Last night I spent a bit of time attempting DVD playback on the latest Ubuntu – Hardy Heron Beta.

Whether I tried vlc / totem / ogle / mplayer – I was getting the following hard crash

X Error of failed request:  BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)

I was running my Sony SZ Laptop in ’stamina’ mode – which uses an Intel i810 graphics card. I had to sift through quite a few pages before I came upon a solution that worked:

Add the following line to the Device section of your xorg.conf file:

Option "LinearAlloc" "16000"

Also checked out bluetooth-alsa again – came across this site to ease the installation of a2dp (stereo bluetooth headset) on Linux. Worked incredibly well – comes with a nice script to toggle between speaker/headset. VLC & Amarok play nice as soon as you select the ASLA device as ‘bluetooth’.

(Watched a fair bit of TV over the weekend; West Wing, Lost, Southland Tales, Meet the Spartans, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford)

Spent a few hours this weekend finally getting some documentation together for modularity. It has been a pet project of mine ever since I was introduced to the concept by Malcolm Sparks.

modularity is a set of Ant tasks to help with the software configuration management of Java projects with a large number of modules. modularity aims to make maintaining ant build files a thing of the past – instead you maintain a set of ‘metadata.xml’ files describing your project’s layout and dependency tree.

I’m currently using modularity for all my pet projects (yes modularity also builds itself!) and I’m also luck enough to be allowed to use it at in NewBay. At work it is used to create the developers IDE workspace, build all software modules and ultimately release software.

Maciej Baranowski, Darragh Curran and Guy Granger all have helped tremendously on its development to date.

Just moved this site [thecentric.com] to a new home on my GoDaddy virtual dedicated server. Have more ram here – which allows me to run live some of my spike java web apps. Seems faster and cheaper… no complaints yet.

Also uploaded some pics of my few hours with Anna out on Lough Corrib.

Went to Manchester for the weekend – first time there – and was really surprised by how nice and vibrant the city center was. The labor party was holding a conference there and I managed to get a look at the war / Palestine protest that was going on – quick snap below.

I spent Saturday night just outside Liverpool where I managed to get some hot tub action…

Caught a film ‘Trust the Man’ as well – it was ok – pretty much as expected…

Had a blast at Guy Grangers birthday on Friday night after work. Session at the Gingerman followed by Whelans. Was so out-of-it the next morning I managed to lock myself out of the apartment after checking a ‘knock on the door’. Luckily I had a phone, some cash and was wearing pants… Watched John Tucker must die (load of cack) and Right at Your Door (emotive) at the cinema before collecting the spare set of keys at the FastTrack at Heuston…

In other weird events – I parked my car beside an exact same model over the weeked – It was dark when I got back to the car park and mistook the other car for my own. Guess my surprise as my key opened this second car… Notice how clean it is (couldn’t be mine!)

Just back from the wonderful spanish town of Leon. I was there for the wedding of my long time friends Hugh McDonagh and Maite Cosmen. We stayed for two nights – a lot of beer, fun and squid. The tapas bar culture in the city centre involved many bars (seats optional) that served up quater (”un corto”) or half pints (”una caña”) and along with it you got a tapas, the type of tapas was at the discretion of the barman. But most importantly – for free!

Below has to be one of the nicest pictures I’ve taken on my phone to date.

Saw Daft Punk in Marley Park on Friday with Moley, Col, Sinead & their friends. Best gig I’ve been at – they played all the right songs. Sold a spare ticket I had for face value in the queue about 60seconds before entering the park – wahoo! That coupled with myself and Sinead making into the VIPish pit topped off the experience. Pint with moley in town afterwards.

Two days back at work now after the holidays. Spent the weekend getting the house in order: Bought a hoover, lampshades, hung up a Padraig O’Murchu sculpture, rearranged sitting room and so forth.

Watched Lady In The Water & Nacho Libre. Lady was a bit weak, and Nacho was exactly what it said on the tin.

The Pitch & Putt course on Lansdowne Valley is a fantastic beautiful course. Made me almost forget I was in Dublin, never mind Drimnagh. Averaged 4.25 shots over the 18 hole course – A couple of well tricky holes – Golf balls were lost.

I’m on a new project at work – And just like the few proceeding it – My motto of componentisation and modularisation seems to be just what the architect ordered.

I’m on day 3 of my 2 week holidays from NewBay. Saw Cars and Angel-A at the cinema. Mneh to both, although Angel-A had it’s moments. I’m doing a bit of running, my legs haven’t this poor in quite some time – muscles straining – it’s a good sign right?

I’ve wanted to do more on the Java front, but alas haven’t spent much time on the computer yet at all.

Played my first Civilization 3 game through on the monitor. I had only once previously played on Emperor – and won with great difficulty (Space Race, with another Civ very close behind). This time I played the same basic strategy, but lost to Space Race, with a nasty nuclear war a few turns beforehard. It was a joy to play on the monitor at 2560×1600 – Zoomed out I could almost see the entire standard map. I just read an article regarding the greap leap from monarch to emperor

Watched Season One of DeadWood over the weekend too. I’m impressed, the language is very sharp and consistently so. Calamity Jane for all the cheap humour associated with, is still my favourite character.

Calamity Jane: I’m drunk. Correct. What the fuck is it to you?