Day: October 15, 2002

GAUL: More genetic programming fun:

The Genetic Algorithm Utility Library (or, GAUL for short) is a flexible programming library designed to aid in the development of applications that require the use of genetic algorithms. It provides data structures and functions for handling and manipulation of the data required for a genetic algorithm. Additional stochastic algorithms are provided for comparison to the genetic algorithms. Much of the functionality is also available through a simple S-Lang interface.

The current primary aims of this project are to produce documentation, examples and test cases for this open-source release of GAUL. Several new features are also planned for GAUL including wrappers to enable its use with programming languages other than C. The open-source release of GAUL is currently not parallelised, however this will become a priority development target.

Dave Winer:

Dan Shafer: “My new favorite sport is Race the Aggregator.”

It’s a habit that I’m trying hard to break, as I have many more than 27 news sources.  It doesn’t come easily.  I had to write off the time that I was in Boston, there was no way to catch up from that.

Kenneth Hunt points out rdesktop, an RDP client (think Terminal Services) for accessing Windows machines remotely.  He also points to the Terminal Services installer for Windows systems.  I’ll admit that I have a copy of it saved in my web-accessable email account so I can install it on any system that I need to.

I think now is the time for me to point out Putty, my SSH client of choice for the Windows platform.

Dane Carlson:

How to install Pacific Bell DSL internet service if you have Windows XP: “Do not use the SBCIS Installer Disk #2 (yellow cd). Disk #2 cannot be used with the Windows XP Operating System.”

There is (was) a similar Black Disk of Death for Comcast users.  It does not play well with 2000 or XP from what I recall.

KDevelop 3.0 Alpha1 is out.  I wonder how it compares to Eclipse for editing Java on Linux.

This is a completely rewritten design with tons of new features and a new graphical interface mode. Support for Java, PHP, and Perl projects has been added, as well as many new features.

WebServices.Org: Web services challenge at Comdex FALL 2002

Software vendors will compete on the show floor to build the best Web services based application

Folsom, CA -October 15th, 2002 – The World Organization of Webmasters (WOW) has agreed to host the first annual Iron Chefs of Web Services Challenge taking place at Comdex Fall on Tuesday November 19th in the Central Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Five teams will be invited to compete by developing Web Services applications on the show floor. Their work will be judged by a panel of experts selected from the press and analyst community. This is an interactive development session with the software industry’s best programmers. The format will combine the spectacle of performance art with the entertainment value of a live high pressure sporting event.

Off the top rope…

Wallace and Gromit: Soccamatic

I haven’t had a chance to take a look at the video, but I have mirrored the Quicktime shorts:

• Small [1.38MB]
• Medium [2.59MB]
• Large [4.3MB]

Richard Caetano (stronglytyped.com):

Hun Boon is working on a Remote Desktop (both client and server) project.  The amazing thing is it’s all built with .NET and ASP.NET. 

Pretty Slick!

That’s really cool.  I’ll try to keep an eye on the project.

Kenneth Hunt endorses TightVNC:

I use TightVNC quite often. Nice small download, highly recommended if you manage multiple servers/computers.

I used TightVNC about six months back.  It seemed to run considerably faster than the AT&T labs version, especially on legacy hardware.

TightVNC: For when SSH just isn’t enough.

Adam Curry:

I’m looking at my $10k setup at home and seeing $1mm in ‘hollywood’ results.

The Shifted Librarian points to a Library Journal article announcing: “Wireless Internet Access Set Up in VA, IN, FL PLs.”  Rock on!

Slashdot:

from the stuff-to-get dept.
disco_stu00 writes “Aardman Animations has produced 10 new one-minute Wallace and Gromit shorts entitled Cracking Contraptions in preparation and training for the upcoming feature length film. BBC News has the first short available for download.”

I feel like I know Wallace and Gromit as much as some of the bloggers that I read.

Greg Klebus:

I’ve just tried Eclipse /GTK and the look ‘n feel is absolutely awesome! Looks nice with RedHat’s default Luxi font. I just hope it’s got stable already—if so, good bye, Motif.

Can’t wait to do some real Java/JSP coding again using this nice piece of IDE. My personally hosted Mini/PersonalBlog is on the top of execution stack 🙂

Oh so pretty.

Mark Pilgrim:

I ranted about Google, which got me written up in Wired (which was great fun), which got me misrepresented in The Register, which got me to rant about The Register, which got someone else to write to a letter to The Register, which got other Register readers to click through to my original rants, which got my “Further reading” script to notice The Register’s letters to the editor and include an excerpt in my “Further reading” RSS feed, which got my homegrown news aggregator to send me an email with the excerpt and the link to The Register’s letters to the editor, which kept me on top of the infinitesimal fraction of this glorious, ongoing, worldwide conversation that points my way, which is what I wanted.

Push To Test has some open source software for testing SOAP-based web services.  They have released Load and TestMaker.  Here’s a description of Load from the freshmeat page:

Load is a utility for Web application and SOAP-based Web services performance and scalability testing. It features a scripting language and a library of test objects for the creation of intelligent agents that drive the Web application or SOAP-based Web service. Running hundreds of agents concurrently shows how your software performs in production environments. Load is a Java application that runs on Linux, Solaris, NT, Win2000, and Macintosh. While Load continues to be maintained, the next generation is the TestMaker program.

Power

We had a power outage this evening.  All of my machines that were on except for my Via Eden were on UPS.  The built-in ethernet adapter seems to have been fried.  It’s enabled in the bios, and Red Hat claims to bring it up, but it won’t sync to the NTP server.  I get no lights on either end.  It’s not the port on my switch and it’s not the cable.  I guess I might have to break out a NIC and use the PCI slot.  This makes it a heck of a lot less compact if I ever get a case for it.

O’Reillynet: .NET Localization, Part 2: Creating Satellite Assemblies.

One time in .NET that you need to know about satellite assemblies is when you are dealing with localization. For localizing text, one doesn’t hard code text on a page, but uses a key for that text. The text equivalent for the key is retrieved from a file called a resource file. A resource file is essentially a dictionary of associations between the keys and their textual values. You will have this resource file duplicated once for each language that you support. .NET will retrieve values from these multiple language-resource files based on the chosen language context.

LWN:

The release of Python 2.2.2 is here.  This is a fully backwards compatible bugfix release for Python 2.2.1.

O’Reillynet: C# News Ticker Multithreaded Application

Writing multithreaded applications is one of the more advanced topics in computer programming. Fortunately, the .NET Framework makes it a piece of cake by hiding the complexity in the classes in the System.Threading framework. This article shows you how to create a news ticker by using the System.Threading.Thread class. Its main purpose is to demonstrate how easy multithreaded programming can be.

Another Shooting

All I can do is extend my sympahy to the family of a person I’ve never met, and never will.

I saw more than twelve police cars with their lights on doing laps around the beltway.  There were at least six police cars sitting on the side of the road with all of their lights out.  I don’t know what more to say.