TransConnect Introduction

INTRO

As many users don't have the need for a proxy. Many applications are designed without considering the scenario that indirect connection may be needed, even NAT connections may be limited.

In the company I work for, it is a must to tunnel networked applications through a proxy server that supports CONNECT method.

The CONNECT method is a specially reserved method by HTTP, as you can see in RFC 2616. It's design was for TLS based HTTPS protocol to pass proxy servers correctly. However, it actually can be used by and is used by other protocols and applications.

If an application supports proxy server, congratulations, you can set it up and everything works happily. But if it happens to be hard to setup the proxy (like git), or the application I am about to use just don't have proxy support in it. What can I do?

Here comes transconnect.

It can be built and used without root privilege. This is nice when a certain application meets one of the two criterion:

• Proxy setup is a nightmare
• Doesn't support proxy at all

There are limitations, however.

• The application has to be TCP based. (I guess, not verified.)
• The application shall not be something like SIP, which is very bad designed for its dependency of an application layer protocol to its layer 3 address and layer 4 port number.

INSTALLATION

The download can be done within one nano-second. No configure needed. Just "make"
and "make install". It is installed in a user's home directory. "/usr//" installation is not needed and the default build works in this way, no "PREFIX" needed, either.

After it is installed, a shared object can be located "~/.tconn/tconn.so". Edit the "~/.tconn/tconn.conf" to provide transconnect the knowledge of your internal subnet setting and proxy server address .

To use it, just do the following:

LD_PRELOAD=~/.tconn/tconn.so git clone git://xxxx yyyyy

The LD_PRELOAD forces tconn.so be loaded and makes the application "git" to link its socket operations into tconn.so instead of standard socket library. "git" needs not be modified or proxy configured to be able to work from now on. Isn't it great?

CONCLUSION

Even applications support proxy, they will have to implement either refer to some environment variables for proxy setting or will have to implement a Preference to set and store it. That is one example of reinventing wheels. No matter how convenient the wheels can be made, struggles like Gnome and KDE still remain a burden for a regular user like me to be confused where to set up to make every thing moves like a charm.

Typically, I have to setup Firefox, Gnome, wget, ssh, git, svn, and so on, Synaptics Package manager just to get my Internet applications all working properly. Hope this will all end some day.

If the idea of transconnect can be adopted as part of the platform, my sleep can be tight and maybe nightmares won't come back.

Our Time is Borrowed

Along the way, day to day, we are lucky that can choose what to do or not.
We do not need to fight against the void, like many poor people in third-world countries do. We do not worry about being starved tomorrow. We are responsible for our life and what we do.

We all pass away some day, big CEO, U.S. President, Bill Gates (richest). Fame doesn't go six-feet-under with us, so is shame. Make peace with the natural and stay away from extremism. It is our obligation to leave no track in the non-stop river of time.

Our time is borrowed from eternity and we all pay it back someday. And hopefully, we will have no regret if we can.

對總統大選說 NO

自從有投票權以來以來, 一直對選舉這碼子事不熱衷, 倒不是覺得自己的一票沒有價值, 而是幾乎沒有看到值得去投票的政治人物。

每次的大小選舉帶來的是噪音的汙染 (選前是拉票廣播車, 選後變成謝票), 環境的污染 (旗子, 看版, ...), 漫天的政論節目 (每一台都有預設立場), 以及各種手段 (選前一夜放走路工黑函, 翻祖宗十八代, 槍擊, ...)。

唯一我關心的是政見, 所以, 花了一點時間畫了這個圖 "No Vote", 一點都不專業, 也一點都不可愛, 顏色也不好看 (但至少避開了幾個主要政黨的顏色).

就像菜價太高我們可以不買一樣, 我們不一定要挑爛芭樂, 不選不吃也是一種主張。

如果有哪位路過的朋友有美感, 可以提供更好看一點的圖, 小弟可以請吃一頓便飯。 :)

A Note for Myself - Linkin Park tour, Taiwan, 2007/11/16

It's a pity I couldn't join this concert. But we got too many things to pity for in our short life. So, I can still enjoy the fun part. That is, buy their album and enjoy.

The playlist:

1.No more sorrow
2.Lying from you
3.Somewhere I belong
4.Wake+Given up
5.From the inside
6.Don't stay
7.Papercut
8.Petrified
9.Point of authority
10.Shadow of the day
11.What i've done
12.Numb
13.Push me away 《抒情版》
14.Hands held high
15.breaking the habit
16.In the end
17.Crawling
18.One step closer
19.The little things give you away
20.Cure for the itch(Mr.Hann超屌刮碟秀)
21.Bleed it out(rob 神之鼓技+chaz與大家互動 hey ho~ oh ho ~)
22.Faint+加長版ending

莒光日

莒光日 is a brainwash lesson we have to take during the military service. Obligatory or non-, you have to join it.

Some says the company I am working for (its name can not be told) has military-like administration. I don't quite agree with that.

1.a. 莒光日 take place on Thursday morning. Which is a waste of military service time.
1.b. The company whose name can not be told takes 莒光日 on Saturday morning. It effectively remove the burden of 莒光日 from our daily job.
2.a. 莒光日 starts at 8:00am, we usually need to leave the dorm at 7:45 so we will not be late.
2.b. The company whose name can not be told takes 莒光日 at 8:00am, too. But, as a difference, I am healthier because I always wake up before 6:30 and catch the bus at 7:00am so I won't miss any piece of lesson.

That's the advantages I can found so far. Will update if found anything new.

We can do something!

Just saw a sign on the greenpeace blog:

When the last RIVER is POISONED.
When the last TREE is DEAD.
When the last FISH is CAUGHT.
then we realize we CANT EAT MONEY.

It is one of the reasons I ate fewer fishes these days, ... etc.

We all can do something, for mother earth.

Ubuntu Desktop

The key question for the Linux community has been asked since the Linux appeared is: When will Linux be on regular user's desktop?

There is no immediate answer for this question. It is like asking when *someone* will be grown up. The question itself doesn't make any sense to us. It only makes sense to business men who want to make money from it.

I think we should refine the problem to be: When will Linux Desktop be mature enough for (non-technical user) daily use? I am not qualified to answer this question since I am in technical industry. But I think Linux is just one-step away from it. It is capable of doing most of my daily routines and it looks cute (friendly).

For years, I've been waiting for a Linux distribution similar Ubuntu. Ubuntu is by far the most excited distro to me. I have no access (and lazy) to any formal statistics. But to now, the most widely used distros around me are: Fedora and Ubuntu. SUSE is not popular here but shall be strong in the desktop Linux.

Fedora is popular mostly because many RedHat Linux has been there for years and most engineers (who has no interest in specific OS) had experience with some RedHat Linux generation back to their years in school.

Ubuntu is more friendly than other distros and is best rated among users. Its default sudo only superuser design is way better than others. But the engineers mentioned in previous paragraph just will not give it a chance because people tend to use what they were used to, but not keep trying everything new. Another positive strategic for Ubuntu is (if you ever visited Canonical's hiring page) the embedded distro it is developing. However, the relationship with chipvendors is more important to deliver a quality BSP with lowest (maybe $0) royalty.

SUSE is backed by the agreement with Microsoft. As we can easily see in news, it is getting a good result from enterprise market. But the natural of being so commercialized could imply a strategy for making most milk out of its Linux distro, which in terms could imply it is not going to fully support poor users like me.

I predict Ubuntu to be the overwhelming one in Linux desktop market, as long as it doesn't try the server market. At the same time, I predict Microsoft to be the loser in the Linux competition as people has found out: Re-invent the 5th wheel of a van that Microsoft did is a waste of brain cells.

Ubuntu needs to keep its focus on strengthening an idiot-proof platform and making an GUI-only user be able to live happily with Ubuntu. And maybe creating a platform for users to customize their Ubuntu as easy as Firefox's Add-on management. (This one is what I want most.)

Hard to agree? Let's wait and see.

What Will You Do?

Omega is a legendary rocker. I haven't seen him in a couple years. But, he is the kind of person you will never forget if you know him. Why? Maybe it is because I've known him for so long. Maybe it is because he is just the kind of person. Maybe it is because of him!

We studied in the same university. Though we major in very different departments, we knew each other through the Rumors, rock N roll, club. No, that is not true, actually, I knew him before we both joined the club. I firstly met him at ChengKung Camp as we both served our obligatory short-term military service after passed college entrant exam.

Not only our majors differ, Omega is very different from me, too. He is an ACTION HERO. This says Omega joined many off-campus activities to prompt Rock N Roll. He created at least one annual activity that was later took over by Freddy (閃靈樂團). I can still remember the days I helped moving speakers, AMPs, and other intruments down/up stairs just to perform an hour long show to the public.

Maybe Omega has accumulated enough thoughts. He later becomes active in writing articles. The articles he wrote are very impressive and straight to the point of problems. He does not write bullshits. (I am trying to make this blog post as concise as possible. But I just can't do it well like Omega did, sorry.)

I could rarely trust a friend like Omega. He doesn't try to be a famous person, never try to control of anything. But he had always played his role best. As a rocker, Omega will remain in the history of rock in Taiwan. It is never his tend to be in any history, but he will.

What (significant) will you do? I am not asking you but myself.

Here is a presentation file, please download and try to figure out what it is talking about:

http://www.cs.washington.edu/orgs/student-affairs/gsc/offices/old/433/PoCSi43302/papers/dougz.ppt

I guess you might not able understand, and confused like me, here is the author's presentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk

Enjoy ;->

The Advertisement War

Recently, news about the merge of Microsoft and Yahoo buzzes. In my opinion, this is not going to happen. Because both of them are not willing to be leaded by the other one.

Even the case has turned out to have a real result. It will be a part of Microsoft merging with a part of Yahoo. And it is not going to end up with a good return.

Let's back to the ground, what is the deal all about? It is about is the advertisement business. Both Yahoo are Microsoft are striving to get larger market share in the advertisement business to survive in the market.

However, what they have not figured out is that the key is not the current market share, but future.

If a bigger market share guarantees you a better future, then how the heck did Google beat Doubleclick, which had been the dominant force back at Internet bubble age. Not mentioning how Google beated Yahoo and Microsoft in the past years.

Yes, the issue here is they just don't get it.

The key is to provide what user wants in user wanted ways. Not what the business strategy wants to provide. To fetch revenue from the provided contents (in Google's case, search engine and other services), never try to maximize the profit, trying to maximize the user's interaction experience and let the advertisement been least interfering to user experience will do good to your revenue.

Doubleclick is a role model (a bad one) of this, it's advertisements are still very disturbing when I surf through web sites with ads from it. So its click rate should be lower than others.

But hey, you still have a chance. Microsoft and Yahoo still have chances. Google has been successful because it followed the principle of clean ads. Somehow it is promoting its services on top of its search results. I even saw advertisements on top of its search results. This is an extremely stupid idea. Google didn't do this before (that's part of the reason that it has been so successful) but is doing this now (that's why you have a chance) to getting exposure for its services.

Google is now increasing its ratio in disturbing users. This is your chance!
Create us some clean and rich services, please.

SETI Finally Finds Something


This is the news title I saw a few minutes ago and I was delighted about it. I installed SETI's software a long time ago to help finding extraterrestrial intelligence, a.k.a., aliens. Wikipedia has a page about SETI.

SETI@Home is the project to use computation power from Internet users that are willing to donate their available CPU cycles to help searching for patterns in signals captured from outer space. SETI@Home has found something useful: one of the volunteers found his wife's stolen laptop using IP address reported by the SETI@Home client installed on it. After getting back the laptop, his wife said that she always knew a geek would make a good husband.

Taiwan De-han movement.

去中國化運動最近由台灣的執政黨以各種名目大張旗鼓的進行中

去中國化運動其實正確的名稱, 應是脫漢運動. http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8E%BB%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%8B%E5%8C%96#.E5.8F.B0.E7.81.A3.E5.8E.BB.E4.B8.AD.E5.9C.8B.E5.8C.96.E7.9A.84.E6.B0.91.E9.96.93.E6.95.88.E6.9E.9C

我個人對這個運動沒有什麼特定立場 (neutral), 這裡要講的是可以搞笑的東西, 基本上這個運動中對很多單位, 設施進行改名, 將中國, 中華, 中山等字樣改成台灣.

例如:

中華航空 -> 台灣航空
中華郵政 -> 台灣郵政
..... 等等, 族繁不及備載~~

重點來了, 有些地方應該要改名的沒改到:

中山北路 -> 台山北路
中山路 -> 台山路
中華大學 -> 台灣大學
中台禪寺 -> 台台禪寺

Got an idea??

wii are here

I bought one wii today. The salesman shipped it to my company before I leave office, after I called him at 2:00pm. So I came home and installed it. I think it is not a real problem to install it. The only issue to me is it's a Japanese based machine. And I need to try-n-err on operation modes.

Two of my colleagues came and tried it out. We concluded that many others did. We like the tennis game most. Bowling the 2nd. Hopefully we will see more interesting games. I personally believe wii will bring Nintendo back to #1. This is definitely true for sports/shooting/fighting games. For real-time strategy or RPG games, I wish they can find a new play mode, too.

I am happy that I bought this machine. Wish the sport games can help shake me up a little bit, too. Losing some pounds can be a benefit besides nice mood. Maybe for you, too.

A Better World (a wish I hope will happen in Taiwan, someday)

As we consider this country a democratic one. How mature it is has been a doubt on my mind for a long time. Can outcome of democracy procedure reflect the real needs? Can the politicians stand out for every one (or most) living on this island? Can we trust what we see?

There were politicians won campaigns in ridiculous ways and there will be. Believe or not, it has been the way for a long time. And there is no foreseeable future I believe this situation will vanish some day. This is why I do not vote. Honestly I voted a presidential campaign once to a candidate I think he is a very kind person with good manner. And I think he could have a problem passing the lower vote count limit. I never voted with this as the only exception.

Transparency. The opacity of performance of politicians is not far from good enough. The campaign is more like a battle of marketing: the point is not your product, but how you sell it. So it is not uncommon that good candidates are ruled out simply because they do not know have enough money marketing themselves.

What I want is a website to completely document every politician. What they have promised in which campaign and what they did in the end. Everyone can criticize and score politicians. A big public project done can be linked to every politician involved, and contribution can be the dividend and distributed to each one.

In this way, when the political spectrum is built against every politician. I believe more people will care bout which politician is more suitable for a certain position than that his political tendency. And maybe, a better world.