Daniel Guerrero Thoughts

Last entry?

2006-04-15T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was looking to change blogger since a year, because of the failures the system has. Now I wanted to change and I start to blog on my own hosting provider, you can check my blogging on:
http://blog.danguer.com

Why the projects fails

2006-02-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

The last week I was fired from my job; this is my essay about what makes fails a system delivering. I will not put names, but I will put situations. I won't say where I was working except I will say it was a School.

The situation:
I start to work about two months after the system was started, a co-worker tell me about the details of the starting implementation.
When I started to work I checked the code has about 20,000 lines of code, something really big. As I wasn't used to the system I though almost all was implemented and I only had to fix certain parts of the system.
The system in fact was very small and all the code was "garbage" code written by former developers and they don't clean the code (something later I learn why). Also there was a lot of implementation of certain parts, for example get the internal ID for the semester course, this was a small query in a function of about 10 lines of code, almost on every script.
I was in charge to develop the print of notes of the students, I finish fast my assign and I though this was really easy. I develop four similar scripts which have the same base for all the sections.
After two weeks I finish the scripts started the argues.
First I had some problems with two sections because there was certain things nobody told me, and also nobody told to the IT department; so we have to write certain parts to fulfill the needs. Nothing "bad". But after each month the users want to argue another "certain" parts which some of them were not of the knowledge of the department and others were missed to tell me (and the boss pretend to say me the same: "You have to ask").

After a lot of problems I was in charge with a section where the principal ask me three weeks before a "very important" module for his section, print the certificates of the university. The module was really easy but I found two problems:
1) There was a lot of information lack, one of them the sex of the students, another things the official ID assigned by the official education secretary of the state.
I give to the principal all the student information which was missing to fulfill two weeks ago. He never see the information and at the end he pretend to say he was to make this information miss because I never ask this to he.
2) Suddenly one day they ask me to do in ten minutes a "closing course cycle", this wasn't done for the section I was in charge and the person who assign us the modules thought this was very easy. Only was done in one day and as that afternoon I don't come back to work they fall into panic and have to do this almost by hand to 600 students.

There was a lot of things which happens, they really are amateur to do IT. But let me point some of the main drawbacks both in IT and in Project Management:
1) They never ask to the users what they want or see what they were used to do (they work with a system made in VB and Access).
2) They never show to the users how to work with the new system.
3) The users was used to ask and receive modules after the coding was done; without QA control or even proper testing. The testing and bug discovering was done by the users (the most expensive model).
4) From the last point the users though programming a module was so easy as touch the proper button. So we were only as secretary writing a letter or something similar. So they never though some things have to almost rewrite certain parts of the system to fulfill their needs.
5) As there was never a control of versions our internal boss always was making changes to the DB without asking or even notice us the changes. We see those changes when the user discovered lot of bugs.
6) First there was a person which his only job was provide us feedback from the users. After the boss though it was a good idea to assign us each of us (the programmers) a user or a department. When I start to see the users I see the point 1) was fulfilled without problems, and also another thing, if the user ask four changes, one was discarded as "all is working fine", one change was done and the other two things was lost.
Also with this change the programmers have to double the work and the other person was making a long long relaxing period.

So what was the bes project handling?
Simple:

1) Mimic all the system functions in a closed way (the users will use their usual system)
2) When all the mimic was done and all the function (and a period of testing was done), the system will go online and all the data will be stored into the system
3) Teach the users about the new features and how they have to work now (this is the most conflictive way)
4) Show the users the changes are good through examples with them.
5) The new features has to be done in a proper cycle of development. The bugs has to be top priority, but can't be considered a bug something not implemented (because the users don't tell us).

So easy =).

Between Real and Surreal

2006-02-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

Between Real and Surreal
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Starting to post old photos =)
Hope you like.

What the world needs

2006-02-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

Today I checked an article about making your PSP run emulators and programs, of course this was first introduced by XBox which attract to many hobbiest (and a lot of linux geeks).

The problem with PSP, and let me be general, with Sony is that the company as many other big companies try to impose their own "standard", in this case the UMD and Memory Stick, if they ask to me how to design this, I would prefer to use a mini DVD, of course is not Universal Compatible, but it will be more compatible than UMD.

The compatibility should be though as first feature when the system is created (but of course if they limit to users to their products universe, they got more money...).

So what is my whish?.

HD bluetooth or wifi enabled. Yes, why have a system with a lot of Disk Space (iPod, mp3 player, and now camcorders) and they are only limited to one system. If I have a palm, a mp3/video player and why not a PSP or a GBA I want to connect to my HD.
The flash cards are growing in capacity more faster than other medium, but if we compare a small iPod of 4 GB with the now more standard flash card of 1GB the difference is obvious, and more if you buy an iPod of 40 GB or another portable system of this capacity. So why not have a HD with this features?.
I would like to connect my palm to this HD and have programs or even go to internet and download things when I'm mobile; get games from the HD and save my advances, later I only could put near a computer to sync my files.
And we can go further and put in the HD more intelligence and have a permissions system like linux; so we could left to another user read our disk and give a new dimension to sharing.

I hope the companies see that if they make more standard (and open) systems, we get more fun. How the companies could win in this way?, easy as they have developed a system, they have advantage developing more addons more faster and eager than others (and this doesn't mean they have to create their pseudo-standard/open systems).

Red Javascript Diaries

2006-01-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

I've just opened a new blog to talk about the new UI in Javascript. The title is provocative =)
Visit: Red Javascript Diaries

Cheap Tip #2 - Drupal modules and taxonomies

2005-12-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a job, developing a module for drupal, as I didin't know anything about this CMS, I started developing a small module, all seems to go smoothly, but yesterday I had a trouble, I'm using taxonomies, and first I added "manually" (direct sql insert), but this wasn't working.
I tried to "emulate" the way other modules works (only have blogapi), but no one was working; I start debbugging the sql inserts (this is really great =) ):
Change
function _db_query($query, $debug = 0) {
for:
function _db_query($query, $debug = 1) {
In database.mysql.inc (of course I'm using mysql, you should change in your properly file).

After debug, I see there was a DELETE statement after my insert; I was searching with no luck which function was called. After a while, I get this:


function node_invoke_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $a3 = NULL, $a4 = NULL) {
  $return = array();
  foreach (module_list() as $name) {
    $function = $name .'_nodeapi';
    if (function_exists($function)) {
      $result = $function($node, $op, $a3, $a4);
      if (is_array($result)) {
        $return = array_merge($return, $result);
      }
      else if (isset($result)) {
        $return[] = $result;
      }
    }
  }
  return $return;
}

In the node.module; what this is doing is simple call all the modules: page, MyModule, comments, taxonomy among others.

So I check the taxonomy.module to see which is making on its nodeapi:


function taxonomy_nodeapi($node, $op, $arg = 0) {
  switch ($op) {
    case 'insert':
      taxonomy_node_save($node->nid, $node->taxonomy);
      break;
    case 'update':
      taxonomy_node_save($node->nid, $node->taxonomy);
      break;
    case 'delete':
      taxonomy_node_delete($node->nid);
      break;
    case 'rss item':
      return taxonomy_rss_item($node);
      break;
  }

Fine, insert and update call to taxonomy_node_save what does this function?:


function taxonomy_node_save($nid, $terms) {
  taxonomy_node_delete($nid);

  if (is_array($terms)) {
    foreach ($terms as $term) {
      if (is_array($term)) {
        foreach ($term as $tid) {
          if ($tid) {
            db_query('INSERT INTO {term_node} (nid, tid) VALUES (%d, %d)', $nid, $tid);
          }
        }
      }
      else if ($term) {
        db_query('INSERT INTO {term_node} (nid, tid) VALUES (%d, %d)', $nid, $term);
      }
    }
  }
}

The first statement speak by itself, it delete all the nodes, and next makes again the nodes with info of the $terms, first using a rough: taxonomy_node_save($node->nid, array(0 => $taxonomy_category)); worked inserting the node, but not backuping the data when it calls taxonomy_node_save, so I was almost at the beggining; but of course, checking again taxonomy_nodeapi I saw that the "backup" is on: $node->taxonomy so I need to alter the $node on my mymodule_nodeapi =), here is a snippet:


function mymodule_nodeapi(&$node, $op, $teaser = NULL, $page = NULL)
{
 if ($op == "insert" || $op == "update")
 {
  $node->taxonomy = array(0 => $taxonomy_category);
 }
}

And all works smoothly!! =).

Hope this help you,

Amazing ffmpeg

2005-11-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

So, there is a boom for video, you can see on youtube.com the next major on the media, flash streaming as "universal" format for web playing; I have to say that is a really, really good idea.

On the other side, there is a lot of 'funny videos' and 'jackass kind' of videos on a lot of sites, one of these sites I like too much is: ebaumsworld.com, but ok let's go the facts =).

To process info about a video, you need an api to access this; in this case there is a GPL library: ffmpeg (Mplayer use it). I have a mac, so I wanted to test on my mac instead on my linux box, so I download the ffmpeg sources (from cvs since the stable version didn't work) to compile I change it to 3.3 version:


phobos:~/Desktop/downloads/ffmpeg danguer$ sudo gcc_select 3.3
Password:
You are already using gcc version 3.3 as the default compiler.
phobos:~/Desktop/downloads/ffmpeg danguer$ ./configure --prefix=/sw --enable-shared

I use the /sw since I have fink working on my mac, then I compiled and installed: make && sudo make install

Then I downloaded the ffmpeg-php extension to use ffmpeg into my php scripts.
For me only worked if you hack a bit the configure script, follow the steps (phpize if you want as extension to load), and before you make ./configure change the configure file from:


  echo "$as_me:$LINENO: checking for ffmpeg libavcodec.so" >&5
echo $ECHO_N "checking for ffmpeg libavcodec.so... $ECHO_C" >&6
  for i in $PHP_FFMPEG /usr/local /usr ; do
    if test -f $i/lib/libavcodec.so; then
      FFMPEG_LIBDIR=$i/lib
    fi
  done

to:


  echo "$as_me:$LINENO: checking for ffmpeg libavcodec.so" >&5
echo $ECHO_N "checking for ffmpeg libavcodec.so... $ECHO_C" >&6
  for i in $PHP_FFMPEG /usr/local /usr ; do
    if test -f $i/lib/libavcodec.dylib; then
      FFMPEG_LIBDIR=$i/lib
    fi
  done

And of course, the script will only look into /usr/lib & /usr/include ; as my libraries were into /sw I put links to the lib & include dirs.

From there, the configure works fine, and also the compile; you need to create (or copy from /etc/php.ini-default to /usr/lib/php.ini and edit to add the proper extension.

Next, download a mpg & avi file, and put this code to test =):


<?php
print "<h1>Testing mpg</h1>";
$movie = new ffmpeg_movie("tmp.mpg", false);

print "Movie Duration: " . $movie->getDuration() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameCount: " . $movie->getFrameCount() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameWidth: " . $movie->getFrameWidth() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameHeight: " . $movie->getFrameHeight() . "<br/>\n";
$frame = $movie->getFrame(15);
$im = $frame->toGDImage();
imagejpeg($im, "im_mpg.jpg");
print '<img src="im_mpg.jpg"/><br/>';

print "<h1>Testing avi</h1>";
$movie = new ffmpeg_movie("tmp.avi", false);

print "Movie Duration: " . $movie->getDuration() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameCount: " . $movie->getFrameCount() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameWidth: " . $movie->getFrameWidth() . "<br/>\n";
print "Movie GetFrameHeight: " . $movie->getFrameHeight() . "<br/>\n";
$frame = $movie->getFrame(15);
$im = $frame->toGDImage();
imagejpeg($im, "im_avi.jpg");
print '<img src="im_avi.jpg"/><br/>';
?>

The first time I didn't get any; but from another files, I really could get the frames and info about the movie... I can't wait to test if wmv and mov files can be readed and created short clips =).

Regards,

Cheap Tip #1

2005-11-08T07:20:00.000-08:00

Recently, I was testing wxnet and wxglade; I generated the CS code from a XRC resource through towxnet

The code compiled with no problems, but when I tried to execute it shows an error:


danguer@danguer:~/wxM$ mono app.exe

Unhandled Exception: System.DllNotFoundException: wx-c
in (wrapper managed-to-native) wx.App:wxApp_ctor ()
in <0x00012> wx.App:.ctor ()
in <0x0000a> MyApp:.ctor ()
in <0x00019> MyApp:Main (System.String[] args)

The readme only says that if this error shows, then you have to backtrack the error to one of the libraries which depends wx-c, easy to say, not easy to show =).
Also they show a command which can help you to debug how is loading (in Linux) the shared libraries: LD_DEBUG=files mono app.exe

Of course I use a lot strace for this; so I check the ENOENT, but of course it shows all the dirs where mono try to found the dll, so it's a bit hard to do it this way. I use the command the wxnet says; but like I've never used this I don't know what should appear. The answer is simple; prints the shared library which try to open, if is sucessful (it have found the library) prints something like:


     4153:     file=libwx-c.so [0];  needed by /usr/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so.0 [0]
     4153:     file=libwx-c.so [0];  generating link map
     4153:       dynamic: 0x40cf7f94  base: 0x40bb2000   size: 0x0014995c
     4153:         entry: 0x40c56cf0  phdr: 0x40bb2034  phnum:          4
     4153:

It shows that the shared library was found and we could read it's data, when you don't have the shared library, it will show:


     4153:     file=libtiff.so.3 [0];  needed by /home/danguer/mono-1.1.9.2/lib/libwx_gtk2u_xrc-2.6.so.0 [0]
     4153:

In this case, only prints the shared library, but not show anything more, because it haven't found the library, so I made a link (because I'm using libtiff4) to my libtiff library.

And this make the wxnet works fine under Linux

Mac OS X tip

2005-08-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

I recently have to convert a lot of docs to pdf's (I made a Search Engine with Lucene, and even with the poi.jar of LuceneInAction 'framework' could index docs, I prefer to do it in PDF).

I used Applescript, but I haven't any example of 'traverse' a dir/folder in applescript, I have to do it by hand (with find and some parsing with greps/seds); so I found a nice command which can convert every 'native' file format of Mac OS X (rtf, jpeg, gif, png, html, txt and a lot more):


/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/convert

For example to convert a rtf document you must use:


/System/Library/Printers/Libraries/convert -i document.rtf -o /Users/danguer/document.pdf -j "application/pdf"

You NEED to put the absolute path to where you want to save your pdf document, because the convert command will try to translate to root directory (document.pdf -> /document.pdf), and don't show any message of error in this case.

Spread

2005-07-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

Deviation: [link]

Voices

2005-07-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Deviation: [link] and for first time print [print]

Flower 8

2005-07-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

Deviation: [link]

Flowers 5

2005-07-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Flowers 4
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [link]

Flowers 6

2005-07-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Flowers 6
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [link]

On the road 2

2005-07-04T08:43:00.000-07:00

On the road 2
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [ link ]

In the battle

2005-07-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

In the battle
Originally uploaded by danguer.

My deviant id: link

On the road

2005-06-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

On the road
Originally uploaded by danguer.

another deviation: [link]

2005-06-28T23:46:00.000-07:00

Oh blogger, blogger =P
I have just found that you can upload your images directly to blogger; I supposed it when a friend send me a lot of 'funny' pics and have the http://photos1.blogger.com and the dude of the blog wasn't associate with blogger/google =).

Browsing: (maybe due this a google query) I found this book: The Practice of Programming, from Kernighan and Pike. It's a small, and easily book to learn some basics about coding =).

Last night I was having troubles with implementing a Trie Tree (and I don't know why I always remember as Triec =S) in Java, I have to relax a little, I found a trouble with the suffix (really needs a '$' character to indicate the end of the tree, otherwise bug and buggy will rely over the same leaf ... and buggy will 'eat' to bug =D).

Sonny will come this weekend!!!

Damn I'm addict to pop-tarts =S

Listening: You are beautiful - James Blunt

Horizon

2005-06-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

Horizon
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [link]

Joyness

2005-06-27T22:09:00.000-07:00

Hapinness
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [link]

Sunset on the hills 3

2005-06-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

Sunset on the hills
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Deviation: [link]

Playing Spin Top IV

2005-06-22T20:17:00.000-07:00

Playing Spin Top 2
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Another Deviation [link]

Playing Spin Top 5

2005-06-21T12:20:00.000-07:00

Playin Spin Top 5
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Another deviation: [link]

Playing Spin Top 3

2005-06-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

Playing Spin Top 3
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Another Deviation: [link]

Playing Spin Top

2005-06-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

Playing Spin Top
Originally uploaded by danguer.

Another Deviation [link]

Nowhere Sunset

2005-06-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

Nowhere Sunset
Originally uploaded by danguer.

New photo in DA

[link]

Deviantart - Spin Top

2005-06-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Spin Top
Originally uploaded by danguer.

About childhood =)

[link]

Deviantart - Those Days

2005-06-16T21:50:00.000-07:00

Those Days
Originally uploaded by danguer.

This photo was taken in march, but edited to colorize to a sepia tone

[link]

Those days..

2005-06-05T20:52:00.000-07:00

Today was the birthday of Ragnarok, it was really funny and we joke and talk for about six hours =S.

I was testing colorize in the gimp and I will release some manipulated images in deviantart.com, the images I have released are:

Spin Top

Those days

I also found a new radio station, really cool, except it repeats much of his music =( Virgin Radio UK, yesterday I was listening 'Late Show with Leona' which started about 10 pm... in England, 3 pm in Mexico =P.

Checking my mail I found a Top Coder problem about 'masive numbers', which was really simple, my solution (trying to be more legible than the original answer, which I found later) is:


------
MassiveNumbers.java
------

public class MassiveNumbers 
{
 public static String getLargest(String numberA, String numberB)
 {
  String m, n;
  double a, b;
  double c, d;
  double result;
  
  int index_m, index_n;
  
  m = numberA.trim();
  n = numberB.trim();
  
  index_m = m.indexOf("^");
  index_n = n.indexOf("^");
  
  if (index_m == -1 || index_n == -1)
   return null;
  
  try
  {
   a = (new Double(m.substring(0, index_m))).doubleValue();
   c = (new Double(n.substring(0, index_n))).doubleValue();
   
   b = (new Double(m.substring(index_m + 1))).doubleValue();
   d = (new Double(n.substring(index_n + 1))).doubleValue();
  }
  catch(Exception e)
  {
   return null;
  }
  
  result = (d * Math.log(c)) - (b * Math.log(a));
  
  if (result > 0) //c^d > a^b ie n > m
   return numberB;
  else
   return numberA;
 }
}



---------
test.java
---------

public class test 
{
 public static void main(String[] args)
 {
  String greatest;
  
  if (args.length != 2)
  {
   System.out.println("Uso: test numeroA numberB");
   System.exit(1);
  }
  
  greatest = MassiveNumbers.getLargest(args[0], args[1]);
  
  System.out.println("El numero mayor es: " + greatest);
 }
}

Listening: R.E.M. - Losing My Religion

Reading

2005-05-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

I was reading some articles:

[study] Music Playlists Reveal Character, as an uncle says: Every first grade colleger knows it =P, but I knew that [Miserable Failure] Bush has revelead his iPod Playlist.

Innovative Instruction an article about a Teacher which helps the instruction through a program which helps to ask and answer question in a collaborative/anonymous way. I think this could really helps to the people (myself included) which has some 'social troubles' interacting with 'human forms' but not with 'computer forms' =). Of course instead installing this program in my school I suggest to replace the teachers with androids or better yet, a computer with Linux and Google as Homepage =).

A conversation with Marvin Minsky about agents, an 'old' interview but with a lot of contents =)

Commonsense-based interfaces a really good look through the AI 'recent' field: CommonSense

Also I get into this links:
Online Researchs - The Humanities, seems to have a lot of links to psychology/cognitive sciences info.
The Emotion Machine [Marvin Minsky] a draft of his new book.

Images at deviantart.com:

Door

Lost Grave

Who am I?

2005-04-25T00:56:00.000-07:00

I am:
Google says I'm this
Other say...
I'm here and here

But I'm nowhere, I'm only an IP through a double NAT.. I'm a number... I'm a statistic... I'm a word, maybe two... but I'm nothing...

Busy and maybe depress...

Take Care Myself...

2005-04-04T23:35:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it was a lot of time since I was writing here; I'm reading now about Pattern Classification (last week) and now I'm reading about Information Retrieval, in a good introductory book (the first two chapter are a bit messy and without a goal, but explores the theory bases for IR): Modern Information Retrieval, Ten minutes ago I was coding the Levinshtein Distance Algorithm, but it wasn't working because I was comparing the strings in differents places, so I looked some implementations and I get this:http://www.merriampark.com/ld.htm, coded in C++, VB and Java.

My PHP implementation according to the IR Book is here: http://www.danguer.com/code/ir/levenshtein.php?string1=surgery&string2=survey, of course, you must substitute the string1 and string2 with the values you want (note, my implementation doesn't allow empty string which can be sanned in the code and my implementation returns all the matrix, if you want only the distance, you have to do change: return $C; for return $C[$n][$m];).

The source code is here: http://www.danguer.com/code/ir/levenshtein.phps

There's a lot of others implementations and changes only a bit (for example they use the Kronecker delta function).

Only to occupy more space here is my code:

function LD($string1, $string2)
{
    $m = strlen($string1);
    $n = strlen($string2);
    $C = array();
        
    for ($i=0;$i<=$n;$i++)
        for ($j=0;$j<=$m;$j++)
        {
            if ($i == 0)
                $C[0][$j] = 0;
            else if ($j == 0)
                $C[$i][0] = $i;
            else 
            {
                if ($string1[$j-1] == $string2[$i-1])
                    $value = $C[$i-1][$j-1];
                else
                    $value = 1 + min($C[$i-1][$j], $C[$i][$j-1], $C[$i-1][$j-1]);
                
                $C[$i][$j] = $value;
            }
        }
        
    return $C;
}

I'm also submiting photos into deviantart.com, you can find my artistic side in there:
http://danguer.deviantart.com

Random Thoughts

2004-09-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm making a faster and cleaning development of my Library Site thanks to smarty, I thought first to develop with C# and ASP.NET, but I have seen a lot of troubles (and the learning factor will duplicate the time which I don't have).

Time ago I was developing some scripts to emulate the way of ASP.NET to PHP, I stop because I was wondering about using PHP5 and it's DOM model (I was using it, it was easy but not well documented, and I think it maybe be developed with a XML apart library) I never finished the compiler/parser.

While I was developing today the site, I was thinking about some things, first the persistence of the data; that seems to be simple, just to keep the variables on the page (or also, in a more complicated way in the server), the problem is if you need to change the data from a input to a text (because you don't want to keep writable that field) you will have to write every variable to a hidden field and that's not pretty good (because it can alter the data), the problem of caching in the server the variables is that every new page will "remember" your data, even if you don't want to keep your data.

2) The way to agroup fields in a "invariate" way, what I mean (and I really want for some 'cutie' obsession) is to get a way to control your visually elements like a Glade environment, you change only the way it looks, but the code remains the same.
This could be accomplished a little with templates, and smarty it's a good one, but I think could be more complex (imagine create the same graphic buttons as normal buttons without changing the template, instead creating a intermediate render step)

3) Persistence in the server: Ok, you have cached the variables, but how can you distinguish between a "back-button", and a new petition, that could be problematic; the solution that I think right now is using a "ticket system", simulating the transaction system, but only to avoid back button, you give a random string to every transaction and when you finish it, you delete it, if you press back, then the browser will send the old ticket, and the system will say "hey, you have go out of the train, please buy another ticket"; this could be done more automatic.

4) Render on the fly?... this could be interesting, CMS in database, there are some applications which do it, but I haven't tried it (more deeply, you must change even the code not only the data).

More things?

I don't know =)

2004-08-21T21:54:00.000-07:00

A Hard Day's Night... well yesterday =).

I have only a couple of class this week, I was coding a lot of our library system, I hope to start some tests this week and finish the borrow books part in this weekend.

A lot of troubles with the administration of my faculty; it's a place full of wolves trying to sink you; I heard the comment of a teacher which was asking 'favors' in order to help you to take more courses, because she is a 'very good friend' of our academic secretary.

Following the burocracy and corruption; our principal faculty say that we send our troubles about the inscription to the university main departments (this due the teacher; and because we were really mad because she left enter before the inscription to other fellows of laboratory departments; she said that wasn't ordered from she... it was from the university... see to believe it).

And finishing the sad news, a new attempt to reduce the internet bandwidth used in the unversity we got a proxy... it will cost us about $1k or $2k (almost one year ago they tried put the proxy, but I think the cost weren't affordable for the university ... about $50k), of course we cannot get some fun or even post my thoughts from there... Look what is a 'Malicious site": http://www.gcossio.org, of course PHP could be Malicious but only to the MS eyes =).

I tried an algorithm I see on the net about enhancement using the edges of an image (the laplacian and the sobel), you can see the images (using the famous lenna, which I don't know it was taken from a playboy magazine =D):

The original picture:

The laplacian

Sobel:

Laplacian * Sobel

Final, Adding the original with the last operation (but reduced the bright to the half):

I've noted a lot of errors in jpg images (I don't know if was the PIL library), because what only enhance is the noise of the square segmented image...

More info:
http://www.adires.com/~castleman/lin_com1.html

2004-06-29T21:12:00.000-07:00

My Digital Images project it's going on, I was developing first at Java but was creepy slow, even to do a simple grayscale, or a bright enhance; but I think it looks very good =).

I tried to make with mono, but the Pixbuf.Pixels property generates an error; but I can't wait to a new version =S.

Next I tried to pygtk, but again, the pixel property is not writable... only in gtk 2.4, I tried to update my system; but it don't work.

Finally, I was working with C, but the development is really slow; but the program is really fast =).
Today I tried to make the progress work; but it was crashing very often, and then I read it was for the threads, latter I tried with the examples; but I get it was really slow updating the image; I noticed why... because I was trying to update everytime it updates an pixel!!!, in a desktop image of 1024x768, it was a really overwhelming; I reduced to only update for each row, which work really fast; now I have to work with the dialogs to make it easier, and develop the algorithms... I have about 3 weeks =S.

2004-06-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

I love yahoo!, they have grown their mail quota to 100 megs, and 10 megs to send mails, recently I have to delete all my old stuff, now I think I will have more time to kept these mails; I don't like to use their pop download system due I want to read everywhere, something I can't do all the time with my other account, because all my mail is here in my mac.

I don't know how the people could live with a shit of 2 megs in their hotmail account, I think they get used the old hasefroch way (you can't do anything, the blue screens are something normal, lose your data is normal, fragment your hd is normal).

I finished reading "The Odissey", I think I like this book much more than the Illiad because tells more histories, I will start tomorrow to read "The Aeneid" of Virgil, it looks pretty cool.

I want to read about Hemingway, and others, but I don't have much money these days.

2004-06-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Yeah, http://perseo.cs.buap.mx is now online, and full working.

I've migrated to debian because gentoo was going very slow =((.

I started to read an uml book, it looks interesting; I've read before about UML, but never use it; now I'm trying to develop faster and organizated my school library portal.

I was looking notebooks with a friend; because she wants to buy one. I really like a 15" Toshiba laptop, really cool. I think she will buy a Vaio laptop =).

Felling a little sad

2004-06-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

People just ain't no good

People just ain't no good
I think that's welll understood
You can see it everywhere you look
People just ain't no good

We were married under cherry trees
Under blossom we made pour vows
All the blossoms come sailing down
Through the streets and through the playgrounds

The sun would stream on the sheets
Awoken by the morning bird
We'd buy the Sunday newspapers
And never read a single word

People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good

Seasons came, Seasons went
The winter stripped the blossoms bare
A different tree now lines the streets
Shaking its fists in the air
The winter slammed us like a fist
The windows rattling in the gales
To which she drew the curtains
Made out of her wedding veils

People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good at all

To our love send a dozen white lilies
To our love send a coffin of wood
To our love let aal the pink-eyed pigeons coo
That people they just ain't no good
To our love send back all the letters
To our love a valentine of blood
To our love let all the jilted lovers cry
That people they just ain't no good

It ain't that in their hearts they're bad
They can comfort you, some even try
They nurse you when you're ill of health
They bury you when you go and die
It ain't that in their hearts they're bad
They'd stick by you if they could
But that's just bullshit
People just ain't no good

People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good
People they ain't no good at all

Recompiling Gtk 2.4 and mono beta 2 to check if the error could be solved...

Lambda

2004-06-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

I love Python!

I was testing one filter which study today in the morning and I want to see in action the code using Python Imaging is really, really simple to implement point functions, just check the code:


def apply_sin(image, side=0):

        if not side:

                return image.point(lambda x: 255 

                                   * math.sin((x*math.pi)/510))

        else:

                return image.point(lambda x: 255 

                             * (1 - math.cos((x*math.pi)/510)))

This is for an algorithm of brightening and the second is for obscuring, I want to make a little graphical program which implements this algorithms, the question is... I must keep doing in Python?, I want to give it also as my final project in other course, but I don't think it will accept the Imaging Library, so I have to reimplement all; I want to use GdkPixbuf, the problem I have seen is handling grayscale images, because GdkPixbuf save the file as RGB using RGB palettes, instead of trying saving in grayscale palettes.

Of course, I can only use it and forget about how it saves; it will not matter to my teacher =)

First Blog

2004-06-03T12:50:00.000-07:00

Since http://advogato.org is down, now I will publish my thoughts here.