After the silence

Almost 20 days have passed since my last post. Not much have changed since then which was not the plan. I should pick up on my side-projects again and push forward as things should be. Perhaps I should start a new blog as this one is more of a blab about me as me. The second blog would be more focused at my side projects and more tech oriented. Until my next blab then.

Last sunday before lent

Today marks the last day before lent as tomorrow is Ash Monday. As such I would like to wish everyone a blessed day and hope that this year everyone will truly think of others as this is the reason behind lent.

Java again!

It has been a long time since I have delved deep into the world of Java application development and my skills have become a bit rusty. Grabbing my old faithful Deitel Java How to Program book, I have decided to start over from chapter one (yes even if most stuff I already know) and to push forward till the end of the book. Reason behind it? Well just because I can. I'll be posting more updates on my progress and maybe if I come up with some brilliant project to create I will post that as well.

Day three

Three days have passed since I started to include cardio workout to my daily gym routine. I have added 20 minutes of a hill climb exercise; basically a light jog on the treadmill at max incline. So far it's going great as I'm feeling major changes in my muscles, especially my quads. I'll be keeping updates here to follow up on my goal. Until next post.

A new day, a new goal

For the last couple of months for some very strange reason my body was doing the opposite of what I wanted it to do, gain weight. Starting today I have decided to push my body back to the weight that it should be. This move is to be one of many that will overhaul my life and put it back on track.

Long time

Two months have passed since I have blogged here. Too many things going around forgot I even maintained this blog. I have been thinking about many side-projects to start but do not know which to start with. Hopefully my answers will unfold soon.

Happy new year!

The title says it all. Happy new year everyone. Hope this year brings everything that was missing in every person's life. Hopefully with this new year this blog will be more alive and maybe another blog will spring to life as well.

When you don't have an alternative to Microsoft Windows

After looking around for iTunes alternatives running under Linux, in the end I found out that Apple outdid themselves by forcing you to run iTunes, one way or another. Same goes for Ovi Suite by Nokia. Whenever I need to sync contacts between my N900 and iPod Touch, I have to do it on a Windows box, because sadly, there are no Linux ports to both softwares. The bigger question that comes to mind is, why there are no ports? I mean, the N900, Nokia's flagship that is running Maemo Linux, a Debian based Linux for the mobile devices and yet we cannot find a Debian based Ovi Suite. Until that puzzle is solved, I am forced to run a copy of Windows XP inside a VM. Till then I guess.

Shakma

A friend of mine was just telling me about a film she saw when she was young. The film is called Shakma. She kept on going about it that a "Raccoon" was killing people in the hospital. After googling it, turned out that the film is about a "Baboon", which is a very close resemblance to the raccoon. From a huge rat to a monkey, doesn't differ much.
Oh by the way she is the cutest girl ever!

A show not to be missed

Recently I have been watching this new show on Discovery Science channel, "Through the Wormhole". I urge everyone not to miss it if you are interested in the mysteries of our known and unknown universe. It is narrated by the legend Morgan Freeman, a man perfectly chosen to lay out the information. Yesterday's episode was about "dark matter", an invisible layer of our universe.

Bad web programming is Bad web programming

I do not understand how some websites work. You sign up for example to a website that shall remain unnamed, they tell you that they will send you an activation email, but it never shows up in your inbox! You try to sign up again and the site tells you the email is already in use!

Back home

Been away for a week on a mission from work. Was a good week in terms of productivity but being away isn't quite a charmer either. Away from family, friends and worst of all, gym. Now I have a week to catch up for in many different places.

Album of the Week

It's been a while since I posted an Album of the Week. This time it would be the album of the last couple of months. Lately I have been listening to Avenged Sevenfold's latest album, Nightmare. Even though most of the material were written after James "The Rev" Sullivan passed away, and Mike Portnoy taking the honor of playing in his place, the album makes you want to listen to it over and over and over. The general theme is dark, gritty and in your face. I urge everyone who is not a fan to listen, as fans already did.

I don't has da flu!

After days of runny nose, sneezes and general headaches finally my flu epidemic is over. In other news I am thinking of developing stuff as a side project or something, maybe one day a small project will grow to be something useful. Got VirtualBox OSE installed so I can run a Windows box inside my Linux for cross platform development. Visual Studio and Mono here I come.

Customizing Gnome, part 1

I've started tinkering around Gnome and customizing the look and feel of my Linux box. So much control it makes every control freak look like a baby. There are tons of themes out there for you to choose, and if nothing is of your liking, you can just simply change everything till it becomes perfect. Now I'm looking for a wallpaper to go on my desktop, something that would make people go "dang that's awesome!".

I has da flu!

Title says it all.

Hurting tonsils

Woke up today to find out my tonsils are hurting. Seems there's this virus or flu running amok this season, and it's heading for tonsils. Funny thing is about it is that there is nothing else of the usual flu symptoms, no coughing no high fever no runny nose no nothing. Guess I'll have to live on Strepsils and OJ.

Pidgin

After fighting a bit with Empathy, Gnome's default chat client, I decided to throw it away in favor of something that's a bit more customizable. Looking for the next best thing, my eyes quickly saw what I already endorse on my Maemo driven N900. Pidgin. Pidgin is a great client. Supports endless protocols, very light on the system and can be extended with plug-ins. If you feel like chatting from somewhere other than Microsoft's Live client, give Pidgin a try.

A week away for work

The last week I have been away on work for my company in a different country. Although the country does have an Internet connection better than my own, the place the company had us stay in was not connected. So basically I had to read about 100 e-mails when I got back.

In other news, I am really starting to think about compiling my own Linux OS from scratch. Just need to do some research about what should it have and why do I want to use it (other than surf the net of course).

Ubuntu - Dead then Alive

For some very strange reason, my Ubuntu died on me today, most probably from aMSN crashing. So I said "well let's just reinstall everything from scratch". I tried to boot the CD I had burned (and used to install Ubuntu the first time with it) it did not want to. After battling with burning a new CD, using a couple of Linux to USB stick softwares trying to boot the OS, nothing worked. I eventually gave up and dug up an older version of Ubuntu. I booted that up, went on to format my drive and install it. To my amazement, instead of having the older OS, my current OS booted after the reboot with everything I already had there. Funny thing, I guess my HDD decided to lock down itself from changes. Now all is well and dandy.

Now I'm looking for something new to do, like develop on Linux (with GUI of course).