iPad My First e-Reader

I was patiently waited for portable electronic reader of the e-ink ilk, but using LCD touchable screen. My patience was rewarded by the new arrival on the arena of handheld devices - Apple's iPad, which is consider to be a tablet computer. Also hardware features like build-in GPS and Accelerometer along with the fast processor makes iPad more than a portable reader. Regardless my primary reason for getting iPad is to use it for reading PDFs and some programming. The programs that ship with the device are more likely child toys and are more oriented towards immediate consumption. Also the only conduit for installing new program is via iTunes. Therefore without 3rd party software the device makes you an excellent consumer, just use your credit card more often. Here I wish to share my experience of two programs I found that fulfill all my needs. They are iAnnotate PDF and PrintBureau.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bellow is example of iAnnotate PDF in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bellow is example of PrintBureau in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally the snapshots below illustrate how to map your iPad like network drive via the program PrintBureau. The developer of PrintBureau didn’t provide these instructions for customers with MS Windows 7. The snapshots are self-explanatory. I hope nobody will have any problem to repeat this experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Political Scam Artists?

On Monday, which happened to be Martin Luther King Jr Day many pedestrians on the Upper East Side in Manhattan encountered political signs asking for support impeaching Obama, Pelosi and Reed. Don’t you think If such signs caught your curiosity it would be logical asking the men posted them on the street the following question: “Who are you?” I could not resist and I asked that question. The answer further fueled my suspicions.

So, these were the same people, who brought similar signs a few years ago, but with the names of Bush and Cheney. They were not Obama supporters, but supporters of Hillary Clinton. In other words they were not tea party people, republicans or regular conservatives in contrary one could expect.

And my suspicions that these people were not only political scam artists, but Hillary operatives checking the pulse on the street about the people’s sentiment against Obama could be correct. As a former participant in operation Chaos during 2008 election I am embracing Ms Clinton’s inspirations for 2012 and cannot wait for the change. You go Hillary gal!

Season’s Greetings

Thinking about the gap between my current and my last postings I came to wonder how James Joyce worked on his novels, while buried with his children’ cries and the struggle for making a living. If you believe in anecdotes, then it is easy to believe that for most bloggers the situation like Joyce’ one is very common – too many distractions and mandatory duties. Of course at the end some postings will percolate up, but others will not i.e. they will be lost.

One solution for immediately, but partially posting is by using the Twitter. In this way you can preserve your otherwise perishable thoughts. One can consider such posting like a brain snippets, which on later time can be extended to full blog posting.

As far as I am concerned I treat my postings as populating a Content Management System (CMS) with an anonymous readers’ login, but with a single purpose to serve its author. Similar considerations apply for all of my programs I offer to the public – they are created with their biggest user in mind, and that is their author. If somebody else performs similar job duties, then my programs could have another user.

In the eve of New Year I have desire to compile my old programs and create my new programs with Delphi 2010 and my updated 3rd party components list. From my components list I dropped only LEADTOOLS Imaging programming interface since LEADTOOLS dropped the VCL technology from their list. Fortunately for me I found a new vendor – MCM Design, whose Imaging VCL set is an excellent choice in functionality and price. Also thankfully to Share-It one can find a lot of useful software for developers. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

K-type Quizzing

Everybody recognizes this kind of testing. K-type quizzing stands for questioning with multiple-choice answers. I like K-type tests and in general I like to be tested, but especially I enjoy when a test is created in a smart manner. The reason is that you learn a lot from interaction with a test. This notion is similar to the saying that in order to learn something you have to teach that something.

In my higher education experience I was disappointed that a K-type tests were barely administered. Some professors stated that these tests hurt minorities and students, who speak English as a second language. Others argued that such testing is a discrete one i.e. not for a broad spectrum of knowledge. However I never bought such argumentation.

Therefore I thought about a solution for overcoming the mistrust in such testing. The goal is the one being tested to learn. In other words testing has to be seen as a educational tool and not a day of reckoning. Also that testing has to comply with the notion for a second chance.

First the tests have to be crafted by experienced professors with outlined pedagogic goals. The questions have to be enough to fill up an academic hour by allowing 2-5 min per question. Also the students have to be tested twice on the same subject by allowing them to specify which test to count for the final grading. The last condition eliminates the excuses that someone was tired or misunderstand something i.e. giving them a second chance.

I really believe that such testing will be able to leverage the knowledge and stir a waves of pride and competiveness among the students.

Postbox – the new kid on the block

Last week The Wall Street Journal in its Gadgets section published an interesting article about the email program Postbox. Lured by the write-up I tested the program and I was pleased, but not surprised.

The testing brought memories about Eudora email program, I was using back in the end of the 90’s. In other words I felt Postbox to be a new incarnation of Eudora. But I was looking for features like independent medium archiving and I could not find them. By independent mediums I meant archiving all emails at once by saving them as PDF package, HTML files, or TXT files.

Nevertheless Postbox is a great new addition in the field of email programs. It will be a great assets for someone, who doesn’t care about archiving their emails. But for me I will still use Outlook, which allows me with one button click to archive all my emails in a single PDF package along with all attachments.

Chavez’s Book Club – A New Selection

Apparently señor Chavez understands his book selections are becoming very popular. From the President below to the rank amateurs, who have taken the pledge to the President everybody reads with devotion.

The selection for this month is The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson. I have to agree with this selection as being very effective. One can observe that between democracies there is no jealousy or military conflicts, but between authoritarian regimes there is plenty of mischief. This observation is correct and if one can also recall that Chavez and Fidel were extremely jealous of their comrade from Estados Unidos.

The book chosen by Chavez counterweight the notion that by electing his comrade the racial problem is over and that he is a post-racial candidate. In contrary the problem was reinvigorated and the political correctness (PC) caught a new life.

This book outlines a real tangible solution, which makes its author - James Weldon Johnson a true visionary and a legend from the Harlem Renaissance. Read it for yourself and think about it. My summarization of the solution can be put like this - the rugged individualism and pure capitalism.

Multi-Tier Desktop Searching

The term Multi-Tier (usually 3-Tier) is in the context of the client-server architectures. But here I wish to use it in the context of Desktop Searching. When one hears Desktop Searching the first association is with Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) or Google Desktop Search (GDS). Of course there are other desktop searching programs but the point is that they employ in certain aspects techniques from the database management systems (DBMSs). In other words these programs constantly run and index all the files on the hard drive.

Nowadays people are becoming more sophisticated in filing on their hard drives. For example they name or rename (ReNamer by Kozlov, D. is an excellent freeware) their files with dates or key-words in the file name and most importantly they file them in established directory structures. Files related to invoices go into the Invoices folder, photos go to photo folder, radiology report for certain patient go into the patient’s folder and so forth.

While I don’t see benefits of using programs like CDS and GDS I do see necessity of good searching program. And if one adds desirable features like regular expressions, speed and reliability, then one can see that the desktop searching programs don’t fit prerequisites.

If you have seen proprietary websites for library searches like OvidSP, then you will understand the idea behind the term multi-tier searching. For example in OvidSP you search for author’s name and you came with a set of findings lets call it S. Next you search for some key terms and you came with set T. The final step is to allow OvidSP to do the intersection of the set S and T.

Using the idea described above I came up with the technique for multi-tier desktop searching. I use one program developed by somebody else – PowerGREP (Goyvaerts, Jan et.al.) and program developed by myself – DCM Filing Handler. I am writing a detailed article about the technique and when ready it will be posted on my site. For now at least you know that in the realm of desktop searching nothing is settled yet.