Markus' Blog - tech category

Amazon EC2 boot script to associate elastic ip

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:43:00 GMT

After installation of the AWS API tools you can associate an elastic ip address to the instance from the instance itself during boot process.

I've written an SysV RC script.

Prospective fun with jamming debit card payments

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:59:00 GMT

Debit card providers will introduce a new feature with the next generation of debit cards.
You don't have to put the card in slots. It is enough to hold the card in the range of a terminal with a distance of about 10 cm. The terminal communicates with the card with the so called Near Field Communication.
[en-wikipedia | de-wikipedia]
NFC is a sub-specifiaction of the RFID.
It is shortwave radio.
So you would need humble knowledge to jam payment terminals in banks and shops.
The revival of banknotes :-)

Kernel compiling

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 08:57:34 GMT

To build a customized kernel for natty you can follow the outdated wiki article at
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Kernel/Compile
Use the information for Ubuntu Karmic Koala (9.10) and newer releases!
Follow these additional instructions to get it to work...

Reform the JCP

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 15:48:00 GMT

Dan Allen and Lincoln Baxter like to have a reformation of the JCP.
With this article they want to make their position clear.
It is demanded nearly a total turnaround from the current process to an open, better community ruled process.
A better way would be to make small steps for opening the process peu à peu.
Although I don't completely confirm their petition, but it would be cooler than the current situation, I've signed their petition online.

JCP Election Google vs. Oracle (Hologic)

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 22:11:00 GMT

The results of the JCP election arrived and I'm astonished about all the blogs commenting this...
Many articles have the tenor that it's fine that Google is in and Hologic hasn't got enough votes.
For explanation... I haven't read about Hologic before and I'm left wondering if Hologic would be beneficial for the JCP.
But why there is the opinion that Hologic shouldn't have been voted because ...

Hologic prefers Oracle products
Oracle has nominated Hologic

... is this an acceptable attitude?

In the next sentence Google will be mentioned and that this would be the better choice?
Come on, this election has only brought Google closer to a monopoly.
What is the benefit of Google for the JCP?
Google employees create great products. In the Java field the most known are GWT, GAE, Closure, Google Collections, support libs for all the Google APIs and also Android and Dalvik.
Yes, Android... I'm not happy that Google has used technology of Android, Inc (see here and here) for their mobile phone environment. This brought some kind of split into the Java hemisphere.
I would be thankful if Google uses its new seat to reconcile Android with Java but is this the intention of Google?
At the moment I've a queasy feeling and I'm not convinced that Google can appease my hunger.
Enjoy your meal!

Some more links:
http://java.dzone.com/articles/jcp-election-results-hologic
http://www.theserverside.com/news/2240024154/The-Oracle-Lawsuit-Will-End-with-Google-Owning-Java
http://source.android.com/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%28operating_system%29

X11 recording with ffmpeg

Sun, 31 Oct 2010 16:58:00 GMT

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wxga -r 25 -i :0.0 -sameq /tmp/out.mpg

DWH n days ago up to now

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 07:20:00 GMT

To query data for a datawarehouse report starting at n-days ago at midnight up to newest available data, I can use the following SQL:

timestamp(char(date(current timestamp - 2 days)) concat '-00.00.00.000000')

Censorship in China censors the world

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 14:51:00 GMT

... OK, not completely ;-)

But there was a misconfigured DNS-server of the Chinese BigCensorFirewall which produces problems in the USA and Chile...

http://www.itworld.com/networking/102576/after-dns-problem-chinese-root-server-shut-down