http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/ J2EE software engineer writing about working abroad, cultures and insights en-us Nucleus CMS v3.32 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.hietavirta.net/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/ http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=342
FinJUG - Finnish Java User Group has started nicely and we had our first meetup in Helsinki. Planning of the technical meetup is underway and the event will take place in January. The tiny problem is that there are plenty of Java devs in Finland but they aren't all in Helsinki. So we might set up regional meetups.
]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=342 Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:03:32 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=342 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=341 Valuemotive.

So it has been quite busy but I am trying to find time to start Java User Group Finland as well.]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=341 Wed, 2 Nov 2011 14:05:45 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=341 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=340
WebGL uses OpenGL ES 2.0 which is a cut down version of OpenGL. Deprecated parts of the API have been cut off but there are some goodies like shader programmin language GLSL. It is more complicated than plain HTML5 Canvas to get started with but there are good examples and tutorials.

My starting point was to implement my audio waveform visualizer in WebGL. It uses SoundManager 2 to read the waveform data and the data is then drawn on the screen as a line. The first version simply drew a the waveform on the screen without any special tricks.

For the second version I wanted to try out writing my own shader code. The waveform is not rendered directly on the screen but it is drawn in a separate frame buffer. This buffer is then used to generate a texture on a quad. At the rendering time of this quad my shader code kicks in and does blurring post processing on the fragment level.

I am just getting started with WebGL and I have plenty of ideas...]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=340 Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:04:52 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=340 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=339
http://hebrides-challenge.blogspot.com/]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=339 Thu, 7 Apr 2011 23:19:17 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=339 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=338
The URL is www.momentumracer.com. Have a look at the new splash screen :-)]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=338 Fri, 3 Dec 2010 00:48:32 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=338 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=337 Momentum Racer. Now it handles different game states and can support numerous levels. The nice thing with programming with JavaScript is that the turnaround time is very short from an idea to the change in the game. Because I have other things to do as well I find it very appealing that I can achieve something in a half an hour.

My development setup is very simple. I use TextWrangler for the JavaScript code editing, Chrome for testing and local Git repository for the version control. Most likely I will replace TextWrangler at some point with some IDE, I got too used to Eclipse with my Java coding.

The todo list is pretty long but I think I should be able to finish most before end of 2010. Tweaking the gameplay and graphical FX can take forever. I'd rather get them just good enough and add some social media features like Facebook connectivity. That's what every online entertainment app seems to require, right?
]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=337 Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:07:18 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=337 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=336 Momentum Racer. Go ahead and have a spin!]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=336 Fri, 5 Nov 2010 01:27:08 +0200 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=336 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 Redirect permanent /subfolder/ /
This would redirect www.yoursite.com/subfolder to www.yoursite.com.

Then later on you to add proxy config:

ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/site/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/site/
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /site /


But after that your redirect fails. It turns out that ProxyPass config overrules Redirect. Add exclusion to the ProxyPass to fix this:


ProxyPass /subfolder !
ProxyPass / http://localhost:8080/site/
ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:8080/site/
ProxyPassReverseCookiePath /site /


Note that the exclusion is before others.]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 Fri, 2 Jul 2010 23:35:23 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=335 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334
The project is based on Python script that did the same in command line. But I wanted to add a OS X native front end and I also wanted learn Objective C so I decided to rewrite the whole thing in Objective C. I managed to get most of it working in a weekend. I had one old Cocoa book (Hillegass - Cococa Programming for Mac OS X) and Apple's online guides. XCode and Objective C were pretty different compared to Eclipse and Java but I managed to get my head around some of the concepts.

Another new experiment for me was to use Git for the project. I used GPLv3 for the project because the original Python version used that. Being open source project it was possible to set the repository to GitHub for free. Having gone through some nasty merges in SVN I wanted to try out distributed approach. In a one man project there is not too much to merge but I was curious to try out Git tooling. I ended up using both command line tools and GitX.

ReelSnail project wiki
ReelSnail downloads]]> Bits and Bytes http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334 Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:03:54 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=334 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333
This new flat is reasonably new, it has some modern comforts like dishwasher and double glazing. Hmm... I must have spent long enough in UK because I am mentioning double glazing as an extra. Anyways, nice and modern flat with some sea view. I think I should write down an article about flat hunting and related matters. At least I have experience from three different occasions.

Otherwise life is pretty much same here, I am still working in the same company developing open source Java CMS. It will be published soon but the exact date is still unclear at least for me.]]> General http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333 Fri, 7 May 2010 23:01:33 +0300 http://www.hietavirta.net/blog/index.php?itemid=333