jared@darkstar

Python

2024-12-12T21:38:00.003+08:00

I guess it's time to talk about Python.

The Beef Dashboard Template

2022-08-14T07:45:00.003+08:00

I haven't been writing actively about code and tech in a while and I'm crawling back. As much as I want to completely abandon Java and what it has become, I'm still surprised on the number of organizations investing in Java for their microservices development. Since I have moved on a lot over the years learning a lot from the Javascript universe both from the front and server side, I pushed further and built some pretty cool stuff with it, one of those is the Beef Dashboard Template

https://beef-app-zrggs.ondigitalocean.app/#/

The motivation: to learn more about Vue and Bulma and reach an expert skill level in relation to frontend development.

The problem: Through experience, every time we start a new project, user interface is always (and highly likely) to start from scratch. To me, it's obviously a waste of time and resources

My solution is to build a template that we can fork or clone from, modify a little or more to fit our requirements. That's my concept of "low code", solving problem with reusable code. "No code" is boring, users will always look for something different, something fresh and something new.

What do we get from The Beef Dashboard Template? Beef Dashboard Template is rich with samples for Vue elements and components and how it interacts with third-party libraries such as weather widgets, charts, graphs etc. it's completely static with no server-side interactions (which will be our next project).

Building an application from something is always amazing it's your secret weapon in beating deadlines way ahead of schedule. Enjoy this experience by downloading the complete package at

https://jared201.gumroad.com/l/beef

Buy on

So I built a Cryptocurrency and took it down

2020-10-21T09:18:00.003+08:00

I created Tamadcoin and took it down. No, this whole crypto thing is full shit. Those scammers are there to take your money, not today but sooner or later. This is not good business, you will meet different kinds thieves along the way. So, I'm not getting my hands on it. We have a better platform. But not sharing it in public either only the select few. I'm just typing this out for the sake of typing because I love my Keychron K2 Keyboard.

Some Quirks While Building The Cryptocurrency

2018-01-02T20:51:00.001+08:00

I have successfully compiled the binaries for the coin daemon and the wallet daemon with some few quirks. First I have to send a support ticket to our Swiss engineers to change the Ubuntu version from 17.04 to 14.04 this solves a lot of compilation errors and was able to proceed to actually testing the the node.

The next trick is testing the wallet daemon. I got this error which is pretty generic

Error: failed to save new wallet: locale::facet::_S_create_c_locale name not valid

Error: failed to generate new wallet: locale::facet::_S_create_c_locale name not valid

account creation failed

Failed to initialize wallet

Error: wallet failed to connect to daemon (http://localhost:18236).

This was solved by setting the environment variable to:

export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

The joy of C/C++ in the modern world.

From The Ashes

2017-12-27T05:12:00.000+08:00

Delivering what matters. Funding the war chest for bigger stuff has started. This means I'm going to back to writing code, at least at the prototype stages or building proof-of-concept materials. It's like back from 15 years ago, this "war" with proprietary commercial software became a passion to learn new things, bleeding-edge stuff during those years now being applied in real-life in what the mainstream media called "cryptocurrency". We've all seen this before, played with it, made fun with; remote procedure calls, asynchronous messaging, peer-to-peer messaging, digital contracts, hashcodes you name it, we did it. We used these not for financial or economic reasons, we used these tools for fixing performance issues back then, performance and security issues. Cloud computing? Grid computing? We know that already! Ethereum as a computer on a blockchain started by a journalist named Buterin? Who the Fuck is Satoshi? That's nothing new.

If I can shout out "Hey I need Money over here" over my XMPP server called OpenFire using Asterisk client and someone acknowledged it it's already a digital contract once I received my money. It's nothing new, it's about changing perspective. I'm picking up where I left off.

Let's open fire, The Dark Star has returned.

Fixing Screen Freeze and Hangs With Web Worker

2016-11-28T13:56:00.001+08:00

As web applications become more responsive and advanced today, users may encounter problems from your HTML5 web applications from non-responding script errors to pages that actually hangs forever. Fortunately, thanks to HTML5 web development has given a dose of power that was used to be available to native desktop applications known as the multi-threading.

Most of my career as a programmer/software developer has revolved around resolving performance issues. I guess there's only a handful in this country who does that. Moving on the topic, multi-threaded programming involves dealing with daemons or background processes or concurrent processes, involves management of buffers, queues asynchronously in order for an application to run smoothly when it's subjected to millions or billions of transactions per second(!).

Introducing the Web Worker, Web Worker is a Javascript API available in all browsers that support HTML5, it works the same way as the Java Thread is mainly used in desktop (SWING, JFC, RCP) and application servers (Apache, JBoss etc). In simple terms, the purpose is to keep the application running smoothly on any given condition. How the Web Worker Works? When an instance of a Web Worker is created, the browser creates a background daemon in order for a web page to run smoothly. One example is when user is querying large chunk of data and at the same scrolling the page, the application must not prevent the user from doing other tasks while the data is loading.

A working sample, while some web developers will dive and start coding on Web Worker API directly, I decided to use an open source web worker queue library from Github https://gist.github.com/kig/1188381 , the main reason for going on this strategy is to simplify handling worker pool or queue that is not readily available in the native HTML Web Worker API.

The Queue Implementation:

WorkCrew = function(filename, count) {
this.filename = filename;
this.count = count || 4;
this.queue = [];
this.results = [];
this.pool = [];
this.working = {};
this.uuid = 0;
this.fillPool();
};

WorkCrew.prototype.onfinish = function() {};

WorkCrew.prototype.oncomplete = function(res) {
return [res.id, res.result];
};

WorkCrew.prototype.addWork = function(work) {
var id = this.uuid++;
this.queue.push({id: id, work: work});
this.processQueue();
return id;
};

WorkCrew.prototype.processQueue = function() {
if (this.queue.length == 0 && this.pool.length == this.count) {
if (this.onfinish)
this.onfinish();
} else {
while (this.queue.length > 0 && this.pool.length > 0) {
var unit = this.queue.shift();
var worker = this.pool.shift();
worker.id = unit.id;
this.working[worker.id] = worker;
worker.postMessage(unit.work);
}
}
};

WorkCrew.prototype.addWorker = function() {
var w = new Worker(this.filename);
var self = this;
w.onmessage = function(res) {
var id = this.id;
delete self.working[this.id];
this.id = null;
self.pool.push(this);
try {
self.oncomplete({id: id, result: res});
} catch(e) {
console.log(e);
}
self.processQueue();
};
this.pool.push(w);
};

WorkCrew.prototype.fillPool = function() {
for (var i=0; i this.addWorker();
}
};

The Worker Code:

//this where the background process is called that must be in a separate file in this sample we call it //worker.js

self.addEventListener('message', function(e) {
console.log("REMOTE. Received from main script: " + e.data + " -- " + new Date());
self.postMessage(e.data);
}, false);

The Parent client code (this is called from the parent page):

// Create worker pool with 4 workers
var crew = new WorkCrew("worker.js", 4);

// Page rendering can only be done here as DOM and parent objects are not accessible
// inside the Worker thread
// The result object structure is
// {
// id: work unit ID,
// result: message received from worker
// }
crew.oncomplete = function(res) {

// Add some work to the queue.
// The work unit is postMessaged to one of
// the workers.

for (var i = 0;i < someWorkarray.length; i++){
console.log("Work Crew: Adding work index - " + i + " -- " + new Date());
var workId = crew.addWork(i);
}

// Add an onfinish event handler.
// Fired when the queue is empty and all workers
// are free.
crew.onfinish = function() {
console.log('Work Crew: All work in queue finished!' + " -- " + new Date());
};

The code above creates 4 instance of the Web Worker and add multiple work units to the worker it can be hundreds or thousands of tasks but the thing is it will keep your app from freezing, that is if your app really has large amounts of data.

Meteor Development Process

2013-07-29T04:41:00.001+08:00

Meteor is a really cool framework that runs on top of Node.js, it gives the developer ability to build apps in hours in what usually take days like this Bicycle Alarm App that I build over the weekend. But in a real world nothing is perfect like deploying a Meteor app to a proper host and most Platform-As-A-Service providers doesn't readily support apps built on Meteor so it's really a pain in the b*tt. What could be hours of development fun will be wasted on hours of fixing dependencies and all crap that is related more than the code but rather on the hosting config. So I made a few pointers on how to survive your first flight with Meteor. 1. When deploying your app other than on meteor.com, Demeteorize it with https://github.com/onmodulus/demeteorizer 2. Update the package.json so that the Node.js version is compatible with PaaS hosting's version 3. Make sure your app's root directory includes a Procfile that declares where your main.js is 4. properly set the hosting's environment variables like MONGO_URL, PORT etc. Some of the non-Meteor PaaS I tried with success: Heroku, Modulus, Nodejitsu Enjoy!

Silicone Valley in the Philippines?

2011-11-04T03:16:00.000+08:00

Back track to around 1984. When I was in 6th grade, the first computer magazine I was exposed to is called "BYTE", those thick glossies almost had everything. One issue even had an old "treasure" map of Silicone Valley where Apple, Intel, 3Com(?) etc. are drawn in isometric popup-book style.

During non-school days we visit our other house in Muntinlupa in which where I live now, a half-hour drive from our house in San Andres, Manila via the South Super Highway(yes, those buses you see with "...via SSH" that's where they go, very secure) now known as the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX). Along this 25km journey involved passing by front gates of what made up Silicone Valley back then; Intel's factory was located before stopping at Pasay Road intersection, American Microelectronics along the West Service Road, Motorola where their 2-way radio and the first cellphone was mass produced and then the PowerPC was mass-produced from there too, Panasonic-Technics, Toshiba, Sharp is still there, Amkor Technologies who did a lot for Silicone Valley with a large facility along the East Service now has a second factory at Laguna Technopark. On the software side, I only remember one big building at Faraday Street corner South Super Highway in Palanan, Makati with a big sign outside that said they're always on the hunt for C/C++, DB2 etc. talents. Seeing those companies advertise in BYTE magazine and actually passing by them every now and then reminded me that it doesn't look bad times at all.

My first encounter with a computer was with Sinclair ZX81 it's a microcomputer, not a Personal Computer it uses casette tape to store data and only understands BASIC. Working with ZX81 cookbook was fun but I wish I can do something more useful back then like "sari-sari" store inventory(?), and another guy who has a similar device like this one is an old chap with a "startup" called "CompuServe" with his home/office/garage located near Wilson Street in Greenhills. Sinclair is UK-based computer company, not connected to Silicone Valley but one of the early tools that motivated kids like me that somehow we can have something like Silicone Valley.

Sinclair ZX81 with 16KB ROM Pack

Star Trek was not the geek flick of choice around 1984, it's War Games since it's closer to reality, almost life threatening and War on Communism is of paramount importance than War on Terrorism (which was just treated as a petty criminal act those days and not worth putting an army for).

Matthew Broderick in his state-of-the-art Commodore in War Games

So much for the past now. Recently, there's some questions being raised by blogging geeks, tech guys in PHL who were probably born in the 80's or late 70's asking questions why we don't have Silicone Valley in the Philippines? Well, we almost did! We had our shot and we blew it! The bus stopped and we missed it! The Captain called out but we're not ready! We were the China back then until our power generation costs nearly killed us, causing some of the factories to shut down and move elsewhere. The old "evil" regime decided to put up a nuclear power plant to make these big guys stay and keep the money in, but the nuclear dream was fought hard by those who will benefit from it in the future, I'm almost certain that these same people who fought has to push their kids out of the country to work for those companies in similar environmental danger today. The reason it's called Silicone Valley is because it's not about software, there's a place for software and it's called Redmond. We can't be Silicone Valley if we're always paralyzed by power failures both political and electrical. Is Cebu going to be Silicone Valley? Probably, but if the work down there is just about "gluing" things together, then I don't think so.

Will there be a chance to have a Silicone Valley in PHL? Yes, if we stop fighting what's good for us.

Startup Weekend Manila

2011-10-26T17:29:00.001+08:00

I want to check my history first. My first foray in to the startup scene circles back to the first Internet Bubble between '99-'04, there's not much stuff to read about it online and the only two printed media I looked at during those years were Red Herring and Fast Company magazines. I was so amazed by how much money has changed hands with those tissue paper ideas, there were no social apps back then, it was so inspiring that I believe I can build any of those ideas myself and get funded too! But there's seems to be an invisible barrier to entry. Then I searched locally for startup scenes or forums brewing around and I only stumbled in to two; Philippine Venture Capital Group or PhilVenCap and MindShare which was curated by Luli Arroyo. PhilVenCap is a monthly meeting at Asian Institute of Management for early risers in which you can pitch your business ideas for 3 minutes and network aftwards, PhilVenCap has been around for more than 20 years, I did a couple of pitches there and it's really quite a learning experience. MindShare was more technology specific and saw some of the big local names like Ramcar, whom, back then, were attempting to expose themselves to this new "ecosystem", MindShare is slowly making a comeback now. Then comes the SMS generation, not only it's more exciting but applications were easier to develop as well, almost no GUI, everything is done at the backend. Ideas were starting to get crazier, open source APIs were already available and eventually got a chance to work with local startup specializing in SMS with artificial intelligence. And then came the Bubble burst and I had to work with one of the largest telco, yes the brick and mortar, learned a lot on how to deal with them, moved to Singapore for awhile and worked briefly with another startup in which we did touchscreens (even before everyone else got a touchscreen!) for a major telco, yes another brick and mortar.

Fast forward to present, tech entrepreneurs seems to be luckier these days. First, there are more venues like Startup Weekends, RoofCamps, Barcamps, Hackathons and whatnot, although sometimes they were run by the same people over and over again(the risk of losing fresh insights). Second, there isn't much re-inventing to do since startups can reuse most of what is available today in Twitter, Facebook etc. However, old guards still dominates like online shopping sites, online advertising, online gaming, search engines etc. transforming themselves in different mutations, but still, there are valuable lessons to be learned.

And now, the Startup Weekends. The concept of the Startup Weekend is to bring together aspiring tech entrepreneurs, investors, developers and designers in an event where they can pitch ideas, work on those ideas, and eventually launch a startup from those ideas, they may have to build prototypes over the weekend or polish a business plan or both. At the end of the event investors can pick for themselves which startup they think they can put money on. Thus, an idea can become a startup, become a business, who knows. Startup Weekend Manila is my third after Baltimore and Washington, DC. startup weekends, the last two was more like a weekend market while the one we just had is like an American Idol contest. Nevertheless, all of them were successful. Startup Weekend Manila has around 200 participants from what I heard and all were doing social apps one way or another. Well, this is not Silicone Valley.

Many teams were formed after the pitchfire and one of them was VenteeInc. The idea behind VenteeInc is event discovery or it's solving the what's-going-on or who's-going-where or what's-happening-at type of problems for mostly young people in their 20's downward who are really bored and looking for places to go or something to do. It's not rocket science. But again, we might lose the whole point of Startup Weekends, they are not meant to be coding contest of some sorts. Startup Weekends are for getting ideas turn to reality. So I signed up for this team because I think the idea is cool despite doubtful business viability, but of course, theories are almost, always 99% wrong. During the weekend, teams were grilled, ripped and tormented by some mentors to sharpen the ideas further and VenteeInc was no exception we were at the point that we thought we're screwed but still has to go on and that has been a valuable teamwork lesson learned again and again regardless how silly an idea is. As usual VenteeInc's revenue model (this is what geeks are weak at) revolves around the economics of advertising, revenue-sharing with event organizers, ticketing networks, venue owners etc.

The 'cutters', screw you Terence, I hate that word :P (Photo pulled from Jonathan Richie Yap's Facebook album, me at extreme left, it's 1010 gets?)

The Sunday presentations were awesome, initial ideas has somewhat crystalized with teams who really worked hard with their presentations.

Project KIO, doing the magic

TwitMusic, it's Twitter for Music

I'm not really a 'contest' or 'competition' guy, it's not my thing and I prefer killing the competition than play with it but clinching the top award together with our team somehow gave me some sort of personal in-your-face vindication from the people now I'm waiting to say 'crab' and points, clearly, went across now.

VenteeInc, First Place and People's Choice Award

An event like this is not complete without a party and it was there where talks about business is more amplified and that's what we did. Won new networks, won new backdoor deals. Got home San Mig enlightened but wasn't able to sleep yet, Goods2Send has pending orders.

RIP, Dennis Ritchie

2011-10-13T16:37:00.000+08:00

No, it's not Steve Jobs who really changed the world. It's Dennis Ritchie, the man behind the C language and the UNIX operating system. For the non-geeks, here's how UNIX made your life livable everyday; you can sleep at night because opposing forces of the world's military organizations depend on it on a daily basis. Smart, Globe and Sun uses UNIX operating system so you can call, SMS and browse Facebook wherever you are. Your banks keeps your accounts safe with UNIX, your insurance company keeps you updated using UNIX. Steve Jobs is heavily dependent on UNIX from his Pixar gigs to his Macs. The influence of UNIX is widespread, Linus Torvalds' kernel is based on it. If you're reading this now, this blog is hosted in a UNIX platform one way or another. If you're on Twitter, Facebook, G+ etc. etc. you're engulfed by UNIX. When you book a flight to an airline and you check in to an airport, it's all done in UNIX. When you withdraw money from ATMs, it's UNIX. When you buy stuff at Amazon, it's UNIX. When you swipe your credit card at SM, Robinson's or Shopwise, it's UNIX. There's no getting away from it.

For better or for worse, Dennis Ritchie and his work has made a larger impact to mankind more than any keynotes Steve Jobs has ever made.

My early encounters with UNIX as a developer involved its different flavors from System 7, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris and SCO. The UNIX culture shaped the way how we build cool stuff, it taught hard lessons that metrosexual geeks of today might not be able to pick up.

That is our lives with UNIX. Thanks Mr. Ritchie, bad design or good design, your legacy lives on.

Co-Workingspaces, It's About Time (I Guess...)

2011-10-01T03:54:00.001+08:00

I guess I'm one of those who long for a place where creativity must be squeezed out to the max level and working from home is not really boosting it in the same way squatting at a signature coffee shop can be easily quite distracting specially in this part of the globe where most yuppies are just too nosy about the logo of your laptop. Adding the fact that it's just too hard to work if you're too f*cking paranoid on the people going in and out of the doorway for safety reasons.

Aspiring technopreneurs who has limited resource in terms of funding, office space, photocopiers, white boards, conference rooms can make use of a co-workingspaces. So when do we need a co-workingspace? Like right now? I'm currently writing this blog in a place that is used to be quiet in the wee hours of the morning until just recently it's packed with call center people, yapping here and there looking at me in a very, very strange way. While drilling down and browsing the web on existing co-workingspaces currently operating in countries like United States, I believe co-workingspaces can be applied in some part of this country (PHL).

In the Philippines, co-workingpaces are suitable for startups who are already committed in to something and are:

1. Working to exploit real, not imagined opportunities - This means startups has "customers" ready to buy-in once the finished product has been launched.

2. Working to cut cost but not on the quality of work - A small startup can spend a day in co-workingspace perfecting a product.

3. Working with remote team members - Not just startups but for freelancers who can bring their work anywhere

4. Anybody who can't live with a bedroom that smells like a pigsty after establishing a hermit kingdom in it.

5. Working on a really seriously cool project but is not ready to move in to the big office yet.

Typically a co-workingspace, the ones that might theoretically work in the Philippines should have the following amenities:

1. A blazingly-fast WiFi, a co-workingspace operator can partner with top broadband provider in the country.

2. Big tables with office chairs.

3. A pantry or snack bar

4. A friendly clerk

5. Optionally, free coffee only for expats (let's admit it, we can't give free consumables to Filipinos, it will become a food bank).

6. A photocopier

7. A boardroom with projector

Laugh all you want but this is not a co-workingspace.

8. clean restrooms

An operator can charge like PHP800 to PHP1,000 for a day pass with a single chair, power outlet and unlimited internet access. Use of photocopier, boardroom and projector can be charged separately. Booking and upfront payment is required before anyone can drop by and loiter.

Again, will this work? I think expat startuppers have been looking for something like this around the block and if they can find one, more of those from the Bay Area, the East Coast might fly in and at the same time enjoy the beaches here, will trade our idiots with their geniuses.

Create More With Less

2011-08-26T02:22:00.001+08:00

This week has been one of the most exciting week in the technology industry, the Russians just crashed their spaceship that will supply stuff to the international space station so the guys up there will have to endure for another seven months on their meager supplies unless another space canister can be hauled up to speed anytime soon. So what else is hot this week? The HP Touchpad on fire sale, if a company is no longer interested in the product, those Touchpads and other handheld devices should be dumped in a landfill off limits to public, selling that to as low as $99 means the company, Hewlett Packard, are very much in to it and will be shoving it to as many hands as they can and give a chance to play with it, since webOS is really cool from my personal opinion, they have to let the public realize that and then bomb the device with really compelling applications as they promised (focusing on "Software Development" remember?).

The long awaited coming-to-maturity of front-end tools such as HTML5+CSS3+JQuery has come and with that comes the power tools that enable developers to create more with less and for many. Developers can now create mobile applications that run both on Android, iPhone and the rest in the shortest possible time without having to deploy to iTunes App Store or Android Marketplace, no more of the 70/30 profit sharing. One of the example of this new wonder is the "Galaksyan" game from Kupster Interactive. This demo game was created in less than 2 hours, also using Microsoft Tag to scan the game's originating URL

There's a lot with what a software developer can do now that creating just a "Hello World" for a demo is really a shame.

No XCode, No Java, No Cables, No Software Engineers

This is also a great time for marketers to storm their brains on how best to utilize these technologies to their business' advantage. Doing these cool apps now is relatively cheaper than before.

P.S.

If you want to try out the game use the Microsoft Tag Reader and scan the Tag below:

The game may not load properly at first shot, so you have it to shoot again(or refresh again). Don't worry that will be fixed, you won't even know it, we'll not hassle you with update notifications. You have been informed.

Necessitas Qt Suite for Android

2011-08-22T04:47:00.005+08:00

My time has been dramatically divided from writing code to managing the opportunities of the technologies that we choose to use. It's basically my left hand on the code and right hand on the spreadsheets. It should have been awesome, I observed the Android (Java) developer community, the iPhone developer community and each has its own crap to talk about, I stumbled upon Objective C after installing Slackware 6.0 hot-of-the-grill so I'm not really, pretty much a fan of that, and I found today's high-level application development amazingly boring be it mobile,web or desktop why would I get my hands dirty since coding these apps can be easily outsourced to places like India, China and Russia or even Ukraine at the same rate I can get a local but problematic talent. I'd rather spend my time developing and "spec'ing" out the idea and get the hardcore engineers to work on it while I fly out and showcase the good stuff.

"Create More With Less" is how I got sold to the idea of Qt C++ development. I'm an impatient coder, I hate the web application development process, I hate all the frameworks (most from the Java camp) that goes with it and some turned out to be author's scam who has no actual real-world development experience and tried to make money peddling his ideas and his books. I'm the write-run-debug-on-the-fly dev guy, because the more I wait the more I going to be distracted(just like anybody else). Trends after trends on software development and seeing some of those goes out of style, Qt C++ has remained stable and has been the "power tool" of choice for many applications including some of the apps at Intel AppUp Store. Now it has found its way to Android development through Necessitas. Watch the video.

Recent developments between Google and Motorola, HP webOS products has put the future of mobile development in to some level of uncertainty specially in the Android space, if things can go "wrong" there isn't much value in betting on Android venture but having Qt in a technology portfolio can compensate for the risk.

Necessitas Qt Suite for Android has come a long way from almost two years ago and its efforts has never(or secretly?) been supported by Nokia which I surmise is playing Two-Face in this mobile war. I've watched Necessitas up to this moment, though I have no real use for it right now, and if I have one I'll just delegate it somewhere and I can say Necessitas' time has come and it's up to the developers to stop eating rice and learn it. I'm just to busy on the spreadsheets right now.

Up Next...Qt for iPhone (hope I'm not too lazy to write)

Navigation in Metro Manila

2011-07-08T04:06:00.004+08:00

Here's a little fearless forecast, pretty soon all motorists will have some sort of GPS navigation being used to aid their journey on a daily basis. Whether it's a car-mounted GPS module like Garmin or an Android-based MotoNav that works together with Google Maps. Different brand and models will soon flood the market as they become more and more affordable. In the hardware area, Garmin is the clear winner as a lot of mapping software are compatible with it including the crowd-sourced OpenStreetMap.

In the U.S. and in other developed countries GPS navigation works almost perfectly including street addresses and their exact pinpoint location. The Philippine map for Garmin, however, is still a work in progress which is available from different sources such as from esambale.wikispaces.com, Roadguide.Ph. These maps are updated almost on a daily basis for new roads, new detour, new POIs, new routes, the author is also one of the most active contributors.

My latest Garmin upgrade is the Nuvi 295W, if you haven't tried any of these Garmin devices, it talks. My 295W is loaded with OpenstreetMap PH for Garmin, I got this wonderful device from Philippines' premiere online shopping site Goods2Send, this site also sells downloadable Garmin Maps that doesn't require MapSource to install and a version available in SD or microSD card.

So far I've used this device as far as Subic up north and Cebu down south, though not as excellent as the U.S. map, the Philippine map covers almost of the physical roads anyone can tread on, almost all of the existing POIs (points-of-interests) and the new ones. Since mapping the Philippines is still very much a work in progress, I'm pretty much confident that there are a lot of opportunities still waiting to be realized in relation to GPS navigation in Metro Manila which is relatively new. Some of these opportunities will come from location-based advertising, various map renditions, competing map providers for more accurate navigation, lower price points to compete with mostly gray-market GPS retailers.

The Philippine Mobile Development Group

2010-05-01T22:01:00.005+08:00

Back in 2004 when mobile application development was still in its raw and content-poor era. We started a small community called the Philippine Mobile Development Group or ph-mobiledev as it's in the Yahoo Groups mailing list. During those times most developers were concentrating in building messaging-specific services which most of the codes were in the server-side digesting SMS/MMS messages for different purposes, that is because for the lack of feature-rich frontend toolkits that was available that time. Most frontend tools were just an attempt to really put something to the market that is way pre-mature like Wireless Application Protocol or WAP that uses WML or Wireless Markup Language, Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME), SuperWaba and many more from that ancient bandwagon. Some of these tools still survives, some are struggling to survive and others are just plain dead, I'm not sure if anyone is still coding in WAP today.

But back then Java was the main language of choice in the backend then C/C++, we also brushed up with a few Haskell and Prolog here and there, even a vague attempt with Object-C was made. But way back before 2004, the real value of mobile development is growing in the backend, the gateways and service interfaces where the developers has to be familiar with a lot of technical jargons and specifications like the SMPP, Kannel, Jabber or XMPP protocol, Middleware Messaging Services etc. that was where the profits are swelling. But the user experience is still ASCII. It was really difficult to know the way around, much less, risky. And this why the community, Philippine Mobile Develop Group was made up, it was started by individuals who were in different aspects of mobile development but most commonly on the backend side. The objective was, of course, to share information and opportunities around the local mobile development industry and beyond. Because there was so much constraints and limitations in developing handset-specific applications, it was deemed too boring, cumbersome and difficult to test. Until then the backend mobile development has eventually matured, the survivors moved on, the preys were picked by other behemoths and the mobile ecosystem in the backend has somehow stabilized.

Six years have passed, after so many opportunities has been exploited, new breed of frameworks and tools came into play. Handsets became more powerful than before armed with massive storage capacities and powerful graphic hardware interface. New battle lines were drawn, developers are now back again in an old challenge with a new face; developing for multiple handset makers while maintaining consistent look-and-feel, developing a single set of code that can be deployed or ported to different devices, these are risks that has to be calculated carefully. There are new and attractive toys luring every mobile developer to join their camps, such as Android that is using the all familiar Java, Apple that has finally found something useful from Objective-C with its iPhone OS and of course the old leaders Nokia with Symbian/Qt/Meego/Maemo in its arsenal, Sony-Ericsson with also its Symbian/Qt/UIQ at its disposal. It's really is easy to get confused and distracted. That is why the Philippine Mobile Develop Group is at its feet again to do what it has done for the mobile developers of 2004, to stay focus and continue to exploit greater opportunities from the mobile application market.

Cheated By Google

2010-01-28T07:29:00.008+08:00

WWW Java Tech Sessions (Misguided By Google, Fooled By Fowler)

2009-09-01T21:25:00.003+08:00

Java Frameworks of all sorts are like investment scams where the proponents try to make a lot of money without really getting anything done. So far, their success has been so amazing that most adapting developers and freshly graduated rocket-scientists are gasping for breathe one project to another.

In an effort to offer some enlightenment, a group of highly disgruntled individuals has proposed a WWW (What Went Wrong) series of Java technical sessions as a rescue package. The following topics has been compiled while these idiots are stealing time from they corporate development duties.

1. Waking Up From Hibernate (2-3 hours)
2. Fooled By Fowler (30 minutes)
3. How Not To Be Blocked By Bloch (1 hour dementing session)
4. Escape From Jakarta (1 hour)
5. Be Cool With Just 3 Patterns (3 hours)
6. Only The Gays Use Design Patterns (Until wee hours)
7. Head First Macro (6 hours)
8. Developing For Failure (10 minutes)
9. How To Cheat JUnit (1 hour)
10. Teaching: The Ultimate Exit Strategy (to be outsourced)

There's a bonus pack too.

1. How We Exorcised The Jerks Who Tried To Rule The World With Android (new!)
2. How To Cheat Estimation For Project Managers (1 hour)
3. Corporate Development Tips And Tricks (As If There's Any)
4. Save Yourself With PowerBuilder (All Time Favorite)
5. FoxPro For Dummies
6. The Geek Shall Inherit The Shit

All these brought to you by Green And Gold Outsourcing, (GAGO) Inc.

Sim Card Registration

2009-07-14T19:05:00.003+08:00

I just saw news clip today with regards to mandatory SIM card registration for prepaid subscribers. Well, I have no problem with that. In fact, it's about time that we have to do that. It protects consumers and public in general in several ways, such as mobile phone theft, credit theft by telcos, national security etc.

As usual, the idea is not bad. But the success of such measure can only be known through effective implementation. And through effective implementation we don't mean manual registration of SIM cards by any retailers, specially small retailers. As the telcos will always be reluctant in implementing SIM card registration for prepaid subscribers for reason that it will cut through the bulk of their revenue, an automated approach will help to carry out the enforcement of SIM card registration.

One that will make sense is for the telcos to open up an API that will be called by third-party developers to create in-store Qt-based registration software which can be based on Personal Information Management(PIM) specifications. The API can be deployed as a web service, remote procedure call or even through instant messaging via Jabber. Of course, every registration has a corresponding transaction fee which can be charged from the cost of the SIM card. Also, failure to register prepaid SIM card within one hour of activation will prompt a server-side action to invalidate the SIM card.

There's a lot of opportunities and possibilities that goes with SIM card registration. These are just a few of what I have in mind.

The Essence of Full Screen Mode

2009-07-02T13:06:00.006+08:00

What's the big deal? For what is mundane to game developers has become a great boon to desktop programmers. Full-screen mode brings your user to an exclusive dimension that provides a non-distracting journey around your application, it keeps your user glued within the context of what really matters most, the intended output in the shortest possible path.

Implementing the Full-Screen Mode

I've waited for years for Java to implement full screen mode, but until now, it's still flaky, cumbersome and not consistent in different platforms (so much talk about cross-platform). Some kiosk developers even go as far as "cheating" with the browser by enabling full screen mode in Internet Explorer via Javascript, Flash and other gazillion-of-html-code nonsense only to end up being locked in one operating system and limited possibilities.

The Qt Solution

MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent)
    : QMainWindow(parent), ui(new Ui::MainWindow)
{    
         showFullScreen();
}

Is a very simple one-function call to solve the problem and let the developer focus on other important functions, allowing them to finish projects in a short period of time. Qt provides consistency across different platforms.

Mac? Linux? Windows? It's hard to tell!

Programming the rest of the widgets that are needed by a full screen application is no different to programming a typical Qt desktop application. There are no other tags to maintain, no screen size to worry about, just do the proper layout and everything will go into the "right" places. That's less code, create more.

So, want to try this on HTML?

Taking Back The Power To The Desktop (Revenge of the Fallen)

2009-06-28T23:34:00.005+08:00

Alright, my day job is still with Java right now, but I had to admit lousy web development is really creeping up my neck already. It was never cool coding more for less, if you don't know what I mean, that's coding more lines of code for just rendering a simple web page regardless of what framework you're using, how many styles of configurations you have mastered and knows AJAX isn't for laundry anymore and no matter how hard you try you can't keep them all in your brains and reuse them on another project that is totally dependent on a different (but theoretically similar) framework. That's coding more for less.

The Power of the Desktop

In today's highly interactive apps, the Desktop has a broader role from just being a host to native applications serving unforgiving enterprise users. The Desktop can now provide stand-alone multimedia entertainment, entice users to play with its touchscreen, make marketing guys happy for doing more rather than take up user input all day. The Desktop is now portable and mobile, users can bring their favorite applications in a USB device and run it as if it was installed in a host PC. This is why web development always leave a bad taste in my tongue, because the power of The Desktop today is too hard to ignore.

Enter Qt

Why Qt? Why not Java Swing or Eclipse SWT? or even some other craps that M$ has to offer? Three words; Portable, Native and Fast. In all my research, only Qt provided answers to these three challenges. Besides, how hard it is to play a movie that even a label can render?


QLabel *label = new QLabel;
QMovie *movie = new QMovie("movies/transformers2.mov");

label->setMovie(movie);
movie->start();

That is "less code, creat more". Yes it's C++ and can be compiled on your favorite OS whether it's Mac, Linux or Windows; no code change, no behavioral change. Single source for different platform, that is a real-deal cross-platform technology, no JVMs!

Mac

Windows

It's 2009, and I'm still dumbfounded why some companies can't offer their desktop products in multiple platforms which is very easy to do! In fact, all it needs is to re-align proper mindsets to get started. Qt allows developers to create a lot of things for less, invent a lot for less, productivity for less. It allows developers to realized their dream killer apps in no time, get into the market in no time, impress customers without so much f*cking on web wonders. And now, the power of the Desktop is back!

IT Expo

2008-09-04T23:46:00.002+08:00

After spending a few minutes on their website (http://www.itexpo.com.ph), I've already anticipated what to expect. I'd rather spend more time at ManilaCon 2008, I think that's the environment where our applications will be more useful. Besides, I need to brush up on industrial design skills.

We're Still in the Service Industry

2008-08-25T00:27:00.002+08:00

From my last post, here's what mostly took shape in the industry that I'm in; We're still a service industry, we build software based on other people's ideas, not ours. We're lying when we say we "invented" things here because we don't hold patents for such claims. One company that is supposed to be a good shining example has postponed its bourse-level exaltation (IPO if you didn't get it) for a number of times with different lame excuses printed in the business newspaper, hopefully it can be done right next time, because the rap is already damaging.

Over the past few months the number of so-called Tech Startups increased but mostly are freeloaders, not really serious enough (no dates, no timelines) in releasing any serious products at any time, just some prototype of what can be done with this new touchy gadget but these are mostly ideas, not much actions. It's all nothing but what's new and what's cool, what can be shared, blah, blah, blah. It's good to know that there are new startups in the technology sector, but what technology? A dating technology? A mix-and-mashup technology? Is it a technology that passed the ultimate "Mom Test", Is it a technology that triggers "Wow!" from the consumer or just from another geek?

There's nothing, because the sad fact is, we're only doing somebody's idea. Why? Because first we failed to set our timeline and with that, somebody has set it for us. And most of us are under that whim. It's hard to deny it, specially when one is not self-funded, there's no such thing as free ride otherwise there is no rest. Second we love agreeing verbally but not really moving forward to the next level. Just merely storytelling and that's it.

I just wish someday, that someone will prove me wrong.

On Patents And Proprietary Software

2008-06-28T16:03:00.002+08:00

Open Source is so 2000. Some people has to brace change and some has to brace change the radical way. 70% of open source projects today are based in Java and they are the more complicated versions today of their earlier predecessors. There really isn't much innovation and improvement happened looking from the turn of the century up to the present that has really made some difference in the lives of most developers around world that has made them more productive than before, more focused than before. The users' frustrations are just as high as before. Take for example AJAX, which is trying to be a rich client application now is starting to get bloated causing some serious slow down, crashes and security compromises on one's PC. These tools looks only sexy and cool in tutorials but that doesn't prove anything in the real world.

Web applications today has so many usability issues. Documentations are just de facto standard, and there's no definite standards of all sorts in the Open source paradigm. I'm not entirely against Open Source but some of these guys or most of these guys has to do hard thinking in order for them to be still relevant in the next 10 or 20 years in the software development industry.

Let's not make things complicated, it's very simple. A developer who open sources his works has no business whatsoever. I'm talking from the developer's standpoint not from Technical Support standpoint. It's like indie music, indie music does not help create jobs specially if the artists maintains Creative Commons license of their songs, but copyrighting them and making CDs out of them. When they copyright them, they can seal a recording contract, hire sound engineers, hire stage crews, hire event organizers, get a lot of corporate sponsors, and eventually make money with a copyrighted product. Same goes with software writing. Unfortunately, software is not like music. It doesn't make sense to patent a software anymore. Rather the software has to be in a patentable hardware in order for it to do business. For any startup software company today, there is no business in software alone. A real product means proprietary software running on a very sleek cool hardware or appliance. Patents does not necessarily stifle innovations, it actually promotes in the most obvious and traditional way that a developer must be very creative and innovative or die. Others can copy and pay and that is real business. With proprietary products developers/entrepreneurs can enter the market anytime they desire, they can compete anytime they desire. They create real jobs, real coding works. Because at the end of the day, that's only one workable for most of us. There's only one Googleplex, don't try to replicate it.

Of Filipino Tech Startup and Filipino Silicone Valley

2008-06-07T05:22:00.003+08:00

Java is getting boring. We're getting multinational projects of vintage proportions, web frameworks with gazillion of configurations (Java developers are still webbies). The value of Open Source is really more on cutting down costs and not really about generating profits, still, Open Source revolves around the Cost Center, a great force for saving money, but still unproven for generating it consistently (hey, tech support is the only solid business model for open source).

But before I go wayward with my topic, I'm really interested in the Filipino Tech Startup scene as there is too little discussion about its unique characteristics, its life cycle, how it is coping up and moving along. There's so many Filipino Tech Startup today that grow out from dream and passion with very little thought on plans and risks. There's also a mythical fear of involvement with angel investors and venture capitalists, which is quite regretful as there's just so much cash in the country at this time of the great global crisis and it is funneled in the wrong directions which these Pinoy Startuppers should be taking advantage of.

So what are these Filipino tech startups have in common? There are several items that may tell us:

They are mostly self-funded
They are mostly web-centric
They are mostly software-based
They hold no or little patent under their names
They lightly consider patent as their key asset
They are heavily dependent on Open Source

The industrial culture of Filipino Tech Startup is analogous to other Philippine-grown cottage industries, just like the days of Lechon Manok (Roasted Chicken) boom, everyone is in this business or the Nata de Coco (Coco Jelly) craze where a lot cashed in and gone and a only a handful survived. In the Filipino Tech startup scene, when mobile messaging was still hot there are a lot who came and gone and few stayed. That is typical Pinoy (slang for Filipino), where there's easy money, there is bandwagon. There is little or no diversity just like in the real Silicone Valley in which an angel or VC can have a lot of options to put their money in.

Patents. The primary reason for having a patent is to protect an intellectual property (IP), second is to make money from IP through licensing. Most Filipino Tech startup may have one [but mediocre] patent in their belt which earns little or no royalties at all. Patent is important to any business because it helps generate revenue without moving an inventory or doing mind-numbing projects until wee hours of the morning. This is the problem of too much dependency on Open Source. Open Source, if utilized properly can save a lot on someone's business but it's not a product or service that is worth selling to a paying customer. In fact, if a Filipino Tech startup does not hold a patent and multiply it by ten folds then we don't really have an industry and this largely contributes to our Brain Drain as most of our best people will simply fly away to patent-rich valleys in which their cerebral contents are more protected and notable.

Too much web-centricity, your web application maybe 24/7 but your user is not. There's a product that sleeps with a user and comes in millions of varieties and guess what it is? It's a timepiece. It's offline and always "there". During the "iBoom" and before the "iBurst", Silicone Valley was mushroomed with a lot of web-base tech startups, they came and gone and never ruled(Google is not in Cupertino, by the way). Silicone Valley is still reigned by "offline" but "on-demand" companies just like Apple and Intel, their core business is not about the Internet, it's about driving the Internet. These companies don't make money from the Web, they make it through compelling, tangible products and licensing of IPs. So here's a hard fact, Filipino Silicone Valley will never grow without solid, tangible products churning out of it.

The Silicone Valley is an ecosystem of brave technopreneurs with solid products (hardware and software in one roof) and comprehensive business plans (forget about the Tissue Paper Myth), angel investors and venture capitalists. One cannot live without the other. In the Philippines, we have all these components, we have the money (that goes nowhere), the talents (that goes anywhere) but we don't have an ecosystem. In order for us to achieve this, we have to do away with risk-intolerant technopreneur wannabes, people who just want to be on the rap sheet but is not willing to put their names on it. We need small shop R&D as well that will cater to bigger fishes, it will going to be impossible to put up a thousand-team scientist and engineers in one ship. But a multi-company team can help.

The Funding. There are some Pinoy startuppers or technopreneurs who are eager to get funding but is not willing to put their names on it. They are mostly opinionated but never really took responsibility on something with a just a few hyped achievements to show. Again, Tech Startup, just like any other business, has its own shares of risks and responsibility. In the Philippines, we don't lack funds, we lack people on how to multiply these funds.

Labor Day

2008-05-01T06:13:00.002+08:00

Today is Labor Day. This is supposed to be a "Don't-Force-Yourself-To-Blog" Day but after spending several months spending in the workforce, I see a lot of tech people jump from one job to another in the never-ending quest for the greener pasteur(?) or pasture(?) but "greener" is subjective. PHP100k, PHP120k, PHP180K? Until when it's going to last? And some of these people who asks too much are not even the most deserving which puts me on my next rant. How come a lot of Java enterprise geeks today are Linux noobs? Several years back, the rule-of-thumb is if you know Java, you should know Linux. I don't really care much how much best practices you know, but hell yeah, you should know Linux.

Most Java developers today are more focused on getting a high paying coding job, complains a lot on vintage J2EE corporate frameworks in which they are put on until they got burned and decided to move on yet another vintage J2EE corporate framework! Java is more than ten years today and companies have learned the hard way the pains of doing it the Java Enterprise Way, so be prepared to see a lot of junk made by the past geniuses put on your shoulders and tasked to make it work. You'll gonna burn-baby-burn but that's greener pasture for you.