The guid to cats that we all were waiting for.

For some days now Skype has released a new public release that has video support. Since day 0 the Gentoo users that were running the testing version could have an upgrade. A few more weeks and if no strange bugs pop up it will be marked as stable software.

So if you are still running the old skype and want to use the new one:

emerge --sync
echo "net-im/skype" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge skype


All in all there's something to give,
All in all there's something to do,
All in all there's something to live,
With you ...

14-06-2008

A few weeks ago I attended some presentations about social 3d worlds. Two of the four presentations were about what can be done on Second Life and how to do it, another was about E-Learning and Virtual Worlds and the last one (actually it was the third) was by Marcos Marado and was a very nice retrospective about virtual worlds dating back to 1968. His presentation showed that many of these virtual worlds was eventually taken over my something newer. Surely many are still used today, but the user base dropped to a shadow of what was before.

My feeling is that the same will happen to second life. And why will that happen? Today I see two classes of problems with second life that need addressing:
Technical Problems
It is a very slow engine! It is open source code so the community should be able to fix it right? Wrong!! The problem is at a level that I do not believe a fix can be produced by changing the client code. As I saw last Saturday most of the performance issues come from the fact that the engine was designed to parse user produced content.

Economical Problems
Second Life is not a game. It does not aim to be a game. It aims to be a simulation of the real world, and it wants to be as perfect as possible. So good a simulation that money inside the virtual world is bought with real €€ and can be converted back.

Second life is an emerging platform for content production and distribution, just like the web was in 95. The main difference is the cost involved in a web presence versus a second life presence. Also back in 95/96 it was easy to imagine why should company A or B be in the web. With second life it is not that easy.

The company I work for (WIT-Software) launched it’s new corporate identity a few days ago. The new web site is up since…… some 15 minutes ago .

I hope you all like the new logo and image.

This is just a pointer to my guide about Gentoo on the Dell D630.

I’ve been trying to stress test a RTSP Streaming server. My goal is to see how many clients a particular server can handle. Apple has a tool called StreamingLoadTool, but virtually no information on it, also it crashes alot with:

ClientSession: Failed to bind a UDP socket.

after running for some time.

All other tools I saw where commercial windows based multi purpose test tools that would need a giant test farm.

With XCB and java graphical applications on recent distributions one gets:

java: xcb_xlib.c:82: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock’ failed.

This is very well documented (just google a bit). So this serves mostly as a mental note for the way to fix it.

$ sed -i ‘s/XINERAMA/FAKEEXTN/g’ /opt/sun-jdk-1.6.0.04/jre/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so

or the libawt.so of your JRE. Remember that many programs may come with they’re own JRE and not use the one provided by the system.

A week ago I stared on my new work. I was at IPN and now I’m on the corporate world working at WIT-Software developing software for mobile systems as well as backend code for Mobile operators.
It was been a wounder full week, with lots of work and new stuff to learn.

As an added bonus last Week I received my last grade and now have my CS degree

Since I was a child I’ve always been interested in Aquariums, so this Christmas my fiancée offered me a 60 liter world. I’ve started it and this week I added some (21) fish. I’m very happy for finally having the chance to play with this. I’ll keep adding pictures here as time goes by.

Again I must say THANK YOU Raquel. One day at a time you keep my world turning.

There are some rumors that the Portuguese ISCTE is going to start a 2 years master program in OSS software. I must say that I find this a very dumb idea.

Software Engineering is an area in Computer Science, the same way Networks, Artificial Intelligence, Database, Operating Systems etc etc. OSS is a distribution model in CS.

The web development platform that we all love just released version 2.0. Go grab it while it is fresh.

The Wiki page I started about the Efika got a honorable mention award.

Over the last few months the Efika has been working fine inside the card box but I’m considering a new casing. Also the bin packages are a bit outdated. Must update that one of these days.

I will post the coments on the presentationslater, relying on my notes. For now, I will only talk about the event, in general terms.

I am very disapointed with the organization of Expo Web 2.0, in Berlin. On the first day there was no coffee. The lunch is a small sandwich, a bottle of water, an apple and a cookie and it is sponsored by Nokia. Lunching small sandwiches for four days!
If you want to leave your coat, you have to pay 1.70€ and if you want to leave your luggage at entrance you will pay 6€, each day.

In the future, they must have really good speakers to convince me to go to another O’Reilly conference…

Now, I will listen Cory Doctorow. Silence, please

Skype just released the first beta version of their Linux client with video support. I already added it to the Gentoo Portage, but as it is a Beta release you’ll have to package.unmask it:


emerge --sync
echo net-im/skype >> /etc/portage/package.unmask
echo "net-im/skype **" >>/etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge -av skype


As Skype beta tester I’ve been using these releases for some time and must say that I’m quite happy with the result, just a few quirks with some webcams, but nothing to serious, and maybe now there will be a good motive to pressure for nice drivers.

If you have any problems fell free to bug me and I’ll try to give you a hand. My Skype name is gustavofelisberto

I need Second Life for my work and I was a little afraid to run it in Linux. I was using it in windows. Today I tried it in Linux and I must say I did not saw any problems
Nice!

…. or then again it might suck.

Personally I find it to be a very complex platform. And with my experience, the more complex a system is, the more bugs it has.

For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to develop a very small application, it consists of a Web Service that is accessed by some EJB Session Beans. The web service is probably working as it gets deployed, and I can get the WSDL from it.

For purposes of reference I’m using jboss-4.2.1.GA with Java 1.6.0_03 on Linux.

Right now I have a jsp file that gets a LibrarySearcher (Remote bean), this in turn gets a WebBookSearcher (Local bean) and this calls the WebService. I’m getting this error:


12:18:52,845 ERROR [STDERR] javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: setProperty must be overridden by all subclasses of SOAPMessage
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.jaxws.client.ClientImpl.handleRemoteException(ClientImpl.java:304)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.jaxws.client.ClientImpl.invoke(ClientImpl.java:242)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.jaxws.client.ClientProxy.invoke(ClientProxy.java:164)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.jaxws.client.ClientProxy.invoke(ClientProxy.java:150)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at $Proxy145.bookSearchXML(Unknown Source)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at sessionsbeans.WebBookSearcherBean.searchBooks(WebBookSearcherBean.java:29)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
12:18:52,850 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:112)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.interceptor.InvocationContextImpl.proceed(InvocationContextImpl.java:166)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.interceptor.EJB3InterceptorsInterceptor.invoke(EJB3InterceptorsInterceptor.java:63)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.entity.TransactionScopedEntityManagerInterceptor.invoke(TransactionScopedEntityManagerInterceptor.java:54)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.AllowedOperationsInterceptor.invoke(AllowedOperationsInterceptor.java:47)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPolicy.invokeInCallerTx(TxPolicy.java:126)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxInterceptor$Required.invoke(TxInterceptor.java:195)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,851 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPropagationInterceptor.invoke(TxPropagationInterceptor.java:76)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateless.StatelessInstanceInterceptor.invoke(StatelessInstanceInterceptor.java:62)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.security.AuthenticationInterceptor.invoke(AuthenticationInterceptor.java:77)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.security.Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptor.invoke(Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptor.java:106)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.ENCPropagationInterceptor.invoke(ENCPropagationInterceptor.java:46)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.asynchronous.AsynchronousInterceptor.invoke(AsynchronousInterceptor.java:106)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateless.StatelessContainer.localInvoke(StatelessContainer.java:214)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateless.StatelessContainer.localInvoke(StatelessContainer.java:184)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateless.StatelessLocalProxy.invoke(StatelessLocalProxy.java:81)
12:18:52,852 ERROR [STDERR] at $Proxy138.searchBooks(Unknown Source)
12:18:52,853 ERROR [STDERR] at sessionsbeans.LibrarySearcherBean.searchBooks(LibrarySearcherBean.java:33)
12:18:52,853 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
12:18:52,853 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:112)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.interceptor.InvocationContextImpl.proceed(InvocationContextImpl.java:166)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.interceptor.EJB3InterceptorsInterceptor.invoke(EJB3InterceptorsInterceptor.java:63)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.entity.ExtendedPersistenceContextPropagationInterceptor.invoke(ExtendedPersistenceContextPropagationInterceptor.java:57)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,885 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.entity.TransactionScopedEntityManagerInterceptor.invoke(TransactionScopedEntityManagerInterceptor.java:54)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.AllowedOperationsInterceptor.invoke(AllowedOperationsInterceptor.java:47)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPolicy.invokeInOurTx(TxPolicy.java:79)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxInterceptor$Required.invoke(TxInterceptor.java:191)
12:18:52,886 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.tx.TxPropagationInterceptor.invoke(TxPropagationInterceptor.java:76)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateful.StatefulInstanceInterceptor.invoke(StatefulInstanceInterceptor.java:83)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aspects.security.AuthenticationInterceptor.invoke(AuthenticationInterceptor.java:77)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.security.Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptor.invoke(Ejb3AuthenticationInterceptor.java:106)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.ENCPropagationInterceptor.invoke(ENCPropagationInterceptor.java:46)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.asynchronous.AsynchronousInterceptor.invoke(AsynchronousInterceptor.java:106)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateful.StatefulContainer.dynamicInvoke(StatefulContainer.java:333)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.remoting.IsLocalInterceptor.invokeLocal(IsLocalInterceptor.java:79)
12:18:52,887 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.remoting.IsLocalInterceptor.invoke(IsLocalInterceptor.java:70)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.aop.joinpoint.MethodInvocation.invokeNext(MethodInvocation.java:101)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ejb3.stateful.StatefulRemoteProxy.invoke(StatefulRemoteProxy.java:135)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at $Proxy137.searchBooks(Unknown Source)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.jsp.search_jsp._jspService(search_jsp.java:64)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.jasper.runtime.HttpJspBase.service(HttpJspBase.java:70)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:387)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:320)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:266)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:803)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:290)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.web.tomcat.filters.ReplyHeaderFilter.doFilter(ReplyHeaderFilter.java:96)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:235)
12:18:52,888 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:206)
12:18:52,889 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:230)
12:18:52,889 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:175)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.SecurityAssociationValve.invoke(SecurityAssociationValve.java:179)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.web.tomcat.security.JaccContextValve.invoke(JaccContextValve.java:84)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:128)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:104)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.web.tomcat.service.jca.CachedConnectionValve.invoke(CachedConnectionValve.java:157)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:109)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:241)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:844)
12:18:52,911 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:580)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:447)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: setProperty must be overridden by all subclasses of SOAPMessage
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage.setProperty(SOAPMessage.java:424)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.soap.SOAPMessageImpl.<init>(SOAPMessageImpl.java:67)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.soap.MessageFactoryImpl.createMessage(MessageFactoryImpl.java:155)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.CommonSOAP11Binding.createMessage(CommonSOAP11Binding.java:58)
12:18:52,912 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.CommonSOAPBinding.bindRequestMessage(CommonSOAPBinding.java:153)
12:18:52,913 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.CommonClient.invoke(CommonClient.java:274)
12:18:52,913 ERROR [STDERR] at org.jboss.ws.core.jaxws.client.ClientImpl.invoke(ClientImpl.java:230)
12:18:52,913 ERROR [STDERR] ... 94 more


I’ve googled and could only find references to the top error when the deployed ear contained extra JAR files for the WS engine that conflicted with the one already in JBoss.

You can find them here

Um dos maiores receios que eu tinha, derivado da experiência negativa de vários amigos, era não ter wireless e-U em Kubuntu. Ligar-se à guest-e-U parece fácil, mas não se tem jabber, nem mail, via kontact, nem ligação ssh à selva. E se posso passar sem as comunicações instantâneas, é-me muito mais penoso ver o email na meia-dúzia de contas, uma por uma.

Hoje resolvi fazer uma pesquisa no google sobre a configuração da dita cuja (O how-to para Fedora que está no site da UC parece-me bastante complicado). O primeiro resultado que encontrei foi este.

Segui os passos. Verifiquei que já tinha jabber e ssh, mas continuava a não ter email. De forma que usei a solução de quem não tem conhecimentos de Linux: reboot.

Voltei a ligar a net et voilá! Tudo funciona direitinho!

Posto isto, hão-de permitir-me um desabafo. Eu sei que o Kubuntu/Linux não é perfeito, sei que tem problemas, como o Windows, como o Mac OS X. Mas é o OS que eu mais gosto, que me rende mais em termos de trabalho e o que me dá, a mim, menos problemas.
Fico triste quando os amigos me dizem – e foram muitos – que fiz asneira em livrar-me do mac, que em qualquer outro portátil eu teria os mesmos ou mais problemas em instalar linux. Que o linux tem muitos problemas nos laptops – e não digo que não, nem digo que não venha a ter problemas – mas até agora tudo tem funcionado. E quando não funciona, uma pesquisa rápida (primeiros resultados) no google, copy/paste das instruções e funciona.

Um grande obrigada ao Filipe Pires de Morais, pelo how to.