Maven 2.0.5 is out

Yes the new version of my favorite all time build tool is out with version 2.0.5 , I have been using Maven since its initial version and development life was never the same afterwards.

The guys at Apache promise a seamless upgrade from version 2.0.4 which has already been a while on the market.

Needless to say that I have already downloaded this new version and have it installed on my home pc ..my office workstation will have to wait until I have verified that all the builds indeed work without any hitch.



The version 2.0.6 shouldn't take too long to surface either.

The laureates 2007

Every year for 7 years when I was at the Royal College of Port-Louis ..(a long time back)..February was the month (and still is) when the Mauritian laureates were announced.

The laureates are those kids about maybe 20 of them who due to their high marks in the High School Certificate get full scholarships in big Universities abroad.

In the early years of my time at RCPL my college used to have a considerable amount of laureates and the sound of firecrackers and teenagers singing would echo all throughout the school compound.

The day would be half day and one day in the week was choosen to be holiday , this is why many kids were all eager and praying that the school would have laureates . But over the years the RCPL has produced less and less of them laureates nowadays its the Royal College of Curepipe , RCC , which is dominating like in this year's HSC exams results.

Anyways what really matters is that children who worked hard have been rewarded. But for those of you who might not be getting a state scholarship but still who worked hard and gave the most out of yourselves this doesn't mean failure...loin de la... You will soon realise that HSC is only a fragment of your existence many interesting things lies ahead . A student having 3 As may not always be better than someone with 3 Bs.

Keep striving , keep learning and have faith in yourselves the adventure is yet to begin . Some of you may need to take the exam again but still work hard and it will surely pay off.

Congratulations to all HSC participants !!!

Your phone in 5 years time by Nokia

Lets face it every 5-6 years theres a major change in technology like right now Windows Vista is taking over Windows XP (big change according to Gates), IPod now allows you to make phone calls ..with the IPhone, fried rice is now replaced by ...no this one is not replaceable!..

The following video shows how Nokia believes the future of handhelds would look like in the next coming years ..it looks like a Nintendo DS packed with I must admit ..awesome features!!



As a bonus this is the second part of the video it seems that it was taken from a Nokia presentation



The GUI on the 2nd concept phone is just as cool as the first although it has clearly a different design .

Both models make use of touchscreens which is i believe the way things are going to be for our friends in the future ..now you will have to make sure your hands are clean ..not just for dinner!

Water balloon burst viewed in slow motion

Have you ever wondered how it would look like if you saw a water balloon being punctured with Superman's eyes!!!!!

Well here is what it actually looks like:

Animated Paper Video

This nice video shows animated folded paper I know at least one person who is going to adore this :) and thats specially for her :

A lady with an appetite

This lady was so hungry she ate 183 pieces of sushi in half an hour and 20 pounds of food in one sitting:

The Web 2.0 in video

Check out this great video about the Web 2.0 which i found from boingboing.net .

Filling your Ubuntu 6.10 with goodies

Ok so you just installed Ubuntu like me and you try to play your favorite mp3 .. au claire de la lune.mp3 ..and guess what it just does not play !!!

Now being an expert Windows User you start pondering how on earth this can be .. well thats the problem with Ubuntu , it just doesn't come with the codecs you need to play your favorite videos and tunes.

Well no need to worry there is always Automatix2 ..ok yeah so from the name you know that it automates something ..but what .. well Automatix is a little app that provides a menu showing all the essentials that you require ..including codecs to play MP3 , DVD burners , desktop enhancement utils , VMware , WINE (To run Windows).. and a host of other stuffs which I leave for you to discover.

All you need is to tick which application you want to be installed on your box , click the start button and there you go Automatix starts downloading , extracting and installing your goodies.

Sorry now but i need to rush .. my codecs just finished downloading from Automatix :P.

Now running Ubuntu

Here is what I achieved note wise:

1. Installation

After having finally downloaded my ISO of Ubuntu , I mounted my iso file using Alcohol 100% which is a neat little tool that allows you to simulate a CD or DVD drive on your pc. Afterwards using Nero I burnt it to a CD-RW .Mind you if you want to use a DVD-R or DVD-RW it just won't work.

After like 5 minutes I got my Live CD for Ubunto 6.10 and I merrily restarted my pc with the CD inside. I was pleasantly greeted with the Ubuntu logo and had a quick look at the OS GUI before deciding to install it.

2. GRUB Booloader

However I am getting quiet an issue with GRUB which is the bootloader for Ubuntu (and Kubuntu). GRUB menu list shows Ubuntu and Windows XP in the boot menu screen at startup, however am unable to move the highlighter down to Windows XP for every 6 or so times I restart my pc.It appears that on the boot menu my keyboard is rendered inactive.

I had a similar problem with Kubuntu's GRUB and I still yet need to investigate why this is so. To temporarily solve this PITA I had to modify the menu file for GRUB which showed the different OS installed on my system. So I clicked on Places -> Computer -> boot -> grub .



Now you will see a file called menu.lst . However unlike windows you require to have permissions in Ubuntu (Linux,etc..) to be able to make System Admin modifications. In short you need to be root which is the Super Mega Powerful User of all times in the Linux World, able to delete , rename , edit any file.

To achieve this if you are in Ubuntu you need to log in as root ...whats good is that you do not actually need to restart and enter root in the GNOME login screen ..as it is this just wont work. You need to launch nautilus .

3. Creating a password for root

However prior to that you should create your root password , unlike windows where the Super Admin creates his password at the start of the installation , on Ubuntu the password must be created after the OS install. So here is the command to execute :

sudo passwd root

Enter your current account password , then confirm the new password that you want to set against root.

4. Editing files as root

Now that you are root you need to go to Applications->Accessories->Terminal and enter the following command:
gksudo nautilus

Now you can edit GRUB's menu.lst file at ease. In my case I moved the Windows option up above the Ubuntu boot options .

My Linux Experience

Being a hardcore Windows XP user it took me a lot of years and convincing to finally appreciate using Linux. This occurred mainly because i started working a lot on our office Redhat box.

Last week I thought it was high time for me to boot up on Linux at home too . One of my friends had a Kubuntu live CD so I thought I would give it a try. The live CD allows you to run the OS without from a CD or DVD without actually requiring that the OS be installed on your PC.

This is a good strategy to win Window users over and it worked on me. So after trying out the live CD I was convinced enough to install Kubuntu , which is a KDE version of Ubuntu. I was really pleased to find that it sported all that I required on my home PC , an internet browser called Konqueror , RSS feed reader and even an instant messenger that allowed me to connect to MSN. I was thrilled to find that My.T was working seamlessly and I could connect to the internet without any hitch.

However after a few hours I decided that Konqueror was not the best browser around so I downloaded FireFox2 but was unable to install it. Furthermore I was unable to see any flash enabled websites because the Flash on Kubuntu can be installed primarily only on Firefox browsers. Damn I was annoyed , I searched and searched the web but I learnt that the mainstream version Ubuntu come loaded with Firefox and that it was sporting GNOME instead of KDE.

Now I wanted to get rid of my Kubuntu so as I can later download Ubuntu and install that instead. I thought maybe formatting the 36GB root partion and 1GB swap Linux partions would remedy the problem... I was wrong . I had to actually modify my GRUB config file , GRUB is the bootloader used by Kubuntu, and remove the entries for Kubuntu leaving only those for Windows XP.

After that all that was required, according to my friend and the different sites I visited, was that I needed use a windows bootdisk and perform fdisk /mbr .

So I went into the Phoenix bios set up of my core duo ,to boot on diskette instead of on CD, only to find out that the vendor had placed a password for the bios . Reading online i discovered that there was a backdoor password for Phoenix bios which was "phoenix" and which of course didnt work! So now am downloading a bootable CD ISO which would allow me to remove the damn GRUB thing.

In parallel am also downloading an ISO for Ubuntu 6.10 using uTorrent client , which is the best torrent client I've seen so far even better than Azareus.

My Linux experience is yet to be over ..i will keep you updated!

Mine Appollo has a blog too

After all kinds of blogs here is one original blog about mine appollo which is the favorite noodle of the Mauritian nation.

I normally eat mine appollos like at least 3 times a month .Some while back when I was still going to college , I used to eat at least one everyday. I even took 5 packets to South Africa last year and I must say it was just fantastic to enjoy a good mine appollo far from home.

Mine appollo comes in at least 4 flavours there is Shrimp , Chicken and 2 Vegs , if am not mistaken here (please correct me). I love the Veg ones then I can add all kinds of toppings to enhance the flavoring.

On the mine appollo blog you will get all kinds of recipes that you can try at home. If you live outside of Mauritius , I can always send you a packet of noodles by courrier ;).

Maven2 SSH site deploy Tip

Am gonna walk you into how to achieve deployment of maven site from a windows XP machine to a Redhat box, assuming you already have installed maven2 and the know-how to execute commands.

These are the stuffs which you need to perform:

1. Configure your POM.xml by adding the distribution management tag:

< distributionmanagement>
< site >
< id > redhatServer < /id >
< url > scp://HOST /var/www/html/site < /url >
</site >
< /distributionmanagement >

Note: HOST is the ip address to your webserver.

The id element must be a unique name to represent your site.
The url element must point to the location on your remote server where you want to deploy your site. Do note that scp:// is prefixed , this specifies that we are using ssh for tansfer.

2. Edit your settings.xml file ,which should be located under C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\.m2 , by adding the following:

< server >
< id > redhatServer < /id >
< username > USERNAME_ON_REMOTE_SERVER < /username >
< password > PASSWORD_ON_REMOTE_SERVER < /password >
< filePermissions > 664 < /filePermissions >
< directoryPermissions > 775 < /directoryPermissions >
< /server >
< /servers >


USERNAME_ON_REMOTE_SERVER and PASSWORD_ON_REMOTE_SERVER should correspond to your username and password on the remote server (RedHat box).

3. Run mvn site site:deploy

This should now start creating your site and deploying it to your remote server.

4. If you get a nagging prompt that keeps coming like the following :

The authenticity of host '10.206.14.48' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 14:93:e7:25:e5:cb:fe:d9:8b:3f

:c2:81:84:9f:b5:15.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting? (yes/no):

Then all you need to do is create a directory called .ssh under C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\ .

You would require to use the mkdir .shh

Thats all that is required to perform the site deploy, hope it will help you out . I know this post is going to be boring for my not so techie readers :).

The Jeep Waterfall

What if you could draw in a waterfall ?

Leja Leja

Heard a nice indian song called Leja Leja on B4U music the clip is sadly copied from Daniel Porter's Bad day video.

They used to copy movie scripts now even song scripts are being mimicked have a look:



Whats annoying is that the song is actually awesome save for the copied video.

By the way here's Doorie from Atif Aslam , god there are all videos on youtube :

Take care of your car

Jalopnik.com provides an interesting section about car care. Here you will find why you need to check your engine oil level every now and then and how to take care of your car battery.

These are stuff that many of us , including myself ..take for granted and leave it to our mechanics but its very important to do these verifications regularly.

French Special Characters Shortcut

Here is a list of those special characters shortcuts that you always find hard to obtain :

Use ALT + the 4 character codes for these French chars:

133 à (0224)
131 â (0226)
135 ç (0231)
130 é (0233)
138 è (0232)
136 ê (0234)
137 ë (0235)
140 î (0238)
139 ï (0239)
oe ligature (0156)
147 ô (0244)
151 ù (0249)
150 û (0251)

183 À (0192)
182 Â (0194)
128 Ç (0199)
212 È (0200)
144 É (0201)
210 Ê (0202)
211 Ë (0203)
215 Î (0206)
216 Ï (0207)
OE ligature (0140)

A full list of special character shortcuts can be obtained from starr.net .

Adding a flickr badge to your blog or site

This may sound stupid but I never quite figured out where to find the settings from flickr to obtain the javascript code to paste on my blog to be able to get the flickr badge until tonight.. when I finally found the page for the flickr badge.

Turkish PopStar

The turkish Popstar video :



I can't understand a single word that the girl is singing but hey its way much better than Star Academy or a la recherche de la Nouvelle star . Excellent music!

Giant Rabbit in your plate

The North Koreans finally found a way to solve their hunger problems , giant rabbits !

A 67 year old pensioner Karl Szmolinsky has been asked by the North Koreans for his secret in breeding giant rabbits. The rabbit expert has already shipped some of the rodents to Korea already along with tips on how to feed the monsters.



Apparently one giant rabbit can feed up to 8 people... so can sheeps ! However I guess that since rabbits have babies really fast thats why the Koreans are seeking to breed rabbits instead of sheeps.

13 Jan Saturday blues

As usual I went to the Cite Martial bazaar (la foire) in the morning only to find out that it had moved to another location inside a brand new building with separate sections for vegetables , fish , chicken , beef and cloth/accessories sellers. The new bazaar is located behind the Mahmmad Elahee stadium up near the mountain..actually just at the foot of it .

The shift was not made smoothly as there were many merchants who were unable to find stalls at the new complex . This is why the police force made sure to show their presence in the area and where the old bazaar stood the roads had been blocked.

Afterwards I headed to galaxy where there was a sales going on .An advert had been playing on the air assuring that you would be glaxaciter (..apparently get excited) by their sales. Personally I didn't find anything really interesting or worthwhile. There might have been like 10-12 persons more than usual but nothing worth getting excited about.

I also went to the Cash & Carry to get a new iPod but the price tag was still too heavy at Rs10,000 something , I guess I would prefer buying it out of the country.

Then I came back home and decided to have a go at Second Life , I initially downloaded the client last year when I bought my PC but then gave up on it. After a 26MB update I was teleported to an empty landscape ,seems there are less and less people in the virtual network.

Suddenly it came to me that I should blog about all this uninteresting things because I really didn't have anything better to do :).

Hot phones for 2007

The hot phones to expect from 2007 have already been announced at the 2007 International CES. I know you must be salivating to know them better.

We start by the N800 which looks like an old grandpa transistor with a wide screen. This handset is meant for those geeks that really can't live without checking google.com every 30 minutes. If you always want to be online then the N800 is your phone.

The Nokia N93i is the smaller sister of the N93 . It is an inch or so smaller than its predecessor and is blogger friendly according to Nokia. With its 3.2 megapixel camera this baby can shoot DVD like quality video upto 45 minutes. The price should be around $780 which makes it one of the most expensive Nokia phones.

Am seriously looking for a clamshell since last year I have been following closely the N93 but then there were 2 factors that really deterred me from getting one the first being taht the price of the handset was way too high ...at Rs 30,000 I could buy a new pc instead ..and the other factor was the size of the phone ...really big , which is such a shame.

When I saw the N76 like an hour ago I thought hey this might just be in my pocket in a few months time. This is the first slim phone a la RAZR from Nokia. Its attractive , trendy , fashionable , comes in 2 shades black and bright red. And above all its a smartphone.. can't wait for it to come out. Should cost around $507 - Rs 18,000 something.

See all the nokia phones in action from the nokia site .

Another interesting phone is the iPhone , yes you heard it right the iPod just got magical powers. Now not only can you listen to music but you can actually take calls too!


Its designed to provide easy access to the web and your email. Apple is convinced that it's a breakthrough Internet communications device .The iPhone will not have any buttons but will be controlled with its touchscreen. The nice big screen is certainly a wow factor along with the big storage unit which will allow up to 3 films to be stored , 4GB and 8GB units will be available

However with advanced technology comes big price tag so do expect to spend at least $500 for the 4GB version and $600 for the 8GB one.

thephonespot.com Review

The article below is a paid review

Design is not the most striking point about thephonespot.com. Initially I thought it must be just one of those commercial phone sites that are appearing here and there on the web until I discovered that the engine behind thephonespot.com was simplicity.

You can nagivate through the mobile phones being offered either by make or by network. Most of the new phones on the market including the N93 are listed on the site.

A good tool to find your dream phone is the Refine your search option which is very easy to use. In my case I usually just click on the features that am looking for my new phone and there you go a list of available phones just pops up beneath.


If you are a trendy shopper well you can always check out the latest phone section as you can see from the screenshot above. Here the N93 seems to be at the top of the chart . I believe its a cool phone the only minus part is its size which is monstrously big, if only it was a little bit smaller!

Clicking on a phone provides you with a list of its features .There is also a full specification and a nice 3-D view page that is available for each phone. I like the 3-D view page as it gives you more insight as to what to expect design wise from the handset especially when you haven't seen it close up before.

It would have been nice however if they had offered videos of the phone . Some phone sites are now offering this feature thus providing more in-depth coverage as to how the phone works and looks like.


The most remarkable thing I discovered about thephonespot.com was the PhoneFinder service . What you must know is that phones on this site are sold based on packages that are offered by 5 popular networks namely Orange , T-mobile , Virigin , 3 and O2 . Now the same phone based on different types of packages will be sold at different prices and the monthly package fees will also vary from network to network.


In the end it does become a headache if you have to manually calculate the right package which will fill your needs. This is where the PhoneFinder service kicks in . A wizard like character dressed like a salesman will guide you from the point of choosing your ideal phone from all the options that you are looking for (e.g 3G , Video , Bluetooth,etc..) to actually picking one phone from the list that is proposed to you and finally choosing from the 5 networks the best package that suits your needs.


Whats nice is that the sales-man wizard is funny and even gives his suggestion as what he "thinks" is the best solution package wise.

Personally I think that this site does its job smoothly and effectively without any unnecessary bells and whistles. This is certainly a site am gonna come back to if I need to buy a phone in the very near future :P .

On demand Video in Mauritius

The general trend these days is that the web is getting everywhere and allowing bigger chunks of data to be propagated throughtout its global network as more and more people get connected via broadband.

Thus it becomes plausible to watch TV and listen to music via streams. I find it really enjoyable to be able to control what I want to watch. Personnally I think video on demand or VOD has great prospects.

In my little room at home for example I got a DVD player , Satellite TV and my livebox with a VOD settop box. The DVD player is cool you can watch your DVDs on it ...obviously .. but you need to feed it with media. Satellite TV provides a ton of video content , channels with specific genre for example Cuisine TV channel provides recipes, cooking tips and National Geographic channel provides documentaries about animals , plants and nature in general.

However at times you don't have any new DVDs to play nor do you find any interesting content on Satellite ,you end up either on the Net or in bed ..fast asleep from boredom. Of course it would have been healthier if you did some exercises instead.

With VOD this is another story depending on the video on demand service to which you are subscibed , in my case its MY.T watch, you can choose from a collection of video provided online. Its like another type of freedom the freedom to choose what YOU want to see.


Unfortunately for my case the video archive for MY.T is not very big as its still a new service and trying to seek its niche in the booming broadband market.Am however confident that in the coming years either MY.T watch or another VOD service provider will find its place in our bedroom/living room.

The logo homepage

Did you know there exists on the web a place where logos reside, an actual homepage for logos?



...well there exists such a place , actually it looks like a big ad page a la million-dollar-page , but still its nice to look at :D and you can actually click on the logos to go to the respective site.

You can also submit your own logos to the site which is neat , provided you have one .

Toyota Ad

One well made advert from Toyota:

The Mauritian Tuition

The start of a new year implies a lot of different things to different people. For me its about keeping my resolutions whilst for many secondary students new year means new teachers , new mates , new subjects , new uniform ....and new private tuitions.

I remember how private tuition selection used to be in my days , we used to talk between friends which tuition had the greatest concentration of cool people or which tuition professor was the most brilliant ever ...

But then there was those private teachers that had built a small empire from mass teaching school kids and this is why am writing this blog. I know at least a handful of these so-called "semi-god" teachers .Parents love them and other teachers worship them. From my personal experience I have only one word for these individuals "escroc" !

There is no such thing as mass teaching with a small room filled with knowledge hungry teenagers. Come on tuition are meant to be given to help a student in a specific area where he or she requires more attention. Now how can an idiot with 30 students in his room be able to achieve that in 1hr every week ?

On top of that some of these "teachers" are so unreachable that you actually need to book an interview for your child with him. I know of one star (etoile filant) which used to give GP tuitions in my days...and apparently still does. The guy was on every parent's tuition wish list for their kids. Kids who were unable to squeeze into his tuition used to feel as if they would never pass the General Paper exam. I got the "privilege" to be in his class at school .... guess what he did to make pupils learn to write essays ... well he gave them the essays to learn ..pre-mache.. the ones where he has already thought about what should be written.. so dumb.. I would say its a sacrilege to our freedom of thinking.. come on make your pupils creative and make them think for themselves.

I got the incredible chance to have a great GP tuition teacher on the other hand ,called Mr. Kudrath ,which I respect a lot . I never got the chance to thank him for allowing me to express my gratitude and thankfulness for helping me develop a creative and scientific approach into writing essays and in other every day life situations.

Mr. Kudrath instead of having a room of 30 students would have only around 5-6 people at max and he would take the time to talk about different subjects and allow you to express your feelings and opinions. I really enjoyed going to his tuitions that was something really worthwhile in my teenage life.

Thanks also to Mr Luximon and Mr Payandee for maths and physics if it wasn't for these two people I would not have developed a love for solving problems . Parents if you are reading this don't go for the teacher with the most students go for the teacher with the teaching vocation.

1st of Jan 2007 in Mauritius

I woke up late usually by 6:30 am already on my feet but this morning was hard maybe because I slept on a different bed , had to giveaway my room to my cousins as they were crashing at my place for the night.

My head is still full of last night's new year celebrations at the Caudan waterfont. 2006 had a better fireworks than the one we had on 2005 which was spoilt by rain , not may people had gone out of their homes that year..

Several people after midnight struck where lighting really big and dangerous fireworks on the esplanade and placed them in water bottles before setting fire. Now yesterday ,as is the case still this morning, was very windy due to a cyclone passing in our region and many a time the water bottle would fall down or move resulting in the firework going towards a crowd on the ground or towards the Caudan Labourdonnais hotel. In one instance a tourist at the top of Labourdonnais hotel in his room was quietly enjoying fireworks when one of them fireworks went straight from below directly into his room , needless to say the guy was really frightened.

Strangely yesterday I didn't have much problems sending SMS or making calls around midnight on the CellPlus network. Reading through the papers this morning it seems that around 6 million texts have been exchanged overall yesterday which is a record. Both Cellplus and Emtel had made special arrangements to cater for the load of the festive season.

On moving out of the Caudan at around 1am in the morning there was a really huge queue and it took me at least 20 minutes to get out. Thank god there is Caudan if there wasn't we would have probably been enjoying the New Year at Champs de Mars.

Anyways just would like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new Year 2007.

A day before the last of 2006

Its rare but tomorrow am not just celebrating the New Year I will also be celebrating Bakr-eid or Eid_ul-Adha.I won't be describing what New Year nor Eid_ul-Adha are am pretty sure you are all well educated readers :) and there are a lot of people that gonna blog about it.

This morning the Port-Louis bazaar was sizzling with goodies you could see that people were busy buying groceries for New Year parties , I guess this is one occasion where people of all faith and origin celebrate at a go. You could see that a swarm of buyers were going through the stalls much more than usual , much more than on Xmas even.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't win the lottery though. The results had been out since yesterday but I only got the chance to check them out this morning.. ok maybe am not so disappointed I just hope someone in need would win the rs10 million and maybe bring some light in the lives of the people around him/her ...yes happy thoughts its the new year after all. An alouda was just what got me over my earlier disappointment...mmm would love to have one right now.

After the bazaar I had an absolutely great and memorable afternoon at the caudan . Went to see the new James Bond , Casino Royale . However I must say I think Pierce Brosnan does a better job than the new guy , Daniel Craig. The guy looked a bit old ...the Bond should be young come on but the thing that caught my eye the most during the flick was the Aston Martin ,just too good.



On going out from the cinema I noticed that I had lost my caudan parking ticket so I had to pay rs 200 fine and the guard at the exit took my Id and gave me a receipt for the fine. He told me that if I ever find the parking ticket I could give it back to them and the would return me back on the rs 200.



Thats it from me just can't wait to see what tomorrow has in store. :)

The 2006 most searched words on Google

Here is the top 10 most searched words on Google:

1. bebo
2. myspace
3. world cup
4. metacafe
5. radioblog
6. wikipedia
7. video
8. rebelde
9. mininova
10. wiki

Google being my favorite search engine I use it many times during the course of the day and honestly I never used any of the mentioned words in my search.

In fact I never heard many of the words used like for example bebo ,which is a social network site ,let alone of rebelde which I learnt from wikipedia was a Mexican telenova nor of mininova which is a bit torrent site.

Its surprising to see what other people are looking for.

Connection problem ends 2006

According to a communique by Mauritius Telecom due to an earthquake in asia , some important fiber optic cables have been damaged.

This has caused serious connectivity problems with asian servers along with congestion issues with Europe and America.

I fell the latency here on my MY.T connection its really annoying really to end the year with such a bad internet connection.

99.9% Xmas Spirit

Xmas is tomorrow and where others are having a cold and white Xmas we are having a hot and wet one.

I was at the bazaar in Port-Louis earlier, man it was crowded , people were in a special frenzy to get all their vegetables , meat and fish for the XMAS dinner and parties. One guy almost stumbled over me , he was carrying a bag of potatoes on his head ....that was scary :S.

Another thing I noticed were that lottery tickets were selling like pancakes needless to say that I bought Rs 200 worth of them, after all the grand prize is Rs10 Million ...but then i did win the lottery some weeks back so its ok if i don't win the Rs 10 Million ;) . Then had a cold glass of our national Alouda with Cream on top of it ... mmm delicious.

Its now time for me to wish you all a very happy , safe and festive Xmas . Remember do not drive and drink , I need you to read my blog!

My Xmas present for you people , a video of a stupid kid jumping off a balcony on top of Xmas tree :

Movies in 2007

This is the official list of films I will be watching in 2007:

1. Code Name: The Cleaner : Cedric the Entertainer, Lucy Liu, Elizabeth Hurley



2. Shrek 3



3. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End : Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley



4. The Simpsons Movie



5. The Invisible:Justin Chatwin, Marcia Gay Harden




6. Resident Evil: Extinction:Milla Jovovich, Oded Fehr



7. Mr. Bean's Holiday : Rowan Atkinson



8. Alien vs. Predator: Survival of the Fittest

9. Beowulf:Robert Zemeckis (director), Greg Ellis, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Sebastian Roché, Ray Winstone, Robin Wright Penn



10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix



11. Transformers



12. Ocean's Thirteen: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon



13. Ghost Rider: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes



14. Spider-Man 3:Sam Raimi (director), Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Haden Church, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard

USB Missile Launcher

Disappointed by the performance of your co-worker or just want to get their attention when they are listening to music with their headphones on ... well here is the solution the USB powered missile launch .

This makes also a pretty cool gift for XMAS... so dont hesistate to buy half a dozen for me :P.

By the way , getting hit my USB missile rarely causes death and nuclear contamination ..just in case you wanted to know




Jack getting hit by 3 missiles .. man this guy is better than Bruce Willis in Unbreakable

Wii entry

As far as I can recall game pads haven't evolved a lot over the past 2 decades. The new generation of game pads are now equipped with movement detection mechanisms. The Wiimote is its name and its the new baby from Nitendo.

Over the past weeks I have been seeing really cool adverts on cable about the gaming possibilities with the Wiimote and its console the Wii , absolutely fantastic. Its like a breath of fresh air in the game world. Along with the fact that its your whole arm which needs to be in movement to play and not just your fingers is absolutely great , the more you spend time on your console , the more you exercise :D. Who needs to sweat in the gym when you can sweat in front of your TV set?

Now I just can't wait to get my hands on of them consoles ..even more than the PS 3 actually :D.

The binding power of the Jewels

Behold magnetic jewelery to make your mom , wife , girl friend and sisters go crazy this Christmas.

Coding at home

The problem with working at home is that you are detached from your office tools and utilities. This inaccessibility is a major problem at times for example am so used to RAD 6.0 for development where almost every configuration is made via wizards that having to configure a web-app or webservice by hand or by writing a script makes me really lazy :P.

Finding the right opensource tools and being able to integrate it with your development environment is always a major headache. Thats the biggest problem with open source , you might get it free but as far as being able to get it working in your development environment you have to do the little tweaks and configurations yourself.

Its at this crucial moment that you find out that there is a lack of documentation for your new downloaded open source gizmo or that it actually runs on a newever version of JDK than you are using or it requires half a dozen of other stuffs to be installed before you can actually start doing anything with it.

I just can't thank the guys at Eclipse.org for making our lives ever so easy with the version 3.2+ onwards of my favorite IDE.Creating webservices and J2EE applications is really such a breeze with Eclipse Callisto. There are dozens of plugins which you can add on top of it to make your coding experience really worth while. I tend to think of coding with with Eclipse 3.2 as a really pleasurable moment these days just like racing my car at night :P.

As far as servers are concerned I really can not afford to buy a Weblogic or WebSphere server although in the latter case there is the Geronimo project . I think the server I use most at home is Apache Tomcat , can't find anything easier to install and manage than good old tomcat. The advantage with kitty is that there are hundreds of documentation sites for it , this can be pretty handy if you want to diagnose whats wrong with your server at times.

Building the codes is another story everyone has his own idea about how to make this happen. Some prefer using Ant which is right now on version 1.7 others prefer using Maven 1 or 2. This really doesn't matter if you are at home working alone .. as long as your codes get compiled and archived properly , you can use whatever makes you happy. Although I do definitively prefer Maven 2 because of the strong jar versioning emphasis , reusability and modularity of the build tool.

Frameworks allow you to develop faster however it doesn't mean that your code will perform better ..so be careful about thinking that everything new is good.. try to see how they do in terms of development and what added value they bring to performance. My favorite framework of the moment is spring . Don't know how long this framework will survive in the framework jungle but right now its the best.

But then before you do implement any piece of code there should be some kind of design work in terms of class diagrams and the layout of the architecture of your codes. Dia seems to be a neat alternative to Visio but I haven't been able to use it a lot , what I have been using on the other hand for some not so complicated diagrams is Gliffy.com. Since I blogged an entry on the Gliffy service many of my friends have actually started using it and are happy with it.

Do also check out Osalt.com which provides a nice directory of open source alternatives to commercial products.

Bittorent goes HD

High definition phenomenon is not just for your TV sets now enter the HD quality films that can be downloaded using the Azureus bittorent client.



The site offering these superior quality videos is called Zudeo. There are some films , trailers , music videos and home made vids which are already available for free to download... there is even The Simpons movie trailer.

However HD also means a chunkier file so do expect like 100MB+ for a 7 min flick :P.

The chicken or the egg

This must have been the silliest question which has troubled so many ingenious minds all through these centuries which came first boiled eggs or kentucky fried chicken ?.. the egg or the chicken ?

So I made a search on wikipedia where the problem is extensively documented. How some people get such a kick from writing these kinds of stuff is even a bigger mystery for me :D.


Here is an extract ,

Since both the chicken and the egg create the other in certain circumstances (a chicken emerges from an egg; an egg is laid by a chicken) it is ambiguous which originally gave rise to the other. Purely logical attempts to resolve the dilemma result in an infinite regress, since an egg was caused by a chicken, which was caused by an egg, etc. Since every chicken originates from its egg, it seems obvious the egg came first.

My personal speculation is that Santa Claus came first , however this theory is overruled by many academics.

Here is another site which deals with the very exciting mystery.However be prepared for some incomprehensible explanation about the evolution of our common chickens.

Insaniquarium

Insaniquarium is an insanely addictive game where you need to breed fishes in an aquarium and in return they give you money with which you can buy more food and more fishes.



Its simple but fun to play...but don't expect graphics a la Prince of Persia :P though.

Flamboyant season

My mood has been really good since the past week , actually it has been absolutely great. This might explain why I caught interest in the flamboyant , a tree with bright red flowers.



This tree flowers only in December and lasts until end of December-start of January. Thats why it is associated a lot with the new year in Mauritius. We do not have snow here but hey..we got the flamboyant :).



I couldn't help taking some pictures of these trees as I went to the seaside on Sunday.

The battle of the ISPs

Nomad has been long targeting the niche of low budget households and students that cannot afford to get themselves a broadband package from Mauritius Telecom. However it was recently announced that MT would be lowering its price from rs900+ something to rs 700 .

Given the fact that MT offers a definitively better connection than Nomad which relies on WIMAX wireless technology , this has become a threat for Nomad's business. I even heard on the radio that Nomad was contacting authorities to prevent MT from reducing the price on MY.T's packages as this could mean major losses for this company.

Many people have been arguing with me about the fact that MT's packages were so expensive .. i think now they should realise that even when the price does go down some other company just causes a freeze down and we are all just stuck with the same pricing.

Dual screen phones

Be prepared for some futuristic designs for mobile phones ...presenting the dual screen mobile.



Apparently this is being patented by an asian firm but might just been seen in the year(s) to come.

Am waiting for the plasma phone , by the way things are going this shouldn't take very long.

SketchUp video

A few months ago I blogged about google SketchUp the (free) tool that allows you to create your 3-D buildings in no time .

Here is a movie that shows you just how powerful the tool is:

Amazing Software From Google Team - video powered by Metacafe

Xmas Decorations

Ho ho ho ..the XMAS Spirit is spreading across the world...December is here and as everyone knows this is the month where we party the most....which is a good thing after a year of hard work . By the way father xmas if you read this blog .. its been 15 years since you gave me anything .

Anyways (meh) we have started decorating our TNT office (the best company in the world) , with some decorations. Because of security reasons I will show only the entrance though. Yes you can consider the office as a mauritian version of Area-51.





Father XMas ...(yes am coming back to the old bugger..oops ..forget i said that Papa Noel) , you will find my socks in my cupboard , there are 50 of them. There is also my shoes and a shoe polish and brush next to them ...if you have some spare time ..well you know what to do ....just kidding there father xmas no need to get angry.

Okie so just in case you forgot where I live (??!!!@&%£$), am leaving my GPS coordinates with yah -60.1234222,69.91231232 .Now you don't have any reasons to miss me for the 16th time.

However if you reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally need to give presents to more needy ppl ..(pfft kids they always get what they want)...well you can just send me a blog comment :) .

The Long horse

This is one interesting article about the existence of a horse that looked like a teckel in width and had such a long torso that it could carry 4 people at the same time.




However this breed of horses got extinct due to the fact that it had a small lifespan. Some tend to believe that this is a hoax whilst others think that it might just be true but still it is a nice story :).

Dhoom 2 Review

Went to watch Dhoom 2 today , I never watched Dhoom before so I didnt really know what to expect except for the fact that Abhishek Bachan is a cop that needs to nail down thieves like Hritik Roshan . Abhiskek is assisted by Udhay Chopra. Its strange all 3 have families strongly linked with the Bollywood film industry.



Did i mention that there is Bipasha Basu and Aishwarya Rai in the flick? ....by the way i think Bipasha is way better than Aishwarya!



This motion picture is family oriented although there are loads of muscles and very little clothes, so you can take your grandma and kids safely to watch it. The film shown at Star , Caudan , is subtitled so if you don't understand Hindi , you can still enjoy it ...at times the subtitles were really helpful to understand what Udhay was talking about.

Some scenes were really nicely made and scripted like the one where Hritik needs to steal a diamond in a museum which is heavily protected. But then there are loads of crappy scenes especially those pictured on Aishwarya ....her acting is really awful... even worse is Udhay in a funny role .. although i must admit he did made me laugh a few times with his silly lines.

This is an action movie and one of the best of 2006 with spectacular stunts executed mostly by Hrithik Roshan which did a marvelous performance as usual. Lots of fighting in sea , on land , on sand, in the air , ..everywhere.

The songs are one of the key points of this movie they rock really hard I can tell you that , the ones I like most are , Touch Me , Crazy Kiya Reh , My name is Ali.



I would certainly recommend this movie to anyone wishing to watch a light and entertaining film.

The million dollar homepage

Some dude on the web go an interesting idea for selling advertisement space, the milliondollarhomepage.com , he took one page and sold each pixel of the page for $1 now he's idea worked so well that he now is a multi millionaire.. did I mention that his advertisement page is sold out ?

World Aids Day

Today 1st December is World's Aids Day. Many people through out the world are still suffering from this evil virus which has shattered many families and killed thousands of innocent children. As much as 5,500 people die on a daily basis in Africa from AIDS.

What's annoying is that simple gestures could have saved so many lives . Use condoms when having sex, if you are a drug addict don't share your needles (don't be an addict in the first place!)..these are stuffs that we have been taught for so long and still so many people don't care to take their precautions thinking that AIDS happens to others and not to them.

For those that want to help people affected by this virus please do not hesitate to donate and help progress research to find a cure against HIV AIDS.

Meanwhile the (RED) campaign under the blessings of U2 singer Bono is selling a number of products for the benefit of helping those suffering from this disease.

MY.T enduring its first network problems

The MY.T connection is one of the best I have seen so far on the Mauritian market , however yesterday a lot of users experienced a sudden unavailability of Internet connection .

I personally thought that my LiveBox had stopped working since every time there is a powercut the red bulb next to the '@' symbol starts blinking rapidly..which means no Internet connection.Occasionally you hear a clicking-like sound which means its unable to connect.

Then I called 8585 which is the My.T hotline and discovered that the actual problem resided on the MY.T network itself not on my LiveBox ...fiouff.. and was told that the problem would be solved in the coming hours.

Eventually I got fed up waiting and discovered only in the morning that the network issue had been fixed. A brief has been communicated on servihoo about it.

Lets just hope this does not happen on a regular basis.

A free alternative to MS Visio

Visio is a brilliant tool , frankly I love using it , however it costs money and unfortunately I don't have the bucks to install it on all my pcs. I have been looking for a long time for a good alternative to draw up my network , UML , Architecture and other diagrams until I stumbled upon gliffy this afternoon.

Gliffy.com is a flash based website that allows you to draw up your diagrams free on the web . The interface is similar to that of Visio and other similar desktop equivalents. You simply drag and drop your shapes on the canvas to start your diagram.

Current supported drawings are Flow Chart , UML ,Network , User Interface , Floor Plan.You can register free and all your diagrams are stored online. This is really one of the most useful sites I've seen this year.

Here below is a floor plan I made of my room .

JBuilder 2007 is out

The long awaited JBuilder 2007 has been released and unfortunately it is not yet available for download in the Borland JBuilder Downloads section.

Still you can always try out Foundation version of JBuilder 2005 which is absolutely free however it is a scrapped down version of the commercial IDE.



Before Eclipse ,JBuilder used to be the King of IDE's for Java Development but nowadays JBuilder has slowly slipped into a dark Era of unpopularity maybe due to its commercial nature and lack of plugins "a la Eclipse".Maybe this is why this time the core of JBuilder has been written upon the Eclipse platform :D.