Stuff New To Me
Velocity Templating - old skool apache project. Love this now that I have to do a project in it.
Netbeans - this is a better IDE for just java web projects than eclipse
MacBook Pro - yeah, i switched complete. put VM Fusion on it. Game over. it does everything.
Grid Computing/Hosting:
Blogs: WordPress.com - good enough features and good network of pings to bring traffic in
Grid: Amazon Web Services - al a carte storage and computing. Verdict is out on Google Apps. Initial restriction to Python and Google only stack might be a problem.
Servers: Cari.net. Cheap, fast, good. A few network outages recently but overall probably the best self service dedicated hoster that can do EASY and HARD stuff.
Useful Instructions:
Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) on Ubuntu 7.10
Computing Packages to Replace Overpriced Stuff:
This page is best for all that!
OS Preferences:
Scenerio: Laptop
OS: Vista with all updates.
Why: Every type of connectivity option works - ethernet, wifi, cell cards from all vendors
Scenario: Experimentation and Computation
OS: Ubuntu 7.10
Why: Every scientific package available and easily installed. Works well on all hardware without bogging anything down.
Scenario: Web Dev
OS: Vista or XP
Why: Tool availability - every framework is possible and every IDE/tool as well. Ubuntu is close but sometimes you have to get out adobe products or Visual Studio. (I know, I know…)
Scenario: Family PC
OS: OS X
Why: Less work for resident techie. Really, it is. Everything just works for non techs. Granted, when it goes bad (and it does), it’s not as easy to fix. Also scores points for having workable programs bundled with OS.
Scenario: Servers
OS: CentOS or RHEL
Why: Robust and easy to configure and maintain for most common server uses. Also, can be slapped on the cheapest hardware and still do well.
Scenario: Impress Everyone
OS: Any solaris
Why: just because it’s esoteric.
Favorite Algorithm Right now: (get a boatload of them from here and this is my source for content below)
knapsack problem
(classic problem)
Definition: Given items of different values and volumes, find the most valuable set of items that fit in a knapsack of fixed volume.
Formal Definition: There is a knapsack of capacity c > 0 and N items. Each item has value vi > 0 and weight wi > 0. Find the selection of items (δi = 1 if selected, 0 if not) that fit, ∑i=1N δiwi ≤ c, and the total value, ∑i=1N δivi, is maximized.
Also known as 0-1 knapsack problem, binary knapsack problem.
See also fractional knapsack problem, unbounded knapsack problem, bin packing problem, cutting stock problem, NP-complete.
Note: Also called 0-1 or binary knapsack (each item may be taken (1) or not (0)), in contrast to the fractional knapsack problem. Also called bounded knapsack (BKP) because there are a limited number of items, in contrast to the unbounded knapsack problem. The decision problem is, given items of different values and volumes and a knapsack, is there a subset that exceeds a certain value? The decision problem is NP-complete.
Near the end, the following page has drawings and a description of a rigid frame knapsack.
Author: PEB
Implementation
(Fortran and Pascal). GAMS Class G2c3 (Fortran).
More information
From xkcd by Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
nice choice of algorithm. you figure out if P = NP yet?