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15 Web Alternatives to Popular Desktop Software

2010-12-19T03:56:00.000-08:00

Web applications have come a long way. They used to be amateur imitations of their desktop counterparts, with only one or two functions and not at all practical. But my, have these web apps grown. Web apps these days have become so powerful and useful that in some cases, they’ve begun to replace desktop software.Desktop programs are great and all, but they don’t provide the same benefits as web apps that make use of cloud computing. With most web apps, you only need a browser and an internet connection to access all your data online. That beats having to install annoying programs any day. To give you a better sense of how useful web apps have become, I’ve compiled a list of web tools and apps that can very well replace some desktop programs. I hope you take the time to try them all out. You’ll be surprised how well they work.Without further ado, here are some great web alternatives to the popular desktop programs we all love.SliderocketReplaces: Microsoft PowerPointSlideRocketSliderocket is a fully functional presentation web app that allows you to create, manage, edit, and share presentations on the fly. It offers many of the same features present in PowerPoint and then some. Sliderocket is an awesome tool and if you want to read more about it, take a look at our in-depth review of Sliderocket.Acrobat.comReplaces: Microsoft Office, Adobe AcrobatAcrobatAcrobat.com is a suite of web applications by Adobe that replaces your office suite. The online suite includes services...

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The 75 "Funnest" Open Source Downloads

2010-12-18T23:58:00.000-08:00

It's holiday season. And frankly, that means no one's all that excited about working. Oh goodness no. In honor of the season of laziness, we've put together a list of some of the most fun open source downloads you can find. No, none of those office productivity tools here – just lots of games, hobbyists’ tools and other time wasters. Is it quitting time yet? In case you're feeling too lazy to read all the way through the article, the very "funnest" apps – the games – are at the beginning. The rest are categorized and in alphabetical order. I should probably write some more about the list here, but – you know – it's holiday season. Games 1. Alien Arena If you like games like Unreal Tournament and Quake III, this first-person shooter is for you. It's a self-described "frag fest" with tons of weapons and really great graphics. Operating System: Linux, Windows, OS X. 2. AssaultCube Based on Cube, AssaultCube offers single- or multiplayer first-person action, with reasonably good graphics. It's lightweight and low-latency, so you can play it on old or underpowered systems. Operating System: Linux, Windows, OS X. 3. Battle for Wesnoth If you like games with elves and necromancers, check out Battle of Wesnoth. This turn-based strategy game lets you play out multiple scenarios using your choice of more than 200 unit types belonging to16 different races. Operating System: Linux, Windows, OS X, iOS. 4. BosWars This real-time strategy game requires...

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50 Open Source Replacements for Popular Financial Software

2010-12-18T23:29:00.000-08:00

Whether you just want to balance your checkbook or you need to track the finances of a large global corporation, you can find open source software to do the job. For our list of open source financial tools, we cast a wide net and included applications related to enterprise resource management, point-of-sale and even employee time tracking. Not to mention traditional accounting and financial management tools. One trend worth noting -- a huge number of the open source tools on this list, particularly the business applications, are now available on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis. For businesses, this model seems to make sense, as it gives them access to support and reduces the need for in-house staff to deploy and monitor applications. It also enables a more mobile workforce and keeps costs low. And of course, this model is also great for open source vendors as it gives them another way to monetize their open source projects. Without further ado, here are fifty open source applications that might be able to replace the financial software you currently use for your home or business. Open Source: Accounting 1. TurboCASH Replaces: QuickBooks, Sage Peachtree Specifically designed to replace QuickBooks and Sage, TurboCASH offers a handy chart on its Web site that let's you compare features. It's easy to setup, offers comprehensive reporting, and is one of the most robust accounting programs available for small business owners. Operating System: Windows 2....

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Top Ten Apps That Make Linux Fun To Use

2010-12-17T06:19:00.000-08:00

Many GNU/Linux enthusiasts associate desktop Linux with their repetitive daily routine. Same old, same old. Looking to mix things up a little, I thought it’d be fun to take a more entertaining look at what we can do with our GNU/Linux boxes. I’m listing ten noteworthy GNU/Linux applications that I find very fun to use. After all, GNU/Linux is more than a mere efficient platform. It can also provide a great deal of entertainment as well. 1) Ekiga – When most people think of a video conferencing application, they're generally envisioning Skype. It's understandable, as Skype has managed to brand itself in a way that is tough to compete with. Yet there’s another application called Ekiga that has been created with open standards in mind and is open source at the application level. Did I mention it was created with the GNU/Linux enthusiast in mind? Providing SIP calling, video conferencing and LAN chatting options, Ekiga is easily the best open source/open calling standards software available. I also like the fact that, like its proprietary cousin Skype, you can add telephone call-in/ call-out abilities for comparable pricing that is tough to beat. 2) GIMP – Those who have used the proprietary photo editing application Photoshop might find most alternatives difficult to use. Getting past that hurdle, there is something amazing about the open source alternative known simply as GIMP or "The GIMP." GIMP allows you to create,...

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Living the Linux Lifestyle

2010-12-17T05:43:00.000-08:00

Why do some people choose to run Linux as their PC platform of choice while others opt instead for other ways of running their computing experiences? Is it market share, perceived ease of use, slick marketing overtures, users wanting to use what they already know? This list might explain why people might choose OS X or Windows. But what approach to computing (and life) prompts a person to use a Linux box on a daily basis? I’ll share my insights based on personal experiences and other observations accumulated over years of living the Linux lifestyle full time. Software buyer's remorse has gone M.I.A. I haven't spent my hard-earned income on software in years. I own one single (legal) copy of Windows XP Pro that I use for work purposes (software testing) in VirtualBox. Does this mean that I choose not to spend money on Linux then? Not at all. I do in fact, donate money to specific Linux-related projects on a regular basis. The fact that I have managed to free myself from DRM, product keys and purchased OS installation CDs is merely a byproduct of no longer locking myself into a proprietary software hell. Not because I wanted a free ride, mind you, but rather because I grew tired of feeling like a cog in some nameless machine. Linux software is great, but what about when I'm missing a needed application not found in the provided software repositories? Luckily for me, I have found that the Linux community has a habit of providing a ...

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Sintel movie from Blender productions

2010-12-15T22:33:00.000-08:00

We have been talking about Sintel Open Movie for some time now. Sintel is Blender foundation's third open movie project after Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny which we featured in our 14 stunning Blender made movies post. Blender Foundation's Sintel Open Movie Project Sintel open movie project was started almost an year ago it was premiered at Netherlands Film Festival on 27th of september 2010. And later today, Sintel open movie was released online for everyone to watch and enjoy. This 15 minute film has been realized in the studio of the Amsterdam Blender Institute, by an international team of artists and developers. Also, several crucial technical and creative targets have been realized online, by developers and artists and teams all over the world. Watch Sintel Open Movie I thought the movie was awesome. Big Buck Bunny was my favourite but I think, Sintel is even better. You could download high quality version of this movie from here. Congratulations Blender Foundation, you have done it again. And keep them coming ;) Check out the best 14 movies you won't believe are made in Blender here. To subscribe to the "Guy WhoSteals" feed, click here. You can add yourself to the GuyWhoSteals fanpage on Facebook or follow GuyWhoSteals on Twitter.

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14 animated movies you won't believe are made on Blender

2010-12-15T22:32:00.000-08:00

Big Buck Bunny Big Buck Bunny is probably the most famous blender animation movie ever made. It was produced by Blender Foundation and the movie is available for free download here. Elephants Dream Elephants Dream is the world’s first open movie, made with open source graphics software Blender. It was also a Bender Foundation initiated project. Download movie from here. Sintel Open Movie Project Sintel Open Movie project is the third in a series of open movies by Blender foundation. . Watch the trailer below. Sintel Open Movie Released. Russian Soda Commercial by ArtDDs This awesome ad was featured at Blender Nation. More details about the project here. Yiy, A Song With Music Video Done in Blender This is another interesting Blender made video project that was featured at Blender Nation. Debug Blender Animation This is a small animation video made using Blender. "Debug animation made in blender with chameleo as main character". Its quite good, especially the movements of Chameleon which are tracked so beautifully. Lighthouse Blender Animation by Promotion Studio "A lighthouse keeper's darkest hour turns out to be anything but." A job well done. Bridgestone Commercial by Promotion Studio Another awesome video that was featured at Blender Nation. The commercial was produced by Promotion Studio for Bridgestone Australia. Blender was used for...

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Observations from Facebook networking map for December 2010.

2010-12-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

Click on the image for a better resolution (3.5MB image) Observations: North America: Most of the north Canada is not inhabited, which reflects in the map. Alaska is poorly connected to the internet (Which is, well, Facebook, actually) The western part of USA (Rocky mountains, Death valley) is not as densely connected to Facebook as much as the eastern part (New York to Texas) Central America: Medium density of the network lines suggests medium Facebook usage. South America: Brazil is not a part of Facebook, according to the map. Probably because Brazilians are busy Orkuting. Certain cities like Rio De Janerio can be seen in the map. Argentine cities like Buenos Aires and surroundings can be seen in the map. Falkland Island (surprisingly) can be seen in the map too. Europe: Leaving aside parts of Spain, north Scandinavia which has medium density of the network lines, all other parts of Europe show high Facebook usage. Africa: Parts of Morocco, north Egypt, coastal Nigeria and Niger, South Africa and what I think is Kenya, are connected to Facebook. Most of the Africa is still in the dark. Asia: India and Turkey are the brightest spots on the Asian map with regular Facebook users in Iraq, Kuwait, other gulf countries, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, HK, Singapore and Taiwan. Coastal region on China can be seen on the map with a small population choosing to (or being allowed to) Facebook. Most of the former USSR nations in Asia are...

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"GNOME ate my boyfriend". You Should See This :P

2010-12-15T21:08:00.000-08:00

"Bug 626593 - Gnome ate my boyfriend! Help!" Yeah, you read it right. It is not a random mistake, its and actual bug submitted to GNOME bugtracker! Excerpts from the original "bug" submitted to GNOME bug tracker. "Dear Gnome, Please, have some empathy and help me out. Because of you, my boyfriend is chronically attached to his computer and has ceased to pay attention to me. I try to plan fun things for us to do on the weekends and then he cancels on my because of GNOME conferences! He even went to the Netherlands to GUADEC two weeks ago and left me at home alone for a week! He keeps going to all these conferences and I just don't know what to do. Apparently there is some Boston Summit thing he keeps talking about? Please, help me bring my boyfriend back from "Linux Land." His name is Zach. If you find him, you may have to shut off the computer you find him in front of to get him to speak in anything other than "C." Sometimes he will speak to you in French, but thats only because he has his phone in French. I don't speak French so this too has become a wedge in our relationship. This is a severe issue. Please fix this."Read the original bug report here. And of course, there is a good chance that this is completely fake. I mean, she is supposed to be a total computer illiterate and still she know about empathy, gnome bug tracker et al. I am not judging anything, just a possibility. Check out the...

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Project London: Made with Blender

2010-12-14T23:22:00.000-08:00

Project London movie is the triumph of community spirit, togetherness or whatever you call it over money. A team of online volunteers using free software, created the movie, Project London, with as many as 650 VFX shots! Isn't that awesome? Project London Movie - The Background Project London is an independent, no-budget, feature-length, live action movie with vivid, intense, and marrow-vibrating visual effects and animations created with the open source software Blender (and other traditional software) and 250 (or so) worldwide volunteers. Despite featuring the same volume of digital effects work as its mainstream counterparts, the upcoming sci-fi thriller was post-produced by a small team of volunteers working remotely via the internet. Even more surprisingly, the effects were created not in industry-standard tools such as Autodesk Maya or Softimage, but Blender: an open-source 3D animation package. Movie director and VFX supervisor Ian Hubert says, tapping into Blender’s large online community of volunteer artists had huge benefits for the movie. Read the full interview of Ian Hubert at Jasontv. It's good to see that, our beloved open source Blender is slowly gaining momentum. Watch the trailer. Check out the an anime project solely made through Free and Open Source software click here. To subscribe to the "Guy WhoSteals" feed, click here. You can add yourself to the GuyWhoSteals fanpage on Facebook or follow GuyWhoSteals on...

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Morevna - An Open Source Anime Project Using Open Source Tools

2010-12-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

Morevna is an open source anime project made using open source tools like Synfig, Blender, GIMP and Krita. Unlike Project London Movie, Morevna is not only created using free and open source tools, but Morevna anime will also be released and distributed as free content. This project definitely deserves a lot of appreciation. About Morevna Project The Morevna Project is a promising open source anime film project being made with Synfig, Blender, GIMP and Krita. Even though the project is a bit old, it is still undergoing rapid development and is very much alive and thriving. The story behind Morevna project is based on the Russian fairy tale 'Marya Morevna'. It is completely reworked to futuristic high-tech twist with a large amount of technobabble, expounded in a style specific to anime genre, according to the website. Goals Behind Morevna Project To create a full-lengthened anime movie, utilizing Open Source software only. Promotion of Open Source software and its ideology. Testing and improving existing Open Source products by giving appropriated feedback to developers and community. Validate Open Source tools as suitable for creation of professional good-looking animation. Provide content for other artists to learn from or to re-use, including documentation and tutorials. Demo Video Showcasing The Latest Morevna Project Milestone [via http://morevnaproject.org/] Information on another project made using Blender can be...

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C++ Hating

2010-12-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

I need some help in compiling best programming books of all time. Please send your emails to guywhosteals@gmail.com or just comment anywhere on the site. I will get my hands on the book and try to include it. :) I got a chance to read an interesting, well-written, but badly inaccurate and almost exclusively provocative piece of writing over at TechRepublic. The article — like countless articles on the web already — try to predict the demise of C++, this time in favor of other programming languages that are not as powerful. I, as a C++ developer who loves the C++ programming language for all the warts and moles it has despite what other (lesser mortals? ) may say, articles like these are really a very bad indication of what kind of (clueless?) technical bloggers there are out there. I’ll spare you the details of the post, but if you want to go ahead and check it out for yourself, you can follow this link. Here’s an excerpt that I would like to react to in a longer form than that which I can put in the comment fields over at Tech Republic. One might think C++’s days are numbered, now. Alternatives that seem significantly better suited to the same jobs litter the landscape, and the obvious direct competitor — Objective-C — is in some ways the least of them. Objective Caml is regularly held up as an example of a high performance language, frequently outperforming C++ by a significant margin in benchmark tests, offering more succinct and well-organized...

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Programming with Natural Language Is Actually Going to Work

2010-12-13T07:28:00.000-08:00

This article is ripped straight out of Stephen Wolfram's blog. Find the original article here: http://blog.stephenwolfram.com/2010/11/programming-with-natural-language-is-actually-going-to-work/I love computer languages. In fact, I’ve spent roughly half my life nurturing one particular very rich computer language: Mathematica. But do we really need computer languages to tell our computers what to do? Why can’t we just use natural human languages, like English, instead? If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said it was hopeless. That perhaps one could make toy examples, but that ultimately natural language just wouldn’t be up to the task of creating useful programs. But then along came Wolfram|Alpha. In which we’ve been able to make free-form linguistics work vastly better than I ever thought possible. But still, in Wolfram|Alpha the input is essentially just set up to request knowledge—and Wolfram|Alpha responds by computing and presenting whatever knowledge is requested. But programming is different. It is not about generating static knowledge, but about generating programs that can take a range of inputs, and dynamically perform operations. So the first question is: how might we represent these programs? In principle we could use pretty much any programming language. But to make things practical, particularly at the beginning, we need a programming language with a couple of key characteristics. The most important is that...

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15 wget command examples

2010-12-13T07:18:00.000-08:00

Wget is to download download of files from the Web. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies. Syntax: wget [option] … [URL] …Multiple options can be used, for examplewget -rpk http://www.example.com Usage Examples:Download filewget http://www.example.com/awesome_pr0n.htmlDownload a file whose URL contains a “&” (note quotes)wget “http://www.example.com/min.php?page=home&user=ma”Download, in addition to the specified file, all files required for optimal viewingwget -p http://www.example.com/index.htmlDraw an entire site (recursive download)wget -r http://www.example.com/Resume a downloadwget -c http://www.example.com/xyz.htmlSpecify the name of the file once downloadedwget --output-document = index.html http://www.example.com/index.php?page=homeDownload files only an extension (here,. Jpg)wget -A .jpg http://www.example.com/Limit download speedwget --limit-rate = 30k http://www.example.com/Using a file containing addresses for downloadwget -i liste_de_zyx.txtMp3 download all addresses contained in this listwget -r-l1-H-t1-nd-N-np-a .mp3 erobots = off-imp3_sites.txtLinks automatically convert to a local consultation pageswget -k http://www.example.com/Download via ftp (With authentication)wget -r l4 ftp://username:password @ example.com /Create a backup of your del.icio.us bookmarkswget http://del.icio.us/username/Use wget to display the page source on the terminalwget -qO – http://www.example.com/blogFor...

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Web Programming is Hard

2010-12-13T06:32:00.000-08:00

Learning Web is Hard ! Honestly, I used to be miffed that Web companies wouldn’t give me the time of day when I sent them my resume. I’ve long stopped applying to Web jobs, because I know a priori that my resume will be speedily siphoned off to Bit Bucket Heaven. Two months ago, I didn’t understand why an Internet company would be bored by my largely C/C++/instrument control/embedded systems resume. Now I get it. Here’s why… Web-based software development involves a whole new way of thinking. For instance, I’ve done a few GUIs using Microsoft .NET. But upon studying CSS, HTML and Javascript over the last month, I can honestly say I’m humbled. As a non-web software developer, I recall too many instances when embedded software engineers wrote off web programming jobs as “trivial” or “boring”. As I’ve delved into web technologies during the last two months, however, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Let’s just focus on front ends for a bit : Learning CSS, HTML, Javascript and Jquery and their interplay proficiently is not an easy thing. In fact, it’s frustratingly difficult for someone who comes from a .NET C# or Qt paradigm. GUI Toolkit stuff seems to be almost brain-dead in comparison to web front end. The world has gotten away with sucky, poorly designed desktop GUIs forever. But the Internet is much too harsh – a poorly designed UI can make or break a web-based business. It’s often argued that Facebook’s much simpler UI was the key force behind...

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Mozilla is Designing a New Programming Language Language Called Rust

2010-12-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

Mozilla is designing a new multi-paradigm programming language called Rust. According to the Rust Project FAQ, the Rust team's goal is "To design and implement a safe, concurrent, practical, static systems language."Rust began as a side project by Graydon Hoare in 2006, and Mozilla got involved in 2009 once the project was mature enough to run some basic tests. The language is now published on Github, but is in no sense production-ready.Here's a code sample from the Rust Language FAQ:Here's a list of features from the Language FAQ:Safety oriented:Memory safe. No null pointers, wild pointers, etc. Automatic storage management. Mutability control. Immutable by default. No shared mutable state across tasks. Dynamic execution safety: task failure / unwinding, trapping, logging. RAII / dtors. Typestate system: ability to define complex invariants that hold over data structures. Concurrency and efficiency oriented:Explicit memory control. Layout and allocation control. Interior / value types. Very lightweight tasks (coroutines). Cheap to spawn thousands-to-millions. Stack iterators (effectively lambda-blocks w/o heap allocation). Static, native compilation. Emits ELF / PE / Mach-o files. Direct and simple interface to C code (switch stacks and call, ~8 insns). Practicality oriented:Multi-paradigm. pure-functional, concurrent-actor, imperative-procedural, OO. First class functions with bindings. Structurally-typed objects (no nominal types or type...

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The Best Movies for Programmers

2010-12-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

If you’ve done even a little programming then you’re also good at finding ways to waste time watching things vaguely related to it. Admit it, you’ve spent at least a few hours watching videos about Android’s latest features or Chrome’s Internals even though you’ll never write a single line of code for either. Don’t worry, I’m not going to list a bunch of technical talks. We’re talking entertainment for after the work day. The following movies are stimulating to watch for those with a programming oriented mind. And you know what that means, softcore porn! Welcome to MacintoshNetflix Streaming? Yes Apple documentary that does a great job tracking the reasons for its successes and failures. I wasn’t sure I’d like the movie after reading the description on Netflix, but once the interview with a grumpy and inebriated ex-Apple Engineer started I was sold. Just gets better from there. The IT CrowdNetflix Streaming? Yes, series 1, 2, and 3. 4 is available on iTunes for ten bucks. Lets face it, if you’ve done any programming at all then you’re also the go to IT person for your entire extended family. Over Thanksgiving I’m sure everyone one of you spent at least a few hours exercising the Tech Support Cheat Sheet. The main focus of this show quickly diverges from IT, but each episode still includes references to nerd popculture. We Live in PublicNetflix Streaming? Yes I...

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The Ones That Didn’t Make It: Windows’ Failed Rivals

2010-12-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20th, 1985. Twenty-five years and two days later, it’s not just hard to remember an era in which Windows wasn’t everywhere–it’s also easy to forget that it wasn’t a given that it would catch on, period. The company had announced the software in November of 1983, before most PC users had ever seen a graphical user interface or touched the input device known as a mouse. But by the time Windows finally shipped two years later, after a series of embarrassing delays, it had seemingly blown whatever first-mover advantage it might have had. At least four other major DOS add-ons that let users run multiple programs in “windows” had already arrived. In a pattern that Microsoft would repeat with later products, though, it managed to make being late to the party work in its advantage. For one thing, Windows’ super-premature announcement left those four earlier packages competing with it even though it didn’t actually exist yet; many people sensibly postponed buying any “windowing” environment until it was clear how things would pan out. For another, most of the developers of the earliest Windows rivals shot themselves in the foot, usually more than once: They released products that required cutting-edge machines which few people owned, or got ensnared in lawsuits, or failed to get third-party developers on board. Just as several of them were running out of steam, Windows arrived on the scene. And even though it...

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History of viruses on Linux

2010-12-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

Given the tight security integrated into Linux, it is difficult to take advantage of a vulnerability on the computer, but some programmers have found ways around the security measures. There are several free options for anti-virus on Linux that you really should use, even if it isn't always running - a weekly or monthly scan doesn't hurt. Free anti-virus solutions include: ClamAV, AVG, Avast and F-Prot. 1996: The cracker group VLAD wrote the first Linux virus named Staog. The virus took advantage of a flaw in the Kernel that allowed it to stay resident on the machine and wait for a binary file to be executed. Once executed the virus would attach itself to that file. Shortly after the virus was discovered the flaw was fixed and the virus quickly became extinct. VLAD was also responsible for writing the first known virus for Windows 95, Boza. 1997: The Bliss computer virus made its way out into the wild. The virus would attach itself to executables on the system and prevent them from running. A user had to have root access for the virus to be affected, and to this day Debian lists itself as still being vulnerable to this virus. The threat to Debian is minimal though as users do not typically run as root. 1999: No significant viruses were reported this year but oddly enough a hoax message went around stating there was a virus that was threatening to install Linux on your computer. At the time the Melissa virus was ravaging PCs worldwide and on...

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The 25 Most Notable Quotes in Tech History

2010-12-10T23:18:00.000-08:00

It’s not love, war, or baseball. But over the years some memorable things have been said about technology. Some have been memorably eloquent; others are unforgettably shortsighted, wrongheaded, or just plain weird. Let’s celebrate them, shall we? A few ground rules for the list that follows: I considered only statements attributable to a specific individual, which ruled out most ad slogans (“Think Different”) and many durable Internet memes (“You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike”). I did, however, include individuals who happened to be fictional, or canine, or inanimate. I also let a couple of quotes slip in that are not strictly speaking about technology, though neither would exist without it–one from 1876, and one from earlier this decade. Sue me. It’s hard to rank quotes by how notable they are. So I faked it by listing them using an imprecise, unscientific factor I call Googleosity: the number of results Google reports that reference (or riff upon) each quote. (You may quibble with the queries I performed to determine Googleosity, but I tried my best.) Googleosity tends to reward quotes that are not only famous but fun–they’re the ones that people like to allude to, to parody, and to generally weave into blog posts and other online conversation. We’ll start with the quote with the lowest Googleosity factor, and work our way up from there. 25. Mike Doonesbury’s Newton-like PDA: Googleosity: 3,970 Quote type: Satire as product...

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Strategies for becoming a better programmer

2010-12-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

Do you want to become a much better programmer than the one you are now? Unless you really don't like being one then I am sure that the answer is yes! The following list outlines a set of strategies that you can look over for some thoughts and techniques that I have found to work well, and that I have shared with others over the course of the years. This list encapsulates both lessons that I have learned on my own, as well as the many lessons that I have learned from many great people over the course of my years so far!! Be Prepared To UnlearnMy definition of unlearning is the ability to "leave your baggage at the door" while you willingly step out into a realm of uncomfortability to explore new ideas with a fresh set of eyes. Being an effective unlearner enables you to take an unbiased look at a new way of approaching a situation/problem/challenge without the weight of being dragged down by your old baggage(ideas). It allows you to take the time to form a reasonable mental model of the new concept as you experiment with it and apply it; to see whether it is something that could be considered worthwhile. It is a lot harder for people to unlearn bad practices and ideas. Unfortunately this can get in the way of allowing them to adopt and play around with potentially good and useful new ideas. Give yourself small daily opportunities to practice "unlearning". Tackle a problem you have solved before and don't allow yourself to leverage your old...

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The timeless utility of sed and awk (A little knowledge of CLI goes a long way)

2010-12-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

Now over 30 years old, the UNIX command line utilities sed and awk are useful tools for cleaning up and manipulating data. In their Taxonomy of Data Science, Hilary Mason and Chris Wiggins note that when cleaning data, "Sed, awk, grep are enough for most small tasks, and using either Perl or Python should be good enough for the rest." A little aptitude with command line tools can go a long way. sed is a stream editor: it operates on data in a serial fashion as it reads it. You can think of sed as a way to batch up a bunch of search and replace operations that you might perform in a text editor. For instance, this command will replace all instances of "foo" with "bar" within a file: sed -e 's/foo/bar/g' myfile.txtAnybody who has used regular expressions within a text editor or programming language will find sed easy to grasp. Awk takes a little more getting used to. A record-oriented tool, awk is the right tool to use when your data contains delimited fields that you want to manipulate.Consider this list of names, which we'll imagine lives in the file presidents.txt. George Washington John Adams Thomas Jefferson James Madison James MonroeTo extract just the first names, we can use the following command:$ awk '{ print $1 }' presidents.txtGeorge John Thomas James JamesOr, to just find those records with "James" as the first name:$ awk '$1 ~ /James/ { print }' presidents.txt James Madison James MonroeAwk can do a lot more, and features programming concepts such...

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Solving Einstein’s Riddle using nondeterministic computing

2010-12-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

If you ever read Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, you will recall learning about nondeterministic computing, which is a fancy name for backtracking techniques. In section 4.3.2, there are a couple of typical problems for which these techniques are appropriate, the first being the resolution of logic puzzles, and the second a minimal implementation of a natural language parser. Let’s focus on the former. Years ago I remember solving a fun riddle written by Albert Einstein -don’t fret, nothing related to physics-, which I will show below, in case it doesn’t ring a bell. But first of all, I encourage anyone to try to solve it using only its logic skills, since it is a very rewarding experience, especially when its creator declared that “98% of the world population would not be able to solve it” The Riddle In a town, there are five houses, each painted with a different color. In every house leaves a person of different nationality. Each homeowner drink a different beverage, smokes a different brand of cigar, and owns a different type of pet. The Question Who owns the fishes? Hints The Brit lives in a red house. The Swede keeps dogs as pets. The Dane drinks tea. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill. The man living in the center house drinks milk. The Norwegian lives in the first...

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Google and the decline of Western civilization

2010-12-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

The Web is getting dumber by the minute -- and Google is largely to blame. We need smarter search engines, before it's too late. I've come to the conclusion that the end of civilization as we know it is indeed upon us. And I blame Google. About time somebody took a torch to those motherfuckers. Though all search engines are at fault, Google in particular is contributing the most to the dumbing down of the Web, which in turn leads to the dumbing down of everything else. Eventually we'll get so stupid we'll forget how to feed ourselves. I got to this state of mind after spending a lot of time looking at Google Trends. It gives you an instant snapshot of what Americans are searching for at any one time, distilled into a constantly shifting list of the Top 40. It's both fascinating and deeply distressing. Fortunately the hotness is only “medium” — we wouldn’t want you to roast your hamhocks. What do I learn by looking at current Google Trends? That Johnny Depp was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (once again, I wuz robbed :P). Lowe's Foods is running big specials on Pampers and bacon (hopefully used separately). And Fidel Castro is still not dead, despite what Perez Hilton says. Here's the No. 1 Google Trend as I type this: nephelococcygia. It's a word made up by Aristophanes 2,400 years ago and it means "cloud cukooland."wes Really? That's what America desperately wants to know about right now? Though we have no idea what these things are,...

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New command to learn: Linux n00bs.

2010-12-06T00:01:00.001-08:00

Quick tip: type “lshw -html > file.html” for a detailed configuration of your PC/Laptop. (You may have to install lshw though I did not)I don’t know if many of you know this, but the lshw utility really helps a linux user to have a detailed configuration of the system he is using. I think it would find an exceptional use in distributions like Puppy Linux which are mainly used for rescuing systems.Typesudo yum install lshw lshw-gui to install the Hardware lister along with the GUI.Check this for more.

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