Manage reference and eprints like we manage media files

update:
Check these out:
http://mekentosj.com/papers/
http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/
http://www.sintraworks.com/

We have all kinds of applications now to help us manage media files, picasa(windows), digikam(KDE) and F-stop(Gnome) for digital photos; i-Tunes(windows), amarok(KDE) and Banshee(Gnome) for music files. These applications are quite similar, basically, you have a database at the back storing all the metadata(tags) of all the files, then in the front you have a nice GUI to manage this information, moving, deleting, renaming and tagging. Digital photos will have info like time and place it’s taken, the camera and setting used. Music files on the other hand have info like title, artist, album, year, genre and so on. And as an graduate student, here is my idea, why don’t we have an application to manage the papers(pdf or ps files, maybe other formats too) we are interested, we’ve read. They have metadata too, author, journal/conference, year, title and so on. We have bibtex and other things like Endnote, but we don’t have something as good as what we have for media files. Work is as serious as fun stuffs, right?

update: Apparently somebody had the same idea before I did. Check it out.
http://freelancepropaganda.com/themp/
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-metadata/2003-October/000189.html

Want to learn CSS?

Start from here.

KDE programming tutorial using KDevelop

http://www.dazzle.plus.com/linux/

Have always meant to pick up KDE programming with KDevelop. It’s been on my “nice-to-do” list for too long to remember.

Google Earth + SketchUp + Photos = ?

Google release SketchUp, a 3D modeling tool, for free, and provide the possibility that home owner can draw their home in 3D and put it on Google earth for everybody to see. This extend Google earth’s 2D flat view, and open up door to interesting applications. One draw back though, not many people are capable of building nice 3D structures, and even if they are experts, this is not an easy task. Also as everybody in 3D modeling business know, the key to a realistic model is texture. Google earth provides the terrain data and texture, but what about the building? You don’t want a build that only the roof is textured, right? Here I have an idea, what if we take pictures of the house from various angles and then a “magic” algorithm kicks in, with help of the users (correspondence, etc.) textures of the building will be mapped onto the 3D model. It will be even better if given a video clip from DV, the approximate 3D structure will be created automatically. I am not day dreaming, am I?

C++ Templates FAQ

http://womble.decadentplace.org.uk/c++/template-faq.html

imlib2的tutorial

http://enlightenment.sourceforge.net/doxy/imlib2/index.html

GCC4 Porting Guide

在苹果的开发者网站（ADC）上看到这篇文章，是关于从GCC3升级到GCC4的，值得一看。
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/DeveloperTools/GCC40PortingReleaseNotes/Articles/PortingToGCC.html

Bayesian Estimation/Kalman Filter Libraries

网上搜了一下，找到两个，感觉第一个更专业一点（主观印象）：
- Bayes++
- BFL

Computational Library for Linear Algebra

* 起源－BLAS
“BLAS(Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms基本线性代数子程序)是一个高质量的程序包，用于基本的矢量和矩阵运算。一级BLAS负责矢量－矢量运算，二级BLAS负责矢量－矩阵运算，而三级BLAS负责矩阵－矩阵运算。由于BLAS高效，可移植和广泛可用，在高质量线性代数软件中常常使用它。”
“The BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) are high quality ‘building block’ routines for performing basic vector and matrix operations. Level 1 BLAS do vector-vector operations, Level 2 BLAS do matrix-vector operations, and Level 3 BLAS do matrix-matrix operations. Because the BLAS are efficient, portable, and widely available, they’re commonly used in the development of high quality linear algebra software” －－BLAS FAQ

BLAS常见问题（FAQ）是初学者最好的起点，可以了解BLAS以及它与ATLAS，LAPACK已经其他BLAS实现的关系。

* 优化的BLAS－Atlas
“ATLAS（Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software自动优化的线性代数软件）项目是一个进行中的研究项目，集中在使用实际经验技巧提供可移植的性能。目前它提供了C和Fortran77的编程界面用于连接一个可移植的高效BLAS实现，以及从LAPACK移植的几个子程序。”
“The ATLAS (Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software) project is an ongoing research effort focusing on applying empirical techniques in order to provide portable performance. At present, it provides C and Fortran77 interfaces to a portably efficient BLAS implementation, as well as a few routines from LAPACK.”

常见问题（FAQ）是学习的起点。ATLAS被使用在MAPLE，Matlab，Mathematica，Octave，GSL，R，Scilab。在Debian，Suse， FreeBSD和Mac OS X中都有。

* 超集－LAPACK（Linear Algebra PACKage线性代数包）
“LAPACK是用Fotran77写成，提供了子程序用来解线性方程组，最小二乘法，本征值问题和奇值问题。同时还提供了矩阵分解的子程序－LU，Cholesky, QR, SVD, Schur, 通用Schur，以及相关的运算例如Schur分解的重排，和条件数值的确定。它可以处理密集和条状矩阵，但不包括一般稀疏矩阵。所有这些子程序都提供了实数和复数的单精度和双精度版本。
“LAPACK is written in Fortran77 and provides routines for solving systems of simultaneous linear equations, least-squares solutions of linear systems of equations, eigenvalue problems, and singular value problems. The associated matrix factorizations (LU, Cholesky, QR, SVD, Schur, generalized Schur) are also provided, as are related computations such as reordering of the Schur factorizations and estimating condition numbers. Dense and banded matrices are handled, but not general sparse matrices. In all areas, similar functionality is provided for real and complex matrices, in both single and double precision.

LAPACK子程序尽量使用BLAS中的功能。LAPACK起初是为了更好的使用三级BLAS－一组进行不同矩阵乘法和解三角矩阵的Fortran子程序。因为三级BLAS运算的粗糙颗粒性(?)，使用BLAS会在高性能计算机上有很高的效率，特别是如果制造商提供了特别的BLAS实现。” －－LAPACK常见问题
LAPACK routines are written so that as much as possible of the computation is performed by calls to the Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (BLAS). … LAPACK was designed at the outset to exploit the Level 3 BLAS — a set of specifications for Fortran subprograms that do various types of matrix multiplication and the solution of triangular systems with multiple right-hand sides. Because of the coarse granularity of the Level 3 BLAS operations, their use promotes high efficiency on many high-performance computers, particularly if specially coded implementations are provided by the manufacturer.” －－LAPACK FAQ

LAPACK是BLAS的一个超集，它有自己的BLAS实现，以及额外的子程序。它是Linux/x86平台上最流行的两种BLAS实现之一，另一个是Intel Math Kernel Library数学核心裤。
LAPACK is superset of BLAS, it has its own implementation of BLAS, and several extra routines too. It is one of two most popular implementations of BLAS on Linux/x86 platform besides Intel Math Kernel Library.

* 参考：
- 快速安装指南
- LAPACK安装指南
- LAPACK用户指南

* 附录：
开源的科学和工程库：
- uBLAS in Boost
- GNU科学库（GNU Scientific Library）(GSL)
- GSLwrap(C++ wrapper of GSL)

ffmpeg demo

一直就想试试ffmpeg了，看了网上这篇文章，在我的kubuntu上试了试，结果如下：

• 由于ffmpeg的API还在开发中，所以一直有变化，上面的demo是写给0.4.9的，已经过时了，在kubuntu下版本是cvs20050918，所以代码有一点小变化：

• 83行codec.codec_type改成codec->codec_type。
• 92行去掉&。
• 删除103-107行的hack，frame_rate和frame_rate_base被time_base取代了。

• 根据/usr/share/doc/ffmpeg/README.Debian，编译应使用如下命令：

gcc `ffmpeg-config –cflags` -c code.cpp -o code.o

gcc code.o -c code `ffmpeg-config –libs avformat avcodec` -lstdc++

大功告成！