Big Match

We will have another big derby match with Manchester United against Manchester City that will decide who will be the top of the table and probably decides who will be the winner of this season's EPL title. If MU won this match, they will be 6 points away from City and in theory, it would be impossible for them not to win this title. They also have bigger chance if they can force a draw with City.

In the meantime, both losing and draw is not an option for Mancini's team. They have to win in order to survive. Winning this match will take them to the top of the table because they are better in terms of goal differences and i think it would be a big advantages for City.

Let's see the outcome in the derby match in the next 24 hours

Ubuntu/Kubuntu 12.04 ISO

For those who are living in Indonesia and wanted to download the latest Ubuntu/Kubuntu 12.04 releases, you can find the ISOs on our ISO Server at UKDW: http://iso.ukdw.ac.id.

We provided CD/DVD ISOs for 32/64 bit architecture and for amd64 and i386 processors only. We skipped the PowerPC because almost none of us use that machine in our campus. We also skipped Mac version, so it's pure Intel and AMD processors only.

We also host Ubuntu repository which can be seen at http://repo.ukdw.ac.id. It's updated regularly, so you can use it if you are living in Indonesia.

Rooting Xperia Neo V

I found an article that explains about how to root Sony Xperia Neo V. Please note that rooting might break the waranty, so use it on your own risk. Any damage to your phones after applying this steps will be your responsible and not mine nor the author of the article.

Credit goes to FreakGeeks

Here are the requirements for rooting Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V:

• The phone with unlocked bootloader and it should not be locked to any other network too.
• A computer with Windows operating system.
• Complete back of all the data on the phone including contacts, call logs, text messages, MMS settings and other important files.
• The battery should be about 70% full.
• It is recommended to uninstall any kinds of security programs or antivirus software so that the rooting process remains unhindered.
• Android SDK is downloaded and installed in the computer.
• Installation of the Android USB drivers for Xperia Neo V and fastboot is to done on the computer.
• The recovery image and the rooting files for Xperia Neo V are downloaded and kept.

This list completes the requirements for the rooting process. Now the actual rooting process of the phone commences. It is very important to follow all the steps carefully as missing a single step might harm your phone.

 

Process for rooting the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V phone:

• Start by installing the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) in the computer.
• Now you need to download the USB drivers and the fastboot archive and save the folders on your computer. There will be two folders.
• Go to the folder where the fastboot_with_Android_USB_file.rar is extracted. All the files inside the fastboot folder are copied. Now go to the Android SDK installation folder and open the “Tools” folder inside it. Paste all the copied files there.
• Also copy the recoveryNeo.img to the same “Tools” folder.
• Copy RootXperia.zip and paste it to the root of the phone’s SD card.
• After these, turn the phone off.
• The phone is then to be put in fastboot mode. For doing that, you need to connect your phone to your computer with the help of a USB cable. While you connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable, press the Menu key.
• A command prompt is launched on the computer.
• Change the directory to the place where the adb.exe and fastboot.exe are located. They are usually in the “Platform-Tools” folder or the “Tools” folder in the SDK folder.
• In the command prompt, put the following commands:
  • Fastboot devices
  • Fastboot boot recoveryNeo.img
  • Fastboot reboot
  • The device will automatically reboot into the Recovery Mode after the last command is entered.
  • While in the Recovery Mode, select “install zip from SD card” and then choose “RootXperia.zip”. Select by using the Power button. It takes some time for the installation to get over.
  • Rebooting the phone completes the rooting process.

Follow the guidelines well and get the rooting done in no time at all!

Releases from Oracle

Today, Oracle releases updates to several of their products, including VirtualBox and Java.

VirtualBox 4.1.14 maintenance release is now the latest version and this version only fixes 3 bugs compared to previous releases, so if you are not really affected by the bugs mentioned on the Changelog, you can safely stay with the current version installed on your machine.

Meanwhile in Java, Oracle pushed updates to JDK/JRE 6 and 7 and for JDK/JRE 7, they introduced some new features. Here are the highlights for JDK/JRE 7:

• JDK Support for Mac OS X
• New JVM (Java HotSpot Virtual Machine, version 23)
• New Supported Garbage Collector: Garbage First (G1)
• JavaFX 2.1 Runtime co-installs with JRE 7 during auto-update
• JAXP upgraded to 1.4.6
• Java DB upgraded to 10.8.2.2
• SPARC T4 specific crypto optimizations in the security area
• New flag to unlock Commercial Features

Please Welcome Precise Pangolin

Ubuntu 12.04 is finally released by Canonical after Kate Stewart announced it on the Ubuntu-Announce mailing list. This is a LTS version for Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products, that means this version will be supported up to 5 years for all products, not just the servers.

Here's a little bit more detailed about the releases:

There are 54 product images and 2 cloud images being shipped with this 12.04 LTS release, with translations available in 41 languages. The Ubuntu project's 12.04 archive currently has 39,226 binary packages in it, built from 19,179 source packages, so lots of good starting points for your imagination!

This release also the first Ubuntu Linux  releases that introduces Head-Up Display which was introduced by Mark himself on his blog. For more new features in Ubuntu, please see the desktop and server articles.

Canonical also releases  Kubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Edubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Xubuntu 12.04 (LTS), Mythbuntu 12.04, Lubuntu 12.04 and Ubuntu Studio 12.04 in the same time. Please note that there will be no more support from Canonical for Kubuntu 12.10, and it will be replaced by Blue Systems.

Unfortunately, the release enjoyment was a little dissappointment as their main website can't handle the traffic and has been brought offline. It appears that they are using Drupal as their content management system. Probably they will replace or tune it to be more scalable for this kind of release which will often regularly every six months.

Mark Shuttleworth have also introduced the codename for the next Ubuntu Linux, which will be Quantal Quetzal and it's scheduled in this October.

Google Drive Activated

I noticed that Google is releasing a new product called Google Drive yesterday and when i did, i asked them to notify me when my account is ready.

This morning, when i checked my email, i received an email from Google with a subject of "Welcome to Google Drive". That is fast, not even 24 hours before i submitted my request. I clicked the link and it launches Google Drive, which uses my Google Docs account and switch it to Google Drive. So, actually Google Drive is somewhat Google Docs + Sync capability.

They have a Google Drive client tool for Windows, but unfortunately, there's no client for Linux (yet). Teresa Wu, google docs community manager commented that Linux support is still being worked on by Google. I hope they don't end up like Picasa which was a good product by Google, but in the end, they stopped supporting it.

Once i downloaded and installed the client tool, my files on Google Drive (was Docs) are being copied to my computer and i can start working offline and everything will be synched up to my Google Drive account automatically.

GMail Capacity Upgraded, Announcing Google Drive

Google has announced through Gmail Blog that they are upgrading GMail's capacity from 7.5 GB to 10 GB (and still counting) to celebrate the their new service: Google Drive. This changes will not be instantly rolled out globally, but it will be completed by the next 24 hours. Although 2.5 GB is not that much, it's actually more than enough space for most users in GMail. I myself only used around 2.3 GB out of 7.5 GB provided by GMail.

In other Google Blog, they also announced the arrival of Google Drive, which can be used for people to work collaboratively with others. It's like a shared Google Docs IMHO. For starters, Google gives you 5 GB of storage for free. If you need more than that, you can buy additional storage.  When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB.

Here's the list of price Google is offering for additional storage space:

• 25GB for $2.49/month
• 100GB for $4.99/month
• 1TB for $49.99/month

You can also expect Google Drive to be integrated with other Google products, such as Google+, GMail, GDocs, and don't forget about Chrome Web Store where you can install apps that can be used to create documents or videos or music that will later be uploaded to Google Drive.

Google become Zipper

In order to honor Gideon Sundback for his work on zipper, Google has changed it's main page into a zipper in which you can slide down to open up a default search which will look for Gideon Sundback.

I noticed that in the last few years, Google doodle is changing quite a lot. They not only celebrating public holidays on certain countries, but also honor certain people who have done a great job inventing something in the past. This is a great idea because most of us didn't know about the author of  those inventions if Google didn't show it on their home page.

How to Upgrade to ICS 4.0.3

I found a nice article about Guide to Install ICS as well as root Sony Arch S, Ray, and Neo V. This article covers on how to upgrade to ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) 4.0.3, Build number 4.1.A.0.562 for several Sony phones (Arch S, Ray, and Neo V).

For now, Sony is still working to push the ICS update globally, but it will take some time before it reaches your country. So far, they are still pushing the updates to people in Nordic area. Other area such as America, Australia, and Asia are still waiting for the official updates from Sony. If you live in these continent, but still wanted to upgrade now, you can use the above article to download the latest firmware and performing manual upgrade (don't forget to back up first).

For those who wishes to see what others have said about ICS update, please see this thread. Remember, each person will have different opinion, but i guess we can see the overall opinion after looking all the comments there.

Please note that any damage caused by any activities related with upgrading and/or rooting your phone is your own risk, not the author or me :)

Playing with GIT

I have started a new GIT repository on GitHub called SlackHacks. It's just created few hours ago and i wanted to use this repository to put my "hacked" SlackBuild that works for Slackware-Current.

Usually, SlackBuild scripts are designed to work with Slackware-Stable, not for Slackware-Current. Unfortunately, the nature changes in -Current looks more interesting for me, because there might be time when new changes in -Current break compatibility with older version and need some "magical touch" aka patches to work with newest version.

As the policy in SlackBuilds required us to submit packages compatible to -Stable only, the only way to provide updates for Slackware-Current users is via third party repository which is outside the SlackBuilds project.

I will also use this repository to learn more about GIT.

Building Android/iOS Apps Using C#

If you came from Windows background and you wanted to try creating applications that will be used for Android and iOS but you don't have Macintosh machine, then you can try to use Mono from Xamarin.

They have been working closely with Microsoft in the past to provide open source platform which is compatible with Microsoft's .NET specifications and now, they want to improve it much further by adding support to iOS and Android SDKs.

For iOS, you might want to try Mono  Touch and Mono for Android is for Android. Both projects are updated frequently and they are keeping up with the latest version of SDK available by both vendors (iOS 5 and Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich).

Since it's .NET based, it's well integrated with Microsoft Visual Studio and since it's also available for Mac, you can also use XCode as your IDE and use .NET classes in your MonoTouch apps. You can also easily bind existing C and Objective-C libraries.

Linux Mint 13 Codename: Maya

Clem has announced that Linux Mint 13 will have a codename of Maya, according to an official blog post. The codename was chosen a long time ago, after his daughter’s name who was named Maya in reference to:

• The Maya civilization
• The fictional Maya Toitovna
• Maya the Bee

In the blog post, it was also mentioned that LinuxMint will have an upcoming partnership with CompuLab and also Yahoo while they are still discussing with Google and ThinkPenguin. I believe Linux Mint is enjoying their current status as number 1 Linux distribution based on Distrowatch ranking.

Clem also reminds that Linux Mint has reached it's End of Life. There will be no more updates on Linux Mint. He also mentioned the end of life date for other releases:

• Linux Mint 11 will be supported until October 2012.
• Linux Mint 9 and Linux Mint 12 will be supported until April 2013.
• The upcoming Linux Mint 13 will be supported until April 2017

MapsGL on Google Maps

Do you know that Google has released a new feature on their Google Maps? This new feature is the MapsGL extension that allows you to see the map in 3D views. It uses WebGL (Web-based Graphics Library) as the backend to produce wonderful 3D imagineries.

One good thing about WebGL is that most browsers has support this feature and included this into their products, so users don't need to install additional plugins such as Flash Players or JRE or whatsoever.

Some of the MapsGL improvements include:

• 3D buildings in Map view mode and 45° aerial imagery
• Smooth transitions between zoom levels and seamless 45° aerial view rotations
• 'Swoop' quickly from the map view to Street View imagery

Here's the minimum specifications to run MapsGL

• A WebGL enabled browser:
• Chrome 14+
• Firefox 8+
• Safari 5.1+ if manually enabled
To enable WebGL in Safari:
• Open the Safari menu and select Preferences.
• Click the Advanced tab in the Preferences window.
• At the bottom of the window, check the Show Develop menu in menu bar checkbox.
• Open the Develop menu in the menu bar and select Enable WebGL.

• OS

• Mac OS Snow Leopard 10.6+, Lion 10.7+
• Windows Vista or 7
• Linux

• Video Card Hardware

• GPU with Direct X 9.0c recommended (Shader Model 3.0+)
• For Windows machines, must have drivers published later than January 1, 2009.
• Some low-end integrated GPUs (like the Intel GMA 3100 and 3150) are not compatible

• Note that some users have reported having issues with the Intel HD 3000 video card.

If the option to switch to MapsGL is not enabled, go to http://maps.google.com/?vector=1

Here's a video showing Google Maps with MapsGL enabled and disabled

Big Match on Champion League

Last night, there was a big match between Bayern and Real Madrid and the host became the winner with a 2-1 win in Alianz Arena. This is not the end for Real Madrid because they still have a chance in Bernabeu and actually they have a good opportunity because they scored an away goal. They only need 1-0 to secure their ticket to final.

Meanwhile, in the next few hours, there will be another big match in the semi final of Champions League between Chelsea that will be the host against another Spanish club, Barcelona. It will be another great match because both team are offensive-type club and they like open play, which makes football so interesting to see.

Honestly, i don't really care about who will win the champion because my favorite team, Manchester United has been kicked out of this league. I just wish for a great match for all of the team participating in the semi finals and final later on

ICS on Sony Xperia

Sony has stated that they will roll out ICS update for Sony Xperia model in Q2 2012 and hey, it's mid April and right now, they have already roll it to public. According to a post in XPeria Blog, there hasn't been any increment/decrement after upgrading to the latest ICS. FYI, the information used by XPeria Blog was Sony XPeria Arc S which has 1.5 GHz processors.

The new update is using Linux Kernel 2.6.32 which is a long-term kernel releases. The ICS version that is rolled out is ICS 4.0.3, not the latest version that was released by Google (4.0.4)

Among the changes are quick dial, new recent apps viewer, quick response for incoming calls, improved email app and better monitoring & control over mobile data. To maintain an optimal user experience, they have included a Performance Assistant which lets you disable certain apps from running for better performance.

Let's see if my wife is willing to upgrade her phone to ICS