Keith Kim

Set up Mac as an Access Point, and connect Kindle to it

2012-01-23T10:57:00.000-05:00

If having kindle to connect to wifi is a problem, you can set up MacBook to use ethernet to use internet, and set up wifi as an access point. This is very useful with services like "Send to Kindle" and "Kindle It" to send web documents to Kindle for offline reading. I read a lot of technical web pages and reading them while commuting would save a lot of time. But it requires wifi to transfer the documents to Kindle. (Or, pay for the user document service to Amazon over 3G, and non-3G kindle doesn't have this option.)

Tested with Kindle keyboard 3G and Kindle Fire. Great tip.

Source:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2743129?start=0&tstart=0

HOW TO GET IT TO WORK:

A. On your Mac:

Make sure Internet works in general and that internet sharing is properly configured and works with another (Apple) computer / iDevice (Apple device)
System Preferences => Sharing => Internet Sharing (disabled to configure) => AirPort (enabled) => AirPort Options...
Network Name: (alpha characters, upper/lower case mix, no spaces; other characters might work, not tested; space(s) in-between might work, not tested)
Channel: Automatic
Enable encryption (using WEP) => enabled (optional)

Password, Confirm Password: (optional, 5 characters or 13 characters, depending on key length at next step, alphanumeric tested, upper/lower case mix tested, other characters tested but not as the first character)
WEP Key Length: 40 or 128 bit (both tested)

OK to confirm => Internet Sharing (enabled) => Start

B. On your Kindle:

Make sure the network name you chose above shows up, if not select "Rescan".
Connect => Password (optional, if encryption selected above)
Unable to Connect to Wi-Fi Network => set up network
Network Name: (should be properly filled in)
Connection Type: static (switch to)
IP Address: 10.0.2.x (I chose 4 for x)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Router: 10.0.2.1
DNS: 10.0.2.1
Security Type: WEP (WPA, WPA2 so far unsupported by OS X)
Password: (should be properly filled in)
connect

[Mac] Delete backups from Time Macine

2011-12-21T17:59:00.001-05:00

I got disk full message from Time Machine with 2TB external HDD. I found this helpful video showing how to remove (old) backups from Time Machine disk.

[Book] Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World

2011-12-19T21:57:00.000-05:00

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Erlang-Software-Concurrent-World/dp/193435600X

I actually read this book a few years ago. I was searching for a better way for concurrent programming, and found about Erlang, and coincidently, little after Erlang was starting to get some attention. I believe at that time this was the only Erlang book. This book clearly shows and explain how to program in Erlang. Like any other functional programming languages, reading this book was like a wake-up call for me, whose background is mostly OOP and procedural languages. Very enjoyable book.

[Book] Clojure in Action

2011-12-19T21:51:00.003-05:00

http://www.amazon.com/Clojure-Action-Amit-Rathore/dp/1935182595

There are many books on Clojure, and after reading/skimming through most of them, I found this book is the best one to start with. I enjoyed reading this book very much, and I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to know Clojure.

[책] 사장의 본심

2011-12-19T21:46:00.000-05:00

http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ISBN=895276241X

과연 오우너는 어떤 사고방식을 가지고 있을까 하고 궁금해 구입해 읽었는데, 크게 배울것은 없던 책이었다. 중소기업의 사장의 입장이라 대기업의 CEO의 마인드와는 무척 틀릴것이다. 그리고 많은 부분이 사장은 이러하니 이해를 하라 하는 글이 많다. 결국은 사장에게 잘 보이고, 잘 보이는것은 겉으로 보이는것을 무시 못한다는것이 핵심인듯 한데, 이것은 어디에서나 공통된 공식이다.

그래도 읽은만하고, 가장 기억에 남는 부분은, 회의는 소통을 위한것이지 꼭 결론을 내려고 하는것은 아니라는 점이다. 나를 포함해 많은 직원들이 수많은 회의에 시간낭비라고 느낄때가 많은데, 이점을 일깨워준다.

[책] 나는 언제까지 회사를 다닐 수 있을까?

2011-12-19T21:38:00.000-05:00

http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ISBN=8991120571

모든 사람들이 회사를 끝까지 다녀서 은퇴를 하는게 아니라는것을 알게되고는 어떻게 자기 개발을 해야하는지 무엇을 고민하고 준비해야하는지 고민을 많이했다. 자신을 성찰하게 하고 무엇을 고민해야할지 어떤 마음의 준비를 해야할지 생각하게 해준다. 그리고 자신이 소중하게 생각하는게 무엇이고, 하고 싶은일은 무엇이며 가족을 소중하게 생각해야 함을 일깨워준다.

책내용 발췌:

- 한국인 평균 은퇴연령이 53세이고, 한국인 남자 평균 기대수명이 76세 (2010년 기준)...

아마도 미국은 평균 은퇴연령이 55세 정도가 아닐까 싶다.

[책] 고역열차

2011-12-19T21:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.aladin.co.kr/shop/wproduct.aspx?ISBN=8963706508

일본책이면서 저자의 경험을 옮긴것이라는것에 더 끔찍함을 느끼게 해준 책이다. 인기있는 일본책이 다 그렇듯, 어떤 흡수 하는 면이 있어서 하루만에 순식간에 읽어 버렸다. 저자의 경험에 동화가 되면서 나도 그런 (상대적)밑바닥의 삶은 아닌가 하게 생각하게 만들기도 한다. 단지, 갑자기 중간에 스토리가 바뀌는것에 대해 당혹감을 느꼈다. 일본 소설이나 처세술 등의 책은 나와 맞지 않는듯하다. 읽을때는 재밌지만 읽고 난후에의 감동은 없고 거북한 느낌이 든다.

Common Lisp, Web framework, VPS, OSX issues

2011-12-02T23:27:00.004-05:00

Goal:
Develop web apps using common lisp with a web framework on Linux environment.

Environment:
Development environment is OSX 10.6 Snow leopard. Target environment is Ubuntu 10.10 server running on OpenVZ with very small configuration, provided by VPS hosting service.

Issues:
Two widely used common lisp web frameworks: (1) weblocks, (2) hunchentoot. (Use quicklisp to install them.) They both require multithreading support.

1. Development side:

OSX's CLISP binary doesn't support multithreading. I don't want to spend too much time compiling it from scratch just for that. Tried SBCL, and its binary (macport) does support multithreading. Good.

2. Target environment side:

Ubuntu's CLISP package supports multithreading. However, I couldn't install SBCL using apt-get, reporting there's a problem with memory (don't remember the specific message). It turns out that SBCL requires 8GB memory for its GC. However, the VPS has only 512MB memory, and no swap. no SWAP?! That's right -- openVZ does not give swap. I could find a VPS hosting service using XEN, but this hosting service's price is very low, and XEN based VPS hosting service companies are charging almost twice of the company I'm getting service from.

So, in development environment, I have to use SBCL, but on the target machine, CLISP must be used. (Gotta use the same environment!) Some suggested that LISPBOX has Clozure Common LISP and the binary supports multithreading on OSX, therefore use that (lispbox's clozure). However, on the Ubuntu in my VPS, installing LISPBOX is a bit of hassle -- compiling many things. (It's because the LISPBOX binary available on the web is a bit old, and does not install on my headless Ubuntu 11.04 VPS.) Also, I selected Ubuntu to minimize any package compilation, and this defeats the purpose.

I do not have to use common lisp and don't want to waste time on setting up environment -- already wasted good amount of time finding all this -- so decided to go with Clojure instead for frontend, and use clisp for the backend, probably.

Conclusion
I hope my findings help other folks and save their time -- clisp issue on OSX, SBCL on virtual machine based using OpenVZ, etc. And try Clojure. It's cooler than Scala, IMHO.

Apache, Glassfish and JAX-WS

2011-12-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

Install

Environment: Apache, Glassfish 3.1.1 (or here) on Ubuntu server 11.04, behind FW with VIP. Here is the good tutorial on installing Glasfish on Ubuntu.

Start/Stop commands for Glassfish:

glassfish/bin/asadmin stop-domain domain1
glassfish/bin/asadmin start-domain domain1

- For virtual hosting, this page might be a good help.
- For SSL, see this page.

Apache + Glassfish

Usual Reverse Proxy configuration will work fine:

ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8080/
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8080/

JAX-WS (Web Service) "soap:address location" Issue

My apache server is behind a firewall, and has a VIP, then using apache reverse proxy to Glassfish. May be this set up is the cause of my problem, but I was getting the IP in ProxyPass/ProxyPassReverse in the JAX-WS's WSDL page for soap-address:location:
<soap:address location="http://127.0.0.1/myapp/mywebservice"/>

This is a problem for client to generate WS client codes using the WSDL. I spent good amount of time Googling for the solution and found a few things:
1. it's been reported as a bug and is supposed to be fixed before 3.1.1. May be my problem is caused by my environment: FW and VIP.
2. someone actually wrote servlet filtering to intercept the output, and regex the host name to change it to a correct one.
3. another solution was to grab the generated WSDL, save it locally, hand edit it, then upload.

#2 and #3 are all hacks and I applaud for the developers effort, but I did not like those solution because I am too lazy to do any workaround coding for some environmental issue, and do hand edit things each time WSDL is updated. So did more digging and reading, found a simpler solution. In the Apache config for the reverse proxy, just add one more line and it would look like this:

ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyPass / http://127.0.0.1:8080/
ProxyPassReverse / http://127.0.0.1:8080/

I hope this little finding saves other developers' time.

Rooting Nook Tablet

2011-12-02T22:33:00.001-05:00

http://reviewhorizon.com/2011/11/how-to-root-jailbreak-enable-side-load-apk-on-nook-tablet-install-android-market-amazon-app-store/

It'd be nice if I can do some programming on the device directly (and compile too).

Nook SDK: https://nookdeveloper.barnesandnoble.com/tools-services/nook-tablet-sdk.html

Nook Color vs. Nook Tablet vs. Kindle Fire: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/compare-nook-tablet-vs-kindle-fire/379003173/

So far, Nook Tablet looks like it is the best low-end/cost tablet.

Amazon's Kindle source code

2011-12-02T22:31:00.000-05:00

They're available for download at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720

...source codes for Kindle 2nd gen, 3rd gen, 3G, DX, 6" wifi, Touch, and the latest Kindle Fire.

Useful Mac App: Open terminal here

2011-09-20T17:18:00.003-04:00

DTerm
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dterm/id415520058?mt=12
http://decimus.net/DTerm

Open Terminal Here
http://blog.leenarts.net/2009/09/03/open-service-here/

more...
http://maururu.net/2007/enhanced-open-terminal-here-for-leopard/
http://code.google.com/p/cdto/

Visualization

2011-09-15T23:09:00.000-04:00

Great data visualization site: http://flowingdata.com/

Some interesting pages from this site:

Adding my two cents here:

GnuPlot, Python with Scipy/Numpy, PHP -- they are all very good tools for creating charts.
Use Google Chart, JavaScript or Flash for charting.
Search for existing tools first, rather than bang your head on the ground and write from scratch.

Great free kindle ebook from O'Reilly - Big Data Now

2011-09-07T01:32:00.003-04:00

I just started to read this book. It's very interesting and insightful. Big data is becoming more and more important for any business and products. Statistical and analytical approaches to derive meaning out of the data and add values to products is the key to win over competition.

quicklisp

2011-09-06T20:35:00.003-04:00

ASDF doesn't work for me -- I couldn't install it properly on OSX, and it is obsolete anyway. I found quicklisp (http://www.quicklisp.org/beta) instead, and it works quite well.

For Common Lisp, check your Common Lisp version -- I believe it requires at least 2.47.

Simple Steps

wget http://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
Run lisp: $ clisp (or sbcl)
(load "quicklisp.lisp")
(quicklisp-quickstart:install)
; load quick lisp at start up. do only once.
(ql:add-to-init-file)
; check if pkg avail
(ql:system-apropos "<package name>")
; load -- replace <package name> with package name
(ql:quickload "<package name>")

Note

It will create and store downloaded modules under ~user/quicklisp.
Step#5 will modify ~/.sbclrc or ~/.clisprc
quicklisp doesn't resolve dependencies.
clbuild is another lisp package installer.

That's it. Very simple.

Stanford opens some information technology courses to the world

2011-09-03T00:31:00.001-04:00

Courses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and databases will be delivered to virtual classrooms of ten of thousands of students, if not hundreds of thousands.

Book: The Passionate Programmer

2011-09-01T22:47:00.002-04:00

I recently read The Passionate Programmer for the second time. I wish I have read this book years ago.

Get a Kindle
Very convenient and many ebooks are cheaper than printed books.

AI vs. AI. Two chatbots talking to each other

2011-09-01T14:45:00.002-04:00

Mercurial using BitBucket and Eclipse

2011-08-27T21:46:00.001-04:00

If the project is already created in Eclipse, but not in mercurial repository, then:

(1) Create a repository in BitBucket.
(2) Go into shell, and clone from BitBucket which is empty.

e.g. If I have created non-mercurial project in local eclipse called "hello_world":

$ mv hello_world hello_world.bak

$ cp -r hello_world.bak hello_world

$ hg clone https://bitbucket.org/BBUSER/hello_world

http authorization required

realm: Bitbucket.org HTTP

user: BBUSER

password: 

destination directory: hello_world

no changes found

updating to branch default

0 files updated, 0 files merged, 0 files removed, 0 files unresolved

(3) Then move or copy those files from the local project directory into the BitBucket cloned directory.

$ cd hello_world

$ hg add

adding ....

[ommit]



$ hg ci -u BBUSER

$ hg push

(4) Remove hello_world project from eclipse (make sure to have a backup) and from disk.
(5) In eclipse's menu -> New -> Other -> Mercurial -> Clone Existing Mercurial Repository, then click <next> button.
(6) In next dialog, enter URL to the BitBucket repository (get this when the repository was created, or go to the site and find out), username/password.
(7) Click next, next, finish.

...there should be an easier way...

12 Things A Programmer Really Needs To Know

2011-08-26T11:40:00.001-04:00

"How do you answer the question, “what do I need to learn to be a good programmer?” I have written posts trying to answer that question, typically focusing on the languages that you should learn or the algorithms and other techniques you need to know. What about the rest of a programmer’s life? This is a less serious look at the life of a programmer. So, what does a programmer really need to know?"

...

http://regulargeek.com/2010/08/07/12-things-a-programmer-really-needs-to-know/

Selling Yourself: Why? and How!

2011-08-21T11:56:00.001-04:00

Source:
http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/08/selling-yourself-why-and-how.html

I know many good developers who are under the impression that they either don’t have to sell themselves, or selling themselves is wrong, but is that really true?

First let me clarify by defining what I mean by “selling yourself”. I don’t mean “selling out”, I mean marketing yourself, what you’re doing and what your skills are. Especially to your organization.

I don’t need to sell myself, my code speaks for itself.

Really? Do you think your pristine code says enough about your skills especially to a non or semi-technical person? Think back about how many products with fancy UIs beat out excellent products with crappy UIs. The simple fact of life is that marketing is effective and required. Imagine creating a really good product and doing no advertising at all because you think that the product speaks for itself. No one will know about how good it is and no one will buy it.

The only person who can recognize the quality of your code is another developer of equal or greater talent. Now I realize that someone of lesser skill may be able to recognize that your code is “good”, because it is easy for them to read and it looks pretty, but just like a connoisseur of fine wines can distinguish the small differences that really count, it takes a developer of significant talent to recognize excellent code from good or even great code. Being armed with this knowledge it is easy to see why your code will rarely speak for itself.

As a professional developer you have to consider your audience. Mostly the people influencing your career in development are not the highly talented developers who can appreciate your code. In my experience, it is a collective of all developers, project managers, and recruiters. Because of this audience, you must do more than write good code. That good code must be seen and the effects of it must also be seen.

It’s wrong to sell myself, it is politics, I don’t do politics, I just write code.

If it’s so wrong to do, how come so many of us do it when we are interviewing for a new job? It’s like a courtship when they guy is taking the gal out to dinner and buying her flowers and romancing her, but as soon as they get married where did the romance go? Many of us developers are just like that. We polish our resumé and go out looking for the job, dressed up in a suit and tie, presenting ourselves as professionals, but then we get the job and we settle in, we turn off the charm. It’s not wrong to keep the charm turned on, not only is it not wrong, it’s expected.

How about the politics of it? Well yes, there are politics involved in selling yourself, but thinking you can be a technical person and completely ignore politics is a sure way to dead-end you career. Most developers want to reduce the amount of political situations they have to deal with, and I agree with that, but trying to ignore the problem to just make it go away is like trying to make a hungry lion go away by closing your eyes. Even if you are the best hacker in the world people skills are important. It is my strong opinion that every professional, developer or not, should read How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie.

I think there is also a large difference between tasteful marketing of a product or service and offensive or annoying marketing. Just like the XXX spam mail that shows up in your email unrequested, a developer can market themselves in an unsolicited and annoying way. On the the other hand…

There is a right or good way to market yourself.

Selling yourself tastefully takes some practice and thought. It really is a soft skill that must be acquired and thought about. It takes some amount of social engineering. Like all products, the better the product, the easier it is to market. Here are some tips I find useful for marketing yourself as a professional developer.

1. Create a weekly report of exactly what work you did each day of the week. The report should include a brief description of the major and minor accomplishments each day and perhaps a summary or highlight of any major accomplishments you did. Especially mention mentoring or helping other people. Send the weekly report voluntarily to your boss and CC your boss’s boss as an FYI. I know it’s a bit difficult to find a good way to CC your boss’s boss, but try to find a good way to do it that is tasteful. (For example, something like “I thought you might also like to receive these weekly reports I am sending out just as a FYI.” ) The benefit of doing this is two-fold. First, you will be highlighting all the good work you are doing to your boss and his boss, in a way that isn’t like “tooting your own horn.” Second, you will provide yourself a documented history of work you accomplished which is useful for reviews, protection against wrongful termination, and resume building.

2. Update your resumé periodically, and your public profiles, LinkedIn etc. By keeping your resumé constantly up-to-date, you are ready to find a job quickly if you become unemployed. This will give you a safety net, which will allow you to feel more comfortable being a professional and sometimes saying “no”. In addition, opportunities will come to you when you have your public profiles up-to-date.

3. Get a library of books and put them up for display. (Read them, or you are just faking it.) If you have a mountain of books you have read, but they are sitting in a box at home, they are not marketing you. When I walk into a developer’s office and I look at his or her books I can tell many things about them already. When managers walk by and they see someone with a large number of programming books, it says something to them about your dedication and knowledge.

4. If you have certifications frame them and put them on your wall, or on your cube. Yeah, I know it may seem cheesy, and you may get poked fun at a bit. But take it light-hearted and don’t brag about the certification, deep down inside the people poking jabs about certs really are feeling threatened they don’t have certifications.

5. Help other developers, all the time. Be they guy that everyone asks their development questions to. When someone needs help figuring something out, volunteer. Help train the junior developers. Doing this will give you a reputation of being knowledgeable and helpful. Answering questions on Stackoverflow counts towards this if you have time.

6. Prepare some power points and offer to give demonstrations or presentations on a project you did, or a new technology or methodology you want to introduce.

7. Be vocal. Make sure that you are speaking up. In meetings, in design sessions, in general have something to say. Make sure you are not talking for the sake of talking, but contribute information and ideas. Doing this will help demonstrate your knowledge and critical thinking.

8. Make occasional visits to the boss. Make sure you are being seen by management every once in a while and when you do, mention new ideas you have of ways to make your team better or more efficient. Offer to spearhead the implementation of those ideas.

9. Take some risks in order to make things better. Sometimes you have to bet big to win big. Sometimes you have to do a controversial thing, or not get permission before you do something that will greatly improve development quality or output. Increasing developer quality through creating developer tools is very valuable and very visible. Just make sure if you take a risk that if you accomplish it, it will have high returns for the company. People who do things without permission that are stupid get fired. People who do things without permission that are brilliant get praised.

The bottom line is if you’re not selling your self, you’re selling yourself short.

Reference: Selling Yourself from our JCG partner John Sonmez at Making the Complex Simple blog.

Peter's blog: It's official: developers get better with age. And...

2011-06-16T10:15:00.000-04:00

Peter's blog: It's official: developers get better with age. And...: "As a senior developer I get asked sometimes if constant change of technology is making me, well, obsolete. Personally I don't have problem w..."

Agile

2011-05-22T22:54:00.000-04:00

(Updated) jMonkeyEngine + Eclipse = JMonkeyPlatform

2011-05-19T10:19:00.000-04:00

JMonkeyEngine has "jMonkeyPlatform" -- all in one IDE (using eclipse) for jMonkey. No more hassle with installing all different components.

Google Chrome: Dear Sophie

2011-05-06T17:49:00.000-04:00