As I said in previous posts I’m a founder member of Guatemala Java Users Group, one year has passed since our first meeting, many Java code, frameworks, people and meetings started the road for our first big event “Java Day Guatemala“.

Two months ago one of the most active Drupal community members in our country and a great collaborator with our JUG came to a JUG meeting with a great idea “What if we do a full day activity dedicated to Java?”, one meeting later we started plans for that activity conveniently code-named “Java Day” so I asked for a space in java.net as a JUG and the event started to take shape. Yesterday that activity was a reality.

I won’t talk about a final score for the activity because I was part of the organization and is unethical , but I’m really satisfied with the results, the level of motivation, cohesion ,and compromise of every member of  “Java Day core team” was impressive, I’ve been part of many FLOSS events organization but this had a special flavor because all organization tasks were so easy and fluent, the only serious discussion was about what kind of pizza we should eat, just pure objectives, tasks and results.

At the end we had an event with almost 150 registered people (a huge quantity for our country) many of them were from other regions of our country, collaborators from all major universities (USAC, UFM, UVG, URL, UMG, UG), FLOSS communities, expositors were so variated, from pre-grade students to BA with master grade.

Now I just wanna say mission complete . Thanks to all people that made possible this event. We’d received good comments, but isn’t my style talk about that, see you in the next JUG meeting.

Is funny but finishing this post I’m asking myself why we call it Java Day in English if Guatemala is a Spanish speaking country?.

posted by tuxtor
Tags: 2011, day, guatejug, Guatemala, java
Filed under: Java Lanyard

My first steps in Linux where in KDE world, the first junkie app running in my PC was AMOR, you must admit it, that walking penguin over active windows was so funny.

Later I started a phenomenon that Linux people call “distro jumping” Mandrake/Mandriva, OpenSuse, Fedora and finally the unbeatable performance distro Gentoo . Is strange but in every distro jump the only constant was my desktop environment selection, I’ve been using Gnome since 2006, at that time Gnome was so different, so simple and so fast, definitively I was a Gnome loyal fan and I’ve built from source every version since 2008 watching the rise (and fall) of 2.x series.

When Gnome 3 was announced I was so excited about new features and my first Gnome 3 impression was gnome-shell running over Gnome 2, just three months after constant use I must search my new perfect desktop environment

Why?

• More steps for the same task:

When you know the exact name for the task that you wanna run you just press alt+f2 and write the name. But what happens if you don’t kwnow the real name?

Gnome 2 steps: Look for the Gnome menu, select your application, click it and run it

Gnome 3 steps: Press super key or move the mouse to the left corner, click on applications, wait one second, now do Gnome 2 steps

Do you get the point? Maybe Gnome 3 was made with a different focus but different isn’t always better.

• Java apps simply don’t work at this time

And isn’t just for me, is a bug without clear solution

In red hat: http://bit.ly/qZIKGz

In ubuntu:  http://bit.ly/qdq9vw

Java isn’t the first choice for desktop apps, but for enterprise apps, Java IDEs are crucial, if you cannot click menus you can’t do anything :/

• Connect to server
  

Gnome 2: Click in connect to server, select between ftp, smb or ssh, type credentials and you have direct access to filesystems in the automatically opened nautilus

Gnome 3: That feature was deleted, now I have to manually open nautilus, press ctrl+L, guess the right URL, enter the password only if I wrote the right URL and finally I got access to the filesystem in nautilus.

Is the same problem, more steps for the same task (and yeah I can also mount the remote filesystems in shell but we’re talking about Gnome 3 ).

Final solution:

Build 20 LXDE packages, get a random woman wallpaper and use the computer as a happy user again , sure LXDE isn’t so fancy, but it works.

I’m sure that I’ll be back on Gnome, but at this time isn’t an option.

posted by tuxtor
Tags: 3, Gnome, LXDE
Filed under: Garbage Collector

Justifying again the instance of the database that hold this blog I’m back to my personal posts, the next weeks definitively would be the hardest of my life, finally one main goal of my life was accomplished now I’m an engineer but that temporal happiness was faded by a not so good succession of events .

Life is about present and the things that I could have done now are just part of alternatives paths in my life that I threw in the sides of the road, now the universe looks like a long succession of random facts.

Although I am a very goal focused guy I was punched in the face by the stupidness that we can call “feelings”. If that isn’t enough I seen the real state of my goals so late, when I tried to borrow that false reality a rollback wasn’t an option. As I say so often in my spanish blog and talks: “well, the life just continues”.

Letting my life in his broken state, and thinking about the immortality of the crab I reviewed my life trying to remember random facts and radical changes,  yep isn’t the first time that my life will change so radically. By example in the techie area:

• At the age of 12 I was called freak and nerd just because my computer knowledge (so small BTW), later things go better and my first girlfriend was happy to be girlfriend of a smart guy,  but now  I’m f*cked because I was in the wrong place again by my techie inclinations.
• At 1998 Duke Nukem 3D was one of the best games running in my pc, later Duke Nukem sequel passed from expectation to vaporware/legend. This year videogamers received an average and not so impressive game that should be legendary.
• Thinking about Id Software, at 1991 Dangerous Dave in the haunted mansion was one of my first finished games, twenty years later I ‘discovered’ his creator jumping between links of wikipedia. He actually is one of the greatest programmers of all times and maybe the guy who inspired me to follow this road when I met Doom, yep is John Carmack, so late huh?
• I hated Linux in the first distro that I tried, now I’m eating thanks to Linux support.
• I loved VB 6 and later the first version of .net, now is like the scars that you wanna hide because are so ugly

posted by tuxtor
Filed under: Garbage Collector, Shouts from my head

Once upon a time in a far far away blog, I found that the only real and effective inspiration for blogging is procrastination . Actually I’m not so active in my regular GNU/Linux personal hacking, and this blog is life-funtoo centered so let’s talk about tuxtor’s recent life.

In some point I forked my professional road and now I’m one of the few Java Enterprise Boys  (few as percentage vrs. another tools) that I know in my country. As many people knows I’m not active anymore in LUGs activities and almost one year later I can confirm that was one of the best decisions that I’ve taken.

But as a whiskey needs ice and a marriage need sex, hackers need interaction with other hackers, in real or “virtual” life. As I said in one opportunity now I’m focused only in strict technical knowledge sharing, and with other FLOSS people we started the resurrection of our country Java Users Group, Guatejug.

Anybody can guess the difference between a JUG and a LUG. But if we look deep into the groups structure, LUGs are safer places to find help about how to use the software, but the new JUG is code centered and focused on people interested in code more than freedom. Three of four years involved in FLOSS groups and the very first  difference that I noticed between the Free Software philosophical centered community versus a pure technical community is the atmosphere. LUGs are good, and I’m still convinced that Free Software Movement is about freedom and not price, but as IT professionals we also need spaces to share with other professionals with different points of view talking about common points. In this case “Java platform”.

By the moment I’m happy with Guatejug. Friends of mine that rejected the LUGs ideas as “extremist ideas” now are very active on JUG activities. Why?. Just because they don’t feel ashamed or under attack when they talk about technology, sure most of Java software is under GPL/Apache/Eclipse/. . .  licenses. But the unique rule of a JUG is talk about Java technologies. And if we see technology as a common point instead of a fighting topic, the atmosphere is easy to maintain.

Thats all for now.

posted by tuxtor
Filed under: Java Lanyard, Shouts from my head

Yesterday I crashed in motorcycle, I hit a car door and later the floor, the car driver looks like a robber. And if that isn’t enough . . . maybe  for confusion the only reaction of a very special person for my was being upset with the fact that I was delayed for a date . One day after the crash I’m with a destroyed knee, cut wrist and a constant shoulder hurt. But I’m happy.

Why I’m happy?

Well considering that the death could catch me  in that accident I’m relatively fine, with a smile, the motorcycle is fine and the reparation bill will be for almost $120 not so much if you think it slowly.

Later a friend of mine  give me assistance and as anybody knows I’m sure that I’ll lose the fear riding again the motorcycle.

What saved me from that accident?

Speed? Adrenaline? Bajaj Motors Design? An invisible gnome that was between the door and me?, I really don’t know the reason but independently that the people think about my beliefs I think that God protect me and I’m glad with him.

So I’m really happy?

Yes I’m alive, I’m still in this earth one more day, I crashed just two days after completing my motorcycle protection equipment and the worst part was absorbed by the keblat, I was riding below any death speed in the specific moment, and I can speak about this fact and laugh about the color of my injuries (and potential scars) . So enjoy the colors

posted by tuxtor
Filed under: Shouts from my head