That is going to be the home of my latest venture. I am looking to get into Mobile and Social Networking Applications. Hopefully I will be able to incorporate some friends and coworkers talents into this effort. The primary focus will be building applications that integrate the IPhone platform, Android, and Facebook, among other things… so if you are reading this and know something about IPhone development give me a holla.

Other good news… I have subversion up and running…

Just needed to update my packages and reinstall and get rid of the authz setup I was trying to use… Il revisit at a later date, but for now I just need a place where I and anyone else chooses to work with me can quickly post their stuff and pull down the latest version. CVS is nice and all, but it is too much of a pain to use, so I wanted to try something new… Since I am jumping back into Java, jumping into Web Services, and jumping into Android… might as well jump into a new Versioning software now.

Also managed to get the SMS receiving code to work… progress progress progress…
Coming Soon to Tha Moz.

Ok… so this Thanksgiving weekend started with My Brilliant Dissertation Idea being summarily shot down. Next, my car picked up a piece of garbage the waste management company forgot on the day before I was supposed to head down south. At the same time, my sinus infection that made me actually miss a day of work, came back with a vengeance. $340.00 18 hours later, I got a new tire (they had to order it from the warehouse), and was starting to feel better, of course I was not really in a position to make the drive now… so I got stuck in MD. Of course by then the trip was dead.

Turns out Thanksgiving was cool anyway… Good food, good company, and much needed rest. I’ll go see the fam in a couple of weeks.. and I got my first Android app to work in the emulator after waaaay too much effort. I also managed to finally get my Ubuntu server up and running, Apache, Tomcat, Axis2, everything except that stupid Subversion… is it really that hard to make a simple to set up versioning s/w? Wow!!

Anyways.. Weekend isn’t over yet… To Be Continued?

re Android: Ill gripe about the PITA that the Google Maps API Key vs the Google Maps API Key for ANDROID vs ANDROID Signing, keys, MD5 hashes, etc etc etc mess entails and the PITA that is the emulator, not to mention the mish mash of version and conflicting documentation and books on the market in another posting.

Thats the story line that I clicked on. It seems that Apple. is voiding warranties for just this reason. The tagline is a bit misleading because there is nothing that says that Jobs decreed this, just that it was in fact taking place. I agree that smoking sucks and is bad for you, but I dont like this. Next they’ll void warranties for people who eat sugar or drink soda, or do anything else that a company doesn’t like that has absolutely nothing to do with whether an overpriced computer should work.

It is impossible for me to notice that I have never seen one group of people as consistently on the wrong side of issues as the House Republicans. I just read this article about their opposition to Net Neutrality. The over simple version is that over the past 10-15 years, the telephone and cable industries have increasingly become a monopoly enterprise. These are the same businesses who bring the Internet to residential and business customers. History shows that without intervention and regulation from government, these businesses are slow to roll out broadband and other services to some of their customers, particularly in rural and certain urban areas. When the services do reach the customer, there is insufficient choice in products made available. Net neutrality in a nutshell: Net neutrality basically keeps the Internet as is mostly is today, a market driven enterprise, versus what many of these corporations desire, which is more control over what is available, and to whom, and for how much… this is akin to how TV networks can block out the local sports event if it doesn’t sell out. Guess which side the House Republicans support? It would be great if some technically savvy individuals who weren’t bought and paid for would run for office for a change.

Here is Google’s take on Net Neutrality (disclaimer, they are against it, as Net neutrality is in their interest as a non-ISP and content locator and provider with an array of bandwidth intensive applications).

In reference to my post from a couple of months ago. I have realized that Java’s default garbage collection tools really… no I mean really… Suck… I wrote a simple jdbc app, does a select builds a persistent object and writes it to xml, and repeats the process a couple of thousand times. This app nulls out objects as soon as they arent being used and even calls for garbage collection and still it can use 500-600-700Mb of RAM at a time. There is definitely something to be said for pointers and manual management of memory space. Java may be (part of) the future, but unless they get things better it is going to be a future full of crappy resource wasting applications.

Dont get me started on the crappy selection of Java XML parsers. Each one seems to do some piece of the puzzle either really well or passably, but flunk the rest miserably. Is it really that hard to make a complete XML parser?!?!?!

!End Rant!

Well, one more semester in the hole, one more A on the transcript. I found another year of funding…. It really sucks that I missed UPE by 0.03 GPA points. Anyways.. I am now back on the dissertation hunt. Word on the street is that about 1 out of 3 students who get to where I am (Dissertation I) without an approved idea paper finish up. On the positive side, I think that I will be able to find a dissertation topic soon to start on a new idea paper, I am hard at work… even if it seems like I am slacking. I am giving myself this year to get something rolling. If I have something moving by June… Ill probably finish.. if not.. well.. not going to think about that right now.

Well,

Barring a miracle it looks like my pursuit of the PhD has come to an end. I have run out of financial aid as I complete my final coursework. There is funding available, but I don’t think that an 8.5% loan is the solution. I have not yet exhausted my funding search, but… given the economy and other factors, I think this may be it. On the positive note, college loan rates reset on 1 July.

I’m only mad that I didn’t see this coming 6 years and $78,000 dollars ago. I could have earned just about every cerification available over that time and money… CEH, CISSP, CCNA, etc. Oh well… stuff happens for a reason.

Well, I went back to INSYTE in Alexandria, and got a 845/900 on my Security+ exam… So.. I am now a certified “Security guy”. I’d like to get the CEH and CISSP before I am done, but they are a long way off, particularly the CISSP.

There (attackprevention.com) are (elamb.org) many (techexams.net) opinions (certcities.com) about (velocityreviews.com) the value of the Security+, but I needed it and am glad its done now, 8570.1 can’t stop me. Oh yeah and a big thanks to 5 hour energy drink.

A quick look at the Java 1.6 Release notes highlighted by a Slashdot story that the new garbage collection technology is only usable for people who purchase a Java Support contract.

I hope this is not a product of the Oracle buy out. If it is, this a bad signal for the Open Source implementation of Java, and even worse, a blatant money grab in the middle of a global economic recession.

President Obama stopped by our local Five Guys today (usatoday.com). We just missed him on our lunch run. Third time he has been within a half mile of the job… one of these days maybe somebody in our office will actually see him in person, lol. Say what you will about his politics (I am a supporter), but you gotta admit the man is the coolest president we have had since I’ve been alive (1980-on).