Leaked While Browsing With Your Cellphone

I Just moved my web hosting to hostmonster, and I use my cell phone (Nokia E61) to try out the speed because I am planning to create a mobile version for my other site (http://www.compactbyte.com), and to my surprise, I see My Phone Number when checking the site configuration using phpinfo().

The phone number (complete with the country code) is included on the request HTTP_USER_IDENTITY_FORWARD_MSISDN. it seems that my mobile carrier (XL) uses Huawei Technologies Gateway. I know the gateway from the value of HTTP_VIA Which says: "(InfoX WAP Gateway), HTTP/1.1, Huawei Technologies", and the existence of HTTP_X_HUAWEI_NASIP that says my private (internal) IP address.
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Hostmonster Tips

I have been using hostmonster for about a month. This web hosting is not perfect, but I think it has a good price/features. Some of the things that I have learned from using this web hosting are:

  1. If you want to use PHP5, you must indicate that to the customer service upfront. The default server uses PHP4, and your data must be moved if you choose PHP5 at a later time (which will cause your web to be down for a while).
  2. Be careful when adding domain and subdomain. For example: When I add yohanes.risna.info the tool will suggest the directory “yohanes” for that domain, and when I add yohanes.org, it will also suggest “yohanes” for that domain. The result is that both will point to the same content (which I didn’t want). You can fix it later but it will waste your time.
  3. Use the live chat if possible, they respond quicker compared to using the trouble ticket.
  4. If you are sure that you have read the documentation and still get an error message, just contact the tech support. I think their software is a bit buggy, but the tech support can override the buggy part.

After a week, it seems that everything on my site has been set up properly. Email works just fine, bandwidth is no longer a problem for me, and I have installed several programs without a problem (latest WordPress, latest Mediawiki, latest Galerry).

I am interested in writing Ruby On Rails application but doesn’t have an idea yet.

They violated the open source license: What should I do?

I have found at least two programs that violated the GPL. I have contacted the companies that broke the license and they have found a way to work around it. I don’t know if this is the correct way to do it. Would the open source community be interested in “damages” that those company has caused? or just let them switch to non-open source solution, and we’ll forget about their sin?

The two programs that violated the GPL are Windows programs and you can’t see it unless you reverse engineer it. It is just my reflex to reverse engineer a program to know how it works and maybe I should look for more programs to see if they violated anything. But sometimes, I just don’t know what to do with my finding. Any ideas?