July 2009

There were 6 posts published in July 2009 (this is page 1 of 1).

Compiling Ghost White Crab on Linux x86_64 Ubuntu Linux

Compiling this software is usually just a matter of running ‘make’, but if you try to do so in Ubuntu 64bit, you’ll encounter the following error on the config_test.log file

skipping incompatible /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.3.3/libgcc.a when searching for -lgcc

To solve this issue just do the following:

apt-get install libc6-dev-i386

This makes the make script work since lib6-dev-i386 installs the
l32bit development libraries for GNU C for AMD64 (64bit linux)

Now it works!

About Ghost White Crab
GhostWhiteCrab is a portable, stand-alone GWebCache implemented in C. It is open-source and distributed under a BSD-style license. It was developed as a light-weight replacement for CGI GWebCache implementations in PHP, Perl, ASP etc. Unlike those, GhostWhiteCrab can easily handle millions of transactions per hour while consuming little memory and CPU resources. Although GWebCaches are usually used as bootstrap system for Gnutella, you can use them for any other network as well. GhostWhiteCrab doesn’t handle multiple networks at a time, but you can configure it for any network you like.

GhostWhiteCrab is also an UDP Hostcache (UHC) for the Gnutella network. This is the recommended use now as most Gnutella clients support this or have completely switched to this bootstrap method. An UDP hostcache is much lighter weight, especially in terms of traffic. It’s possible to run GhostWhiteCrab as UHC instead of a GWebCache, or it can serve as both at the same time.

Download BZIP2 compressed sources

HTML 5 is out and about

I believe that the <canvas>, <audio>and <video> tags will make the web a pretty exciting place. A lot of Flash components will be rewritten or converted into Javascript+HTML5 Object components making available more reusable elements for a graphical and interactive web, all being open sourced (javascript) and with no extra plugins needed.

Some places where we can already see (or will) the use of HTML 5 tags and javascript on those elements are:

  • GMail Mobile for iPhone and Android
  • Yahoo! Pipes
  • Bespin, a code editor created by Mozilla lab, they basically rewrote the text editing component using the canvas tag so that its a high performance text editing component, with a nice look, selection highlighting, new scrollbars, command support, it can be extended with your own commands (reminds me of emacs)
  • Google Waves
  • Some blogs that are already using the <article>, <nav>, <footer> and other new HTML 5 tags
  • YouTube is getting ready for the video tag

I wish Michael Jackson…

Faked his death, made millions and millions on all the PR he got these past couple of weeks, and the night he got buried, at midnight, he comes back to life dressed as a zombie and dances thriller.
The only POP singer to come back from the death.

Or…

I wish a month from now, he releases a video saying something like this:

“Hi World, If you see this, it means I’m dead and long gone from the physical world. However I love you so much, and I know that you’ll miss me. During the last years of musical silence I’ve recorded over 100 new songs, and I’ll be releasing a new record every year so that you have more Michael Jackson to enjoy for the next decade.
I love you”

Wouldn’t that be cool?

Our Brain is First-Class simulation software

I’m fascinated by the concept of “reality”, and lately I’ve seen and read from different authors references about the subject. Most recently I read a passage from Richard Dawkins on his book “The God Delusion” that deals with reality.

The human brain runs first-class simulation software. Our eyes don’t present to our brains a faithful photograph of what is there, or an accurate movie of what is going on thorugh time. Our brains construct a continuosly updated model: updated by coded pulses chattering along the optic nerve, but constructed nevertheless. Optical illusions are vivid reminders of this.

Imagine for a second that there’s no such thing as vision, that everybody on earth is limited to just taste, touch, smell and hearing. That “reality” as we know it, is represented, reproduced in our brains based only on the data of those 4 sensors. We all share the same reality and there’s nothing more than that. Then imagine you are given eyes. The difference on the perception of reality between darkness and full vision is eons apart.

Based on these two vastly different representations of reality imagine now that I give you yet an new sensor that you can’t even imagine, or eyes a million times better, that could allow you to see in every spectrum of light, that could allow you to zoom in to an atomic level, or that could allow you to see at will N frames per second thus allowing you to almost stop time.

There’s a hell of a lot more out there that we limited human beings can’t see, if we barely know what’s real I guess it’s understandable that many people believe in simple explanations of the universe such as god.

Tech Events Calendar for Geeks

Here’s a list of the most important Tech Events I follow every year. Please leave a comment if I left a very important yearly event out.

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) – First weeks of January in Vegas
Next one: January 7-10 2010

The International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a non-public trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association. Here’s where Bill Gates did all his famous keynotes.

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) – First weeks of February usually in Monterrey, CA.
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference that defines its mission as “ideas worth spreading”. The lectures, also called TED Talks, cover a broad set of topics including science, arts and design, politics, education, culture, business, global issues, technology and development, and entertainment. Speakers have included such people as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Nobel laureates James D. Watson, Murray Gell-Mann, and Al Gore, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Billy Graham.

SXSW (South by Southwest) – First weeks of March
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin, Texas. SXSW first began in 1987 and is centered on the downtown Austin Convention Center. Each of the three parts runs relatively independently, with different start and end dates.

WWDC (Apple Worldwide Developers Conference) – First weeks of June in San Francisco
The conference is primarily used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for developers, as well as offering hands-on labs and feedback sessions

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) – Usually the third week of May in Los Angeles.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo, commonly known as E3, is an annual trade show for the computer and video games industry presented by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It is used by many video game developers to show off their upcoming games and game-related hardware.

In 2009 it was held from July 11 to July 13. E3 2010 will take place from June 15 to 17 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

JavaOne – Between April and June in San Francisco.
JavaOne is an annual conference (since 1996) put on by Sun Microsystems to discuss Java technologies, primarily among Java developers. JavaOne is held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California usually between April and June and typically runs from Sunday to Friday. Technical sessions on a variety of topics are held during the day. In the evening, Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions are held at the Moscone Center and surrounding hotels. BOF sessions allow people to focus in on a particular aspect of Java technology.

Google I/O – Last week of May in San Francisco
Google I/O was a web developer-focused conference organized by Google to discuss web applications using Google and open web technologies.

TechCrunch50 – Third week of September in San Francisco
TechCrunch50 was a conference held at the Design Center Concourse in San Francisco, California on September 8-10, 2008, hosted by TechCrunch and Jason Calacanis. Its aim was to find the best Web 2.0 start-ups and launch them in front of the industry’s most influential venture capitalists, companies and press.[1] TechCrunch50 was the 2nd of its kind, following the TechCrunch40 Conference of 2007.
The next one will be on September 14-15, 2009