Chasing Daydreams

Michelle and I finally decided to subscribe to Sun Wireless Broadband. We were quite reluctant at first because of all the horror stories about wireless Internet access. Not just about Sun but also Globe and Smart. In fact, I think Smart Bro started it all, the horror stories.

But recently, there have been better feedback about Sun’s product to the point that people are even saying that Globe and Smart is a waste of time and money. That’s a big turnabout since Sun is really notorious for their poor signal and poor interconnection (but I’m sure it’s not entirely their fault there). And although the horror stories are not completely gone, we decided to take a leap of faith and get one.

Of course, we chose the no commitment option: Buying the modem for less expensive promo price of P1,595 (instead of the overpriced P1,895) and getting the unlimited account for P799 a month. The transaction was reasonably fast and painless. I guess they were eager to make a sale. We filled up two forms (one for the account and one for the credit card billing) and then were given a Huawei E1550 HSDB USB modem. After a short tutorial where the only thing I really heard was about some 24 hour activation, we’re off.

So after getting home,plugging in the USB modem, installing the built-in software, and waiting the requisite 24 hours, here we are surfing wirelessly.  And the speed was a miserably slow 150Kbps or so. There are times when it struggles, and there are times (early in the morning) when it’s pretty fast but it’s usually just around 150Kbps. So I guess some of the horror stories are true.

But still it’s not too bad for unlimited wireless for P799 a month. Of course, I definitely want Sun to fix and improve it. Who doesn’t, right? I hope Globe and Smart wake up from their stupor on their self-imagined laurels and goad Sun to fix and improve. And they should all have service level commitments. But for now, Sun is it.

Was walking around NYC with Cez and Euge when we saw this poster advertising the new Stargate Universe TV series. It seems interesting since I liked Stargate the movie, followed Stargate: Atlantis, and plan to watch the original Stargate TV series. But what caught my eye is the URL in the poster: syfy.com instead of scifi.com. What is wrong with these people?!? As Cez said, it’s the dumbing down of the USA. Sheesh!

It’s September 11. A day that lives in infamy. And here I am in NYC (across the water at Jersey City actually). Outside my hotel room window, I can see twin beams of light shooting upward to the sky, part of the city’s memorial activities. May we always remember this day, may we always remember that the enemy is still out there, and will always be there for as long as intolerance exists in this world.

While playing around with Flex and Web Services, I encounter the following error while trying to access my web service: Security Error Accessing URL.

One solution around this error is to add a crossdomain.xml file in your root directory:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<cross-domain-policy>
    <allow-access-from domain="*"/>
</cross-domain-policy>

But in my case I simply changed my web service definition in Flex from:

<mx:WebService id="employeeService"
 wsdl="http://localhost:8080/EmployeeService/services/EmployeeService?wsdl"
 useProxy="false" showBusyCursor="true" fault="mx.controls.Alert.show(event.fault.faultString)">

To:

<mx:WebService id="employeeService"
 wsdl="http://127.0.0.1:8080/EmployeeService/services/EmployeeService?wsdl"
 useProxy="false" showBusyCursor="true" fault="mx.controls.Alert.show(event.fault.faultString)">

That got it working.

Adobe, in it’s arguably self-serving pursuit to make Flex more popular offered an online training module called Flex In A Week. Admittedly, it’s quite good. I’ve been using it but watching it online just doesn’t work for me since I don’t have continuous Internet access.

I tried their suggestion for watching the videos online. Unfortunately, it means installing Adobe Media Player (which is yet another sucky media player) and adding the RSS feed http://sessions.adobe.com/FlexInAWeek/feed.xml to My Favorites. Problem is that AMP sucks and it can cache only a few videos at a time.

Fortunately, there is a better solution. Simply go to the RSS feed in Firefox (click the link or copy-and-paste it into the address box) and download the media files from the links on the resulting page. You can now watch it with your favorite media player such as VLC. That’s it!

Since my new project would require me to use web services, I decided to get my hands at it.

Bottom-Up Approach To Writing Web Services

The logical place to start would be take your plain old Java classes (POJOs, I love them) and expose their methods to to the web. Since you already have the implementation, this is called a bottom-up approach. And with Eclipse Ganymede and Apache Axis2 1.4.1, it was all a breeze. Just create a dynamic web project, create your POJO(s), create Web Service, choose bottom-up. The Axis2 plug-in  then creates a web service complete with WSDL (web service definition language) file and all. Here are the details.

With some groping and googling, I was able to successfully connect my test Adobe Flex application to my web service with no problems.

Top-Down Approach To Writing Web Services

The next step was to do it the other way around, given a WSDL file which describes your web service in great detail, and implement your service. Since you start with just the web service description, it’s called a top-down approach. It was also a breeze. Create a dynamic web project, create a web service, choose top-down, give the location of the WSDL file (I used the WSDL generated earlier), and generate all the necessary classes along with TODO tags where you’re supposed to add your code. Put it in your implementation, compile, deploy, and you’re good to go. Here are the details.

With just a small adjustment in the WSDL URI, I was again able to successfully connect my test Adobe Flex application to my web service with no problems.

All this with no need to mess around with HTTP (it’s just the transport), SOAP (it’s just the protocol), or WSDL (it is generated). Java tooling sure makes web services easy.

I have no computer, much more a network connection, at the new office I’m deployed to so I’m forced to use my netbook and phone for surfing and downloading. Needless to say, having both WiFi and HSDPA activated is a huge drain on the battery. So I looked around for a USB charger.

The first logical place to go to is of course your friendly neighborhood Nokia service center. They had some but at a staggering P1,200. Next stop, was CDR-King, purveyor of cheap electronica where I endured a somewhat slow queue only to be told that they sell them for P90 but are currently out of stock. I finally found it at Games and Gadget for P220. Not as cheap as CDR-King but it sure beats out-of-stock.

Now I can extend my surfing to as long as my netbook has power and as long as I can stomach the expensive telco charges.

WiFi is good. Free WiFi is even better. But it’s quite scarce. One of the more prevalent free WiFi hotspots are the ones from WiGO. It’s advertisement driven so once you connect, you’re taken to a captive portal where you are shown some ads. So far so good. I mean, they have to make money after all.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. It also requires you to be running the WiGOBar,  a pesky ad-carrying floating window that blocks quite a large part of the screen like a fungus infection that just won’t go away.

There’s a solution for the Mac but what about for us Windoze users? Don’t lose hope. There is the Hide Windows Utility. Download, extract, and run (the .bat file),  and presto! No more WiGOBar.

I now heart WiGO, too :D

The less-than-a-year old paint job on my bumper got ruined again. Chei and I were driving along Ortigas when some stupid family driver (why do stupid people get to drive?)  swerved from my LEFT towards Xavier St. on the right. He almost made it but his rear end clipped my front bumper scraping some paint off and exposing the black plastic. And when he got down he even had the balls to say it was my fault!

There’s not sense talking to a useless moron so I talked to the owner who was inside. She readily admitted it’s her driver’s fault and she offered that the insurance take care of it (fat chance!). She was with her kids. Apparently, she was bringing them to school. Here’s their stupid driver endangering not just other motorists but also the owner and her kids. Too bad I wasn’t able to advise her to fire the driver. But I sure hope she does.

A bus ran over a two-year old girl and her mother at EDSA yesterday. The girl died while her mother sustained injuries. It was not too long ago when a prominent doctor’s car got hit by a bus killing the doctor and causing the car to go up in flames. That and many more.

Every driver knows how hazardous EDSA is with all those buses. They weave in and out of their dedicated bus lanes and cause accidents with private vehicles, other buses, and pedestrians.

And when they’re not speeding around like the maniacs that they are, they’re causing monstrous traffic jams at intersections where they wait and wait and wait for passengers. One thing you would notice is that most of the buses have few passengers if any. You have to wonder, do we need so many buses and bus companies?

It’s too bad that the government, is not acting on this menace. For as long as they don’t do anything, there will be no justice for all victims of accidents involving buses. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. There’s just too much money involved.