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Thursday May 26, 2005

[Help Wanted] Where are the dolphins?

I always believe I still carry a young and innocent heart, that why, my girl friend always call me childish, that's another story. Well, this has all change after I read Tor Norbye's blog last night . Thanks Tor!

In his blog, he pointed "deceptive" picture, where most kids who see the picture see dolphins. I just can't! Here's the picture:

I had spent a good 30 minutes last night just to locate dolphins from the picture,this include rotate my monitor, change brightens and contrast of my monitor, change color, photoshop it and layer it and others, but where is the damp dolphins?

Could u help? this is very urgent.Thanks! 

Tuesday May 24, 2005

Top five non technical reasons why u have to use eclipse Number 5: You work for IBM or IBM Partner.
Number 4: You are open source developer, and you are developing modules for eclipse
Number 3: You preferences of IDE is by alphabetical order, so your list of IDE will be eclipse, follow by emac, follow by jbuilder, NetBeans is at the middle of the list.
Number 2: You somehow misinterpreted SWT to Java Swing Technology, and believe it's portable.
And number 1 non technical reason why u have to use eclipse:
You don't believe “eclipse” will bring bad luck to your project, see note 1.
Note 1: My Grandma used to told me not to go out during eclipse, or something bad will happen to me. I believe her 100%..trust me!
Ha ha, enjoy! ( May 24 2005, 05:23:46 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [5]

Please change your email subject before replying a email

I feel annoy when receiving a reply email, where the email content are not related with the email subject. People are just “lazy” to compose new email, and fill in address field with new email subject, they simply wanted hit reply button, where the addree is pre-filled, even if the content is not related to the subject. Here's what happen to me today.

(Phone ringing)
Me: “Hello, James Khoo Speaking”
Wong: “Hello, James, this is Wong, could u send me your project status report ASAP. I have send u a email to remind u this morning.”
Me: “No, I did not receive any reminder email from u this morning.”
Wong: “ I did send!”
Me :No, you didn't”
--- One Minute later ---
Wong: “ OK, OK stop fighting like a child, Could u check your inbox now.”
Me : “OK, opening my inbox, let me check, you did send me a email with subject of “[RE:Wanted to see Star Wars III this Friday?]..but I didn't receive any reminder email from u”
Wong: “Tha't the reminder email, check the content"
Me:"Then in the first place, why don't u cange the email subject.."
Wong:"...."

What do you u think?

Tuesday May 17, 2005

[Tips]: Boost your WIFI Data Transfer rate! Check this out,  and let me know the result...enjoy! ( May 17 2005, 07:11:04 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Monday May 16, 2005

[My First Comic] Software Wars III - Revenge of the.. This is my very first comic. All characters are created from Planearium web site which I discovered from my friend Paul's Blog. At the same time, I also found another great blogger, introducing the only Sun Supper Support Girl, very fun blog to read! Anyway, here we go ...
Note: (All characters's name has been altered to prevent any legal issues...peace!!)












  Well, we know which side will eventually win, right? Hope u enjoy this short comic ..... and May the Force be with U !!!

( May 16 2005, 03:27:32 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [3]

Friday May 13, 2005

[Tips] Wanted to use Log4j with Sun Java System App Server 8? I prefer log4j over JDK 1.4 logging library, hera are some of the "obvious" reasons: How about log4j comes with more appenders compare to JDK1.4 Logging, it easier to configure, and support many layouts. However, log4j does not “sits” very well in our App Server, some of identified problems are: 1.Deployed logging configuration file (i.e. log4j.properties) is totally ignore, even we put in correct class path. 2.Logger ClassCast Exception upon restart of an application server instance. A further investigate reveal that our Apps Server use JDK1.4 logging (i.e. Java.util.logging) via apache commons-logging, which should be avoided according to this article http://www.qos.ch/logging/thinkAgain.jsp, I agree. So, here's propose “work around”: 1.Write you own log4j wrapper class. Refer to “Ch9, Log4j, the complete manual” by log4j author Ceki Gülcü for more information on how to write a good log4j logger wrapper class. 2.Create a new Logger Manager, which will a)Configure log4j properties if is not configured yet b)Return the logger wrapper class to calling class. As an example of such Logger Manager class:

   1:
   2:public class MyLogManager {
   3:    private static boolean isLogPropertiesConfigure = false;
   4:
   5:
   6:    public MyLogManager() {
   7:    }
   8:
   9:
  10:    public static MyLog4JWrapper getInstance(String logInstance) {
  11:        try {
  12:            if (!isLogPropertiesConfigure) {
  13:                PropertiesConfiguration pp = new PropertiesConfiguration(Constants.PRJ_PROPERTIES_FILE);
  14:                String configFile          = pp.getString(
  15:                        "log4j.properties.file");
  16:                FileInputStream istream = new FileInputStream(configFile);
  17:
  18:                Properties props = new Properties();
  19:                props.load(istream);
  20:                istream.close();
  21:                PropertyConfigurator.configure(props);
  22:                isLogPropertiesConfigure = true;
  23:            }
  24:        } catch (Exception e) {
  25:            System.out.println("Error :" + e.toString());
  26:        }
  27:
  28:        return new MyLog4JWrapper(logInstance);
  29:    }
  30:}

   1:public class MyClass{
   2:      static MyLog4jWrapper log= MyLoggerManager.get(MyClass.class.getName());
   3:
   4:               
   5:                       
   6:      public void someMethod() {
   7:             log.debug("Testing...");
   8:      }
   9:}

Thursday May 05, 2005

[FireFox Tips]: Edit and Preview CSS on the fly Do you know that you could edit and preview CSS on the fly using Firefox, great tool for any web page designer, here's how: 1. You have to use FireFox 1.0 and above (Isn't that obvious?) 2. Download and install Web Developer extension. 3. Once installed, a new toolbar name "Web Developer toolbar" will be made available. As shown in figure below: 4. To edit CSS on the fly, visit any website, pull down the CSS button, and select edit CSS. Firefox will split the browser window into two panels, the left panel shows CSS associated with current web page and rigth panel shows the web page. You could then edit CSS and preview the changes on the fly. 5.To demonstrate,I change the text alignment of a left column and color of right column of the table , as shown as picture below Isn't that cool?, Enjoy! ( May 05 2005, 09:30:17 AM MYT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Monday April 18, 2005

Photos from My recent Beijing Trip I am very lucky.. attended Sun Enterprise Web Services Product Master Training at Beijing last week. Eventhough we are on a very tight training schedule (From 8am to 6:30pm), My Wife (see note A) and I "manage" (see note B) to visit some of the Beijing famous spots, here are some of the photos:

At Tianan'men Square, which  is the heart of Beijing and of China
A date with Chinese Peking Opera at "Lik Yaun"
English subtitle at Peking Opera, in case you don't understand what's going on..!
Summer Palace, looks at my tummy, I am so fat!!!
Dinner at Fangshan (Imperial), it was opened in 1925 by chefs who used to work in 'royal kitchen'
The "yummy" starter dish at Fangshan..
and Finally:

The Great Wall!

Note A: I am not officially married yet..but since Joyce and I has been stay together for pass 5 years, sometime I am a bit confuse about her roles she could be my Girl friend, Home Minister, or Wife base on number of parameters. Anywhere, official or un-official, she the only one I love.
Note B:This note is for my boss, Bernard, in case he read my blog..I swear I did not skip any classes..I attended very track on Application server, and our tools you have ask me to attend..peace!

 

Tuesday April 12, 2005

Tips: Making Hibernate 3.0 work with Sun App Server 8.1 I am struglling a bit recently on making a J2EE references architecture (JSF 1.1 + Hibernate 3.0) work for our Sun App Server 8.1. for a local project here. It work finally, here what I have learn:
1. Remember to catch the runtime exception in your java program whenever you calling any hibernate functions. Most of Hibernate exceptions are runtime, which mean by default most of programmer, including myself will "forgot" to catch it, and issue printStackTrace( ) to find out the actual cause of the problem.
2. Hibernate require few reflection permissions for data mapping and reflection, adds the following permissions to your appserver  server.policy, which is located  at $AppServer8InstallDir/domains/domain1/config.

grant {
permission java.util.PropertyPermission "*", "read";
permission java.lang.reflect.ReflectPermission "suppressAccessChecks";
permission java.lang.RuntimePermission "getProtectionDomain";
};

and finally

Wednesday March 30, 2005

Addicted to Blogging? Clingan started an interesting discussion about Blog investment!, which trigger me a lot of thinking, ever since I started my blog here in Sun, I have spend at least two hours a day on blogging, this include read and comments other people blogs, and prepare my blogs (a lot be tossed away. Recently, I discover that, this first things come to my mind every morning is what to blog today! Oh my god!

Do you think I am addicted to blog?  Find out more from here.
( Mar 30 2005, 09:09:47 AM MYT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Tuesday March 15, 2005

Finally, I got my resident evil 4 for GameCube!

I am so happy this morning, My colleague Edward has return from the CEC trip...no, no this is not the reason I am so happy about, err, no,no, is not that I am not happy Edward is back to office...but the "main" reason is Edward 'do' remember to buy this game "Resident Evil 4 for GameCube" for me, to bad, can't kiss his face...

I am so happy that I even borrow my friend's camera phone and shoot a picture of it, and share with u The game score more then 95 from most of console magazine.  Can't wait to play this game today!

FYI, It's very difficult to get Nintendo Games in Malaysia, I always ask someone to buy me a couple when they visit USA. Next is the upcoming "Zelda" series by my idol Miyamoto..
  ( Mar 15 2005, 12:02:06 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Monday March 14, 2005

Broadband for free? My ISP charge me Malaysia Ringgit 88 a month for a 1 Mbits ADSL connection (~= US 24), which consider quite high in this region. So, I am seeking alternative or ideas on lowering down my ADSL connection fees for the past few months, an idea, which base on our utilities computing comes to my mind this morning.. You see, I hardly spends more then 4 hours per day doing online things at home, so my PC together with my ADSL connection is consider “Under Utilize”. I believe the same goes to all my neighbor PCs, all presume "under utilized". So I am thinking if I can some how convince my neighbor to install Solaris 10 on their PC, and they all go and setup a virtual container for public access. We then create a grid of all these virtual containers, install some software for access control, and exchange this grid computing will my ISP in return of free broadband access..will this work? Will any ISP buys this idea? ( Mar 14 2005, 03:19:00 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Friday March 11, 2005

am I sexy/handsome today?"


No, I am not asking u to rate on my looks, so please please don't comments on that subject (too scare to find out the result). This is a blog about an “interesting” conversation between me and our lovely administrator Wei Nee about how to boost self confidence, here the conversation..

Me: - “Wei Nee, do u knows that everyday before I step out to work, I will looks into mirror, and said to myself how good looking am I, the eye is so charming, hair is so 'sparkling'.. This will make me full of energy for that day”..

Wei Nee: - “ ke ke....ha...” (Laugh till tear drop, for a good 3 minutes)

Thursday March 10, 2005

Another advantage of blogging at Sun Google have put my webblog as the first place when searching my name "James Khoo"..even if I just entered one blog so far. cool!

I can't even get top 50 few months ago. There are so many person sharing same name with me.
( Mar 10 2005, 03:57:53 PM MYT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Wednesday March 02, 2005

5 Years at Sun! It's my habit to check my Sun's email prior of any of my morning activities, this include my not so regular Yoga routine, news paper, bath, and my breakfast (FYI, My Nerd score is 87, so you can imagine that).

So, this morning I saw a email with header "Service Award Notification" from unknown email account, while my mind still on "waking" stage. My first reaction is to move the email to the trash folder as I though this is another spam email. While dragging the email to trash folder, I saw our CEO, Scott's Name appear at the bottom of the email, "Hold on, something is very fishy, hm, let me check the email"

I then realize today mark my 5 year services at Sun, and Sun is awarding me on a range of gifts I could chose from a dedicated web site, cool!

FYI, Sun is the coolest /longest company I ever work with, we are surrounded by so many talented people, with so many cool technologies and products, I strongly believe that our business are back on track and our share price will hit to $10 very very soon.

It's been a great 5 years experience here in Sun, and I don't plan to leave anytime soon, as the award for 10/15/20 years service are more attractive...! Cheers ( Mar 02 2005, 09:20:24 AM MYT ) Permalink Comments [2]