Useful Mac App: Open terminal here

DTerm
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dterm/id415520058?mt=12
http://decimus.net/DTerm

Open Terminal Here
http://blog.leenarts.net/2009/09/03/open-service-here/

more...
http://maururu.net/2007/enhanced-open-terminal-here-for-leopard/
http://code.google.com/p/cdto/

Visualization

Great data visualization site: http://flowingdata.com/

Some interesting pages from this site:

• Class room sitting habits
• Girl Scout cookie pie chart
• True size of Africa
• 17 ways to visualize the Twitter universe
• Rise of the data scientist
• What visualization tool/software should you use? - Getting started
• Dreaming in numbers
• 40 essential tools and resources to visualize data

Adding my two cents here:

• GnuPlot, Python with Scipy/Numpy, PHP -- they are all very good tools for creating charts.
• Use Google Chart, JavaScript or Flash for charting.
• Search for existing tools first, rather than bang your head on the ground and write from scratch.

Great free kindle ebook from O'Reilly - Big Data Now

I just started to read this book.  It's very interesting and insightful.  Big data is becoming more and more important for any business and products.  Statistical and analytical approaches to derive meaning out of the data and add values to products is the key to win over competition.

quicklisp

ASDF doesn't work for me -- I couldn't install it properly on OSX, and it is obsolete anyway.  I found quicklisp (http://www.quicklisp.org/beta) instead, and it works quite well.


For Common Lisp, check your Common Lisp version -- I believe it requires at least 2.47.  


Simple Steps

1. wget http://beta.quicklisp.org/quicklisp.lisp
2. Run lisp: $ clisp (or sbcl)
3. (load "quicklisp.lisp")
4. (quicklisp-quickstart:install)
5. ; load quick lisp at start up. do only once.
   (ql:add-to-init-file)
6. ; check if pkg avail
   (ql:system-apropos "<package name>")
7. ; load -- replace <package name> with package name
   (ql:quickload "<package name>")

Note

• It will create and store downloaded modules under ~user/quicklisp.
• Step#5 will modify ~/.sbclrc or ~/.clisprc
• quicklisp doesn't resolve dependencies.
• clbuild is another lisp package installer.

That's it.  Very simple.

Stanford opens some information technology courses to the world

Courses on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and databases will be delivered to virtual classrooms of ten of thousands of students, if not hundreds of thousands.

Book: The Passionate Programmer

I recently read The Passionate Programmer for the second time.  I wish I have read this book years ago.  If you are passionate about programming, or if you want to motivate yourself -- you should read this.  Ultimately, it is about being a great developer -- how to be one.

Get a Kindle
Very convenient and many ebooks are cheaper than printed books.

AI vs. AI. Two chatbots talking to each other