People, I’ve just launched http://www.notemonk.com, an education portal. At notemonk you can Download books Share and read notes on text book topics Watch relevant videos Notemonk aims to create a rich and fun learning experience around text books. For launch, we’ve included the higher standards in NCERT. Please take a look and spread the work. [...]
Categories: web
Tagged: education, headrun, notemonk, text books, website
Looking back at early accidents When I look back at my short life I can see distinct periods or chapters. The time when I moved to Chennai and joined a new school in 3rd standard was the beginning of discovery that I could do well at studies and be competitive. During that stage I found [...]
Categories: Uncategorized
I like setting up shortcuts to frequently used commands whether I used Windows or Linux. I use the terminal often and create shortcuts to frequently used commands using “alias” feature of BASH. This has saved me considerable time in the past. However, I recently felt that if I could have a helper tool to monitor [...]
Categories: linux,programming,python,text processing,Uncategorized,veveo
Tagged: bash, linux, productivity, python, script
I refer Wikipedia frequently. I use this BASH function to help me do that from the terminal. For explanation of how this works head over here. BASH function # wiki # eg: wiki India # wiki Apple_Inc # wiki Anglo_Saxon wiki() { dig +short txt $1.wp.dg.cx } Example usage prashanth@prashanth-desktop:~$ wiki India “India, officially the [...]
Categories: linux,web,wikipedia
Tagged: bash, code, function, productivity, terminal, wikipedia
Here is a simple utility created using Python for translating text from various languages into English. It uses the Google AJAX API to do this. Usage prashanth@prashanth-desktop:~$ translate bonjour hello prashanth@prashanth-desktop:~$ translate guten morgen Good morning
Categories: programming,python,web
I bought two Dane-Elec 8GB USB drives recently. Flash memory (as opposed to Hard disk storage) has faster “seek” capability. This is inherent in the design as flash memory is solid state whereas hard disks are electro-mechanical with a “head” that needs to be moved around using a “drive” mechanism. Since seek times are better [...]
Categories: computer hardware,linux
Some time back I had done some work on extracting topics from an arbitrary piece of text using Wikipedia data. Recently I thought of a concept to put that algorithm to work. As a part of this project, I need to extract relevant text from an arbitrary HTML page. By relevant I mean the “meat” [...]
Categories: programming,python,text processing,web
As a part of a project I am working on, I had to cluster urls on a page. After some light googling I found, python-cluster. You can find below a simple python script to illustrate the usage of python-cluster library.
Categories: programming,python,text processing
Tagged: clustering, python, script
I have been a happy Gnome user for many years now and only recently started thinking about switching to KDE 4.2 when Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) comes out. However, it so happened that I bought two new widescreen monitors and setup a dual-monitor environment. This is when I started realizing the Gnome was clumsy at [...]
Tagged: gnome, gui, linux, tiling window manager, ubuntu, xmonad
I had written earlier about my experience with Microsoft Surface. I’ve captured some videos of me using it. Here they are …
Categories: computer hardware
Greetings webizen, I tried hard to get back to my blogging schedule but my laziness got the better of me. I am back truly with a new batch of posts which I will publish over the next few days. Recently, I went to Veveo’s main office near Boston, USA and had the privilege of experiencing [...]
Categories: math
Tagged: dual monitor, dual-head, geforce, nvidia, samsung, syncmaster
Today, we received the shipment from Microsoft at Veveo. If you have not heard of Microsoft Surface before, It is a touch screen based computer embedded in a table. The surface of table is illuminated from underneath by a projector (rear-projection) and touch input is implemented by reflecting IR radiation off the fingers and then [...]
Categories: computer hardware,text processing,veveo
Tagged: computer, gadget, interface, microsoft, surface, touch, unboxing
I am trying to write a program to test my arithmetic skills. The program should pose arithmetic problems involving the four basic operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. When the testing session starts, the program should issue problems of less difficulty and the difficulty should be ramped up gradually. A score should be computed [...]
Categories: math,programming,python
Tagged: arithmetic, arithmetic algorithms, borrow, carry, long division, math, problem difficulty, problem generator, python
The first programming language I coded in is QuickBasic. I loved the simplicity and especially the IDE. It made things simple for a starter. Later I discovered Visual Basic which extended the same simplicity and added the “Visual” element with a splendid editor for GUI. In between I did some projects using Java, C#, C, [...]
Categories: programming,python,ubuntu,veveo
Tagged: C, coding, java, perl, programming, python, readability, VB, visual basic
Firefox 3 has been getting rave reviews ever since it got in to beta. The blogosphere was abuzz with reports on how much more efficient and snappier FF3 is compared to its earlier incarnations and more so with respect to the competition (Opera, IE7, Safari). Features like “Places” (Bookmarks on steroids), Cairo for rendering and [...]
Categories: web
Tagged: download day, firefox, firefox3, guiness book
What, why I’ve been reading up on TDD and it has struck me as particularly useful methodology to achieve “clean code that works”. TDD encourages writing unit tests to cover all the code (because by definition, you write a test before a line of code is written). Because all your code is covered you are [...]
Categories: linux,programming,python
Tagged: linux, nose, programming, python, tdd, testing, tools
In my earlier post, I’d posted links to the Project Gutenberg Ngram data I had computed for e-books of all languages. If you are interested in only the English data, get these files instead. These two files are splits of a compressed file which contains all of the Project Gutenberg English e-books downloaded about a [...]
Categories: data mining,linux,text processing
Tagged: data mining, ngram, project gutenberg, text processing
I’ve been working on Wordza.com for which I needed Ngram data from a sufficiently large corpus. Initially, I thought of using Wikipedia data which I already have on my disk, but decided on using Project Gutenberg data as it is more representative of the general usage of English language.
Categories: data mining,linux,programming,python,text processing
Tagged: gutenberg, ngrams, project gutenberg, python, text parsing
I’d thought of making a word quizzer as a web application to improve my vocabulary when I took the GRE test a couple of years back. I’d written one in Visual Basic 6 when I wrote SAT , but desktop applications are boring! I got inspired to bring my long standing idea to fruition and [...]
Categories: web
Tagged: quiz, vocabulary, web, word, wordza
What is Alexa rank? Alexa collects statistics about visits by internet users to websites through the Alexa Toolbar. Based on the collected data, Alexa computes site ranking. By examining the Alexa rank of a site, you can get a rough idea of how popular the site is. Many argue that Alexa rank is misleading but [...]
Categories: programming,python,web
Tagged: alexa, alexa rank, programmatically, python, script, xml
I have come across more than one instance when I had to select a random record from a table in a MySQL database. Here is how to do it.
Categories: linux,programming,python
Tagged: database, mysql, query, random record, tip
One of the trickiest and enjoyable parts of starting something new (be it a website, project, band) is naming it! Sometimes a good name can be quite elusive and cause more than the deserved share of brain ache. Here is a list of automated services around the internet that will help you get name suggestions. [...]
Categories: web
Tagged: domain names, name generator, name suggestions, product names, web2.0 names
The MPEG4 video encoding process makes use of block motion compensation to achieve compression. The motion compensation process serves to produce the intra frames which are the frames between keyframes. I’ve always been fascinated by this process and was delighted to find out that my favorite video player, mplayer, allows one to visualize this process. [...]
Categories: linux,ubuntu,video
Tagged: linux, motion compensation, mpeg4, mplayer, video, video compression, visualization
Generating thumbnails/screenshots of a video is useful in many ways. Youtube and many other video sites use this to show a preview of the video as a small thumbnail. Google video captures a series of thumbnails from a video at various time intervals to show a better video preview.
Every once in a while, someone comes up with a way of doing things in an extremely obvious and simple way. When this happens, a zillion others say, “of course that’s the way to do it!”. Songza is a music search engine and jukebox that is dead simple to use. You should try it to [...]
Categories: web
I am a huge fan of the science fiction genre. Arthur C Clarke is one of my favorite science fiction writers after Isaac Asimov. It saddens me to have learnt that he has passed away. Most people get reminded of “2001: A Space Odyssey” when they hear the name Arthur C Clarke. I get reminded [...]
Categories: books
Tagged: arthur c clarke, novel, rendezvous with rama, science fiction
A couple of weeks back, I went shopping looking for a TV tuner card that is compatible with Linux. Googling had told me that “Hauppauge” card was known to be compatible. However, I could not find it anywhere in the market (SP Road, Bangalore, India). On going to one of the shops, I found a [...]
Categories: gutsy gibbon,linux,video
Tagged: home theatre pc, HTPC, linux, mencoder, pinnacle pctv 50i, television, tv tuner card, tvtime
I recently came to know that NCERT was providing all the text books (class 1 – 12) for download. However, I found their interface hard to use for browsing through. So I wrote a crawler in python to get all the books to my webserver. Along with storing the books, I generated thumbnails for every [...]
I gave a talk at FOSSConf08 yesterday and came away feeling very disappointed and let down! It was a poorly organized event where total chaos prevailed. My friend Venkat and I found ourselves unable to show our presentation slides because of an overheating projector whose brightness could not out-match the sunlight coming in from the [...]
Categories: events
Tagged: , conference, event, experience, fossconf, presentation
I have a bunch of PDF files for which I wanted to generate thumbnails. On looking around a bit, I found “ImageMagick“. Since I have Ubuntu installed, I did sudo apt-get install imagemagick It is not too big a download at around 740KB. To create a thumbnails for all pages in the PDF document (say [...]
Categories: ubuntu
Tagged: graphics, imagemagick, linux, thumbnails, tools
A couple of months back, a colleague and me were looking around for the thinnest ultra-portable laptop around and landed on a Sony Vaio. We however felt unconvinced after checking out the specifications. We thought “There is only so much you can fit into that space”. Apple astonished us today with the introduction of “Macbook [...]
Categories: computer hardware
Tagged: apple, hardware, laptop, macbook air
I love Gnome and its simplicity and use it regularly. I loathe KDE and its complexity. Although I used KDE about 5 years back, ever since Ubuntu was released, I’ve been using Gnome. However, when KDE4 was announced, I decided to check it out with an open-mind and re-evaluate.
Categories: linux
Tagged: gnome, kde, linux, window manager
The first time I read Hitch-hiker’s guide to the Galaxy, I got bored mid-way and stopped reading. I thought it was one totally pointless non-sensical rambling story. The movie version of it was played recently on TV and I watched from somewhere in the middle. The first character I saw was Marvin!. I got hooked. [...]
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: funny, h2g2, hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy, marvin, robot
Python is a wonderful “very high level” language with an elegant design. It is an ultimate tool to rapidly develop applications. However, when it comes to performance (speed and memory), Python sucks. It is not meant for performance. So what do you do after building a quick prototype in python if you want it to [...]
Categories: programming
Tagged: c-api, code, ctypes, introduction, programming, python, swig
I just finished watching “Inconvenient Truth” – A documentary film by Al Gore detailing the rationale behind the truth of Global warming. I found the film captivating and moving. I personally believe that human activities contribute to Global warming and that we all should consciously do our part to counter this threat. According to Wikipedia, [...]
Categories: films
Tagged: al gore, film, global warming, movie
In an earlier article, I mentioned that I was trying to use Wikipedia data to do news article clustering to make it easy for me follow news feeds. I have made some progress. I’ve written an algorithm to produce a list of Wikipedia articles relevant to the input text. Input text has to be in [...]
Categories: programming,wikipedia
Tagged: data mining, graph, graphviz, programming, python, semantic analysis, text processing, visualization, web, wikipedia
I recently bought a computer to use at home for development. Sometimes I have to access stuff (code, pictures, bittorrent) on my machine when I am away from home. I keep my machine running all the time and recently upgraded my internet connection from 128 kbps to 512 kbps. If you are in Bangalore, India, [...]
Categories: networking
Tagged: apache, dynamic dns, dyndns, networking, openssh
My colleague got me a tattoo from FOSS.IN which I promptly wore. Go Firefox, go!
Categories: events
Tagged: events, firefox, open source, tatoo
I like the representation for Logo, Machine Language, Prolog and Ada. Wonder what “N.W” is… (the Modula-2 guy is holding it). I wish python was featured too but the picture says “’85″. Python did not even exist then! original from here
Categories: programming
Tagged: picture, programming
I have been playing around with Wikipedia data and tried doing some byte pushing on my Dreamhost web space. Since this is shared web space, the processing power and memory available are limited. I was able to create database tables in mysql by parsing the wiki xml dump and some extra processing as well to [...]
Categories: computer hardware,linux
Tagged: benchmark, computer hardware, core duo, linux, motherboard, ram, server
I have always been a fan of visualizations as I believe firmly that it is easier to crunch visual information than anything else. Visualizations are especially helpful for finding out patterns in data that are not expected and for patterns that are difficult to express textually in a concise manner. The beast A couple of [...]
Categories: python
Tagged: call graph, code, dot, graphviz, python, refactoring, visualization
I was in the process of trying to understand the classification schemes available in Wikipedia (categories, lists and navigation maps) when I came across this nifty tool. It is very useful to understand the inter-relationships between Wikipedia categories. You can check it out here: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~dapete/catgraph/
Categories: wikipedia
Tagged: categories, graph, wikipedia
Veveo released a mobile web browser friendly version of the vTap service a couple of days back. The cool thing about this is that it will work on any device with support for a basic browser and realplayer (count most mobile phones in). Since it is meant to enable vTap at the lowest common denominator [...]
Categories: veveo
It has been three weeks since I upgraded to Gutsy from the development repositories. Gutsy got released just a little more than a day back. While going through the news from the blogosphere about this event, I wished Ubuntu had released a “non-brown” desktop. I don’t like brown and have seen quite a few others [...]
Categories: linux
Wikipedia is a superb resource for reference (taken with a pinch of salt of course). I spend hours at a time spidering through its pages and always come away amazed at how much information it hosts. In my opinion this ranks amongst the defining milestones of mankind’s advancement. Apart from being available through http://www.wikipedia.org, [...]
Categories: programming
Tagged: , data mining, programming, python, text processing, wikipedia
I was hosted with “routhost” until April this year when I decided I needed more features like SSH access, build environment so I would be able to download and compile applications and most of all more disk space. After much hunting around I discovered DreamHost. The feature list is astounding. Here are a few to [...]
Categories: web
Tagged: dreamhost, web, web hosting
I’ve been using Ubuntu Feisty and waiting to get Gutsy when the release comes out. However my curiosity got the better of me and I could not resist upgrading from the beta repositories. The first thing I noticed after upgrade was the amount of polish and attention to detail. Everything looks slick (thanks to Compiz). [...]
Categories: linux
Tagged: gutsy gibbon, linux, ubuntu
Veveo has released the source code for the windows mobile client application. This is great because it gives you a way to fine tune our app to suit your needs. You can sign up for the developer program here to receive updates from Veveo. Get the source here.
Categories: programming,veveo
Tagged: programming, veveo