captsolo weblog

Latvia's best pagan/folk metal group Skyforger are on their Ireland tour now:

28.04.2005 - Gweedore Bar       - Derry
29.04.2005 - Voodoo Lounge      - Dublin
30.04.2005 - Rosetta Bar        - Belfast
01.05.2005 - Nancy Spains       - Cork
02.05.2005 - Fred Zeppelins Pub - Cork

It is a good opportunity to see and listen to them live. - If you are in Ireland, that is.
It's a pitty that they will not perform in the west of Ireland - would be very nice to see them in Galway and I think that there'd be enough folks here that would like to hear them.

More: Watch a song clip "Tumsā un Salā" [26Mb AVI] - Live in Parnu (Gothic Studio).
Its title translates as "In Thunder and Frost" and is a part album "Thunderforge".
See album lyrics (in Latvian and English translation) and the making of [the album].
song clip via truemetal.lv.

According to a blog post on bopuc/weblog HP now has a US patent for Semantic File System.

What is claimed is:

1. A data model represents semantic information associated with objects stored in a file system. The data model includes a first object identifier, a second object identifier and a relation identifier. The first object identifier identifies a first object stored in the file system. The second object identifier identifies a second object stored in the file system, wherein the second object is related to the first object. The relation identifier identifies a relationship between the first object and the second object.

6. The data model of claim 1, wherein the relation identifier comprises a property of the first object and the second object comprises a value of the property for the first object.

Basically, that is a patent for RDF applied to a file system - where subject and (optionally) object may identify objects stored in a file system.

Taking into account generalisations in other clauses of the patent, e.g. clause 6, and that "objects stored in the file system" are like any other resource, this is a patent for what has been out there for some time - Resource Description Framework (RDF) - a main building block of the Semantic Web.

Here are some tricks you can perform with your own class loaders:

- search a database instead of a filesystem for classes
- load different classes with the same fully-qualified name
- swap your classes with new versions at runtime
- load classes before you need them

JDK 1.4 + Tomcat Normal Edition + your own XML parser

... your web applications will not be using JDK 1.4 XML parser, but Tomcat's Xerces parser instead.

If you want to use your own XML parser shared across multiple web applications, you could place it in the shared class loader path, but because the common class loader is higher in the delegation chain, Tomcat's parser will be used first.

To solve this problem you could either use ... or move xerces.jar from the common class loader path to the system class loader path, which would make it available to Tomcat but invisible to your application.

More reading:

- ClassLoader JavaDoc
- JavaGeeks papers section - has a few white papers related to class loaders.

From Professional Apache Tomcat book.

Kāpēc ir tā, ka dažbrīd nekas neiet? Nekust no vietas un viss.
Šis gan ir retorisks jautājums - tā ir un viss - "???? ? ??????". Tā, par ko es te rakstīju?

OK, jādara visādas leimas lietas, bet kautkā īsti negribas.

Gribētos, ja tās lietas raiti ietu uz priekšu.

Citādi - uzliku Tomcat lai varētu iepētīt vienu Java servletu. Tas tā kā būtu derīgi, tikai īsti nav laika spēlēties. Mēģinu saprast no kura gala tam servletam ķerties klāt. Tā, viņu vēl "uzbūvēt" (build) vajag. Meklējam Ant. Uzliekam.

Kompilējot servletu Java paziņo, ka viņai diezko nepatīk 'enum', kas tai servletā tiek lietots. Iekš Java 1.5 tā nu vis nevarēšot, saka, lai rakstu '-source 1.4'. OK. Uzrakstu - tagad Java saka, ka ar 1.4 nu gan tā nevarēšot, jo cits 'enum' alter-ego gribot '-source 1.5'. Man tagad viņus abus reizē rakstīt?

OK - būs vien jāuzliek Java 1.4.2.

Paspēlēties ar servletiem un J2EE nebūs slikti - vienīgi tad, kad viss sanāks.
Spēlēties ar PHP Popoon freimworku jau iepatikās - jauka manta.

Ar Java 1.4.2. tā manta laikam kompilēsies. Nākamais jaukums - uz diska beidzās vieta. Kopējam jaukās lietas prom uz citu disku. Lielāko daļu kopējamās vielas, šķiet, aizņem .hack//SIGN.

Jā - to servletu man vajag tikai tāpēc lai 1 reizi palaistu un nokopētu tā darbības rezultātu. Nav diezko cost effective darbošanās, ne?

Varbūt būs turpinājums...

Sunday - nothing is really happening. The morning was nice and full of sunshine, but slept most of it, waking up at 11am.

If you wrote comments on this weblog recently, you'd have noticed that they won't appear at once. Don't be alarmed - they will appear as soon as they are approved. Got tired of the comment spam and added comment moderation.

1. Nebīstaties, ja jūsu komentāri šeit neparādās uzreiz.
Tie parādīsies tiklīdz būs apstiprināti.

Ieviesu moderāciju visiem komentāriem, bet vēl ir jāizdomā kāds 'black' and 'white' noteikumu kopums - kurus komentārus rakstīt uzreiz (gan jau ka no tiem, kas jau ir komentējuši šeit) un kurus pilnīgi droši uzskatīt par spamu.

2. Sviesta cibā šejienes saturs rādās bez linkiem, bildēm un cita smukā markupa.

Ko lai dara, ka no RSS 1.0 feeda Sviesta Ciba paņem <description>, kurā ir vienkārši teksts, bet ignorē <content:encoded>, kurā ir visi HTML tagi un stuff. Varētu vienīgi SC iebarot RSS 0.93 feedu - tur ir viss vienā putrā.

Izskatās vienkārši burvīgi.

Šodien mācīju mājas biedriem zolīti. Sen bija tas laiks, kad ar Master Luke spēlējām zolīti, nācās atcerēties noteikumus. Bet neko - viņiem tīri labi sanāca. Pietiekami dinamiska spēle lai būtu ko darīt vakaros.

Pie reizes apguvu nedaudz viņu spēli "shithead". Pirmo reizi zaudēju, otro reizi zaudēja Deivids. Kautkad aprakstīšu noteikumus [ja atcerēšos].

Viņu - tas ir īru laikan. Lai gan neesu gluži pārliecināts cik plaši ta ir izplatīta. Un kā ir ar zoli? Vai tā ir tīri latviešu spēle vai arī plašāk zināma?

And this girl here certainly enjoys roller-blading.

You can see some more graffiti pics on this boards.ie post.

What would you like to see in Fedora Core 4? - a repository of wishlists for FC4.

A not so random quote:

Fedora Core is really the sum of it's constituent packages. Most of the things I'd ask for are really requests to the developers of those packages, rather than the Fedora Core developers. Anyway, things I'd like to see:

1. Beagle. The Gnome search-for-file utility is pathetic. You should at least be able to search on mime-type, comments and emblems.
2. Someone please fix SMB Browsing authentication in gnome! It's just embarassing when I try to show FC3 off to my Windows lovin' colleagues and I can't even browse a windows network properly.
3. System-config-LDAP
4. ...
5. gDesklets - 'cos floating, semi-transparent clocks matter.
6. Make Totem Work. With MPEGs
7. glorious new System-Config-Packages which is better than synaptic
8. ...

I have a recently installed Linux Fedora Core 3. In order to keep up with software updates and to install software in a consistent way I installed apt-get package manager.

But now I've hit a problem - and hope somebody more knowledgable in Linux can help me.
FC3 has MySQL 3 and PHP4 installed by default.
How to upgrade them to MySQL 4.1 and PHP 5?

And do that using a package manager? Sure, I could download an rpm or compile from sources, but then I would have to deal with all the package dependencies. And that is what package manager is for, isn't it?

While acting more on intuition and trial/error, found a good resource - Fedora Myth(TV)ology how-to - which includes a step-by-step guide for updating your sistem.

The problem is - I followed the steps, installed atrpms-kickstart, then medley-package-config, even changed at-stable to at-bleeding. But nothing helped - apt-get still offers only MySQL 3.23 and PHP 4.3.

Take a look at moztips.com article "Exporting Mozilla Bookmarks and History as RDF / XML".

It contains a JavaScript snippet to export Mozilla Suite (or Firefox) bookmarks and history into RDF/XML. This will gives you some more data to feed RDF applications and personal semantic desktops.

The code to decode Mozilla history file originally came from Mozilla Bug 241438. Quote:

"It is impossible for non-Mozilla programs to extract data from
~/.mozilla/*/*.slt/history.dat because it uses Mork, which is --
and I do not use these words lightly -- the single most braindamaged
file format that I have ever seen in my nineteen year career.

Please make history.dat contain something sane, like tab-delimited
fields, or XML."

Mork is a scary name. It's just funny to see text like "Please ... utilize an established, open standard format like valid XML for the history file and other places which are using mork." in the last comment - RDF would allow more uses for this data than just some XML tag soup.

The 4th International Semantic Web Conference (ISCW 2005) will take place in Galway, Ireland on November 6 –10, 2005.

Submissions due:

Research/Academic Track - April 30, 2005
Industrial Track - April 30, 2005
Posters and Demos - July 22, 2005
Tutorial Proposals - May 6, 2005
Workshop Proposals - March 18, 2005

Semantic Web Challenge
June 1, 2005 Deadline for abstracts
June 15, 2005 Deadline for applications

For more information:
- ISWC 2005 homepage
- - important dates

Update: Workshop list is now online.

Holy Shmoly blog has an article about photo retouching providing some links to photo retouche tutorials.

What other good Photoshop and/or photo retouche tutorials / books are out there?

Šeit var apskatīt ko tik visu nevar izdarīt labs datorgrafiķis ar reālu fotogrāfiju (ar visām tās detaļām un "negludumiem").

Ekstrēmas korekcijas var redzēt šajā piemērā. Šeit jau tiek noņemti visi cilvēcīgie sīkumi un panākta tāda bilde, ka tikpat labi varētu šo sievietes attēlu vienkārši noģenerēt uz datora.

Kā mākslinieks raksta:

" It doesn't seem natural to me to take out every curve, to airbrush out every blemish, but what the Art Director wants, the Art Director will get. This shows an extreme example of how far an image can be taken. "

Piezīme: lai redzētu sākotnējo bildi šajos piemēros, pārbrauciet ar peles kursoru pāri fotogrāfijai.

No tā var izdarīt 2 secinājumus:

1) nav jēga springt (tiem, kas to dara) par skaistām bildēm žurnālos un reklāmās - tās visas ir pielabotas, nereti līdz nelabumam un nepazīšanai. plastiskā ķiruģija bez iejaukšanās pacientu organismā.

2) pavaicāt sev vai ir vērts censties panākt ideālu fotogrāfiju, ja var nobildēt sūdīgu vai vienkārši kā sanāk un tad Photoshopā pielabot pēc sirds patikas. mani fascinē cik daudz krāsu detaļu mākslinieks ir izvilcis no šīs kapellas bildes. oriģinālā visas krāsas ir nekādas.

Jāmācās Photoshops

Open are the double doors of the horizon
Unlocked are its bolts

Clouds darken the sky
The stars rain down
The constellations stagger
The bones of the hell hounds tremble
The porters are silent
When they see this king
Dawning as a soul

Men fall
Their name is not
Seize thou this king by his arm
Take this king to the sky
That he not die on earth
Among men

He flies who flies
This king flies away from you
Ye mortals
He is not of the earth
He is of the sky

Written as a part of opera "Akhnaten" (by Philip Glass) these words seem the most appropriate now when Pope John Paul II has passed away at the age of 84.

I am not a religious man, but I have a deep respect for him for his accomplishments to shape a better world for all of us. As often happens, you learn more about people when they are not with us any more...

Men fall
Their name does not.

OMG, another sleepy Monday has begun. Why does it always has to be Monday?

Oh, well, not to worry too much about that.
Let's have some fun instead.

Quick update: Don't worry, it is a just a Friday, April 1st. So sit back, relax and enjoy the weekend!