Word of the week: “Coopertition”

  • Derived from: cooperation and competition
  • Source: The Linux Action Show! – Episode 46 (I have to say that this is my favourite podcast/netcast for now. Great personalities, great content, great music too =p)

They used coopertition is the sense of Linux distros saying that they are better than the other distro and forgetting the fact that the more they purely compete with other distros, the ultimate competition (ie. Microsoft Windows, Mac OS) will win. After the cell group session on Thursday, this hit a string with what I believe Stephen mention on how some churches fight for the ‘membership’ of people from other churches when they should be looking to those outside the church. Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. The ambition, not the work.

On a side note, the church is coming up pretty nicely. Woohoo!

Busy busy days

Been very busy with UAT (user acceptance tests) at ACB (Anti-Corruption Bureau) this week and will continue till the 24th. I would just like to thank God for sustaining me and seeing me through. Despite the same kind of hectic life I had last week, this week has been more bearable. Though today was practically a breaking point for me. The Business Objects (BO – yeah it does stink) server was acting very PMS life giving errors that I never encountered before and for some reason I reverted some modified files to the original so I had to re-edit those files. I did have a copy of the modified files though, but one thing I don’t get about Tomcat server is that if I copy a file over an existing one and reload the page it does NOT reflect the changes. I have to open the file, save it then it shows. It’s probably some issue with cache or something. If anybody knows do tell, cause the place we have in ACB has no Internet connection so troubleshooting anything is a pain: goes to show how much we depend on the web (especially Google search :p).

Anyway in the next few days I need to get reacquainted with Business Objects XI (BOXI), WEBI reports, Crystal reports, metrics and analytics. After dealing with BOXI and Livelink (version 9.6) from OpenText I’m very surprised to see how pathetic their migration support is. For BOXI (the XI stands for 11 in roman numerals) it cannot export the data the analytics are linked to thus if you have a system set up and you want to migrate it to an existing system you have to recreate the analytics all over again. For Livelink workflow maps when you export from one system to another, some data can be lost. There is no easy migration tool for either of them…. probably just a business ploy to seek and pay for support.

So its the weekend, so you guys enjoy it. I’ll be in ACB yet again cause I need to show something to boss on Monday and I need the smelling BO server for it and I can’t be bother to bring the server home: it’s not small and it’s noisy. But probably afraid I’ll drop it and make a big mess of the project :p. Night people and happy weekend

Busy few weeks behind me

Yup very busy weeks have past. 4 hours of sleep today yesterday. Was up doing the camp booklet design. Just came back from the meeting and supper which was actually dinner. It’s been tiring days and I’m sure I’m not the only one. Despite the little support that I got, I continue trodding on, because I know what I do is not for me, it’s not for my company, it’s for His glory just as the camp t-shirt design states. We all have our parts to play in life. We have been put in our places for a reason. Make the most out of it. Even when nobody understands. Even when nobody offers some support. For there are times when there are none for you, none but Jesus. Just thanksgiving to God for pulling me this week. I know there’s more to come but I’m sure it won’t be as bad as last week.

One of the best thing’s I’ve seen as of late as I was lookng for images to put in the booklet was a wallpaper that says “Life is short, pray hard”. Yes it is and yes we should. Night all, the lack of sleep is taking over… bed here I come…..

Annoyed

Blogging from work great huh? Well more like ranting from work. Spent this week in training learning how to use a system to be integrated in our solution. So everything seems fine and dandy until I start playing with it and finding that my Portable Firefox and IE6 crashes at times. Opera seemed to work okay but had an issue that didn’t allow me to click the “Ok” button on a Java applet that was launched using Javascript that was processing a button press. It only seemed to work nicely on IE7 on the server. The system also required Adobe SVG to display some graphical charts and stuff. Saw that it could display these graphics using Flash so me and my bright ideas was to try download the latest Flash and Java plugins and try switching to Flash as perhaps it was a plugin issue with SVG that cause the crashed. So after updating to the latest Java runtime I find that some of the Java applets are now broken in Opera, FF and IE6 on my computer. Switching to Flash required an Active X control to be run on the server’s IE7. Problem is that IE7 ‘nicely’ informs me that the current IE7 configuration does not allow me to run Active X. Okay so I think to myself just to change the configuration and it’ll be ok. For some reason even on setting to “Low” security and making sure that all the Active X settings are set to enable to run, I still get the Information bar saying that IE7 is restricting me from running Active X control. Man… Gave up after a few tries, so if anybody knows please enlighten me. End rant, back to finding a workaround…..

Sitting outside my office

Right now I’m sitting in my car. Outside the office. Using my laptop. Doing what you may ask, doing work is what I answer. Thank God for wireless that I can still connect to the office router and communicate with the server we are using. They ought to set up a VPN connection or something so I can connect from home. Makes things much easier. Anyway I came back here after church and I saw lights in the office which was a good sign. Try the door and it was locked.

Ok now I’m in the office my colleague was remoting the server and didnt see my message haha. So no more blogging, back to work

Burdens of the heart

A new section im devoting to just myself reminding me of burdens I feel God has placed in my heart for the moment in time. Feel free to pray along with me

  • Maids / Amahs

    • : They leave their comfort zones of their country to work in foreign lands, sometimes getting in way over their heads. They are mistreated, undervalued and underpaid in my opinion. I think it hurts most when you realise that you are the cause of most of their problems. You make life difficult for them, you treat them as less of a human being.

  • The homeless

    • : From the previous post it just something I thank God for that in Brunei you don’t see many (if any) suffering with the problem of homelessness, but there are many out there being discriminated against and suffering in physical and spiritual poverty.

Booted from Starbucks

The headline of this article.

The 70-year-old Lisle woman was kicked out of the Starbucks in downtown Glen Ellyn a few weeks ago. She claims it was because employees mistook her as a homeless person, part of a purge the store waged to mollify customers who complained that the coffee shop was overrun with the homeless.
…
When Kilborn refused to leave, police officers responded to make sure she left.

By the time it was over, Kilborn recalls standing outside the Starbucks – fuming.

“I had my coffee in my hand,” she said. “It’s still too hot to drink – that’s how little time passed.”
…
Kilborn says the public needs to learn a little more tolerance.

“People shouldn’t be told to leave after buying a cup of coffee,” she said. “No one should be humiliated like that.”

“Homelessness isn’t just restricted to one county,” said Debbie DeGraw, director of marketing and development for McHenry County PADS.

“It’s an issue for everyone to deal with,” she said. “Yet people are like, ‘not in my backyard.’ Nobody wants it in their communities.”

That’s just human nature.

Legal experts say a public business ordinarily can’t refuse service to anyone. But if a customer is making others uncomfortable, a merchant can ask that person to leave.

However, advocates note, the homeless have rights, too.

When I read the article I just felt compelled to say something about it. Tolerance, our rights and our neighbours. All of us are selfish: we want our space, our rights, our way. It’s human nature. We are taught to share our toys not keep them to ourselves. I’ve heard the phrase “sharing is caring” and in the most part it is true. In a sense optimal benefit is obtained when we share. But our inner most being wants things our way, forgetting that the things or people preventing us from getting our own way are not much different that we are. They are just another human being on this Earth, just like you.

Differences are easy to point out and easy to be used as excuses to not like another person, to ostracize them. Why can’t we all just get along. “Love your neighbour as yourself“: That was what I was reminded as I read the article. Even though you don’t see homeless people in Brunei (which I thank God for, not because that I don’t want to see them, but at least it means there are not that many, if any, suffering with the problem here) the article just reminded me of what am I doing to help out another fellow man. No matter how much you do it can never be enough. Just like the story of a man on a beach full of starfish washed ashore and throwing some back in. It makes a difference to those thrown back in. And in the story, parallels will life can be drawn: some of those starfish will just die out there without anybody to help them. Lost and alone without anybody being there for them.

So as I leave this thought for myself and hopefully anybody else:
Love your neighbour as yourself

Matthew 22:36 – 39
36Master, which is the great commandment in the Law? 37 Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Mp3 Support with Amarok in Kubuntu Edgy

Just a few moments ago I was granted with the following popup message as I tried to play a few podcasts I downloaded
Amarok cannot play Mp3s

I know Kubuntu doesn’t support MP3 playback by default due to copyright/licensing/patent/legal issues, as seen from this part of the ubuntu documentation

Ubuntu strives to make every piece of software available under the licensing terms laid out in the Ubuntu License Policy. Patent and copyright restrictions complicate free operating systems distributing software to support proprietary formats.

Ubuntu’s commitment to only include completely free software by default means that proprietary media formats are not configured ‘out of the box’.

It’s cool that they’ve automated it though: click the install button, supply your password, wait for the package to download and install, restart amarok and it’s all good.
Adept downloading Mp3 support
Kudo’s to programmers, and bleh to non-free standards