Category Archives: Computer Science

Ubuntu-lu

I just would like to tell you that a Luxembourgian Ubuntu-LOCO team is on it’s way. We’ve got a wiki entry, a mailing list (ubuntu-lu@lists.ubuntu.com) and an IRC Channel (#ubuntu-lu) on Freenode.

At the moment I hope that some Lilux (LiLux – GNU/Linux User Group Luxembourg) members will help me to get some people motivated to join, it will be quite a problem, to get a critical mass of members, otherwise.

Once we are a bunch of people we could try to do some Ubuntu Advocacy.

Computer-related fairs and exhibitions can certainly benefit from an Ubuntu presence! The LoCoComputerFairHowTo suggests ways to organize a booth, volunteer staffing, et al. Canonical can help with CDs, and in the future hope to have a conference pack with posters and related materials.

Another possibility for advocacy is to help ensure that Ubuntu gets coverage in your regional press. There are Linux magazines all over the world that highlight and review distributions in every issue, sometimes even distributing CDs. Help us get Ubuntu in the magazines you read! Those magazines also sometimes want to interview local people who are using the distribution – share your success stories.

UbuntuFriendlyHardwareSuppliers describes how you can organise contacting and listing PC suppliers in your area, asking if they supply Ubuntu friendly (or even preinstalled!) hardware.

If Perl is dead…

If Perl is dead, then it is by far the most vital, active and useful deceased programming language I have ever come across. Perl is, in fact, alive and thriving, and it is uniquely suited to a variety of programming projects with its flexibility, power, and extensive code base. I write in Perl because it provides everything needed to support enterprise software applications. I write in Perl because it is actively being maintained and developed. I write in Perl because nothing else gets the job done better: long live Perl.

Doesn’t really need a comment, or does it? :)

Found @ Perl is Dead. Long live Perl on O’Reilly via Digg.

Programmer Personality Test

For whatever it is worth, though I guess it’s not worth much:

Your programmer personality type is: PHTB

You’re a Planner.
You may be slow, but you’ll usually find the best solution. If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

You like coding at a High level.
The world is made up of objects and components, you should create your programs in the same way.

You work best in a Team.
A good group is better than the sum of it’s parts. The only thing better than a genius programmer is a cohesive group of genius programmers.

You are a liBeral programmer.
Programming is a complex task and you should use white space and comments as freely as possible to help simplify the task. We’re not writing on paper anymore so we can take up as much room as we need.

If you’d be interested to do the test, here’s a handy link.

LDAP on a mobile phone

Yesterday evening while laying in bed, I once again had one of this strange thoughts. And again I was too lazy to get up right away and note it down. Anyhow.

Have you ever thought about why we do not have any LDAP support on mobiles? (Now this might exist somewhere, but to this date I have never heart of it.) Imagine kicking of the telephone book you are used to and switch for a national solution to the problem of “How on earth am I supposed to find the number of this and that person”?

We’ve certainly all been subjected to the case where we just couldn’t either remember of find a number in our digital or not address book. What was the solution? Well, either call a service who is going to query their database for you, or look it up in the telephone book (if then the telephone book is listing mobiles).

Now, instead of having a telephone book for the wired connections, we could have one for mobiles as well. Heck, best would be to only have one decent register on where one has to search.

Now imagine you are on the way, say somewhere in the country side. And as many people nowadays you carry your mobile with you just about anywhere. While sitting somewhere under a tree (heh, I can even try to be romantic) you suddenly want to call an old friend of yours.

Virtually impossible at the moment, it might not be in the future.

Now, getting back to LDAP support on a mobile. Imagine if there was a national LDAP service running, where you could type in the name of the person you want to query it for (intuitive, isn’t it) and it would give you as you type your results (imagine the “as you type” part once the input of the user has reached more than 3 or 4 characters – the connection speed and all make it impossible in my opinion to fetch or get a huge new list at every new character the user enters).

Technologically we have it all. I mean, there are Linux smart phones out there. And as many modern day mobiles have (Lord, here we go) Java capabilities everybody could just download an application allowing him to reach this service. The connection speed of the devices get’s better all the time too. GPRS should already be plenty fast, UMTS would be even better.

I can imagine though, that some people would feel uncomfortable with such a solution. After all, it’s your numbers available to just about everybody. And even though there are people who would have their name and numbers in an offline register – read: telephone book – they wouldn’t allow you to have their names and numbers in an online register. After all, every technology involving the internet is dangerous…

I sincerely hope that this service doesn’t exist yet. Not because I will make myself some kind of ridiculous if it does, but because otherwise I could have saved myself some minutes of typing.

Anyhow. Anybody of you got an opinion on this?

Some game quotes

I am playing “Vampire – The Masquerade – Bloodlines” where in the villa of a Malkavian I have stumbled across a note book, with some quotes that I’d like to share with you. And while they might not be that hilarious, they are (at least to me) special enough to be shared.

Perception at once shapes the Mind and rules over Time. Time however erodes human perception and than in wraps the Mind. The Mind is capricious, having various effects on Perception, Time and the Mind itself… with harmony progress is made.

Chaos, like the Mind can be understood only through the scientific process. Order, however, is only as good as the Perception thereof. Time is the key that links the two and bears witness their ebb and flow.

That’s it already for today. Move along.