Category: Tech News

I had open source Imgshow Plugin for Windows Live Writer on http://imgshowlivewriter.codeplex.com/

See this article for tutorial on how to use: http://fyhao.com/2010/12/computer-and-it/windows-live-writer-imgshow-plugin/

At this time, Google Doodles make its most interesting logo shown to world’s audience. With 5 artists, who taken 250 hours and drawn 17 images, with 17 different holidays / culturals.

Learn more on Google doodles: http://www.google.com/logos/

I, with Alvis Chen, had attended 2 days of Malaysian Government Open Source Software Conference 2010 (MYGOSSCON) helded in Putrajaya International Convention Centre, Putrajaya, Malaysia. This event helded from 2-3 November 2010 to spotlight the latest trends and developments in OSS. I will blog this event for what we see and what we learnt from here, started by the brief description of this event, and followed by what we had experienced there.

This is the first time we attend this important annual event in Malaysia, MYGOSSCON, which started from 2007, the 4th event in this year, which focused on open source implementation and opportunities discussion and forum in our country. The goal of MyGOSSCON 2010 is to provide a forum for decision makers, academia and IT practitioners to share, exchange and refresh ideas and information using real OSS examples, practical information and strategies.

In this event, there are 40++ booths from various companies, which from local or foreign countries, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, Novell, as well as government agencies and private sectors in Malaysia. There are 20++ presentations, talks, tutorials regarding open source and cloud computing, from various well-known speakers, that to be helded in parallel session. Before that, prize ceremony for three competitions had been announced.

Started by the open and welcoming talks by YAB Tan Sri Muyiddin bin Haji Mohd Yassin, the deputy Prime Minister from Timbalan Perdana Menteri, followed by opening talks about open source implementation stories implemented by Malaysian Government, from 2000. Year 2002 approved by Cabinet, 2004 the OSCC had been organized, started from 2007 annual MYGOSSCON to be organized, 2009 the first 24 hours web development programming event to be helded, followed by this year, 2010, the longest OSS programming event, 36 hours of web development contest, will be recorded in The Malaysian Books of Record. Prize presentation by deputy Prime Minister for 36-Hour OSS WebDev Contest Awards, Central Zone Schools OpenOffice.org competition Awards and Public Sector OSS Case Study Awards to be helded afterwards.

Presentation

In first session the wonderful keynote session by 4 speakers, sharing us about how OSS be an innovation for National Transformation towards vision 2020 by Dr. Nor Aliah; initiatives in boosting the local OSS industry by Badlisham Ghazali; The key to innovation by Open Source Start-ups from Mr. Timothy ney, Linux Greenhouse, USA, as well as Growing an Open Source Economy with competence at the Center by Mr. Michael Tiemann, Open Source Initiative & Red Hat Inc.

Started from second session there are concurrent sessions to be organized, the presentations we have attended followed by cloud computing opportunities in Government by Prof. Bu-Sung Lee from HP Labs Singapore and Android User Interfaces – Supporting Multiple Screen by Mr. Yap Wen Jiun, lecturers of MMU. Lee introduced us what cloud computing all abouts, benefits of cloud, challenges of cloud to be implemented, and HP works and goals to cloud. Yap presented us different Android Phones which have different screen size, taught us the keynotes to design the screen for achieving compatibility over different-sized Android Phone.

Followed by third session we have attended the tracks with topics of Open Data Private Access by Mr. Gunesh Raj from Content Farmer; Open Source for Mathematics and Engineering Research by Mr. Tan Chin Luh from Trity Technology; and Java Servlet 3.0: Ease of Development, Pluggability and Asynchronous Support by Mr. Lee Chuk Munn from Oracle. In first talks, we learnt that the private information such as our health records, or any other personal information, which of different types such as text, images, video, audio, can be shared with open data format, therefore can be received through special private tunnel. Secondly, Scilab, an open source engineering software similar to Matlab proposed by Tan, giving us another powerful tools applied in engineering fields. Third, the most interesting for me the new features shown in Java Servlet 3.0, how powerful of the improvement of development part, lesser configuration, auto and pluggable of external framework with supported web fragment, and new things about asynchronous support in Servlet, which having non-blocking process inside servlets to increase the efficiency of servlet by able to accept more HTTP requests. Long process can be run in another back-end thread, and the former request thread can be suspended to serve another requests, and when the back-end thread completed, the request thread raised again to response the information to user. Look like Comet strategy.

Followed by 3 November 2010 the fourth session about Smart Camera Project; MyID Implementation and Organizational Intelligence using Gatekeeper and Vanilla; and PHP – Security. Smart Camera Project is something camera that is able to predict something may happened in the near future then immediately alert person-in-charge such as guard to do something to reduce the unhappy issues happens. Not very interested for this. Next, MyID implementation that targeted Malaysian Citizen that using IC Number to identify unique users. It is supposed to be used in single sign on in the governmental website, e-business website and any other website to make user convenient. It can be used in anything. If not mistaken. Third, the most interesting of the sharing about PHP Security. Looking for different opportunities for the hackers to hack our PHP system. Approximately 60% are the new knowledge that we gained from the speaker. Will try it later on. Had improved our knowledge in PHP security, how to make our system more secure.

Followed by the fifth session about Web-based Time Attendance and Leave Management System and The lost art of speed: dyno test your php application. First talk is about the system developed by Prof Dr. Md Gapar Md Johar from MSU, how they apply real time biometric system inside this system that used in their university. Second one is about the uses of tool named as XHProf?

Lastly, the forum session about the future of Cloud Computing, by chairperson Mr. Alan Tong, International Data Corporation (IDC) Asean, as well as the three fellow panel members: 1. mr. Daniel Ng, Red Hat Inc; 2. Dr. Dzahar Mansor, Microsoft; 3. Mr. Ray Davies, IBM Software Services. They had discussed how their companies to innovate, invest in cloud computing, introduce different types of clouds, the benefits of cloud to different level of users. Say why we need cloud, what the cloud give us. And based on the current situation of Malaysia had discussed the implementation of cloud computing opportunities in Malaysia, and had discussed how OSS can boost the cloud computing.

Final session is about the prize presentation for Best Booth Award, and it was winned by Joget Booth!

Overal, I try to rethink what I heard, see, learnt in this conference. But I know at the time I am writing there are many mistakes and the points I have missed during whole article, so I need assitance in order to complete everything inside. Leave a comment whenever you find anything need to be fixed or added. At the same time, leave a comment also to discuss everything about this conference, open source. This article will be the guideline for me and reader about how Open Source Conference helded in Malaysian going, the keypoints that we can noted, and what we can apply in our industry and our country.

Blekko is another search engine competes with Google and Bing Microsoft. It aims to eliminates unwanted noises of information from the search result and return the truly user want. It applies slashtag method to power the search, by giving mary/girl, you get the girl who named Mary, by giving CD/amazon, you get the CD from amazon. It is amazing and you can create your own slashtag as well.

Blekko is now in beta mode.

Below is the text that believed it was the objective of Blekko doing another gang of search engine:

web search bill of rights

I as Khor Yong Hao, Gan Chee Tak, Alvis Chen, had attended 36 Hours The Longest Open Source Software Programming Events of Malaysia around 6 October to 8 October 2010. We are representing the Team named as ColourWeb. This competition is organized by MAMPU (Malaysia Open Source Conference), located at EPF Institute, Kajang.

In this competition, we had learnt many new things. At first, we have less experience in Linux last time as playing Amazon EC2, but we managed to setup and install whatever requirements in the process of building web application and stuffs. The most important we learn is good process of team collaboration. We help each other with our own profession. Sharing is the best word to say at here. We promote open source, promote sharing. We are good team collaboration players. But at the same time our weaknesses is less experience in designing big projects. Through this competition, we know our perspectives and know how to handle it in the near future.

This is not the end of the spirit, and also not the end of this post, to be continued…

SmokeScreen, a project utilize JavaScript and HTML5, to convert Flash into pure HTML5 + JavaScript, therefore user can browser the Flash animation without Flash Plugin.

Chris Smoak, a programmer, recently started a project called SmokeScreen, to convert Flash into pure HTML5 + JavaScript, therefore user can browser the Flash animation without Flash Plugin. Here have some fantastic demo.

SmokeScreen totally run inside the browser, it reads SWF binary file, decrypt it using local JavaScript Online!!!, it retrieves the images and sound data from the SWF, convert them into Base64-encoded data. Then, it converts its vector graphic into SVG animation. We can use Google Chrome to open Web Inspector. During the time the demo running, you can see SVG is running in the real time. SmokeScreen also designed his own ActionScript compiler.

Most importantly, this converted animation can be viewed inside iPad and iPhone as well.