I like to learn new technologies. These posts are for my own reference (I have habit of forgetting :( ). If anybody finds these posts useful, then it will surely make me HaPpY.
Unlike my other posts, I will keep updating this post when I get some new information - but there will be only additions.
Here is list of some good animation movies - 1. My neighbour Totoro - I liked this movie very very much. I must appreciate Japanese people for accuracy and perfection in their work. Story is equally good. 2. Ice Age 1/2/3 - I liked Ice Age 1 very much. Ice Age 2 and 3 are also worth watching. 3. Wall-E - This is master piece, what a technology. Some of the scenes looks almost real life. 4. Kung Fu Panda - Very funny. Animation is definitely good. 5. Cars - I can not believe, this is animation movie. It is too good.
I like this option of Visual studio very much. I forgot this for long time. I have tested this option for Visual C++ 6.0 but I am 99% sure that it must be working for all new versions of visual studio.
Suppose I have simple program like
// Souce.c
#define greater(a, b) ((a) > (b) ? a : b);
int main()
{
greater(10, 20);
return 0;
}
// Source.c ends here
Now how to create a file which will show me expanded macros in this course file?
Very simple add /E and /P to project options. In the same file as that of Source.c a new file Source.i will be generated.
I am writing here contents of Source.i to understand it's contents -
I was reading RedBook for past few weeks. I read this book in free time, since it is Guide - it is not very difficult even if you read it with lots of breaks. This book is definitely good. I have not finished it though - have stopped for some time after coming to chapter on Tessellators.
Good thing is you can read it online - officially :) ( old version of this book - version 1.1, hard copy I have has version 2.1). I dont think reading old version will make any great difference for beginner ;).
First few chapters in the book - almost upto chapter 7 can be understood to good extend even if you do not have much background of Computer graphics. But then when it comes to Bitmaps, texture mapping and further topics it is quite difficult to understand without computer graphics background (I am stuck because of same reason).
I tried most of the programs in this books. There are many links from where you can download the source code, but I will recommend TYPE IT. Some links which could be of help - http://www.opengl.org/resources/code/samples/redbook/ http://www.opengl-redbook.com/source/ http://www.sgi.com/products/software/opengl/examples/redbook/
I used Fedora 11 (64 bit), learning OpenGL programs on Linux is easy with the help of GLUT.
I do not remember procedure to set GLUT, but it is very easy few google searches should be enough. Remember you need to install freeglut.
If you are using GCC and do not want have simple make file to compile your OpenGL programs (using GLUT), following make file might be of help
Recently I am reading An Introduction to GCC. This is excellent book for learning GCC (at least for beginners). Author do not make any assumption about the person reading this book. If you are using Linux operating system then what you need to know before reading this book is probably only "gedit" or "vi/ vim" editor and you should have GCC installed on your Linux operating system.
This book teaches you different GCC options using some simple simple code samples. Just go through the table of contents of this book (left click on name of book on first line of this post).
If you are student then I will strongly recommend you to read this book and practice it on Linux. I have no doubt that learning C/ C++ using GCC will help you become a better programmer. Personally I really like Microsoft Visual Studio(I have used 6.0, 7.0, 8.0 and 9.0) but I think it is good to use GCC in the beginning. I am bit doubtful at this stage whether I will keep liking Visual Studio in future or not, because of the powerful command prompt options available for GCC. Also if you hate/ fear command prompt then you can use GCC using some good IDE like eclipse.
I think the information given in this book is more than sufficient for beginner.
If you want to learn gcc on windows operating system, then you will need cygwin.Personally I find cygwin little difficult to use then bash shell in Linux. But for those who do not want to install Linux operating system - cygwin might be a possible option.
I am not computer science person so I do not know the exact reasons why people think that 64 bit operating systems perform better than 32 bit. What I understand that might be 64 bit operating systems is futuristic choice. At least on today's date one has to struggle a lot while using 64 bit operating system.
Some problems I have faced -
1. In greediness to have support for 4GB RAM (it was my misconception - actually support 32bit version can make use of 4GB RAM), I purchased 64 bit - Vista home premium (waste of money) with Dell Studio 15. It was showing video RAM as 256 MB when actually it was 512 MB. After about 30-40 mins discussion with Dell service person, he concluded that this is problem with 64 bit Vista.
2. For Ubuntu 9.04 32 bit Operating system, I got sound and video card drivers very quickly and it worked fine. When I tried Ubuntu 9.04 64bit edition I could not get video card drivers (I am not geek to write own video card drivers, or might be I should have tried more).
3. I am currently facing same sound and video card drivers problem with Fedora 11 64 bit operating system as well. On internet I could see support for 32 bit Fedora 11 for ATI Radeon graphics card but not for 64 bit (source code was not available as far as I remember). I am quite sure that sound problem must be easy to solve.
In addition to this all above problems - I have not seen any noticeable performance improvement in 64 bit operating systems.
I do not have any doubt that future belongs to 64 bit operating systems. But at least on today's date 32 bit Operating System is better option in my opinion. Like many people even I had misconception that RAM higher than 4GB is not supported by 32 bit operating system. Follwoing article (again thanks to Yogeshwar) might be of help - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension
I must mention few things before finishing this post 1. I am only talking (writing :)) here about operating systems. Please do not misinterpret with 64 bit architecture. If you want to buy new PC - better go for 64 bit hardware (but as per my experience 32 bit operating system) 2. Probably support for NVIDIA graphic cards is available for most of 64 bit Linux distros.
It is useless to have 64 bit architecture and multi-core processors unless the developers writing applications for these hardware make use of their capabilities.
For some people running 32 bit operating system on 64 bit architecture might look like running bullock cart on national highway, my problem is though the option of car is available I do not have guarantee that I will get fuel stations and shop to repair puncher on highway. So I will better drive car when these services are guaranteed.
Installed Fedora 11 (64 bit) on top of Vista (64 bit - pain in a**) and Ubuntu 9.04 (32 bit). Grub of Fedora removed the entry of Ubuntu and Vista from grub. (No surprise name of Fedora's grub is Anaconda!!).
I thought it will be easy to fix (With Yogeshwar's help), I tried to copy the entries from sda\boot\grub\menu.lst to sda\boot\grub\menu.lst
on reboot I could boot Vista (I dont use it for months so not of much use)
For Ubuntu it was showing me entries in grub but selecting any of 4 Ubuntu options (including repair ones) were giving me "Error15 file not found".
Some googling told me that I could try with entry root(hd, )
I tried with different combinations of x and y (actually not x because I have single hard disk for my Dell studio 15). For wrong y values I got error 17 :D and for probably right y - I got blank screen and cursor :].
It would have been great if I would have waited for some time and tried to find solution for this problem - I did some thing stupid in application called "Palimpsest Disk Utility" on Fedora and when I saw that Ubuntu partition is not bootablle I tried to make it bootable by checking the bootable check button (aah stupid thing)
Now my Ubuntu partition is not even detected by Fedora and I do not see any option but to reformat my machine.
So moral of the story ... if you are installing Fedora after Ubuntu better take care... (I will try to write what care if I could successfully install both)
I just tried few new things with Ubuntu Linux - I hope some people will benefit reading this
1. Go to Ubuntu in Applications->add remove programs find program called "Virtual Box". This software rocks!!. I installed OpenSuse 11.1, 64 bit edition on Ubuntu with use of virtual box. If you want to try new operating system without installing it on Hard disk then Virtual box is great option. Just isntall virtual box on your current operating system and install the Operating system you want to try using Virtual box.
To get more information about virtual box, OpenSuse and Ubuntu - Google these names.
2. I have found Google reader and one of amazing service offered by google. If you have not tried yet - I recomment it strongly.
3. I successfully compiled linux kernel for Ubuntu! I felt very great after doing this. Hope you will feel same - in Grub you will get to see your own entry!! To know more, follow this link - http://easylinuxcds.com/blog/?p=3244#close=1. This youtube video might be of some more help (I want to browse internet from command prompt like the geek in this vides does) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bH4H9cHPV2s
4. I tried to use Live CD of android - did not work :(. I downloaded old version :( Hope I could try android in coming few weeks
Few weeks back I lost my mobile (Sony K750), somebody stole it from hotel. Probably first time in life I was happy in for loosing expensive thing like mobile. But the reason for happiness was within few days/ weeks after purchase I faced lot of problems with K750i. I was required for waste hours for adjusting charger pin otherwise charging wont start - same was the problem with headsets. After a year or so new problems started, like if I put memory card into mobile - mobile will show white screen!! and there were many other problems in ~2.5 years of use. One thing I will always miss about my K750i is its camera (camera is superb)
Now it was the situation that I was required to buy new mobile phone (which was not planned). I tried searching on internet for mobile handsets from Rs 5000 to 16000. I liked E71 but it was slightly out of my budget (18K+). From youtube I could find that E63 is much similar to E71. I read reviews and what I understood what the good points are - 3G - large display - office applications like word/ excel/ power point - pdf reader - Query keyboard - 8GB expandable memory - GPRS - Though not descent but 2.0 MPEG camera. - Facility for video call
The negatives were - 3G not 3.5G (does not matter to me because in India there are few service providers who give 3G and it is very costly - so why to be unhappy for 3.5G) - 2.0 Camera (does not matter - this is more than sufficient for photographs expected from mobile camera) - Camera is on opposite side of screen so in video call you can either see the caller or s/he can see you :( - (but this comes with advantage that while using mobile as camera you can see what picture you are taking :)) - GPS - I am not sure but probably the GPS is restricted only up to maps in E63 - probably you need external device for position information. But not a problem - as if you wont get GPS in this price range and you can connect GPS device with blue tooth if needed :)
Some of my personal experiences while using this E63 +ves 1. Being business phone in reviews there is hardly any mention of quality of music. My personal observation is quality of music is as superb as my Apple iPod if you use headphones. Speakers are not superb for listening to music. But speakers are superb if you want to use it as speaker phone. 2. Size - with the advantage of query keyboard and large display I think nokia has done good job as compared to E61. Though E63 is not very easy to keep in pocket it is neither very bulky. 3. I liked some of the feature of Nokia like - when write SMS - when you enter name of receipts there is auto complete option - superb! 4. This mobile do not have sliders and also do not have joy stick - superb! 5. Battery life is great - even after listening to music and almost 40mins call time / day - battery lasts for 4-5 days. 6. Torch - I find this as very useful feature of mobile. It was also present in K750i and it is really really very useful. You can use camera flash as torch. 7. Standard 2.5mm jack - again amazing - because it means that you can plug any speakers or headphones (actually not all headphones - depends on how much power they consume)
-ves 1. No provision of special keys to increase/ decrease voice. 2. No provision of special keys for camera.
Overall I will say for 12,400 Rs this is excellent mobile. If you want much more than media mobile at this price then surely go for E63.
If you want any lecture series on particular subject try searching youtube. NTPEL (National programme for technology enhanced learning) - have recorded number of lectures from IIT professors and they have made them available on youtube. I am posting few links here - 1. For Computer graphics - 43 lecture series http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=338D19C40D6D1732 2. Internet technologies - 40 lectures http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=04D5787E247DC324
If you find any other such good link - please post them in comments.
I think I do lot of criticism in my blogs - thought of writing something new.
I would like to share with you my little knowledge about the world of open source. I should also mention thanks to my couligueChetanVerma and Great friends Ketan Deshpande for introducing me to many of these programs
For those who want to know "What is open source?" - I will suggest them movie/documentary "Revolution OS".
Operating system -Linux Thanks to Linus Torvalds for giving us truly free operating system. I use - OpernSUSE 11.0, I think Fedor10 is also good (I have not tried this much) Good thing about it - when I started working with OpenSUSE, I do not feel like working with XP. You can use every thing like - - Internet - auto detect camera - auto detect USB and other things which you generally need. Takes me to next software
MPlayer If you want to take total control while watching video like - Change frame rate - Adjust lag between sound and video - give post process quality option and feature like this then MPlayer is for you. Though VLC is also good option I personally do not like VLC much.
GIMP - GIMP - GNU Image manipulation program Try this if you like to edit images (even if you don't like you will start liking it after playing with GIMP).
InkScape - InkScape is program for creating SVG(scalable vector graphics). I personally like to play with InkScape- quite simple to use but very powerful. People with CAD background will find it quite easy. Good thing about SVG images is the quality remains same even if you scale it 100 times.
WinMerge- Open source utility for solving merges. Earlier I was user of araxis - but I think win-merge is equally powerful. If you want to compare 3 files at a time then try KDiff3.
Emacs - My favorite editor for coding. Customise it to suit you requirements. Best thing is you can make it's background completely black - your eyes won't feel stressed even if you spend 10hours in front of computer coding in Emacs (I personally even use black background for Visual Studio 2005 - but the feel is not as good as emacs)
Dia - Simple and useful software for creating flow-chart diagrams and network diagrams.
OpenOffice3.0 - I agree this is not as great as Microsoft office, but this is free!! And you can create PDF just by clicking on one button.
VoiletUML Editor - Simple and very useful for creating UML and class diagrams. If you want advanced features then you might need StartUML- I am happy with Voilet since this is easy to use and solves my needs.
GCC- I have not learned this yet - but heard that this is good and powerful compiler. Mozilla Firefox - I have tried almost all web-browsers like - Internet explorer (worst), Safari (amazing), Opera (good) but Mozilla Firefox is "The good one". Just look for it's customization options - choose your favorite theme and enjoy.
Pidgin - Do you want to use single application for numerous chatting accounts like - yahoo, Gtalk, ICQ and what not - use pidgin. You can login into all your accounts and see all contacts from single application window.
It is possible that I might have forgot to mention many other good open-source projects. If you want to know more, go to http://sourceforge.net/
