Coding Blog

ADZU Open Lab will be switching to Edubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake! Wee! Expecting Ubuntu sovereignty in the University! More power Ubuntu Linux Development Team. A Freedom Toaster empowered by Shuttleworth Foundation is badly needed in our University. The network administrator, Sir Greg, also suggested Xubuntu 6.06 in the College Internet Access Area (CIAA). Well, it’s easy as one-two-three.

It’s good to be back to one’s abode. I haven’t been blogging lately for the reason that my dad was confined and there were no other who could watch over him except me. Good thing that my dad’s okay now. Got to go, have to finish the enrollment process. God bless.

Twenty factorial? Thank God for all the blessings especially the gift of life. Thank you mom and dad for taking care of me. Thank you everyone! Happy birthday to me! I am no longer a teenage lad. I could not believe it. Time flies so fast.

[Previous Post] Sorry I forgot the private flag because I was in a hurry awhile ago. I hope it didn’t deface Planet Ubuntu-PH. [OS Development] Global Descriptor Table conquered! Nothing special, more tasks ahead. So far so good. Linux 0.01 is cool and MiniOS (Minix) too! Hail to you Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum.

Thinking of the song? No, definitely not Kala’s hit in the Myx Daily Top 10. It was 31 down 7 o’clock in the evening, the last day of our training. The sky was darkening and the wind blew softly as I walked toward the terminal. Going home later than 6 o’clock in the evening is such a waste of time I heard myself whisper. Before taking the jeepney in line, I have decided to sit down and buy a bottle of coke in a bakery situated near the end of the terminal. While taking a sip, I observed people passing by. Definitely not Manila, whispering to myself and reminiscing the events a year ago. 5 minutes would be long enough for me to begin sipping air so I took a jeepney. I have waited for the jeepney to be filled up. Not exceeding 10 minutes, the wheels started rolling as expected. This year is going to be the hardest school year ever. Again, talking to myself. Anticipating sleepless nights, hardworks, additional duties or obligations, etc. Then suddenly while thinking o...

This is a late post. Simply explains how the kernel sits in after grub. [BITS 32] global _start extern kernel_entry PAGEALIGN equ 1<<0 MEMORYINFO equ 1<<1 HEADERFLAGS equ PAGEALIGN | MEMORYINFO ; 0x3 that is HEADERMAGIC equ 0x1BADB002 CHECKSUM equ -(HEADERMAGIC + HEADERFLAGS) STACKSIZE equ 0x4000 section .text ALIGN 4 ; section must be 4 byte-aligned multibootheader ; dd HEADERMAGIC dd HEADERFLAGS dd CHECKSUM _start: mov esp, stack+STACKSIZE push eax push ebx call kernel_entry jmp $ ; GDT here ; ISRs here section .bss ALIGN 4 stack resb STACKSIZE ; 16KB of memory I’m just sad tonight, that’s why I decided to post this out of nothing. Well I guess keeping myself busy would be wise enough.

[Da Vinci Code] I have been to the movie house recently and watched this controversial film. The book, despite its ever-growing popularity, did not interest me that much since I equate my faith with a sword mightier than Tireal’s Azurewrath. I was saddened deeply when I reached the movie house and saw numerous people there oozing with their teenage curiosity. First of all, have they been to church? It’s Sunday for pete’s sake. Why would they prioritize watching a film that is against their religion without even thinking that they have their obligations? Dan Brown’s manuscript is really a work of art and no question about that but people should remember it as a fiction book and nothing beyond. To all those who have read the book or have watched the film, try reading The Da Vinci Code Decoded written by a Jesuit priest. [OS Development] Do not write your own operating system. An information available globally that could be considered as a blackhole where o...

I have emerged vim-7.0-r2 just recently. Preparing a lot for our college thesis. Not excluding the amount of food intake. Reading the intel manuals from hell. Heavy bondings with bochs, vim, nasm, gcc, ld, strace, objdump, hexedit, as, etc. Requesting a divine intervention for strength.

I was sidetracked from my C++ programming ( Battle for Wesnoth ) by the school’s Senior Summer Trainings 2006. After MySQL and PHP, and a week OJT at Zamboanga Freeport (OMED IT Solutions), the dark side of the force has arrived, Java Programming. We are currently being trained by Ma’am Ebony Domingo and some CS upperclasses who already received their respective diplomas last March of this year. Their spirits of magis uplift my morale and drive me to be more optimistic especially in dealing with a language that I’m not quite familiar with. Java is known for its being a platform independent language, equipped with an auto garbage collection mechanism, etc. (I don’t want to elaborate more on these). What I am trying to point here out is that, one of Java’s assets, which is the auto garbage collection, is also possible in C++ using an auto pointer . Now, how is this possible? What an auto pointer does is, it owns a dynamically created object and automa...

Summer vacation days are even more tiring than the usual school days! I have thought of decreased loads in my TO-DO list but I was wrong. Good day.

Today is the second day of the Senior Summer Trainings 2006 . Yesterday, we have started off MySQL running on Ubuntu. We did just simple exercises but very worth-doing even if I had previous experiences with the subject. To Ma’am Flisha Fernandez, thanks a lot. The Ateneo Spirit of Magis has a way of rewarding people like you. [Kernel] Please welcome “The Instrument of Doom” linux-2.6.14-kee-innovative with nVidia support. I have purchased a second-hand graphics card (GeForce FX 5700 256mb 128bit) from a friend. Good to go! [Gig] I hope the training will end up earlier than the usual time. I have to warm up for the gig tonight at Park 88.

Junior year’s over. New daily schedule has emerged. In a day there must be at least 2 hours of bass exercises which include music bass theory, scales, funky bass lines, and jamming sessions. 6 hours of programming (right after this sissy FoxPro RDBMS project). In weekends, there must be at least 2 jamming sessions with my band for compositions and reviews. Play at different bars at night, for pleasure and income. My top priority for this summer break is to code some modules for our final project ahead. Of course, schedule is subject to change due to unpredictable and uncontrollable forces such as heavy household chores, family affairs, family business, or anything that concerns morality.

I really do not enjoy coding in MS Visual FoxPro but I have no choice. Damn! I swear not to use it any longer after this RDBMS project. I was asked by a friend to code a simple program to check if a string is a palindrome. I miss coding in C and assembly a lot! So to satisfy my urge, I tried to do it in a different manner. A timed coding session! #include<stdio.h> #include<string.h> #define MAXSTRING 50 int main(void) { int i; int ctr = 0; char c; char string[MAXSTRING] = "\0"; char temp[MAXSTRING] = "\0"; printf("Enter a string: "); for (i = 0; (c = getchar()) != '\n'; ++i) string[i] = c; string[i] = '\0'; for (--i; i >= 0; --i){ temp[ctr] = putchar(string[i]); ++ctr; } if (!strcmp(string, temp)) printf("\nString is a palindrome!\n"); else printf("\nNot a palindrome!\n"); return 0; } I finished coding in 4 minutes and 37 seconds. Not a good record though. So sad.

Last Sunday, I was coding some modules for our RDBMS project and playing Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna (quite old but it would be a waste of time if I did not) in parallel. I received a phone call asking a favor to write a program for sending signals through the parallel port. It sounds a little scary at first because I did not have any idea on parallel port interfacing. Let me explain the project. The project is a Car Control System. They have 2 bipolar stepper motors. One is responsible for the forward-reverse function and the other one is for the left-right function. Signals recognized by the floppy drive stepper motor: Clockwise 18-degree turn 1001 or 0x9 0110 or 0x6 Counterclockwise 18-degree turn 0110 or 0x6 1001 or 0x9 Now, how is it possible to send these signals using the parallel port? Not all 25 pins are needed. For this project, only the data pins are needed. Pin Function 2 D0 3 D...

Is hacking ethical? It is if viewed within the context of the three definitions offered: hacktivist, hobbyist and researcher. We have the right in this country to protest, and if our activism takes a digital or electronic form, we have the right to do so. But don’t take my word for it. Who are ethical hackers? These early efforts provide good examples of ethical hackers. Successful ethical hackers possess a variety of skills. First and foremost, they must be completely trustworthy. While testing the security of a client’s systems, the ethical hacker may discover information about the client that should remain secret. In many cases, this information, if publicized, could lead to real intruders breaking into the systems, possibly leading to financial losses. During an evaluation, the ethical hacker often holds the “keys to the company,” and therefore must be trusted to exercise tight control over any information about a target that could be misused. The sensitivity of the in...