Sin noticias de Dios (No news from god)

The future of education begins today (UDACITY)

2012-01-26T20:12:00.002Z

After the success of the "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course (www.ai-class.org), Sebastian Thrun and a team of professors, engineers, designers, etc want to turn upside down higher education as we understand it today.

UDACITY is an open online university. Imagine the possibilities of a world with billions of educated humans. How many new ideas that could make our live better get lost because some genious does not have access to education.

Say hello today to the future of education.

www.udacity.com

Find all the pairs in an array of integers which sum X (in C)

2012-01-21T20:45:00.003Z

/*
* main.c
*
* Created on: Jan 21, 2012
* Author: julio
*/
#include

void findPairsAdding(int array[], int size, int sum){

 // Assuming the array is sorted
 int i = 0, j = size -1;
 while(i < j){
  if(array[i] + array[j] == sum){
   // We have found a pair, now let's take care of duplicates
   int k = i, l = j;
   // From i to k duplicated values of the lower value
   while(k < l && array[k] == array[k +1])
    k++;
   // from k to l duplicated values of the higher value
   while(k < l && array[l] == array[l -1])
    l--;
   int aux1 = i, aux2 = j;
   for(aux1 = i ; aux1 <= k ; aux1++){
    for(aux2 = j; aux2>=l; aux2--){
     printf("i: %d, j: %d, (%d, %d) = %d\n",aux1,aux2,
       array[aux1],array[aux2],sum);
    }
   }
   i = aux1-1;
   j = aux2+1;
  }
  if(array[i] + array[j] > sum)j--;
  else i++;
 }
}

int main(int argc, char ** argv){
 int a[] = {1,2,8,9};
 findPairsAdding(a,4,10);
 return 0;
}

Is your machine little or big endian? Find it out!!

2012-01-15T20:43:00.004Z

Little endian is a multibyte hardware storage scheme where the most significant byte (the one whose bits contribute a bigger amount to the resulting number) is stored in the lower address. For instance, if an integer is represented with 4 bytes, the number 1 will be represented as:

memory address  0        1        2        3   
Value           00000000 00000000 00000000 00000001

Big endian stores the most significant byte in the highest address. So, again our integer with decimal value 1 will be stored as the following binary number:

memory address  0        1        2        3   
Value           00000001 00000000 00000000 00000000

Do you want to know if your machine stores numbers in Little or Big endian? The following C code will give you the answer:

#include 

int isLittleEndian(){
       // Create an integer with the least significant byte set to 1
       int x = 0x0001;
       //  Get a pointer to the integer, interpret it as a byte, and see
       //  what it contains. So we are giving a look to the contents of the
       //  lowest memory address. If it contain the LSB then it is not 
       //  little endian
       if(*(char*)(&x)==1) return 0;
       else return 1;
}

int main(){
       printf("Is Little Endian: %s",(isLittleEndian())?"True":"False");
       return 0;
}

Again, do not forget that endianness is a characteristic of the hardware.

"Private" corporation's space age

2012-01-08T08:05:00.005Z

Sending things to the space is an extremely expensive business (around 8000$/Kg), and one of the reasons maybe the fact that economies of scale don't apply. As more and more activity takes place in low Earth orbit, the costs tend to decrease, but the reduction is slow if there is no competition between private corporations.

Next February the 7th an amazing milestone is going to be achieved; the first ever private spaceship is going to be launched to the International Space Station. It is an unmanned vehicle that will bring a few supplies to our fellow humans whose residence lays in the boundaries of our home Earth. The mission and type of vehicle brings to mind the European Space Agency's ETV missions. Once more our American fellows are much more dynamic and innovative (and probably cheaper). The unmanned Dragon capsule has been designed and built by SpaceX, and will be launched by a Falcon 9 booster, also designed and built by SpaceX, from Cape Canaveral space center in Florida.

I truly believe that paving the way for private capital and profit based research and engineering into the space industry will accelerate its development, and that we will see much more activity our there in the near future than we are used to. Now, these things don't come without risks.Thus, if a company is granted permission to mine the moon, control mechanisms have to be put in place, otherwise we as humans will end up destroying yet another celestial object.

Exciting times ahead of us!!!!

Perpetual Motion :)

2012-01-04T19:13:00.003Z

Shifting decipher (probability based)

2011-12-18T21:54:00.004Z

A little experiment using probability to find out the shifting applied to encrypt a message.

dicctionary = ['the', "and","by","to", "in", "out"]
message = "Esp qtcde nzyqpcpynp zy esp ezatn zq Lcetqtntlw\
Tyepwwtrpynp hld spwo le Olcexzfes Nzwwprp ty estd jplc."

separation_characters =[' ','.']

score = []

m = [x.lower() for x in message]
m = "".join(m)
for i in range(27):
  sh = []
  for x in m:
      if x in separation_characters:
          sh.append(x)
      else:
          sh.append(chr(((ord(x)+i-97)%26 + 97)))
  sh = "".join(sh)
  words = sh.split(" ")
  print words
  found = 0
  for w in words:
      if w in dicctionary:
          found = found + 1
  print found/len(words)
  score.append(found/float(len(words)))
print score
maxval = 0
maxindex = 0
for i in range(len(score)):
  if score[i] > maxval:
      maxval = score[i]
      maxindex = i
print "SHIFT%d"%(maxindex)
sh = []
for x in m:
  if x in separation_characters:
      sh.append(x)
  else:
      sh.append(chr(((ord(x)+maxindex-97)%26 + 97)))  
print "".join(sh)

Hanoi Towers solver (python)

2011-12-18T21:47:00.002Z

This is not the most elegant of efficient piece of code, but it was quite fun to write (http://www.ideone.com/g6Zhb):

def print_game(board):
 for l in board:
  print l
 print "----"


def initial_state(board,count):
 board[0] = range(count,0,-1)
 board[1] = []
 board[2] = []
 
def goal_state(board,count):
 board[0] = []
 board[1] = []
 board[2] = range(count,0,-1)
 

def children(board):
 children = list()
 if board[0] != []:
  val = board[0][-1]
  if len(board[1]) == 0 or board[1][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board) 
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][0:-1]
   child[1] = board[1][:]
   child[1].append(val)
   child[2] = board[2][:]
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
  if len(board[2]) == 0 or board[2][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board)
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][0:-1]
   child[1] = board[1][:]
   child[2] = board[2][:]
   child[2].append(val)
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
 if board[1] != []:
  val = board[1][-1]
  if len(board[0]) == 0 or board[0][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board)
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][:]
   child[0].append(val)
   child[1] = board[1][0:-1]
   child[2] = board[2][:]
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
  if len(board[2]) == 0 or board[2][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board)
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][:]
   child[1] = board[1][0:-1]
   child[2] = board[2][:]
   child[2].append(val)
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
 if board[2] != []:
  val = board[2][-1]
  if len(board[0]) == 0 or board[0][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board)
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][:]
   child[0].append(val)
   child[1] = board[1][:]
   child[2] = board[2][0:-1]
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
  if len(board[1]) == 0 or board[1][-1] > val:
   #print_game(board)
   child = list([[],[],[]])
   child[0] = board[0][:]
   child[1] = board[1][:]
   child[1].append(val)
   child[2] = board[2][0:-1]
   children.append(child)
   #print_game(child)
 return children

def isInExplored(explored,state):
 for s in explored:
  if s == state:
   return True
 return False
 
def main():
 board = list([[],[],[]])
 goal = list([[],[],[]])
 initial_state(board,7)
 goal_state(goal,7)
 frontier = []
 level = []
 currentLevel = 0
 explored = []
 path = []
 parent = [0]
 frontier.append(board)
 level.append(currentLevel)
 while len(frontier) > 0:
  state = frontier.pop(0)
  currentLevel = level.pop(0)
  father = parent.pop(0)
  #print currentLevel
  #print_game(state)
  if state == goal:
   print "GOAL FOUND:"
   print currentLevel
   print_game(state)
   for i in range(currentLevel):
    print_game(explored[father])
    father = path[father]
   
  explored.append(state)
  path.append(father)
  for child in children(state):
   if isInExplored(explored,child) == False and isInExplored(frontier,child) == False:
    frontier.append(child)
    level.append(currentLevel + 1)
    parent.append(len(explored)-1)
 print len(explored)
 

main()

Mars rover Curiosity landing tests

2011-12-03T11:58:00.002Z

My last post included a video with a simulation of the Curiosity rover landing in Mars. Well, you may guess that a multi million dollar machine is not sent to Mars before a little bit of real testing. So, wait no more, here you a video with actual testing footage:

Enjoy!!

Spirit and Opportunity big brother "Curiosity"

2011-11-20T22:42:00.003Z

After the huge success of the little Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the excitement is building up for Curiosity, a much more powerful, autonomous and versatile rover. Watch the following amazing video. The landing in Mars is just stunning!!!!

For more information and thrill visit Nasa's website section dedicated to the mission.

Enjoy!!!

Sending mail through gmail using Python

2011-10-23T18:33:00.003Z

The more I use Python the more I like it. Thanks to its immense user base there are libraries available to do practically anything you can think of. For instance, the following very simple code snippet sends mail using an existing gmail account:

import smtplib

fromA = 'your_account@gmail.com'
to = raw_input("Destination Mail: ")

username="your_account@gmail.com"
password=raw_input("Introduce your password: ")

msg="Subject: Test Subject\n\n"
msg=msg+raw_input("Message: ")
server=smtplib.SMTP("smtp.gmail.com:587")
server.starttls()
server.login(username,password)
server.sendmail(fromA,to,msg)
server.quit()

AI applets

2011-10-23T17:16:00.002Z

I am following the online Introduction to AI course provided by Stanford University. At the moment we are "playing" with Bayesian Networks, a very interesting and powerful probabilistic tool.

I have found a very interesting set of applets that let you play with different concepts related to AI, including Bayesian Networks:

http://www.aispace.org/bayes/index.shtml

Enjoy the ride!!!

Running pictures collection

2011-10-23T10:11:00.005Z

R.I.P. Dennis Ritchie

2011-10-13T20:49:00.002Z

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie

http://herbsutter.com/2011/10/12/dennis-ritchie/

There are may kinds geniuses but I praise those who make visionary's visions possible. We need more engineers and scientists like Dennis Ritchie to make the world a better place for everyone.

Online Audio Converter

2011-10-07T20:28:00.002Z

I needed to convert a wav file to mp3 format, to upload a test to my myspace, and my brand new linux distro does not have any mp3 encoder. No problem, in this era of cloud computing there is a service to convert audio files online:

http://media.io/

Good stuff!!!

Galway Bay Half Marathon 2011 Video

2011-10-02T08:48:00.006Z

Look carefully, I am in the middle of the image in the second 47

Galway Bay Half Marathon 2011 Results

2011-10-01T14:57:00.002Z

Not bad at all, considering that I didn't do any specific preparation:

1:39:11

This is my second best time ever, so I am delighted. I would have been happy with a 1:45:00, so 6 minutes faster means a lot to me :)

Galway Bay Half Marathon, 1st October 2011

2011-09-25T19:03:00.003Z

This is my next running challenge. In fact it is going to be the third half marathon I run this year, after achieving a new Personal Best in Geneva (1:37:20). I haven't really trained for it, but have managed to keep my fitness level high enough, to be able to complete a half marathon without much suffering. I'll be happy with a 1:45:00.

Language interpreter that executes on a browser

2011-09-25T18:53:00.002Z

Thank's to David Horat, I have discovered an amazing online application that let's you play (and learn) a number of interpreted languages. The best of it all is that the actual interpreters are executed in the client, since they are written in Javascript. This client execution offers a speed advantage over other similar applications.

REPT.IT

The things we do at Duolog

2011-09-16T18:55:00.002Z

Hi,

If the information in our website (www.duolog.ie) is not enough give a look at Duolog's facebook.

My own Olive Cake

2011-09-09T20:04:00.001Z

Look what a beauty I cooked for dinner today !!!!:

Eclipse SWT - JFace resources

2011-09-03T20:03:00.004Z

Recently I have begun to study development using the Eclipse RCP. If your RCP application has a GUI you are going to have to get familiar with SWT and JFace. In order to help other in their way to achieve this goal, I am providing here a few references that I have found particularly useful.

General reference links:

SWT main website (http://www.eclipse.org/swt/)
SWT widgets screenshots (http://www.eclipse.org/swt/widgets/)
SWT wiki (http://wiki.eclipse.org/SWT)
Comprehensive SWT widgets list and documentation (http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/reference/api/org/eclipse/swt/widgets/package-summary.html)
JFace wiki (http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/JFace)

Tutorials

Very basic example driven tutorial (http://zetcode.com/tutorials/javaswttutorial/). Recommended for those with some exposure to Swing

That's it for the moment. I will be updating this post as I move along my study path.

Enjoy!!!

At Duolog we have a new website

2011-09-01T19:21:00.002Z

www.duolog.com

Check it out.

Heading back to Ireland

2011-08-23T19:10:00.003Z

Yes!!!!

More than two years ago I moved from Ireland (Limerick), to Switzerland (Lausanne, Vevey), and now I repeat the move but this time in the opposite direction. This time I am coming back to Galway. I already lived there in 2008-09, and I have to say it is one of my favourite places to live in the world.

I am really excited about this new stage of my life, where I hope I'll be happy personally and professionally. On verra!!!!

More to come soon.

Clojure Fibonacci series

2011-08-12T15:42:00.003Z

(defn fibo [x]

(if (> x 1) (+ (fibo (- x 1)) (fibo (- x 2))) x) )

(println (map fibo (range 20)))

Clojure is a functional language that targets, amongst others, the Java Virtual Machine. You can try Clojure with an online interpreter.

The most advanced machine ever built launched for the last time

2011-07-09T17:54:00.005Z

It is a bit sad, isn't it? You wouldn't believe the amount of thing part of our day-life that sprang out the the Shuttle program.

Our hopes keep high though.

Change Risk Analysis and Predictions, A.K.A. Crap

2011-06-26T10:36:00.003Z

I'm am really impressed by the creativity of the open source community when it comes to choose names for their projects. Today I found this hilarious one:

Crap4j: Although the name is "weird" the tool seems to be pretty useful to protect you against crappy code generated by you and by others around you.

Give a look at the logo:

Geneva Half Marathon Result

2011-06-06T20:30:00.004Z

Yeah,

I beat my personal best, and set it to 1:37:25, about 2'30'' better than my previous one, set back in 2005. So it took me almost 6 years, but it was worth the wait.

Link to the official results.

Link to my pictures.

For those who want to try to repeat my success, I have followed Hal Higdon training program for intermediate runners.

Enjoy!!!

Geneva Half Marathon

2011-05-08T11:04:00.004Z

OK,

The Lausanne 20Km route was quite tough, basically because it was all the time either too steep uphill or too steep downhill. Now, next Sunday 15th of May 2011, there is a FLAT half marathon in Geneva, and so I have decided to take part. I know I'm fit at the moment, and that I have good chances to match my PB (1:39:30 in a Half Marathon).

So, out of the disappointment comes a new me, ready to embark in this new challenge. I can't deny competition is in my blood, but what can match the thrill of becoming better and better and better? Sticking to a discipline and experience how it eventually pays off, establishing new goals and striving to achieve them, that is priceless and somehow gives a meaning to part of my life :)

I'll keep you posted.

Lausanne 20Km result

2011-05-08T11:01:00.002Z

No really as good as I would have liked, but I sort of new that my limit was around 1:40, and so I did:

1:40:42, which gives an poor average of 5:02 per Km. Far from my past performance.

I'll do better next time!!!!!!

Lausanne 20K race, TODAY!!

2011-04-30T09:09:00.003Z

After more than 12 weeks following an intense half marathon training program (thanks Hal), the day has finally arrived.

The 2oK of Lausanne it is not exactly a half marathon, as you may suspect from its name. However, is the first big running event of the summer season in the Swiss Riviera, and I can't wait!!!!!!!

After this race I want to try a few mountain ones, starting with one in Vallorbe. If the experience is good, there are plenty of mountains and mountain races in the area :).

I'll post my time as soon as I know it :)

Cheers

My first android post

2011-04-29T21:27:00.001Z

My first post from my new android mobile. Also adding a funny picture

Kata: Palindrome generation in Python

2011-04-17T16:16:00.003Z

I took this Kata from topcoder.com. My initial solution:

def isPalindrome(n):
       return n == reverseNumber(n)
      
def generatePalindrome(n):
       while not isPalindrome(n):
               n = n + reverseNumber(n)
       return n

def reverseNumber(n):
       res = 0
       while n > 0:
               res =  (res*10) + (n%10)
               n = n/10
       return res
      
n = 265
print reverseNumber(n)
print n
print isPalindrome(24543)
print generatePalindrome(24543)

Project Euler N° 2, in Ruby

2011-04-16T14:40:00.001Z

http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=2

Each new term in the Fibonacci sequence is generated by adding the previous two terms. By starting with 1 and 2, the first 10 terms will be:

1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, ...

By considering the terms in the Fibonacci sequence whose values do not exceed four million, find the sum of the even-valued terms.


def fib(limit)
 f_n_1 = 1
 f_n_2 = 1
 curr = [1,1]
 while (f_n_1 + f_n_2) <= limit
  curr.push(f_n_1 + f_n_2)
  f_n_2 = f_n_1
  f_n_1 = curr.last
 end
 return curr
end

Limit = 4000000
allFib = fib(Limit)
iter = allFib.size/3
puts allFib
puts iter

sum = 0
for i in 0..iter
 if i*3 + 2 > allFib.size
  break
 end
 sum += allFib[i*3 + 2]
end

puts sum

Project Euler problem N° 1 in Ruby

2011-04-15T16:23:00.002Z

http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=1



def addMultiplesOf(n,range)
 nb_of_multiples = 1 + range/n
 res = n*((nb_of_multiples/2)*(nb_of_multiples-1))
 return res
end

N = 999

puts addMultiplesOf(3,N) + addMultiplesOf(5,N) - addMultiplesOf(15,N)

Project Euler is avery interesting site proposing dozens of very amusing and challenging mathematical and computational problems. Give it try, it is well worth your time.

Swapping to numbers without an auxiliary variable

2011-04-09T12:46:00.003Z

Hi,

following with my current geek/nerd stuff writing spree, today I want to introduce a very simple way to swap to numbers, without a third variable


a = a + b
b = a - b
a = a - b

Nice and simple, the explanation is dead simple and obvious, but anyway here it goes:


a = a + b , nothing to say here
b = a - b = a + b - b = a
a = a - b = a + b - a = b

There is another nice, yet less intuitive way to do this, by using XOR:


a = a XOR b
b = a XOR b
a = a XOR b

Think about it, and enjoy.

Simple Event Manager in Ruby

2011-04-02T19:34:00.002Z

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class Event
 USER_CONNECTED = 1
 SERVER_CONNECTED = 2
end

class Listener
 def onEvent(event,params=[])
   puts event
 end
end

class EventManager
 def initialize()
   @listenersMap = Hash.new
 end

 def subscribe(event,listener)
   listeners = @listenersMap[event]
   if listeners == nil
     @listenersMap[event] = Array.new
   else
     if @listenersMap[event].include?(listener)
       return
     end
   end
   @listenersMap[event].push(listener)
 end

 def notify(event)
   if @listenersMap[event] != nil
     @listenersMap[event].each do |lis|
       lis.onEvent(event)
     end
   end
 end
end

puts "Initializing the event manager"
lis = Listener.new
manager = EventManager.new
manager.subscribe(Event::USER_CONNECTED,lis)
manager.subscribe(Event::USER_CONNECTED,lis)
manager.notify(Event::USER_CONNECTED)

Kata 2: Sorting a list of integers

2011-03-28T00:05:00.005Z

C (http://ideone.com/Zf6rB)

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#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

/*
Order an Array of integers, coding kata.
In C we will have to program our own sorting
algorithm. For simplicity our own very inefficient
sorting algorithm is used
*/

void printArray(int* list, int size);
void sortAscending(int* list, int size);


int main()
{
        int size = 50;
        int list[size];
        // Initialize the array in reverse order
        int i = 0;
        for(i = size ; i > 0 ; i--)
        {
                list[size-i] = i;
        }
        printArray(list,size);
        sortAscending(list,size);
        printArray(list,size);
       
}

void printArray(int* list, int size)
{
        int i = 0;
        for(i = 0 ; i < size ; i++)
        {
                printf("list[%d] = %d\n",i,list[i]);
        }
}

void sortAscending(int* list, int size){
        // Variable to swap values
        int aux;
        // Variable to knwo when we are done ordering
        int comparisonCounter = 0;
        int index = 0;
        while(index < size -1)
        {
                comparisonCounter++;
                if( list[index] > list[index+1] )
                {
                        aux = list[index];
                        list[index] = list[index+1];
                        list[index+1] = aux;
                        index = (--index >= 0)?index:0;
                }
                else
                {
                        index++;
                }
        }
        printf("Comparisons done = %d\n",comparisonCounter);
}

Greater Common Divisor (GCD), the Euclidean way

2011-03-27T15:59:00.007Z

GDC using the Euclidean algorithm and different programming languages (as a means of a very simple coding kata):

Python (http://ideone.com/jqCLR):

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def gcd(num,den):
rem = abs(num%den)
print "num: %d, den: %d, rem: %d"%(num,den,rem)
if (rem == 0):
     return den
else:
     return gcd(den,rem)


# Result should be 11 for all of the following  
print gcd(110,33)
print gcd(-110,33)
print gcd(33,-110)
print gcd(33,110)

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#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

// Function prototype
int gcd(int a,int b);

int main()
{
printf("GCD(%d,%d) = %d\n",110,33,gcd(110,33));
printf("GCD(%d,%d) = %d\n",110,-33,gcd(110,-33));
printf("GCD(%d,%d) = %d\n",33,110,gcd(33,110));
printf("GCD(%d,%d) = %d\n",33,-110,gcd(33,-110));
exit(0);
}

int gcd(int a, int b)
{
int rem = abs(a%b);
if(rem == 0)
{
       return b;
}
else
{
       return gcd(b,rem);
}
}
 
C++


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#include <iostream>
#include <cstdlib>
using namespace std;

class GDC
{
public:
  int calculateGDC(int a, int b);
};

int main()
{
  GDC * calculator = new GDC();
  int a = 110;
  int b = 33;
  cout << "GDC(" << a << "," << b << ") = " << calculator->calculateGDC(a,b) << endl;
  cout << "GDC(" << a << "," << -b << ") = " << calculator->calculateGDC(a,-b) << endl;
  cout << "GDC(" << -a << "," << b << ") = " << calculator->calculateGDC(-a,b) << endl;
  cout << "GDC(" << -a << "," << b << ") = " << calculator->calculateGDC(-a,b) << endl;
  delete calculator;
  exit(0);
}



int GDC::calculateGDC(int a, int b)
{
  int rem = abs(a%b);
  if (rem == 0)
  {
          return b;
  }
  else
  {
          return this->calculateGDC(b,rem);
  }
}

Java (http://ideone.com/nFqLf)

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import java.math.*;
public class Main
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
            int a = 110;
            int b = 33;
            Main calc = new Main();
            System.out.println("GDC("+a+","+b+") = "+ calc.calculateGDC(a,b));
            System.out.println("GDC("+a+","+-b+") = "+ calc.calculateGDC(a,-b));
            System.out.println("GDC("+-a+","+b+") = "+ calc.calculateGDC(-a,b));
            System.out.println("GDC("+-a+","+-b+") = "+ calc.calculateGDC(-a,-b));
    }

    int calculateGDC(int a, int b){
            int rem = Math.abs(a%b);
            if (rem == 0)
            {
                    return b;
            }
            else
            {
                    return this.calculateGDC(b,rem);
            }
    }
}

Ruby (http://ideone.com/Q8HPg)

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def mcd(a,b)
 rem = (a%b).abs
 if rem == 0 then
   return b
 else
   return mcd(b,rem)
 end
end

puts mcd(110,44)
puts mcd(110,33)
puts mcd(110,-33)
puts mcd(33,-110)

Java Regular Expressions

2011-03-26T19:23:00.004Z

Today I want to provide some useful information about the use of regular expressions in Java.

Regular expressions handling is part of the Java library, adding to the vast functionality already offered by it. In short, we could say that regular expressions represent string patterns

They have may uses. For instance, they can be used to filter the files in a directory whose name follows a particular pattern.

The good news about Java and regular expressions, is that the API is pretty simple (something that can not be said about other APIs in the standard library). It is based in the use of two classes, the Pattern and the Matcher. Obviously the Pattern class represents the regular expression pattern, while the Matcher applies the regular expression to a particular String.

There are three ways to use a Matcher:

To find substrings matching the pattern
To check in the whole input string matches the pattern
To check if a defined region within the inputs string matches the pattern

More information can be found in the Java Regular Expressions Trail.

The following code snippet shows how to use a Pattern and a Matcher to filter Strings in an array. It uses the Matcher to check if the whole input matches the pattern. The source code can be edited and downloaded from IDEONE.COM:

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import java.util.*;
import java.lang.*;
import java.util.regex.Pattern;
import java.util.regex.Matcher;

class Main
{
     public static void main (String[] args) throws java.lang.Exception
     {
             System.out.println("Initializing");
             String input[] = {"pattern0_1","pattern1_2","pattern_d"};
             Pattern p = Pattern.compile("(pattern)(\\d+)(_)(\\d)+");
             for(int i = 0 ; i < input.length ; i++){
                     Matcher m = p.matcher(input[i]);
                     if(m.matches()){
                             System.out.println(m.group());
                     }
             }
     }
}

Enjoy!!!

GTK+, Hello World

2011-02-13T17:32:00.003Z

It is not really a hello world application, but since it is my first experience with GTK+ I've decided to use that "familiar" expresion in the title of this post. Here you have the code:

main.c

#include <gtk/gtk.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>


/*
* Function launching the View
*/
void initUI(int argc, char** argv);

/*
* Close window signal handler
*/
void destroy(GtkWidget * widget,gpointer data);

/*
* Login Callback
*/
void login(GtkWidget * widget,gpointer data);

/*
* Application's entry point
*/

int main(int argc, char**argv){
 g_print("INIT APPLICATION\n");
 initUI(argc,argv);
 return 0;
}

void initUI(int argc, char** argv){

 // Initialize GTK
  gtk_init(&argc,&argv);

 // Create the main window Widget
  GtkWidget * mainWindow = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);

 // Set the window title, default size and position (Centered)
  gtk_window_set_title(GTK_WINDOW(mainWindow),"Login");
 gtk_window_set_default_size(GTK_WINDOW(mainWindow),250,100);
 gtk_window_set_position(GTK_WINDOW(mainWindow),GTK_WIN_POS_CENTER);

 /* When resize is off some of the properties are interpreted in weird ways */
 //gtk_window_set_resizable(GTK_WINDOW(mainWindow),FALSE);

 // Set the destroy signal handler, that will be called when the
 // window is closed
  g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(mainWindow),"destroy",G_CALLBACK(destroy),NULL);

 // Now is time to add some panels to layout the content in the window
  GtkWidget * topVPanel = gtk_vbox_new(FALSE,10);
 GtkWidget * buttonsHPanel = gtk_hbox_new(FALSE,0);
 GtkWidget * topHPanel = gtk_hbox_new(FALSE,20);
 GtkWidget * labelsVPanel = gtk_vbox_new(FALSE,0);
 GtkWidget * textsVPanel = gtk_vbox_new(FALSE,0);

 // Now let's link the panels to each other
  gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(topVPanel),topHPanel, FALSE,FALSE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(topVPanel),buttonsHPanel,FALSE,FALSE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(topHPanel),labelsVPanel,FALSE,FALSE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(topHPanel),textsVPanel,FALSE,FALSE,0);

 // Declare and add the buttons
  GtkWidget * loginButton = gtk_button_new();
 GtkWidget * cancelButton = gtk_button_new();
 gtk_button_set_label(GTK_BUTTON(loginButton),"Login");
 gtk_button_set_label(GTK_BUTTON(cancelButton),"Cancel");

 // Link the login button with the login signal handler
  g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(loginButton),"clicked",G_CALLBACK(login),NULL);
 g_signal_connect(G_OBJECT(cancelButton),"clicked",G_CALLBACK(destroy),NULL);
 gtk_box_pack_end(GTK_BOX(buttonsHPanel),cancelButton,FALSE,FALSE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_end(GTK_BOX(buttonsHPanel),loginButton,FALSE,FALSE,0);

 // Declare and add the labels
  GtkWidget * userLabel = gtk_label_new("User");
 GtkWidget * passLabel = gtk_label_new("Password");
 gtk_label_set_width_chars(GTK_LABEL(userLabel),10);
 gtk_label_set_width_chars(GTK_LABEL(passLabel),10);
 gtk_misc_set_alignment(GTK_MISC(userLabel),0,0);
 gtk_misc_set_alignment(GTK_MISC(passLabel),0,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(labelsVPanel),userLabel,TRUE,TRUE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(labelsVPanel),passLabel,TRUE,TRUE,0);


 // Declare and add the text boxes
  GtkWidget * userText = gtk_entry_new();
 GtkWidget * passText = gtk_entry_new();
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(textsVPanel),userText,TRUE,TRUE,0);
 gtk_box_pack_start(GTK_BOX(textsVPanel),passText,TRUE,TRUE,0);

 // Add the top box to the window
  gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(mainWindow),topVPanel);

 gtk_widget_show(topVPanel);
 gtk_widget_show(buttonsHPanel);
 gtk_widget_show(topHPanel);
 gtk_widget_show(labelsVPanel);
 gtk_widget_show(textsVPanel);
 gtk_widget_show(loginButton);
 gtk_widget_show(cancelButton);
 gtk_widget_show(userLabel);
 gtk_widget_show(passLabel);
 gtk_widget_show(userText);
 gtk_widget_show(passText);
 gtk_widget_show(mainWindow);
 //Init the GTK loop
  gtk_main();
}


void destroy(GtkWidget * widget,gpointer data){
 gtk_main_quit();
}

void login(GtkWidget * widget,gpointer data){
 // Create the main window Widget
  GtkWidget * messageWindow = gtk_window_new(GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
 GtkWidget * label = gtk_label_new("Trying to log in the system");

 // Set the window title
  gtk_window_set_title(GTK_WINDOW(messageWindow),"MESSAGE");
 gtk_window_set_default_size(GTK_WINDOW(messageWindow),200,50);
 gtk_window_set_modal(GTK_WINDOW(messageWindow),TRUE);
 gtk_window_set_position(GTK_WINDOW(messageWindow),GTK_WIN_POS_CENTER);

 //gtk_window_set_resizable(GTK_WINDOW(messageWindow),FALSE);
  gtk_container_add(GTK_CONTAINER(messageWindow),label);
 gtk_widget_show(label);
 gtk_widget_show(messageWindow);
}

Compile with:

>>gcc -o a.out main.c `pkg-config --libs --cflags gtk+-2.0`

Online rock radio (Air Mackay)

2011-02-06T17:56:00.001Z

Hi folks,

check this out:

http://www.shoutcast.com/Internet-Radio/air%20mackay

fantastic 70's and 80's rock.

Enjoy!!!

Links to DSL desing/writting in Java:

2011-01-05T16:25:00.004Z

Domain specific languages are powerful, yet to be used-with-care, tools. They can provide new ways of interacting or configuring a system, and greatly increase its productivity and flexibility. New modern (and mostly interpreted) languages like Ruby or Groovy are better suited for DSL implementation than classic languages (Java, C++,...). However Java or C++ can still be used, accepting some verbosity overhead.

The following article offers a fantastic introduction to DSLs, their core concepts, desing and implementation, using both modern and more classical languages. Only one piece is missing; nothing is mentioned about the testability of "ultra-expresive" code. Besides, the redundant information that languages like Java forces us to write, and that the author call "ceremony", help other engineers to understand (and thus maintain) our code. We do not just write code to be executed, but also to be maintained (let's not be selfish please).

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-06-2008/jw-06-dsls-in-java-1.html

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-07-2008/jw-07-dsls-in-java-2.html

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-2008/jw-08-dsls-in-java-3.html

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2008/jw-09-dsls-in-java-4.html

As I said these links provide just introductory information. I'll add more links in the following days or weeks as I continue with my own learning adventure.

Enjoy life to the full!!!!!!!!!!

Edit:

I have found one of those sentences that Guru wannabes (you know, they will look at you and say "We have designed a DSL to....... you know what a DSL is, don't you?") definitely hate:

"Internal DSL" is more or less a fancy name for an API that has been created thinking in terms of readability and focusing on a particular problem of a specific domain.

I have found this in an interesting artical called "An aproach to Internal Domain Specific Languages in Java"

Online compilers

2011-01-04T22:55:00.002Z

Hi there,

There seems to be a good few online compilers, ready to help us whenever we need to test some code or idea, but no compiler is at hand (and we are just too lazy to get one, or we are using a machine where our privileges do not allow us to install one). I have tested just two of them:

http://codepad.org

http://ideone.com

In fact I have created the customary hello world using ideone. Check it out.

This kind of very simple online compilers sprung off the pastebin concetp/idea. The wikipedia provides many links to different pastebin sites.

Enjoy

White Christmas? No thanks

2010-12-21T17:43:00.004Z

Yesterday I left Switzerland with less than 5°C, and an all white landscape. Nice, really Christmaish, but cold, "effing" cold.

Today I woke up in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, with 25°C, and an all blue wonderful sky. Nice, not Christmaish at all, but cool, "effing" cool.

:)

P.S: Around mid-day the thermomiter raised to 30°C

Time goes by (once more)

2010-12-11T20:20:00.001Z

PLC programming, IEC 61131

2010-12-04T13:58:00.005Z

Here you have a few links that may help you getting started with PLCs programming:

Wikipedia, what else? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_61131-3
www.plcopen.org introduction to the standard. www.plcopen.org/pages/pc2_training/downloads/downloads/new_intro_iec.doc
Comparison of the different languages defined by the standard: www.automation.com/pdf_articles/IEC_Programming_Thayer_L.pdf
Great online book: http://engineeronadisk.com/V2/book_PLC/engineeronadisk.html

Enjoy!!

Support WikiLeaks

2010-12-03T20:27:00.003Z

Python to .exe

2010-11-20T10:33:00.002Z

Have you ever wondered how to distribute your python programs as a self contained .exe, so that your potential user don't even have to install any Python interpreter?

The answer is easy, use py2exe. In this post I'm going to provide a step by step guide on how to use it. Take it as just a quick introductory guide to get you started:

Obviously a working python script is necessary, as well as a python interpreter (preferably >= 2.), since py2exe is just a python module.
I don't mean to be repetitive, but your python script must be a working one. For your first experience with py2exe it is recommended to have a very simple script depending on just the standard library.
Create a setup script, that is another python script with the obvious name of setup.py:


from distutils.core import setup
import py2exe

setup(console=['yourapp.py'])

Run the setup script:
```
python setup.py py2exe
```
Now you should have an exe file ready to be executed. The file is placed under the dist folder, created just under the folder where the setup script was executed

I hope it works fine for you, it does the trick for me.

Enjoy!!!!!

Python Bresenham's algorithm

2010-08-14T16:42:00.000Z

Do not look any further:

http://snipplr.com/view/22482/bresenhams-line-algorithm/

Enjoy!!!

Java GUI programming

2010-05-16T16:44:00.003Z

Here you have a small compilation of links to different alternatives for Java GUI programming:

.- The official GUI programming trail: Of course the classical aproach to GUI programming is using Java's GUI APIs (AWT, SWING, JFC). While being able to put together UIs using Swing is enough for most developers, the real power comes from a deep understanding of its achitecture.

.- The Standard Widget Toolkit: Eclipse's GUI framework, originally developped by IBM.

.- JavaFX: This API is geared toward RIAs (Rich Internet Applications). However it may be worth a try.

.- Miglayout: Layout manager for Swing and SWT. The layout managers included in any JDK are cumbersome and its very difficult to get the GUI you want, and that it adapts properly to different resolutions. Miglayout come to take layout managers a step higher.

Seemingly, there are not many other tools widely adopted.

I may post more information in the following days, following my investigation on aternatives to Swing.

Enjoy!!

Pride and prejudice, by Jane Austen

2010-05-15T18:04:00.003Z

In part because I forgot to include this book in my last post, and in part because I honestly believe it deserves its own one, here you have my views and feelings about it:

At the present time I expect everyone to be aware of the book's plot. Here we have a group of girls on heavy hormone doses, in the Victorian Great Britain. The books is not more that the tale of their flirting adventures, but what a tale!!

Every character is the book is so wittingly drawn, that after a few chapters we get to understand the way each one plays or accepts the rules of the Victorian world. The story itself is weak, but the way in which the society and its protocols is described is just astonishing.

On top of that, the book is full of emotions, and the connection between the characters and the reader is total. At some point I was feeling so anxious that my heart began to beat faster, and I had "that" feeling on my stomach.....

All in all, a very enjoyable book. Not for English beginners though. The language and the grammar used, can discourage many people and make the whole experience a nightmare.

Regards.

Mark Twain's biography + full works

2010-05-15T09:14:00.004Z

Continuing my journey through the land of the classics of the universal literature, I have left the "old" continent, and set off for the "land of freedom".

I have already read Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery, an inspiring autobiography, describing Mr. Washington's way from a slave's hut, to meeting the president in the White House. Mr. Booker praises himself for his humbleness, however it feels like he is too proud (though he has reasons to be so) of his achievements.

I have also read some of Edgar Poe's creations. What I really enjoyed about them was the simplicity of the language. There was no need to be constantly looking for words or idioms in a dictionary. A simple yet charmingly descriptive and effective style. I'm sure I will come back to him, in the following months.

The book that gives name to this post, is the one that occupies me at the moment. I'm still reading Mark Twain's autobiography and, though he was not a slave, his life conditions and level of education do not match at all my expectations when it comes to an author part of the history of literature. Seemingly he used a good deal of his own life into each of his creations (this is by no means a reproach).

I admit that modern literature must be supported and enjoyed, otherwise the classics in the future will be pretty much the same as today :). But, having so much fun reading what we consider classics today, I find it hard to direct my attention to modern creation. Maybe in about 70 years, when today's books pass to the public domain...

Enjoy life!!

The scream

2010-04-29T21:40:00.003Z

Ja, ja , ja. Isn't it amazing what people come up with off the most unlikely situations?

Actual does not mean Currently

2009-10-21T18:24:00.003Z

In Java/C++/C terms:

Actual != (currently || at the moment || at the present time)

Is not that difficult, for god's sake!!!!!!

E.g. "Based on actual facts", sentence commonly used in movies, means that the facts are genuine, not that they are current, or recent.

E.g. "In the current financial situation Banks are reluctant to lend money", so, because of the situation we are going through at the moment, Banks will not give you money for that car you SO want.

Please, is not that difficult, why so many non-native English speakers believe that being able to communicate is just enough? no, it is not!!! I understand what they think the meaning of the word "actual" is, because I am Spanish, and the Spanish word "actual" has the same meaning as the English "currently". But that is not the case for a British or an American.

Pleaseeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. What about this grammar jewel: "This is MORE FASTER than ....", hilarious.

UML Cheat Sheet

2009-09-26T17:12:00.001Z

Always comes in handy:

http://www.holub.com/goodies/uml/

http://loufranco.com/blog/assets/cheatsheet.pdf

Regards.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

2009-08-30T11:03:00.004Z

Today I want to recommend you the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. This is an amazing piece of history, written in the most catchy possible way. It grabs you by the neck, and make you not being able to stop reading.

Whether you are interested in the history of the United States, or just in Benjamin himself, or want to achieve some degree of personal growth, this book is, doubtless, for you.

It is a fantastic piece of literature, though it is surprising that men as wise as Benjamin, considered as totally normal to educate women in a different way, towards more "domestic" skills. I´m just about to finish the book and haven´t found any references to slavery, but I´m convinced that even Benjamin, as just and wise as he was, considered this the most natural state of things.

Enjoy and learn.

P.S. Benjamin´s autobiography is a book in the public domain, thus you can get an electronic copy for free, though I´m sure you can grab a paper copy at your local library.

Project Gutenberg´s links to the book.

onlineuniversities.com have provided me with an interesting post about must read biographies.

Time goes by......

2009-08-16T10:32:00.002Z

Salamanca 1996. I look young, don´t I?

In Lausanne

2009-08-10T07:50:00.003Z

Yessssssssss,

Here I am, looking at the lake from a window in the living room. Yesterday I went to Lutry [map], a charming village in the lake Leman, with houses that look like taken from a fairy tale, and a kind of beach and a beautiful promenade that runs through the lake's shore.

Everything is looking good, I feel positive and full of energy, and really looking forward to start discovering every bit that this country has to offer.

Have a good day.

Goodbye Ireland

2009-08-07T14:28:00.004Z

It really feels like it was yesterday, but 4 years have gone by since my first visit to Ireland, and almost 2 years since I moved here. No that I´m leaving this lovely country, it´s time to say goodbye, but most certainly it is time to say thank you, thank you very much:

Valerie. For you is a double bill, it´s thank you and sorry. Your amazing will power is an inspiration, you really deserve every bit you get. I´m sure we will meet at some crazy race.
Moneena. The sweetest person I´ve met in Ireland. Being around happy people make us all feel happier, thanks to you I have felt very very happy. Never change please.
Jen. You are much more than you pretend. I could tell you a thousand things that I like from you, but you already know.
Camila. My little sweet Camila. I don´t have a clue of your whereabouts now, I hope you are in London studying fashion design, as you wanted.
Fintan. I can tell this without fear to be mistaken, you are the best person I´ve ever met. Not only talented but also always ready to help, always with a word of encouragement on your mouth. You know I owe you a lot, and for that I will never tell you "thank you" enough.
Donal. I have learnt and shared a lot with you. I know you have an amazing talent, and I´m sure I´ll see you shining in the near future. I´ll miss our cultural/philosophical chats.
Stephen. You were the first person that believed in me, in Ireland. All my story in the country began in that small (and sometimes smelly) little office in Galway. Thank you.
Luca. I hope you are really really happy in Italy, you deserve it. You helped me a lot to get integrated into Galway, and that made my stay there much better.
Paul. My Limerick running buddy, and a good friend. I wish I could have some of your calm, jeje. I´ll miss our early morning runs, and our laughs in the office.
Sean M. The most non-boss "boss" that I´ve ever had. Thanks for your understanding, I know it´s not always easy to work with me.

I´m sure there are lots and lots of people that I haven´t mentioned and that deserve to be here, sorry. All in all these two years in Ireland have been amazing. There have been good and bad moments, but the good ones outnumber the bad ones by far. I feel happy and I would recommend anyone this country (avoid Limerick though).

Tomorrow will be the day, I can feel it

2009-07-29T18:10:00.004Z

Yes,

Today I have received the confirmation, but tomorrow will be the day when I will exactly know the conditions (it could be on Friday as well, but I feel it´s going to be tomorrow). I am really delighted. All this comes in the best possible moment. This is going to be a fantastic change, in many aspects.

P.S.: There is no irreversible decision. There is nothing that can´t be done, it´s just a matter of dreaming, and put your hart in what you do.

Enjoy.

EDITED [30th July 2009]: Yes my feelings were right, I´ve received the formal offer on Thursday. I have already notified the company, and I don´t have to work any more there, they have been very kind.

Fire!!!

2009-07-26T16:55:00.002Z

Jesus!!!

I was watching the ending ceremony of "Le tour de France" when It started smelling smoke. I guess it´s some kind of ancient instinct that make humans be really scared of fire and smoke. All of sudden I ran to the window and I found a big smoke column beside some trees that are also beside my house. This made me feel really uneasy.

I went out, to the next state and there I discovered that a house was on fire. Some people reported that a group of young lads had been sees in the scene a few minutes before the fire became evident. That is something not surprising considering where I live: Limerick (also knows as "stab city").

I hope the firemen do a good job and the thing is over soon.

Regards.

Paléo Festival

2009-07-23T12:22:00.003Z

Cet soir je va aller au Paléo Festival, à Nyon.

Je veux écouter principalement MOBY, mais Amy Macdonald joue aussi. Originalement Snow Patrol allaient a jouer, mais finalement ils ne viennent pas, je aimerais les écouter.

Bonne journé.

Sans nouvelles de dieu

2009-07-22T10:11:00.004Z

Voilà, "Sans nouvelles de dieu" c'est le nom de mon blog en Français. C'est la premier fois que je écris en Français dans mon blog.

Je me rappelle de la premier fois que j'ai écrit en Anglais. Il m'a fallu plus que deux heures pour écrire une petit post.

J'espère que cette post soit le premier de une longue liste. Il y a trois semaines que j'ai commencé une course de Français à Lausanne, trois heures pour jour. Cette semaine c'est la dernier, mais je vais continuer à étudier le Francais.

J'ai très bonne nouvelles, mais je ne peux pas vous dire encore. Si tout va bien, la semaine prochaine je vous dirai.

Bonne journée.

Listen to Silvio

2009-07-13T07:58:00.002Z

2D Convolution example

2009-06-30T12:31:00.001Z

Very clear example of a 2D convolution:

http://www.songho.ca/dsp/convolution/convolution2d_example.html

This kind of convolution can be used, for example, to implement and edge detector applying a Sobel operator.

Enjoy!!!

Books I´ve read this year so far

2009-06-06T22:20:00.004Z

The Bourne Identity. Thrilling action pack book, you´ll definitely learn two English words, kerb and quay. 7 out of 10
The constant gardener. Moving, enigmatic diplomatic atmosphere. I falls a little bit by the middle section, but has an amazing end that leave a great taste. 8 out of 10.
The pillars of the earth. This is my favorite book ever. I've read it twice in Spanish and twice in English. The last time I read it was between 2008 and 2009. 10 out of 10.
Misery. This is my second favourite book ever. How many times I have dreaded Ms Wilkes!!!! 9.5 out of 10.
Hannibal Rising. The surprise of the year. The prose is quite unusual and for a non native English speaker (and reader) it causes some confusing at the beginning of the book. Once you get use to it, the is not a single moment dull in this book. I love Hannibal's character. 9 out of 10.
Alice´s adventures in wonderland. I began reading this book today. So far I've read 20 of about 280 pages, and I´m absolutely delighted. The English used in the book is very very very easy to read, so I recommend this book for those of you learning English. So far 9 out of 10. [Edit: 21/07/2009] I have finished this book and my overall impression has gone a little bit down, I'm going to give it a 7. The story turns out to be very simplistic, and I can'f find the symbolism and the metaphores anywhere. However it's an excellent book for english students, since the language is very very simple.
A brief history of time. Just one sentence, do not read it if you don´t have a scientific background. I have a background in both chemical engineering, and computer science, thus my knowledge of maths and physics can be considered more than average, and the book became almost impossible to follow once it "falls" into black holes. However is really enjoyable while can be understood.

I addition my parent´s gave me as a birthday present, a wonderful Sony PRS-505, this is an ebook reader, so I´m reading more than ever. I transfer to it every interesting article that I find on the net. With a good piece of software called calibre I can convert many formats to PRS's native format, and even download online newspapers automatically. Besides you can access more than 500.000 free books through google or Project Gutenberg.

Enjoy reading!!!!!

Antonio Vega has passed away

2009-05-13T19:30:00.003Z

Today is a sad day for all of us who love music. During his life, Antonio Vega composed a handful of songs that are part of the memories of a generation. An icon of "la modiva" in the 80´s, unfortunately got addicted to drugs, which eventually led to his dead.

We will never forget you, because your music will always be alive in our harts.

Youtube links.

Gyms in Lausanne (Switzerland)

2009-05-04T10:05:00.002Z

I'm doing a little research about gyms with swimming pool in Laussane (Switzerland). There seems to be quite a lot of gyms there. These are the results

Holmes Place. This place looks really posh. Design is everywhere, a very clean modern look throughout the place. No swimming pool though.
Migros fitness park. There is a swimming pool here, but leisure one, with the temperature set to 32Celisiuss!!!!!!!!! You would like to be there swimming for an hour. Prices are kind of high.
Silhouette. Flashy, Flashy web page. It's hard to believe that some serious company has a web like that in 2009. There is a swimming pool with the water temperature set at 27 - 28 degrees. Enough not to overheat yourself, but still a little bit to high. No information about its size. The place look clean, moderns, but a little bit clattered. Wooden floors look great.
Let's Go. It doesn't seem to be a swimming on this one. It looks like the poores so far, although the standard seems very high in Switzerland.

Indoor swimming pools:

Ok, now, this one is kind of funny.

Aquarius gay swimming club. WTF!!!!! jajajajajaja this is a GAY swimming club, but what in the name of god do sports have to do with sexual orientation. jajajaja, I mean, why would you want to swim with only gay and lesbian people, honestly I don't understand. Will they not admit me in the club becuase I'm not gay?

Enrique Bunbury

2009-04-17T21:53:00.001Z

Everyone who knows me will understand why I´m posting this:

Enjoy!!!

Back On Track

2009-03-29T19:19:00.003Z

Hi people!!!

The sports season has begun, and what a beginning! Last week I run the Plassey 10K race, event organized by the University of Limerick physical education students. Enjoyable, not too bad for the first race in months. I didn't beat my PB (personals best) at all, but I have good sensations. My time was 47:05, not too impressive, I know.

Today I took part in a Duathlon for the first time in my life.

The experience was amazing, thrilling, but also absolutely wrecking. The event was organized by the Limerick Triathlon Club. I work with the swimming coach of the club, and lately we've been training together (he was faster than me today). I did well on the first running leg, the on the bicycle I almost died. Ireland is famous for its continuous rain and wind, well today was one of those days when the country feels like honoring his fame. My time was 1:10:57 (3.9 run, 16 cycle, 3.9 run), awful, but I consider it a good starting point.

Enjoy!!!

Brilliant!! Famous paintings recreated using Lego

2009-03-02T22:36:00.002Z

http://www.oddee.com/item_96540.aspx

Confessions of an Irish Gamer

2009-02-28T17:39:00.003Z

I just want to recommend to those of you who like videogames, to visit the blog homonym with this entry:

Confessions of an Irish Gamer

The authors are not really prolific, but the posts are quality ones.

Enjoy.

WIFI WPA Encryption with Ubuntu 6.10

2009-02-22T12:47:00.003Z

Connecting to a WIFI network that uses WEP encription is a pretty straight forward task using UBUNTU, you only have to use the "Wireless Assistant" tool integrated with the system. However, when you try to connect to a network using WPA encryption things get more complicated. For some reason the "Wireless Assistant" do not let you select a other encryption than WEP.

After some research, i.e. google search, I found an entry in ubuntuforums.org that explain how to connect to WIFI networks that use WPA encryption. This process involves mainly editing text files, there is no "Windowzed" application to help:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834

In my case I'm using a network with DHCP activated, and my computer runs a KUBUNTU 6.10. My laptop is an old Toshiba Satellite M70-165 with an integrated WIFI adapter. My /etc/network/interfaces looks like this:


auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp
wpa-driver wext
wpa-ssid $your essid here$
wpa-ap-scan 1
wpa-proto WPA
wpa-pairwise TKIP
wpa-group TKIP
wpa-key-mgmt WPA-PSK
wpa-psk $your hex key code here$

Just follow the procedure explain in the forum, it's easy and it worked for me with at the first attempt.

XSLT with Java and Dom4j-1.6

2009-02-08T18:36:00.003Z

Feeling geeky again!!

Today I´ll show you how to perform an XSLT (XSL transformation) on an XML file using Java and Dom4j. In contrast with the last Java/Dom4j post in this i´ll only show the class that acually performs the transformation. Dom4j is not able to perform the transformation on its own, it needs the help of JAXP:


 1 package com.julio.xml;
 2
 3 import java.io.File;

 4 import java.io.FileWriter;
 5 import java.io.IOException; // dom4j import
 6 import org.dom4j.Document;
 7 import org.dom4j.DocumentException;

 8 import org.dom4j.io.SAXReader;
 9 import org.xml.sax.ErrorHandler;
10 import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
11 import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;

12
13 import javax.xml.transform.Transformer;
14 import javax.xml.transform.TransformerConfigurationException;
15 import javax.xml.transform.TransformerException;
16 import javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory;

17 import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
18
19 import org.dom4j.io.DocumentResult;
20 import org.dom4j.io.DocumentSource;
21 import org.dom4j.io.DocumentSource;

22 import org.dom4j.io.XMLWriter;
23 import org.dom4j.io.OutputFormat;
24
25 public class XmlTransformer {

26  // The input XML file
27  private File input;
28  // The DOM document for the imput file

29  private Document inputDoc;
30  // Guess what!!!!
31  private File output;

32  // The xslt file
33  private File transformation;
34
35  public XmlTransformer(File input, File transformation) {

36   this.input = input;
37   this.transformation = transformation;

38  }
39
40  public File transform() throws IOException {

41   // Need to create a factory using JAXP
42   TransformerFactory factory = TransformerFactory.newInstance();

43   try {
44    // Now get a transformer using the facory
45    Transformer transformer = factory.newTransformer(new StreamSource(

46      transformation));
47    // Convert the input file into a DOM document
48    this.createDoc();

49    // Dom4j support for trasnformations
50    DocumentSource source = new DocumentSource(this.inputDoc);

51    DocumentResult result = new DocumentResult();
52    try {

53     // OK lets do the actual transformation
54     transformer.transform(source, result);
55     // The rest is boiler plate code!!!

56     Document outputDoc = result.getDocument();
57     OutputFormat format = OutputFormat.createPrettyPrint();

58     output = new File("output.xml");
59     XMLWriter writer = new XMLWriter(new FileWriter(output), format);

60     writer.write(outputDoc);
61     writer.close();

62    } catch (TransformerException e) {
63     // TODO Auto-generated catch block

64     e.printStackTrace();
65    }
66   } catch (TransformerConfigurationException e) {

67    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
68    e.printStackTrace();
69   }

70   return output;
71  }
72
73  private void createDoc() {

74   SAXReader reader = new SAXReader(false);
75   try {

76    this.inputDoc = reader.read(this.input);

77   } catch (DocumentException e) {
78    // TODO Auto-generated catch block

79    e.printStackTrace();
80   }
81  }

82 }

syntax highlighted by Code2HTML, v. 0.9.1

New songs

2009-02-02T19:32:00.002Z

I´ve published a new recording in my Myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/sinnoticiasdedios

Enjoy!!!!

XML schema validation with Dom4j

2009-01-26T19:22:00.017Z

Hi folks, today I´m feeling geeky!!

First and foremost, if you don´t know what and XML schemas or XML documents are, you´d better listen to my music clicking on the youtube video on your right. For the rest of you, a bit obvious, Dom4j is a Java API, so........

Ok, let´s get started.

Dom4j is a Java API that makes XML manipulation sweet, and easier than with pure DOM or SAX. Besides it let you use XPATH to travers XML documents. Dom4j includes its own XML parser, but this in not able to validate document agains schemas. For that purpose we will use Xerces.

In order to develop our example we will define a very little schema and and two XML documents usign that schema, one will be valid, and the other won´t.

I´m using Java 5, and ignore if this would work with Java 1.4, let me know if you discover something. I will assume you have downloaded the following APIs:

Latest dom4j (1.6.1 at the time or writting this).
Latest Xerces (1.4.4 at the time of writting this).

I´ll use Eclipse througout the whole example, so let´s kick off:

Create a Java project. Call it XmlValidation
Add the following libraries to the buid path (Project -> Properties -> Java Build Path -> Libraries -> Add external jars)
- dom4j-1.6.1.jar
- xerces.jar
Add an XML schema called SongSchema.xsd:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  targetNamespace="SongSchema" xmlns:album="SongSchema"
  elementFormDefault="qualified">

  <xsd:element name="album">
      <xsd:complexType>
          <xsd:sequence>
              <xsd:element name="song" type="album:song" />
              <xsd:element name="comment" type="xsd:string" />
          </xsd:sequence>
      </xsd:complexType>
  </xsd:element>

  <xsd:complexType name="song">
      <xsd:sequence>
          <xsd:element name="title" type="album:nonemptystring" />
          <xsd:element name="author" type="album:nonemptystring" />
          <xsd:element name="minutes" type="album:time" />
          <xsd:element name="seconds" type="album:time" />
      </xsd:sequence>
  </xsd:complexType>


  <xsd:simpleType name="time">
      <xsd:restriction base="xsd:positiveInteger">
          <xsd:pattern value='[0-6]?[0-9]'/>
      </xsd:restriction>
  </xsd:simpleType>

  <xsd:simpleType name="nonemptystring">
  <xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
      <xsd:pattern value="[\w\W]+"></xsd:pattern>
  </xsd:restriction>
  </xsd:simpleType>
</xsd:schema>

Now we create our actual XML file, called MySongs.xml:


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<album xmlns="SongSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="SongSchema SongSchema.xsd">
  <song>
      <title>Oceano de sal</title>
      <author>Julio Delgado</author>
      <minutes>39</minutes>
      <seconds>7</seconds>
  </song>
  <comment>Very Good Song,ideed.</comment>
</album>

We are nearly there!!!
Create the validator class, called Validator, in the Validator.java file:


package com.julio.xml;

import java.io.File;
// dom4j import
import org.dom4j.Document;
import org.dom4j.DocumentException;
import org.dom4j.io.SAXReader;
import org.xml.sax.ErrorHandler;
import org.xml.sax.SAXException;
import org.xml.sax.SAXParseException;

public class Validator {
 private File file;
 private Document doc;
 private SAXReader reader;
 private handler h;
 
 public Validator(){
  reader = new SAXReader(true);
  h = new handler();
  // Lets configure the reader for full validation
  // set the validation feature to true to report validation errors
  try {
   reader.setFeature("http://xml.org/sax/features/validation", true);
   // set the validation/schema feature to true to report validation errors against a schema
   reader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema", true);

   // set the validation/schema-full-checking feature to true to enable full schema, grammar-constraint checking
   reader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation/schema-full-checking", true);
   reader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/continue-after-fatal-error", true);
   //reader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/validation-error-as-fatal", true);
   reader.setErrorHandler(h);
  } catch (SAXException e) {
   // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   e.printStackTrace();
  }


 };
 public Validator(String fileName)
 {
  this();
  file = new File(fileName);
  try {
   doc = reader.read(file);
  } catch (DocumentException e) {
   // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   e.printStackTrace();
  }
  
  // If everything went fine up to this point, now we have
  // an XML document in memory and can try to validate.
 }
 public void setFile(File file) {
  this.file = file;
 }
 
 public boolean validateXml(){
  try {
   h.setHasErrors(false);
   doc = reader.read(file);
  } catch (DocumentException e) {
   // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   System.out.println(e.getMessage());
   //e.printStackTrace();
   return false;
  }
  return !h.getHasErrors();
 }
 
 
 class handler implements ErrorHandler{

  private boolean hasErrors;
  
  public handler()
  {
   hasErrors = false;
  }
  
  public boolean getHasErrors()
  {
   return hasErrors;
  }
  
  public void setHasErrors(boolean b)
  {
   this.hasErrors = b;
  }
  
  @Override
  public void error(SAXParseException exception) throws SAXException {
   System.out.println("Line: " + exception.getLineNumber() + ") " +
     exception.getMessage());
   hasErrors = true;
  }

  @Override
  public void fatalError(SAXParseException exception) throws SAXException {
   // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   
  }

  @Override
  public void warning(SAXParseException exception) throws SAXException {
   // TODO Auto-generated method stub
   
  }
  
 }

}

This code is doing 2 main things:

Configure the parser in the Validator constructor. This include it´s behavior and a class to handle errors and warnings during parsing.
Define a class to handle errors. This is needed because otherwise the applicacion would rise and exception with the first error found, and we couldn´t get a list of all the errors present on the Xml file.

Finally the class that nails everything together, XmlTest, in the file XmlTest.java:


package com.julio.test;

import java.io.File;

import org.dom4j.Document;
import org.dom4j.DocumentException;
import org.dom4j.io.SAXReader;

public class XmlTest {

  // Entry point
  public static void main(String args[])
  {
      System.out.println("XmlTest.main()");
      XmlTest test = new XmlTest();
      test.printWellcomeScreen();
      SAXReader reader = new SAXReader();
      Document doc = null;
      try {
          doc = reader.read(new File("xml/Program.xml"));
      } catch (DocumentException e) {
          // TODO Auto-generated catch block
          e.printStackTrace();
      }
      if(doc != null)
      {
          System.out.println(doc.toString());
          if(doc.getRootElement().getName() == "program")
          {
              System.out.println("program\n");
              System.out.println(doc.getRootElement().attributeValue("buid"));
          }
      }
  }


  private void printWellcomeScreen()
  {
      System.out.println("WELLCOME!!!\n");
  }

}

Now just compile and execute. Try different values in the Xml file, and you´ll see how well the validation works.

Enjoy!!!!

XBOX 360

2009-01-17T20:56:00.002Z

I've bought myself an XBOX 360 last week. After playing a couple of hours with PGR4 I connected the console to the Internet. The process was amazingly easy, I just plugged one edge the network cable to the console the other to the router, and ........ there we go, my XBOX 360 was happily downloading updates and videos from the Internet.

So far I've been playing PGR4, Orange Box (A total must have), GTA4, and ........ Kung Fu Panda, I'm sorry but this game is really fun.

Bye.

Limerick information

2009-01-17T20:34:00.003Z

If you ask an Irish about Limerick, you'll see that look..., that smile on the face. "You mean Stab City?" you'll hear. Limerick is known in Ireland as a city with high crime rates, lots of knackers, horses and some gang activities.

For some historical reasons unknown to me, there are two rival gangs developing all kind of underground activities. This gangs usually kill members of the rival one but, unfortunately, every so often Innocent people get caught in the middle, badly wounded or even killed.

My impression of the city is different, radically different. Once in the city ,quickly you get the feeling of a middle size one, with some big office buildings, lots of cars, and some big industrial areas. Certainly the city is not as nice as Galway is. But its size is also a good thing since the commercial offer is much bigger.

Then you discover the vibrant University of Limerick, its huge campus with its marvelous sports facilities. The offices of the company I work for are in the middle of the campus, in the International Science Center at the National Technology Park.

Also Limerick is a much more international city, somehow people is more open minded, though I'm not saying that people in Galway are not open minded, but here they are more.

In terms of weather, it seems to be a combination of continental weather, with colder winters and hotter summers than Galway, and a little bit less rainy. This last point is yet to be confirmed.

So far I'm happy here. There are two things that I really miss, Salthill's promenade, and the ability to go everywhere with my bike.

Bye.

Back to life

2009-01-13T19:41:00.002Z

After a couple of month of craziness and overwhelming stress, I´m back. Today he have had the Internet connexion installed at home, at my new home in Limerick, Ireland. You´ll hear from me soon, promise.

Byeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Don't forget you past

2008-10-26T01:25:00.002Z

A country that forget it's past is doomed to repeat it. These last days Spain is committed to break apart one of the most remarkable prisons of the dark time, and by dark time I mean Franco's rule: the Carabanchel Prison. Hundreds, if not thousands of innocents where kept inside those walls, just for the crime of thinking of a better society.

No doubt we all evolve, but I can't help looking at how Americans have San Quintin and other famous prison as reminders of past mistakes. Spain is tearing apart a symbol of disrespect, of past repression, of denying the right to be an independent thinker. May be this is a sign of what is yet to come........

Enjoy life, if you can............

From today on, I'm officially in Panic Mode

2008-10-25T00:29:00.002Z

No Microsoft, It wasn't you!!!

2008-10-24T23:33:00.003Z

It wasn't you who discovered the benefits of multi-tire applications, no, it wasn't you who discovered the wonders of using namespaces to logically organize what you call types, and the rest of the world call classes, interfaces, and so on.

These days of financial crisis I'm reading a book about ASP.NET. The book isn't bad at all, but is somehow Microsoft biased. Written by a bunch of MS MVPs (Most Valuable Professional) is not difficult to understand that the authors must keep the big brother happy. But sometimes is so much, that it feels like a comedy book. I'll give you some examples:

1.- Microsoft forget easily: This book criticize merciless the classic ASP model. Well, I still remember how they sold us this cutting edge, flawless technology. Not only classic ASP was a total crap, but now M$ have found the way to make our life easier: fully object oriented server side code, and compiled, Ohhhhhh thanks M$, Thanks for delivering what Java gave us almost 8 years ago, thanks anyway for the laugh.

2.- Microsoft have discovered that mixing presentation and logic isn't good: This is absolutely hilarious. Microsoft have discovered 2 years ago, a principle of Software Engineering that has been with us, software engineers, for almost 10 years now, if not more. It was about time lads!!!.

3.- The most amazing, namespaces: .Net organizes classes into logical units called namespaces!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF at this point I though maybe I was drinking poisoned water. How is this possible, even the most M$ biased programmers now that namespaces have been around for about 20 years now. Of course the horrible Win32 API don't now much about this, but this is no reason to say that one of the wonders of the .NET framework (which I think is a good thing) are namespaces. I will put this in another way, .NET without namespaces would be absolutely pointless.

Well, I could continue for hours, but I think it's enough for today. I hope you have laughed reading this as much as I'm reading that ASP.NET book.

Maybe I'll give the book's title in a future post.

Enjoy life lads!!!!

Alone in the crap, sorry, in the dark. The .. movie?

2008-10-20T22:22:00.006Z

I've just watched Alone in the dark, movie based on the homonym video game. The game was a classic in the era of ancient computers (spectrum and Friends), but the movie has nothing to make it worth the time, thus another 93 minutes of my precious life wasted.

The story is totally meaningless, well, this is shared with the video game. The acting is horrendous, totally dull characters. Christian Slater was good in The name of the rose, but is still using that lost puppy look, for every kind of feeling, which doesn´t work with terror o puzzlement, I´m sure you know what I mean. The music, ohhh the music. Music is meant to emphasize parts of a movie, making it more intense. Well in this movie music comes and goes, distracting and interrupting action, which may not be that bad. It´s used in the wrong place, and the selection doesn´t match the situations at all. Last, but not least, the special effects, well, umm, they really seem to have been created using the same kind of computers that made the videogame famous. If the designer of Alien is making money with the rights, this movie has given him enough for next Christmas presents. I presume they bought ONE kind of Alien monster, and used it once, and again, and again, .......

I like videogames and I like movies, but the combinations isn´t really working out. Games can be simple, because you are the main character, and that felling compensate the lack of depth or excessive simplicity, but in a movie you are only an spectator, and more have to be given to take you into the movie.

Bye.

No words, BRILLIANT

2008-10-18T22:04:00.001Z

McCain - Obama

Multithread programming

2008-10-16T11:55:00.015Z

Multi-threaded programs are a must in a world dominated by servers, GUI applications, multiprocessor computers and so on. The standard way of managing threads is by using POSIX threads. I've found and amazingly easy to follow article about POSIX threads. It's only recommendable for those of you who already have knowledge of the basic thread mechanisms and OS design:

Multi-Threaded Programming With POSIX Threads

Examples are written in plain old marvelous C, so it might be hard to understand for the Java, and C# crowd, but lads, this is real software!!! :)

Here you have a little example using threads, it's not rocket science, but makes the job:


#include 
#include 
#define LIMIT 100

/* prototype of the function that will be executed by a
thread. It's compulsory to return a void * and to receive
a void * as the only parameter */
void * do_loop(void * arg);


int main()
{
    /* The thread to be created */
    pthread_t MiThread;
    /* We will use these two as parameters to do_loop */
    int th1 = 1;
    int th2 = 2;
    /* Will get the return value of pthread_create(...) */
    int rc;
    printf("Starting application\n");
    /* Actual thread creation. Parameters:
       1st .- The thread to be initialized
       2nd .- Configuration parameters, NULL to use default
       3rd .- The function to be executed by the thread
       4th .- The parameter to be passed to do_loop
    */
    rc = pthread_create(&MiThread,NULL,do_loop,(void *)&th1);
    /* The main thread also executes the loop, to show us the intermixed
       execution of both threads */
    do_loop((void*)&th2);
    /* Just in case, the main thread waits for the auxiliary thread to
       finish */
    pthread_join(MiThread,NULL);
    system("PAUSE");
}

void * do_loop(void * arg)
{
     int i = 0;
     for (i = 0 ; i < LIMIT ; i++)
         printf("Hello Thread %d\n",*(int *)arg);
     return NULL;
}

By the way, there is a companion article that gives an introduction to parallel programming. Interesting for the newbie.

Parallel Programming - Basic Theory For The Unwary

Enjoy!

ASP.Net Datagrid control

2008-10-14T21:51:00.004Z

Hi lads,

Slowly but steadily I'm discovering the goods and bads of ASP.NET programming. On the one hand it's pretty simple to make a simple but rather functional web application, on the other hand the programming model, if any, it's really simplistic, and this is good, but also bad. On top of that there aren't billions of frameworks to use, in contrast to the Java world, that makes things easier, but also gives you less power. Other factors are the insane dependency on Microsoft, slave forever of IIS, that is definitely not good. Ahh, and don't forget you can program almost everything using very simple HTML and C#, this last one is becoming my favourite language, after god C++, of course.

Well, one very powerful web control provided by ASP.NET is the Datagrid control. It basically allows to show information in a table. This information must come to any source that implements the IEnumerable interface. All the dirty HTML code is automatically generated by ASP.NET, and this, for those of you who fought with the old classic ASP, is a blessing.

I have found a couple of good articles and web sites about the use of this Datagrid web control, I hope they are useful for you.

An extensive examination of the Datagrid web control.
Datagrid girl, just don't even ask me.
Techrepublic.com on Datagrid. Actually there are loads of articles in techrepublic.

Enjoy!!!!!!!

Mono 2.0 Use .NET out of Windows

2008-10-11T20:09:00.003Z

Since .NET assemblies compile down to CIL bytecode that's executed in a virtual machine under Windows, there's no reason, in principle, that they shouldn't be able to run under any platform. After all, Java's "write once, run anywhere" mantra has the same fundamental architecture: a VM running bytecode that taps into a series of standard APIs and classes.

Visit the Mono Project Official Release Notes.

U.S. takes North Korea off terror list

2008-10-11T20:04:00.002Z

Sounds like a joke. What a wonderful year! First the Olympic games in China, well known for it's respect for human rights, and now North Korea, one of the most open countries in Asia is taken off the terror list.

But these guys actually believe that we are stupid??? I hope Obama has a little more common sense.

Joerg Haider has been killed in a road accident

2008-10-11T08:38:00.002Z

I don't consider myself a "conspiranoic" but it's rather suspicious that Haider has died just a couple of weeks after getting excellent results in Austria's presidential elections.

Probably we wouldn't have known the results of the far-right parties if Haider hadn't been it's leader. This fact gives him an important and dangerous role, "head" of Austria's most hated out of Austria political movement. Bad for Austria's name, bad for businesses, bad for him.

Rest in peace.

Trigonometric Identities (Razones Trigonométricas)

2008-09-26T15:27:00.003Z

Basically, if you study computer graphics you need to know some basic trigonometric identities, in order to understand some results, like 2D or 3D rotations. Here I provide a couple of links to lists of trigonometric identities:

And the most basic application, 2D rotation:

Siggraph 2D rotation

If you can read Spanish I´ll recommend you to check this slides from the "Computer Graphics Fundamentals" course of the University Of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Friend Classes (strange justification)

2008-09-25T07:57:00.004Z

I'm not a friend of the C++ friends, whether they are functions, member functions or classes. However there are some situations when the use of a friend function can be somehow beneficial, like making the operator << compatible with a particular class (although it's possible to just override or create a kind of toString() method, like in the best Java flavour).

Lately I've been reading a book on C++ programming. This book is intended to be read by novices, and because of that I think the author should have been more careful when giving advices. This is the way the author justifies friend classes:

"When might you want to make one class a friend to another? Let’s look at an example. Suppose you must program a simple simulation of a television and a remote control. You decide to define a Tv class representing a television and a Remote class representing a remote control. Clearly, there should be some sort of relationship between these classes, but what kind? A remote control is not a television and vice versa, so the is-a relationship of public inheritance doesn’t apply. Nor is either a component of the other, so the has-a relationship of containment or of private or protected inheritance doesn’t apply. What is true is that a remote control can modify the state of a television, and this suggests making the Remote class a friend to the Tv class."

This is exactly the example my teachers at university used to teach as an event broadcast pattern like Observer, which is by far a better solution.

Friend classes completely break encapsulation, and couples classes so tight that it will be impossible to use one without the other, therefore preventing code reuse.

The book is called "C++ Primer Plus, Fifth Edition".

Programming cheat sheets

2008-09-10T09:03:00.002Z

Either if you are a novice or an experience programmer it's always a good idea to have at hand one cheat sheet that helps you not to make the most usual syntax mistakes. Here you have a compilation of different programing languages' cheat sheets:

Programming Cheat Sheets (www.cheat-sheets.org)

Enjoy!

Perspective projection

2008-08-31T15:52:00.004Z

I've always been interested in Computer Graphics. This area of computer science unites most of the things I´m interested in. From pure maths to algorithm analysis, and software engineering, if you want to be a good graphics programmer, you need to master of this fields of knowledge.

The purpose of this post is to provide a set of interesting links about perspective projection. This concept is absolutely essential to understand modern graphics, especially 3D game graphics. Thanks to APIs like OpenGl or DirectX, you don´t have to program your own projection, but you need to understand what is going on under the hood to be able to make the most out of it.

Siggraph Perspective Viewing Projection. This is a rather mathematical explanation, but is there any other way.
Client Management Systems, computer graphics introduction. No maths at all, so this is a good starting point.

Enjoy!!!

The Corrib river, Galway

2008-08-30T18:22:00.006Z

The Corrib river crosses Galway. Actually Galway is the last place the river passes before reaching the ocean. This afternoon I gave a walk and took some pictures of the river. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed the walk:

Then I continued walking and after approximately 30 minutes I arrived to the docks. This area of the city, as it´s name indicates, is where the ships "park". There are lots of warehouses, and industrial stuff scattered across the area. Among all this things I found this structure, that seems to be part of a crane:

Lovely afternoon indeed.

Cheers!

Streets of Galway 08, Results

2008-08-24T15:21:00.004Z

Probably this post should be called "Streets of Galway 08, my results", because is only to inform about me, jeje.

Well, my most optimistic forecast was to run the 8K in 34 minutes, and honestly this wouldn't have been a bad time, but that Saturday 9th of August I was in a good mood so I decided to push a little bit harder and finally my time was 32 min 50 seconds. My position was 170 out of almost 2000 participants.

The race was wonderful the atmosphere thrilling and on top of that a didn't suffer at all during the race. This tells me, of course, that I could have done a better time. My best Irish race so far, but many more are yet to come.

The official results in the Galway City Harriers web page.

My deepest sympathies to the affected by Madrid´s Airport dissaster

2008-08-22T18:15:00.003Z

I want offer my deepest sympathies to the relatives of the victims of Madrid aircraft accident. The destination of this plane was my home island, Gran Canaria, and this makes me feel specially sad. I know that sooner or later I´ll discover someone that I know that has been affected by this terrible accident.

Rest in peace.

Lovely 80's music (El bar de Moe)

2008-08-06T16:32:00.004Z

Do you consider yourself an 80's music lover. If so you should visit "El bar de Moe". It is a radio show blog, with lots of information about the golden decade. Besides it is possible to download all the shows, which include tons of lovely music. Don't miss this great opportunity.

This show is hosted in "Radio Estacion Online". This webpage is a gateway to lost of retro music.

Streets of Galway 08

2008-08-03T12:17:00.003Z

Next Saturday 8th August take place the major running event in Galway city, the Streets of Galway. This race is organized every year by the Galway City Harriers, and sponsored by Future Financial Services.

It´s is a 8K long race. My last 8K race was in Maree, and there I did a 4:20 per K average. Last Monday I did an 8K test at almost race pace, and it took me 34:27, which means that I can improve my result in Maree.

The anecdote of this race is that I was absolutely convinced that the race would take place the 1st of August. With this in my mind last week I planned a really soft training, and on Friday I called the organization because I hadn´t received the race pack (chip and t-shirt), only to discover that the race wasn´t that Saturday, but saturday week.

I hope this event doesn´t affect my performance, I´ll inform you soon.

Bye!!!

Getting old??

2008-07-18T15:15:00.003Z

Oh my god!!!!

Right now I'm listening the song "love sees no colour" from U96, an absolute 90's dance hit. Nothing remarkable about it. The thing is that while listening to this song lots and lots of memories from the early 90's took my mind (and I'd say that my hart too) by assault, and for a moment I though: "Those were good times...".

Oh my god, I think I'm getting old!!!!!

Back to LaTeX and French

2008-07-06T11:48:00.004Z

LaTeX and French, can suggest lots of things .... but in this case I´m going to write only about how to use LaTeX to write some documentation about French grammar. Anyway, do not expect too much about this post, this is only the first in a series dedicated to LaTeX and French grammar, so it will probably be a Little bit naive.

LaTeX is a documentation generation system. Rather than specifying how things should look, you tell LaTeX what things are (i.e. heading, table, figure, ...), and it decides the best professional look for them. If you are used to Microsoft Word, or OpenOffice it can be hard to begin using LaTeX, but once you´ve started you´ll realise how limited those tools are, and how powerful LaTeX is.

This is a sample code to generate a very simple document:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\begin{document}
\section{Introduction}
This is a first attempt to use latex again. I want to use latex to create some documentation about French grammar, therefore the use of tables will be essential. Let´s see how to create a table

\begin{center}
\begin{tabular}{| c | c |}

\hline
\textbf{Person} & \textbf{Pronoun} \\
\hline
First & Je\\
\hline
Second & Tu/Vous\\
\hline
Third & Il/Elle\\
\hline
First Plural & Nous\\
\hline
Second Plural & Vous\\
\hline
Third Plural & Ils/Elles\\
\hline

\end{tabular}
\end{center}

This is our first table. It doesn´t look too bad, does it?
\end{document}

Compile this code online rather than installing LaTeX on your machine, which is a pretty hard task. Use this online LaTeX compiler.

That´s all for today!!!!