Technical Writing

Teach Technical Writing in Two Hours per Week
Politics and the English Language

The Human Incubator

The Human Incubator

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-human-incubator/..

The success of "kangaroo care" for premature infants has shown that simple solutions are sometimes best.

The bubbles are not reality but it's inside your mind

The bubbles are not reality but it's inside your mind, originally uploaded by sheetal_shundori.
We live in a bubble baby.
A bubble's not reality.
You gotta have a look outside.
Listen

Social network and Privacy

Presentation: The real life social network
How much information a Fake profile can gather: Getting in bed with Robin Sage

Facebook hates me :(

Latex resume templates: http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/

Girls Scout and my incoherent ramblings

Last month I attended the Girls Scout Saturdays event,  arranged by Drexel Ischool for introducing high school girls to Computer Science. I must say it was an amazing experience. When I was a high school student in Bangladesh, my school had an educational program where the high school students had to teach uneducated female garments factory workers. It was a highlight of my high school years. I love these sorts of events because I live in a tiny bubble of people who are like me, and mostly have the same educational/social background. These events give me a sneak peek of the rest of world which is completely different and remind me of a world, which I hardly think, exists. Also they remind me that I might seem really dumb in a world full of intellectuals but I am still useful to some other part of the world :-D.

Anyway, I was talking about my experience with the girls scout. I was invited to this event because I was once a software developer and I was supposed to talk about my experience. The event was for 6-12 graders. I had 12 graders in mind when I was preparing my presentation. But to my surprise, I saw that my audience was a group of 6-12 years "old" girls and I don't know how to talk software engineering with the people so tiny!  They all have facebook accounts and they use youtube, skype, emails. In someways, they know more about internet and games and softwares than I used to at that age, (I had my first computer at 20 and snails are faster than internet in Bangladesh). And the scary thing was that when I showed them a real site and a phishing site, no one could detect the fake site. They use internet everyday but they don't know the basic rules of security that why a webpage that looks real might not be real, why it's not good to download every attachment and click on every link in an email that is apparently coming from a friend and why it's not okay to click "Accept" every time your browser gives you a choice. These security decisions are hard even for the adults! How it is possible to make them understandable for these kids? Now I think I understand what Ross Anderson was saying about security and usability that most systems are not designed to consider all kinds of users. Just imagine that you let your kid (or your old parents or anyone) to check emails using your laptop and she downloads every attachments her friend sends and thus installs trozans and keyloggers on your laptop that you use to check your bank accounts. All that encryption and SSL on your bank site won't save your credentials to become a product in the hackers' market. One weak link in the security-chain completely breaks the whole system.

In these days everything I see or read or do or think, brings back this insecurity complex. On another note, the outside world just seems to be getting too interesting to disregard.

Security research is making me skeptical and paranoid about everything. Is that a good thing or bad?

--
[Update] Yes, I do think it is a good thing because it makes me question about the security concerns of the seemingly innocuous choices we make everyday, like giving my email address to win an ipad or installing a browser extension "for a cause" that would donate for every tab I open and also will track my browsing behavior for targeted advertisements (which they do anyway though) or giving an "anonymous" handwritten review which is "obviously" anonymous just because it doesn't have my name on it! There is this fine line between being paranoid and being precautious, of which I am kind of aware of but do not understand, yet, where the line lies.

My photography practice

My photostream on Flickr: sheetal_shundori

PHP file upload

http://php.about.com/od/advancedphp/ss/php_file_upload.htm

Today is the day

, originally uploaded by sheetal_shundori.

Today is the day to be Happy
Today is the day to be Free
Today is the day that will change everything

Social Business

Social Engineering and Koobface virus

Koobface, whose name is an anagram of the word "Facebook", is a special worm that spreads through messages in social networking sites like Facebook and myspace. One of the ways it affects users is:

1. One of friends writes a message on your wall with a video link saying "Funniest video ever!" or "My Home Film;)"

2. When you click on the link, it asks you to install the "Adobe flash player" to see the video.

 which is actually the Koobface worm.

3. You download it and become a zombie.

More on KoobFace:
The Real Face of KOOBFACE, analysis by Trend Micro.
Koobface virus hits facebook
Koobface scam by Berkeley researchers
Wiki has some good links

Some days are so b e a u t i f u l
that they make all the other days worth living! :D

I love to read good things people say about Bangladesh.

I was reading Prof. Justine Cassell's interview, who is the director of CMU HCI research. She traveled 40 countries, yet when asked about them she mentioned wonderful things about Bangladesh.

This is what she said:

What countries have you traveled to?

Well, I’ve probably traveled to forty countries… In 2002-2003, I was on sabbatical, and I had a grant to study young people and the Internet. In one year, I went to twenty-one countries. That was the best year of my life. I spent two weeks in each country. It was so great. As you can tell, I don’t mind being uprooted. I love foreign countries and places I haven’t been before.

I was in really exotic places. I was in a country that was the smallest self-governing country in the world, called Niue. It’s a tiny little island near New Zealand. They only have 562 families in the country. They actually have a lot of people outside the country who are Niuean. But it was so tiny. There was one store in the capital of the country. Well, there was one grocery store. I love that place. I kept extending my stay. First I was supposed to stay only four days, then I stayed seven days, then I stayed ten days. I would’ve stayed longer if I could. It was just so different.

I also love going to Bangladesh. I’ve been there three or four times now. I’ve really enjoyed it each time. Once again, it’s really different from anywhere I’ve lived. I’ve been very warmly welcomed, with a tremendous amount of generosity, by people who don’t have a lot of material possessions. I was privileged to hang out with a group of young people who had grown up in the slums of Dhaka and through the innovative thinking of a Bangladeshi photographer had become photographers themselves. Those young people had so much to say about being the subject vs. the object of their own experience – being behind or in front of the camera. It’s a country that floods severely every year, and yet a significant segment of the population is too poor to move from the flooding areas – and so they take their stuff and move to the top of the hill. The young photographers I spent time with – who call themselves “Out of Focus” – took me around the country to see the effects of the floods, and talked to me about the ways in which Bangladesh gets used in the world press as what they called “poverty porn”. And I’m upset when the 7-Eleven doesn’t have whatever I want. It just really gives you a perspective on things.

Read Full Interview

Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.
~Albert Einstein

Fear is the Mind Killer

Fear is the Mind Killer, originally uploaded by Terra Kate.

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

Stanford Prison Experiment

They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.

{explored Front Page}, originally uploaded by Siréliss.

Trust I seek and I find in you
Every day for us something new
Open mind for a different view
And nothing else matters

Listen

Am I smart enough?

Yet another phd advice :D, but I loved it. I try to remind myself of this from time to time, it's nice to hear the same thing from a professor.
Excerpt taken from here

Am I smart enough?

That's the wrong question. There is no such thing as ``smart enough''.

If you love playing the piano, play it. You don't expect to be Alfred Brendel or Vladimir Ashkenazy. But you are doing something productive for yourself and those around you. Research is the same. If you enjoy doing it, pursue it. You will usually find that you can contribute something. As you go on, you will discover your strengths and find you have something unique to offer. Maybe there are others who are smarter in some way; they can compute complex probabilities in their head faster than you can, or whatever. But your contributions may be valuable in other ways.

As discussed above, research has many components. Problem solving, identifying issues, presentation, modeling, and criticism are amongst them. See what aspects best suit your abilities and personality. There is probably a niche for you somewhere.

What is written above about kidding yourself does NOT refer to ability or perception of ability; it refers to motivation and honesty about motivation. I want to be sure you are pursuing research for the ``right'' reasons.

Toys for photographers

If you are thinking about buying new toys to try out photography, check out this awesome site of Ken Rockwell.
It contains almost every bit of details about camera models, glasses, flashes or anything related to photography. It also provides you comparison of popular models so that you can decide for yourself.

Normally I spend too much money on gazettes that I might never use in my life!
This site really helped me to concentrate more on "real photography" that consists of thinking about composition, looking for interesting ideas than buying new things which are not necessarily going to make me a good photographer overnight.
So, do all the research you need before buying new things and only buy new toys after you are an expert of the current ones.

P.S.: The last line is actually "a note to self". I seem to having hard time remembering this.

Anonymous: Can we be friends on Facebook?

Anonymous: Can we be friends on Facebook?, originally uploaded by sheetal_shundori.

I absolutely love to show off my pictures :P

Looks like everyone is getting famous by doing the thing they really like!
like these girls on youtube who make make-over videos, or this flickr guy, or this programmer who wrote youtube instant, or salman khan from khan academy (google 10^100), or blogger julie!
what should I do?

English classics online

Classics at the Online Literature Library

Karhunen-Loeve transform in java

Background knowledge and matlab code here.
The matlab code below is taken from the previous paper.

%number of examples
N=size(X,2);
%dimension of each example
M=size(X,1);
%mean
meanX=mean(X,2);
%centering the data
Xm=X-meanX*ones(1,N);
%covariance matrix
C=(Xm*Xm')/N;
%computing the eigenspace:
[U D]=eig(C);
%projecting the centered data
over the eigenspace
P=U'*Xm;

Helpful lecture video
Download JAMA package
Java code:

import Jama.*;

public class KLTransform {

//Matrix x[i,j]= jth feature in ith example
public Matrix k_lTransform(Matrix x)
{
 
   x = x.transpose();
     
   int nExample = x.getColumnDimension();

  //calculate mean
   Matrix mean = getMean(x);
  
   double[][] oneD = new double[1][nExample];
   for(int i = 0; i < nExample; i++)
       oneD[0][i] = 1;
   Matrix ones = new Matrix(oneD);
  
   //center the data
   Matrix xm = x.minus(mean.times(ones)); 

   //Calculate covariance matrix
   Matrix cov  = xm.times(xm.transpose());
  
   /*
   In the matlab code, the covariance matrix is divided with N (nExample). 
   Now cov and cov/nExample have the same eigenvectors but different eigenvalues. 
   In this code, the division doesn't make any difference as we are only 
   considering the eigenvectors. 
   But there are some cases, like in Kaiser-Guttman stopping rule 
   where only the eigenvectors with eigenvalue > 1 are chosen, 
   division might make a difference.
   */
   cov = cov.times(1.0/nExample);

   //compute eigen vectors
   Matrix eigenVectors = cov.eig().getV();

  //compute pca
   Matrix pca = eigenVectors.transpose().times(xm);
   return pca;
}
 
public Matrix getMean(Matrix x) {
 int nExample = x.getColumnDimension();
 int nFeature = x.getRowDimension();
  
 double[][] meanD = new double[nFeature][1];
 Matrix mean = new Matrix(meanD);
  
 for(int i = 0; i < nFeature; i++)
 {
   double avg = 0.0;
   for(int j = 0; j < nExample; j++)
   {
     avg+=x.get( i,j);
   }
   mean.set(i, 0, avg/nExample);
   
 }
 return mean;
}
//test 
public static void main(String[] args)
{
  KLTransform kl = new KLTransform();

  double [][] d = new double[][]{{1, 2, 3},{4,5,6}};
  Matrix x = new Matrix(d);
  Matrix pc = kl.k_lTransform(x);

  pc.print(pc.getRowDimension(), 2);

 }
}

Note that in the matlab code, number of examples is the number of columns that is each column is an example. But the java code assumes each row is an example. So the matrix X in matlab is the transpose of matrix X in java.
To test the java and matlab code:
run java with :
X=
[1 2 3]
[4 5 6]

run matlab with: X = [1, 4; 2, 5; 3, 6]

syntax highlighting tutorial

If I were

I am tagged by Mahmud in the "if i were" thing.
If I wait and try to think about the "correct" answers of these questions, i'll never have time to answer them, so I decided to do it in NOW, it's now or never :P

If I were a month, i'd be April, my Birth month :D, and this month is like me - sunny and bright !

If I were a day of the week, I’d be tuesday- not monday when everyone is grumpy, not weekends when everybody feels relaxed and I don't know why tuesdays are lucky for me.

If I were a time of day, I’d be 5 am- awesome start of a super awesome day. 

If I were a season, I’d be summer, colorful and  cheerful

If I were a planet, I’d be earth - green and full of people :D

If I were a sea animal, I'd be a mermaid I guess and always want to be a human.

If I were a direction, I am always "right"

If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be a rocking chair -always in motion

If I were a liquid, I’d be orange juice- tangy in taste but kills the bacteria :D

If I were a tree, I’d be a daffodil - I am totally narcisist

If I were a tool, I’d be a knife, really handy and versatile :P 

If I were an element, I could never be just one element, i'm too complex :D.

If I were a gemstone, I’d be ruby- I love red

If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a flute - subtle but unique.

If I were a color, I’d be RED

If I were an emotion, I’d be ":P"

If I were a fruit, I’d be orange - with the shape of earth and color of sun.

If I were a sound, I’d be the sound of laughter.

If I were a car, I’d be the cheapest but useful one :D

If I were food, I’d be khichuri & omelet - easy to make and you can never have too much.

If I were a taste, I’d be a mixed taste of a various of spices- a little bit of chili, a tinge of cinnamon, some cardamoms, some lime juice may be and a handful of cilantro :D

If I were a scent, I’d be the smell of lemon - fresh!!

If I were a pair of shoes, I’d be flip-flop -  down to earth and unpretentious

And if I were a bird, I’d be a rooster - I have a voice and sometimes I scream relentlessly even if no one is there to listen.

And If I were to tag people, If i could tag ANYONE then I'd tag the dead ones - to know what they feel about their earthy life now.

Eclipse memory analyzer

http://www.vogella.de/articles/EclipseMemoryAnalyser/article.html

Trojan steals $1 million dollar

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20013246-245.html?tag=topStories2

find a file and delete it

Command:

find <where-to-look> -name <name-of-the-file> | xargs /bin/rm -f

Example:
I want to delete .svn folder from every directory
then the command would be

find <main-directory-name> -name .svn | xargs /bin/rm -rf

Source: Unix "find" command

You got to dance with the one that brought you
Stay with the one that wants you
The one who's gonna love you when all of the others go home
Don't let the green grass fool ya
Don't let the moon get to ya
Dance with the one that brought you and you can't go wrong

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; 
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; 
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity;
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; 
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us

Awesome documentary: My architect

                 Louis Kahn




Its not everyday that I get to watch a documentary like this. To me, "documentary" has a synonym - Boring. So I tend to avoid documentaries as much I can. But this documentary made me captivated and changed my view on documentaries!

Its about Architect Louis Kahn's life, made by his son Nathaniel Kahn, who was 11 when Louis died at the New York Penn station. He had such an unusual life! I think EVERY person has an unusual life; different and unique life than everyone else. It's sad that we get to know only a few lives. There should be a rule that everyone has to make a movie about his/her life, so that other people can see and appreciate the extraordinary experiences and phenomenal circumstances that he/she might have witnessed.

Anyway, as long as I'm not the one making rules of life and there isn't one movie per person, at least watch the ones that are already here.

This is the ending of the movie in Bangladesh featuring Louis's biggest work Jatiyo Shonshod Bhaban

and TEDTalk by Nathaniel

error: "exit" was not declared in this scope

 If you gcc is <=3.4 --> add this #include <iostream>
in gcc 4.3 --> #include <cstdlib>

error:'strcmp' was not declared in this scope:

for c++ -> use #include<cstring>


--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step --

Vocabulary richness

Yule’s Characteristic- K

Simpson's DIversity index

Puzzles

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/puzzle/

If someone dies, what should happen to their website/facebook page?
when I visit my dead friend's facebook page, I feel really creepy. I mean THis person is DEAD but he is still living in facebook!!! People are writing on his wall, his pictures and profile are saying things just like a living person.

Internet created a virtual world for us where we all live virtually, and do almost all the other things virtually,
shouldn't we also "die" virtually here?

Update**:
people thought about it before :D

How to Manage Your Online Life When You're Dead

Something old, something new, Something borrowed, something blue

Two years ago this day, I got married.

It was a ... hmm... a normal day. Everything about it was normal.
I wore a beautiful shari and was not looking my best (sigh), I never look my best when I want to.
Anyway, our house was full with our relatives and my mom was very tensed (as usual :D).
Then Reza (my husband) with his family came at 7 pm, and the electricity went off. That made my mom more tensed, why does the electricity go off every time Reza comes? Does it mean all the "lights" of her daughter's life will go off after the marriage?
Actually, at that time electricity used to go off at 7pm EVERYDAY! But who'd remind her that!

The Kazi came to me to sign the contract. He started saying (very loudly), "ঠাকুরগাঁও নিবাসী জনাব [my father-in-law] এর পুত্র মো আলিমুর রেজা এর পক্ষ হইতে [at this point I started laughing] মোহাম্মদী শরীয়ত মোতাবেক আপনি ঢাকা জেলা নিবাসী জনাব [my father] এর কননা সাদিয়া আফরোজকে বিবাহের প্রস্তাব করিতেসি. আপনি এই বিবাহে সম্মতি থাকিলে আপনের উকিলের মাধ্যমে বলেন Alhumdullillah." (Son of [my father-in-law] is proposing to marry you, daughter of [my dad]. Say Alhumdullillah if you accept the proposal.)

I was trying my best not to laugh. Everyone around me was so serious and expecting me to cry, they would feel weird if they saw me laughing. It was really puzzling, too. In all bengali movies, I heard people say "Kobul" (I agree) three times when they get married, but now I have to say "Alhumdullillah?" Do I have to say both Kobul and Alhumdullillah? Anyway, I said Alhumdullillah once and then signed the contract. Someone from the back said he didn't hear me saying Alhumdullillah, so the Kazi asked me to say it louder. I almost screamed "Alhumdullillah" and this time couldn't suppress my laugh.

Then the Kazi went to Reza and took his sign on the contract. And we got married !!! Just like that! I was still confused if that was all. So I asked my uncle, "Is that all? Am I married now?" I don't know what was wrong with my question or the way I asked it, he started laughing and kept telling everyone my peculiar question. And I was thinking, like 5 days ago, my family was so hush hush about our relationship and we were not allowed to hold hands or go out together and now everything is "legal" and permitted? Who made these rules??? Thanks God, I'm not marrying a stranger.

It took me a while to get used to the fact that we are married and it's OKAY to live with him. There were thousands of moments when I felt "Oh my god, if my mom catches me with Reza now, she is going to get very angry!" and then I remembered "Oh I'm married now!"

I wanted to finish this post with something cool. But I'm pretty slow in coming up with wonderful witty things, so let me finish with whatever in my mind right now.
Marriage is such a huge thing in our society, specially for girls, I never understood why. My parents never allowed my going out alone or hanging out with friends for long and they used to say, "Do all these after you are married." "You can go on tours with your husband." I've seen same things being told to many (all!) bengali girls along with other bullshits like "You can make your hair short if your husband likes, keep it longer till you get married." "You should put on make-ups and wear gold jewelry  after you get married, doing all these before marriage are not signs of a good girl." "Don't make a habit of spending money, what if your future husband doesn't like it?" "Don't be a dancer or singer, your future husband might not like it." "You shouldn't stay out in the sun too much, guys might not choose you to marry if your complexion is dark." As if a girl's life is going to start only after she gets married. And she has to shape herself so that society thinks she is going to be a "good" bride. Is a guy growing up shaping himself so that he can be a "good" husband? Society fills up our head with these fairy tales about a prince who marries a beautiful poor girl and makes her a queen. Is there any fairy tale about a queen marrying a poor boy and making him just her husband? There are many in real life but not in fairy tales. And also every time these stories are about "someone else will come to your life and make you happy," why don't they teach us that no one can make you happy unless you learn to make yourself happy?

May be they do, may be we need to grow up to realize the true meanings of those stories.

After my two years of married life, I think marriage is a wonderful experience that makes us grow up in many ways and teaches us to appreciate life. So, cheers to the constitution of marriage and cheers to whoever established this rule.

Attitude is Altitude

Meet Nick Vujicic, one of the most motivational speaker who has no arms and legs.

Google's web security course

http://code.google.com/p/browsersec/wiki/Main
http://code.google.com/edu/security/index.html

Access Facebook from Bangladesh

Facebook is blocked in Bangladesh.
To access it use Tor

Resource 'tokenizers/punkt/english.pickle' not found.

Full solution is in here
For Mac, do this
sudo python -m nltk.downloader -d /usr/share/nltk_data all

Picture driven computing: Sikuli

Sikuli project
Watch their awesome demo

Be thankful for the thorns

Be thankful for the thorns, originally uploaded by sheetal_shundori.

To my friends out there.

Google's mini crypto course

Mini crypto course by Google
Silvio Micali, Shafi Goldwasser and Avi Widgerson lecture at Drexel

CS Research topic generator

Wasting too much time on the name of your thesis??
Waste no more :D

The making of a scientist

The making of a scientist

Wireless Smart Rabbit

CHECK THIS OUT !

From Sheetal (sheetal57@gmail.com)
Check this out! this is so cool !! Want to know more ? Go to www.nabaztag.com !

The perfect time

For me, the perfect time to do something is when I have no time at all to do it.
Is this for everyone or just for me?
Just take blogging for example, it seems to be the perfect thing to do only during exams or the night before assignment's due date. And when that's over, the moment seems to be gone and blogging doesn't feel that fun any more :(.

smile

smile, originally uploaded by benalive.

Solution: VMware fusion hangs

delete the .vmss file.
full solution

Example of human being
http://www.cadetcollegeblog.com/raihanabir/17006

Extended Kalman Filter algorithm implementation

The project did not end up working the way i expected :(, I tried really hard :((
Anyway (sigh), it might give you some initial ideas about where to start.

Project Description

Check out other interesting projects people did

Grad school survival guide

Very interesting :D
Read it here

who should we love

we all hate Pakistanis because of what they did to us during 1971.
then we should hate US too because without US support and help the war atrocities might not be so bad. (another link)
then we should hate India too because how they have been treating us since 1971.
And last but obviously not the least, we should hate ourselves for what the BDRs did to the army families because all the bdrs were bangladeshi.

Now, if we keep hating everyone in the world, who should we love?

Vincent

i've been listening to this song for 4 days now, wonderful song!!
Its about Vincent Van Gogh and the words "starry starry night" refers to his painting the starry night
here is the original version with van gogh's paintings

Kalman filter for dummies

Awesome explanation of the kalman filter Kalman filter for dummies

c++ library for kalman filter

simplest java implementation here

A nice example of using it for 3rd order kinematics.

Prime sieve

A prime sieve or prime number sieve is a fast type of algorithm for finding primes.

some cool prime sieves:

1. Sieve of Sundaram

2. Sieve of Eratosthenes

more poems

its like 10 inches snow outside and i'm in the mood of reading poems again :D
read the full version here.

তোমার আমার মাঝখানেতে

     একটি বহে নদী ,

দুই তটেরে একই গান সে

     শোনায় নিরবধি ।

Khonek dekha by Rabindranath Tagor

যেমন ঢাকা ছিলে তুমি

         তেমনি রইলে ঢাকা ,

তোমার কাছে যেমন ছিনু

          তেমনি রইনু ফাঁকা !

          তবে কিসের তরে        

          থামলে লীলাভরে

যেতে যেতে পাড়ার পথে

           কলস লয়ে কাঁখে ?

একটুখানি ফিরে কেন

           দেখলে ঘোমটা - ফাঁকে ?

if you are interested, read the full poem here

mac svn commands

#-----------------
# start svn server
#-----------------
sudo -u www /sw/bin/svnserve -d -r /Users/al/svnrepo

#-------------------
# checkout a project
#-------------------
svn checkout svn://localhost/project1

libpng.so.2 error

***: error while loading shared libraries: libpng.so.2:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To avoid this error:

1. Install libpn3:

sudo apt-get install libpng3

2. And rename it to libpng2:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpng.so.3 /usr/lib/libpng.so.2

Thanks to Jacques for the solution.

Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project

SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Learn about the SETI project->wiki, SETI@home

player/stage/gazebo help

http://yorkroboticist.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html


and a tutorial Player/stage tutorial

SLAM tutorial : SLAM
Excellent slam example: slam for dummies

didn't find any example for player/stage 3.*, so i installed player 2.0.5, and stage 2.0.3

got the following error

unable to open color database /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt :
No such file or directory (stage.c stg_lookup_color)

To correct this problem, player/stage needs a link to the X11 color map in the place it expects:

sudo ln -s /usr/X11/share/X11/rgb.txt /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt

detailed solution: here

Java client for player/stage: here

--
Sheetal

Super cool panaromas!!!

Click on the pictures to see the 360 degree views.
the moon
seven wonders

DNS security flaws

full story

In practice the DNS service behaves very much like the /etc/hosts file on your computer, which is where the system initially looks up name resolutions before relying on the DNS system. The file is basically a list of IP addresses followed by the name you've associated with those IP addresses. For example, if you edit the file you can associate any domain name with any IP address of your choosing.

1. Open Terminal and enter the following command to edit the hosts file

sudo pico /etc/hosts

2. Go to the bottom of the file and enter the following:

74.125.19.106 www.apple.com

3. Press control-o followed by the return key to save the file

acid test for browser

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

sshkeychain installation problem on leopard

SSHKeychain 0.8.2 Post Install Problem on Leopard

security issues with safari

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3949

How to do print screen in Mac OS X

see here

full screen: command key + Shift + 3
selected screen: command key + Shift + 4, then mouse will look like "+" sign, then choose selected region.

animation of lens theorem derivation

http://hirophysics.com/Anime/thinlenseq.html

Google Honors Anniversary of Bar Code Patent Awarded to Drexel Alumnus, Faculty Member

On Wednesday, October 8, 2009, Google celebrated the 57th anniversary of the first bar code patent by changing the logo on its Web site with a black and white bar code design.

Drexel alumnus Norman Woodland (above) CoE '47, Hon. '98, and faculty member Bernard Silver received the first patent (U.S. Patent # 2,612,994) for their bar code on October 7, 1952. The bar code created by Woodland and Silver was comprised of a series of concentric circles, not the black and white vertical lines used currently.

Read bangla newpaper on mac

This firefox extension converts  some Old Bangla Newspaper Website to Unicode 4.2.
You need unicode installed on you machine. Download unicode for mac here
It was for old firefox versions.
To make it run on your new firefox, you can download the xpi file------>rename it to zip ----> unzip it ----> change maxVersion attribute in the install.rdf file to 3.* ----> then again zip it ----> rename to xpi.

OR

just download and install this 


--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step --

Install windows on mac

This one is on sun virtual box
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhTb_7TSDXQ&feature=related

upload and send large files

http://www.uploadandsend.com/#

--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step --

Edit distance in java

Edit distance

Html parser

open source html parser

Firefox extension tutorial

best tutorial

Counting in for loop in dos batch

This is the default behaviour of a FOR loop:

@echo off 
setlocal 
:: count to 5 storing the results in a variable 
set _tst=0 
FOR /l %%G in (1,1,5) Do (echo [%_tst%] & set /a _tst+=1) 
echo Total = %_tst%  
C:>demo_batch.cmd 
[0] 
[0] 
[0] 
[0] 
[0] 
Total = 5

Notice that when the FOR loop finishes we get the correct total, so the variable correctly increments, but during each iteration of the loop the variable is stuck at it's initial value of 0

The same script with EnableDelayedExpansion, gives the same final result but also displays the intermediate values:

@echo off 
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion  
:: count to 5 storing the results in a variable 
set _tst=0 
FOR /l %%G in (1,1,5) Do (echo [!_tst!] & set /a _tst+=1) 
echo Total = !_tst! 
C:\>demo_batch.cmd 
[0] 
[1] 
[2] 
[3] 
[4] 
Total = 5

Notice that instead of %variable% we use !variable!

http://www.ss64.com/nt/setlocal.html

The gate of death

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=77648

--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step --

vista "configuring updates step 3 of 3" continous loop solution

I stepped into this mess today and finally got out of it. what i did-

1. when you see the “Microsoft (C)” with the moving lines, hold the power button until it shuts down.

2. then start it again, you will find a window asking for "launch automatic repair". choose this option.

3. i didn't have to do anything else. if you are still stuck, follow these instructions.

XSS attack

http://infinityexists.com/videos/episode23/

wireshark display filters

http://wiki.wireshark.org/DisplayFilters

--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step --

Download entire website using wget

wget-tircks-and-tips

If want you save the website exactly the same way a web-browser do, use the following command

wget --no-check-certificate -nd -pHEK -erobots=off  http://www.example.com
    


--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step --

Thought controlled wheel chair

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/audeo.htm

stephen hawking's: disability advice

Disability Advice

Creating mozilla extension

http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/toolbar-tutorial/chapter-1/
http://ancaluca.blogspot.com/2007/10/java-firefox-extension.html
http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.tech.java/browse_thread/thread/41a2db6eb748e6f6

File i/o:
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Code_snippets:File_I/O#Writing_to_a_file

Turing Test

Art of mathematics or mathematics of art!

my friend sopan posted this awesome link on facebook. its about the art work, mathematical art actually, of Maurits Cornelis Escher who explored many cool mathematical ideas through his works.

Interesting CS project

These projects a really interesting.
1. swarm-bots project. watch the video. paper about swarm-bots
2. head tracking for VR displays using WiiRemote. watch the video.

Nachos

Running nachos with eclipse: here

Happiness

Happiness, originally uploaded by medieval panda.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

~Henry Ward Beecher

best syntax highlighter

At last i found it !!!

http://code.google.com/p/syntaxhighlighter/

& a tutorial about how to use it.

book download

http://www.scribd.com/doc

Grad Student Comic Strip

Your friend (sheetal) sent the following message to you:

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=562

signed by sheetal

---

'Piled Higher and Deeper' by Jorge Cham is the popular comic strip about life, or the lack thereof, in grad school. Check it out by going to www.phdcomics.com

drop all constraints

To drop all constraints on a table "sampleTable", use the following commands:

CREATE TABLE temp AS SELECT * FROM sampleTable;
DROP TABLE sampleTable;
CREATE TABLE sampleTable AS SELECT * FROM temp;
DROP TABLE temp;

source
reference

faq on struts spring

http://www.blogtoplist.com/technology/blogdetails-11384-3.html
--
Sheetal

--A journey of a thousand mile begins with a single step --

osgi tutorial

Installation:
If you have eclipse 3.3, you don't need any extra plugin.

OSGi tutorial

after building your bundle do the following to make jar:

   * Right click on your bundle and select Export. Choose “Plug-in Development->Deployable Plugins and Fragments”.
   * Select destination folder (for example /home/pc/Desktop)
   * Click “Finish”

complete your plug-in:

somedir/
 configuration/
   config.ini
 eclipse.exe
 plugins/
   org.eclipse.equinox.common_3.3.0.jar
   org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32.win32.x86_1.0.0/
     eclipse_1017a.dll
     [other launcher fragment content]
   org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.0.jar
   org.eclipse.osgi_3.3.0.jar
   org.eclipse.update.configurator_3.2.100.jar
   < your_bundle1 >.jar
< your_bundle2 >.jar

write config.ini->>

osgi.bundles=< your_bundle1 >.jar@start,< your_bundle2 >.jar@start
osgi.bundles=org.eclipse.equinox.common@2:start, org.eclipse.update.configurator@3:start
  eclipse.ignoreApp=true
  osgi.noShutdown=true

for linux, set up is same, just change the eclipse.exe, org.eclipse.equinox.launcher,org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.win32 with their linux version.

Now, execute the following command:

eclipse -console

A new console will appear.
do the following:

osgi>
osgi>ss
 

all the bundle will appear.

write

 start < bundle id >

this will start your plugin.

example 1
example 2

eclipse osgi sample project for beginers

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-2008/jw-03-osgi1.html?page=3