One year after I look away from Java World

A lot of interesting projects are happening in Java world.

First, is the highly celebrated Hadoop. For those who don’t know it’s open source distributed file system and map-reduce implementation.

Scripting languages such as Groovy, Jython, and JRuby are also gaining more popularity. Although, it’s kind of hard to google real world usage of these scripting languages.  

There is also a simpler open source web server project called Simple. For those who build web application using PHP, Ruby or Python, Simple makes sense immediately. It integrates well with Velocity Templating Engine, a powerful and yet POJO based system.

All these projects use java in a different manner than what you would expect in Enterprise environment, it’s exciting.

References:

• Hadoop
• Groovy
• Simple
• Velocity

Just created my first open source project

It’s called Super Simple Message System.

Disclaimer:

For multiple obvious reasons, it will not scale to withstand the hailstorm of internet users.

What does it do:

It allows server-side machines to send string messages to each other.

Why did I do it:

To illustrate various concepts like:

• Web service
• Messaging system
• How to build a complete application in 4 hours using Python.
• What does it feel (for me) to host an open source project.

Resource:

• Project site

Backing up using S3

Two days ago, my MacBook’s hard drive failed. Lucky things are backed up using time machine.

But there’s a new problem, the backup drive is running out of space. Damn.

This post is the answer to my problem. Just backup using S3 (The cost concerns me a bit, but that’s a different issue).

References:

• http://hackaddict.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-use-jungledisk-amazon-s3-and.html
• http://jungledisk.com/index.aspx
• http://samba.anu.edu.au/rsync/

OS X Maintenance

The author compile a list of quick and easy things to do for maintaining Mac OS X.

Side Note:

• It seems that MacJanitor does something extra beyond periodic command.

References:

• http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
• http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_hill/macjanitor.html
• http://jimmitchelldesign.com/projects/yasu/

RubyInline: Optimize your ruby in C

RubyInline is a gem package that allows rubyist to write functions or blocks.

Perfect for optimizing a lot of loops.

Resource:

• RubyInline Site

APE – Actionscript Physics Engine

APE is open source 2D physics engine for Flash or Flex. Written by Alex Cove.

Demo:

 

Resources:

• APE main page
• Crab robot demo
• APE SVN repository

Python Module: Boto

In short, Boto is a comprehensive API for Amazon Web Services.

It covers:

• S3
• EC2
• Simple DB
• Mechanical Turk
• Simple Queue Service

Below is my personal opinions about Boto:

• The SDB API is very pythonic, easy to understand and easy to use.
• The SDB API supports multi-threading query calls, very nice.
• Variable names between SDB and S3 aren’t very consistent, as if it was written by 2 different people. But that’s just syntactical  issue.

Reference:

Boto main site

Kamaelia: Open Source Python Framework

Kamaelia is not yet another Rails-esque framework, thus making it more interesting.

Kamaelia is open source framework for building concurrent system. It was conceived inside BBC.co.uk r & D lab. It is written in Python, making it double interesting.

It draws its inspiration from UNIX pipeline. UNIX pipe allows chaining processes so that the output of current process goes directly to the input of the next process. The ‘pipeline’ module is called Axon.

From its documentation, Kamaelia is more like collection of components. The components comprises a lot of thing; TCP server/client, GUI builder, Audio codec, IRC client, etc…

This framework is most definitely different.

References:

• BBC open source
• Kamaelia – Introduction
• Kamaelia – Getting started on “Axon” concept
• Kamaelia – components
• Wikipedia – UNIX pipeline

Super Heroes Flash Games

Batman

• Side Scroller

Spiderman

• Swinging Game

Iron Man

• Flight Test
• Drone Attack
• Armory Assault – FPS

Hulk

• Central Smashdown – Marvelkids
  
• Bad Altitude – Marvelkids

Bonus: Iron Man’s Adventure

SWFObject: Embedding SWF using Javascript

SWFObject is a javascript open source project that generates SWF <embed> html tags.

Seems so trivial, why do I or readers need this?

Advantages of SWFObject:

• It can generates embed tags dynamically.
• It worries about multi-browsers support, so that you don’t have to.
• There are multiple ways of embedding SWF, with SWFObject, you don’t have to worry about that.

Why you should use SWFObject (from its wiki page):

• Is more optimized and flexible than any other Flash Player embed method around
• Offers one solution for everybody: It shouldn’t matter if you are an HTML, Flash, or JavaScript developer, there should be something in it for everyone
• Breaks the cycle of being locked into vendor specific markup and promotes the use of web standards and alternative content
• Uses unobtrusive JavaScript and JavaScript best practices
• Is easy to use

Resources:

• SWFObject @ Google Code
• SWFObject download page