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Do you know what SSR08_02 means?

SSR stands for Synchronized Security Release, which means the Java SE release trains 1.3.1_xx, 1.4.2_xx, 5.0 update release and 6 update release are all coordinated/planned together with updates that make java more secure and released at the same time. The SSRs will be released a small number of times each year. SSR08_02 simply indicates that it's the second SSR for 2008.

I believe most of the end users would prefer to get the latest and greatest, which is Java SE 6 Update 7. As of today, Java SE 6 Update 7 are available in a number of ways.

• java.com (the consumer site) - Just point your browser to http://java.com/ and click on the big "Free Java Download" button, you will be presented with installation instructions most suitable for you, which depends on the combination of OS/browser versions you use. Windows users using IE or Firefox browsers will be guided to automatic online installation process (iftw or installshield for the web). Unix users will be guided to manual download site. java.com site always hosts the latest and greatest version.


• java.sun.com (the developer site) - Various versions of JRE/JDK are available at http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp page. Click on the corresponding "Download" button allows you to manually select the specific bundle type you wish to download and install. For example, for Windows version, there are online bundles and offline bundles. The online bundle is a small and compact bootstrap installer that will download additional files during install time. The offline installer is a large complete bundle with nothing else to download during install time.


• Java Update. If you currently have an earlier version of Java installed in your computer (Windows OS only), you can go to the Java Control Panel (on Windows Control Panel) and go to the Update tab to check for update. Windows 98 users will be updated to the latest 5.0 update release, newer Windows users (2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, etc) will be updated to the latest 6 update release.

For the Chinese users (Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese), a few bugs have been fixed that enabled java to provide localized (translated) auto update notification messages to you, instead of showing English messages in the past. Here is what it looks like in Traditional Chinese:

With the CD changer fixed in one car, now it's the time to tackle the radio reception problem on the other car. Physically, I noticed a broken antenna neck/nut that was probably damaged during a car wash.

I did some research on replacement parts, and found that I needed a Hirschmann AUTA 6000 KE. The antenna mast goes for about $90, but I need the whole assembly including motor (actually only the top tube of the assembly is broken, but I couldn't find anyone who sells just that part). The part goes for about $255 on some online stores and $330 at the dealer.

I searched ebay and online retailers and repair shops, and found that R&R Import Parts was selling a similar antenna mast on ebay. The company happened to be located very closely to my place, and the owner Roy Tucker was nice enough to be willing to help me replace the part for a small fee.  From talking with him on the phone, I could tell that he's knowledgeable about this part and knew what it takes to replace it. So, I asked him to order the correct parts for me (antenna assembly plus upper and lower seals) and help me with the installation.

The parts took about 1 day to arrive. I then made arrangement to go to Roy's place on Friday to get the part replaced. Before heading to Roy's place, I have already removed the trunk's carpet and the liner blocking access to the antenna. Here is how.

First, remove the carpet that sits on the floor of the trunk. There is nothing special, just pull it up, the whole piece just comes out.

To get to the antenna assembly, I had to remove the trunk liner on the left side of the trunk. It was held in place by a round retainer. This part is easily broken. I remove it by carefully inserting a chisel under it and slowly pop it up.

With the liner out of the way, the antenna assembly can be accessed. There are 2 screws to be removed. The top one holds the ground wire in place, the buttom one holds the antenna assembly in place. There is also an amplifier there making access a bit more crowded. It could be removed to make the work easier.

With the screws removed, wiggle the whole antenna assembly and pulls it down to remove it. Below you see the old and new antennae sitting side by side. At this time, we unplugged the wires from the old antenna and reconnected them to the new antenna assembly. The most difficult part of the work was to insert and tighten the lower screw, because it was blocked by the amp and it's helpful to have an extra hand to align and hold on to the position of the antenna assembly while another person tighten the screw.

Now, it's time to test it out. Hmmm.. the radio reception was still poor. What happened? I compared the connections on the old distribution box (or antenna signal booster) with the connections on the new box and found something weird.

Here is the connection on the new distribution box:

Here is the connection on the original distribution box:

The new distribution box's labels were wrong. How could this be? The cover panel was assembled upside down! (Hmm... what happened to precision German engineering...). So, the connection from the antenna mast was incorrected connected to the cell phone port! Anyway, I had to pull out the antenna and reconnect the wires. Now the radio reception has finally been regained.

Now, it looks like my original antenna was still in partial working order. The motor and mast still work, just the 'protective tube with neck" on top of the motor assembly was broken. I will try to sell it on ebay to recover some of the costs for the replacement part, and help someone else with a bad motor or mast.

The CD Changer installed in the glove compartment of my car has ceased to function for several years already (it failed to recognize CDs in the 6 disc magazine). Today, after a few google searches, I found a discussion forum that has just the information I was looking for, a potential fix for the problem a lot of people have experienced in their Alpine CD changers. So, I decided to give it a try! For better or for worse.

First, I removed the changer from the glove compartment. That was a fairly easy task of unplugging 2 wiring connectors, since my changer wasn't properly secured to the glove compartment (missing mounting bracket/screws).

Now, with the changer sitting on my desk, remove the screws on the side of the changer as shown below.

Then, pop out the plastic clips to remove the front panel.

Then, remove the springs that suspends the internal casing for anti-vibration using a long nose plier.

Then, remove the 4 rubber bushings by hand, and open up the case as shown below.

Now, the actual repair/adjustment. On the lower left hand side of the picture below, you will see this worm/wheel drive gear. There was a small gap between them, causing the worm to not driving the gear, and therefore, failed to pick up the CD.

To adjust it, I first loosen the screw that's holding the gear in place, using one screw driver to push it closer to the worm gear, while using another screw driver to tighten the screw. I used my hand to rotate the worm a little bit to test out the operation.

Then, I reversed the steps and closed up the case and place the changer back into the car. It worked! Now, I can listen to CDs again :)  All-in-all, it took about one hour of work, and saved myself about $300 of repair bill.

Now, if I can find a way to repair the power antenna in the other car... part of the antenna was broken , so radio reception was extremely poor... I have found some exploded views of the parts, and hopefully I can take it apart and be able to order just the required parts, to save me another $350 (or save me $600 if I let my friendly dealer do the honor).

BMW Ultimate Drive is a fund raising event that donates $1 for every mile driven to Susan G. Komen for the Cure to help fight against breast cancer. The goal is to raise $12 million through the drive across the U.S.

On 6/8, the fleet of BMWs arrived at Concord BMW dealership.

Most of the model lineups were available for the drive: 1 series, 3 series, Z4, 5 series, 7 series, X3, X5, and the new X6.

There was a route map on the cabin of each car that took the participants through about 20 miles of combination city streets, highway, and scenic routes.

Since the X6 was a new model, I took one out for a spin.

That's me behind the wheel.

The X6 is a 4 passenger luxury sports activity coupe. It rides high like a SUV (BMW calls it SAV), yet, the interior gives an intimate feeling of a sports coupe.  The engine smothness and handling was first-rated. However, the rearward vision was almost none. The rear view mirror shows you a small strip of rear window, due to the highly sloped rear-end. Even when I turned my head left to watch out for the blind spot, the vision was also extremely limited. It does have a fancy backup camera and parking sensors to aid parking. Some kind of blind spot sensors or collision avoidance sensors would be useful on this car.

We also drove the X5.

It has more interior space, and the outward vision is much better than the X6. We missed a highway exit and had to drive about 10 extra miles to get back to the dealership with the help of the GPS. The iDrive joystick (or what Motor Trend called "Tumor") took some experiment to program the GPS to take us back to the dealership.

Due to the waiting line and the hot weather, we only drove the X5 and X6 and contributed about $50 of fund rasing to support The Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

The event will be happening at Washington state during the weekend of 6/20-6/23. Then continue to Minnesota (6/26-6/28), South Dakota (6/30), Iowa (7/2, 7/16), Nebraska, and other midwest states and the rest of the country.

Today, May 20th, 2008, is the Inauguration Day for Taiwan's 12th President Ma Ying-jeou (above, right) and Vice-President Vincent C. Siew (above, left). The democracy in Taiwan has once again allowed the switch of power among political parties. This time, the color turned from Green (DPP) to Blue (KMT).

Congratulations and hope to see prosperity and growth in Taiwan.

In the past few days I temporarily put aside the never-ending day-to-day work and attended the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 with free Expo Hall Pass. The pass allowed attendees access to Keynote Sessions, the Expo Hall and Sponsored Sessions. Even though it doesn't provide access to Technical Sessions, it allowed the attendees to gain insight to more than an overview of the Web 2.0 technologies.

Some people tagged the static web pages that people browsed as Web 1.0. It was comprised of static pages linked together. There may be forms to be filled out that get sent to the server, but it lacked real-time interaction or feedback to the users.

In contrast, Web 2.0 is highly interactive. The users don't just browse the web pages anymore, they interact, or even create the web contents. A few examples of Web 2.0 include online maps and social networking sites.

Tim O'Reilly praised Sun Microsystems's vision "Network is the Computer" from a decade ago as foresightful. Sun's vision of being able to do anything or run any applications over the network has already become a reality years ago. Today, Jonathan Schwartz (and also other speakers) talked about a different concept, "Data is the Currency". For a detailed transcript of the interview of Jonathan Schwartz at Friday's Keynote session, please look at this unofficial page.

There are a few buzz words that have been mentioned again and again during this event. For someone who is not yet an expert of Web 2.0 technology, "mashup" was the word of the day for me.

According to wikipedia, "a mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool, thereby creating a new and distinct web service that was not originally provided by either source".

On the Expo floor, Microsoft was demonstrating their popfly application. In the demo, it was used to mashup flickr pictures with "beach' keywords and google maps to create a new application that can display pictures taken on beaches around the world shown on google maps.

Another mashup example was demonstrated in a Sponsored session where a social networking site was mashed up with product review site so that the user can request user reviews of cameras from their contacts who were known to be camera users or photo lovers. The reviews get posted to the product review site for all to view, but they also represent more trustworthy opinions for the particular user who requested the reviews.

Friday's keynotes also included a hilarious session from Fake Steve Jobs where he talked about how he became the Fake Steve Jobs and did his job to make fun of the famous. He was funny in a goofy sort of way. The session was a success. It helped the audience to get energized again after 2 days of dry technical sessions. For the video of this session, please check this out.

Do you know that electric cars were available for lease to consumers 10 years ago in California? Between 1998 and 2003, over 4000 battery powered ZEVs were placed on the road of California by major automakers. There were GM's EV1, Toyota's RAV4 EV, Honda's EV Plus, Ford's Ranger EV just to name a few. What happened to them? Some of them were crashed and recycled, some of them shredded into small pieces. Not many of them survived. Who killed electric cars?

There are a few main suspects.

Consumers: Car companies blamed comsumers for not accepting the increased cost and decreased driving range. In reality many consumers were unaware of EV availability, due to car company's proposterous negative advertising and many consumers only needed to drive an average of 30 miles per day, and there are already charging stations in many places such as Sun's campuses and Costco.

Batteries: The early EV1's have limited range of 60-70 miles per charge. Then improved to 110-160 miles per charge on the second generation. According to studies, Lithium Ion batteries would have allow EV1 to reach 300 miles range at a higher cost.

Oil Companies: There is  approximately $100B worth of oil still to be drilled from Alaska. Fearful of profit impact, they bought pattents of the more advanced NiMH batteries to prevent car companies from using them on their cars.

Car Companies: GM officials claimed that they stood no chance of ever making a profit on the EV1. Each EV1 costs about $80,000 to research and build, but GM was leasing them out for between $299 to $599 per month, based on the suggested retail price of $34,000 to $44,000. Furthermore, car dealers make a lot of profit from their service departments. With fewer moving parts to go wrong, the 5000 miles service for EV1 only required tire rotation, adding washer fluid, and safety inspection. There's no oil or oil filters to change, no smog inspection, no transmission service, no engine repairs.. It's a losing proposition for the car industry.

California Air Resources Board, who established the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate of 1990, caved to industry pressure, and also lost the law suit from automakers, oil industry, and George W Bush administration to revert the ZEV mandate.

So, who is guilty of killing the electric cars?  The oil companies, car manufacturers, and the government all had their priorities toward their own profitability and lost their interest in EVs. Only the consumers and batteries developers still were willing to continue to flight for EVs to become a mainstream reality. So, we have a verdict. 

Consumers- not guilty.
Batteries - not guilty.
Oil companies - guilty.
Car companies - guilty.
California Air Resources Board, and federal government - guilty.

Even though the previous generation of electric cars are dead, I am glad to see a new generation of electric cars being developed. If the production cost could be reduced, there is still opportunity for electric cars to become a reality for most consumers.

PS: this is a partial summary of the movie "Who killed electric cars" to fit a 5-7 minute speech for Toastmasters International.

On Toastmasters's 12/7/2007 meeting, I gave my ice breaker speech. My topic was "five things you don't know about me". 

The idea came from the blog tagging game that if you are tagged by another blogger, you need to write a blog to talk about five things people don't know about you, and pass the tag to five more people.

So, here it goes.

First, a quick intro. I was born in Taipei, Taiwan and raised there until 8th grade. Then, our family moved to Manila, Philippines. I studied at International School Manila until I graduated from high school. Since it would be difficult for me to get into a good college in Taiwan with the American education I received, I applied for colleges in the United States. At the age of 18, I moved to West Lafayette, Indiana by myself to study at Purdue University. After graduation, I thought it would be easier to find a job in California, so I moved to Los Angeles to study at USC for my grad school majoring in Computer Engineering. After graduation, I found a job to work for Sun Microsystems in Menlo Park, CA. I have worked at Sun for about 10 years.

Second, those of you who attended Scott McNeally's speech on curriki probably saw me taking pictures with a Nikon dSLR. I have been taking pictures since seventh grade when I bought my first Nikon SLR (FG-20) and Tamron 28-80 mm zoom lens in Japan. I even have an official fake press ID I received as part of a photography course.

Third, I like the number 8, as does many Chinese. The Chinese or Cantonese pronounciation of 8 is "fa" which sounds like "getting rich" in Chinese. I paid $25 processing fee to have DMV employee searching their warehouse for a license plate that included 8888 on it while I was attending Purdue University in Indiana. Also, the last four digit of my home phone number is 8888.

Fourth, I love cars. I have been to many new car launch or test drive events and car shows. Each time I attend the test drive event, I get some gifts like caps with logos. I have more than 6 of those now. I even paid to have a picture taken inside a Ferrari while visiting Las Vegas. I also bought a Ferrari jacket from Las Vegas's Ferrari store.

Fifth and last, I hate police officers, especially highway patrols. I recently received a traffic ticket for not stopping completely at a stop sign. The last time I received a ticket was in 1998. At that time, I was trying to play poor and talk out of the ticket, but ended up costing me over $1000 dolloar. It costed me $300 for the ticket, then $700 for emergency room visit,  psychiatric evaluation and ambulance ride, because the police officer took my words literally that I could not "survive" after paying such high mulct (fine). Even though I like cars, ambulance isn't the kind I like.

http://www.jrpr.com.tw/java2007/

今年精彩的六大重點主題

主題1：Solaris OS
主題2：Java SE
主題3：Java EE
主題4：Java ME
主題5：NetBeans
主題6：Sun Studio

感謝您對 Java 2007 專業技術大會熱情的支持，
本活動截至目前為止報名已經額滿，
造成您的不便，請您見諒，也希望明年請您繼續支持
由昇陽主辦的 Java 專業技術大會。

雖然活動報名已經額滿，如您有關於昇陽產品國際化或本地化的問題，歡迎留言指教。

Marcos's informative speech about plugin-hybrids and electric vehicles at speakeasy@sun Toastmaster's Club led me to the Electric Auto Association's Rally in Palo Alto in late August, where I witnessed various electric vehicles first hand.

My favorite EV from that Rally was the Tesla Roadster (pictured below). It reminded me of the Lotus Elise.

The Lotus Elise (below)

These two pictures were taken from roughly the same angle. The overall size and shape are similar. The light at the rear wheel arch looks the same. On Tesla Motor's FAQ page, it mentioned: "Lotus Cars is assembling the Tesla Roadster under contract to Tesla Motors. Tesla Motors has also hired Lotus Engineering for certain design and engineering tasks". No wonder!

The Tesla has many attributes that attracted me. First of all, it looks stunning! The look is not only skin deep. Behind the sharp look, it has a zero emmision motor that is capable of pushing the 2-seater from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds, with a top speed of 125 mph and a range of 245 miles.

Now, the negatives. The base price of the car is $98,000. That's more than twice the cost of a Lotus Elise (sticker price was $48,880 for the 2005 model pictured above), and it's not available yet. It's scheduled for delivery in July 2008.

Anyway, I can see potential success for this EV. Even though $100,000 is a lot of money, but there are a lot of people who can afford $100K+ cars, especially for a car that can reach 60 mph in under 4 seconds, which is an acceptable price point for such performance.

In the past few years, I have always been too late to register for Taste of Lexus event. The open slots filled up quickly. This year, I didn't plan on going, but when I logged into the registration web site 2 days before the event, much to my surprise, there were still 3 open time slots available. I immediately grabbed the Saturday 4:00 pm slot and registered a guest.

The event was held at Alameda Point, a former Naval Air Station. When we arrived at the entrance, it was about 4:15 pm. A few new guests were arriving and signing the waiver forms.

After the registeration, we were directed to a small group introduction area where the speaker introduced the layout of the site and the rules of the event. There were Hybrid, Luxury, Performance areas, and some entertainment and food areas.

Because the event ends at 5:30 pm, we didn't have a lot of time to explore all areas. We decided to go directly to the Hybrid area to learn and test drive the hybrids, since it's new to us. There were 3 models for test drive: RX400h, GS450h, and LS600h L. We were able to get on the appointment to test drive LS600h L and RX400h.

First, we waited in the line for LS600h L since it was the shortest line at the time.

At over $100,000, it was the most expensive car from Lexus. "h" in the model name stands for Hybrid, "L" stands for extended wheelbase. This particular car has a 4-seat package where there were only 2 seats at the rear. One of the seats has power footrest and massaging feature.

Then, we went on to wait in the line for RX400h. The line is much longer.

Here is the picture from the rear seat of the car.

After the drive, we still have a few minutes left, we quickly went to the Cucima cafe to get something to eat. The choices were certified angus sliders, grilled lamb, or grilled organic vegitable & goat cheese focaccia. The food was much better than at the C Drive. No wonder the event included the keyword "Taste" in its name. It's quite tasty.

We quickly finishing up our mini dinner and went through the different areas. We only had time to experience about 20% of the event. Next time, we need to register early and grab the earlier time slots. We could spend the whole afternoon here.

My overall impression of the event: food is great, but driving course is short and most of the time is spent waiting in the lines. I prefer the 15-20 minutes of Street Drive from Mercedes C Drive where you get to drive the car for longer and your passenger get to play with the toys inside the car.

In recent years, automobile manufacturers have been promoting their new products with a new kind test drive experience, the kind of test drive events with no sales pressure, freedom to push the cars hard on the track, and party like ambience and food. Lexus has been sponsoring "Taste of Lexus" and Mercedes has "The C Drive" and various other events.

This year, I have been invited back to the Mercedes event, the "C Drive". The event is a little bit different this time. Mercedes used to host test drive events at the Alameda Point where there is space for multiple track courses, and this time, it's at the "Left Space Studios" in San Francisco. It has a "Street drive" and a "Close-course performance drive". Unfortunately, I attended the first day of the event, and they were not ready for the "Close-course performance drive", blaming the traffic between the Studio and the AT&T Park.

After checking in and signing a waiver, we were given a badge to wear around the neck. It was made with JavaCard technology for data storage. It was later used for accessing the survey and claiming of the gift pack.

Unsurprisingly, the event attracted a crowd of young attendees, who are the main customers of the entry level C class models.

Most people went for the food as they enter the studio. There wasn't a lot to choose from this year

Then, we stayed for a brief presentation of the features of the new models.

This year, besides the 2 different engine options (C350 and C300), there are also 2 distinct models "Luxury" and "Sport". The model on stage is the "Sport" model. It features the bold AMG aerodynamic package and AMG wheels (optional). There are C300 Sport and C350 Sport models available to choose from.

The most distinctive feature is in the front end. The grill has been replaced with the style that's found on other Mercedes coupes. It has a big Mercedes star and a flat emblem atop the hood instead of a standing star.

The other model is the "Luxury" mode (the silver car in the photo below)l. It features the traditional sedan grill and standing star. The Luxury model is only available in C300 engine size.

Now the "Street Drive" began. The attendees got into the test cars (pre-production cars, as pointed out by my friend's friend who works for Mercedes as regional manager). Each fleet of five cars were led by a pacer in the front, communicated with walkie talkie. The pacer ensures that the cars following him knew the next turn ahead of time.

Two drivers were assigned to each car. They switch seats in the middle of the course. My co-driver was cut off by a big rig  toward the end of the street drive. We couldn't see the car in front of us and missed a turn. We used the walkie talkie to communicate our location with the pacer and he found us quickly and took us back to the finishing point.

We went back into the studio and hanged around for a little while. Guess what's going on inside this booth?

My guess was a massaging stand. Last year, Ritz Carlton Spa was providing massages on site

Here's the correct answer.

It's a photo booth provided by Nokia. The face of the person has been blurred intentionally to protect his identity.

Will I trade in my current model for the new model? Probably not. I need a bigger car

It has been a good year for Sun. Sun reported its third profitable quarter in a row on 7/30 after close of market, earning $329 million net incoming on GAAP basis, or 9 cents per share, compared with a loss of $301 million, or 2 cents a share a year ago. Total revenue was $3.835 billion for the fourth quarter.

Though it's not time to stop working hard and celebrate, it's nice to take a longer lunch under this nice weather to have a relaxing time, free lunch, beer and live band.

Looking back from where I was, the line was as long as the waiting line for after thanksgiving sale.

After 20 minues of waiting in the line, I was almost there.

People enjoying food.

I am planning to gain some weight

Food all gone on this table.

Stompin Ground Band was playing live.

Their drum. 

On the way back, there was this display of the next generation of OpenWork facility for mobile workforce. Bed included.

and this E6000 Java Coffee machine. Typical Sun-style humor.

 Now, the party is over for the day. Go back to work!!

This blog provides the information to help participants getting started in OpenJDK Localization project. We have received various requests to localize Java into various languages over the years. Now it's your chance to have Java displaying messages in your preferred language!

This blog describes my positive experience on wisdom tooth extraction.