Thiti V. Sintopchai

Samsung SSD Maintenance Explained (in Thai)

2010-06-04T07:21:00.004+07:00

ผมได้รับเมล์สอบถามเรื่อง SSD จากคุณ Bomb เห็นว่าจะเป็นประโยชน์กับชาว IT โดยทั่วไป จึงอยากเอามาโพสไว้ใน blog ครับ

From: ...
Sent: Friday, June 04, 2010 5:09 AM
To: thitiv[at]gmail.com
Subject: เรียนถามเกี่ยวกับ SSD

เรียน K.thitiv

พอดี Notebook ผมของ Dell ADAMO มันใช้ SSD รุ่นเก่ารหัส SAMSUNG PB22-JS3 TM 128GB ซึ่งใช้ CrystalDiskinfo ดูแล้ว

Supported แค่ S.M.R.T, 48bits LBA, AAM,NCQ Firmware VBM19D1Q ซึ่งไม่ไม่มี TRIM แต่ไม่รู้ support GC ไหม

หลังจากอ่าน
http://sn140w.snt140.mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

เลยอยากจะสอบถามดังนี้ครับ

1. ผมเข้าใจว่า SSD ของ SAMSUNG update FW เองไม่ได้ใช่ไหมครับ
2. มีวิธล้าง SSD ไหมครับให้ปลอดภัย ใน Bios ของ Dell ไม่สามารถทำได้ จึงอยากทราบว่ามีวิธีไหนทำได้บ้าง Search ใน KM ของ Dell ไม่เจอเลยครับ eng ผมก็ไม่เก่งมาก พอถูๆไถๆ

เห็นฝรั่งบอกให้ใช้ Diskkeeper เอา แต่เพื่อนทำแล้วมันไปเกิดเลย คือ SSD หยุดทำงานไปเลยต้องส่งแคลม

ขอบคุณที่สละเวลาอ่านครับ

คำตอบเป็นดังนี้ครับ

สวัสดีครับ คุณ ...

SSD ทุกอันมีระบบ GC อยู่แล้วครับ แต่ว่ามันจะทำงานต่อเมื่อมันอยู่ในสถานะ idle ครับ (เช่นเราเปิดคอมทิ้งไว้นานๆ โดยไม่ให้มีการเขียนหรืออ่านข้อมูลจาก SSD เลย)

สำหรับคำถามขอตอบดังนี้นะครับ

1. SSD ของ Samsung แท้ๆ จริงๆ update firmware ได้ครับ.

Samsung ผลิต SSD ขายเอง และเป็น OEM ให้กับผู้ผลิต notebook หลายๆ ค่ายเช่น Lenovo ThinkPad และ Dell โดยที่ SSD สำหรับแต่ละค่ายจะมีรหัสที่ฝังอยู่ข้างใน hardware ไม่เหมือนกัน. Samsung มีการแจกจ่ายตัว update firmware ที่มี TRIM ออกมาให้ end-user update ได้เอง (ดูตัวอย่างที่ http://bit.ly/bcoKqA ครับ) โดยผู้ผลิต notebook แต่ละรายจะไป customize firmware เหล่านั้นเพื่อแจกจ่ายให้กับลูกค้าของตัวเอง และ firmware พวกนี้ไม่สามารถใช้ข้ามยี่ห้อกันได้ เช่น firmware สำหรับ SSD ที่ผลิตโดย Samsung สำหรับขายปลีกเอง ไม่สามารถเอาไปใช้กับ SSD ที่ Samsung ผลิตให้ Lenovo หรือ Dell ได้. ตัวอย่างของ firmware สำหรับ Samsung SSD ที่เป็น part ของ Lenovo คืออันนี้ครับ http://bit.ly/cpQWRy

ปัญหาก็คือว่า Dell ไม่ยอมเอา firmware ใหม่ๆ ของ Samsung มาแจกจ่ายให้ end-user ครับ. ทำให้ SSD ของ Samsung ที่เป็น part ของ Dell ที่มีอยู่เกลื่อนตลาด ไม่สามารถ update firmware ได้. วิธีการที่ฝรั่งเขาทำคือ แกล้งหาเรื่องแจ้งกับ Call Center ของ Dell ว่า SSD เสีย แล้วให้ Dell ส่งตัวใหม่ซึ่งเป็น firmware ใหม่กว่าและมี TRIM มาให้ครับ. แต่วิธีการนี้น่าจะใช้กับเมืองไทยไม่ได้ครับ.

2. การล้าง SSD มีสองแบบนะครับ

แบบแรกคือไปล้างข้อมูลใน controller ทิ้ง ด้วยการใช้คำสั่งใน BIOS เช่นของ ThinkPad ตามกระทู้นี้ http://bit.ly/bQpdaj หรือด้วยโปรแกรมพิเศษของผู้ผลิต controller เอง เช่นโปรแกรม sanitary erase ของ controller ยี่ห้อ Indilinx

แบบที่สองคือใช้ software ทำโดยมี software ที่นิยมใช้กันอยู่สามค่ายคือ HDDErase (http://bit.ly/970tZA), Diskeeper และ PerfectDisk.

โปรแกรม HDDErase เป็นการล้างแบบ destructive คือข้อมูลจะหายหมด ส่วนสองอันหลังข้อมูลจะไม่หายครับ.

ส่วนตัวผมใช้ Diskeeper อยู่ โดย Diskeeper รุ่นใหม่ๆ จะมี function ชื่อ HyperFast (http://bit.ly/c4RgCr) ซึ่ง "เชื่อกันว่า" ทำให้ SSD รุ่นเก่าๆ ทำงานได้เร็วขึ้น. Function นี้ยังเป็นข้อถกเถียงกันอยู่ ว่าใช้งานได้ผลจริงหรือไม่ นะครับ (http://bit.ly/9Jy1AF).

สำหรับอีกค่ายคือ PerfectDisk นิยมใช้ประกอบกับโปรแกรม FreeSpaceCleaner (http://bit.ly/bsHIRR) ซึ่งบางคนเรียกว่า AS-Cleaner และการใช้งานส PerfectDisk ผสมกับ AS-Cleaner รวมกันเรียกว่า "Tony-TRIM" (http://bit.ly/bHJrJN) โดยมีหลักการทำงานคือ การบีบให้พื้นที่ free space ของ SSD มากองรวมกัน ด้วย feature ชื่อ Free Space Consolidation ของ PerfectDisk. จากนั้น เขียนพื้นที่ว่างทั้งหมดใน SSD ให้เป็น รหัส "FF" (ย้ำว่า "FF" ไม่ใช่ "00") ด้วยโปรแกรม AS-Cleaner. แล้ว shutdown เครื่องสักพัก แล้วเปิดใหม่. ฝรั่งว่ากันว่ารหัส "FF" เป็นรหัสพิเศษสำหรับ SSD ซึ่งจะ mark ว่าพื้นที่ว่างใน SSD นั้นว่างจริงๆ และบังคับให้ระบบ GC มาเก็บกวาดพื้นที่ต่างๆ เหล่านั้นครับ.

ผมได้เคยทดลองทำ Tony-TRIM แล้วสองครั้ง ปรากฏว่าไม่ทำให้ SSD Samsung อันเก่าของผมที่ไม่มี TRIM มีความเร็วสูงขึ้นอย่างมีสาระสำคัญเท่าไรเลยครับ คุณ Bomb จะลองทำเล่นดูก็ได้ครับ เผื่ออยากทดลอง

คำแนะนำและข้อสรุป

จากรูปที่คุณ Bomb ส่งมา ความเร็วที่ test ได้ คือ อ่านได้ 207.9 MB/s และเขียนได้ 146.6 MB/s โดยมีข้อมูลอยู่ประมาณ 49% คือ 48GB จาก 98GB ถือว่า "ปกติ" นะครับ. ความเร็วการเขียนสูงสุดที่เขาโฆษณาขายกัน ประเภทใกล้ๆ 200 MB/s นั้นเป็นเฉพาะเวลา SSD มันว่างๆ ไม่มีข้อมูลอยู่ในนั้นเลยครับ เช่นหลังการลง Windows ใหม่ๆ ยังไม่ลงโปรแกรมเพิ่มเติมใดๆ ทั้งสิ้น. แต่ว่าหาก SSD มีข้อมูลอยู่ในนั้นมากๆ จากประสบการณ์ผม ตัว Samsung จะได้ความเร็วในการอ่านอยู่ราวๆ 140 MB/s ครับ (สำหรับยี่ห้ออื่น เช่น OCZ Vertex จะเขียนได้เร็วกว่านี้อีกนิดหน่อยประมาณ 10%)

ดังนั้น อย่าตกใจครับ ใช้งานมันไปเรื่อยๆ ไม่ต้องทำ benchmark มากครับ. ยิ่ง benchmark มากๆ ยิ่ง "พยายาม" ล้างมากๆ ก็จะทำให้ SSD ของเราเสื่อมเร็วมากขึ้นครับ.

วิธีการที่ดีที่สุดคือ พยายามหาทางเปลี่ยน SSD ให้เป็น firmware ที่มี TRIM ให้ได้ครับ (เช่นขายทิ้ง ไปซื้อตัวใหม่ที่มี TRIM หรือว่าติดต่อ Dell เพื่อขอเปลี่ยนเป็นตัว TRIM ครับ)

อย่างไรก็ตาม หากมี TRIM แล้วก็ไม่ได้ทำให้ความเร็วเพิ่มขึ้นนะครับ. ตอนนี้ผมใช้ SSD ของ Samsung แบบมี TRIM แล้ว แต่ก็ยังได้ความเร็วในการอ่าน/เขียน ใกล้เคียงกับตัวเก่าที่ไม่มี TRIM มากๆ ครับ. เพียงแต่การมี TRIM ช่วยให้เรามี "ความสุขทางใจ" ได้ระดับหนึ่งเท่านั้นเองครับ

หวังว่าข้อมูลเหล่านี้จะเป็นประโยชน์ครับ

ดร.ธิติ วัชรสินธพชัย
thitiv

http://twitter.com/thitiv
thitiv[at]gmail.com

Configuring Apache2 HTTPd Virtual Host to Work with Windows Server Internet Information Server (IIS) ASP.NET Hosting

2009-05-06T09:57:00.009+07:00

Here's the tip I just discovered, compiled and tested on configuring an Apache2 virtual host to interoperate with Microsoft Internet Information Server ASP.NET hosting. My requirements and configuration are as follows:

Operating System : Windows Server 2003
Primary Web server : Apache2 on TCP port 80
Web application server : Windows Server 2003 built-in Internet Information Server on TCP port 8090

The pictures below outline what need to be done.

1. Configure the virtual host name in the 'hosts' file or the DNS

2. Configure the IIS Web site to listen to TCP port 8090

3. Enable the necessary Apache2 modules in the 'httpd.conf' file: mod_rewrite, mod_proxy, and mod_proxy_http (for HTTP interoperability).

4. Configure the Apache2 virtual host settings in the 'httpd-vhosts.conf' file so that (i) name-based virtual hosting is enabled and (ii) all HTTP requests are 'proxied' to the IIS Web site on the same host (127.0.0.1) at the specified TCP port 8090. Note the "P" option for "proxy" and the "L" option which specifies 'no more' rewriting rules.

5. This is what it looks like on Firefox.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10: Fan Blade Interference with Housing and Thermal Issues Solved

2009-04-14T11:09:00.005+07:00

Originally posted at http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=IdeaPad_Netbook&thread.id=2846

The fan on my IdeaPad S10 netbook has been unusually / annoyingly loud with grinding noises. It's much louder than the typically loud fan on laptops.

Thanks, Mark_Lenovo at the posts

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=IdeaPad_Netbook&message.id=2148#M2148

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=IdeaPad_Netbook&message.id=2482#M2482

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=IdeaPad_Netbook&message.id=2490#M2490

and berenpx at http://www.s10lenovo.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1397#p10964, for insisting that Fan Blade Interference with the Housing can really be an issue.

Too bad receiving in-warranty services from the contracted / outsourced local Lenovo service center is too complicated, ineffective, and consumes too much of my time. So I finally chose the DIY approach instead. I just cannot tolerate the annoyance from the fan anymore. Local service center said they don't have a replacement fan in stock. I would have to wait for a "few weeks" for them to order from abroad (perhaps, Singapore) and would need to call back and check if they have ones in stock or have used up already. I can also queue up by leaving my only computer (yes, this S10) with them during this wait period.

I opened the S10 last night with the help of the Hardware Maintenance Manual and did the following:

Fan Upgrade

- Disassembled the fan,
- Cleaned it with WD40-like oil,
- Fully filled it with white lithium grease,
- Fixed the blade interference issue by "heightening" the housing with 3 pieces of 0.5-mm thick plastic sheets (I used the "leftover" part of a cellphone SIM card), and
- Sealed the space introduced by the plastice sheet with UHU Plastic Repair Adhesive.I really saw traces of the fan interference: there are a lot of scratches at the inner surface of the fan housing.

Thermal Grease Upgrade

Replaced the cheap "insulation" pads between the (1) Intel 945 northbridge chipset + (2) ATOM CPU and the heat sink with Arctic MX2 thermal grease.

Soft and Quiet Mouse Click Mod

By adding a layer of electrical tape onto the micro swtiches for the two mouse buttons, which are located under the palmrest, as suggested in http://www.s10lenovo.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=577&start=10#p11188

P.S. The technician at the local service center did the fan and thermal grease things for me once last time, as posted earlier; but when I looked at what he did this time, it was not thorough, effective, and neat. I don't think he understood what he was doing.

Thanks much everyone who provided me with all the required information!

Lenovo IdeaPad S10: Annoying Fan Noise Fix and Heat Conduction Upgrade

2009-03-01T07:50:00.001+07:00

Here's a repost of my message on the Lenovo.com board:

I would like to thank Slash (on Lenovo.com board) so much for his messages on this thread: http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=IdeaPad_Netbook&message.id=1183#M1183

I decide today (February 28, 2009) to walk into a Lenovo Service Center inside a computer mall in downtown Bangkok because I cannot tolerate the constant grinding noise from my S10 anymore. I bought my S10 in late November 2008 and I started to hear some grinding noise in late December 2008.

I have been using the S10 as my primary computer both for work and for home. At work, this noise has embarrassed me many, many times. At home, I left the S10 with Vista in High Performance mode on overnight so that it can complete the maintenance tasks, e.g., HDD Defrag and Indexing, but the fan noise from high CPU temperature woke me up at 4:45 in the morning!

I learned from Slash's picture http://i41.tinypic.com/25alq3d.jpg that Lenovo chose to use cheap, thick silicone "heat conductor" between the CPU & Chipset to the aluminum (not copper) heat sink. As also suggested by Slash in #108, thick silicone material does more harm than good. It functions as an "insulator" or "heat collector" rather than a "heat conductor."

I also learned from many discussion threads online that many other netbooks, e.g., ASUS EeePC & MSI Wind, also suffer from the "Fan Grinding" noise as well; and that the most promising solution is to disassemble the fan and apply some sewing machine oil at its core, c.f. http://delicious.com/thitiv/ideapad_s10%20fan%20annoyance

I was fortunate enough that the Service Center wasn't crowded when I arrived and that I had a chance to talk to the technician. He seemed to know about the "sewing machine oil" trick so I was happy. I also bought the Arctic MX-2 high performance thermal grease at the computer mall (for approx US$11) and asked the technician to use it to replace the cheap silicone at the heat sink. The reason was that he had to remove the heat sink to access the fan anyway and some heat conductor must be applied back.

After two hours waiting for him to work on my S10, I had a chance to test. The grinding noise was 99% eliminated. I still hear very, very minor grinding noise at times when the fan worked at full speed but it was a lot better. The Arctic MX-2 does the trick! When there is a significant increase in CPU activity and the CPU temperature increase--from say 44C to 47C--the fan runs for only less than 15 seconds to bring the CPU temperature back from 47C to 44C. Heat transfer inside my S10 is significantly better and the fan runs less often now.

My S10 is super silent now and I am very, very happy!

In summary, here are what had been done to my S10:

1. Heat Sink and Fan Removed
2. Sewing Machine Oil applied to the core of the Fan (to fix the grinding noise and improve fan efficiency)
3. Cheap & Thick Silicone "Thermal Conductor" replaced by High Performance Thermal Grease (to improve efficiency of heat conduction)

FYI, I am also using the BIOS Version 56 posted the other day.

Technorati Tags: IdeaPad_S10, Fan, Annoyance, Solution

Quote: Science, Equations and Experiment

2009-02-27T08:53:00.001+07:00

I got this thought provoking quote from my iGoogle page today:

Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.

- Nikola Tesla

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta 2 Crashes Thai Language Input in Outlook 2007

2008-10-21T09:03:00.001+07:00

It's been more than a year since I last blogged. I've been busy with work and also don't know what to blog. Here comes my new findings:

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector 12.1 Beta 2 + Outlook 2007 + Thai Language Input = CRASH

This has also been proven here.

I downloaded the Outlook Connector the other night for improved supports to Windows Live Hotmail -- only to find that whenever I start typing e-mails in Thai, i.e., hit the "language switch" key Outlook simply crashes!

I googled for "outlook 2007 crash language switch" this morning and find someone having the same Outlook Connector insta.led and the same problem as mine. So, Outlook Connector is most likely the cause of trouble.

I uninstalled Outlook Connector this morning and, yes, typing in Thai doesn't crash Outlook 2007 anymore!

Keywords: Outlook, Thailand, Troubleshooting

Windows Vista: Preventing the "Windows has blocked some startup programs" Message

2007-09-15T16:29:00.000+07:00

If you are annoyed by Windows Vista's new security feature that blocks startup programs that run in elevated administrator mode and want to authorize some programs to run, take a look at this workaround by Jimmy Brush.

It works perfectly fine for me!

Keywords: vista, security, tips

Blojsom: Configuring a Community Blog with the Internal Aggregator Plugin

2007-01-05T17:21:00.000+07:00

I have been having hard time modifying Blojsom's templates to get the Internal Aggregator plug-in to work. I wish there were a concrete example or a tutorial for me to follow. Today I googled again after a desperate fight with Blojsom and fortunately came across Todd Slater's posting.

Mr. Slater posted his working copy of the template files. I downloaded, put it in to the template folder right away. And...it works!

I'll be studying how he wrote the template very soon. But in the mean time, thank you very much Mr. Slater!

Keywords: blojsom, aggregation, customization, examples

Update: Jan 5, 07

Here's the difference between my asual-entry.vm and Mr. Slater's:

Mine looks like this:

#macro(multiBlogFriendlyPermalink $entry) macro definition at the top of the file.

#macro(multiBlogFriendlyPermalink $entry)
  #set ($categoryForEntry =
    $entry.getBlogCategory().getCategory())
  #if ($categoryForEntry == "/")
    #set($categoryForEntry = "")
  #end
  #set ($entryLink =
    $entry.getMetaData().get(
      "BLOJSOM_PLUGIN_INTERNAL_AGGREGATOR_BLOG_URL")
    $categoryForEntry$entry.getDateAsFormat("yyyy")/
    $entry.getDateAsFormat("MM")/
    $entry.getDateAsFormat("dd")/
    $entry.getPermalink()")
#end

Then

#multiBlogFriendlyPermalink($entry)
#set($permalink = $entryLink)
...
<a href="$entryLink">
...

Mr. Slater chose not to use the macro and his code looks like this:

<a href="$entry.getMetaData().get(
"BLOJSOM_PLUGIN_INTERNAL_AGGREGATOR_BLOG_URL")
$categoryForEntry$entry.getDateAsFormat("yyyy")/
$entry.getDateAsFormat("MM")/$entry.getDateAsFormat("dd")/
$entry.getPermalink()")">

Mine doesn't work but Mr. Slater's works. So I guess there must be something wrong with this rather complicated use of macro. Perhaps, it is the limitation of Velocity which is the template engine used by Blojsom. It is most likely that the #set assignment breaks when it has a very long right-hand-side argument. I removed calls to the multiBlogFriendlyPermalink macro and now use Mr. Slater's style. It works!

Update: Jan 6, 07

I looked at Mr. Slater's code and saw references to the $categoryForEntry variable. I can't find any #set($categoryForEntry = ...) assignment in his code, which oppose mine being defined in the #macro(multiBlogFriendlyPermalink $entry) macro definition. Therefore, $categoryForEntry must be a predefined variable, I think.

I finally found its definition in Blojsom source folders. $categoryForEntry is defined in

plugins/src/org/blojsom/plugin/admin/templates/
admin-macros.vm

and

plugins/src/org/blojsom/plugin/
velocity/page-macros.vm

. It is deployed at the same paths inside WEB-INF/lib/blojsom-plugins-templates-2.32.jar.

ASUS P505 and Bluetooth Headsets -- In Search of a Perfect Match

2006-11-11T21:44:00.000+07:00

Choosing a Bluetooth Headset for a Pocket PC Phone: Matching Matters

I have had trouble using bluetooth headsets with my ASUS P505 Pocket PC phone. My good old Jabra BT200 headset, which worked perfectly with my Sony Ericsson T630 cell phone and my friend's Dopod 818 Pro Pocket PC phone, produces static noises when it is only 1 meter away from the P505. The problem is worst when I'm on the phone walking in a shopping mall or a crowded place -- I hardly hear anything but static noises even when the phone and the headset are 1 meter apart!

My BT200 is about 3-4 years old and I thought the problem might be because the technology in the BT200 is too old and is not compatible with the P505.

So I started seeking for an alternative.

I had tried many headsets during the past two weeks, from a new Sony Ericsson model, the Nokia BH-200, the tiny Samsung WEP200, the Jabra BT500 and BT800, and the pricey and stylish Jabra JX10.

I finally bought the JX10 last Tuesday because it sounded best (because of the DSP feature) and looked great -- the JX10 is a cousin of my favorite Bang & Olufsen A8 headphone as it's designed by the same designer.

Unfortunately, one week with the JX10 and P505 turned out to be a disappointment. The JX10 did sound a lot clearer than my old BT200. But it still suffered from extreme interference and static noises even when it's 1 meter away from the phone -- exactly the same problem as the BT200 case.

I finally made up my mind today to stay with the stock wired headset when I prefer clear telephone signal over the convenience of wireless headset.

But, well, I didn't completely give up: I tried my younger brother's less expensive Nokia HS-36W bluetooth headset on this evening, and, to my surprise, it sounds great -- even when I am 3-4 meters away from the P505. The HS-36W doesn't support call transfers between the phone and the headset as the JX10 does. But this feature is not as important as the good signal.

So, I asked my younger brother to swap his HS-36W with my JX10. He agreed and tried the JX10 with his Sony Ericsson K750i. It worked just fine at 3-4 meters range.

Finally, I found a good match for my ASUS P505.

The morale of this story is that "pricey electronic stuff with great specification are not always good for everyone" and "matching matters".

Keywords: asus-p505, bluetooth, headsets, compatibility, problems, solutions

Update: Nov 11, 06

FYI, the compatibility issue between the ASUS P505 and many brands of Bluetooth headsets are discussed in detail (in Thai) in this thread on PDAMobiz.com. It's also suggested (and verified by me) that there are less noise in Bluetooth headsets on P505's with Radio Firmware V4.4.0 than with V4.5.0.

Programming: Java Servlet Development for Apache Tomcat with Eclipse

2006-11-07T10:29:00.000+07:00

I was starting a not-so-small Tomcat servlet development project -- to modify and extend the Blojsom blogging server for my thesis work. I was suggested that Borland JBuilder is a better tool for servlet development. I liked JBuilder when I hadn't known Eclipse. But now that I'm so used to using Eclipse, I don't want to go back.

I was misled that I need a "Tomcat plug-in" for Eclipse to develop servlets. Spent 5-6 hours trying to get the seems-popular Sysdeo Eclipse Tomcat Launcher plugin V3.2 Beta 2 to work the way JBuiilder servlet development tool worked for me. It just didn't work the way I like.

Finally I found a discussion thread on an Eclipse site that refers to the WTP Tutorials – Building and Running a Web Application article by Naci Dai which showed me how to make Eclipse work the way I like:

According to Dai, all I have to do are:

1. Get the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) from eclipse.org (which I already have)

2. Start the WTP and go to the menu Windows -> Preferences -> Server -> Installed Runtimes. Then add an Apache Tomcat to the runtimes list.

3. To create a servlet project, use the menu File -> New Project -> Web -> Dynamic Web Project.

4. Now we can use the menu File -> New -> Class to create subclasses of javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet and start developing the servlets.

5. Important: Before we can launch the servlet we have to configure the Web Module Deployment Descriptor which is the web.xml in the WEB-INF folder.

6. To launch the servlet, click at the project name in the Project Explorer and use the menu Run -> Run As -> Run on Server.

Keywords: eclipse, java, tomcat, servlet, programming

Quote: What's the Use of Blindly Asking Others for Knowledge

2006-11-06T21:54:00.000+07:00

Here's a very touching quote by Mr. Phuriphat from a thread on Mr.Palm webboard:

ไม่ขวนขวายหาความรู้ด้วยตนเอง เอาแต่ถามผู้อื่นอยู่ร่ำไป แล้วความรู้ที่ได้มามันจะมีค่าอันใดเล่าครับ?

Keywords: quotes, thailand, learning, self-reliance

Quote: Vision and Action

2006-10-29T12:05:00.000+07:00

This is a beautiful quote I heard during the AIT Alumni Annual Meeting at Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel last month:

Joel Barker:

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.

Keywords: quotes, visions, business

Tips: Mac OS X: Troubleshooting a Boot Failure

2006-10-06T10:54:00.000+07:00

I had a major trouble after installing a system extension on my Mac OS X 10.4.7 installation last night. After configuring and installing the extension called Callisto Build 008, the Mac OS X failed to boot on restart.

The usual Apple screen showed up but after a while a nice error screen was presented demanding me to press the Power Button to shutdown the computer.

I was so frustrated fearing that I need to format and reinstall the OS from scratch without having backed up my work data.

I believe there must be a solution to this...that doesn't require me to reformat the hard drive. In Windows case, I can use the installation CD to access the hard drive and manually fix the problem. I'm expecting the same thing on Mac OS X -- to enter a command-line text interface and manually remove the offending system extension.

I went ahead browsing my favorite Insanely Mac forum and found an interesting thread as a starting point. Here's my actual procedure to fix the problem:

Use F8 and enter boot option -v -s

Text-mode command prompt will show up

At root# prompt, enter /sbin/fsck -fy

OS will check the boot disk, to make sure we're not working on a screwed up hard drive

At root# prompt, enter /sbin/mount -uw / to mount the hard drive in read+write mode

Then, cd /System/Library/Extensions
The system extensions I just installed were Callisto.kext and CallistoHAL.kext, so I removed them by

rm -rf Callisto.kext and
rm -rf CallistoHAL.kext

At the root# prompt, enter the command exit

OSX will continue to boot and successfully enter the GUI mode

Keywords: mac-os-x, troubleshooting

Tips: Mac OS X: Full ANSI Color Support in Terminal.app

2006-10-05T11:12:00.000+07:00

I'm trying to switch my Java development platform from Windows XP to Mac OS X Tiger. Wondering how to colorize the Terminal screen, I spent some time googling. From the discussions at the end of this page:

macosxhints.com - Add full ANSI color support to Terminal.app

Here's a summary of how to enable it:

With bash shell as default, simply add

export TERM=xterm-color [I prefer this for Linux compatibility]

or

export TERM=dtterm

in the ~/.profile (single-user) or /etc/profile (system-wide)

Color terminal is enabled.

Use 'ls -G' (the -G enables color output) to test.

Add

alias ls='ls -G'

in the profile file for convenience.

Keywords: mac-os-x, unix, terminal, shell, tips

Quote: Newspaper vs News

2006-09-14T18:03:00.000+07:00

Here's an interesting quote from Today's Google Quote of the Day:

People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news. - AJ Liebling

Keywords: quotes, newspaper, news, etiquette, journalism

Programming Vocabulary: Smoke Testing

2006-09-08T12:07:00.000+07:00

I've been studying the source code of the DSpace Lightweight Network Interface (LNI) for a few days. The example client code is referred to as a Smoke Test, which sounds suspicious to me. I googled today and here's my findings:

MSDN: Guidelines for Smoke Testing:

In software, the term smoke testing describes the process of validating code changes before the changes are checked into the product’s source tree. After code reviews, smoke testing is the most cost effective method for identifying and fixing defects in software. Smoke tests are designed to confirm that changes in the code function as expected and do not destabilize an entire build.
NoteNote

The term smoke testing originated in the hardware industry. The term derived from this practice: After a piece of hardware or a hardware component was changed or repaired, the equipment was simply powered up. If there was no smoke, the component passed the test.

Keywords: languages, programming, deployment

Tip: DSpace on Windows XP: A Batch File for Compilation (or Recompilation) of the MediaFilterManager Full-text Index

2006-08-31T16:09:00.000+07:00

For DSpace Users in Windows Platform:

If you haven't already known, here's a workaround I discovered today after spending 1-2 hours trying to enable the full-text indexing feature of the DSpace Digital Library software in Windows XP Professional SP2 on my laptop:

In Unix or Linux the "filter-media" shell script in [DSpace]/bin needs to be manually scheduled (cron) for daily update of the full-text database.

The Windows counterpart of the "filter-media" shell script is not provided in the DSpace distribution. With the environmental variable DSPACE_HOME set to C:\DSpace, a "filter-media.bat" batch file is written.

"filter-media.bat" can be manually run periodically or scheduled to be run automatically by Windows (to further investigate how to schedule a task).

Essentially, "filter-media.bat" is simply a batch file that executes the class MediaFilterManager in the package org.dspace.app.mediafilter -- by using the batch-file command:

call %DSPACE_HOME%/bin/dsrun.bat org.dspace.app.mediafilter.MediaFilterManager

The class MediaFilterManager takes care of the full-text indexing process.

"filter-media.bat" can be manually run periodically or scheduled to be run automatically by Windows.

Note that

Tomcat needs to be *stopped* before this script is run,

otherwise the CFS index file in %DSPACE_HOME%\search cannot be updated (by replacing with the new index file generated by "filter-media") and

"java.io.IOException: Cannot delete _[something].cfs"

will be thrown by org.dspace.app.mediafilter.MediaFilterManager when it cannot replace the CFS index file.

Keywords: windows-xp, windows, dspace, full-text, indexing, scheduling, maintenance

Tip: Configuring Blojsom for Tagging and a del.icio.us-like Tag Cloud

2006-08-30T16:34:00.000+07:00

I am looking for a blog server for my present research in the application of blogs and digital libraries in knowledge management. Blojsom and Pebble, two Java blog servers for hosting under Tomcat 5, seem interesting to me.

Blojsom is a well-established product and is the technology that underlies Apple Mac OS X Server Collaboration Services. It comes with a wide variety of plug-ins (which imply its extensibility) and is also accompanied by a good-looking javadoc.

Pebble, on the other hand, impressed me with its fancy support for del.icio.us-like tagging–see the developer's own blog here for example. But after spending some time looking at its documentation and mailing list on SourceForge, despite the developer's enthusiasm to support the community of users, I found Pebble less friendly to 3rd-party developers than Blojsom and anticipated troubles–with me and the developer–adapting it to my research work.

Therefore...I think I would rather go with Blojsom.

I spent some time googling this afternoon and came across a series of webpages that refer to tags and tag cloud in Blojsom. Kelmon's "Weblog as an Enterprise Project Management Communication Tool" project for his master degree in Information Technology from University of Liverpool, was the most useful to me. In his Plojsom software, he proposed a customized version of Blojsom that would be useful for enterprise project management.

Blojsom's Tagging and Tag Cloud plug-in modules were part of the proposed work.

Following Kelmon and the Blojsom "Available Plugins" Wiki, here is a procedure to enable tagging and tag cloud in Blojsom:

References:

Blojsom Wiki: Technorati Tags Plugin
Blojsom Wiki: Tag Cloud Plugin

Background:

1. The Tag Cloud plug-in generates a cloud of Technorati tags from blog entries.

2. The Technorati Tags plug-in by default generates and embeds the

<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/some-tag" rel="tag">

link. However, the blojsom wiki suggested that this template may be overridden from the default

<a href="http://www.technorati.com/tag/{0}" rel="tag">{0}</a>

to an arbitrary one by placing a file "technorati-tag-link.vm" in the subdirectory

"org/blojsom/plugin/technorati/templates/"

of a user's blog templates directory.

3. For information, the template command "#TechnoratiTags($entry)" in the file "asual-entry.vm" is used to generate the set of Technorati tags for a blog entry.

Procedure:

1. Edit the file

{user_name}/templates/asual-column.vm

and add the template below to generate the tag cloud.

#if (!$BLOJSOM_PERMALINK && $BLOJSOM_PLUGIN_TAG_CLOUD_MAP)
<div>
<h5>Tags:</h5>
#foreach($tag in $BLOJSOM_PLUGIN_TAG_CLOUD_MAP.keySet())
<span class="tagcloud$BLOJSOM_PLUGIN_TAG_CLOUD_MAP.get($tag)">
<a href="#BlogURL()?tq=$tag">$tag</a>
</span>
#end
</div>
#end

2. Create a file

{user_name}/templates/org/blojsom/plugin/technorati/templates/
technorati-tag-link.vm

with the content

<a href="http://localhost:8080/blojsom/blog/default/?tq={0}" rel="tag">{0}</a>

There should be no spaces or line breaks in the file.

3. Reload a blog page to verify the changes.

Keywords: blojsom, blogging, tagging, customization

Update: Aug 30, 2006:

I just learned about the "general (global) settings" concept of Blojsom. We can make most global changes in the "WEB-INF/bootstrap" directory in stead of the {user_name} folder. However, I guess global settings will be overridden by the specific ones in the {user_name} directory.

PHP WebDev: Resolving an 'Unable to Fork' Warning in Windows

2006-08-25T15:45:00.000+07:00

Resolving an unable to fork PHP warning in Windows

I was trying to execute a PHP script which launches a batch file in Windows. Althought I verified that the path to my batch file is in the PATH environmental variable, I always get the following error:

Warning: system() [function.system]: Unable to fork

This problem happens now that I use Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) as the web server. It didn't happen when I was using Apache HTTP Server 2.0.

After 15 minutes on Google here's what I found out: PHP's Unable to Fork problem is related to Windows security setting.

By default, the system's "Internet Guest Account"–the IIS's anonymous web client account–is explicitly blocked from executing cmd.exe–the command line shell.

At the risk of system security being compromised, according to the instruction on Somacon.com, we can allow the Internet Guest Account to execute cmd.exe by:

Open Windows Explorer and browse to the c:\windows\system32 or c:\winnt\system32 directory.

Right-click on cmd.exe, and select Properties....

Click the Security tab.

If Internet Guest Account is not already listed, then click Add, then Advanced..., then Find Now.

Scroll down to and select IUSR_MachineName, where MachineName is the name of your computer.

Click OK twice to return to the Security tab.

Select Internet Guest Account and then click the box under Allow for Read & Execute.

Click OK.

Keywords: php, windows-xp, system-shell, webdev, problems, solutions, troubleshooting, iis

Windows Live Messenger: Error Code: 80048820 (80048439)

2006-08-17T15:29:00.000+07:00

Fanatic Live - All about MSN Messenger & Windows Live technologies

If you're using a NetGear wireless router and you're experiencing Windows Live Messenger (or MSN Messenger)

Error Code: 80048820 / Extended Error Code: 80048439,

try reducing the size of the MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) in the Router's WAN Setup page – from 1500 bytes to 1400 bytes. (However, see Updates below for optimal values.)

I have had this problem for several months. My office network is connected to the Internet via a set of transparent proxy servers. Windows Live Messenger's does not detect any connection problem. However, it just does not sign on!

Today I looked into this problem again, and fortunately after Googling for a while, I found a viable solution from Fanatic Live website:

Stretch suggested that NetGear users go to the WAN Setup page and change the MTU size to 1400 bytes.

I followed his suggestion and it worked like charm!

Thanks, Stretch. I appreciate it!

Keywords: msn-messenger, windows-live-messenger, problems, solutions, troubleshooting, networking, wifi, netgear

Update: August 17, 06:

A friend of mine suggested that the MTU value of 1400 maybe too low as it will increase too much overhead during large file transfers. The MTU size is like the maximum size of packet transmitted over the network. Small MTU size increases the number of transmitted packets. Here's an information on MTU from NetGear Router WAN Setup page:

The normal MTU (Maximum Transmit Unit) value for most Ethernet networks is 1500 Bytes, 1492 Bytes for PPPoE connections, or 1436 for PPTP connections. For some ISPs you may need to reduce the MTU. But this is rarely required, and should not be done unless you are sure it is necessary for your ISP connection.

I set the MTU to 1492 and error 80048820 (80048439) still occurred. I reduced the value one step further to 1436 and the problem disappeared. Therefore, my current MTU setting is at 1436 bytes.

Food: Vegan Factory : Authentic Vegan-Thai Cuisine in Los Angeles Area

2006-07-29T12:52:00.000+07:00

Vegan Factory : Authentic Vegan-Thai Cuisine

If you live in the Los Angeles area and would like to try authentic Thai food, I'd like to recommend the Vegan Factory restaurant. Please visit the website for phone number, map, and menu.

Keywords: vegetarian, vegan, thai-cuisine, foods, los-angeles, california

Conflict and Workaround: GPSProxy, HP iPAQ hx2490, and the Virtual COM Port Driver

2006-07-10T22:30:00.000+07:00

My younger brother has been wanting to use GPSProxy + Garmin Que on his HP iPAQ hx2490 Pocket PC which runs Windows Mobile 5 (WM5). We'd had no luck during the past few months trying to get this configuration to work.

First there is a serious conflict between the Thai language software SmartThai such that GPSProxy fails to load when SmartThai is enabled -- i.e. its shortcut exists in \Windows\StartUp folder. We disabled SmartThai and got GPSProxy successfully loaded but the next problem is that its Virtual COM Port driver always fails to load.

The problem is that the HP iPAQ Bluetooth Software takes up all available COM ports, and GPSProxy Virtual COM Port cannot be loaded nor initialized. I tried several hacks, which include using a registry editor to delete a virtual COM port key allocated by the iPAQ bluetooth software. Unfortunately, these keys are protected by the operating system and cannot be deleted.

Well...today...by chance...we found a way out.

The solution:

Turn off Bluetooth before launching GPSProxy.

Once GPSProxy is launched then turn on the bluetooth signal. In this way, the iPAQ Bluetooth software will spare the COM ports allocated by GPSProxy.

Now we can start the Proxy Engine flawlessly.

We've tested this workaround many times this evening, with both GPSProxy V1.16 and V2.2. So far it works!

In fact my younger brother told me that he's had this kind of conflict between the iPAQ Bluetooth driver and some Internet-enabled software. Disabling Bluetooth before launching a software is his favorite trick!

Hope this workaround is useful for you!

Keywords: wm5, ipaq, bluetooth, conflicts, gps, garmin, garmin-que, troubleshooting

The EASEC-10 Conference Website

2006-07-04T17:30:00.000+07:00

EASEC-10

My school is organizing an international conference:

The Tenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-10),

and I've been helping my professor on the website -- as "the" webmaster & web programmer. I was a successor to a computer science master student who programmed the website in Active Server Pages (ASP).

ASP is an old technology and is quite difficult to manage. So I decided to upgrade the website to ASP.NET 2.0 and pushed myself in the learn-by-doing mode. It works! I've learned a lot about ASP.NET 2.0 during the past week. I've just finished starting a blog section also. My personal blogging skill has helped a lot.

You are invited to visit the website at www.easec10.net.

Keywords: events, school, blogging, conferences, structural-engineering, civil-engineering, phd

Tip: Converting a CSV File into XML by Excel

2006-06-29T17:37:00.000+07:00

I came across a problem to convert a historical data in comma-separated format (CSV) into a modern & more useful XML format. There are many ways to do such conversion. The most obvious one is to do it programmatically by writing a program to read CSV data and exporting it to an XML file by means of the Simple API for XML (SAX) or the Document Object Model (DOM) libraries.

But I was too lazy to do it.

I knew that Microsoft Excel 2003 supports exporting worksheets into XML data. I tried it out but found that it is not that simple -- we have to define an XML schema and bind each element to each column of the worksheet.

So I went on researching.

Finally, I found a very useful tool on MSDN:

Excel 2003 XML Tools Add-in Version 1.1 (download).

The Excel Add-in's "XML Tools -> Convert a Range to an XML List" menu command allows us to simply select a range in a worksheet (with or without first row as column names) -- with the advanced options to specify the XML root element name and row element name.

The add-in automatically prepare our worksheet for exporting of XML data by the "Data -> XML -> Export" menu command.

Here is a summary of how I used Excel to convert a CSV file into XML:

Install Excel 2003 XML Tools Add-in

Open the CSV file, e.g. LegacyData.csv, in Excel

Save as an Excel workbook

Open the Excel workbook

Use Menu -> XML Tools -> Convert a Range to an XML List

Select the whole data rage

Choose "Yes, first row contains column names"

Select "Use Advanced Options"

Set XML root element name, e.g. "Root"

Set XML row element name, e.g. "Record"

Click "OK"

An error message "The data that you are attempting to map contains formatting that is incompatible with the format specified in the worksheet" will pop up if we try to convert an automatically formatted date column. This is because of the formatting in the Date column. As a workaround, I chose "Match element data type." Dates in the date column will be converted to the raw format, e.g. 38013 for 1/27/2004.

Export the data by using Menu -> Data -> XML -> Export

The dates in the Date elements of the exported XML file will be in the raw format.

Open the exported XML file in an XML editor. In my case, I used XMLSpy.

Go to the Grid view. Select all entries in the Date column (but DO NOT delete the "Date" column title) and delete the entries.

Copy the corresponding date entries from the Excel worksheet and simply paste them into the Date column.

Save the XML file. The XML data file is now properly converted.

I hope this posting will be useful to those who face the same problem as mine.

Keywords: tips, conversion, csv, xml, excel

ASUS P505: Problem Sending Files via Bluetooth

2006-06-29T10:52:00.000+07:00

I've been wondering why I cannot send a file via Bluetooth from my ASUS P505 -- the built-in File Explorer just cannot find any other recipient but an infrared device. I don't think there is a problem with the hardware because I regularly use my Bluetooth GPS receiver and the Bluetooth headset.

I came across this thread on PDAMobiz.com (in Thai) and it confirms that someone using ASUS P505 is having the same problem.

I continued to Google and found this thread on PDAPhoneHome.com that mentions about Resco Explorer 2005. I've known for a while that Resco Explorer supports "send to Bluetooth recipients" but never compared it with the built-in File Explorer.

So...I tried Resco Explorer 2005 right away, and "it works!!"

If you own an ASUS P505 Pocket PC phone and have problem sending a file via Bluetooth like me, let's try Resco Explorer 2005.

For reference, the ROM version of my ASUS P505 is V3.15.73 WWE, and the Radio firmware is V4.5.0.

Keywords: asus-p505, bluetooth, file-transfer, problems, solutions, troubleshooting

ASUS P505 and GPSProxy: Failed to Load Virtual COM Port Driver

2006-06-16T10:47:00.000+07:00

I tried to use my new ASUS P505 Pocket PC phone with my favorite GPS configuration:

GlobalSat BT-338 bluetooth GPS receiver +
Garmin Que software +
Andrew Klopper's GPSProxy software.

This configuration worked fine while I was using my HP iPAQ h4150 Pocket PC. Unfortunately, somehow the notorious "Failed to Load Virtual COM Port Driver" always occurred on my ASUS P505 whenever I started GPSProxy--both the latest version 2.2 and the older version 1.6--and the proxy engine just wouldn't start.

At first I noticed this problem occurred when I turn on ASUS Menu animated screen saver (via ASUS Menu -> Personalization -> Animated Home Screen -> Animation). Later, I noticed that the problem still occurred even after the turned Animation off.

After spending long hours identifying the source of the problem, here are the list of software that conflict with GPSProxy

1. ASUS Menu: To disable, go to Start Menu -> Settings -> ASUS Menu -> Uncheck the "Enable" checkbox.

2. Softick Card Export II: I coudn't find a way to disable and had to uninstall the software

Keywords: asus-p505, conflicts, gps, garmin, garmin-que, troubleshooting

Research: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)

2006-06-15T14:07:00.000+07:00

Personal knowledge management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Interestingly, I've discovered that the research area that I have recently been working on--managing and exchanging individual's personal portfolio of knowledge--has a special title "Personal Knowledge Management", with the "PKM" acronym. I checked its explanation on Wikipedia and this is exactly what I've been researching on.

Here is a quote from Wikipedia:

Personal knowledge management (PKM) is a concept that has grown out of a combination of knowledge management (KM) and personal information management (PIM) and cognitive human abilities. More particular, the Personal KM is focused on helping an individual be more effective -- to work better.

PKM has recently been linked to social bookmarking, blogging or k-logs. The idea is individuals use their blogs to capture ideas, opinions or thoughts and this 'voicing' will encourage cognitive diversity, promote free exchanges...

Well...now I have a clue how to call my present work!

Keywords: researches, personal-knowledge-management, pkm

Tip: Official MP3 Ring Tone Patch for ASUS P505 Pocket PC Phone

2006-06-14T01:03:00.000+07:00

I just bought a used ASUS P505 Pocket PC Phone last Friday. (See review here.) It runs Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition and supposedly plays MP3 ring tones. The firmware allows us to select (and "preview") an MP3 file to be ring tone. Unfortunately, the P505 does not play the selected MP3 file properly.

I asked a junior friend who has owned a P505 for more than a year and was informed that this is a known bug in the present firmware (ROM version 3.15.73 WWE). He recalled that there is a patch/fix posted on ASUS website.

I went ahead to ASUS.com and finally found this MP3 Ring Tone Patch. I downloaded the patch, unzipped and installed the extracted CAB file, and soft-reseted the handheld.

The patch is listed as "ASUS MP3 Plug-in" in Settings -> System -> Remove Programs.

I proceeded to Settings -> Personal -> Phone, and tried some MP3 ring tone files out. Bravo!! My P505 now plays MP3 ring tones properly. Personal ring tone management software, such as Photo Contacts PRO, that did not work before now also works great!

Update: June 14, 06:

I copied a bunch of MP3 songs and clips to the SD Card and played with it a bit. Stereo 128-kbps and 192-kbps whole-song files and shorter clips played fine. Unfortunately, the P505 still won't play shorter 320-kbps clips, and it crashed (soft-resetted) when 320-kbps whole-song files were played. 256-kbps files though played properly. Therefore, I guess that

the maximum bit rate that this MP3 Ring Tone patch supports is 256 kbps.

Keywords: asus-p505, fixes, patches, firmwares, pocket-pc, cellphones, ring-tones

Tip: Microsoft Outlook 2003 and MHTML Attachment

2006-06-08T08:01:00.001+07:00

I found a webpage on Pantip.com that contains an excellent article

Why We Thai People Love Our King Bhumibol So Much.

I tried to save the page to my hard drive in the MHT (MIME HTML) format with Mozilla Firefox's "Mozilla Archive Format" extension. I prefer saving a web page as an MHT file over the "Web Page, complete" option because it is more handy to get an archive of a webpage in one single MHT file than getting so many files inside a folder generated by the complete Web Page method.

I sent the MHT file as a attachment in an Outlook 2003 email to my girlfriend and by chance learned that this is an extremely more convenient way to send an archive of a webpage to someone than to "copy all and paste" a webpage in Outlook's Microsoft Word editor. From my experience, Outlook takes unacceptably long time to process pictures, texts, and formatting pasted into its Word text editor from Internet Explorer or Firefox. Sending a webpage by an MHT attachment virtually skips this hassle.

Here is the picture of an Outlook message with MHT attachment:

and this is the MHT attachment once opened in Outlook:

Keywords: outlook, tips, mime, html, mhtml, attachments, thailand, kings, monarchy, love, loyalty

Download: ThinkPad Wallpapers

2006-05-22T22:56:00.000+07:00

Mocom.ru

To my fellow IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad laptop fans, here is an excellent archive of (what I believe to be) the official wallpapers from IBM and/or Lenovo. Most of the pictures on this website are the same as those on my new ThinkPad T42, but in higher resolutions--up to 1600x1200 and 1400x1050 pixels.

Keywords: thinkpad, wallpapers, downloads

Hack: PatchBurn -- Enabling DVD/CD Burning to Unsupported Burners on Mac OS X, iTunes and DiscBurner

2006-05-22T11:35:00.000+07:00

PatchBurn Homepage

Hacking Mac OS X Panther and Tiger to burn to Generic non-Apple DVD/CD Burners

I was helping my younger brother find a software that would let him burn iTunes music and iPhoto pictures to an external DVD burner--the NEC ND-3500A burner in a USB 2.0 external case. I used to do this for him once when he was using Mac OS X Panther. Unfortunately, he's never been able to burn a DVD again since he upgraded to Tiger because I could not remember the name of the software.

I spent some time searching thru my software archive today and finally got the name and the link to the homepage of this software here. I think it would be useful to many of you.

Here is the description from the PatchBurn homepage:

PatchBurn is a tool to patch existing CD/DVD-drivers (under Mac-OS X 10.2.x) or to generate and install new device profiles (under Mac-OS 10.3.x and later)

It allows many, otherwise unsupported burners to be used directly with Mac-OS X, iTunes and DiscBurner.

Keywords: itunes, mac-os-x, hacks

Google Tips: "Google Suggest", Type-ahead Keyword Suggestion by Google

2006-05-11T13:34:00.000+07:00

Google Suggest: Type-ahead Keyword Suggestion on Google

I got a link to Google Suggest -- a research product from Google Labs -- while I was reading the Foundations of Ajax book.

Google Suggest's type-ahead keyword suggestion is an example application of AJAX technology -- a combined use of JavaScript, XML, CSS, and related technologies to make web applications more responsive to users. It's fun to use and I think it would make us more productive in formulating a web search.

Keywords: google, tips, ajax, fun, productivity

Quote: "Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should"

2006-05-11T11:55:00.000+07:00

I got an interesting quote while reading Chapter 1 (p. 20) of the book "Foundations of Ajax" by R. Asleson and N. Schutta.

...just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

I was critized by my advisor once that I lacked the communication skill -- I seemed to put too much detail in Powerpoint presentations. So much that the audience was overwhelmed. My advisor said he knew I was trying to show-off -- to show the so-many-things that I did. But I was supposed to focus on the audience -- to understand what they wanted to here and what they didn't.

Keywords: quotes, working-smart, research-methodology, phd

Quote: Don't Worry about People Stealing an Idea

2006-05-09T18:11:00.000+07:00

Here is a very nice quote on originality and innovation from Howard Aiken presented on my Google homepage today:

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Keywords: quotes, plagiarism, phd, research-methodology, originality, innovation

History: My Very First Homepage in 1999

2006-05-07T08:59:00.000+07:00

Welcome to Thiti's Home Page

If you are interested, here is the link to my very first homepage back in the year 1999. I made it when I was in a master-degree program at AIT. It reminds me of the good old days back then.

Keywords: history, fun, websites

IBM ThinkPad T41: Access Connection not Working with Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B

2006-05-07T00:22:00.000+07:00

IBM Personal computing support - Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter software for Windows 2000/XP - ThinkPad R40, R50/e/p, R51, T40/p, T41/p, T42/p, X31, X40

Problem: ThinkVantage Access Connection software on IBM ThinkPad T41 with Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter cannot control turn wireless radio on and cannot detect any wireless network.

I formatted my brother’s ThinkPad T41 and used the ThinkVantage Software Installer to install all related drivers. To my surprise, after every driver was installed, ThinkVantage Access Connection could not control turn the wireless radio on nor can it detect any wireless network. However, if I check the “Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings” button in the Wireless Network Connection Properties, Windows XP's Wireless Zero Configuration itself was able to detect my home wireless network and could perfectly connect to it.

I consulted a friend who is very knowledgeable in ThinkPad and learned that there is a bug in the unattended installation module of the Intel PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI adapter software from IBM. During the unattended installation, the installer “forgets” to install the Intel Sebring wireless API properly. If we go to

C:\DRIVERS\WIN\WLLANINT\APPS\API\SbrngApi.exe

and manually reinstall the Intel Sebring API software (by executing SbrngApi.exe), ThinkVantage Access Connection will work properly.

I tried that and my brother’s T41 Wi-Fi is now working properly with the Access Connection software.

Keywords: wifi, intel, ibm, thinkpad, problems, troubleshooting, solutions

Matt Raible's Tips for Productivity and Happiness at Work

2006-04-16T12:00:00.000+07:00

Tips for Productivity and Happiness at Work

A link to Matt Raible's Tips for Productivity and Happiness at Work appeared on del.icio.us frontpage this morning. It really interested me because I feel I am not a very productive type of person. I checked it out right away and found it very useful. The tips I like most are "Write stuff down" and "Work disconnected". I personally find that I am more productive when I write to-do lists and work at a coffee shop like Starbucks. So, Matt, I do agree with you!

Keywords: life-style, self-improvement, working-smart, tips, troubleshooting

MPICH2: mpdboot failure due to conflicting /etc/hosts entry

2006-03-01T18:24:00.000+07:00

One single line in the /etc/hosts file on my Ubuntu Linux machine wasted my precious whole afternoon. I had some assumptions about the cause of this problem but I don't want to spend too much time investigating on what really caused the trouble. Anyway, here are the listings of what worked and what didn't:

/etc/hostname

ubuntu

mpd.hosts.cluster

master
worker-01

Bad /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain ubuntu
192.168.200.128 master
192.168.200.129 worker-01

Result

thitiv@ubuntu:~$ mpdboot -n 2 -f mpd.hosts.cluster
thitiv@master's password:
mpdboot_ubuntu (handle_mpd_output 359): failed to ping mpd on master; recvd output={}

Good /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain
192.168.200.128 ubuntu master
192.168.200.129 worker-01

Result

thitiv@ubuntu:~$ mpdboot -n 2 -f mpd.hosts.cluster
thitiv@worker-01's password:
thitiv@ubuntu:~$

At this point, with the /etc/hosts now fixed, the MPICH2 cluster could be booted up successfully.

I don't want to invest my time trying to understand this right now but I would really appreciate anyone explaining to me what went wrong.

Keywords: parallel-computing, mpich2, ubuntu-linux, problems, solutions, troubleshooting

GPS: ActiveSync Problem between Garmin MapSource and Non-Garmin Pocket PCs Running Garmin Que Software

2006-02-16T08:10:00.000+07:00

If you have Garmin MapSource, a Pocket PC, and the Garmin Que software, you should be able to download/upload your waypoints and tracks from/to Que on the handheld to MapSource in Windows. Unfortunately MapSouce on some computers does not ActiveSync properly -- it does not recognize Non-Garmin Pocket PCs that have the Garmin Que software installed.

Yesterday, I wasted several hours wondering what's wrong with my Pocket PC -- why MapSource doesn't recognize my iPAQ h4150 running Garmin Que. After the long hours of Googling, I finally came across this thread which leads to the original thread on MalSingMaps.com. wsian, the original poster who found a solution, suggested adding the following registry key, using Windows regedit tools [see the picture from the MalSingMaps thread here]:

Add a new key QueRAPI to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Garmin\

Try to plug your Pocket PC in, launch the Garmin Que software, and then use MapSource's Transfer -> Receive From Device command. MapSource would now recognize your Pocket PC as a Garmin Que device.

Keywords: bluetooth, gps, garmin, mapsource, garmin-que, activesync, pocket-pc, problems, solutions

Pocket PC: Unresolved Inbox Items

2006-02-12T01:43:00.000+07:00

I have been trying to fix an HP iPAQ h4150 Pocket PC, which runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003, for not synchronizing the Inbox items properly after an intentional hard-reset. Every single email in Microsoft Outlook on the desktop computer does not sync to the handheld if it contains an attachment -- no matter wheter it is a TXT file, a JPEG file or a DOC file.

Websites and newsgroups such as the followings

Google Groups: 4150 inbox unresolved attachment
Google Groups: unresolved inbox

suggest us to delete the ActiveSync partnership or to delete the file

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\Application DataMicrosoft\ActiveSync\Profiles\HandheldName\repl.dat

to reset the synchronization status of the handheld so that everything would be overwritten by the content from the desktop.

Someone on the newsgroups mentioned about unplugging the handheld from the cradle, soft-reseting it, and putting it back to the cradle to start a clean ActiveSync session.

Since I set Pocket Outlook on the iPAQ to store attachments on the SD Card, another relevant theory from someone on the newsgroup microsoft.public.pocketpc is that the folder to store email attachments on the SD Card could be missing, and we should try to disable Pocket Outlook from storing attachments on the memory card, then soft-reset the handheld (with memory card put in place), and re-configure Pocket Outlook to store attachments on the card.

A good friend of mine who is a leading expert in Pocket PC in Thailand also suggested that, like his h2210 iPAQ, there could be an Inbox synchronization bug that if we don't have enough free space in the "storage memory" and the "iPAQ File Store", the handheld wouldn't sync email attachments properly, leaving emails with attachments in the "unresolved" state.

One more theory is that I could be experiencing a problem with ActiveSync 4.1, which is not supposed to be used with the h4150 which runs Windows Mobile 2003, as ActiveSync 4.1 was aimed at Windows Mobile 5.0 devices.

I followed every single suggestion. I even cleared up the iPAQ File Store to have 1.3 megabytes space and the storage memory to be almost 10 megabytes free. I also uninstalled ActiveSync 4.1 and entered Windows XP safe mode to remove ceutil.dll and rapi.dll under c:\windows\system32 and two DLLs two DLLs remaining in c:\Program Files\Microsoft ActiveSync, which according to this thread is the trick to completely remove ActiveSync 4.1 and rollback to ActiveSync 3.8.

To no avail, all these tricks and suggestions do not help. After all, with 2 days of experiments, my Inbox still do not sync properly -- every single email with an attachment ends up being an unresolved inbox item.

Until now, I just had an MSN chat session with a friend who uses an h4150. After explaining the situation to him, he bet there must be something wrong with my Pocket Outlook.

Immediately, a hard-reset idea popped up. Here's what I did:

I unplugged the iPAQ from the cradle, used the iPAQ Backup utility to backup everything except the emails to the memory card, then did a hard-reset and restore everything (of course, except the emails) to the handheld. Then, I deleted the partnership between the Pocket PC and ActiveSync 4.1 and plugged the iPAQ back to the cradle to let ActiveSync overwrite everything on the handheld with the desktop content.

Like a charm, emails with attachments now synchronize properly. I tested this with the emails containing TXT document and JPEG pictures. Every email synchronize perfectly, as it used to be!

Thank you very much everyone for helping me on this problem.

Keywords: pocket-pc, windows-mobile, emails, troubleshooting

Update: Feb 14, 06 (Valentine's Day):

The Inbox items from Microsoft Outlook on the desktop (well, actually, an IBM ThinkPad laptop) have been syncing properly to the h4150 so far. Despite I now filling up the iPAQ File Store, leaving only 100KB space left, the emails with attachments still sync properly to the Pocket PC. Therefore, the following assumption from my expert friend (posted above and quoted again here) is not applicable to my case:

...there could be an Inbox synchronization bug that if we don't have enough free space in the "storage memory" and the "iPAQ File Store", the handheld wouldn't sync email attachments properly...

Ubuntu Linux: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5

2006-01-25T17:43:00.000+07:00

According to this thread, if you, like me, are experiencing this error

error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file

on Ubuntu Linux 5.1, you need to install the libstdc++5 package by the command

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5

Keywords: web-services, linux, ubuntu-linux, configuration

Happy Birthday to My Dad!!

2006-01-25T10:13:00.000+07:00

Today, January 25th, is my dad's birthday.

To my dad:

I wish you all the very best. You're always my hero and my model. I apologize you for any wrongful things I did that make you feel worried or make you feel sad. I wish you a very wonderful birthday, and good health for the years to come.

Happy birthday to you!

Keywords: birthdays, family

Serendipity: Interesting Quote on Criticism

2006-01-24T17:41:00.000+07:00

I was googling for a solution to my Java-C socket communication problem when I came across this thread on DevX.com:

DevX.com Forums - Put me out of my missery.. Sockets and BufferedWriter

This quote from the poster Graham really touches!

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, and if they get mad, you are a mile away and you have their shoes.

Keywords: quotes, criticism

Problem: mpirun / mpiexec calls from Java Runtime.exec() Fails on Large MPI Problems

2006-01-18T16:11:00.000+07:00

This is a follow-up to my earlier post:

Question: How to Launch an MPI Parallel Program Programmatically

An Iceberg Problem

I've been stuck on my MPI-Java integration experiment for more than a week and so far haven't found a way out of this problem. My problem is quite similar to this posting on the comp.parallel.mpi newsgroup. Unfortunately, the thread was first posted in the year 2001 and, almost five years later, no one has answered the question.

Let me explain my situation: I want to convert my parallel code, which is written in C and is based on the MPICH and PETSc parallel-computing libraries, into a Web service. From my point of view, three solutions are available: The first one is to use Apache Axis C++ Web Services library to extend the existing code into a Web service. The second one is to leave the parallel code as is and then develop a Java Web service that acts a proxy to execute the parallel code via a Java Runtime.exec() method call. The third one is to use the parallel code in the same way the old-fashioned Web applications were developed, thru some Common Gateway Interface (CGI) mechanisms.

On my first attempt, I went the Java Runtime.exec() plus mpiexec way. It worked well for small Hello World code with simple matrix computation and MPI function calls but it doesn't work when I told Runtime.exec() to launch my parallel structural analysis code. An excerpt of the error is attached at the end of this post.

I also looked at the Axis C++ way, which, for me, is the most direct (but painful) way to create a Web service from existing C code. From preliminary study, if I choose to avoid mpiexec to make a self-contained Web service, it seems like I will have to use the MPI_Comm_spawn function to initialize the master and the worker nodes. Looking at the sample codes, my feeling is that this is a bit much for me as I will have to learn how to use another toolkit -- the Axis C++ -- and to invest considerable time to be familiar enough to master it. I still remember how I spent almost one month in 2004 learning undocumented features of Apache Axis to create a custom serializer-deserializer module for my Java codes.

I also had a glance at CGI and again don't feel like investing my time in learning yet another technology.

I think I will have to stick with the "Java Runtime.exec() plus mpiexec" way. I will post further development about this on this blog.

References:

Question: How to Launch an MPI Parallel Program Programmatically
Google Groups : comp.parallel.mpi
Problems with Runtime.getRuntime().exec

Keywords: mpi, parallel-computing, java, problems

Update: Jan 18, 06

The poster of the comp.parallel.mpi thread also cross-posted to comp.lang.java.programmer and there are 5 messages on this thread. Here is the link: Problems with Runtime.getRuntime().exec. Unfortunately, this thread leads to no solution.

Update: Jan 18, 06

A friend of mine suggested another solution: using socket communication -- by letting the Java proxy Web service communicate with the master of the cluster, which is implemented in C, thru socket communication. He also introduced me the class ProcessBuilder, which is a new Java class introduced in JDK 5.0, as an alternative to the Runtime.exec() solution.

Attachment:

Error from Java Runtime.exec() plus mpiexec:

Executing: mpiexec -n 2 /home/shared/thitiv/parefg-20060107_1451/parefg /home/shared/thitiv/parefg-20060107_1451/tension.in /home/shared/thitiv/parefg-20060107_1451/tension.out
OUTPUT>Petsc Release Version 2.3.0, Patch 43, April, 26, 2005
OUTPUT>See docs/changes/index.html for recent updates.
OUTPUT>See docs/faq.html for hints about trouble shooting.
OUTPUT>See docs/index.html for manual pages.
OUTPUT>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTPUT>/home/shared/thitiv/parefg-20060107_1451/parefg on a linux-gnu named ubuntu by thitiv Wed Jan 18 14:50:13 2006
OUTPUT>Libraries linked from /usr/local/lib/petsc-2.3.0/lib/linux-gnu
OUTPUT>Configure run at Tue Jan 3 09:36:34 2006
OUTPUT>Configure options --with-mpi-dir=/usr/local/bin/mpich2 --with-shared=0
OUTPUT>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: Caught signal number 11 SEGV: Segmentation Violation, probably memory access out of range
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: Try option -start_in_debugger or -on_error_attach_debugger
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: likely location of problem given in stack below
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: --------------- Stack Frames ---------------
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: Note: The EXACT line numbers in the stack are not available,
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: INSTEAD the line number of the start of the function
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: is given.
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: --------------------------------------------
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: User provided function() line 0 in unknown directory unknown file
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: Signal received!
OUTPUT>[0]PETSC ERROR: !
ERROR>[cli_0]: aborting job:
ERROR>application called MPI_Abort(MPI_COMM_WORLD, 59) - process 0
OUTPUT>rank 0 in job 3 ubuntu_32773 caused collective abort of all ranks
OUTPUT> exit status of rank 0: killed by signal 9
ExitValue: 137

Linux: Starting Emacs in Text-mode under X Window

2006-01-04T18:49:00.000+07:00

I always wondered how to force emacs text editor to start in the non-graphical user-interface mode. I just ignored my desire in the past but I really want to do it today. Spending a few seconds Googling and guessing at Google's excerpts of the content, here is how to do it:

Open a Terminal console, and, at the shell prompt:

emacs -nw filename

I guess the -nw option stands for "no window".

Ref: Linux User Group Singapore - Using Bash shell for newbies Episode 2

Keywords: emacs, linux, text-based, interface

iPod Owners: Petition to Apple for a Thai-language Support

2006-01-04T17:14:00.000+07:00

To support Thai language in iPod. Petition

A group of iPod users in Thailand has started a petition for Apple Computer, Inc. to add Thai language to the iPods. Apple has significantly increased its marketing effort in Thailand, as can be seen by the iPod being sold in almost every shopping malls in Bangkok. Thai language support so far has been provided by a hacked version of the firmware downloadable "free-of-charge" from Pubble's website. I know Pubble personally and feel this is an unfair practice by Apple Computer and the iPod vendors.

Well, if you can read Thai and want Apple to support the language, it could we worthwhile to sign the petition here.

Keywords: ipod, thai-language, petitions

Ubuntu Linux: Kernel Development Package

2006-01-04T12:33:00.000+07:00

Thru Ubuntu automatic updates notification, I upgraded the kernel of my Ubuntu Linux 5.1 VMware virtual machine this morning and, all of a sudden, my VMware shared folders disappeared from the /mnt/hgfs directory. I guessed it could be that the kernel upgrade package overwrote some essential file of VMware Tools so I went ahead reinstalling VMware Tools according to the instruction here. Things went fine until I was reported that this version of kernel (is too new and) is not supported by the installer. The installer then asked for a path of the kernel source files.

I didn't install a kernel development package and didn't really have enough patience to browse thru the Ubuntu package repository to find a proper package to install. After half an hour of trial-and-error plus Google search, from this JustLinux.com posting, here is how to install the latest kernel source code:

Logged on as root,

apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

Note the grave-accent character, not an apostrophe, that surrounds "uname -r".

Keywords: ubuntu-linux, vmware, kernel, development, drivers

Update: Jan 4, 06:Here are the important VMware Tools components that are buried in the /usr/bin folder:

vmstat
vmware-config-tools.pl
vmware-user
vmware-toolbox
vmware-uninstall-tools.pl

vmware-config-tools is particularly important if you want to reconfigure the screen resolution of X window graphical interface.

vmware-toolbox is used to configure the time-synchronization setting between Linux guest operating system and the Windows host, as well as to access the the Devices and Scripts settings and the virtual hard drive Shrink utility.

Ubuntu Linux: Switching between X Window Graphical Interface and Text-based Interface at Boot Time

2006-01-03T18:10:00.000+07:00

I was using Red Hat Linux a lot back in the year 2000 and remember that if I want to switch the user interface at boot time from a GUI mode to a text mode I would edit the file /etc/inittab and change the default run-level from 5 down to 3, as documented here. I want to do the same thing in Ubuntu Linux 5.1 but it doesn't work. Spending some time googling, here is how to do it in Ubuntu:

In terminal, logged in as root:

To switch from GUI interface to text-based interface:

update-rc.d -f gdm remove

To switch back from text-based interface to GUI interface:

update-rc.d -f gdm defaults

Reference: Arstechnica.com Forum

Keywords: ubuntu-linux, configuration

Padonc's "Bought from Mae Hong Son" T-shirts -- Interesting Souvenir from Mae Hong Son

2006-01-02T14:38:00.000+07:00

Padonc's "Bought from Mae Hong Son" T-shirts -- Interesting Souvenir from Mae Hong Son

The "I love New York" t-shirt and the series of souvenir was one of my impressive memory from my previous trips to New York City. I got this same kind of impression when I was browsing by the shops by the Jong Kam Walking Street in the city of Mae Hong Son in the second night of the trip.

I didn't look at the seller when I caught the sight of these T-shirts. The seller greeted me and, surprisingly, she was P'Kwan, my senior alumni from Chulalongkorn University, who lives in Mae Hong Son and gave me a warm welcome when my family and I went for a dinner at Fern Restaurant in Mae Hong Son town the other night. Note: Pi or P' (its abbreviation) is a Thai word to call an elder sister or brother.

Here are the pictures:

P'Kwan and Her Shop

The T-shirts

P'Kwan and the Shop

P'Kay, P'Kwan's Husband, at Another Shop

Keywords: trips, mae-hong-son, thailand, souvenir, t-shirts

New Year 2006 Trip to Mae Hong Son, Thailand

2006-01-02T13:21:00.000+07:00

I was on a trip to Northern Thailand with my family during December 28 - 31, 2004. The trip was very nice and here are some of the pictures I took with my Nikon D70 digital SLR camera and the Treo 600 built-in camera. You can click on a picture to see an enlarged version.

Happy New Year 2006!!

Day 1: BKK-HGN Flight via PB Air

Wat Prathat Doi Gong Mu

Portrait at Wat Prathat Doi Gong Mu

Wat Jong Klang

Family Portrait at Wat Jong Klang

Day 2: Portrait by the Highway

Scenery at Pang-ma-pa Rest Area

Mae Hong Son Sticky-rice Dessert,
Jong Kam Pond Walking Street

My Younger Brother and Wat Jong Klang Temple

The Night Market

Day 3: At Ruk Thai Village, a Chinese community
at the Burmese border, Mae Hong Son

Variety of Tea at Ruk Thai Village

Huay Sua Thao Long-neck Karen Village

Long-neck Karen by the Fire

Back to the Jong Kam Pond Walking Street

Day 4: Internet Kiosk, Mae Hong Son Airport

Portrait at the Airport

The Transit in Chiangmai

Keywords: trips, mae-hong-son, thailand

Ubuntu Linux: C and C++ Development tools

2005-12-27T01:35:00.000+07:00

Ubuntu - Development tools

I spent many hours figuring out why my freshly installed Ubuntu Linux 5.10 virtual machine doesn't compile a very simple C program, even after I use "apt-get install gcc" to install the GNU C compiler. Ubuntu keeps on saying it can't even find the header file "stdio.h".

Finally I found the answer at Ubuntu FAQ page here. The site says that C and C++ development were deliberatedly excluded from the typical installation and we need to use

apt-get install build-essential

to install all the neccessary compilers, headers and libraries. In other words, installing only the gcc package isn't enough.

Keywords: ubuntu-linux, c, programming

MPICH2 on Windows XP: No go with MPI_Comm_spawn

2005-12-23T11:18:00.000+07:00

I was practicing MPI-2 dynamic process creation on Windows XP, using MPI_Comm_spawn() function call as an alternative to process execution by "mpiexec", but so far haven't been successful. During a search for the previous MPI post, I came across the following Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) on Argonne Website and felt discouraged:

MPICH Frequently Asked Questions

Q: On Windows, I get an error when I attempt to call MPI_Comm_spawn.

A: On Windows, you need to start the program with mpiexec for any of the MPI-2 dynamic process functions to work.

I will give up the attempt for the time being and go on the "mpiexec" way.

Keywords: windows-xp, mpi, parallel-computing, mpich2

MPICH2 on Windows XP: Launch Failed "error 2 - The system cannot find the file specified"

2005-12-23T09:32:00.000+07:00

I had a problem executing a parallel program built with MPICH2 from Argonne National Laboratory. I had been able to use "mpiexec" to execute example codes and my test codes but the followings happened yesterday when I tried to run my "Practice.exe" parallel Hello World code:

The current directory is "t:\", which is a subst drive that maps to "c:\Briefcase\Tmp".

$mpiexec -np 4 "Practice.exe"
launch failed: CreateProcess(Practice.exe) on 'tvs-laptop' failed, error 2 - The system cannot find the file specified.

launch failed: CreateProcess(Practice.exe) on 'tvs-laptop' failed, error 2 - The system cannot find the file specified.

launch failed: CreateProcess(Practice.exe) on 'tvs-laptop' failed, error 2 - The system cannot find the file specified.

launch failed: CreateProcess(Practice.exe) on 'tvs-laptop' failed, error 2 - The system cannot find the file specified.

I spent many hours yesterday trying to find what went wrong but got no luck. This morning, by accident and perhaps serendipity, I tried to execute the code with an absolute (non-subst) path. It works!! Here is the output:

$mpiexec -np 4 c:\Briefcase\Tmp\Practice.exe
[2 of 4] Hello from tvs-laptop
[0 of 4] Hello from tvs-laptop
[3 of 4] Hello from tvs-laptop
[1 of 4] Hello from tvs-laptop

MPI executes parallel codes by making multiple Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs). My guess is that subst drives are created on a per-user session basis and is not accessible when an RPC call is made. That's why using mpiexec when the present working directory is a subst drive doesn't work.

Keywords: windows-xp, subst, mpi, parallel-computing, mpich2

Fixing a Corrupted Recycle Bin in Windows XP

2005-12-14T22:39:00.000+07:00

Computing.Net - norton protected recycle bin

I was trying Norton SystemWorks 2006 and didn't like its too-smart Protected Recycle Bin. It always keep the files that I don't want to keep and I don't feel like putting all those file extensions that I don't want it to "protect" in the exclusion list.

Today I went ahead uninstalling it but my hard drive is still not clean. While defraging the hard drive, I notice that the defragmenter was still moving around fragmented files in the "Norton Protected Recycle Bin" folder in the hidden "Recycler" folder of the hard drive.

I felt like I want to completely remove everything left over by Norton.

I went ahead googling for a while and realized from this Computing.net site that we can actually "delete" a recycle bin (of course, also everything in it) in case it's corrupted.

We can simply tell Windows Explorer or any favorite file manager to show the hidden files and simply "Shift-Delete" the RECYCLER folder to completely delete it. In this way, the recycler folder will not be put in the recycle bin, which is a prohibited and illegal operation in Windows.

Keywords: windows-xp, tips

Website: AIT Alumni Association, Thailand Chapter

2005-12-14T07:54:00.000+07:00

AITAA Thailand Chapter (link updated on Dec 15, 05)

I have been involved in the activities of the Thai Chapter of the AIT Alumni Association for a few months. The Thai Chapter plans to launch a full-featured website http://www.aitthai.or.th soon. In the mean time, we have launched an interim site to inform the public about upcoming news and events as well as other useful information.

For those AIT friends, please visit the interim AITAA Thailand Chapter site at http://aitthai.blogspot.com.

Keywords: ait, alumni, thailand

Update: Dec 15, 05:

The AITAA Thailand Chapter website is now launched at www.aitthai.or.th. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Question: How to Launch an MPI Parallel Program Programmatically

2005-12-13T15:15:00.000+07:00

I want to link a Java code with the parallel program I wrote five years ago in C. The program utilizes the Message Passing Interface (MPI) library from Argonne National Laboratory of the United States.

As far as I can imagine, there seems to be two alternative solutions for me so far.

The first one is to use Java Native Interface (JNI) technique to create a C header file the act as a stub linking a Java class to a native library -- in my case, I'm using Windows and Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 and the library will have to be a Dynamically Linked Library (DLL).

The second one, maybe, is to link the Java module and the C module by XML Web Services technology by using software tools such as Apache's Axis C++ or Microsoft's dot-Net technology plus SOAP messaging over the HTTP protocol. Microsoft .NET seems to be a whole new world for me and I don't think I have enough time and patience to learn it right now.

The solutions left are either to use JNI + C (a Java-wrapper solution) or C + Axis (a Web service-wrapper solution).

Now comes a common problem: my C code was written as an MPI parallel program and I want to retain the parallel processing functionality. MPI programs are supposed to be launched by a special launcher -- the "mpirun" script in the now outdated MPICH implementation or the "mpiexec" in the current MPICH2 implementation.

I don't want a solution that creates an operating system "shell" session from the Java or C code to execute mpirun/mpiexec and puts the name of the parallel program as the argument of the launcher. I am searching for a more elegant way to launch the parallel code programmatically.

Keywords: mpi, mpich2, parallel-computing, c, visual-c++

CD/DVD Images: ISO and IMG image files vs. DAEMON Tools Virtual Drive and Nero

2005-12-09T14:02:00.000+07:00

I am downloading Windows plaform SDK CD image from Microsoft website. Microsoft says I am downloading an ISO image file but the extension of the file is .IMG and I wonder if I could mount it as a virtual drive in DAEMON Tools. I went ahead Googling for "daemon 4 img" and "img iso rename". Both search results suggest me that I can simply rename the IMG file to an ISO file and mount the file as a virtual drive in DAEMON Tools or burn it as a CD with Nero.

I'll try this once I finish downloading this 400MB+ image file.

Keywords: cd-burning, daemon-tools, virtual-drives

Apple iTunes 6.0 for Windows: Error -208

2005-11-25T14:09:00.000+07:00

iTunes 6.0 on my Windows XP laptop stopped playing my purchased music and required me to enter a user name and password to reauthorize the computer. It can connect to Apple server but "error -208" screen pops up just after it says authorization completed. iTunes still wouldn't play my purchased music.

I search around and found the following two postings relevant:
GadgetGuy: October 18, 2005
PrayToTheMachine.com: October 18, 2005.
What a coincidence they are both posted on October 18, 2005.

Basically here's what they say:

1. Close iTunes and QuickTime
2. Remove the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes\SC Info"

I guess error 208 happens because of a corrupted authorization information, which could likely be stored in the "SC Info" folder.

I followed the advice to remove "SC Info" and everything is back to normal now.

Keywords: itunes, errors, authorization, digital-rights-management

Is It Legal to Convert Music to Other Formats for Personal Use?

2005-11-17T14:26:00.000+07:00

While looking for a CD-R/DVD-R emulator in Windows, I came across this thread with a posting related to my audio CD copy protection issue.

One of the posters said:

It is perfectly legal under copyright (proven in court) to convert music you have purchased to different formats for your own personal use for things like mp3 players.

I'm not a lawyer and I don't know if this is actually true or not. But it is interesting enought to post it here.

Keywords: legal, copyrights, music

Quote: Behavior, Knowledge and Morality

2005-11-16T22:32:00.000+07:00

I've been busy reading the "Cultivating Communities of Practice" book and haven't updated this blog for a while.

The book is yet to be finished but something came up last night and I recall a morale quote my middle-school English teacher at Assumption College, Master Assawin Maneerat, taught me back in 1990:

Behavior is before knowledge.
Be honest to our duties.
Be grateful to our benefactors.
Abide by virtues forever.

Keywords: quotes, life, morality

Community of Practice (CoP) -- The Professional Practitioners' Community

2005-11-03T14:59:00.000+07:00

While browsing thru books on Amazon.com directed from a Google search on "community knowledge sharing", I found my current research interest to resemble a management research area "Community of Practice." Here are the three books that interest me and I would find a chance to look into them:

Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier, by E. Wenger and W. M. Snyder. Harvard Business Review (January 1, 2000). 12 pages.

Cultivating Communities of Practice, by E. Wenger et al. Harvard Business School Press (March 15, 2002). 352 pages.

Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, by E. Wenger et al. Cambridge University Press (December 1, 1999). 336 pages.

All books link to Dr. Etienne C. Wenger so I looked up Google and got this link to him.

Happy researching!

Keywords: books, community-of-practice

Update: Nov 3, 05:

Here is Dr. Wenger's introductory article to the Community of Practice (CoP):

Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction

A journal paper on processing knowledge for virtual communities of practice is also available on Science Direct:

Fu-ren Lin and Chih-ming Hsueh (2006). "Knowledge map creation and maintenance for virtual communities of practicenext term", Information Processing & Management, 42(2), March 2006.

Interesting Articles on Ph.D. Student Life

2005-11-03T12:55:00.000+07:00

Two interesting pages I got from Blind Rapture during a Blogger.com browse/search on "phd students." I will try to read them some time later.

John Perry's "Structured Procrastination"
Phil Agre's "Networking on the Network: A Guide to Professional Skills for PhD Students"

Keywords: phd

Annoyance: iPod vs Copy-protected Audio CDs

2005-11-03T11:59:00.000+07:00

iLounge.com: Sony BMG, EMI offer iPod-incompatible CDs

Thru a discussion on iLounge.com I was aware of copy-protected audio CDs not being compatible with iPods and iTunes for a while. This kind of protection is targeted at Microsoft Windows-based computers (and perhaps Apple Macs, but I don't know since I don't have a Mac). When inserted a copy-protected audio CDs on a computer, it won't recognize the CD as an audio CD. We need to use a special software located on the CD to play it. Since Windows won't recognize the CD as an audio CD, iTunes won't be able to "import" it for playbacks on an iPod. Also, duplication or backup of CDs won't be difficult, if not possible, because the copy-protection technique creates a number of tracks that CD copying software thinks as bad tracks and simply skips them. Duplicated CDs will give extremely skipping playbacks.

I thought these kind of protection is only used CDs produced by the U.S. records giants, like Sony BMG and EMI. But I was wrong: G-MM Grammy, Thailand's records giant, has adopted it in the latest album of Endorphine, one of my favorite Thai pop/rocker artists. I expect them to adopt this scheme of copy-protection on all of the forth-coming albums. And this has pissed me off!

I feel that people buy original audio CDs rather than pirated MP3's because they like the music so much that they want to support the artist. And for iPod owners like me, it is also because they want to keep the music on their favorite musical instrument -- the iPod -- for them to listen to their favorite music everywhere they go. I'm sure iPod music lovers are one of the largest group of customers who still support the artists by paying them, rather than going on the MP3 way.

And, ungratefully, these companies do not spare us iPod owners with this protection scheme.

I can feel their necessity for a copy protection measure: To discourage people to rip music off the CDs, or make duplicated copies, to share with friends and colleauges or to sell in the black market. But are they sure this is the way to improve sales?

Copy-protected audio CDs are effective on Windows, the computing platform the majority of buyers use. But there are some other platform like Unix-based Apple Mac OS X and Linux. Tech-savvy people will find eventually find a way to rip the music perfectly off the CD and share among their peers. And iPodders, who were annoyed by record companies not allowing them to import the music from the CD they *own* into their very own iPod, will likely go to this tech-savvy channel.

The result:

"Dear record companies, please think carefully whether you will likely improve your sales or abolish it!"

I am sorry G-MM Grammy, my favorite Thai records company do this to me.

Resources:

CDDA Paranoia -- Unix-based audio CD extraction utility with extra verification features.

iLounge.com discussion on iPod-incompatible CDs

An analysis of a copy protection scheme by Princeton University

Keywords: ipod, itunes, audio-cds, copy-protection, ripping, annoyance, controversy, thailand

Update: Nov 3, 05: I recall from a discussion thread some where on the net that these so-called copy-protected enhanced audio CDs do not actually conform to the Red Book audio CD standard proposed by Philips and Sony in June 1980. This Red Book standard is the one adopted worldwide to produce Compact Disc digital audio media and playback devices. An issue were raised among consumer-rights enthusiastic group that copy-protected audio CDs shouldn't have been marketed as "Compact Disc audio CDs" because they are actually not -- because they do not follow the Red Book standard -- and consumers should be warned about this.

The fact is that there is no single trace of warning on the label of the G-MM Grammy CD I bought last night and thus I wasn't even aware that it is copy-protected -- that I won't be able to use it with my iPod -- when I was paying for it!

Update: Nov 3, 05: There are a number of threads on Pantip.com, Thailand's most famous and most active online community, that mention about this issue. Here are some of them (in Thai):

On G-MM Grammy's Endorphine Album: mentions about how to convert Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected WMA audio files on the Endorphine CD to the unprotected ones with a software called Tunebite.
A complaint on the trouble caused by G-MM Grammy so-called Enhanced CDs
Another complaint on CDs made by RS Promotion, G-MM Grammy's primary rival

Update: Nov 3, 05: A friend of mine recommended Exact Audio Copy (EAC), a high-fidelity "exact" CD ripper for Windows. It was reported that EAC could rip music off Thai copy-protected audio CDs.

Update: Nov 4, 05: I downloaded "Exact Audio Copy V0.95 beta 3 (including CDRDAO package)" from here and went ahead to rip the CD with my Windows XP notebook. Bravo!! It works. The whole copy-protected CD is defeated.

EAC is also a lot faster than CDDA Paranoia, which I used on my Linux box to rip the very same CD. CDDA Paranoia took almost *ONE full day* to rip all 10 tracks from the CD but EAC did it in 2 minutes. Anyway, I guess what makes the difference is that CDDA Paranoia rips the CD in paranoid mode in which it reads audio data from the CD again and again and again to make sure that we've got a *perfect* and *exact* copy of the content typical preferred by serious hi-fi listeners (like me, sometimes, but not always). I found that EAC also supports paranoid mode but it was not recommended unless we really need it because it may take extremely long time to rip a CD -- and yes I have witnessed it from the experience with CDDA Paranoia!

The Goal of Knowledge Management

2005-11-01T23:53:00.000+07:00

J. Mgmt in Engrg: Knowledge Management in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Consulting: A Case Study

This article by Mezher et al. (2005) reiterates the key bases that would be useful for researches in engineering knowledge management:

The goal of knowledge management as a process is to improve the organization’s ability to execute its core business functions more efficiently and effectively.

The key to knowledge management is capturing intellectual assets for the tangible benefit of the organization.

...the aim of any design engineering consulting firm is to produce projects with high quality and in
less time.

Keywords: engineering-knowledge-management, quotes, journal-papers

Reviewing Research Literature

2005-11-01T21:53:00.000+07:00

From Locke et al. (1999) on reviewing the literature:

In writin a research proposal, the author is obligated to place the (research) question or hypothesis in the context of previous work in such a way as to explain and justify the decisions made. That alone is required. Nothing more is apprepriate, and nothing more should be attempted (page 68).

...sound proposals devote most of the literature review to explaining (a) exactly "how and why the research question or hypothesis was formulated in the proposed form" and (b) exactly "why the proposed research strategy was selected." What is required...is a step-by-step explanation of decisions, punctuated by reference to studies that support the ongoing argument (page 68).

...there is no place for the "Smith says this..." and "Jones says that..." paragraph-by-paragraph recital...This is the place to answer the reader's most immediate questions: What is it the author wants to know, and why has this plan been devised to find the answer? (page 69)

...the writer's task is to employ the research literature artfully to support and explain the choices made for this study, not to educate the reader concerning the state of science in the problem area. Neither is the purpose of the section to display the energy and thoroughness with which the author has pursued a comprehensive understanding of the literature (page 69).

Keywords: research-methodology, quotes

Precise & Quick Search for Windows Files/Folders with Regular Expressions

2005-11-01T14:37:00.000+07:00

I have a lot of music files, take a lot of digital pictures and save a lot of webpages locally on my computers and have had trouble looking for a right file or folder when hundreds or thousands of them are accumulated on the hard drive.

Apple iTunes has helped me a lot on music and PDF files and I have had less trouble looking for a right one when I need it. iTunes is now my favorite tools to manage my music library and the PDF-based research papers.

I don't prefer to use software like ACDSee, which I believe use the same principle as the "iTunes Music Library", to manage my picture library because it's not practical to store all pictures locally on a hard drive as I normally take pictures in RAW format, the size of which is typically 6 megabyte each. I need to archive them to DVD discs from time to time to free up the space of my hard drive, even though now it's 200GB in size.

What I usually do with my files or folders naming convention is that I try to put a lot of meaningful keywords in its name so that it could be easy to look for later on. When I need to archive the files on to a CD or DVD, I use a CD/DVD cataloging software to make a catalog of the files and folders on the CD or DVD and store it as a text file (which of couse could be XML-formatted file) on my hard drive for later searches.

Modern file-management utilities in Windows such as Total Commander (a software inspired by the famous Norton Commander back in the DOS days 10+ years ago) and PowerGREP provide a nice search feature that allows us to search for a file/folder name or for a text content inside a file by either using simple string-matching search or a more sophisticated and powerful regular-expression (RegEx) search. I have been getting very good search results with my file naming and cataloging practice and the regex seaches. It usually take me less than a few minutes to get a right file/folder from so many archive CDs and DVDs, and I get the right file/folder almost instantly if they are stored locally on the hard drive.

The current Microsoft Windows XP operating system doesn't have a powerful file metadata mangement system like Spotlight on Apple's Mac OS X Tiger and the long-anticipated metadata-rich WinFS from Microsoft hasn't yet arrived.

The practice that I've been using (and, as always, have been improving) might be useful for you. Please feel free to share with me your idea/technique if you like!

Resources on Regular Expressions:
Wikipedia: Introduction to Regular Expressions
Regular Expressions Reference - Basic Syntax

Keywords: windows, file-management, regex, regular-expressions, metadata

Multiple Homepages in Firefox

2005-10-29T04:32:00.000+07:00

Multiple Homepage Windows in Firefox

I want to have Mozilla Firefox open two homepages at the same time when it starts up and I remember that I saw an extension that could do this. I did a search on Google and, to my surprise, came across this tip by Sam Holton:

To have multiple tabs loaded each time you start Firefox or when you press the home button, you can simply pipe delimit them in the options...if you wanted to open both Google and Digg when you open your browser, simply enter

http://www.google.com/ig | http://www.digg.com

Click on the picture for enlargement

Keywords: firefox, tips

Update: Nov 20, 05: jon114k gave us another tip in the comment of this post: we can in fact use Tools -> Options -> General -> Home Page -> Use current "pages" to create the multiple homepages! I just notice this plural form. I tried it and it works!

Pilot Studies -- I tried it and here's how it works!

2005-10-28T19:45:00.000+07:00

Locke et al. (1999) on pilot studies:

When it comes to convincing the scholarly skeptic (sometimes your own advisor), no argument can be so effective as to write, "I tried it and here is how it worked" (page 74).

It is difficult to imagine any proposal that could not be improved by the reporting of actual preliminary work. Whether it is to demonstrate the reliability..., the practicality of procedures, ...the modest pilot study is the best possible basis for making wise decisions in designing research (page 74).

Keywords: experiments, pilot-studies, research-methodology, quotes

Originality, Replication and Contribution to Knowledge

2005-10-28T19:11:00.000+07:00

Literally, "original" means "initial, first, never having existed or occurred before." But this is not the case for research and this is a serious misinterpretation of the word as it is used in science.

Another inspiring thoughts from Locke et al. (1999):

In research, the word "original" clearly includes all studies deliberately employed to test the accuracy of results or the applicability of conclusions developed in previous studies (page 58).

What is not included...are studies that proceed "mindlessly" to repeat an existing work either in ignorance of its existence or without appropriate attention to its defects or limitations (page 58).

One consequence...is that misguided students and advisors are led to ignore one of the most important areas of research activity and one of the most useful forms of training for the novice researcher -- replication (page 58).

...replication can involve challenging problems that demand creative resolution [to address problems perceived during the replicative study process]... (page 59)

An individual who thinks that truly equivalent conditions can be created simply by "doing it the same way" just has not tried to perform a replicative study (page 59).

Keywords: research-methodology, quotes, creativity, originality

Finding a Research Question

2005-10-28T18:48:00.000+07:00

On finding a research question from Locke et al. (1999):

All research emerges from a perceived problem...Sometimes the difficulty rests simply in the fact that we don't understand how things work and have the human itch to know. At other times, we are confronted by decisions or the need for action when the alternatives or consequences are unclear (page 45).

Keywords: research-methodology, quotes

The Habit of Truth

2005-10-28T18:19:00.000+07:00

Another nice quotes from Locke et al. (1999):

If scholars did not have..."the habit of truth", there could be no accumulation of reliable knowledge, and thus so science (page 25).

The rules...are absolute: no compromises, no evasions, no shortcuts, no excuses, and no saving faces (page 25).

Planning, conducting, and reporting research make sense only so long as the social contract among scholars is honored -- everyone tells the truth as well as he or she can know it (page 25).

Keywords: morality, research-methodology, quotes

The (Research) Proposals That Work

2005-10-28T14:46:00.000+07:00

Proposals That Work : A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals

I've been reading this book by Locke et al. (1999) to improve my research skill and found the following quotes useful.

Introducing a study:

Proposals...are best introduced by a short, meticulously devised statement that establishes the overall area of concern, arouses interest, and communicates information essential to the reader's comprehension of what follows (page 9).

...avoids both tedious length and the shock of technical detail or abstruse argument... (page 9)

Providing a rationale:

...it often is helpful to diagram factors and relationships that support your formulation of the problem (page 10).

A sound rationale...convinces the reader that you are rasing the right question -- and that the answer is worth finding (page 10).

...justifying the proposed study should be limited to the basic matters of defining what is to be studied and why it is worth so doing (page 11).

Formulating questions:

...the proposed study should be directed toward outcomes that are foreshadowed by the literature or pilot work, rather than toward a scanning of potentially interesting findings... (page 12)

The question form is appropriate when the research is exploratory. However, we should indicate by the specificity of questions that the problem has been subject to thorough analysis. The hypothesis form is employed when the state of existing knowledge and theory permits formulation of reasonable predictions about the relationship of variables (page 12).

A clear (research) question is readily transformed into a hypothesis by casting it in the form of a declarative statement that can be tested so as to show it to be either true or false (page 14).

...a research question never permits the investigator to say more than "Here is how the world looked when I observed it." In contrast, hypotheses permits the investigator to say, "Based on my particular explanation of how the world works, this is what I expect to observe, and behond -- that is exactly how it looked! For that reason my explanation of how the world works must be given credibility (page 14).

Credibility: Note the current debate about the value of hypotheses and their associted statistical significance testing. It's been argued that statistical significance testing has certain technical limitations. We should discuss with advisors and committee members for a concensus (page 15).

Employ "directional hypotheses" only when pilot data are available that clearly indicate a direction, or when the theory from which the hypotheses were drawn is sufficiently robust, otherwise employing "null hypotheses" is the better choice (page 15).

For everyday's work, let's keep in mind "What is my research question?"

Keywords: research-methodology, quotes

Fun for Ph.D. Students -- Piled Higher and Deeper

2005-10-28T11:41:00.000+07:00

PhD: Piled Higher and Deeper

A friend of mine recommended this Ph.D. comics site to ease my stress. I went to the home page and it looks fun. I'm gonna check on it soon.

Keywords: fun, phd

Directory of Libraries and Universities in Thailand

2005-10-24T23:04:00.000+07:00

Libweb - Directory of Libraries in Thailand
U.S. Embassy, Bangkok: Academic/Research Institutions

By chance, I saw an advertisement which links to a list of libraries in Thailand while I was posting an email from my Gmail account. A follow-up search on Google also pointed me to a list by the American Embassy in Thailand and I think it might be useful for my researcher and graduate student folks.

Happy researching!

Keywords: libraries, directories, thailand

Michael Hyatt: Working Smart

2005-10-24T11:31:00.000+07:00

Michael Hyatt: Working Smart

I am having a problem with my research work. I've worked a lot but the way I did wasn't smart enough.

By chance, during a Google search on a way to improve my research skill -- to work smart rather than simply work hard -- I came across this blog by Michael Hyatt. There are at least two categories in his postings that are relevant to self-improvement: the Getting Things done section and the Workflow section.

Check these out and you might as well find them useful as I do!

Keywords: self-improvement, working-smart, business

From the Novel The Rule of Four: Fences and Friendship

2005-10-20T23:55:00.000+07:00

Books: The Rule of Four

Something came up today and I recall this quote from The Rule of Four, which I had finished reading a few weeks earlier and liked very much.

From Chapter 8:

...while we have a lot in common, good fences still make a good neighbors.

We all need privacy. Good friends would respect this and wouldn't stick their noses into our personal lives.

I hope you all agree on this!

Keywords: quotes, friendship

Portfolio of Resources in Structural Engineering and Civil Engineering

2005-10-17T08:59:00.000+07:00

CE Resources

I have started a new blog since last night to store useful resources for civil engineers, especially structural engineers. Each blog entry will contain a link to a resource plus some brief description of what it is useful for. Technorati tags and an RDF metadata will also be embedded in each entry.

Keywords: civil-engineering, structural-engineering, resources, portfolios

Java Regular Expression

2005-10-14T11:48:00.000+07:00

In Java programming, how do we check whether the following text contains a piece of information encoded in an <ns1:Elmt> XML element?

This is a preamble #@&%)#*#)$

<ns1:Elmt ns1="uri:ns1" ns2="uri:ns2">
  <ns1:SubElmt attr1="value_1">
    <ns2:elmt>value_2</ns2:elmt>
  </ns1:SubElmt>
</ns1:Elmt>

Here is a little bit more text

3254832 3249028 ~#)*@()(84)_$-

An answer: Use the string.matches() method and the following regular expression

[\s\S]*<ns1:Elmt[\s\S]*</ns1:Elmt>[\s\S]*

Check the following websites and you'll learn how regular expression can ease our programming problems!

Wikipedia : Regular Expression
java.util.regex.Pattern (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0)
Regular-Expressions.info Tutorial

Keywords: java, regular-expressions

History of Hot Dog -- Sausage or A Sandwich with the Bun and the Sausage

2005-10-13T23:16:00.000+07:00

Hot dog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hot dog history, legends and trivia

One day on a grocery shopping at a supermarket near campus, I and a friend of mine looked at tasty sausages and wondered about the history of the term hot dog.

I visited the Hot Dog Wikipedia today and was directed to an interesting website on the history and legends of hot dogs. Wikipedia said that "hot dog" was likely invented in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri but the other source suggested many more legends believed to have coined the term "hot dog." Among these were the 1895 invention by The Yale Record, the humor magazine published by undergrad students at Yale University, and the 1902 invention during a Giants baseball game at the New York Polo grounds.

Despite the so many legends on invention of the term, it was agreed that Hot Dog was born in America and that today hot dogs are the most widely consumed form of sausage in America!!

Keywords: foods, languages

iTunes: Error 261 while Burning Data CDs/DVDs

2005-10-13T12:08:00.000+07:00

Apple Discussions: 261 error while burning MP3 CD.

I usually put an aphostrophe (') in the name of playlists and was having error 261 burning CD/DVD data discs since iTunes 5.1. Upgrading to iTunes 6.0 for Windows doesn't help.

I was burning a music DVD this morning and had Error 261 again. So I went to Apple iTunes Discussions site and look for a thread on this. Viola! There are many people having the same problem as mine.

The thread ends at a point where someone removing ampersands, the '&' symbols, from their playlists and could avoid this error. I tried removing aphostrophes from the name of my playlist because aphostrophe falls into the kind of non-alphabet characters that needs escaping in some programming languages.

It works!!

Keywords: itunes, windows

More from Pattaya: Watering Exercise

2005-10-12T13:44:00.000+07:00

I stopped for a sight-seeing at the Cabbage and Condom Resort and Restaurant in Pattaya which is run under a charitable theme. This exercise in the garden is clever and interesting!

Keywords: bicycles, exercises, machinery, travel, trips, pattaya, thailand

Nobody Says Inferencing on RDF Statements Should Follow Description Logics

2005-10-12T12:02:00.000+07:00

Stefano's Linotype ~ Folksologies: de-idealizing ontologies

Stefano Mazzocchi's blog:

...Well, nobody ever said that inferencing on RDF statements should always follow description logics...

This is a useful reminder for us on the separation between representation and computation of information on Web.

Keywords: reminders, reasoning, logics, semantic-web

Update: Oct 12, 05: I found another quote on the same blog that I think is thought-provoking and useful:

...There is nothing in semantic web technologies that states that ontologies cannot be created by individuals for their own benefits and shared and mapped according to their invidifual or group tastes. There is nothing that states that the only way to make data interoperate is thru uber conceptual models (CIDOC CRM) or thru common denominator sets (Dublin Core)...

Forum Posts and Appreciation

2005-10-10T23:07:00.000+07:00

Today's Quote

...thank you - your time is valuable, and your answers are highly valued.

I was browsing thru a HaloScan forum and I found this message by a poster mdcom which I like very much. In my opinion, when we post questions, it is highly desirable that we show our appreciation to everyone contributing to the answers, regardless of applicability to our cases.

Keywords: quotes, netiquette, etiquette

Weekend Trip to Pattaya

2005-10-10T09:10:00.000+07:00

October 8-9, 2005: Weekend Trip to Pattaya

I haven't visited Pattaya for ten years and I just had a chance to visit it on a family trip last weekend. Things have changed a lot.

We left Bangkok in the afternoon of Saturday, took Highway #7 (the Motor Way) and arrived at the Horseshoe Point Resort around 6 pm. We checked in and left the hotel for a fine German dinner at Bruno's Restaurant. The food, the decoration, and the food was extremely impressive. It was as if we were having dinner at a fine restaurant in Paris. Anyway, the price was extremely expensive as well. After the dinner, we went for a little walk at the Royal Garden Plaza and finally went back to the hotel. We started Sunday seeing things around the resort, then visited an outlet mall in Pattaya and went straight to Bang Phra for a Thai-style seafood lunch. We left there around 2 pm and arrived in Bangkok around 4 pm.

Here is my little photojournalism from my Nikon D70 and palmOne Treo 600 cameras. Hope you like it!

Royal Garden Plaza

People Relaxing inside the Mall

Children Having Fun with
Water Fountain in the Mall

Some Ads

Street Market Outside

T-shirt Shop by the Beach

The Horseshoe Point Resort
and Country Club

Interesting Activity

Nice Horse!

Shopping at Pattya Outlet Mall
on the Way back

Inside the Outlet

Keywords: travel, trips, pattaya, thailand

Google Desktop 2.0

2005-10-07T12:06:00.000+07:00

Google Desktop 2.0

I used to give Google Desktop a try when it was released last year but didn't like it much and finally uninstalled it from my computer. I was trying to get my Outlook emails more organized and thought about the email search feature, which I think Google Desktop is superior to Outlook find feature.

So I give Google Desktop another chance. I went to the download site and found that there is a beta 2.0 version available. The screenshots look good so I gave it a try and right now have been enjoying this 2.0 Beta very much.

Try it!!

Keywords: google

Update: Oct 10, 05: Google Desktop basically indexes everything on our computers, from emails in Outlook, Outlook Express, PDF files, text files, chat logs, etc. It also has a plug-in modules that notify us of new emails, randomly display pictures on our computers and subscribed web sites thru RSS feeds.

What a Wonderful Birthday!

2005-10-06T16:52:00.000+07:00

Oct 6, 05: Today is my 29th Birthday and it's full of surprises!

My mom left me a Happy Birthday cellphone voicemail yesterday's evening.
Got a surprise birthday cake from my dear sweetheart who lives thousands miles apart, with an extremely surprising delivery!
Got unusually many "happy birthday" messages, thru both MSN and cellphone calls, from friends who have never done this before, especially from my highschool and undergrad friends.

I'd like to thank everyone for a wonderful day they have made!! I donated some money to the Siriraj Hospital Foundation today and I wish to share all of them the merit from this good deed.

Keywords: birthdays, family, friends, friendship, surprises

Update: Oct 7, 05: Last night I and my friends on campus went to have a mini-party. It was at a BBQ restaurant at Future Park, the only mall nearby campus. I came to work this morning and got another surprise! A wrapped gift was placed on my desk. Found on that it's a gift from my dear friend Toey and Joe, who also are the dear friends of my girlfriend, and also coordinated yesterday's surprise. Inside the wrap is a book Joe chose for me...a scientific novel!

Another Interesting Example on Semantic Ambiguity

2005-10-05T17:22:00.000+07:00

Following the recommendation from Steve Cayzer's Blog, I was reading a research paper on collaborative tagging systems by Scott A. Golder and Bernardo A. Huberman at HP Labs and found this interesting quote that I like very much:

searching for employment at Apple may be problematic because of conflicts with the CEO’s surname.

Without ontologies search formulation like this would be quite complicated.

Keywords: semantic-web, ontologies

Update: Oct 5, 05: Without mentioning about ontologies, the authors suggested that for collaborative taggings the semantic ambiguity problem will be less significant once a critical mass is reached, the state at which a large number of tags are widely agreed upon by the community. The opportunity to learn from one another [e.g. through "suggested tags" and "popular tags" on del.icio.us] is also suggested to be an influential factor.

Previous Postings Now Embedded with RDF Metadata

2005-10-05T15:07:00.000+07:00

I just finished embedding RDF metadata to all of my previous postings. These metadata contain the similar keywords intended for Technorati but converted into equivalent ones in RDF + Dublin Core vocaburary format. I'll see how I can programmatically process these encoded information.

Keywords: rdf, metadata, semantic-blog, semantic-web

Postings Now del.icio.us Tagged and Tightly Linked

2005-10-04T20:31:00.000+07:00

3 ways to use del.icio.us for categories in blogger - Freshblog

Some time last week, I found this article from FreshBlog that teaches us how to make Technorati tagging and del.icio.us bookmarking tightly work together for a blog. I just have a chance to work on it this afternoon and right now my blog is 100% tagged and tightly integrated with del.icio.us. It's been working great so far and my next plan is to embed RDF metadata into all of my postings for research purposes.

I'd like to thank John at FreshBlog for sharing us this great technique!

Keywords: tagging, del.icio.us

Bookmarkletting Resource

2005-09-30T23:50:00.000+07:00

I am begining to be a fan of bookmarklets, the JavaScript codes that can be embedded in web browser bookmarks. I use a bookmarklet almost everytime I post to this blog and when I add an entry to my del.icio.us portfolio. I am right now interested in creating bookmarklets for my personal uses and here are some useful links that I got from a preliminary search:

jalarie: BookMarklet Editor
HTML URL-encoding Reference | W3 Schools

More useful resources on bookmarkletting will be populated in my del.icio.us portfolio here.

Keywords: javascripts, bookmarklets, programming

Miscellaneous: Audiometer, Digital Signal Processing, and Hearing Aids

2005-09-30T20:30:00.000+07:00

A relative of mine has a hearing problem and today we and her mom went to see an audiologist for a free hearing check. The process began by the audiologist interviewing her about personal background, e.g. when the hearing problem started, whether she has ever had any accident, etc. We then proceed to the audiometer lab where she was asked to stay in an acoustically isolated sound booth for an audio responsiveness test.

My relative was asked to put on a headphone and the audiologist used an audiology workstation (a Pentium personal computer with hardware interfaces to audiology instrumentations, such as the audiometer). The workstation was used to generate the sounds of various frequencies and various loudnesses separatedly for the left ear and the right ear.

I remember the frequency range was logarithmically spaced from 250 Hz to 15,000 Hz, in various increments. For each frequency point, the audiologist started with a typical loudness, such as 60 dB, and increased/decreased the loudness up and down to get the minimum and maximum volumes that my relative can comfortably hear at particular frequencies.

The result of this audiometer test is an audiogram that looks like this one, which the responsiveness of the ears at particular frequencies. A verbal test to check for her linguistic problem was followed up. She passed the verbal test fine and was suggested to use the hearing aids to improve her hearing.

The audiologist then presented us a tiny pair of the hearing aids, described as of digital, behind-the-ear type. He wanted her to try them on and, to my wonder, he used a computer software to input my relative's audiogram and program it to the hearing aids by an instrument connected to the serial port of the computer.

From what he explained, advanced [Digital Signal Processing (DSP)] technologies was used in these digital hearing aids. The hearing aids are capable of monitoring sound inputs from the environment and adjusting the outputs to match the programmed audiogram data so that my relative can hear the world comfortably. The hearing aids are also smart enough to sense the unusually loud sounds, such as the sound of motor vehicles or fireworks, and to produce the output sounds at a comfortable loudness.

My relative tried the hearing aids on for a while. We were very satisfied and were quite happy to see her hear the world with the clarity that she has never had before.

We began to ask the audiologist about the price for these, and again we were amazed!! My relative is recommended to use a pair of these, for her left ear and right ear. Each of it cost 39,000 Thai Baht (approximately 1,000 US dollars). So...we would have to pay 78,000 Baht for a pair of these!!! I can't believe a tiny pair of hearing aids can be this expensive, compared to almost 50 Baht/meal that we pay for typical food here.

We had to roll back and study carefully about the alternatives we have for hearing aids. We were informed that the price of each one varies from 10,000 Bht for older analog model to 80,000-90,000 Bht for fancy digital ones.

I did a preliminary search and found some useful links:

Types of hearing aids
Fact sheet on choosing a hearing aid
DSP-type hearing aids
The hearing-aids Wikipedia
Sample price list of digital hearing aids
Nice Bernafon Symbio XT hearing aids
Hearing aid comparison chart

Keywords: health, technology, hearing-aids

Generating a Trackback Link and the Role of RDF

2005-09-29T14:53:00.000+07:00

Today's Research Question:

How is a Trackback Link Generated? What is the Role of RDF in Trackbacks? Can the Trackback mechanism be used to embed other RDF metadata elements to a blog entry?

This Wikipedia link here could be a starting point.

Keywords: blogging, rdf, metadata

Captcha -- The Word Verification Technique

2005-09-29T14:02:00.000+07:00

Browsing through an article on PlanetRDF.com made me learn a new geek word. I just know that there is also a proper word for the "word verification" techniques to prevent automated operation of Web software by computer codes (see image below).

As pointed by the Planet RDF article, according to Wikipedia, this proper word is "captcha", an acronym for "completely automated public turing test to tell computers and humans apart."

Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human, a common type of which requires that the user type the letters of a distorted and/or obscured sequence of letters or digits that appears on the screen.

Keywords: languages

Reuters News: Did you say dogging or blogging?

2005-09-29T13:45:00.000+07:00

This is interesting and worth considering:

Reuters News quoted by Planet RDF:

Reuters, London:

Proponents of the latest Web trends were warned on Tuesday that the rest of the world may not have a clue what they are talking about...When I asked the panel whether people were talking about blogging, they thought I meant dogging.

A blog, short for Web log, is an online journal, while podcasting is a method of publishing audio programs over the Internet -- a name derived from combining iPod, Apple's popular digital music player, with broadcasting, even though portable devices are not necessary to listen to a podcast.

Keywords: news, languages

Personal Portfolio of Web Metadata

2005-09-28T11:07:00.000+07:00

Today's Research Question

How do we extract metadata (RSS, FOAF, RDF) from webpages and web objects (such as PDF files, JPEG images, PowerPoint slides) and store them somewhere to build a personal portfolio some part of which could be shared to the others by means of the social web?

This could enhance personal knowledge management experience and, from the social effect, could also expand individuals' knowledge by sharing parts of their portfolios with the group of people having the same interests.

There are a number of interesting projects that could somehow be integrated and developed to achieve this. To me, given the popularity and content-richness of del.icio.us and the innovative browser integration of Piggy Bank, these projects are currently two outstanding candidates.

Keywords: social-effect, semantic-web, social-web, metadata

A Thought on a Reasoner-enabled Version of Del.icio.us (and perhaps Technorati)

2005-09-26T14:44:00.000+07:00

I have been adding more bookmarks to my del.icio.us account and have begun tagging them with RDF-like object/datatype properties. Adding more and more object/datatype properties to the bookmark, a provoking thought popped up:

It would be nice if tagging can be assisted by ontologies and a logic reasoner. Look at del.icio.us/thitiv. The _hasAffilication:CUPhoto property should be a subproperty of _hasAffiliation:Chula (provided that CUPhoto stands for Chula Photo Club.) Also, aticles on 'tagging' are subclass of articles on 'metadata'. But articles on 'metadata' are not essentially the articles on 'tagging'. 'Friends' versus 'people' is also another example. Bookmarks about my friends are of course bookmarks about people. But not all the people I know or found on the Internet (through search engines) are my friends. Ontology-assisted tagging sounds promising to solve this problem.

In principle, this problem is partly related to what mentioned in the MIT's Piggy Bank paper submitted for International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC) 2005 and I am looking into it.

Keywords: semantic-web, tagging

Metadata-rich Bookmarking with MIT's Piggy Bank

2005-09-24T14:42:00.000+07:00

Piggy Bank
Semantic Bank

I found an interesting project by MIT which builds a Mozilla Firefox browser plugin called Piggy Bank that allows us to extract RDF metadata from a web page or to easily create one on our own if a web page doesn't provide so. Piggy Bank allows us to manage our bookmarks based on their RDF metadata. Users can also share their RDF-enriched bookmarks with their friends and colleagues through a central server called the Semantic Bank.

Keywords: semantic-web, web-browsers, firefox, metadata

Parallel/Cluster Computing Element-Free Galerkin Method Papers

2005-09-24T13:39:00.000+07:00

My master thesis was about parallel computing + meshless finite-element analysis on a Beowulf-type Linux cluster. I have uploaded a paper I presented at the 8 th. East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-8) conference in Singapore in December 2001 and a copy of my master thesis to the school web server. I think they would be useful for those interested in these reseach areas.

Keywords: parallel-computing, cluster-computing, mpi, beowulf, linux, meshless, finite-element-analysis, structural-engineering, computational-mechanics, thesis, phd

My Favorite Life-style Blog by "~. O^r^M .~"

2005-09-24T11:43:00.000+07:00

"~. O^r^M .~"

If you can read Thai and you're interested in Bangkok lifestyle, check this blog by Orm, my junior at school. Orm's blog is one of my favorite page to know what is going on around Bangkok!

Keywords: phd, friends, life-style

Web 2.0 = Tim Berners Lee's Semantic Web meets social software

2005-09-23T16:11:00.000+07:00

Web 2.0: The new buzzword in Internet technology | Kairosnews

This article from Kairosnews gives a concise definition to Web 2.0 "Tim Berners Lee's Semantic Web meets social software."

A link to the article

Life With Alacrity: Tracing the Evolution of Social Software

on social software is also provided at the Kairosnews blog. On my first glance, the article seems interesting and I have put it on my must-read list.

Keywords: semantic-web, social-software, social-web