Workspace Upgrade

Posted 08:00 PST Sun May 4, 2008 in

My Home WorkspaceWhile working on the computer, I use quite a few windows. But until recently I didn’t feel like I needed access to more than one or two at a time1. However, with my foray into World of Warcraft I need to have another window open with text displayed or a website open.

I often have a copy of one of Jame’s Leveling Guides open. But, because of the hassle of switching windows while in the game (and getting jumped by a monster), I started printing them. That’s a waste of paper and means I have to switch glasses or strain to read the print with my computer glasses2.

I have a spare monitor for my notebook computer (currently not used because the cables for the keyboard are in a box, somewhere, in my garage). I recently upgraded the display adapter in my desktop Mac with an NVidia 7800 series card3. Now I have two video outputs — a DVI and a VGA. The Apple Cinema Display is plugged into the DVI. Now I have a Viewsonic plugged into the VGA.

I think I’m really going to like this. I wonder if a second Apple Cinema Display would plug into the VGA output? It would be most cool to have two 23” monitors side-by-side. Way cool!

1 Interestingly, the time when I most need two windows open simultaneously is when editing LaTeX source. I use TeXShop for all the heavy lifting and it’s default mode is one window for source and the other for viewing the typeset result. I absolutely must have both windows open and side-by-side. I love my widescreen monitor for this.

2 I hate getting old.

3 There’s an interesting back story here. The frame rate was lower than I wanted for my game. No one is making upgraded display adapters for Power Macs. However, a few folks are working on upgraded ROMs for PC adapters that can then be used in a Power Mac. I bought one from an eBay seller. It works well, although it’s a little noisy. (The fan runs most of the time.)

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Too Cool

Posted 13:30 PST Sun Apr 13, 2008 in

I began using the IMAP mail protocol to interface my mail client with my .Mac, my GMail, and my work accounts. This allows me to maintain my email archives on the respective servers, should I choose. Therefore I can use the webmail interface to send and receive email.

A side benefit worked out this afternoon. I realized that I converted completely to IMAP. So, I set up the Apple Mail client on my home desktop by simply using .Mac to synchronize mail accounts, rules, and associated notes. The desktop Mac then integrated perfectly with my mail systems, meaning I don’t have to use the webmail interface, but can work with my normal mail client.

It was trivial. Wow1 — I’m impressed.

1 Holy Crap! I’m channeling the Progressive Insurance check-out clerk! Eeekkk!!!

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MacBook Air

Posted 08:00 PST Sat Mar 22, 2008 in

I have to admit that I’m intrigued by this little computer. The notion of having something that small and light to carry instead of this hulking MacBook Pro is compelling1.

Now I learned there is much more capability in the MacBook Air than advertised. See the link.

1 I would estimate that I carry about 25 pounds of “stuff” in my regular kit, unless I’m hauling some research papers around, then I’m carrying about 35 pounds of stuff. If I could cut that by half, my daily load, and my aircraft load, would be significantly reduced.

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Programming

Posted 07:00 PST Wed Mar 19, 2008 in

I wrote my first “R”: script yesterday. It’s a simple script that computes the joint probability from the observations — the empirical distribution. I need this to use in testing the fits of the copulas I’m fitting.

The code looks like:

dufus<-function(peak,vol) {n<-length(peak) jp<-matrix(rep(0,n)) for (i in 1:n) { j2<-vol-vol[i] numv<-sum(j2<=0) jp[i]<-(numv-0.44)/(n+0.12) } jp}

Right now I’m not using the variable peak for anything, but I put it in the argument list so I could use it later as I modify the script. I see I could drop j2 and put the computation inside the sum function. That would be slightly more efficient, but I wasn’t thinking efficiency when I wrote the script. I just need to solve the problem.

That leads to another problem I’m working on. The parameter for the Frank copula requires solution of a Debye function. I’ve been doing some reading on how to either approximate the function or integrate it. I found an ACM algorithm that will do the trick. But, I’ll have to recast the code in R, I think. I’ll figure that one out later.

Now off to work…

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Unix Hack

Posted 14:30 PST Tue Mar 18, 2008 in

I am such a unix hack. I just finished a compiler install — both gcc (4.3.0) and the final version of g77 (3.4.0). I need the tools because of some work I’m heavily engaged in.

I’m working on a bivariate probability problem. I’m teaching myself how to generate and apply copulas as a means to develop a bivariate distribution using relatively standard marginal distributions. As a result, I’m downloading source code to implement some of the problems, and of course I needed a compiler (g77 specifically) to test some of the codes.

I think my MacBook Pro already has both compiler suites installed. But, I’m working on my desktop a lot these days and needed the compilers there too.

A great site for development tools for the OS X environment is HPC. They have pre-built binaries (I remember how long it used to take to bootstrap a compiler!) ready to roll. It’s a lot easier than when I was heavily involved in coding about 20 years ago.

When working on my dissertation research, a complete model build required over two hours. A module compile and re-link required about 20 minutes. Now it’s nowhere near so difficult. I’m very glad for that.

I’ve also already got nine hours in today. I started at 0530 with short breaks for breakfast and lunch. I’m about to call it a day.

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Wall-Wart Tip

Posted 08:00 PST Mon Nov 26, 2007 in

One of the things that seem to propagate around here is the number of wall-warts we amass. Just about every piece of computer equipment comes with a wall-wart to modify the juice from the wall into something the peripheral can digest.

I’ll bet there are six or seven wall-warts plugged into the power strip under my work table. It’s easy to keep track of which wart belongs to which device, so long as they’re plugged in. But, what happens when it’s necessary to move the device or store it?

Wall-wart and device become separate, like twins separated at birth. And then, they don’t do well.

What I do is put a piece of wide masking tape on the wall-wart and label it with the device type. For example, one of my warts has a piece of wide masking tape with the words “USB hub” written in black sharpie.

This works. Now I need to find the masking tape so I can label a few more warts… They seem to be taking over the place!

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Leopard and Windows Shares

Posted 10:00 PST Fri Nov 9, 2007 in

I’ve had one problem with Leopard since installing it on my MacBook Pro — I was not able to mount the Windows share volumes at the office. I think I found the solution to the problem and it’s an interesting solution.

The solution was found ‘here”:http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/848405.html and involves escaping any special characters in the sign-in password. The code to accompilsh the work-around (if that’s what it is) is:

ruby -ruri -e 'puts URI.escape("YourPasswordHere")'

In my case, I have a special character in my current password. I nearly always include special characters in my passwords because they make passwords more secure. For some reason (probably a design decision), the unescaped version of my password is not correctly interpreted. So, my login to the shared volume fails. The escaped version, however, is working.

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