I admit it, I used to consider computing the Big-O of algorithms you write is ridiculously useless. “We have these powerful machines nowadays!” and boy was I wrong …. In http://leepoint.net/notes-java/algorithms/big-oh/bigoh.html and under Why Size Matters

Does anyone really have that much data?

It’s quite common. For example, it’s hard to find a digital camera that that has fewer than a million pixels (1 mega-pixel). These images are processed and displayed on the screen. The algorithms that do this had better not be O(N²)! If it took one microsecond (1 millionth of a second) to process each pixel, an O(N²) algorithm would take more than a week to finish processing a 1 megapixel image, and more than three months to process a 3 megapixel image (note the rate of increase is definitely not linear).

Another example is sound. CD audio samples are 16 bits, sampled 44,100 times per second for each of two channels. A typical 3 minute song consists of about 8 million data points. You had better choose the write algorithm to process this data.

A dictionary I’ve used for text analysis has about 125,000 entries. There’s a big difference between a linear O(N), binary O(log N), or hash O(1) search.

HOWEY! a week for 1 megapixel image using an O(N²) algorithm!! …. Ok, sure, on a desktop application where the data are usually small and the processor is fast, it doesn’t matter much. But for heavily visited web sites (huge data) or for small devices (slow processor) it makes a world of difference. I better watch for this in my current projects, one’s expect heavy traffic (huge data) and the other is a mix of medium/big data and slow-ish server. Better go revise the code.

Call it “source control”, call it “version control”, call it “revision control”,  or call it “Big Mac with no cheese!”. What ever you call it, source control is an important concept of modern day software projects.
“What is source control?” I hear you say.
Well, allow me to point you to Mr. Eric Sink. He works on Source Control tools. He also wrote a nice guide for complete beginners to learn source control (not surprisingly, using his own tools for the guide. But he does it in a general way so that the tool he/you use doesn’t matter much).
http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source_control.html
“…umm, still, what is source control?“
In short, source control is a way to keep your projects source code :
A) Safe (Backed up).
B) Easy to share between developers working on a project.
C) Allow developers to work in parallel.
D) Keep all the versions of your files (ie enable you to go back in time to see how the code evolved).
And other features that I currently cant bother to mention since these are the main ones.
And why should you learn it? well … because college don’t teach you how and employers (the good ones that is) expect you to know it already. Even with bad employers … its up to you as a professional developer to introduce professional development methods in the work place. Your boss will thank you, your team will thank you and the team that was hired after you got fired and has to work on your projects will REALLY thank you.
Enjoy.

I was reading Penelope Trunk’s blog when this line in “How to be more interesting to other people” just struck my

So look, interesting does not come from greatness. Interesting comes from conflict.

Something about this line just rings to me. It seems so freaking true, and I cant tell why. She follows it with this line, which I guess illustrates what is meant with the pervious line.

Tolstoy opens Anna Karenina with the line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

Even thought I’m in the last paragraph, I couldn’t continue until I share this line with someone. Now that I did that …. I’ll go finish that post.

Following the advice of many people (notably Penelope Trunk , Steve Yegge), one (I) must maintain and update a personal blog in order to success in the work place/job market. In You should write blogs, Steve lists 4 reasons why many don’t blog. I mostly identify with:

Reason #3: Nobody will read my blog.

and its simple, I got nothing interesting to talk about.

Here I am, a 24 years old software engineering Grad, freelancing on a game project. Technical issues? I’m still not experienced for that, and there are million of blogs for that and will do it 10-20 times better. Work place issues? I work from home and don’t get out much (so that kills talking about local events). And don’t say about working from home. Freelance Switch, Anti 9 to 5 Guide, Location Independent  all do a fine job at that. Drawing? again, million other artists got that covered. Video games … covered. Daily life tips and tricks? …covered (I love you lifeHacker!). Anime …covered. Oh coffee! I can … nope, covered.

That leaves me with the last thing, a blog that points to other blogs entries and talk about them (I know, highly original). I’m not bashing the people that do it, some of them give you a very interesting read, even without reading the blog they are pointing to. But again, there isn’t a single topic that I can devote a blog to (or make it worthy of following/subscribing to), nor can I give thoughtful insights on other peoples blogs.

But, I can try.

What comes to mind is that I can pull a Seinfeld and make it a blog ‘about nothing’. Just daily (weekly … every 10 days) ramblings that may seem interesting to someone. If I can build a crowed, write interesting stuff and get that great programming job in the process, great! If not, then at least I’ll have a log of what I liked and disliked in a certain period of my life (in case I had amnesia or early Alzheimer’s). Or I can read my blog 10 years from now and laugh/cry saying “What a noob!”

Noticing that I wrote 2 paragraphs with almost one ‘I’ per sentence, here is ‘my’ other problem with blogging from Steve’s list:

Reason #4: Blogging is narcissistic.

As much as ‘I’ love to stand out in anything ‘I’ do, ‘I’ hate portraying that ‘I”m narcissistic or even hint it (looking at all the ‘I’s, apparently I’m not doing a good job in that).

But I’ll risk it, just in case one day

When it comes down to it, I’m asking you to write blogs because I know you’ve got really interesting things to say, even if you don’t think they’re that interesting. Your life is interesting, and your opinions of technology, Amazon, and life in general matter to me, and to others. I bet you’ve got a lot you could teach me, even if you don’t think you do. Heck, I was in my mid-twenties when I realized I had a gross conceptual misunderstanding about the reason it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. The stuff I think I know is an invisible speck compared to the superset of what all people know today. Do me a favor and save me the effort of tracking you down in the hall and asking you to enlighten me.

Besides, I’m not ready to hear what you have to say yet. When I am ready, it’ll be in your blog

— Steve Yegge

I’m blogging for you Steve (narcissism overload!!).

Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

Following the tutorial at http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/Part+I.+Creating+a+Simple+RIA

Flicker image search :) ! try it!

Following my last post, I kept trying to learn Flex when I can (interrupted by the arrival of my new Wacom, I reach over to draw whenever I want to program!).

I kept trying to find learning resources for complete beginners (who can program at least, but didn’t do any RIA development of Action Script programming before). In the end, I found that returning to Adobe is your best bet: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/?tab:quickstart=1.

Also, keep this open when you program, or at least add it to your favorites : http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/flex/ 

That’s about all you need (well, so far). Adobe will recommend that you buy their Flash Build to develop flex, but you can use the free FlashDevelop  http://www.flashdevelop.org/community/ for your Action Script and MXML needs (and its really good).

Remember to pass by http://flex.org/ to see some Flex application and see what it can do!

and lastly ….. Good Luck :)

I needed to learn flex for a project, what is Flex? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flex
in short, flex is AJAX nerdy cousin, and both are used to develop Rich Internet Applications (RIA). The advantage of Flash is that it will look the same on all browser (pixel to pixel likeness), and it is a true write-once-run-everywhere. it can run from a browser, using Flash player, or it can run on desktops, using Adobe AIR.
Adobe has released the Flex SDK for free, but their IDE for making Flex application (Eclipse-based) cost around $1000 to get a licence.

What’s the difference between Flash and Flex? the answer is in the title, and here http://kanuwadhwa.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/choose-the-best-flashflex/

So, how can I learn Flex for free and develop free RIA applications? ( I spent 3 hours on this and it is what this post is all about)
My friend Sirisian has the answer here http://www.kirupa.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2229691&postcount=9
The post is actually an answer to someone wanting to develop flash games, so it can be used for games as well.

I hope someone saves 3 hours thanks to this,
Have a nice day

Reason

this is a test to try out  Windows Live Writer that I just installed.

continue reading "Testing Windows Live Writer"

This is my submission to Microsoft Imagine Cup: Project Hoshimi 2007.

Competition idea:

To program the AI/Strategy for a group of nano-bots. This strategy is then played in a 3D-simulated environment and you get points for accomplishing certain tasks and mission with that strategy. The simulated environment represent a human tissue, and your nano-robots has to be injected in a certain place in that tissue in order to do all/most of the tasks required. Tasks include visiting a number of points in the tissue, building enzyme needles, and going to enzyme points to collect enzyme and take it to an enzyme needle and fill it.

There are many constrains that makes this a tough competition:

continue reading "Project Hoshimi 2007"