Posts

I’m so broke even my computer is low on cache.

I don’t think many people have heard of MOOS (which stands of Mission Oriented Operating Suite); I have been working with it for the past few months as part of my dissertation. And I must admit, the more I play with it, the more impressed I am. It is quite simple and yet powerful. Whilst MOOS’s roots are in robotics ( MRG ) and embedded systems, I wonder if I can extend it to use it some of the grid computing scenarios. Maybe implement a pMapReduce or pHadoop? Or perhaps a .NET implementation. Hmm, just need some time. If you need a robust, cross platform communication layer then check out MOOS . ...

As you might have heard, the Cray XMT implemented a multithreaded processor architecture (called Threadstorm); these processors are compatible with Socket F which means they can use the AMD Opteron CPUs. The interesting part however is that these Threadstorm CPU’s only execute user code and avoids memory dependency stalls i.e. when the memory dependence prediction goes wrong and stalls the specific load to ensure there is no violation. ...

I have recently started using Doxygen in anger and have been quite impressed with it. In addition to the documentation of code that you would expect, one of the most powerful and coolest features is the ability to create various types of diagrams showing various aspects of the application such as collaboration diagrams object and call graphs, etc. The easiest way to configure your application is to use Doxywizard . On Linux, if you do want the object and call graphs then you would need to choose to enable the DOT option. If you do that you will need to have Message Sequence Charts installed (typically found in /usr/bin/mscgen) and also Graphviz. DOT can typically be found in /usr/bin/dot. ...

Brilliant!

So you have a team (somewhat like mine right now) which is inexperienced with TFS and not very sure about this whole branching, merging, shelveset thinggy and extremely nervous when using it. So, what will you do? Well you might try and train them, show them how to use it, write documents showing how to use it, have processes in place, try and use some tools to help, etc. But, what do they do? Well this seems to be along the lines …. 🙄 ...

I had a need to dump some data I am getting from a real-time sensor network to a database and I choose MySQL - just because it is cheap and cheerful and will fit perfectly with what I am looking for. Now, I have never programmed for MySQL though I have used it in the past as a consumer (e.g. the backend of this blog). MySQL does expose a C API that one can use, but it seems quite arcane to use and does not quite conform to the C++ style (especially when using STL). ...

If you are running Ubuntu and want to modify the services running on the OS using the GUI, the way to do this is via System → Administration → Services. This is all very good, but in my case on one machine the Unlock button on the Services window was greyed out. Sure, I could use the shell to modify this, but when this is something I use quite rarely I need to go and look up the exact command and it can get a pain. Plus, that is the whole point of running the GUI? ;-) ...

Happy that recently my running has been consistent and the weather has been helpful too. Last few days it has turned cold with the temperature down to 4 degrees C. It helps me relax and de-stress and clear my head. Below is a screenshot of the workout profile from this week thanks for iMapMyRun free app for my Android Wildfire (which is small and light enough for me to carry in my pocket when on my run). Still need to build more stamina. ...

I was thinking of getting the latest version of the Kindle, but one of the factors in the decision will be the number of techy books available for the Kindle. Anyone owning one has any ideas? Are there far and few or is there a good selection with more being added? I do read novels, but not as many and if there are not enough techy books for the Kindle right now then that might be a deal breaker. ...

First post from my brand new Android phone and the Wordpress app. Quite impressed with it so far. I sure do miss the keyboard though. Suggestions for any apps? My phone is HTC wildfire and nothing fancy so the apps should be able to run on this phone.

It continues to surprise me that people who write software for a living these days (i.e professional developers) have no understanding of what byte order marks are and how they relate to different encodings. Most developers I interact with have no clue - including of course how EF BB BF differs from FF FE. Also so few of them have a understanding of linefeeds and how that differs from Unix to Windows. ...

Boolean logic explained

I think many of us can relate to this - including my current project. :roll: Project Management - how to test

Need I say more? Race condition explained

Unfortunately (or fortunately), depending on your perspective, this is so me! Still no sleep

The wife has one of these and can absolutely relate to this!

This is quite cool – now only if MS hurry’s up and incorporated this to Bing Maps. MS Street Slide

Just upgraded the blog to WordPress 3.0 - two clicks and I was done - can it get any simpler? What a pleasant surprise compared to the pile of crap that CS 2007+ turned out to be. Try upgrading that in something like two clicks? Ha! Well done WordPress!

Next post in the interesting find series. Speccy - an advanced and very cool System Information tool for your PC. Channeling Earth - Rivers Seen From Space The SSD Relapse - Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD Turn off laptop screen – every machine does not have an option to switch off the screen (say at night) and this small app is perfect for those situations – very handy at night. How to save and share ridiculously large files – well the name says it all. :) SQL Server I/O Internals – if you wanted to know how SQL Server handles I/O then this is a very interesting read. Clustered Tables vs Heap Tables – interesting to understand the comparisons in SQL Server (especially if/when you will be dealing with SQL Azure). Cloud Computing footprint – is it time we started measuring our digital footprint just the same as we have our carbon footprint? Zettabytes – Petabytes is so yesterday; hello Zettabytes ! I wonder how one indexes that? Let me Google that for you – perfect for when you get a question from a few lazy people. Let me Bing that for you – same as above, except this uses Bing. 15 RDP Solutions for Linux – good write up comparing the various options you have if you want to RDP to Linux from Windows/Mac. Ninite easy PC Setup - Install multiple apps at once without toolbars or clicking Next. Quite handy if you have less-technical friends/family. :)

… the average wife spends nearly 8,000 minutes a year nagging her husband!

This computer hardware chart is quite cool. Not sure why, where and who would want to use this. But, it does beg the question – can things get any geekier? :)

When you try and compile some code and you get an error along the lines of invalid use of an incomplete type ‘whatever type’ then in most cases it means you need to include the header file where that type is displayed. For example I had the following events in my header file: 1 2 3 protected: void mousePressEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event); void mouseReleaseEvent(QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent *event); When when I tried to compile gave the following error: invalid use of incomplete type ‘struct QGraphicsSceneMouseEvent’ ...

Microsoft is giving away a free eBook on SQL Server 2008 R2 for free. It gives you insight into exciting new implementations in the DB such as complex event processing (CEP) and StreamInsight. You can check out the Table of Contents here and download the book in either pdf format or xps format . ...

Pixels is Awesome! Any self righteous geek has to check this out. :)