tango papa echo, charlie golf kilo

Currently stranded at TPE. Few minutes before leaving SFO I managed to tag 1.1.0 release for PhantomJS (lesson learned: never attempt a release few hours before boarding). Thanks to Ivan and Alessandro, few source tarballs and binaries are now ready.

It's been hectic days. 2011 WebKit Contributors Meeting was just over, it was fantastic and I got to meet and talk to a lot of WebKit rockstars. Parallel to that, my fellow brave Sencha lads finally unleashed The Quattro!

Next stop, also the final destination: CGK. Bracing for the impact of reverse culture shock...

cupertino

Tomorrow, we (a bunch of Qualcomm folks working on WebKit) will go up north. We'll be at Apple HQ in Cupertino for the WebKit contributors meeting. I look forward to meeting all the great WebKit hackers (again) face-to-face!

manaus and bossa conf

Right now I am in Manaus, in the middle of the Amazon, Brazil. Good weather, beautiful nature. Fresh tropical rain, feels just like home.

Yes, I am here for the (legendary) Bossa Conference '10 from the awesome INdT folks. I had delivered my talk, Redefining Mobile Graphics Stack this morning. I used the chance to preview (and got feedback) some of upcoming graphics example for X2 from Ofi Labs (what's X2? read the explanation), even straight from my N900, so just watch its git repository in the next few weeks. BTW, Radeon HD 3200 of my new toy and TV output of N900 worked out-the-box with the projector.

It is also nice to meet few INdT guys I knew, and get to know new folks as well. Since a few Trolls are also here, I also catch up (and share more jokes) with them. Gosh, feels like ages since I left Oslo.

This is my first visit to Brazil. Looks like it won't be the last time!

putu, kelepon, terang bulan

While enjoying this vacation, I managed to steal few hours to do some fun coding. Nothing spectacular, but it yielded something I will surely share in the near future. However, since I am still in the mood of bombing the planet again, here is another post with food pictures.

Something else we were glad to taste during our extremely short visit to Bandung were Putu and Kelepon, typically sold at the price of 1 EUR for 25 pieces. They are basically rice cake filled with palm sugar and served with grated coconut. Putu is steamed, while kelepon is boiled. The latter is also colored using pandan leaves.

While sampling culinary specialties means that we do not cook quite often, when the opportunity presents itself, it is of course a good feeling to eat something home-made once a while. Here is one: Terang Bulan (literally: bright moon). It is some sort of pancake, very similar to Martabak except Terang Bulan is filled with sugar, sprinkles, condensed milk, cheese, and the likes. Hence, it is also known as Martabak Manis (literally: sweet Martabak), a term that is somehow I dislike (because language-wise it is unnecessary as there exists a good name for that and thus it extends and pollutes the meaning of Martabak with a very weak reason).

The recipe? Check what this lady has posted. Terang Bulan is sweet and healthy (reduce the amount of sugar if in doubt), it makes for a good snack in the afternoon.

Last but not least: Eid Mubarak to everyone!

kinetic scrolling: the state machine

Some of the slides from last Maemo Summit in Amsterdam have been made online. Here is the one from the Cross Platform with Qt talk that I held. It does not give much, though, since mostly what counts is the real live demo. Let us hope that at some point in time, the recorded videos will be online as well. Of course, there are also other interesting slides such as Harmattan highlights and its architecture, Web Runtime, Quake3, and many others.

Cross Platform Qt

View more documents from Nokia, Qt Development Frameworks.

While I am there, if you check the slides from my talk above, page 9 shows the secret behind kinetic scrolling code, which I featured before as Flick Charm or Flickable interface. Or, in another version as follows (click to enlarge):

Of course, it is the simplified version and ignore some details, but that should be a good start to really digest the code. Since it was hacked in the old 4.4/4.5 time, I did not have the luxury of using the new state machine framework in Qt 4.6. As an exercise for you, the brave readers, convert the code to use the framework. In addition, it does not support yet bouncing-on-edge feature, something which can serve as another exercise, too.

Have fun with scrolling :)

bye munich (and D2)

After kickstarted on Tuesday, Qt Developer Days 2009 Munich has ended. Some of us, the Trolls, are already back in Oslo, recovering from the intense adrenalin kicks within the last 72 hours (or more). The extra surprise was to experience the first snow in Munich (and this is still mid October!). Most must recharge pretty fast, considering the San Francisco version of the event is in about two weeks time.

There already a bunch of articles covering the event which show up in some sites, Aron has most of them in his wrap-up blog entry. More links are and will be available via qtbynokia twitter. Fancy some pictures instead? Search for qtdd09 tag on Flickr and enjoy them!

As for me, I am glad that this is finally over. It's all about people: it was exciting to meet old friends and make new ones. In addition, my Special FX with Graphics View talk was well received (the room was jam-packed), I got some very interesting feedback and questions to follow-up. The other talk, Copy Your Favourite Nokia App with Qt, was a bit quiet (the typical problem of all presentations in the afternoon of the last day) but still, it was as interactive as it could be.

This mini wrap-up is not complete without food photos. While we were in Munich, we ventured some different possibilities for dinner. Let me just show you two of them: Low-carb Seafood and Biryani:

Qt Developer Days 2009 - Live

Like I mentioned before, now I am in Munich for Qt Developer Days 2009. The training sessions started yesterday already, the plenary was initiated this morning as we had the keynotes from Sebastian, Lars, Walter, and Matthias. We are now in the middle of lunch break, the technical track will start very soon.

This is the biggest Qt Developer Days so far, we have over 650 participants (last year it was only around 400). Can you imagine now what happens during the lunch break? Hint: the queue. As a nice touch, we even show a coffee machine running Qt:

I will have two talks tomorrow (Day 2) for the Innovate track: Special FX with Graphics View and Copy Your Favourite Nokia App with Qt. See you there!

bye amsterdam. next stop: munich

Today is the last day of Maemo Summit 2009. I am sure the news spreads quickly; everyone and his uncle know already that Nokia lends around 300 shiny N900 (preproduction devices), worth 500 EUR, to the summit participants, excluding Nokia employees and contractors. It's Christmas in Amsterdam!

I had done my Cross Platform with Qt talk, I was quite content with it (that hopelessly small room was jam-packed). There were (and still will be) many other interesting tracks as well. For the detailed coverage, check out All About Maemo site, they are doing great jobs keeping the rest of the world up-to-date with the latest excitements from WesterGasFabriek.

While waiting in Schiphol for my next flight to Munich (for Qt Developer Days 2009), I had a quick glance at some of photos taken in the last few days. Let me just post one:

One evening, we picked Restaurant Sari Citra for our dinner. It serves Indonesian cuisine, the proof is the picture above. You have the choice to mix your own rice dish, such Nasi Kuning (rice with coconut milk and turmeric) with Tempe Kering (slices of fried, crispy tempe mixed with peanuts), Perkedel Kentang (mashed potato fritters) along with a wide selection of vegetables. Authentic experience with a reasonable price. Everyone enjoyed the dinner; happy Trolls :)

And see you in Munich!

Maemo Summit 2009 - Live

Like mentioned before, with other few Trolls, we are now in Amsterdam for the Maemo Summit 2009. If you are there, don't forget to look for us and/or drop us a visit!

paris lisbon madrid

Finally I had a real vacation, albeit short. Like many typical holidaymakers, I decided to do a little tour passing three selected cities in Europe, at the same time also using the chance to practice light, one-bag travelling (with a great success, mind you!).

Paris can always make a good start. The target at this second visit to Paris was to enjoy it at night. After all, it is supposed to be la Ville Lumière (City of Light). However, a long walking tour during the day was still inevitable, as evidenced from the picture of Église Saint-Eustache above.

As for the food, we decided to try non-local cuisine instead. We dined at the nicely-decorated Restaurant Indonesia, one of two restaurants in Paris (the other one is Djakarta-Bali) serving authentic culinary experience from my home country. If you happen to be nearby, give it a try as the dishes were good and reasonably priced.

Lisbon is fabulous and rich with history. We managed to explore the downtown area on foot, enjoying the busy Marquês de Pombal, even walking up to the Castelo de São Jorge. However I feel that exploring the surrounding would have been much better with a car. The view of Lisbon from the castle was majestic, also from the dozens of the short alleys on the way up there (the photo above). Of course, passing Ponte 25 de Abril - the sister bridge of San Francisco's Golden Gate - both on the motorway and using the train, was also a wonderful experience. Due to our limited time, we had to skip some other tourist attractions. We already compiled a list of must-visit places for the future, in case we fly to Lisbon again.

Nevertheless we had the obligatory fantastic dinner with cod. In another occasion, a simplistic but enjoyable dinner buffet in a Churrascaria was also memorable. A short detour to the beach at midnight completed the unforgettable journey.

Madrid was very vibrant and dynamic. It is also quite warm (as expected) with the heat at noon being close to unbearable. I like the fact that it was still possible, even convenient, to sit on a bench even somewhere in downtown as long as it is still in the shadow. Unfortunately Madrid was defeated by Rio in the race for the 2016 Summer Olympics host. Otherwise it would have been extremely fantastic as we were there after the last round.

We did the usual sightseeing (on foot) - including the compulsory visit to Palacio Real - and other usual rituals: having chocolate con churros for breakfast, drinking horchata to ease from the heat at midday, as well as eating traditional paella (and fidueà) for the (very!) late dinner.

Madrid at night on the other hand is a bit problematic for me. Since I am not a nightlife type, I don't drink, and I can't stand the cigarette smoke, touring the city after sunset is practically a mild torture.

Next to visit (due in few days): Amsterdam and Munich.

Maemo Summit 2009, Amsterdam, 9-11 Oct

Another exciting event coming up soon: Maemo Summit 2009! This time it will be in Amsterdam. My flight ticket is secured already, I look forward to it. And of course, since this will be also my first visit to Amsterdam.

My talk will be on Friday afternoon, see the schedule for details. Although the title "Cross-platform with Qt" is a bit boring, rest assured you will see showcases of many things (which I can pack in 25 minutes) Qt is capable of doing.

A few other Trolls will be there as well so go there and find us. In all cases, if you are around and want to have a chat, drop me an email (ariya.hidayat AT gmail DOT com).

how far is that plane

This did happen in my last flight. I consider making it a quick math quiz for any candidate I have to interview in the future (to see whether it takes him 5 minutes or 5 hours to analyze).

A few minutes after the captain announced that we were flying at forty thousand feet above the sea level, cruising at the speed of 900 km/h, through the window we saw another airplane flying at roughly the opposite direction, but at a slightly lower altitude. Of course, the obvious question was asked: How far is the other plane from us? This is better than the typical Fermi problem. Assuming that that airplane was visible in our 90 degrees field of view for 4 seconds and it flew just as fast as our plane, I did a quick calculation and came up with an answer, the flight trajectory of that plane was 1 km apart from ours.

The other guy was impressed, but he was not convinced. Now, since my math skills are rusty, I am sure I missed a thing or two. Now, what is your take?

(Picture rendered from Jarno's public-domain vectorized aircraft).

paella de marisco

Also known as seafood paella, something we tried when we were in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. Now I am motivated to cook it myself, sometime in the near future, in particular since I am also a fan of mussels.

who would have thought it would end up like this?

Coming back to Oslo (from LinuxTag in Berlin), apparently the heat wave which hits Europe was its peak, at least here in Oslo. To add insult to the injury, it does not really help if the ventilation system acts strangely, which it usually does right when you need it. We sort of enjoy the rare moment when Oslo is warmer than most other places.

In any case, Berlin was fantastic. There were already few blog posts (e.g. from Lydia, Chani, Sebas, Frederik) about LinuxTag so I won't write too much about it. I was very content with my talk since the room was quite filled when I was doing my presentation. The Qt booth was fun as well, I managed to have short chats here and there with the fellow Berlin trolls, KDAB guys, KDE people, and some other new contacts.

As it was nicely planned long time ago (except a little glitch with some kind of a desktop suite program :-), we did manage a cuisine-exchange program (and it was not about pizza). Hmm, I still need to find those pictures...

2009 developer days

Just like last year, this fall we will have another Qt Developer Days. Europeans might want to visit Munich, Americans are better served with San Francisco.

Will I go there? Well, unless there is something wrong, yes I will. Note that a little information about the sessions is already available. I leave it as an exercise to the reader, which talks in the Innovate track I will hold :)

and the only chance we have of moving on

Like I wrote before, an exciting event is coming up soon: LinuxTag. I am still polishing the slides for my Advanced Graphics Programming with Qt. In few hours I will be flying to Berlin.

If you are around, drop Qt Software stand #108 in hall 7.2b a visit!

Please, I'll be strong, I'm finding it hard to resist

Things are always exciting.

Within three weeks, I will be in Gran Canaria for the Desktop Summit, specifically for Akademy 2009. The summit is also sponsored by Nokia, via Qt Software and Maemo.

My talk, Special F/X with Graphics View will be on Tuesday afternoon. There will be some graphics demo which will be shown for time there, so show up if you are interested in. Check also an array of other fabulous presentations.

I can't wait to finally meet many fellow KDE hackers face to face. And yes, this will be my first Akademy. Afterall, there is always a first time for everything...

Wait, I'm wrong, should have done better than this

Things are always exciting.

Within two weeks, I will be in Berlin for LinuxTag, "Where .COM meets .ORG", one of the important FOSS shows in Europe. We (as in Qt Software) will have a stand, just check stand #108 in hall 7.2b. Drop us a visit!

And if you stay until Saturday, feel free to show up at my short talk (as in 30 minutes) Advanced Graphics Programming with Qt. Nothing fancy there, but if you want to kick-start doing cool stuff with Qt, try not to miss it. Of course, there is a whole stack of attractive presentations at the KDE track (and other tracks, too) on Saturday.

I can't wait to see Berlin again. And of course, since our very own Mr. Portale lives in Berlin, we would not miss the chance to exchange our cuisine experiences, just like the last time. This time however, I will make sure it's not only about pizza!

In all cases, if you are around and want to have a chat, drop me an email (ariya.hidayat AT gmail DOT com).

the daylight seems to want you just as much as I want you

Like I wrote before, last week I was in Florence for the third installment of Pycon Italia.

I must admit, it was absolutely a fantastic event, so kudos to the the organizer! Everything went without glitches, the auditorium was spacious, coffee breaks and lunch were without compromise. And thanks to our lovely translators, we have on-the-fly, quasi real-time translations both English-to-Italian and Italian-to-English. I guess this is something any others non-English conferences need to copy, it was definitely awesome to be able to follow few talks presented in Italian. Of course, I need to say that it gives a different feeling (for a Python conference) when some VIPs like Guido von Rossum and Alex Martelli were there.

Both my Advanced Graphics Programming with PyQt and David's PyQt for Desktop and Embedded Devices were well received. Things could still have been better, for example I had this funny voice due to my hay fever (which was fortunately cured faster thanks to the Italian warm weather) and I did not realize that I packed too much stuff in the talks. Still, we are pretty content with the way it went. Before you ask, according to the organizer, some time in the future the slides and the video will be available online.

Needless to say, the conference participants were friendly and very passionate. And it was good to meet Enrico again. I also met Matteo whose Qt examples show up from time to time on Planet Qt. We also finally got to know Giovanni and his colleagues from Develer, which was the main drive behind the conference organization. We met a lot of other fellows as well, including KDE evangelists from Salerno. It is still a shame I forgot almost all of my basic Italian, I need to ensure I must polish it before I go to Pycon Quattro.

Beside the conference, Florence proves to be as good as what people say about it. It is beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. And of course, the most important of it, the food was great, as great as it could be. Being a fan of Italian culinary I did sample few excellent dishes, like Pappa al pomodoro and spaghetti frutti di mare. Having dinner outside, in a narrow passage, with happy children running around you, did indeed give a surrealistic atmosphere.

The obligatory picture of the grandeur facade of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the central tourist attraction in Florence, follows:

But nothing is more breath-taking than walking next to the river, reaching Ponte Vecchio, enjoying its stunning beauty at night, just on last Saturday when it was exactly full moon!

For more conference-related pictures, check out PyCon Tre Flickr group.

PyCon Italia Tre, Firenze

Like I mentioned before, I will spend the next few days in Florence (Italy) for PyCon Italia. I'm preparing my slides and demos, including few things I never posted before (premier show, yay!), for the Advanced Graphics Programming with PyQt talk.

According to our flight schedule, tomorrow afternoon David and I shall be in Florence already; so anyone who want to have a chat, drop me an email (ariya.hidayat AT gmail DOT com).