Dropbox over proxy

If you're want to install dropbox on linux and you access internet through a proxy it's not a straightforward task. After downloading and installing application from dropbox main page it will try to download a proprietary daemon and will fail although you have set http_proxy environment variable. The solution found in the dropbox forums. You just need to manually download and unpack the latest but not stable version.

Google chart API

It was a pleasant surprise for me that google have an API to generate images with formulas using TeX formated strings. This is possible using Google Chart Tools.
You simply write link like this
"http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=tx&chl=J^{*}_{t}=\left(%20j^{*}_{t}(1,1),j^{*}_{t}(1,2),j^{*}_{t}(1,3),%20\frac{\partial^2%20W_1}{\partial%20t^2},\frac{\partial^2%20W_2}{\partial%20t^2},\frac{\partial^2%20W_3}{\partial%20t^2}\right)^T,\\&j^{*}_{t}(1,k)=\left((P^T%20\ddot%20A_{k1}+%20\ddot%20A_{k2})P+2(2P^T%20\dot%20A_{k1}+%20\dot%20A_{k2})\dot%20P+\ddot%20A_{k3}%20\right)"
and get the following png picture:

CUDA Toolkit 3.0 now available

Good news!

There're some really delicious things in it:

• Multiple Copy Engine support
• Concurrent Kernel Execution
• C++ Class Inheritance and Template Inheritance support for increased programmer productivity
• CUDA Driver / Runtime Buffer Interoperability, which allows applications using the CUDA Driver API to also use libraries implemented using the CUDA C Runtime such as CUFFT and CUBLAS.
• CUBLAS now supports all BLAS1, 2, and 3 routines including those for single and double precision complex numbers
• New CUDA Memory Checker reports misalignment and out of bounds errors, available as a stand-alone utility and debugging mode within cuda-gdb
• On Linux, use cuda-gdb and cuda-memcheck, and check out the solutions from Allinea and TotalView that will be available soon.
• OpenCL Images support, for better/faster image filtering

C++ class inheritance is what I already was needed in my project. Higher performance and new debugging abilities also sounds great.

Resolving slow Eclipse problem

If you try to use Eclipse in newly installed Ubuntu, you might find that it's terribly slow. Just writing a dot after the variable can hang it for a minutes. The problem is in OpenJDK. You just need to install proprietary Sun Java to get a comfortable work. A very good howto about this could be found here.

New face database

Very nice surviliance cameras face database. 4160 images, different environment, different cameras, annotated positions of mouth, nose and eyes. And it's free! Though the request process is not simple, you'll have to fill an agreement and to be a full-time staff of the university.

CUDA Linux

Some Japanese company called Fixstars have released Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for CUDA. I was amazed by this topic wandering what it could be in fact. I was imaging that Linux core computationally intensive operations accelerated by GPU etc. So what is it all about:

Key benefits of Yellow Dog Enterprise Linux for CUDA:

• YDEL for CUDA users can experience up to a 9% performance improvement in some applications.
• Comprehensive support is offered to paid subscriptions with our skilled team able to assist you with both Linux and CUDA.
• YDEL's unparalleled integrations means everything you need to write and run CUDA applications is included and configured.
• YDEL includes multiple versions of CUDA and can easily switch between them via a setting in a configuration file or an environment variable.
• Never worry about updates affecting your system, Fixstars offers YDEL users greater reliability with our strenuous test procedures that validate GPU computing functionality and performance.

So it's not about speeding up kernel, or something but rather Linux with convinient pack of
drivers, toolboxes, SDK's and addons helping developers to write and test CUDA programs.

3D animation

When I was a student I interested almost everithing about computers. And I always needed to try everything by myself. Among other computer connected areas there was a period of time when I was trying myself as a 3D modeler. I've tried 3DS, Lightwave, Poser, Bryce etc. Don't ask me where I've earned so much money to buy all that software, It was a dark times in Russia =). I used to make some simple movies, 3D objects, I've had some experience in OpenGL and Direct3D. But more than 6 years are pased since that time and now I needed something for making not very complicated 3D embedded in my software. I wasn't happy thinking about many days spent in remembering OpenGL and implementing all stuff. Then I tried to find some library helping me with this. Then my colleague adviced me to look at Panda project maintained by CMU. I was greatly surprised because it was very powerfull, crossplatform, very good documented, easy to use library. And it was free! Under BSD licence!!! It takes less than one day to implement all main functional I needed.

Take a look at their nice website