A couple days ago I finished reading and experimenting with several exercises / examples in the book “Pro ADO.NET 2.0” by Sahil Malik, published by Apress®. Given that today is the last day of the month, I decided to squeeze some time and write down my comments on the book.
I have somewhat experimented with ADO.NET. Until recently I have not considered the platform for project development. Finally I decided to move forward and use it. As usual I always try to read a couple books on the subject before delving into any software design, even if the subject is quite familiar or have extensive experience with it. I do not think about what people may say but you always learn something new when reading approaches and ideas from other professionals. In many cases you run into features that you did not know existed or have just forgotten about them. Uneducated people in Computer Science might think reading a book before starting a project, or part of a project might be a sign of weakness and incompetence, I believe quite the contrary. Dislike when people nod their heads in approval while you are aware they know little or nothing on the specific subject.
Sahil Malik has done a very good job presenting the subject. All topics have nice and clear examples. The chapters follow a logical order. Read the rest of this entry »
As usual, have been quite busy taking care of work related tasks and issues and have disregarded the Naïve American web site for a couple weeks. My apologies to faithful followers, hope you understand the situation.
The June 2011 issue of “Costco Connection”, which features on the cover chef Guy Fieri, has an interesting article on Factoring titled “Surviving the Cash-flow Crunch” written by Don Sadler (www.donsadlerwriter.com). Used to shop at Sam’s Club, but due to their business practices, my wife and I switched to Costco as soon as a store opened a reasonable distance (about 7 miles) from home.
Apparently Costco members receive a free copy of their monthly magazine “Costco Connection”. My wife left the last issue on a table opened on page 21. The article by Don Sadler called my attention in relation to small businesses and the current economic issues our country is experiencing. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week I received an electronic message that read as follows:
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Interesting data
PERCENTAGE INCREASE IN NATIONAL DEBT
REAGAN (1981-89) 189%
BUSH #1 (1989-93) 55%
CLINTON (1993-01) 37%
BUSH #2 (2001-09) 115%
OBAMA (2009-11) 16% thus far
Source: U. S. Treasury Dept.
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When I read the message a flag was raised in my mind. How convenient that all Democratic presidents did so well controlling spending which curtailed the national debt. As usual, when something looks so good something is typically wrong. The best was the last line that indicates the source for the data in the message: U. S. Treasury Department. Read the rest of this entry »
Today I finished reading “The Art of Multiprocessor Programming” by Maurice Herlihy and Nir Shavit. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers published the book. I want to get up to speed on this discipline, which is becoming more important as physical limits in size and speed are being reached in the production of Central Processing Units (CPUs). In the past few years we have seen in the consumer market computers equipped with single, dual and quad processors each with 2, 4, and 8 cores. Have purchased a few additional books in the subject, which will discuss on future blogs. In order is a NVIDIA Tesla GPU that will be installed on a DELL 64-bit computer in my office. After becoming proficient with the free software development tools from NVIDIA, will experiment with cryptographic and data mining algorithms.
Now back to the book. Most (with very few exceptions) of the code snippets in the book are written in Java. Programming language. Several years ago I purchased a few books and learn the language on my own. Never became proficient in it because for some reason or another never ran into a project which would specifically need it. In the past two decades or so, I have worked using the Microsoft development environment with little emphasis on Linux and Macintosh. Such is life. Read the rest of this entry »
This week was my son’s turn to have his two daughters for the weekend. The weather forecast for Saturday (yesterday) was calling for lower than average temperatures and chances for rain. Early Friday evening we decided that it would be a good thing to go to the Science Museum in St. Paul, Minnesota and see King Tutankhamun (King Tut) exhibit. To complete the experience we decided to also watch the current movie at the Omnitheater, which is part of the museum. The Omnitheater was featuring “Mummies”, a 37 minutes documentary. When my wife checked at the Box Office to purchase the tickets, it became apparent that for the prices, it would make sense to become a member of the Science Museum. That way if during the next year we run into a cold / rainy / snowy day, we have an additional alternative.
Yesterday, around 02:00 PM we walked the dogs, packed the kids in the car and headed downtown St. Paul to spend an educational afternoon.
We arrived at the parking ramp around 02:30 PM. Got our packing ticket, which was $10 without a membership. Given that we became members we were scheduled to only pay $5 on our way out. This was just another enticement to become members of the Science Museum.
Parked the car. The ramp was quite busy. Made it to the main lobby. We had reservations for 03:00 PM to watch the 37-minutes feature presentation. After a short line we made it two thirds up the theater and towards the center. My granddaughters had been in this facility before so we followed their advice. After a few words by a volunteer / employee the movie started. Read the rest of this entry »
My grandparents, my parents and I have owned handguns. My two sons have at least one for personal protection. I am not affiliated to the NRA or to any three-letter agency. I just enjoy the control needed to put a bullet in the center of a target. A golfer who wishes to drop the ball in a hole could say the same.
A few weeks ago I stopped by a gun shop in Lakeville, MN (closest to home) to order a S&W M&P 15T rifle. I have not fired a rifle in the last forty years or so. I am looking forward for the weekend to stop by a handgun and rifle range in Burnsville, MN to take the new rifle for a spin.
Getting back to the day I ordered the rifle, I had to present my permit to purchase handguns. The attendant at the shop checked my permit and ID and ordered the rifle after I made a $500 deposit. The attendant had me sign the permit because I had forgotten to do so when I received it from the Apple Valley police department. The rifle would take about a week to be delivered. I had nothing else that I could do but wait.
The week goes by and I called the gun shop. My order had not arrived yet. I had to wait for an additional week. After the second week was over I called the shop. The rifle had arrived. I drove to Lakeville and the shop was closed. Apparently they close early on Wednesdays because during spring and summer due to the fact that the gun shop runs some kind of sports club. I had to go back the next day.
Read the rest of this entry »
A couple weeks ago during a non-technical conversation the subject slowly shifted to security and encryption. Given that we were quite casual on the subject I mentioned “The Code Book” by Simon Singh. If interested there are some comments about it on a separate blog entry. As a counter “The Cuckoo’s Egg” by Cliff Stoll published by Pocket Books was mentioned and recommended. I wrote down the name on my notebook in order to look it up later that evening.
As usual, I like to check on the web for a synopsis and comments before making the buy-read decision. I fired up Internet Explorer and did a Google search. The book was not a novel, it was a recollection of events related to chasing some hackers / spies. NOVA’s 1990 (PBS) “The KGB, Computer & Me” is based on Cliff Stoll’s book. Given that I watch NOVA on our local PBS channel and I am quite interested in computers and security, I decided to order the book from Amazon. I am seldom in a hurry to get a book so as usual I just selected free shipping ;o) Read the rest of this entry »
The article “General Electric Paid No Federal Taxes in 2010” by Jake Tapper is worthwhile reading. It briefly lets people know that GE has not paid a single Dollar in Federal taxes for the year 2010. To top it all GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt is advising president Obama on business issues. What is wrong in the USA?
This article should make us Naïve Americans stop and think about what is going on with the economy in the USA and what can we expect for it to ever recover.
GE is not the only American company that manufactures (primarily in China) and sells goods and services outside the US and keeps part of their income as not taxable due to the fact that it is generated outside of the US. As a matter of fact it appears that most (if not all) Fortune 500 to Fortune 1,000 companies follow suit. Read the rest of this entry »
This blob entry refers to the article “Vision-Based Hand-Gesture Applications” by Juan Pablo Wachs, Mathias Kolsch, Helman Stern and Yael Edan published in 02/11 Vol. 54 No. 2 of the Communications of the ACM.
The article is very informative as far as its scope which as the title hints, covers vision when using hand gestures used by humans to communicate with computers. Computers using a set of one or more input devices and applying a set of algorithms are able to interpret, with high probability (around .96 or better) what the human is trying to gesture.
The article covers the following types of applications:
| Medical systems and assistive technologies. |
| Crisis management and disaster relief. |
| Entertainment. |
| Human-robot interaction. |
Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week Diane Sawyer interviewed Bill Gates on national television. It appears that Bill Gates is also in favor of firing most K-12 teachers and redoing the K-12 educational system in the USA.
It is interesting and perhaps understandable that Bill Gates is in favor of an educational reform in our country. As you probably know, Bill Gates is no longer at the helm of Microsoft. The baton since January 2000 in the hands of Steve Ballmer, but the issues that affect the USA sooner or later will (and have) affect Microsoft. By affecting Microsoft, its stock may plummet and most of the wealth of Mr. Gates might go up in smoke. Please note that hundreds of thousands Naïve Americans own some shares in Microsoft. The debacle of Microsoft will definitely affect a large number of Naïve Americans. Read the rest of this entry »
