LunaBlog http://blog.lunaflare.net/ Blogging from the fiery core of the moon. Copyright 2008 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:25:52 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.2 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Graduate School I recently started my application for graduate school (again), this time with North Carolina State University [ncsu.edu]. I chose them because they offer an all online Masters degree for Computer Engineering. Sure there were other choices (namely Purdue), but NCSU had the right combination.
  1. Cheaper
  2. Less classes

The first point (cheaper) is because their classes are all 3 credits at 700 USD / credit, so 2100 USD per class. Compared to other schools, Purdue for example, where credits are 875 USD / credit or 2625 USD per class. Right off the bat that's a savings of 525 USD per class; spread that over 30 credits (10 classes) and you're looking at a difference of 5250 USD.
The second point (less classes) is important to me because I really don't want to still be doing this in 5 years. Some schools, Drexel for example, require 15 classes or 45 credits for a Master's degree. True they are only 10 week classes, but they charge 875 USD / credit.
The discrepancies in pricing between universities has me wondering if you're just paying for the name or are you paying for the education? The answer, of course, is that it depends on the school. I learned more about fuzzy math and combinatorics are SUNY IT than I think I would have at Syracuse, but the Real Time Systems class I took at SUNY was par with my undergrad classes. Hopefully NCSU will live up to my expectations.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/09/graduate_school.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/09/graduate_school.htm Personal Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:25:52 -0500 Update: next.yahoo.com It looks like next.yahoo.com [yahoo.com] has been updated and redirects you to next.yahoo.net. It looks like some sort of design group either working with or for Yahoo. Here's what the site says it is:

* * Tasty bits of hacker goodness * * A steady stream of small delights * * Ideas, experiments and the people behind them
]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/03/update_nextyaho.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/03/update_nextyaho.htm News Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:23:14 -0500 WTF Facebook? After being bombarded with friend requests on MySpace for obvious spam accounts I pretty much stopped using it. Now I'm all into Facebook, but tonight I got a Friend request from someone I (or any of my friends) didn't know. Okay, so I checked out their profile and wouldn't you know...Check out my 18+ pictures...

What a PITA! I hope Facebook fixes this soon or at least comes up with a better solution than MySpace. Actually almost any solution is better than MySpace's.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/02/wtf_facebook.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/02/wtf_facebook.htm Personal Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:14:36 -0500 Tata Unveils 1 lakh Car The $2500 Tata Nano, Unveiled in India [jalopnik.com]: I just back from India today and there was mixed emotion about this. Some people are excited about being able to buy a cheap vehicle that gets great gas mileage. Others, mostly the middle class who already have cars, are kind of pissed because the roads are already crowded with people, rickshaws and cows/goats. This is probably only going to exacerbate the existing situation.

Also, 1 lakh (Rs. 100,000, also known as Indian Rupees, INR) is not necessarily 2500 USD. The exchange rate I was quoted was 1 USD = 38.50 INR, which comes out to more like 2600 USD. Sure it's only 100 USD, but I'm a stickler for details.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/01/tata_unveils_1.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2008/01/tata_unveils_1.htm Misc. Sun, 13 Jan 2008 21:12:43 -0500 Bubble 2.0? Bubble 2.0 Coming Soon [pcmag.com]: I call BS on some of those "bubble contributions", search is mundane, come on. Also, IMHO companies aren't making the same sorts of promises, IPO-ing without any product or service and are (on the whole) more business savvy than the nuttiness that accompanied the dot-com bubble. I'm not saying it's not the beginning of a bubble or not, just that it doesn't matter much. Despite the failures of the dot-com bubble there were some world changing successes (Amazon, eBay, etc) too.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/10/bubble_20.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/10/bubble_20.htm News Mon, 15 Oct 2007 18:42:39 -0500 Something New From Yahoo? Every once and a while I troll the new technology and "lab" sites of the major players (MS, Google, Yahoo, etc) keeping an eye out for what's new. Today I ran into this from Yahoo! [yahoo.com]

next.yahoo.com
]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/something_new_f.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/something_new_f.htm Site News Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:07:22 -0500 Instant Technology I was in the car today thinking about consequences of time travel. Assuming that all things can be worked out or created given a sufficient amount of time it can be argued that a consequence of time travel (even one way) could result in (what I'm terming) Instant Technology. For example, I want some basic research done that enabled me to create a solid state battery that can be recharged via solar power with an efficiency of 90%. This would take a long time using conventional research methods, but if I could send someone (or a team) back in time to perform the research for me then it wouldn't matter because I could have the research completed instantaneously after I sent them back (or before). Even if they couldn't complete the research in time for my deadline they could just go back again and continue their work.

This thinking could be applied to lots of different areas and eventually we would all probably end up dieing at some lunatic's hands. Another example, apply the same principal to generating weapons. I need 100 nuclear warheads, send back the required personnel, let them acquire the raw materials, build the warheads and stash them somewhere where I could pick them up. Bam! Instant nuclear arsenal.

There are some other interesting applications of this thinking also. Consider this applied to computing, instant unlimited computational power. Consider this applied to food, instant field of grain. And so on.

It's really all in the eye of the beholder though because these things aren't "instant" for the people doing them. They have effectively sacrificed their lives for someone else's "instant" gratification. Could it be for the greater good, sure, but it could just as easily be for nefarious purposes.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/instant_technol.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/instant_technol.htm Personal Mon, 17 Sep 2007 06:53:52 -0500 MeddLinks A group of my friends and I started this site called MeddLinks [meddlinks.com] that we just launched publicly. In theory it's like a health and medical version of Digg, sort of a democratic version of WebMD. From the site:

Meddlinks is a community resource to gather health and medical articles from across the world via the web and provide the community easy access to them.

Everyone should sign up and vote!

</plug>

That being said there were a lot of technical challenges especially in regards to backwards (IE6--) support. Maybe I'll blog about them one day...

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/meddlinks.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/09/meddlinks.htm Personal Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:52:38 -0500 Movable Type It's weird that I've been so busy lately with so many things "up in the air". I'm just waiting for one of them to land on my head. For instance I didn't even know there was a MT 4.0 [movabletype.org] out! It definitely looks cool, but a few bullet points stuck out at me

  • Support for publishing standalone pages that automatically use blog templates and designs
  • Built-in cross-blog aggregation: Publish pages that include data from some, all, or just one of your blogs
  • Cross-blog management of entries, authors, comments, and community

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that MT is more of a Content Management System (CMS) now than a simple blogging platform. Also exciting is the cross-blog stuff. I tried cross-blog entries a while back, but in the MT 3.2/3.3 days there was just no good solution, glad to see it's in their core now.

Now the real question: Will I use it? No, probably not. Maybe for new sites, but for this one I have it configured just the way I like it. I remember upgrading from MT 3.1 (3.0?) to 3.2 and I had to redo all my templates because they wouldn't work and integrate some new stuff into my templates to make them compliant, don't ask what exactly because it feels like a lifetime ago. Do I want that pain again? No. However, if I was doing a site re-design or setting up a new site then I would definitely consider it.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/08/movable_type.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/08/movable_type.htm Software Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:59:19 -0500 Edutainment Redeux I was just reading a couple of articles in the latest Communications of the ACM [acm.org] about the new types of edutainment, i.e. using games as learning tools. Then I went to update my profile on Microsoft's Connect service and noticed Codename "Grava". I was wondering when someone would either:

  1. Re-invent HyperCard [wikipedia.org]
  2. or make Flash-like "applications" easy to create

Possibly both of these have been attained with Grava, check out the screenshots, slick!

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/07/edutainment_red.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/07/edutainment_red.htm Software Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:36:28 -0500 A Korea-ing We Go Yeah, I know. No posts since April. Blah, blah, blah, I've been busy.

I'm in Korea (Seoul) right now and I just got back from the Electronics Market. What a let down. I was hoping for homegrown electronics, stuff you can't find in the US and general coolness of gadgets. What I found was keyboards, mice and USB/Portable drives. Not even some cool knock-off MP3 players!

Now yesterday I went to Itaewon for some wife-shopping. Yeah, clothes, shoes and accessories coming out the Yin-Yang. High quality stuff too if you were careful. Custom tailored suits for like 350 USD, knock-off Coach bags for like 60 USD and everything can be haggled for, especially when paying cash.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to try Hong Kong or Japan (Akihabara?) for the experience I'm looking for.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/06/a_koreaing_we_g.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/06/a_koreaing_we_g.htm Personal Sun, 24 Jun 2007 00:59:28 -0500 Energy Blue Theme Unleashed Every once in a while Microsoft will release a new Windows Theme in support of a new product. The two that I know of off the top of my head are the Zune and Energy Blue themes for the Zune and Tablet PC, respectively. The Zune theme was released to the world in general, but the Energy Blue theme was only released as part of the Table PC Experience Pack. Luckily it was released as a simple MSI for easy extraction.

What you'll need:

Steps:

  1. Install Orca from the SDK
  2. Launch the Experience Pack installer [InstallExperiencePack.exe]
    This should give you an error message, DON"T CLICK ANYTHING YET.
  3. Open the system temp directory (just run %TEMP%)
    There should be a folder like IXP000.TMP or something similar
  4. Copy Launcher.msi from the IXP000 directory into the temp directory.
  5. Close the installer by getting rid of all the warnings and errors.
  6. Now the fun begins. Run Orca and open the Launcher.msi file
  7. Delete all references to IsTablePC and IsTabletSP2 within the InstallExecuteSequence, InstallUISequence and LaunchCondition tables
  8. Run Launcher.msi. Note: This MSI is just a container for a plethora of other MSI databases.
  9. Continue with the installation until it asks you which components you want to install
  10. Choose the Energy Blue theme and click Install
  11. You should get an error about only installing on Tablet PC computers. Again, DON'T CLICK ANYTHING YET.
  12. Copy the newly created MSI from the %temp% directory to the same directory, but name it something like EnergyBlue.msi. Note: The newly created MSI is usually some name like e323e3.msi
  13. Open the EnergyBlue.msi file in Orca
  14. Remove all references to IsTabletPC and PIDCHECK from the InstallExecuteSequence, InstallUISequence and LaunchCondition tables
  15. Save the EnergyBlue MSI and run it

You should now be able to enjoy the brightness that is Energy Blue!

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/04/energy_blue_the.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/04/energy_blue_the.htm Software Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:17:31 -0500 Offline Wikis Offline Wiki: Yeah, I've always wanted one too. I think the technical problems are all solvable, but there is one sticking point. First, I don't think using an web server or database are necessarily a bad thing, especially since there are a couple of embeddable solutions now. For example, I wrote a desktop application that used Jetty and Derby. It was really easy and quite cool because I could then extend the application on the web due to the existing architecture. In fact I think this is the solution to desktop rich clients, but that's an entry for another time.

My solution would embed a web server, database and browser in a desktop app. The web server and database would host a popular wiki solution [mediawiki.org], but with a modified backend to account for syncing. The desktop app would run a background task to poll for the server to sync to. If a connection could be established then the sync would take place. This is where the magic happens. I'm no diff expert so I think the backend modifications would have to be packaged as discrete transactions. Probably something like a series of patches, like I said I'm no diff expert.

It might be a little more restrictive and disallow fine-grained content control, but I think the transactions should work at the paragraph level. For example, if a user modifies a page by adding a paragraph of text then the transaction would be something like

add paragraph_id=p3
before paragraph_id=p1
after paragraph_id=p2
content=...

So the content page would become something more structured. This leads to something even better. As long as structure is imposed we might as well throw in some metadata to form a semantic document. Uh oh, I just made the leap from personal wiki to collaborative semantic wiki.

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/03/offline_wikis.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/03/offline_wikis.htm Software Mon, 26 Mar 2007 08:05:00 -0500 Google Desktop + Microsoft BCM = Sucks I just updated my Google Desktop to version 5.1.0703.05398-en-pb and guess what? Yep, that's right it crapped out Outlook with the stupid Business Contact Manager error message on launch:

Business Contact Manager for Outlook could not complete your last action or actions. Please try again.

This results in BCM not being available, which screws with my contact manager (address book). The solution? Just disable both the Google Add-In and COM Plugin (Tools » Options » Other » Advanced Options... » Add-In Manager... and COM Add-Ins...). Just uncheck both Google things and you can use BCM again. I wonder if this means Google Desktop won't index my mail?

]]> http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/03/google_desktop.htm http://blog.lunaflare.net/archives/2007/03/google_desktop.htm Software Fri, 09 Mar 2007 07:59:05 -0500