Well, it’s a short post.

Since I was around the area and was more or less free during the time, I attended a short meeting with a local Linux Users Group at the G2iX Techbar, IT Park, Cebu City, of which I am a member.

There was basically a short talk on Liferay, an Open Source Portal, Collaboration, Social Networking tool written in Java. After the talk was a discussion between the members about activities within the year.

Like I said, nothing much. People like Tom Wickline, head of the Bordeaux Group (a front-end to WINE), and writer to Wine-Reviews attended the meeting.

It also allowed me to show off my netbook running Moblin.

For those who don’t know who G2iX is, they’re a company headquartered in Manila, and specializes in Ruby on Rails development, Java, Dev Automation and Cloud Platform Deployment. They have also received awards like the Top Asian TechnoVisionary Awardee for 2006/2007 by ZDNet Asia, Top 20 Open Source Companies by Red Herring, among others.

One of my favorite Open Source Applications has undergone an major version Alpha Release!

Since I’m following Durian open movie project updates, I’m pretty excited what’s in store for 2.5, namely:

• Updated GUI – the significance of this is that it is completely customizeable, with Python scripting.  Also an overhaul of the GUI has made it better organized and easier to navigate.
• Custom Keyboard Shortcuts – I have to admit, using Blender in the past sometimes overwhelms me due to the number of keyboard shortcuts. At least with this, I can assign keys which would be easier to remember.
• A new Tool System and Data Access architecture.
• 64 Bit versions are now available for OSX
• Almost everything is now animateable.
• Nice additions to the physics engine such as smoke simulation and particle systems.
• Rendering Improvements and Additions

It is really catching up to commercial software, as it is, and it’s also a small package too (Just 18Mb)!

Look to the blender site for the release logs and the downloads.

Working for a company that allows you to experiment with different technologies can be a very satisfying (and sometimes stressful, considering the deadlines) experience. Working in such an environment also lets you encounter people that even in your wildest imaginations would never have thought of meeting in your lifetime.

A few years ago, while we were starting out (I was in the company even before it came to be one), my boss in our talks mentioned a familiar name, Jim Everson. For those who don’t know him, he’s the guy who led in the development of several educational games including the classic Broderbund game “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego”.

Where does this all lead to, you may ask? In a nutshell, last year, Jim was diagnosed with advanced melanoma. Which led to his ex-wife (my boss’ sister) helping him out in whatever way she can – well, she helped design a website for him.

My boss asked a favor from me, to help quickly get some open source auction software and customize it for the website’s use, which I gladly did (as I was acquainted with him, and talked with him through emails in the past).

If it was not for open source software, we would have started programming from scratch, and would have taken much longer to finish (and at that time, I was up to my neck with deadlines at work). And, since the source code was there to see and customize, it was quick enough to implement it to their needs.

To end, if you do see Jim on your travels (he’s now an independent mac consultant), ask him about his mouth watering lamb chops recipe – he makes one mean lamb chops!