Uninstall Linux in a Windows XP– Linux Dual Boot Machine

I followed the following steps while uninstalling Ubuntu Linux on my laptop.

1. Use Windows XP installation CD to boot.
2. Go to recovery console and enter fixmbr
3. Restart the system. Now it should boot in Windows
4. Remove Linux partition by using the disk management utility of Windows XP.

Values of Environment Variables

To display value of environment variables in command prompt in windows use the following command

echo %variable_name%

For example to display the value of CLASSPATH variable type

echo %CLASSPATH%

Way to learn Algorithms

Excerpts from The Art of Computer Programming-Fundamental Algorithms by Knuth, Page No. 4

“...the reader should not expect to read an algorithm as if it were part of a novel; such an attempt would make it pretty difficult to understand what is going on. An algorithm must be seen to be believed, and the best way to learn what an algorithm is all about is to try it. The reader should always take pencil and paper and work through an example of each algorithm immediately upon encountering it in the text.”

Fuzzy Systems

If Approximating Nonlinear Areas, then Consider Fuzzy Systems
is an interesting read. According to the authors, based upon antecedent-consequent part of the rules, fuzzy systems can be broadly classified as follows:

• Linguistic fuzzy models
• Fuzzy relational models
• Takagi-Sugeno (TS) models

System Dynamics and Agent based toolkits

• Swarm
• Recursive Porous Agent Simulation Toolkit
• Zeus

According to this article, Swarm and Repast “deploy unsophisticated agents”, whereas Zeus “deploys sophisticated” agents. I agree with the author’s view point that software agents can model humans as well as other technological components. The author uses the term “dumb” agents to represent the technological components.

Parameterized Unit Testing

I am looking for a demonstration of Parameterized Unit Testing. This is an interesting topic. Parameterized Unit Testing with Symbolic Execution is an interesting read. But, I am looking for some free software or prototype to work on my code.

Google SketchUp

Today, I played with this 3D modeling software. I am totally falling in love with Google SketchUp. Both Windows XP and Mac OSX versions are available for download. I hope my knowledge in introductory mechanical engineering is helpful to create 3D models.

Insilico

Biology, never interested me, when I was in school.
The article, Combatting Disease with Computer-Aided Drug Design, by A S Nair interests me in Computer-Aided Drug Design.

He stresses that biology is migrating from natural science to information science.

Hamachi VPN

Hamachi seems to be a very good vpn lan setup system.

Microsoft to Macromedia

I had some pictures and wanted to send tiff files to a publisher. I created the pictures using Microsoft Office products (PowerPoint and Excel, predominantly). I had trouble converting those images to tiff files directly from PowerPoint or Excel. So, I followed the following steps:

1. Open Macromedia Fireworks
2. Copy the object from the Microsoft Office application
3. Create a new document in Macromedia Fireworks
4. Choose appropriate canvas color in the new document window
5. Now paste the object into Macromedia Fireworks
6. Change the image size or resolution by clicking on image size button
7. Open Export Wizard (File-> Export Wizard)
8. Choose appropriate purpose and finally the tiff file is created

Alternative Keyboards

I wish I had known that alternative keyboards existed when I was learning typewriting in my high school.

Today, I learned that QWERTY is not the only type of keyboards available. Dave Child compares DVORAK and QWERTY layouts.

Paste Special

Instead of using "Paste" option in Microsoft Office programs, try to explore "Paste Special" for pasting different kinds of objects, images, text.

Monthly Statistics

For the past one year so far, November month has had the highest number of visitors. This is proportional with the number of posts (November being the month with highest number of posts). But, the surprising fact is that the second highest is in March, where the number of posts is just only 3.

Wireless Cracking

I was looking for wireless tools that available for Windows platform.
Stumbverter
Cain Password Recovery Tool
I will evaluate these tools over the weekend and write about them.

Graduate Student Research Conference

Blender

Here is a free and cool software for 3D modeling and animation.

Happy Birthday Eclipse

Belated though!
The actual birthday is on Nov 7th.
Eclipse is absolutely helpful and easy to use. One of the best IDEs I have ever used. It was the reason many IDE developers opted out of competition.

Apple Store

I visited the Apple Store for the first time. For the first time, I saw all latest apple products and accessories all in one place with the Apple logo outside the store. Mac books, Macs, and other apple products were on display for demonstration. People were always buzzing in and out of the store.

Windows, Mac, or Linux

This is the dilemma faced by many advanced computer users.

Personally, I use all these operating systems regularly. I work on windows during the 5 weekdays, Linux during the 5 weeknights, Mac during the weekends.
Though I admit to being a long-time Windows user, I am fascinated by Ubuntu Linux and Mac.

Windows is the undoubted favorite among most of my friends. Most of the hardware vendors provide drivers and support for windows platforms.

Macintosh leads in one way by not allowing other computer manufacturers to install their operating system. They come only in Apple’s products. From the user point of view, it is in a class of its own. It’s easy to use and the user is not bothered with any drivers or setup. Macintosh is the best user-friendly operating system that I have ever worked on.

Is Linux a good operating system for a general computer user? I have been recently trying to install a successful version of Linux on Laptops. I installed red-hat Linux servers regularly in my job 5 years go. We never used to use the GUI version of Linux. I used to fiddle with the basic stripped down text version of Linux. I never faced problems during installation of wireless or problem with BIOS. When it comes to Linux, I personally find that there is a lack of support for it to work. Why is this happening? Linux is good for enterprises on cost-cutting.

But, if you are trying to train users on Linux, be my guest. I don’t think there is any way of ‘teaching’ Linux. One has to just learn it by himself. Linux lacks stable operating versions. The claim that Linux is easy to work on legacy systems is fallacious. I have had so much trouble installing Linux on laptops.

Look at this news article.

In spite of all the above rant about Linux, I love the fun I get while tweaking with Linux. It sure is a toy for geeks and novel users, alike.

More on Endnote 9.0

I have Endnote 7.0 in my laptop and Endnote 9.0 in my desktop. When you use a 9.0 version to open a file created by 7.0, it converts it to a different format. Hence, there is no backward compatibility. This is such a shame.

Now, I cannot work on the copied files from my Desktop to Laptop. So, all my papers are getting written in my desktop.

Delete the rows/columns of blank cells in Excel

For many people who use excel as a preprocessing tool for huge data sets, they are required to select blank cells in a huge excel file. The following steps will help you select multiple blanks in the excel file.

1. Edit -> Go To ( or ^G or F5)
2. Click Special
3. Choose Blank option
4. Edit-> Delete
5. Choose appropriate option (Entire row/column)

Please leave a comment if you find this link useful or if you have any other suggestions.

Endnote problems

Endnote should make a clean uninstall during their upgrade process.

Earlier, I had Endnote 7.0 in my system. Recently, I upgraded to Endnote 9.0. I noticed that the upgraded version, Endnote 9.0, was not able to import any of the bibliographic formats from any research database. Later I checked the ‘Folder Locations’ in Edit-> Preferences option of the software. It was still pointing to a folder named ‘Endnote,’ which is apparently the settings on the older version. Now, I just changed the folders back to the one in ‘Endnote 9.’ Problem solved.

NerdTest

Do you consider yourself a nerd?
Check your nerd score at Nerdtest.

I got this link from Nonoscience.

AXML

Rajani did some interesting experiments with AXML on her personal notebook. With the help of user guide she installed and ran the AXML experiments. I am at awe to see the ease at which AXML can be installed and used for document engineering. I will update more on the tricks and tweaks done to install and execute some of the experiments of AXML.

Exploration Day

NMT defines exploration day as "an opportunity for prospective students and their families to explore New Mexico Tech's campus in Socorro.”

What happens when only high school students come to explore the school?

I was faced with this quandary when a couple of high school students stopped by my office. This is mainly because of the changing syllabus in high school.

XML and AXML

I am recently studying about these terms and technology. My friend has promised me to teach the applications of these technologies in Eclipse.

Intensional and Extensional Documents

I ran across these terms while reading about Active XML. I wonder the correct meaning for these terms.

OSX Applications

Earlier, I was under the misconception that Macintosh does not have much support for developing free applications. Now, I find using a Macintosh more pleasant than working on Windows. I have posted some links in the sidebar.

Dapper Drake to Edgy Eft

Upgrading from Ubuntu 6.06 to Ubuntu 6.10 was a breeze. It took about 20 minutes to upgrade on my Averatec.

Program for Large Network Analysis

I stumbled on Pajek program after reading Error and attack tolerance of complex networks. At first the Pajek program seems to a very neat network visualization tool. I will have to explore it to know more about it.

Expert System

CLIPS is a good tool for building expert systems.

Wireless, Ubuntu and Dell

I faced a tough time getting wireless to work on Dell Latitude in Ubuntu. Luckily, Dell provides windows drivers on its support website. So, it must be simple now. Just use ndiswrapper. Right? Wrong. It was not straightforward. I got this useful information from Stacks and Piles.

echo 'blacklist bcm43xx' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
sudo rmmod bcm43xx
sudo apt-get remove ndiswrapper-utils
sudo apt-get install ndiswrapper-utils
sudo ndiswrapper -i /home/gopal/Desktop/bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper -m
sed -e 's/RadioState|1/RadioState|0/' /etc/ndiswrapper/bcmwl5/*.conf
sudo modprobe ndiswrapper

.NET in Linux

Mono seems to be promising for developing and running .NET applications in Linux.

File Restoration

Did you delete your file accidentally? Try recovering the file using Restoration. It is a simple and user friendly software that may recover files from your hard drive even after you deleted them.

Ubuntu dapper

This version of Linux seems to be a superior operating system. I have installed this on my laptop, which seems pretty neat so far. The system seems to be performing faster than with windows XP. It must be because of the spam and spyware that a windows system typically attracts. With the availability of many free software suites for linux, I believe I can use this laptop for my everyday use.
Earlier, I had trouble installing wireless. The network component used to freeze the system. But, now I added these commands in the kernel line of /boot/grub/menu.lst

acpi = off

The Greatest Software Ever Written

Charles Babcock compiles a list of greatest software based on historical context, technical brilliance, and adopted in the real world.

The original article is posted here. The software ranking is as follows:

1. UNIX
2. IBM’s System R
3. Gene sequencing software at the Institute of Genomic Research
4. IBM System 360 OS
5. Java language
6. Mosaic browser
7. Sabre system
8. Macintosh OS
9. Excel spreadsheet
10. Apollo guidance system
11. Google search rank
12. The Morris worm

VOIP

My first experience with VOIP calls were during those days when I used the CISCO voip routers and MPLS protocols. The VOIP equipment was very expensive and only corporations were able to afford it. After 5 years, I had a chance to look at the latest broadband phone at a friend’s place last week. She got the phone for free after purchasing a broadband service from Vonage. She bought it for her folks back home in a different country (India). Even though the technology is dodgy and the equipment setup is finicky, I am very much impressed with the advances in VOIP. The main reason for use of this service by my friend is that it costs less than to make an International phone call. The MAC address of the telephone equipment was mapped to a unique US phone number. One needs a broadband connection to connect the equipment and start using. It is more practical than the computer-to-computer voice/video connection. People are used to talk over phones, not with microphones on their head in front of a computer.

Tutorial Software

I am sure many of you agree that writing a user manual is a difficult and time-consuming job. Creating a tutorial is even difficult. Wink is tutorial software that will help in quickly creating a tutorial as a flash animation or PDF file.

Backup

I realize that it is very important to maintain backups of research work. This article is a good start.

Diagnostic Tests

In a diagnostic test, true positives and true negatives are always preferred. Of the remaining two, false positives and false negatives, the former is considered more serious than the latter.

Top 10 Win XP tips

Here is a very useful collection of tips for Win XP users.

Linux Laptop and Wireless

I have had many troubles trying to install wireless card on to laptops with Linux. Madwifi provides a good collection of drivers / packages for this purpose.

Naming conventions

When I started programming the programmers followed complex variable naming standards. The most commonly used notation was Hungarian. Over time, the standards evolved and now we have some industry naming standards for programs. I am glad that I have knowledge about the earlier standards as it helps to understand legacy code. I found Pete Brown's website as a useful link for following naming conventions when coding in C#. I agree with most of the standards in that website. Most importantly, I am glad to see many people follow those standards. It makes understanding code easier even without explicit comments.

Netbeans and C# Express

I installed two IDE's today: Netbeans 5.0 for Java and Visual C# Express for C#. Both the software packages are free of cost. A cursory look at Netbeans gives me the impression that it is a very good IDE for Java. I have been using Visual Studio .NET 2003 for quite some time and C# Express seems to load faster. I love using C# Express; its design, refactoring options, colorful outlining, and deployment options are good. I think the main drawback of C# Express is that it does not support previous versions of .NET framework (1.0 and 1.1).

Firefox 1.5 vs. SeaMonkey 1.0

I installed SeaMonkey 1.0 on my notebook; it reminded me of Netscape. I am a big fan of Firefox 1.5, which I continue to use in my desktop. I will evaluate SeaMonkey and then decide if I should continue with it.

Visio and EMF

I had trouble when printing a drawing that was designed in Visio 2003 and exported as EMF. The text in the drawing would not print right on the printer even though it appears fine on the screen. I am used to exporting as EMF formats while drawing using PowerPoint. To overcome this problem in Visio 2003, I am exporting the drawing as PNG. This takes more space, but at least does not surprise me with printing issues. Microsoft has acknowledged this problem.

Named Anchor

I just came to know that named anchor is case sensitive in Mozilla, whereas it is not so in Internet Explorer.

Powerpoints for posters

It is a bad idea to use powerpoint for creating posters. They might have portability issues. Powerpoint crashes frequently and it becomes real difficult to recover the poster. In addition to that, there are so many issues for converting it to PDF.