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.

Wi-Fi Standards

Information Week has a wonderful article on Wi-Fi standards.

Assignment Operator '+='

I had a bug in my code today. After hours of debugging, I found out the silly mistake that I did. The compiler did not identify because it was semantically right. Instead of ‘+=’ I had typed ‘=+’. This silly typo gave me weird results and cost me a lot of time in debugging.

Matlab code to C

1.If you are using a GUI program, you´ll need to check if you have
installed the Matlab C/C++ Library, and Matlab Graphics Library.
2.Suppose your program is called "experiment"; then, your first line
of your m-file must be
%#function experiment (<-exactly like this)
3.Use mbuild -setup
You´ll be asked about your C Compiler (if you dont have one, then
select that Matlab provides you).
4.mcc - B experiment
Will create your executable file and all the libraries need it to
transport to another PC.
5.Read the Matlab C/C++ Graphics help to provide you about more
information.

KnownColor

KnownColor is a very useful enumeration that can generate all the system-defined colors. C# Color Table provides a visual sheet for choosing colors while writing the program.

Nokia 6610 and IRDA - Tweak

Combined with the software, Nokia PC Suite, this is the best cellular phone that I have had. One could add their own polyphonic ring tones, edit them, copy the phonebook, and literally do anything through the infrared connection. The purpose of this article is to provide tips on connecting to the device using IR port. I used BAFO USB to IrDA Adapter on Windows XP Professional. Please refer to Sigmatel for more technical information and troubleshooting tips on Infrared wireless.

I own a Nokia 6610 and always wanted to sync or connect it to my computer. Since Nokia 6610 lacks Bluetooth connection, I had the option of using either a data cable or the IR (InfraRed) connection. Even though it was an easy to connect to the Nokia’s IR, a little tweaking was necessary for stability. Otherwise, the connection was breaking up intermittently.

The following steps might help you attain a stable connection.

1. Download Nokia PC Suite software. It is freely available on Nokia’s website. At the time of writing this article, I used Nokia PC Suite 5.1 for interfacing with Nokia 6610.

2. Connect the USB dongle. Win XP should recognize the drivers. I observed that the infrared connection was not stable.
3. Go to Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> IR device.
4. Change the settings for USB dongle as specified below:

Change IRDA Transceiver Type to Sigmatel 4000, Min. Turn-Around Time to 1.0mS (DEFAULT), and Speed Enable to 115200.

This change of settings gave me a stable Infrared connection to the Nokia 6610 and I was able to upload/download images, pictures, phonebook entries etc.

Please leave a comment if you have any other suggestions or if this tip worked for you.

DateIteration

I created a class, DateIteration, a C# class that extends DateTime structure to include time series. It can convert time (iterations) to date and vice-versa.












CATEGORY: C#

Flowcharting - Visio vs. PowerPoint

PowerPoint has all the capabilities to create a good flow chart. But, Visio is more elegant.

CATEGORY: Flow Chart

Problem description

I am still stuck with the problem description and algorithm. I have to finalize this part before I start coding.

Writing the idea

I finished the first draft of my idea. While writing, the original thought tweaked itself optimally. My algorithm seems to be a feasible solution. I will have to implement it and see. I hope to finish it by tomorrow.

My advisor told me that I did not write it clearly. He did not understand. Having a second look at my draft, I think he is right.

Have to write it again.

CATEGORY: Writing

Decent Progress

I thought about a new idea for my current problem. Two things are left to be done: Writing and implementing the thought. I finally seem to have overcome my lethargic phase by decomposing the problem in hand.

Hacking attacks

SANS released the top 20 most-critical Internet security vulnerabilities for 2005.

It shows a troubling change in pattern of hacking attacks. The hacking attacks have changed from targeting operating systems and Internet services on Web serves and E-mail servers during 1999-2004 to applications and network devices’ operating systems.

CATEGORY: Information Security

Cumulative Normal Distribution Function

The cumulative normal distribution function is actually an integral formula. There is no explicit closed form solution. A good approximation can be found at Milton Abramowiz and Irene A Stegun. Handbook of Mathematical Functions. National Bureau of Standards, 1964.

The following code is a java function for calculating the cumulative normal distribution.

public double CNDF(double z)
{
double mean = calculateMean();
double sd = calculateSD();
z = z - mean;
if (z> 6.0) return 1.0;
if (z<-6.0) return 0;
double b1 = 0.31938153;
double b2 = -0.356563782;
double b3 = 1.781477937;
double b4 = -1.821255978;
double b5 = 1.330274429;
double p = 0.2316419;
double c2 = 0.3989423;
double a = Math.abs(z);
double t = 1.0/(1.0 + a*p);
double b = c2 * Math.exp((-z)*(z/2.0));
double n = ((((b5 * t + b4)*t+b3)*t+b2)*t+b1)*t;
n = 1.0 - b*n;
if (z<0.0) n = 1.0 - n;
return n;
}