last post

this will be the last post on this blog as i have since moved to another bloghost. i was able to manually import some (although not all) posts from here, so you can still find them.

for your comments though (if you're reading the post from here), please try to do so in blogsome.

thanks!

building philippine culture from the ground up.

a "new fashion for thinking" about philippine culture by rome jorge (published online in the philweavers network.)

excerpts:

"We are a young country. We are still under construction. And that makes this a very exciting time for artists, designers, writers and anyone with a stake in our culture. And that means all of us. We get to help build Pinoy culture from the ground up. We don’t just rediscover traditions; we start them. We get to write our name on the concrete while it’s still wet. Now is the time to be trailblazers, innovators and firsts. It is a golden opportunity and an inescapable responsibility. What we do as artists, writers and audiences either corrodes or galvanizes our culture."

great moments in computer science (a.k.a. how man discovered p0rn)

from one of the comments in the slashdot article below:

solarrhino writes...

1) The first guy to think "I shouldn't have to rewire, I should be able to write instructions that rewire it for me" - i.e., the assembler moment

2) The first guy to realize "I'm not just re-wiring this, I'm describing an procedure for it to use" - the FORTRAN moment

3) The first guy to ask "Why can't I used the same procedure from different places in my code" - the subroutine moment

4) The first guy to say "I should be able to use the subroutine in the program it already knows" - the library moment

5) The first guy to ask "Why do I have to be the one writing down the results?" - the printer moment

6) The first guy to realize "This isn't just a calculator, it's also a controller!" - the embedded moment

7) The first guy to realize "This isn't just a calculator, it's also a storage system!" - the database moment

8) The first guy to realize "This isn't just a calculator, it's also a communication system!" - the network moment

9) The first guy to realize "I'm not just submitting instructions for it to process - it's submiting instructions back for me to process!" - the interactive moment

10) The first guy to think "Why can't it do something else while its waiting?" - the multitasking moment

11) The first guy to think "Why can't it show me more context while I work?" - the full-screen moment

And finally...

12) The first guy to think "Man, why can't this thing show me some chicks?" - the porn moment

the twenty top software people in the world

from a post in slashdot.org:

the twenty top software people in the world

the urgency of now

"believe in the resolute urgency of now..."
- the smashing pumpkins

too good to be true

tech4free

i've been getting a fair amount of email as well as friendster bulletin-board posts about getting "free stuff" from a site called tech4free.com. trust me, it's a scam. if those posters actually bothered to read the terms and conditions and faq from the site, they'll find out that the gadgets there are anything but "free."

the offer is only applicable to US residents (which rules out almost everyone on my friendster/email network). even if you are a US resident, the terms and conditions states that, in order to qualify for the free gadget, you would not only need to complete one of the offers on the site but have the required number of friends to complete the offers also.

pyramid-scam disguised as a free gadget site.

true.com

ok, so online dating services are, in my opinion, for the pathetically desperate. it was thus a bewilderment why i actually bothered to subscribe to true.com (well, the model was cute and i was bored that time, so i clicked the ad).

recently, i tried to unsubscribe myself though from their newsletters. but a few days after, i got this rather surprising email from someone named "jen3583" who "wants to know more" about me. so i click on the message, gave her "wink" and waited for the reply (also cute, too cute, looking at her profile - which made me suspect whether she's actually a "real" person).

almost immediately, i get a reply:

Hey, thanks for the wink. Would you like to chat sometime on one of the TRUE chat rooms? They are pretty neat and I feel a little more comfortable starting there, let me know if your interested.

now, that's really suspicious. the fact that i recently unsubscribed coincided with the i-want-to-know-you-better email which eventually was an invitation to chat on their chatrooms.

so, i reply again to her mail (sent to her email alias on true.com, which uses @truebeginnings.com):

are you real? or just an email autoresponder?

her reply:

The Postfix program<jen3583@truebeginnings.com>:
host 10.0.2.40[10.0.2.40] said: 550 Unable to relay for jen3583@truebeginnings.com> (in reply to RCPT TO command)

just as i suspected. it's a fake account, used by true.com to entice unsubscribing members to get back to using their service. the fact that true.com actually had to lie to keep their members around has given me even more reason to leave their service.

visual c++ notes: day one

To get/set data from controls:

UpdateData( [ TRUE FALSE ]);

where: TRUE - retrieve data from controls, FALSE - update form data with values in the code editor.


To enable/disable controls:

GetDlgItem(control_id)->EnableWindow([TRUE FALSE]);


To show/hide controls:

GetDlgItem(control_id)->ShowWindow([TRUE FALSE]);


To associate a variable to a control:

Right-click the control, then choose the ClassWizard. Click on the member variables tab, choose the control's control id, then click on the "Add variable" button (it's recommended that you use Hungarian notation to name your variables).


To initialize variables:

Add a function (using the ClassWizard) to the WM_INITDIALOG message. On the code editor, type the initialization values of your variables.


To execute an external program:

WinExec("program name", SW_SHOW);


To exit the application:

OnOK();

teach myself visual c++ in 21 days

after some thinking about what to learn before i start looking for a job. i eventually decided to learn microsoft visual c++ 6.0. ok, so the fact that it's made by microsoft and is a commercial product would more than get me a few suspicious looks from open-source advocates. i do have my personal reasons for deciding to learn vc++:

1. let's face it. windows, bloated, insecure and non-free as it is, won't be fading away too soon - almost all pc's run it. that alone, i think is reason enough why any programmer should *at least* be able to program in the platform using industry-grade tools.
   
   
2. desktop java never really caught on. in fact, the current trend with java is now towards the enterprise. awt/swing is just too slow and cumbersome to use (although, swt may hold some promise as azureus looks real good and is pretty responsive).
   
   
3. most importantly, the company i'm looking forward to working with is using it. so as early as now, i'm trying to make myself ready for whatever task i may be given.
   

disclaimer: nope, i haven't given in to the dark side. i love linux. i love open-source. i'm just trying to broaden my programming skillset

converting m4a/mp4 files to mp3

a few weeks ago, i was able to borrow this compilation cd of enigma albums from gwace which unfortunately were in m4a (or mp4) format. now, you can play m4a files in winamp5 directly (with winamp2 you would need to download a plug-in) but i still preferred mp3 because 1. i'm using linux and amarok can't play m4a and 2. mp3 is the most popular format and is currently supported by our dvd player.

at first, i tried doing it by hand (i.e. saving the output to .wav then encoding them to mp3 with lame all in the command line - a very drudging, brainless task) until i found a software that can do it automatically - foobar2000.

with foobar2000, all you have to do is load the files in the playlist, select them, then right-click and convert. you would need to set the conversion settings though to locate the lame executable and the encoding settings (vbr, bitrate, etc).

note: make sure you download the special installer as the lite version does not have functionality to convert to mp3 or other audio formats. also, for mp3 encoding, you would need the lame executable, so download that one also.

tagscanner

anyone who's looking for a free, feature-packed mp3 tag management program for windows should definitely check out tagscanner.

a new pc, finally!

it's not ours actually, but my former manager's (sir tiger) who graciously lent it to me. well, at least i won't be bored at home during the holidays. i plan to start looking for a new job by january pa, so in the meantime, with a lot of free time (and a new pc), i can learn whatever i want to learn at home.

we did have a pc before that. it was a digital equipment notebook (borrowed also) which ran on an pentium 1 133 mhz with 32 mb ram and 1 gb hdd (and a busted floppy drive and sometimes erratic cd-rom). state of the art huh? yeah, seven years ago. heck, i can't even install java 1.4 in there because of the specs and with java 1.3, compiling even a trivial program takes about 20 seconds.

as i always say though, it's not the specs, it's what you do with it. and even on that crappy notebook, i did learn a lot of things: basic java programming, memory allocation in c (i used to be irrationally scared of pointers before), nasm assembly (which i seem to have forgotten now), and vim (the best editor in the world!).