My Experience with VirtualBox

Before a year I first encountered Virtualbox, It was easy to setup and use. Before virtual box I have tried Qemu and VMware. I started loving virtual box, from then on it became my favorite Virtualization software. Last week I was build Linux from source (LFS) in Virtualbox, It went well in the beginning.

When I was building Linux from source I stored at-least 15 snapshots to restore if something went wrong and It took me two days of continuous building to reach a point where I am close to finish. I took a break after saving snapshot. To my surprise I could not restore from the snapshot. I lost two days of work due to a bug in Virtualbox 3. Do not rely on snapshots stored in Virtualbox 3, it is bugggy!!
Now I have to start over and build my linux from scratch.

DYI Dropbox service

I have used Dropbox over a year and its a really good product. If you want a similar service within your network you can do it with GIT and rsync in Linux. Following article is an interesting read and I will try it at my home network!!

Link:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=429573

Adobe Flex - Behind the scenes

I think you will enjoy these videos as much as I did!

Video of the day: Ubuntu Linux

Presentation made by Mark shuttleworth:

Linux Wallpapers

Following links take you to some of the best Linux wallpapers.

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ubuntu+wallpaper&m=text
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=linux+wallpaper&page=2
http://www.linuxwallpapers.org/linux-wallpapers.htm

Flickr has thousands of good wallpaper and its safe to download from there. When I tried to download wallpapers by googling I ended up in downloading spyware and viruses. So the above links are the safe way to get good wallpapers and decorate our desktop!

Silverlight Training

Microsoft Silverlight is a browser plugin to run animation, vector graphics and audio-video playback. Lynda is offering a free training on SilverLight. You can find the training link here.

Happy New year 2008!!

Wish you Happy New Year 2008 and I wish you success in all your endeavorers!!!

Yahoo Picks is down

Yahoo Picks will be down after 12 years and here is the official announcement. I was a big fan of Yahoo picks few years back and did not visit the site for the past few years. Today Digg, Reddit and many other blogs are far better than Yahoo Picks. Bye bye Yahoo Picks!

Wannabe Ultra Geek !!

I have been exploring and experimenting with Linux for a while now. When I started as a newbie I was looking for the best distro which suited all my needs. I tried out at least 20 distros before deciding my favorite one's. I don't think one distro can solve all my needs. So depending on the situation I use one of the following distros. The distros which I personally liked are:

• Knoppix
• OpenSuse
• Slax
• LFS

Each distro has some unique strength over others. For example,

• Knoppix comes with a rich set of softwares(7 GB!) and out of the box hardware support. This contains almost all softwares which I need from a Linux distro.
• As a long time windows(7+ years) user I felt comfortable with OpenSuse. In my opinion this is the best distro for windows users. I use OpenSuse 10.3 at home.
  
• Slax is a small and flexible distro. Flexible meaning, I can quickly assemble my own distro without knowing any internals of this distro. With MySlax creator I was able to choose the modules and assemble my own distro in no time.
  
• Linux From Scratch(LFS) is not exactly a distro, but I would like to call it a distro. This is for Ultra geeks who want to build their own distro from scratch.

I am not Anti-Windows and having used windows for over 7 years, I should admit that I am really bored of Windows OS. Even though Linux is being widely used by non-geek users, I personally believe that Linux is for geeks. The reason why Linux is for geeks is: We can explore the internals of the OS and experiment with it, which makes Linux more interesting.


Linux from scratch is for ultra geeks who want to build their own distro from source code. In the beginning, It requires many days to build a complete distro(i.e. LFS + BLFS) and it is very challenging to build from source. Even geek's find it very challenging and thats why I called LFS as a distro for Ultra geeks.

With every challenge lies an opportunity, and LFS is not an exception. Even though building LFS from source is challenging for a geek, the opportunity to learn the internals of the OS and building our own distro is rewarding. I am really excited about LFS and planning to build Linux from source. Let me get my hands dirty with LFS and let you know when I become Ultra geek!

Download Youtube Videos!

Just enter the youtube video URL in the above text box and download the video in FLV format.

SCWCD Passed :)

I passed SCWCD 1.4 with 97% yesterday! When I went to the prometric center the server was down, I waited for few hours to take the exam. Luckily the server was up again, otherwise I should have taken the exam some other day. I did not aim for a high score, Instead I foucsed on learning the fundamentals properly which led to a high score.

I am now a registered Linux user. If you would like to register yourself you can check out this link: http://counter.li.org/

Video of the day: GWT

News: Netbeans 6.0 released

Netbeans 6.0 was released, this is a major release after Netbeanse 5.5. You may order a free DVD kit at the official site http://www.netbeans.org/ which contains the software for Windows, Mac and linux platforms. Also, the DVD kit contains tutorials and screen cast for getting started with Netbeans. This is a major release from Netbeans which started gaining momentum in the Java IDE space after its version 5.0 release.

New features in Netbeans 6.0:

Netbeans now supports SVN and Mercurial version control systems
Improved profiling support with Heap walker and Profiling points
Expression stepping - Step over individual expression with statement

Java script and CSS editor
Visual mobile designer and Mobile game builder
Ruby development
Improved UML support

Miniature Earth

Good video about 21st century!

Adobe digital editions

I recently tried Adobe Digital Editions and started loving it. It is more like viewing a pdf file in acrobat reader. It is actually a ebook reader and the features included in Adobe digital editions are highly suitable for avid reader like me. The features include bookmarking, creating a library of ebooks with book shelf(It is like folders). It requires flash installed in your machine. Try it out you might like it if you need a light weight application.

Where am I?

Its always good to know who we are and what are our weakness and strength for our goal.

I am a Software Engineer with about two years of experience. I have used Java in most part of my work so far. As you might know by now, I completed SCJP 5.0 last week with 81%. My real aim is SCJD so I am not very keen on the SCJP score.

After doing good amount of research I found that I need to be strong in the following areas:

1. Swing and good user interface design
2. Object oriented analysis and design(OOAD)
3. RMI and socket programming
4. Multi threading
   
5. IO
6. Design patterns
7. Javadoc, coding conventions and maintanability of code
8. Others: Ant, Junit for building and testing the app

In the above, the only strength I have is multi threading. I am planning to learn all the others pretty soon. I really want to get the basics right in all the above areas within one month(30-June-07) from today. I did not do any estimate, Its just did a blind target as I am new to areas like RMI, Swing and design patterns. I will have a real target as I get into learning all the stuffs listed above when I start getting the grip of it.

I got Head first OOAD and Java Design patters book to begin with. Started learning....

Sharing SCJD

I have just started to prepare for SCJD. So I thought it would be better If I share my explorations with everyone in this blog. I will share my plans, explorations and my progress in this blog. I think it will be very useful for both me and others.

From my side I will be logging my plans, explorations and progress here. It is an opportunity for me to help others who are preparing for SCJD and to stay committed myself. Otherwise I might float it and fail to achieve it within the target date. More I write about it, more I get involved and above all I will have the satisfaction of helping others, which is worth more than just earning the certification myself!

I always wanted to know how people prepared for the certification and their experience. So I read a lot about the experiences in the forums like Javaranch. But the disadvantage with forum post was, I can only read the experience in the end and not real time. And also whatever I read was just a summary. It doesn't give a clear picture how others have overcome the obstacles. So If I share my experience real time with others, it is an opportunity for others who are preparing for SCJD. My experience will be useful for others irrespective of my result in SCJD. Whether I pass or not, it doesn't matter. If I pass everyone will benefit from the path I have taken. If I fail everyone(Including me) will know why I failed and learn from the experience. I see a lot of benefits like this. So I am sure its worth sharing!!

I am aware that I am not supposed to reveal any details of the assignment. So I will not give out any details about the assignment which is illegal(And against my will). Instead I will log my experience real time. For the sake of convenience I will tag all my SCJD related experience with the tag "SCJDShare". So In future anyone can just filter the posts and read it. So I am starting today the first post with "SCJDShare". Also I will be bookmarking my links in delicious with the tag "SCJD". Long way to go... Lets do it!!!

At last SCJP

At last I have completed my SCJP 5.0 last week. I got the voucher one year before and after a long time I completed the exam successfully. In my opinion SCJP is not that tough. Because it did not involve many tricky questions unlike the simulators. The real SCJP questions are more direct and evaluates your understanding of Java. If you are well versed with Java then SCJP should be a cake walk. Whatever I read from forums like Javaranch are a hype.

I started preparing for SCJD exam. It is my next goal and I target May, 2008 to complete it. I got to learn many things for this exam. So far I am enjoying it, and I hope I complete it well before the target date. I am shooting for December, 2007 if all goes well.