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.