MATLAB Code and How-To

Compiling under MATLAB

Firstlly, initialise the compiler to be used by MCC with this command (this only needs to be done once):

mbuild -setup

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Dell goes solid state come June 2007

According to Dell Singapore’s spokesperson, the new range of Latitude notebooks will start offering solid state and hybrid harddisks in the business-centric L attitude series to Asia come June 2007.

The new Santa Rosa laptops are not merely refresh models of its existing lineup. The chassis has been toughened with magnesium-alloy materials, and the standard-aspect display goes widescreen in its 2007 business range. Offering the flash-based hard drive solution can only increase data integrity, as the solid state memory is more drop resistant than its mechanical counterpart. The first wave of flash-based Latitudes will likely include a 32GB storage option, not enough for multimedia users, but sufficient for productivity users.

Unfortunately, solid state technology is still in its infancy and hence rather expensive. A hybrid drive uses traditional magnetic technology coupled with a 512MB flash component. The latter acts as a fast buffer for accessing the contents of the storage platter. Hybrid drives would likely be offered at a premium over normal harddisks, but certainly a lot cheaper than flash-based solutions.

Cool! One of the bottlenecks in computing has been the speed of the hard drive, especially for laptops, so these new solid-state harddisks should speed things up significantly — but I wonder how much it’ll cost.

At least things are advancing. I wasn’t expecting the implementation of these new hard drives to come so soon actually. June’s pretty much next month - I was expecting a year or two at least.

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Funny and Creative Advertisements

An advertisement for a job recruiting company in Berlin , Germany . Depicting people working in the vending machines, ATMs, it delivers the message that ‘Life is too short for the wrong job’.

Life-size stickers of people were stuck on automatic sliding doors at a mall in Mumbai , India . When someone approaches the doors move apart and it feels like the people on the door are moving away. The person enters to find the message ‘People Move Away When You Have Body Odour’.

A sticker has been placed on the high voltage box depicting that Duracell’s batteries were used. Cool advertisement found in Malaysia.

An ambient exercise to promote Eatalica burgers. A ‘Caution Wet Floor’ board was placed near an Eatalica burger signboard. The copy on the board reads ‘Oogling at the burger may involuntarily cause drooling which may in turn lead to a wet floor. Issued for your safety by the management of Eatalica restaurant’. Eatalica is an American-Italian Food Joint in Chennai, India.

A print of a cup of Folgers coffee was placed on top of manhole covers in New York City , USA . Holes on the print allows the steam to come out. Wordings around the cup reads ‘Hey, City That Never Sleeps. Wake up.” from Folgers.

An innovative idea on a large billboard in Amsterdam , Netherlands . It really makes you want that ‘Heineken’.

An advertisement by Jung von Matt/Alster for watchmaker IWC. Bus straps have been fashioned from images of IWC’s Big Pilot’s Watch to allow bus travellers near the airport to try before they buy at Berlin, Germany

Stickers were placed in selected car park locations and car workshops where the product is sold in Malaysia . It delivers the message that M-Tech Plasma HID Lights are 300% brighter than regular headlights. The burn effect sticker from the headlights really leaves an impression.

This is an advertisement found in Vancouver during the National Non-Smoking Week. The car was placed at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the message reads ‘Death from car accidents: 370, Death from smoking-related causes: 6,027, Quit now before it kills you.’

Life size images were stuck on glass doors at shops, airports in South Africa for the advertisement of glass and window cleaner I..C.U. The expression on the face is priceless.

Another creative idea by The Fitness Company. Heavy Weights were placed at various subways in New York City which creates an illusion that the person holding the safety bar is doing weights.

A very cost-effective advertisement in Hong Kong for a yoga school. It showcases the prowess of a yoga practitioner on the flexible stems of drink straws. A surge of enquiries and enrollment went after up this promotional stunt.

A giant mirror was built that allowed passersby to stop and look at themselves wearing Indivi clothes at a shopping mall in Tokyo, Japan.

A life size sticker for the horror movie ‘The Maid’ in Singapore placed near the toilet round the corner. The kind of advertisement that makes you pee in your pants.

This is a great advertisment campaign at Unicenter Shopping Mall in Buenos Aires , Argentina for Valentine’s Day. It magnifies the romantic ambience with a simple idea.

This controversial idea was done in Dubai by Sandeep Fernandes and Husen Baba Khan for the male deodorant, Axe. The mouse pad that every guy needs.

This is a creative ad by Mini Cooper placed at the Zurich, Switzerland train station. It gives the perception that the Mini Cooper has a large space.

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Inspiring Quotes

I’m thinking of starting a list of quotes - be it inspiring, funny, motivational, or what-not. So here goes with the very first one!

Being defeated is often a temporary position. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
- Marilyn Vos Savant

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Example FTP Session in UNIX

UNIX has a very powerful command line interface, and one of the things that you can do is remotely access a UNIX server. FTP is one such remote protocol that allows for the transfer of files easily. This FTP example shows how to copy, rename, and delete files.

ftp alvinpoh.com

This just means you want to open a FTP connection to the ftp server at “alvinpoh.com”. Once connected, you’ll be prompted to log in using a username and password. There are public ftp servers which provide anonymous access. This just means that you can log in using the username “anonymous” and your email address as password.

So what do you do once you’re connected?

ftp> ls

This command prints the names of the files and subdirectories in the current directory on the remote computer. So let’s say you see that there’s a folder named “public_html” inside.

ftp> cd public_html

Running this command changes the current directory to the subdirectory of “public_html” (this subdirectory must exist, if not, an error would be shown). Now that you’re in “public_html”, let’s go back up again.

ftp> cd ..

So this changes the current directory to the parent directory (where you were at). Now let’s assume we want to transfer a photograph to our remote server. So, first of all, we need to determine where our photos are stored in our local computer (the local computer’s the computer that you’re physically at).

ftp> lcd my_photos

Changes the current directory [em]on your local computer[/em] to “my_photos”.

ftp> !ls

A ‘!’ in front of the command will execute the specified command on the local computer. So ‘!ls’ lists the file names and directory names of the current directory on your local computer. Let’s imagine that after you run !ls, you find that there’s a file named “photo.jpg” that you want to transfer to the remote computer.

ftp> ascii

This changes to “ascii” mode for transferring text files. But we’re not transferring text files, so…

ftp> binary

So this changes to “binary” mode for transferring all files that are not text files.

ftp> put photo.jpg

Uploads a copy of the file photo.jpg from your local computer (remember, we’re at the “my_photos” directory) to the remote computer. Warning: If a file exists with the same name, it will be overwritten. Say you find a photo on the remote computer that you’d like to download to your local computer - no problems!

ftp> get interesting_photo.jpg

This will download the file interesting_photo.jpg from the remote computer to your local computer (remember, we’re still at the “my_photos” directory). Warning: If a file exists with the same name, it will be overwritten. But what if there’s a lot of files that you want to download? Well, there’s a useful twist on the get command for that!

ftp> mget *.jpg

With the mget command, you can now download multiple files. I suppose the “m” stands for “multiple” or “mass”. In this case, our command downloads all files that end with “.jpg” to our local computer.

ftp> mput *.jpg

Similarly, this command uploads all files in your current local directory that end with “.jpg”.

ftp> mdelete *.jpg

That’s not all - there’s a mdelete command that deletes all files that end with “.jpg”. Neat? But if you tried these commands, you’ll find that if there were 1000 files, you’d had to confirm the action for each of those 1000 files. Here’s a workaround for that.

ftp> prompt

This toggles interactive mode on or off so that commands on multiple files are executed without user confirmation. You’ll see a message telling you “Interactive mode off” or “Interactive mode on” after running this command.

ftp> quit

We’re done, so type that command to exit the ftp program. Or alternatively, try typing “bye” for a friendly version of that command! And if you’re stuck at any point of time, you can always get more help.

ftp> help

This is the help function which lists the commands that you can use to show the directory contents, transfer files, and delete files.

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Common Useful UNIX Commands

If you’re new to UNIX-based systems (e.g. Linux), the interface can be daunting, especially since there’s no GUI, and you might need to use the shell command line interface to remotely access a computer.

There are a few basic UNIX commands for performing common tasks that you should know of, which allows you to navigate and interact with the system.

MOVING & CHANGING DIRECTORIES

cd dirname

This command allows you to specify the directory name that you want to move to.

Examples:
cd public_html
cd home/alvin

cd ..

Moves one level up from the current directory. Take note of the space between “cd” and the two periods. This is different from Windows, where “cd..” (without the space) would work too. For example, if you are in /home/alvin, use this command to change your folder to /home.

If you want to move up 2 levels, then use “cd ../..”

cd

Changes directories to your default login directory. In UNIX systems, you are automatically placed in your login directory, or home directory when you log on. Performing this command brings you back to that login directory.

IDENTIFYING THE CURRENT DIRECTORY

pwd

Sometimes you need to know what directory you are in. This command in UNIX shows you what directory you are in currently.

LISTING THE CONTENTS OF THE CURRENT DIRECTORY

ls

Lists all files and subdirectories, except for those that begin with a period, such as .links files.

ls -al

Lists all files and subdirectories (including those that begin with a period), with owners and sizes.

CREATING, REMOVING, AND MOVING DIRECTORIES

mkdir dirname

Creates a subdirectory named dirname in the current directory.

rmdir dirname
Removes the subdirectory named dirname from the current directory.

mv dir1 dir2

Moves (or when you look at it from a different angle, renames) the subdirectory (and its contents) from dir1 to dir2. E.g. “mv notes ../notes” will move the notes folder up one level.

FILE MANIPULATION

wc filename

Line, word, & char count of filename.

cat filename

List contents of filename.

more filename

List filename contents by screen.

cat file1 file2 >file3

Concatenates files file1 & file2 into file3.

cmp file1 file2

Compares files file1 and file2.

cp file1 file2

Copy file file1 into file2.

split [-n] filename

Split filename into n-line pieces

mv file1 file2

Rename file file1 as file2.

rm filename

Delete (remove) filename

grep ‘asdf’ filename

Outputs lines in filename that match asdf

diff file1 file2

Lists file differences between file1 and file2.

head filename

Output beginning of filename.

tail filename

Output end of filename.

USER MANAGEMENT & INFORMATION

quota

Displays disk quota.

date

Prints date & time

who

List logged in users with some information such as their IP and time logged in.

whoami

Displays the username of the current user (ie YOU).

finger username

Output user information of username.

history

Display recent commands performed by you.

!n

Submit recent command number n, e.g. !18 repeats the command number 18 in your history list of commands.

passwd

Changes your password.

CHANGE GROUP AFFILIATION OF DIRECTORIES OR FILES

Note: You must own the file or directory you want to change and you must belong to group you are changing it to.

chgrp groupname filename

Changes group affiliation of filename to groupname.

chgrp -R groupname dirname

Changes group affiliation of dirname and all files within dirname to groupname.

GIVE GROUP MEMBERS WRITE PRIVILEGES

Note: You must own the file or directory you want to change.

chmod g+w filename

Gives the group write privileges to filename. Any member of the group affiliated with filename can then change or delete the file. Or, use g-w to remove group write privileges.

chmod -R g+w dirname

Gives the group write privileges to all files within dirname. Any member of the group affiliated with dirname can then change or delete any file within dirname. Or, use g-w to remove group write privileges.

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How To Disable Autorun/Autoplay in Windows XP On All Drives

Windows come default with features that supposedly make our lives more convenient. But as a result of these features, a lot of computers are pretty much vulnerable.

One such feature is the autoplay or autorun feature that kicks in whenever you pop in a CD/DVD/USB thumbdrive/USB HDD. Once you plug in the device, Windows will cheerfuly ask you how you want to open your files, hence the term autoplay or autorun.

Well, you need to DISABLE THIS FEATURE NOW.

On top of being an annoyance (having it run everytime you plug in your devices), it also poses a great big security risk to your system. See, because the autorun process automatically runs the autorun.inf file on your device by default, there’s no stopping a malicious person from distributing CDs or thumbdrives that has a virus named “autorun.inf”. And once you plug in that usb thumbdrive or CD/DVD, your Windows system automatically installs the virus for you. Nasty stuff.

To do this, follow these steps in Windows XP:

1. Go to Start > Run
2. Type gpedit.msc & press Enter. You should see the Group Policy window.
3. In the left-hand column, select Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System
4. Next, look in the right-hand column for “Turn off Autoplay”, and double-click on that.
5. Next, in the “Turn Off Autoplay Properties” window, select “Enabled”
6. Then choose “All drives” from the dropdown menu in “Turn off Autoplay on:”
7. Click OK.

And that’s it! Your system is now a little more secure - and you can safely plug in a CD/DVD/USB thumbdrive/USB HDD without feeling all nervous.

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