Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2012

A dozen things to know about AWS Simple Workflow in Eclipse and Maven

Amazon AWS Simple Workflow AWS Simple Workflow(SWF) from Amazon is a unique workflow solution comparing to traditional workflow products such as JBPM and OSWorkflow. SWF is extremely scalable and engineer friendly(in that flow is defined with Java code) while it comes with limitations and lots of gotchas. Always use Flow Framework The very first thing to know is, it's almost impossible to build a SWF application correctly without Flow Framework . Even though the low level SWF RESTful service API is public and available in SDK, for most workflow with parallelism, timer or notification, consider all possibilities of how each event can interlace with another, it's beyond manageable to write correct code with low-level API to cover all use cases. For this matter SWF is quite unique comparing to other thin-client AWS technologies. The SWF flow framework heavily depends on AspectJ for various purposes. If you are not familiar with AspectJ in Eclipse and Maven, this article

Something is seriously wrong with moviegoers nowadays

Skyfall, Lincoln, Wreck-it, Flight and Argo are probably the best of the year in each of its genre. But Twilight!!! Again!!! What the hell is happening to this generation of movie audience? US box office result on Nov 18, 2012

Ron Perlman, Judge Dredd

I enjoyed both Dredd movies. The 1995 Judge Dredd movie is one of those I could watch again and again no matter how bad review it gets. In the 2012 remake Karl Urban is as brutal as Stallone. Now the question is, when will Ron Perlman play Dredd? It seems Ron is equipped with the perfect chin for Dredd. By the way not being an expert of image processing, I spent an hour and half replacing Karl Urban's face with Ron Perlman using Gimp in order to prove one thing ---- I AM NOT GOOD AT IT AND I HAVE A LOT OF TIME!!!

Hacking for 6 years 6 months 6 days

JAXRS client on Android

Context Not a while ago I realized that for many people on this planet including my parents, smart-phone application is the only way they understand to interact with Internet. Therefore with zero client side software development experience, I started learning Android app programming. Only after several days of learning I found myself blocked for there doesn't seem to be a clear answer for a problem that is so essential -- how to create JAXRS client on Android application. After days of trying a working solution finally presented to me. This document talks about the solution that I found as well as, more importantly, the solutions that do not work. It's really important to known what we are looking for before start coding. I found many discussions on internet where people provide irrelevant because they have no idea what they are looking for. A solution must satisfy all following criteria: A Java library that calls HTTP RESTful service, preferably support HTTPS, wth/wi

Dumped Comcast, finally

I used to pay a lot more to Comcast for package with 20Mb/s download speed. Updated at Nov 19, 2012

How does boat run on street?

I was walking with my wife and Yilin, my two-and-half-year-old daughter who is super excited about talking random things in a language mixed with English, Mandarin, baby talk and occasionally Spanish. Near Space Needle on Broad Street, we saw one of those "Ride and Ducks" amphibious touring vehicles stopping at a traffic light, so I asked Yilin, "Look, how does that boat run on street?" Yilin looked at the vehicle, confused, so she asked my wife, "Mama, how does that boat run on street?" "Because that boat gets wheels on it, Yilin", my wife explained. Yilin turned her face back to me and said, "Baba, because that boat gets wheels on it".

Happily ever after

During dinner I was reading a note from the daycare of Yilin, my two and half year old daughter: HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED TODAY: We read a story about a farm which ended happily ever after and Yilin said "Cinderella was happily ever after!!" Have a great weekend! It made my day.