I experiencing random screen distortion & flicker after upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04, I’m using Acer Notebook.
After searching in internet, there’s many forum thread & bug report discuss about this but mostly they have different hardware.
Finally I tried this method and no flickering so far.

What I do is I change my grub configuration, adding kernel parameter “i915.powersave=0”.

For Linux expert probably this is not an issue, so I dedicate this step for the newbies like

1. What I do is I modify the grub configuration which is located on /boot/grub/grub.cfg (backup before you edit it)
2. Because the access right is set to read only, let’s change it so the owner can modify it.
   > sudo chmod -c u+w /boot/grub/grub.cfg
3. Use vi or your other prefered editor to edit it.
   > sudo vim /boot/grub/grub.cfg
4. Locate the menuentry of your Linux. Example:
   menuentry ‘Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-22-generic’ –class ubuntu –class gnu-linux –class gnu –class os {
   recordfail
   insmod ext2
   set root=’(hd0,4)’
   search –no-floppy –fs-uuid –set xxx-xxx-xxx
   linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=xx-xx-xxx-x-xx ro quiet splash
   initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
   }
5. Add “i915.powersave=0” to the linux kernel line as parameter. It will become:
   menuentry ‘Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-22-generic’ –class ubuntu –class gnu-linux –class gnu –class os {
   recordfail
   insmod ext2
   set root=’(hd0,4)’
   search –no-floppy –fs-uuid –set xxx-xxx-xxx
   linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=xx-xx-xxx-x-xx ro i915.powersave=0 quiet splash
   initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
   }
6. Save & restart to check if you still experiencing screen flicker

That’s it
Hope it can work on other Notebook/PC

Related posts:

1. Solving failed starting mysql service with non default datadir (Ubuntu)
2. Updating Pidgin to latest version in Ubuntu

REQUIREMENT

What you need:

1. LWUIT
2. Eclipse Pulsa
3. Emulator like Sun WTK
4. Know basic Java ME programming

CONFIGURE ECLIPSE

First you need to setup your emulator in Eclipse.
Run your Eclipse and select at the menu : Window – Preferences
Select : Java ME – Device Management – click Import
Then browse to your emulator folder, it will scan and give you option to add it to your device list.

Eclipse Pulsar Device Management

*I found that the automatic javadoc folder detection for each jar library is not all correct (I’m using Ubuntu 9.04, WTK 2.5.1)

CREATE NEW MIDlet PROJECT & CONFIGURE

Ok, now we ready to create the new project.
I assume you already know how to use Eclipse properly, create a new MIDlet Project there you will select your default emulator you want to use in the project, MIDP – CLDC version, etc.
After the new project created we gonna add the LWUIT library to the project.
Right click on the project (at package explorer) and select Properties.
Select ‘Java Build Path’ and tab ‘Libraries’ then click ‘Add External Jars’ and browse to select where your LWUIT jar is. (It will be on the lib folder where you extract you LWUIT zip)

MIDlet Project Properties

You will see the LWUIT.jar shown.
Select tab ‘Order and Export’, check the LWUIT.jar library so it will be included in our application jar.

Pulsa MIDlet project order and export

One of the cool thing about LWUIT is theme feature, you can see there’s ResourceEditor in LWUIT’s ‘util’ folder it’s for editing theme.
Let’s use default theme from the package. Copy file that located at ./LWUITDemo/src/LWUITtheme.res to our project ‘res’  folder (you can drag ‘n drop it to Eclipse).

THE CODING

Now we finally get to real coding.
Add a new MIDlet to the project. In my example I will create BasicForm Class:

package gnu.jimmy.blog.lwuit;
 
import java.io.IOException;
 
import javax.microedition.midlet.MIDlet;
import javax.microedition.midlet.MIDletStateChangeException;
 
import com.sun.lwuit.Command;
import com.sun.lwuit.Display;
import com.sun.lwuit.Form;
import com.sun.lwuit.Label;
import com.sun.lwuit.animations.CommonTransitions;
import com.sun.lwuit.animations.Transition3D;
import com.sun.lwuit.events.ActionEvent;
import com.sun.lwuit.events.ActionListener;
import com.sun.lwuit.layouts.BorderLayout;
import com.sun.lwuit.layouts.BoxLayout;
import com.sun.lwuit.plaf.UIManager;
import com.sun.lwuit.util.Resources;
 
public class BasicForm extends MIDlet implements ActionListener {
 
	private Form form1;
	private Form form2;
 
	private Command cmdRotate = new Command("Rotate");
	private Command cmdSlide = new Command("Slide");
	private Command cmdExit = new Command("Exit");
 
	public BasicForm() {
		//Initialize the LWUIT
		Display.init(this);
	}
 
	protected void startApp() throws MIDletStateChangeException {
		//Load the Theme
		Resources r;
		try {
			r = Resources.open("/LWUITtheme.res");
			UIManager.getInstance().
			setThemeProps(r.getTheme("LWUITDefault"));
		} catch (IOException e) {
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
 
		//Setup Form 1
		form1 = new Form("Form 1");
		form1.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
		form1.addComponent(BorderLayout.NORTH, new Label("My First Form"));
		form1.addComponent(BorderLayout.WEST, new Label("WEST"));
		form1.addComponent(BorderLayout.CENTER, new Label("CENTER"));
		form1.addComponent(BorderLayout.EAST, new Label("EAST"));
		form1.addComponent(BorderLayout.SOUTH, new Label("Click Rotate"));
		form1.addCommand(cmdRotate);
		form1.addCommand(cmdExit);
		form1.addCommandListener(this);
		form1.setTransitionInAnimator(CommonTransitions.createSlide(CommonTransitions.SLIDE_HORIZONTAL, true, 1000));
 
		//Setup Form 2
		form2 = new Form("Form 2");
		form2.setLayout(new BoxLayout(BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));
		form2.addComponent(0,null,new Label("This is the second Form"));
		form2.addCommand(cmdSlide);
		form2.addCommand(cmdExit);
		form2.addCommandListener(this);
		form2.setTransitionInAnimator(Transition3D.createCube(1000, true));
 
		form1.show();
	}
 
	public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
		//check which command cliked
		if (evt.getCommand()==cmdExit) {
			notifyDestroyed();
		} else if (evt.getCommand()==cmdRotate) {
			form2.show();
		} else if (evt.getCommand()==cmdSlide) {
			form1.show();
		}
	}
 
	protected void destroyApp(boolean unconditional) throws MIDletStateChangeException {
	}
 
	protected void pauseApp() {
	}
 
}

Try to run the class.
It should display a form and when you click the left softkey change to the second form with cube rotate effect.
When you click the left softkey again it will go back to first form with slide effect.

LWUIT sample

NOTE
* all  UI classes are from package com.sun.lwuit don’t import the WTK default.
* Display.init function (the one I put in constructor) needed to execute first before initializing Forms
* Theme need to be load first before initializing Forms
* Transition3D will require M3G, so if you want to test it on real phone make sure your phone support it. If not you can just change the Transition3D to CommonTransition.

ENDING

If you have prompt to follow the tutorial just drop me a comment here.

Cheers

Related posts:

1. Java ME (J2ME) JSON Implementation Tutorial/Sample
2. Simple Log4J implementation
3. Change junit & run file (main class) working directory at Netbeans 5.5 Web Project

The JSON library I used is from json.org : http://www.json.org/java/org.json.me.zip
Extract it to your source code folder.

For example we have this User Class:

public class User{
   private int id;
   private String name;
   private String description;
}

To implement JSON to this class I usually create an Interface JSONAble:

public interface JSONAble {
String toJSON();
void fromJSON(String jsonString);
}

To make the User class is JSON compatible let’s add the JSONAble interface & implement it:

public class User implements JSONAble{
 
	private int id;
	private String name;
	private String description;
 
	public int getId() {
		return id;
	}
	public void setId(int id) {
		this.id = id;
	}
	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}
	public void setName(String name) {
		this.name = name;
	}
	public String getDescription() {
		return description;
	}
	public void setDescription(String description) {
		this.description = description;
	}
	public String toString() {
		return getId()+"-"+getName()+"-"+getDescription();
	}
 
	public void fromJSON(String jsonString) {
		try {
			JSONObject json = new JSONObject(jsonString);
			setId(json.getInt("id"));
			setName(json.getString("name"));
			setDescription(json.getString("description"));
		} catch (JSONException ex) {
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
	}
	public String toJSON() {
		JSONObject inner = new JSONObject();
		try {
			inner.put("id", getId());
			inner.put("name", getName());
			inner.put("description", getDescription());
		} catch (JSONException ex) {
			ex.printStackTrace();
		}
		return inner.toString();
	}
}

To test it let’s create a MIDlet that have these startApp() implementation:

	protected void startApp() throws MIDletStateChangeException {
		//Converting Object to JSON
		User user = new User();
		user.setId(10);
		user.setName("jimmy");
		user.setDescription("testing json in j2me");
		System.out.println("Convert to JSON : "+user.toJSON());
 
		//Converting JSON to Object
		String sample = "{\"id\":99,\"name\":\"tester\",\"description\":\"This is JSON Data\"}";
		User user2 = new User();
		user2.fromJSON(sample);
		System.out.println("Convert from JSON : "+user2);
	}

As you can see the output results:
Convert to JSON : {"name":"jimmy","description":"testing json in j2me","id":10}
Convert from JSON : 99-tester-This is JSON Data

The toJSON() function is the implementation how the object converted to JSON format. In J2ME we still implement it manually since we don’t have Java reflection which can enable automatically scan the variables.
What the JSON library help is building the JSON data. We just need to put the variables.

On the fromJSON() function what it does is getting out the data from JSON format and set it to class variables.

Next I will cover about converting more complex class structure.
Or create a fromJSON () & toJSON() generator (:?). Let see..

Thanks for reading this, although this is the basic hope it’ll help

Related posts:

1. Basic LWUIT tutorial/sample with Eclipse Pulsar
2. Simple Log4J implementation
3. Java Application – Make sure only single/one instance running – with File Lock and ShutdownHook

And there’s no option to disable this.
Maybe it’s like a ‘feature’, but in my opinion it’s suck to cannot select whether we want to sent this delivered notification or not.
For spammer this could be good ‘feature’ since they will know which email still actively receiving their spam.

In my blackberry curve there’s only option to disable ‘read notification’, which located at message – options – email settings.
But read notification is not delivered notification, when I disable sending read notification still the blackberry sending delivered notification automatically.
This is sucks, anyone know how to solve this issue?

Related posts:

1. Unknown winmail.dat attachment in email

I google and several article/forum writing that need to flush dns cache and also about several YM server cannot be accessed from Pidgin.

I try my friend advice to change YM server configuration to IP rather than domain name.
And it’s worked..
You will need to use cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com as Pager server since June 24, or you can update to pidgin 2.5.7 to solve this problem

Some people are reporting changing the Pager server didn’t solve the problem, you can follow these instruction to update your pidgin to latest version (for Ubuntu) : Updating Pidgin to latest version in Ubuntu

The steps: 1. Select menu Accounts – Manage Accounts

2. Select your Yahoo Messenger account & click ‘modify’

3. Select advanced tab

4. Change your pager server to : cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com

5. Then disabled & enabled your account. Or restart the pidgin.

And your Pidgin should able connect to YM

*Update*
List IPs can be used (thanks to Med):
66.163.181.179 – 66.163.181.180 – 66.163.181.181 – 66.163.181.182 – 66.163.181.183 – 66.163.181.166 – 66.163.181.167 – 66.163.181.168 – 66.163.181.169

Starting June 24 using IP doesn’t seems to work anymore, try to use : cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com

Related posts:

1. Microsoft + Yahoo = ?
2. Updating Pidgin to latest version in Ubuntu
3. Solving failed starting mysql service with non default datadir (Ubuntu)

After I upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 9.04 suddenly my mysql failed to start.
The strange thing the only data dir seems working is putting it on /var/lib/mysql which is the default directory for mysql data dir.

After browsing around I found out that it is apparmor that prevent mysql datadir on different directory.

So the easy way to solve this is to remove apparmor : apt-get –purge remove apparmor

Related posts:

1. Solving (fixing) ubuntu 10.04 (lucid) screen flicker/distortion
2. Solving Pidgin cannot connect to Yahoo Messenger (YM)
3. Displaying row number (rownum) in MySQL

After googling about this I found out that winmail.dat is generated by Outlook (I using thunderbird).
From About.com :

It’s Outlook’s fault, in a way. Or the recipient’s email client’s. If Outlook sends a message using the RTF format (which is not very common outside Outlook) for bold text and other text enhancements, it includes the formatting commands in the winmail.dat file. Receiving email clients that do not understand the code therein display it as a stale attachment. To make matters worse, Outlook may also pack other, regular file attachments in the winmail.dat file.

Fortunately, you can get rid of winmail.dat altogether by making sure Outlook does not even try to send mail using RTF.

And there’s also a way to disable this feature on Outlook. You can open it for more detail.
I would focus on how non-Outlook user can handle this format.
I know I can not ask all Outlook user who sent me attachment to turn off this feature.

So I search a program to open this content type “application/ms-tnef”.
I encounter this good console program : WMdecode
You just need to extract this. When running the program it’ll search winmail.dat in current folder and extract it.
The program working great although it just console application, no GUI.

Other tool I search is add on for Thunderbird.
I found : LookOut
This add on will automatically decode the winmail.dat
Also working great but it won’t decode winmail.dat in emails that you received before installing the add-on.
So I think it’ll only decode winmail.dat on new email received.

Cheers

Related posts:

1. Blackberry sending delivered notification email
2. Change junit & run file (main class) working directory at Netbeans 5.5 Web Project
3. Microsoft + Yahoo = ?

Nevertheless what the reason, one of the way to make this happen is by creating a lock file as a sign that an instance is currently running.
So you application will have this flow:

1. Check if the lock file exists.
2. Try to delete the lock file to check if there’s really a running process lock the file.
3. Get the file lock.
4. If failed to get the lock file, show error that there’s already an instance running
5. If successfully get the lock then go on with your application want to do.
6. When application ended/closed release the lock and delete the file lock.

package test.jimmy.filelock;
 
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.RandomAccessFile;
import java.nio.channels.FileChannel;
import java.nio.channels.FileLock;
 
public class MyApp {
 
private static File f;
private static FileChannel channel;
private static FileLock lock;
 
public static void main(String[] args) {
  try {
    f = new File("RingOnRequest.lock");
    // Check if the lock exist
    if (f.exists()) {
    // if exist try to delete it
    f.delete();
  }
  // Try to get the lock
  channel = new RandomAccessFile(f, "rw").getChannel();
  lock = channel.tryLock();
  if(lock == null)
  {
    // File is lock by other application
    channel.close();
    throw new RuntimeException("Only 1 instance of MyApp can run.");
  }
  // Add shutdown hook to release lock when application shutdown
  ShutdownHook shutdownHook = new ShutdownHook();
  Runtime.getRuntime().addShutdownHook(shutdownHook);
 
  //Your application tasks here..
  System.out.println("Running");
  try {
    Thread.sleep(10000);
  } catch (InterruptedException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
  } catch(IOException e) {
    throw new RuntimeException("Could not start process.", e);
  }
}
 
public static void unlockFile() {
// release and delete file lock
  try {
    if(lock != null)
    lock.release();
    channel.close();
    f.delete();
  } catch(IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
  }
}
 
static class ShutdownHook extends Thread {
  public void run() {
    unlockFile();
  }
}
 
}

Technorati Tags: java, file lock, shutdownhook, lock, single, one, intance

Related posts:

1. Simple Log4J implementation
2. Java ME (J2ME) JSON Implementation Tutorial/Sample
3. Java – Adding new Classpath at Runtime

Let’s see
IM : Microsoft has Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo has Yahoo Messenger.
Search Engine : Microsoft has Live Search, Yahoo has it’s own search engine.
Email : Microsoft has Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo has Yahoo Mail.

Let’s wait for Yahoo’s final answer.
And how will Google respond about this

Related posts:

1. NetBeans IDE 6 final released
2. Unknown winmail.dat attachment in email
3. Solving Pidgin cannot connect to Yahoo Messenger (YM)

After waiting for 16 days finally the NetBeans T-shirt arrived.
They sent me this t-shirt because my participation in NetBeans Community Docs program although I only contribute 1 article (this) :p

Thanks to Sun and James Branam (NetBeans Community Docs Manager) for this cool t-shirt
It’s a great pleasure to be part of the NetBeans community & I would love to contribute more.

Related posts:

1. NetBeans IDE 6 final released
2. Netbeans 6 – Configure which editor (representative class) for new type extension
3. Using svn+ssh with Netbeans 5.5 + Windows