Sunday, December 14, 2014

Why Isn't The AppData Folder Visible. What the H Does M$ Have to Hide

I try to open a video on my phone and Windows 7 copies it to some obscure folder. Fortunately, the search tool is working okay, and searching for it, shows that the file is in

C:\Users\Jul\AppData\Local\Temp\WPDNSE\{000076DD-0001-0002-0000-000000000000}

So, why the H does the crappy software OS designers at M$ do something like this? Is this folder going to be purged someday? When?

And why is it not pos to see the AppData folder when you go to Users\Jul?

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Decide for Yourself

http://www.quora.com/What-do-the-top-1-of-software-engineers-do-that-the-other-99-do-not

Computer science is a deep field, and to be good at it, you need at least a working understanding of everything. If you think assembly code or linear algebra or strong static typing is "scary" or "too deep" you'll never reach 2.0. That doesn't mean you need to be an expert in everything because you can't. You can't have "I won't go there" areas. You probably don't want to be hand-writing assembly code very often, but if you take the attitude that it's "black magic" or "grunt work" or "unclean", then it will hinder your learning. (You see some Java programmers take this attitude toward manual-memory languages like C.) I would probably use Haskell (a high-level language with strong static typing) given a clean slate; but I've exposed myself to Clojure, C, and even Python (data science libraries) because they cover important topics from computer science. You can't have the "Will this be on the test?" mentality. You have to be curious about everything CS-related. (Mathematical curiosity helps.) You also need to learn about the industry itself. Why do so many software projects fail? What mistakes (technical and nontechnical) lead to that and how might they be prevented? What makes a good startup CTO? What things are worth building, and what patterns betray a death march?

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

How to GIve the Gift of Lumosity

Problem : My friend has a Lumosity subscription. But, she can't use it cause her laptop runs Win XP and is super slow. It may not be Windows' fault - it could be the hardware has quit -

Assuming Linux is the answer, what flavour of Linux will you use, considering the hardware ain't so great, to provide the optimal user experience - i.e., the computer shouldn't limit speed - so that Lumosity apps function flawlessly?

Friday, November 29, 2013

Unix Sort and Man

This reeks of "M$ and AAPL" trying to kill off linux :

Noticed the new distribution at work gives you the manpage in a new *ing window? Who the hell asked for that? The font is so tiny I have to do ctrl-scroll to magnify it. Goodbye productivity from getting where I want with keyboard only.

Please : how can I get a manpage to display in the terminal?

Your second challenge of the day :

How do you get a unix sort command to behave as before, but pretend it's reading Hebrew or Arabic? You get my meaning - start numbering fields from the right...

Please... How?

I tried these searches in vain :

how to prevent manpages from opening in new window
unix sort starting with fields from the right
how to unix sort based on columns starting from the right

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Times that I Wish I Were a Software Guy

This would be a no-brainer for a CS type :

Firefox sucks - you go to a directory (i.e., no index.htm(l) file, so you get the listing of files) and you see all files are image files.

You click on one of the files and it displays the image. Good.

But, it could be better (think of Windows). A smart browser can see that the majority (maybe all) the files are image files and give you a thumbnails, and, when you're viewing one, depending on its position, give Previous and Next buttons to let you navigate easily.

How?

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Why Linux Can Only Try

Someone said Java swing is worth considering for building GUIs. Here's how my fair trial went :

~/LEARN/swing/ 67> java HelloWorldFrame
Exception in thread "GtkMain" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: gtkInit
at _Jv_LookupJNIMethod (/usr/lib64/libgcj.so.5.0.0)
at _Jv_JNIMethod.call(ffi_cif, void, ffi_raw, void) (/usr/lib64/libgcj.so.5.0.0)
at gnu.java.awt.peer.gtk.GtkMainThread.run() (Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run() (/usr/lib64/libgcj.so.5.0.0)
at _Jv_ThreadRun(java.lang.Thread) (/usr/lib64/libgcj.so.5.0.0)
at GC_start_routine (/usr/lib64/libgcj.so.5.0.0)
at __clone (/lib64/tls/libc-2.3.4.so)

IOW : Utter crap!

Monday, September 27, 2010

Insert a Tree Object Into Your Word or OOD Document

Is this possible? Where the reader sees the first (settable) few nodes and branches and has to click on nodes to make other nodes/branches visible. Maybe this is one place OpenO can leapfrom M$.

Die Meister sagt es ist moeglisch, but probably takes some VB hacking even in a Word doc :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.tools.word.controls.treeview(VS.80).aspx

I say, OOD should make this much easier.

At the end of the day, OpenO still sucks in LAF compared to M$ Office. You get what you pay for. Fair enough. For $25, you can't beat what you can get from M$.