Stavros Amanatidis

Update after forever...

2011-09-23T13:46:00.000+02:00

It's been ages, so I will just focus on the important stuff.

1. I got a new job at Saxobank.
2. I started working on my memory issues...
3. I am looking for a volleyball team

In Saxobank I will be in the team that is working on the platform for trading CFDs. I will be working in C# and some UI in WinForms. I am very excited to learn everything about trading and windows programming! However, I had to say goodbye to EasyTime, the company that taught me almost everything I know, and my ex-boss that treated me like a son.

Everybody who knows me, knows that I have memory issues. I was told that keeping a diary might help. So, I will start writing down, as often as possible, some of the things that are happening to me.

I had training with 2 mixed teams (guys and girls) and it was... fun.
However, I have to admit that it was much more fun when I was in the men's team. So, I am now sending emails to the trainers and I hope I will find a men's team by next week.

TravelLink

2010-06-04T14:04:00.006+02:00

I am so much fed up with travel agencies!
I think it's great that they offer better prices and wide range of alternative routes for your trip, but things are getting ugly when you have to fight for your rights.

I bought an Athens-Chania return ticket through TravelLink.
The for some reason, I didn't want to use my Athens-Chania part, but only the Chania-Athens.

Naturally, my first thought was to call TravelLink and ask them to cancel my Athens-Chania part and give me my refund. To my surprise, they said they will have to charge me 40€ for that!! Which basically means that to change a trip:
[Athens-Chania, Chania-Athens]
to
[Chania-Athens]
would cost me extra, and it would cost me about the half of price of the initial ticket!!

So, I called Aegean airlines and asked them what their policy was. They very kindly and carefully explained that it's possible to do what I want, and the travel agency should GIVE ME BACK about 30€..

Now that I had the knowledge, I called TravelLink to explain them what I was told from Aegean airlines. However, somehow, TravelLink persuaded me that they were right and that Aegean was fooling me...

So, back to Aegean's customer service again and asking for some more explanation. Of course, they insisted that I should get money back and that their system allows this change to be done. The only problem was that they couldn't do it because the ticket was issued by a travel agency and the travel agency had my money.

Knowing now that I was right, I sent an email to TravelLink explaining them how the situation is and asking them to call Aegean to solve the issue.

The reply I got from TravelLink was something like "OK, OK, we will NOT charge you 40€ that we said, but we will do it for free. However, NO money back". Of course I couldn't live with that, so I called them and insisted on getting for my full refund. They again refused to give me my money back, until eventually they admitted it!
TRAVELLINK COULD CANCEL MY TICKET, GET THE MONEY BACK FROM AEGEAN, BUT KEEP THEM AS FEE!!!
Then, why the fuck would you charge me in the first scenario??
Bas#$%rds...

WorldTicketShop

2010-04-08T16:25:00.005+02:00

Tiesto is back in Copenhagen again!
This guy is amazing and his concerts are always awesome!

So, while I was Binging him, I found the WorldTicketShop website.
Immediately I remembered that I have been there before, when I was checking for tickets for a concert at another country and I remembered that they are EXTREMELY overpriced! Almost doubled priced!! So, I wanted to test again and see if they overcharge for Tiesto's concert in Copenhagen..

The official ticket-selling website for this concert is BilletNet and their price is ~63€.

The price at WorldTicketShop is 179€!

* Both prices include tax, but not shipping..

Friendly advice: AVOID WorldTicketShop..

Restart after install/update on Mac

2010-03-06T19:36:00.000+01:00

This an informational post for all the windows users out there.

Well, I am also working on windows and I was tired of listening to all mac users bragging about many things..
One of those things, is that on Mac you don't have to restart after installing applications.. That's also the case for Mac-updates..
More precisely, a mac-friend of mine, told me that I can forget the "restart" functionallity on Mac, cause you never do it!

All this, sounds nice, until you get a mac and you realize the truth..

Of course you have to RESTART your MAC!!

When you are getting the latest updates, you have applications that require restart!
I was shocked when I saw the message, but, well, that's the case.

Oh, and the worst part is that
you DON'T have the option to select "Don't install and NEVER bother me again"!!
You will get those updates in your update list, until eventually one day you are so pissed, that you install them..

For example, I am not using the wireless on my desktop computer, but I cannot avoid installing the update.

Welcome to Mac World..

Hello world!

2010-02-28T10:53:00.005+01:00

That's my first post from my new iMac!
I already feel more cool :-)
Finally, I got a new and decent computer!!

I was thinking to try to keep this blog alive, by posting my iMac experiences once in a while..

To start with,
* The 27'' screen is AMAZING!
* The mouse is so cool!
* The remote control is even more cool!
* And of course it's fast (even though for the same money maybe you can get something faster)

I am closing this post only with the positive observations, but I have quite a few negative as well..

Does Firefox suck?

2009-05-20T14:53:00.010+02:00

I am(was actually) a great fan of Firefox..
From a user's perspective Firefox rocks!
* there are countless add-ons
* it's faster than IE
* it's competing IE (and no one likes Microsoft)
* it had tabs before IE
* it's customizable

But, from a software developer's perspective, Firefox sucks!
* there are much lesser events that IE!
for example, OnPropertyChange, which is triggered as soon as the element is being changed (and not after the change). Lovely event, missing from Firefox.
* there are some events that are partially supported!!
for example, OnKeyPress is supported for input fields, but NOT for tables. According to some people, it's not usable since it's not editable.. However, when you are creating a table that uses navigation arrows, you need this feature to capture the arrow keystrokes.

It seems that Firefox is trying to limit the freedom of the developer either because it will make Firefox slower or because they have decided that some functionality shouldn't be available to developers...

Of course there are solutions, but they are workarounds that shouldn't be needed..

Skiing period has started!!

2009-01-29T23:24:00.004+01:00

I want to make clear that I am still a beginner in snowboarding..

Tomorrow I am going snowboarding again and I hope I can shot a better video :)
(where I will hopefully go faster!)

by the way, I am not spending my free time on programming anymore, but on socializing.. however, I guess that I will get back to ruby and java soon..

History is rewritten!

2008-11-26T18:12:00.004+01:00

Ha, you thought that the famous quote
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"
is from Thomas Edison????

No no no no!
According to OffRadio, it was Albert Einstein who said it!!!

Off-radio is a great internet radio station from Greece.
So, I think they should stick to playing perfect music...
And if someone is not sure about something, he should ask!
Or do a small research :)

Anyways, I hope that soon I will have my first working example of Ruby On Rails system!! It's coming really really slowly, because I have been through major changes in my life!! Such as, following danish lessons :)

Status Update

2008-05-06T12:42:00.002+02:00

I just saw my last post and I realized that the two solutions that I had found to keep me occupied and away from my problems, were not very effective..

1. I played World Of Warcraft for about 10-12 hours.. The monthly card was just a waste of money.

2. I worked with www.samanat.com only for 10-12 hours.. The monthly payment at the webhotel was not worth it..

However, I am very happy this period. Loads of plans and traveling and having fun!

Soon I will start working again at www.samanat.com, which is not working because it's without webhotel now :(
I will start (hopefully soon) with a demo of what one can do with ruby on rails..

Oh, and I am looking for summer sports! I am planning to learn windsurfing :)

Getting away with it all messed up..

2008-02-21T14:18:00.006+01:00

A lot of things are going really bad in my life those days..
Some people can argue that there are always more that can go wrong, but for the time being, I am not happy..

I am sad, confused, disappointed, nervous, angry, anxious, and the list goes on..

To avoid thinking of everything that makes me feel bad and all the adjectives above, I did 2 things.

1. I bought www.samanat.com and I am thinking of what to upload and how my personal website should look like.. Now I just put an "under construction" page..

2. and more efficient solution: I started World Of Warcraft again..

James - Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

Concerts in Vienna

2007-12-19T19:54:00.001+01:00

Two weeks ago I went to Vienna for a weekend break. Since I have been living in Scandinavia for the last 3 years, I am used to planning my trips in advance. This doesn't imply that I am following my plans, but that's another story.. The story here is about booking online tickets for a concert in Vienna's Opera.

AVOID http://www.viennaconcerts.com
This website looks nice and serious and comes first at google's results if you search for "concerts in vienna".. However, there are some small details that noone ever reads in the terms and conditions.

I booked a ticket for "The Magic Flute" and I paid 43€. I was going to get the ticket from the box office, just before the start of the performance..
It was only when I got the ticket in my hands that I realized that I paid 13.30€ more than the price of the ticket!

The price of the ticket was 29.70€!!!
Believe it or not, I had to pay 45% more than the original price!

Then I read the terms and conditions and I could see that
"Opera / Musical Prices
...
The net difference between prices listed at www.viennaconcerts.com and the face value of the opera tickets is generally 25%. For some ticket categories, due to high demand, the difference might be higher than 25% but not higher than 34 EUR / ticket. Very few performances and/or ticket categories where this difference is higher than 34 EUR / ticket are clearly marked as "incl. special purchase fee"."

Yeah.. Thanks.. I am happy I didn't pay double price..

Just avoid ViennaConcerts website..

How to create a SQL script that executes other SQL scripts

2007-07-09T12:03:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I was facing the following problem..
I have several sql scripts that I want to call from a single sql script.
I am using SQL Server 2005.
I have found two ways of doing it. The first one is by directly calling the scripts one by one, and the second is by calling all the scripts in a folder.

First of all, you need to set your server to accept 'xp_cmdshell' commands.
This is done by the following code

USE MainDB

GO
EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 0
GO

Now, let's assume that you have a folder at D:\Test, which has 3 files,
Test1.sql
Test2.sql
Test3.sql

The first way, which is the easiest way to execute this files by a sql script is by the following

USE MainDB

EXEC master..XP_CMDShell 'osql -E -i D:\Test\test1.sql'
EXEC master..XP_CMDShell 'osql -E -i D:\Test\test2.sql'
EXEC master..XP_CMDShell 'osql -E -i D:\Test\test3.sql'

If you want to run all the scripts in a folder, then you can use the following script

USE MainDB

CREATE TABLE ##SQLFiles ( SQLFileName VARCHAR(2000))
GO

INSERT INTO ##SQLFiles
EXECUTE master.dbo.xp_cmdshell 'dir /b "D:\Test\*.sql"'
GO

DECLARE cFiles CURSOR LOCAL FOR
   SELECT DISTINCT [SQLFileName]
   FROM ##SQLFiles
   WHERE [SQLFileName] IS NOT NULL AND
         [SQLFileName] != 'NULL'
   ORDER BY [SQLFileName]

DECLARE @vFileName            VARCHAR(200)
DECLARE @vSQLStmt             VARCHAR(4000)

OPEN cFiles

FETCH NEXT FROM cFiles INTO @vFileName
WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0
BEGIN
   SET @vSQLStmt = 'master.dbo.xp_cmdshell ''osql -E -i "D:\Test\' + @vFileName + '"'''
   EXECUTE (@vSQLStmt)

   FETCH NEXT FROM cFiles INTO @vFileName
END

CLOSE cFiles
DEALLOCATE cFiles
GO

DROP TABLE ##SQLFiles
GO

This code will work if you don't need a username and password to connect to your database.. If your configuration is more complicated, you will have to add some more parameters to the osql. Read more here

Graduated!

2007-07-02T11:41:00.001+02:00

Finally, I graduated..
I am not sure if I am happy for that.
Lately I have been planning to travel with Erasmus program to Australia! Since, I have graduated, I don't have this option anymore :(

But, anyway, it's good when things that are supposed to be done, are finally done!

Now, let's study something else..
Psychology and Law seem to be the main competitors..

News

2007-06-26T14:03:00.000+02:00

It's been a long time, so I will just post the headlines of my news.

No news about the flash project.. Still not sure if I passed/graduated or not.
I have applied for a position as Teaching Assistant again from September.. It was fun :)
I am considering some new projects for the summer.. Mainly websites..
Still working at the bar of my kollegium on Thursdays and Saturdays.
Still working at EasyTime International
I start to like running medium distances (5km).. Competition is the best motivation!
I, finally, applied for a visa to US and A. I have booked an appointment and on the 13th of July, I will go to the US embassy to try my luck..

I will come back with something more interesting soon.. I hope :)

Flash project news..

2007-05-22T10:17:00.000+02:00

"The Multi Media Lab is being used for other purposes the next few days blah blah blah blah ...your deadline for handing in is prolonged.
The deadline for handing in your written reports in Multimedia Production for the Internet is Thursday 24 May 15.00"

This means that I have one more day!!
I might finish it after all!!

I guess that tonight I will upload my Arkanoid on the web just for fun..
Tomorrow I will have to start optimizing and writting the report..

My Arkanoid will for sure be better than this and worse than this. At least my initial version. Maybe in the future I will enhance it, but now I don't have time..

Flash Project

2007-05-21T11:52:00.001+02:00

I will not write much, because I am too busy..

I am planning to implement an Arkanoid (BreakOut for the nerds out there).
I started yesterday by creating an engine (partly from the web and partly mine). I am very close to have something nice, but it still needs a lot of things :(

I might finish ITU this semester after all..
Life is full of surprises :)

Flash and ITU in general

2007-05-16T19:27:00.000+02:00

For many reasons, I was thinking that it might be good (or, not bad) to finish ITU the next semester, and not now(as it was planned).

Since I have a full time job, I am not in a hurry. I like this country and I am planning to stay more anyway.. So, I can continue being a student and meeting more new people while having fun with my last course :)

So, the deadline for the Flash project is not a deadline anymore :D

And I am thinking to spend some more time on social activities and hobbies.

I am looking for a dSLR (any suggestions are welcome)
I will start playing at Amager Volleyball Klub Mixed Team(already playing at mens team)
I will start learning danish.
I will travel more.

and more to come..

Flash

2007-04-19T16:36:00.000+02:00

Another thing that keeps me busy these days, is my last course at ITU. The course name is Multimedia Production for the Internet, and mainly it covers animation and programming with Flash.

I have to find something nice to make in flash for my final project(or exam).
I was thinking to implement a small adventure game, but it will require too much time(which I don't have (or I want to spend it elsewhere))..

I am also considering to create a website for Ellas, which is a Greek restaurant situated at Copenhagen..

The back-up solution is to make a useless website with no subject and nothing to say, where I will implement all the techniques that we learned, just to illustrate that I know what I have been taught :)

The deadline/exam is the 22nd of May.

8 Queens and BBDs (Updated)

2007-04-06T18:42:00.000+02:00

As I wrote before, I have finished with my Master Thesis.
I have also defended it.
So, it seems that I have plenty of time to write new posts, to have fun, to go out for beers, etc..

The reality is far from this.. :(

One of the things that keep me occupied these days, is that I am working as a Teacher Assistant at the Efficient Artificial Intelligence Programming course. So, instead of enjoying Easter holidays, I will have to implement this in java.

The problem is well known to the community, and it's about placing 8 queens on a chess board. The queens have to be placed in valid positions (not attacking each other) and the algorithm have to check and show to the user only the positions that will lead to a solution. One way to solve the problem is to use Binary Decision Diagrams. That's how we are going to solve it.

So, I have to create the UI and the Logic of the problem, then hide some code from the Logic and let the students figure out how to implement the missing code..

--Update
Maybe I was not very clear..
The problem is NOT ONLY to restrict the row, column and diagonal of the last inserted queen, but to restrict all the board positions that don't lead to a solution. What I mean by that, could easily be seen at this image. If you place a queen at A5, then E6 should be restricted, because irrespective of where the user will put the other queens, the problem doesn't have a solution.
Brute force cannot help much here, because of the complexity of the problem. We have to calculate the permutations of 8 queens on the 64 positions of the board. That means 64!/(8!*56!) permutations.

Actually, it can be done with brute force, but since the algorithm has to be able to solve the n-queens problem efficiently, there are more efficient algorithms and data structures :)

Master Thesis.. The end..

2007-03-02T09:39:00.000+01:00

That was it..
However, God can still do something to help me if he wants..
I hope that God still hears me..

Now I have spare time and I don't know what to do.. :)

Master Thesis

2007-02-28T19:35:00.000+01:00

For those out there wondering why I am not posting anything, I want to say that have been very busy these days writing my thesis..
I will hand it in, on Friday..

God, bless my thesis! God, You are my last hope.. :)

Fun

2007-01-14T00:34:00.000+01:00

Ίσως επειδή έχω πιει λίγο παραπάνω, ίσως επειδή δεν έχω τίποτε τρελό σε σχέση με τα κομπιούτερς και τους αριθμούς να γράψω, αποφάσισα να το ρίξω λίγο στο Α.Μ.Α.Ν.

Ακολουθούν επιλογές..

Μακράν το καλύτερο, ΟΤΕ...

Louka!

A8hnaikes pinakides

gunaikes sto timoni

logikh..

Xasame ton Pappou

Response.Redirect and ThreadAbortException

2007-01-04T16:11:00.000+01:00

Response.Redirect..
That's the method that made me anxious and nervous and pissed off..

When you have a web page(main.aspx) and you want to go to another(second.aspx), you most often use
Response.Redirect("second.aspx");
at the code of main.aspx.

Until one day your project doesn't work and you get a ThreadAbortException.
You cannot imagine the reason, unless you spend some time on the net(or read it here in advance;) ).

The problem is that Response.Redirect(url), calls the Response.End internally, which terminates the thread of the main page from the call stack. That results in this exception.

The best practice, is to use the Response.Redirect(url, false) instead of Response.Redirect(url). False, is a boolean that defines that the thread of the main page should continue to be executed and not terminated.

That's all.. Just one more parameter :)
more info here and here.

Found a job

2006-12-22T16:23:00.000+01:00

I found a job!
I am working as software developer for EasyTime International.

I am not very good at describing, so I will let you watch a mini cartoon explaining the advantages of the use of EasyTime services.

The EasyTime software is already up and running, but it is in old asp. Now, the company decided to transfer the whole project into .Net. In order to do that, we will implement everything from the scratch. That will allow us to create a more flexible and solid system, follow and implement the requested by the customers features, have a better understanding of the total project.

One of the disadvantages of the old system is that it couldn't afford a company with more than 50 employees. With the new implementation we are going to overcome this limitation. This is very important bacause very large companies have already shown interest to the new version, before even installing the new server ;)

The company used to aim at Scandinavian customers, but lately has set up goals for Germany and England, and we are always seeking for opportunities anywhere.

Πώς να κερδίσετε 200.000€..

2006-12-11T19:14:00.000+01:00

Ο zkeramid έβαλε ένα quiz. Μπορείτε να πάτε στο blog του και να το διαβάσετε.
Εγώ θα δώσω ένα μικρό hint.

Η "πόρτα" στην πληροφορική, δεν έχει καμία σχέση με την πόρτα του σπιτιού. Αυτό που σας νοιάζει, είναι ότι η "πόρτα" στην πληροφορική έχει σχέση με τον τρόπο επικοινωνίας υπολογιστών σε δίκτυο ή διαδίκτυο.
Όταν μιλάμε για "άνοιγμα πόρτας", μιλάμε για ρυθμίσεις που κάνουμε στον υπολογιστή μας, ώστε να του δώσουμε την δυνατότητα να ενώνεται με κάποιους υπολογιστές, με κάποια συγκεκριμένα προγράμματα, να μην αφήνει άλλα προγράμματα να συνδεθούν σε αυτόν κτλ κτλ.. Για όλα αυτά, υπάρχει κάτι στον πίνακα ελέγχου.. Κάπου εκεί κρύβονται τα 200.000€

The best joke for blondes!

2006-11-30T11:32:00.000+01:00

Amazing!! :)
Find it here!

Hacker Puzzle

2006-11-25T10:11:00.000+01:00

A friend told me about this Hacker Puzzle and I found it interesting enough to post it..

OK, it might/probably be very easy for people of our area,
but it's worth trying..

22 levels.. Good luck..

PocketPC application with WebService

2006-11-22T11:32:00.000+01:00

After spending about 2 days of my life trying to create a PocketPC application that connects with a database through WebServices, I finally made it!

The main problem was that the articles/guides/how-tos that I found on the net, where misleading me instead of helping me. The reason is that some of them didn't mention to which versions they were referring to, and persuaded me to do things that I didn't have to.. So, if you are working with Visual Studio 2005 beta 2, there are some problems that I am not going to discuss. The same goes for VS 2003. What I am using and going to talk about, is Visual studio 2005 and PocketPC 2003 Emulator.

Below I am listing the steps you need to follow and the reason for each one of them. If you don't understand much, just follow the steps and ignore the reason :)

To start with, I need to have a webservice that contains at least a method that returns a Dataset. That dataset is supposed to be filled with a Table from a database.

Then I create a PocketPC project. I add as web reference the webservice to the PocketPC project and then I call the method.. Then I try to build.. Up to here, everything looks normal. But, there are several issues..

1st. The emulator doesn't have internet by default.
The problem is that the emulator considers the device being on hand and not on it's base. What you have to do, is go to Tools->Device Emulator Manager, select "PocketPC 2003 SE Emulator", right click and select Cradle. Now, the Pocket PC device is considered connected with the pc.

But, still that's not enough. You need to download a software the will allow the sharing of your internet connection with the the PocketPC Device (Emulator). This software is freely provided by microsoft, and it is called ActiveSync.

2nd. The Emulator even though is connected to internet, cannot access the webservice.
The problem is that the webservice is running at the localhost(your pc) and your pocketpc is trying to find it at its localhost(the pocket pc).. So, the problem is that both webservice and pocketpc are trying to communicate at localhost, but each one of them mean something different when they say localhost. To fix this, you should define at your pocketpc project, that the web reference that you are using is at your ip and not at localhost. That has to be done in two places. One is the properties of the web reference, and the other one is at reference.cs (at the constructor).

Then everything should work smoothly..
Hopefully :)

Get Date from DateTime in SQL Server 2005

2006-11-21T20:24:00.000+01:00

Since I spent some time searching for that and I realized that it's not easy/fast to find the solution, I post it here.

Configuration.
SQL Server 2005 with a table that contains at least a DateTime column.
What you want to do, is to check a given date('21/11/2006') with the values of the DateTime column. The problem is that the column contains DateTime (which means Date and Time) data.

This problem could occur (occurred to me) when you implement a flight booking system. You have to save the flights with DateTime because you need the time as well, but when the user searches for flights, you need to create an sql command that checks the date entered by the user with the ones in the database, an ignore the time.

So, what I used is (almost) the sql below

 
string sql = "SELECT * FROM Flight where "+ 
    "(CONVERT(char(10), DepartureTime, 103)='" + depDate + "')";

I recommend you to read the msdn article about the Convert function in order to understand what it's parameters do..

Je Vais Bien, Ne T`En Fais Pas

2006-11-20T16:51:00.000+01:00

This is the next movie I am going to watch..

And that's only because of this..

And because it is French..

html pre tag

2006-11-19T06:36:00.000+01:00

As I was trying to create the previous post, I had a small problem. I couldn't copy-paste the code from Visual Studio to the blogger and keep the formating. The problem is that html do not keep the whitespaces, which are very important to make source code legible.

So, what I did, is that I copy-pasted the code, and wrapped it with a pre tag.
What pre tag does, is forcing the browser to preserve the format of your text.
A nice example and definition could be found here, and at the html source code of my previous post :)

A simple algorithm

2006-11-18T13:05:00.000+01:00

After Lipis's comment on my previous post about the words with shuffled letters, I thought it might be nice to post a simple algorithm for that.

The C# method below takes as argument a string and returns a string that contains the same letters but only the first and the last are guaranteed to be at the right position.


private string shuffle(string word)
{
  Random rnd = new Random();
  int index;
  string temp = "";

  int loop = word.Length - 1;

  //loop the word without the first and last letters.
  for (int i = 1; i < loop; i++)
  {
    //get an int from 1..word.Length-1.
    index = rnd.Next(1,word.Length-1);

    //add the char at this index to the temp.
    temp = temp + word[index];

    //delete the char at this index from word.
    word = word.Remove(index, 1);
  }

  return word[0] + temp + word[word.Length-1];
}

With the definition I gave, this method is almost correct.
There are some known bugs but I didn't want to make the code difficult to grasp.
Now that the code is easy to understand, I can talk about the bugs and the solutions.

1. If the word is only a letter (such as 'a'), the method returns this letter twice.
The solution is to check the length of the word given. So after initializing loop variable, write:
if (loop == 0) return word;

2. There is a possibility that the word returned is the same with the one given.
As the length of the word increases, this possibility becomes smaller. But for 4-letter words, it's 50%. What one could do, is to check if the word about to return, is the same with the one provided, and loop until they are different.

Interesting..

2006-11-17T18:08:00.000+01:00

I couldn't find if this was really a product of a research, but still, I find it quite interesting..

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and the lsat ltteers are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit any porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

It's already very famous as I realized..
Some info could be found here.

I found out my problem

2006-11-15T21:25:00.000+01:00

After talking with some friends and listening to the opinions of some people, I found what my problem is.

* I talk too much. Others get bored, others get lost, others think it's too deep, others think it's self-explanatory. The point is that I talk too much..

* I don't have a standard way/level of talking. I am trying to say something in simple words, and suddently I get excited and go deeper. Some other times I talk more professionally, and once in a while I start explaining in simple words, which might result in some of the above.

So, let's try a new approach..
I will be as short as possible..

Visual Studio 2005 Rockz!!
-- Great intellisense, Great debugging information..
-- And much more.. But if I start, nobody will follow :(

Should I change topic?

2006-11-14T13:49:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Google Analytics I saw that there were many people that visited my blog yesterday. Then I checked at the comments and I realized that maybe they all had the same comment as Nikos: "Nice things, but I don't understand them"..

Maybe I am not very good in describing..
One problem is that I don't know how deep I should go and how much explanation on what I am saying I should give.
Another problem is that I am starting to be convinced that I am not very good in describing(maybe because of the first problem).

So, should I start talking about something else? I think I have made about 7-8 posts about programming and projects and most of the comments were something like "nice, but I don't understand"..

Maybe I can start writing about god. It seems more easy to grasp and discuss about it..

So, I don't believe in god.
There is no reason for god to exist. Reasons such as "how we were born/came to earth/evolve" can be answered by science.
I don't believe in miracles. They can or will be answered by science(and that goes to all miracles such as "I clinically dead and doctors said that only a miracle could save me, and suddenly I was alive!").
I believe in free will. If god knows everything, then he knows what we are going to do, so we don't have a free will.. That goes against what I believe for free will, so I don't believe in god(at least he shouldn't know everything:D)

I guess I will go back to computer science now.. I cried enough :)

Merge vs Hashing

2006-11-12T23:05:00.000+01:00

Last semester I did search engine project. That included the implementation of a search engine and a report where I had to do some theoretical analysis of the problem and describe my methodology and implementation. My previous post about this project could be found here.

I went to the exam and I got about 8(with base 5 and maximum 10). I didn't like the grade and the external examiner wanted to defend his opinion. So, he told me why I didn't get a higher grade. Let me explain the problem first.

Suppose that we have two sorted tables with integer values. At one part of the implementation I had to write an algorithm to find all the common integers at the two tables.

What I did, was something like the implementation of Merge algorithm. That algorithm is used in Merge sort in order to take two sorted tables and combine(merge) them into one, that will still be sorted. The complexity of this algorithm is O(n), where n is the total number of the elements(the sum of the lengths of the 2 tables).

What he said that I should have done in order to make it faster, is to use hash tables. What he suggested was that I can use hash tables instead of arrays, then check which one is the smaller, then take it's elements one by one and check if they exist at the other table. That will result at maximum half "operations" comparing to the Merge algorithm, because it will check only the n/2 elements and each check can be done in O(1) since we use Hash tables. The complexity in terms of big O notation is still O(n), but if we want to be a bit more precisely, we could say O(n/2).

Unfortunately for me, I didn't know much about branch predictions at that time and I couldn't defend my algorithm, which seems slower at first glance. But since they are both linear complexity algorithms, one could go more into comparisons.

Now, at my thesis, I am working again with these, and I can show by experiments and by theory based on branch predictions that my algorithm was faster. The cpu's architecture benefits predicable loops instead of accessing random blocks at the memory.

Below I have a graph of the results of some of my experiments.
The first raw of the table is the number of elements at each table(1.000,2.000..)
The numbers in the table is the time in milliseconds that each algorithm spent to find the amount of common elements.

Shivaree - I Close My Eyes

2006-11-06T16:08:00.000+01:00

Το video clip το έχω δει πάνω από 7 φορές και κάθε φορά ανατρίχιαζα..
Τι να πω;
Φωνάρα! Στίχοι που σε αγγίζουν.. Βλέμμα που μιλάει μόνο του.. Τέλεια συνδεδεμένη μουσική..

Tonight
I'll dream of ways to keep you occupied
So I can lock you up we'll call it classified
So right
You're mine tonight love when I close my eyes.

Multiple booking

2006-11-04T03:31:00.000+01:00

The project that I am working with at the moment is a flight booking system that could allow the user to book many seats at once. That means that the user should be able to select the flight and the number of seats that he wants to book, book these seats, and then start filling the details of the passengers one after the other.

The obvious problem is that if you don't lock some tables somehow, it is possible that while the user fills in the details, another user could book his seats, and that could cause that there are no more seats available even though the user has entered his information and thinks that he booked..

The table that are used here are [ Passsenger, Flight, Booking ]
Where obliviously Passenger has the details of the passengers, Flight has the details of the flights and Booking has the PassengerID and FlightID to uniquely identify a booking.

The only "nice" solution that I found is the following.
When the user presses the button to book( s seats at f flight), I create s Passengers with only temp data(actually only firstname='temp'). Then I create s Bookings of these Passengers. Then the data layer returns a List that contains the newly created PassengerIDs and BookingID. This list will be used to fill in the data of the passengers and some more data about the booking(delivery address, meal choices etc)

Do you have any better solution?
Mine is working, but I don't like it a lot. I need to access the database many times and that costs when we are talking about a web application. However, I think that you have to access the database at least twice if you want to do something like that since you want to book in advance and fill in the data later.

I am working with aspx and c# with .Net Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005.

FireFox 2 (updated)

2006-11-03T03:01:00.000+01:00

I like FireFox 2.

There are many many improvements and new features in Firefox 2.
The official website describes them better than I could possibly do :)

The only (but important for me) thing that I didn't like, is that opening many tabs would cause a scroll bar to appear to "help" me navigate thought tabs. That will result in preventing me from having an overview of my tabs.

Since most web pages have an icon(logo) that appear on the tab, even with very small tabs you can see where is what you are looking for(from your own reading history). Furthermore, with the old version you could know how many tabs you have opened(how much more you have to read :D)

For these two reasons, I thought it was worthy to spend some time trying to find how to switch to the 1.5 view of the tabs(without tab scrolling). And I found it.
Maybe you agree with me and you also want to do the same, so, here is how you can do it.

To disable tabs scrolling do:
- Enter "about:config" in the url bar and press enter
- Type at the filter "tabm"(the only result should be "browser.tabs.tabMinWidth")
- Double click on it and change the value from "100" to "0"
- Restart Firefox

Enjoy..

Update
You will need the above only if you open more than (screen width / 100) tabs..
And that's because the default width for each tab is obviously 100.
And what I like very much, is that you can "undo close tab", which is REALLY good if you are a person like me (you open a lot of tabs and close them before the information of the tab is sent from your eyes to your brain :D )

Μας διαβάζουν από τον Republic

2006-10-29T17:33:00.000+01:00

Ω, ναι.. Ήρθε και απάντηση με email.
Εν ολίγοις, από την απάντηση μπορεί κανείς να διακρίνει έναν άνθρωπο αγανακτισμένο και εκνευρισμένο από τα blogs και τον τρόπο με τον οποίο κάποιοι κάνουν κριτική.

Λογικό. Τον τελευταίο καιρό που διαβάζω blogs σχετικά με τον republic, έχω διαβάσει διάφορα υβριστικά σχόλια κατά του Κομνηνού. Εντάξει, μπορεί ο άνθρωπος να μην καταλαβαίνει τι λένε τα computers και οι αριθμοί. Μπορεί να μην ξέρει από design, usability, website development. Δεν είναι όμως αυτοί λόγοι για να του μιλάει ο κόσμος με τέτοιο ύφος.

Ο Κομνηνός έχει ένα ύφος υπεράνω, προσπαθεί λίγο να μειώσει ότι δεν τον ανεβάζει(όσοι κατακρίνουν τον republic και την ιστοσελίδα δεν ειναι republic-ανοι και δεν τους αξίζει αυτός ο σταθμός, λέει). Αλλά και πάλι, και ας έχει αυτές τις απόψεις, σχόλια του στυλ "Κομνηνέ να πας να γαμηθείς", "Μαλάκα Κομνηνέ" κτλ, με θλίβουν. Βρήκαμε τα blogs στα οποία μπορούμε να γράφουμε ότι θέλουμε, και το έχουμε ξεφτιλίσει νομίζω. Μπορείς να εκφράσεις την δυσαρέσκεια σου και την αντιπάθεια σου με πολλούς τρόπους. Γιατί να διαλέξεις αυτόν της βωμολοχίας; Κρίμα.

Όσο για την ιστοσελίδα του republic, θα περιμένουμε καμιά εβδομάδα να δούμε αν θα αλλάξει τίποτα και μετά τους ξανακράζουμε.

Απογοήτευση από το website του Republic Radio, αλλά και από τον υπεύθυνο του σταθμού

2006-10-27T18:14:00.000+02:00

Επειδή τυχαίνει να είμαι ένας από τους πολλούς fan του σταθμού, ενδιαφέρθηκα λίγο παραπάνω από το απλώς να ανακοινώσω εδώ τα προβλήματα του σταθμού..

Έμάθα ότι ο Νίκος Κομνηνός(Διεύθυνση προγράμματος) έχει blog και διαβάζει και μερικά blogs που αναφέρονται στον σταθμό (Lipi, Ζαφ).
Βρήκα λοιπόν το blog του Νίκου Κομνηνού και του άφησα ένα comment και link στο προηγούμενο post μου. Περίμενα λοιπόν ένα σχόλιο του ή μία αλλαγή στο site. Σχόλιο δεν έκανε σε εμένα και από ότι έμαθα, στους zaf και lipi, έβγαλε χολή αντί να πει ευχαριστώ. Είναι απογοητευτικό να βλέπεις ότι κάποιοι άνθρωποι δεν εκτιμάνε την κριτική και αντιδρούν με τον τρόπο "αν δεν σου αρέσω ελαττωματικός, μην με παίζεις". Κρίμα για αυτόν(και για τον σταθμό που έχει αυτόν).

Η ιστοσελίδα παραμένει εκεί με τα υπάρχοντα λάθη και προβλήματα.
Για να μην τα ξαναγράψω, τα προβλήματα 1-6 του προηγούμενου post, είναι ακόμα εκεί..
Για το 7 ακούσαμε υποσχέσεις και περιμένουμε την εβδομάδα που έρχεται για να δούμε αν θα υλοποιηθούν.
Η πρόταση μου για mailing list είναι σαν να μην έγινε ποτέ..(Να σας το κάνω εγώ σε 30λεπτάκια να τελειώνουμε;)

Στην λίστα με τα προβλήματα θέλω να προσθέσω και μερικά που βρήκαν οι lipis και zaf

1. Έτσι για την ιστορία, αν θέλει κάποιος να επαναλάβει το bug που εικονίζεται στο post, ας πάει στο link της επικοινωνίας (τον φάκελο), και ας πατήσει κατευθείαν το submit (αν το δει, γιατί η σελίδα είναι σχεδιασμένη για 1280x1024). Από εκεί και πέρα όλα τα κείμενα εμφανίζονται στα ΞΟΞΟΞΞΩΏΩ.
(comment του ζαφ στο post του)

2. Αν μεταφέρεσαι από το ένα εικονίδιο στο άλλο χρησιμοποιώντας τα βελάκια, τότε δεν ανανεώνεται το content του εικονιδίου. (screenshot στο οποίο το εικονίδιο είναι αυτό του pong, αλλά δίπλα έχει τα στοιχεία για επικοινωνία!) Αυτό δεν είναι προχειροδουλειά;;;

3. Ας μην εκφράσω την αγανάκτηση μου όταν συνειδητοποίησα ότι έχει ήχο το pong!

3.5 Το παιχνίδι λέγεται pong και όχι ping pong!!(Lipis)

3.9 Δεν καταλαβαίνω γιατί το πρώτο εικονίδιο αφού μπεις στο site, είναι το pong!

Και λογικά τι έχει να πει ο Νίκος Κομνηνός για όλα αυτά;
-"en pasi periptosi osoi den pianoun tin filosofia tou site malon den inai republicanoi" (απόσπασμα από comment του στο post του lipi)

όσο για τους BeetRoot, νομίζω ότι ο Tyxod τα λέει καλά. Στο site τους έχουν μία λίστα από πελάτες. Μην μπείτε στον κόπο να πατήσετε πάνω σε έναν από αυτούς, γιατί φυσικά δεν υπάρχουν links. Υπάρχει επίσης και μία λίστα με βραβεία, αλλά πάλι δεν παίζουν links. Λες και έχουν κάποιο πρόβλημα τα παιδιά. Πάντως, βλέποντας λίγες από τις δουλείες τους, οφείλω να παραδεχτώ ότι είναι πολύ καλοί designers. Αλλά ως εκεί.. Τώρα που το σκέφτομαι, παίζει να μην ξέρουν πώς να φτιάξουν mailist και να στέλνουν εκεί τα news..

Απογοήτευση από το website του Republic Radio

2006-10-25T14:26:00.000+02:00

Ο καλύτερος σταθμός της πόλης μας(Θεσσαλονίκη) και ίσως της ολόκληρης της Ελλάδας, είναι ο Republic Radio 100.3. Φυσικά είναι προσωπική άποψη.

Επειδή τα τελευταία 2 χρόνια ζω στο εξωτερικό, η σχέση μου με τους ελληνικούς σταθμούς περιορίζεται σε αυτούς που είναι καταχωρημένοι στο e-radio, οι οποίοι είναι πολλοί. Έτσι μπορώ να πω ότι έχω και άποψη για το τί παίζεται στην Ελλάδα γενικότερα.

Το θέμα του post όμως δεν είναι το πόσο καλός είναι ο Republic Radio(πράγμα που εύκολα επιβεβαιώνεται τώρα που κάνει και broadcast), αλλά η απογοήτευση από την ιστοσελίδα του. Συγκεκριμένα, πράγματα που με πείραξαν/χάλασαν/εκνεύρισαν/ενόχλησαν είναι:

1. Το mouse στο welcome screen δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τον σταθμό. Το μόνο που καταφέρνει είναι να κάνει δύσκολη(την πρώτη φορά) και αργή(τις επόμενες) την είσοδο μας στην ιστοσελίδα. Δεν είναι απλά ένα loading screen, αλλά πρέπει ο χρήστης να πατήσει και το flash-mouse για να μπει. Ποίος ο λόγος;

2. Το ότι όλα κουνιούνται, είναι μεν ευχάριστο και όμορφο την πρώτη φορά, αλλά κουραστικό στην συνέχεια.

3. Στο Republic's Line up(που είναι το πρόγραμμα του σταθμού), θα έπρεπε να δείχνει την ώρα Ελλάδας, και όχι την δικιά μου(Δανίας).. Την δικιά μου την βλέπω και στο pc μου.

4. Τα djpicks, airplay, news θα έπρεπε να μπορούν να γίνουν copy (να είναι σε plain text) είτε για να τα βάλω στο calendar μου, είτε για να τα μοιραστώ με τους φίλους μου, είτε για να τα κρατάω κάπου στο pc μου καταχωρημένα.

5. Το κουτάκι που πρέπει να πατήσεις για να έρθει το Links σε πρώτο πλάνο, είναι πάρα πολύ μικρό και όταν όλα κουνιούνται, καταντάει εκνευριστικό.( Άσχετα που κανένας δεν το χρησιμοποιεί)

6. Το website είναι τρομερά βαρύ. Αν το αφήσεις 5-10 λεπτά ανοιχτό χωρίς να κάνεις τίποτα, αρχίζει να "σέρνετε" ο browser(firefox χρησιμοποιώ) και δεν μπορείς να συνεχίσεις το surfing αν δεν κλείσεις το site του republic. Αυτό και αν είναι εκνευριστικό!!!! Έχω την εντύπωση ότι ο λόγος που γίνεται αυτό είναι ότι εν μέρει ο garbage collector του Flash 8 δεν δουλεύει το ίδιο καλά με τον αντίστοιχο του 7(benchmarks), αλλά κυρίως γιατί έχω την υποψία ότι κάποιο bug έχει το website.

Τέλος, κάποιες γενικότερες αλλαγές που θα βελτίωναν την ποιότητα του internet radio.
7. Το bitrate του internet radio είναι πολύ χαμηλό και χάνει πολύ σε ποιότητα ο σταθμός. Οι περισσότεροι ελληνικοί σταθμοί εκπέμπουν από 48kbps και πάνω. Επιπλέον, ο server γεμίζει συχνά και δεν μπορούμε να συνδεόμαστε κάποιες φορές.

Update!!
επιπλέον, αυτό που λείπει απο τις υπηρεσίες του site είναι ένα mailing list στο οποίο θα στέλνονται τα νέα και τα events. Δεν είναι δα και τόσο πρωτότυπο ούτε τόσο δύσκολο..

και να σημειώσω οτί χρειάζεται να αφήσετε κανένα 20λεπτο(εξαρτάται και από το pc) ανοιχτό το site του republic για να παρατηρήσετε αυτό που περιγράφω παραπάνω. Αλλά το θέμα είναι ότι το πρόβλημα υπάρχει

Multi-Touch Interaction Research

2006-10-22T17:26:00.000+02:00

Multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations.

The guy that coordinates the project is Jeff Han

New Home

2006-10-13T01:17:00.000+02:00

And finally I have a new home!
I am living in Ãresundskollegiet!!

I now have my own kitchen (small but ok for one person) and my own toilet(of course).
The good news is that I will have some space to host friends!!
Many friends and relatives have told me that will come to visit me..
Let's see.. I am expecting and hoping to see all of you (the ones I have talk about it.. don't come uninvited :P )

I just bought my new bed, desk, room lamp and many many smaller stuff and I am very happy :)

( and a small secret.. maybe I will get a job.. I will go for an interview in two weeks.. I just applied for fun and they said they want to see me.. :D )

By the way, my thesis is going as planned and everything is fine :)

Internet Radio

2006-10-06T11:19:00.000+02:00

Since the time I came here in Denmark to study, I have always been trying to find a good internet radio station. In the beginning I was using shoutcast. At that time I was listenning mainly ambient and house. It was then that I found out about Station Ripper and I made consecutive posts about it and about a tool that I developed that helps you to organize the ripped mp3s.

Station Ripper part 1
Station Ripper part 2
Station Ripper part 3

After some time, I started using the itunes interface for internet radio and I found some nice internet stations but nothing great..

But, since yesterday I am amazed by Pandora. It's not a simple internet station. You type the artist that you like and you can be sure that it will play similar music to the one of your favorite artist's. It's great. You can vote if you like a song or not, to bring the station closer to your expectations.

I guess that the developers of pandora utilized the same information as the guys that developed the music plasma.

N.W.O.H.M.B.

2006-09-30T14:17:00.000+02:00

New Wave Of Heavy Metal Blogging is on the air..
Guess what.. It's a new blog created by me and some friends of mine and we are going to talk about heavy metal.
You can see the bands that I like and I will probably talk about, at my profile :)
and if I discover another one nice band, I will probably say it.. It's not a secret :)
Fell free to add the blog at your atom/rss reader :)

Music is the answer

2006-09-29T21:11:00.000+02:00

New blog about Music!
DJ GiNikolos just created his blog and he is posting about music.
Mostly he is going to talk about tribal/progressive/electro house and trance.
Amazing!!!

Wind Mills

2006-09-20T14:07:00.000+02:00

Every time I was seeing wind mills I was getting more and more curious..
I remember myself making wind mills with paper and I was making the wings very big..
I remember the old wind mills with very big wings as well..
But why the new wind mills have soooo thin wings?
I couldn't resist searching for it.. And what I found was nice :)
Actually, a simple search on how stuff works, revealed the answer :)
I just had to type "wind power" at the search box and voila!

So, as far as I understood, it is not the wind's mass that moves the new wind mills.. It's the aerodynamic forces. The wings are now like blades and they have the shape of the wing of an airplane. It's the same power that makes the airplane take off.

This nice image shows what I mean..

More stuff here
..
YEEESS!! (It's been a week now I am trying to remember why I have heard about aerodynamic principles before.. And I just remembered!!)

I know from sailing!! Yeah.. Now I remember.. It's the same power that moves the sailing boats. The racing sailing boats and all the sailing boats I guess.. This analysis is nice.. The front sail is like the wind of the airplane and the second(if exists) creates a path for the air between the sails in order to get all the advantages from the wind and get this power while being able to turn! And as I remember, this power from aerodynamics, is much more powerful than just the power of the wind mass. I won't say more..

About sailing, you can read this and this.

I am very happy that I remembered these :D
I want to go for sailing again :(

Anyway, the subject was wind mills and how they rotate nowadays :)
By the use of aerodynamics..

Thesis Paper

2006-09-20T01:34:00.000+02:00

Last week I started my Master thesis. I didn't start writing anything yet of course, but I am doing a research on the relevant theory. What I am going to write about is Hash tables.

My supervisor, Rasmus Pagh, has already published his research and his proposal on better hashing algorithms. An easy to read version of his idea and proposal could be downloaded from here.

We will now go further and investigate other benefits and advantages of his proposals. In particular, we are going to use his algorithmic idea to make comparisons of two sets for duplicated words faster if possible.

The problem could be described as the following. Suppose that we have 2 sets with words. We want to find words in the first set that appear in the second set as well.

The two main competitive algorithms are the Merge algorithm and the use of hash tables. The Merge algorithm is the same one that merge sort utilizes. The use of hash tables, allows us to use one hash table for accessing words and the other one for searching for existence of words.
Both algorithms run in linear time. The proposed algorithm also runs in linear time, but I am trying to make it faster than the others by avoiding branch mispredictions(take advantage of branch predictions) and decreasing cache faults.

Wish me good luck :)

Fotos is back!

2006-09-17T16:29:00.000+02:00

Welcome back to the blog community Fotos.

We are excited waiting to see your new style and read all you have to say about your new life :)

(Fotos used to write about big constructions and edge technology and architecture buildings. From now on he is going to write mostly about himself and his life.. That's as far as I can understand from his blog)

Command & Conquer Generals VS Warcraft III

2006-09-11T12:57:00.000+02:00

Lately I have been playing CC Generals Zero:Hour and I was trying to compare it with Warcraft III. After spending some hours at lan parties with my friends playing CC, I concluded that there is no comparison at all!!

* In CC you have unlimited money!!! (Come ooooon...)
* In CC there is no army limit!!!
* In CC you don't need micro(and it's not easy to do it), since you have HUGE army and you can just "attack ground".. And, you always have the money to build more :)
* In CC you don't have hit points(in points), attack speed(in any form), attack damage(in any form), armor, movement speed.. Come ooooon..

What kind of strategy game you play if you cannot calculate some basic things?
And you can play forever, because you have have unlimited money...

Even more,
You don't breath with your ghoul..
Your heart doesn't beat with your ghoul's...
You don't believe in Mitsos..
You don't "cry" for losing Mitsos..
You don't shout ("Oxi to mitso re gamwtoooo!!")

Maybe on day I will meet a guy that is a pro gamer at Zero:Hour and I will recall everything I said :)

( I will update this post if I remember more disadvantages of CC )

Tennis Scoring

2006-07-14T11:30:00.000+02:00

Every time I was watching a tenis game I was wondering why they are not counting like all the other sports that I know..
In case you didn't know or didn't notice, in tennis, the counting is: love, 15, 30, 40, game. And then you start the next set.
My friend Google, helped me to find some answers.

Probably the counting is based on a clock face, and 45 was abbreviated to 40, probably because it is easier to pronounce. About "love" which means 0, there are 2 scenarios. It comes from "l'oeuf" French for 'egg' (The use of 'goose-egg' for a zero score is common in baseball), or it just means that the game is for love and peace in the world and stuff like that.

This counting system seems reasonable for that time, when the number 60 was considered "good" and "complete" number, in about the same way we consider 100 a "good" and "round" number. I still don't understand why they keep it and they don't make it 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. Actually, currently, you can use both counting systems, but the official is the old one.

6/6/6

2006-06-06T12:44:00.000+02:00

A friend remind me something that I was trying to forget for years now..

Today is the day that antichrist is visiting our world..
I want to ask for forgiveness from anyone I hurt and anyone I made suffer with any of my actions or words.

See you hopefully in paradise, but I will probably be in hell :(
(if it is not this year, it might be in 10 years and so on.. )

Ας ξυπνήσει κάποιος τους επιστήμονες επιτέλους!

2006-05-18T05:58:00.000+02:00

Αν και όλοι ξέρουμε οτι ο θεός έπλασε τον άνθρωπο απο λάσπη και νερό, ο θεός έφτιαξε τον κόσμο κτλ, οι επιστήμονες συνεχίζουν τις έρευνες τους..

Μα γιατί; Σε αυτούς δεν το είπε κανείς οτι έχει βρει η θρησκεία τις λύσεις για όλες τις απορίες του ανθρώπου;
Συμβαδίζουν μωρέ η θρησκεία και η επιστήμη(ή αλληλοκαλύπτονται), αλλά η θρησκεία τα λέει απλά για να τα καταλαβαίνουμε, ενώ η επιστήμη κοιτάει το πρόβλημα στα μάτια..

Τί σχέση έχει όμως η κυριαρχία του ανθρώπου ώς είδος απο την μέρα της δημιουργίας του και η αγάπη του θεού για το τέλειο δημιούργημα του, όταν είμαστε ζώα και έχουμε κοινό πρόγονο με τον πίθηκο; Ήταν πιο εύκολο για τον άνθρωπο τότε να συλλάβει οτι είναι λάσπη και νερό, απο ότι να καταλάβει ότι ήταν κάποτε κάτι σαν πίθηκος το οποίο στον κατακλησμό του νώε μισοπέθανε και ότι έμεινε έγινε σιγά σιγά άνθρωπος;

Όταν λέω ότι κάποιος πρέπει να ξυπνήσει τους επιστήμονες, μιλάω για τα παιδιά που ασχολούνται με την εξέλιξη και για αυτους που ασχολούνται με την αρχή του σύμπαντος..

Παλιότερες μελέτες πάνω στα ίδια θέματα εδώ και εδώ

Search Engine Project

2006-05-07T21:20:00.000+02:00

Last week I started my last project before my thesis. It's about implementing a search engine and consider the complexity of searching algorithms. So far, what I have realized is that it is more about choosing the right data structure to store your data, than optimizing the search algorithm.. At least up to now, the only thing I was doing to optimize the search was to change the data structures.. This week I will focus on the search algorithm and some extra features..

My personal motivation is to make the search faster than the one's implemented by other students. I have a friend that did this project a year ago and I have some measurements from some other students that did it 2 years ago.. Let's see.. I have 3 more weeks..

Station Ripper, part 3

2006-04-06T14:17:00.000+02:00

I guess that is the final update for this topic.

I just fixed most bugs I could find and I made it nice and easy.
Also included the possibility to delete automatically all the folders that have one mp3, so that you don't get "empty" folders.. That could be done either when you create the folders(and delete only the currently created folders with one mp3) or to the existing folders(and delete even previously created)

In that way, you can get the most played artists and keep only these( keeping in mind that at least in chill out(the one I am ripping at least) most popular might possibly mean best, since there is not much business involved(compared to house/dance music))

Currently I have about 10GB mp3s of chill out and flamengo :)
and still in the beginning..

Oh, and very important, ripping stations is legal!
So, you can create your legal mp3 collection!!

"Fortunately, recording Internet radio still remains in legal limbo, and there's some precedent for it being legal, since you can record regular broadcast radio." <source>

Station Ripper, part 2

2006-04-05T06:29:00.000+02:00

As I wrote at my last post, I was planning to do something to organize the mp3s that you can rip from StationRipper. So, I made an attempt..

I made a very simple program, at which you define the folder that contains the mp3s from a specific station(could even be other mp3s that have the same naming format), and it automatically(of course, that's the point of doing it..) creates the necessary folders and puts the files in them.. So, if a station broadcasted 3 songs of Muse, you will have them in the same directory, which will be Muse :)

I have uploaded the source files (in Visual Studio 2005) and an standalone .exe file.

Don't expect any extreme intelligent programming..
I just finished programming and it is 6.30 in the morning..
But still, it is working fine.. I have tried it at about 2000 mp3's :)

Station Ripper

2006-03-31T15:42:00.000+02:00

You have found an online radio station that you like very much and plays great music?
I have great news for you!!
(sounds a bit like telemarketing, right? :D)

Last week a friend talked to me about StationRipper and I found it interesting enough to try it..
It is program that can rip/make mp3s from the online radio stations. It can "listen" to many stations simultaneously and rip. It automatically separates the songs and puts them in different mp3s and separates mp3s from different stations in different folders. It is very nice.. I have already 1 GB of new music and I have it only one night ripping from 3 stations :)

You can select your favorite stations from shoutcast of course and from a preselected list suggested by StationRipper.. Maybe more.. I didn't explore everything, but still I like it :)

I recommend to try it at least..

I am planning to write a program to go into the folder of the station, and group all songs from the same artists in separate folders. Then I will have artists collections of specific genres (since the stations usually broadcast music of one or two genres).

Windows Update

2006-03-25T18:57:00.000+01:00

I was amazed/impressed/happy when I learned how to bypass windows cdkey authentication to download windows updates from the official windows site!!

And especially because it is sooooo easy :)

Description here
Thanks to Poul

Statistics

2006-02-08T17:08:00.000+01:00

If you have ever been at casino, you have probably seen the table of the last occurred numbers at roulette..

Also, at Lotto and other games where the player selects numbers, some people keep track of the latest results..

There are 2 totally contradicting points of view.
There are the people that believe that it is meaningfully to keep track of the results
and there are these people that say that it is stupid..

Let's use a perfect dice to explain the two ways of thinking..
(by perfect I mean that you cannot foresee the result of rolling the dice.)

The defenders of the first opinion, say that if you roll the dice A times(A should be BIG number), the number of times you get the "1" should be about A/6. And as A increases(we roll the dice more and more times), the “probability of getting "1" A/6 times gets higher.
So, If we have rolled a dice 20 times and we see that all the times we got "1", it is very likely that "1" will not come the next time, because the other numbers have to occur as well with about the same probability if we were to roll the dice 100 times for example.. And if we get "1" again, then the probability to get any other number, increases comparing to the probability to get "1" again.

But, others believe that all the above analysis makes no sense since the experiments are independent from each other. That means, that the rolling of a dice one more time, has nothing to do with the result of the previous rolling..

I hope I made myself clear.
I guess that the second view is the correct one..

Evaluation of last week

2006-01-28T13:50:00.000+01:00

So, I followed some of my friends suggestions..

I met new people,
I played poker,
Went for shopping
Went for coffees and beers,
Drank Beers,
Drank some beers more,
Drank white wine..

Difficult life :)

I didn't have to learn C# since I will take the course
Business programming with the .NET framework

[30] Exams (Complete)

2006-01-24T05:08:00.000+01:00

Nice..
I was expecting to do a bit worse, so I am pleased with the result.. Although I don't have the grades yet, I guess(at least hope) that I pass both courses.

* Object Oriented Programming
* Efficient AI Programming

And I passed the project I did about
Programming Context-aware Mobile Systems (Bluetooth on Mobile Devices)

So, I have one week now free.. Until 1st of February I think..
What can I do?
Learn Photoshop?
Learn Flash?
Learn Visual C#?
Become Alcoholic?
Meet more people?
Learn more about the city I live?
Play WOW?
Play another game(Command and Conquer for example)?
Relax and just sit and chill and think about life and who we are and where we are going?

I am more anxious now than when I had exams..
What to do when you have nothing to do?

Back to Denmark

2006-01-04T05:02:00.000+01:00

When I left Greece, the temperature was about 17C and the sun was shining.
After 5 hours of traveling, I arrived to a white/dark Copenhagen of 0C..
It is not snowing, but there is snow everywhere :)
And it is still getting dark very early :(

And after about a year of having my desktop computer on my desk, I finally made it work!! I hope at least(it is still installing windows.. You never know..)
But I have great excuses for being so late..

1. I couldn't find a good, cheap and easy to carry tower(tower, only the metal thing).
- solution: check and buy online and they bring it home :)
2. Windows couldn't recognize my SATA drive
- solution: download motherboard's drivers for SATA.
3. I had to put the drivers in a floppy disk and then put them at the desktop, while neither my laptop nor my desktop have floppy disk drive.
- solution: buy a USB floppy disk drive.

Anyway, the thing is much more difficult to face it than to describe it :)
At least now I know exactly what you need to do..
So, if you have Asus motherboard(I have a7v600-x), go to asus download website and download the latest drive for RAID controller. The zip that you will download, contains a folder DriverDisk and inside this folder you can find the utility MakeDisk.exe, which will create the floppy disk that you want.
Then you go to the problematic pc, put the floppy in the pc, boot from the Windows CD, in the first 5 seconds you press F6(you can see at the bottom of the screen a message saying that if you want to install RAID or other drivers press F6(or something like this)). After pressing F6, life is easy :)

I think that I can see my Windows XP log in screen now :)

METAL HEROES :)

2005-11-29T14:46:00.000+01:00

A great post of a great blogger..

unfortunately only in Greek :(

So, αν καταλαβαίνεις ελληνικά, go for it..

Metal Heroes

Sudoku!

2005-11-24T16:00:00.000+01:00

The first time I heard about sudoku was in the Efficient AI Programming course at my university. We started talking about Constraint Networks(1,2 if you are interested) and how to create the constrains that could lead to a solution for any given Sudoku. In general I like challenging problems, but this one sounded so easy that I didn't want to waste my time on it.

The next day I realized(and remember the teacher telling something about it) that the newspapers have a sudoku at the last page(like crossword puzzle in Greek newspapers). So, I said, ok let's play with it to see if it is really hard.. It turned out just as I expected..

But since that day I was listening more and more about sudoku and how great it is and I couldn't understand it.. So, I decided to do an online search to find more information about it. The best website that I found with online sudokus is WebSudoku. So, I tried the evil one without trying any other. After 1h and a half I solved it. And for those who didn't laugh yet, I have to say that when I was at the final step of solving it, I was thinking "so, that's sudoku? Maybe hard, but solvable..". So, when I typed the last number, I got a "solved"(or something) and the average time for solving this kind of sudoku.. A bit embarrassed to say it, but it was much less than 10 minutes.. I think it was 2 or 3 minutes.. AND it said that solutions after 20minutes are not considered in the average.. THAT'S the point that I found Sudoku more interesting(in a way) and I understood why people do like it! And there are some competitions as well.. :)

To finish with, I still don't find it that interesting, but when I go into the metro and I get the free newspaper that has a sudoku at the back, I am trying to solve it until I get off the train(about 16minutes). I did it today and I was very happy that when the train stopped, I put the last letter at the sudoku and went out of the train with a sudoku(marked as hard) solved. I know, I still need to practice a lot to be at 2 minutes.. (for evil, not just hard..)

That was the story about me and sudoku ;)

Bank Gang

2005-11-18T03:57:00.000+01:00

After trying to "buy" it for a long time, I finally got the song Sleep from Bang Gang. I think that this band will be my next favorite and as I understood from some of their songs, they are going to be in my playlist for a long time.. The last 24hours my playlist contains only Sleep..

The band has also a very nice website which makes me appreciate them even more :)
The website is completely made in flash. Really nice job. Very nice pictures, nice colors, nice atmosphere, nice navigation, nice fades in/out, nice nice.. I am slowly falling in love with them..

You have to listen to some of their songs and especially Sleep!!
...
Walking in my sleep
With my flesh in bed
Still you are there
Just get the fuck out of my dreams
...

Brain cells..

2005-11-10T13:10:00.000+01:00

Maybe it is because in Denmark I drink too much beer..
Maybe it is because in Denmark I study too much..
Maybe I burned my brain cells before going to Denmark..
Actually in Greece I was drinking much more often and much more alcohol than in Denmark :)

I cannot focus anymore.. The rate of studying has decreased to (1 page)/(15 minutes)!!!
(Ok, maybe the material is hard, but how much hard?)

I have noticed that at least 3 times I have replied to emails inconsistently. I was reading something else from what was written, so the reply was out of subject..

I can still write some programs, but I have lost the interest to find the best algorithm to solve my problem.. I think I should start playing with mathsChallenge again..

Dubai..

2005-10-30T18:37:00.000+01:00

Impressed is not enough.. Excited is not enough either..
I don't know how to express myself after learning about the things that are going on at Dubai..
I had heard about Burj al arab(in Greek.. At least see the last 3 photos!!), but these new islands, were beyond my imagination..

The Palm Islands with the official site,
The WORLD with the official site.

I cannot say much.. Go and check on your own :)

Not the best news, but at least I have a home..

2005-10-04T10:33:00.000+02:00

Finally, I guess that the people in charge for approving the applications for the best dorm ever, don't like me..

So, I am in the bad one :(
At least I have good internet connection. Better than last semester's dorm, so I can have a audio/video conversation with my friends :)
I don't know about poker yet (because I saw something strange in Danish), but when I tried to connect to PokerRoom I couldn't :(
I don't what to know if I can play WOW.. I guess I can, but I don't want to test it yet.. I am sure that I can actually, but let's forget it.. I don't want to be like some of my friends :)

That's for the time being..
I am still trying to get the room at the other best great awesome dorm, but with no success..

Looking for a place to lay my body..

2005-09-30T18:52:00.000+02:00

It's more than a month now..

Thank God, I have some friends and they host me while I am waiting for a better life :)

I finally got an answer from KKIK, which, in sort, is an organization that organizes the kollegiums and the applications for them, and got an offer!! If everything goes wrong, from Monday I will move to my new room at RebÃ¦k SÃ¸park Kollegiet, which is about 45 minutes from my University and about 30 minutes from the town center.. So, I am not very excited.. Anyway, it's a room..

BUT, from Monday morning, I will know if I will have a room at Tietgenkollegiet, which is more than great!!! It is actually still being built, but if I could move in after a month, I will happy enough to run naked around my University :)
So, if everything goes well, you will see me on television :)

I hope on Monday I 'll have good news..
I just wanted to express my excitement and my agony..

MathsChallenge

2005-06-13T01:09:00.000+02:00

I know that for some people it might not be "good" that I publish this post during the examination period..

Nevertheless, I think that you can have some fun during your breaks from studying (if you are studying :D)..

MathsChallenge website is "dedicated to the puzzling world of mathematics". It has an amazingly nice developed and maintained "Programming Challenge: Project Euler". It has many nice programming/math problems. It seems easy in the beginning, but the difficulty grows exponentially :D

Project Euler gives you a great opportunity to extend your knowledge about a programming language(that's how I started), and furthermore, extend your ability to solve mathematical(mainly) problems.

I more than recommend it :)

(Actually it was Athanasakis who introduced me MathsChallenge..
Thanks dude :D )

Courses selection II

2005-06-07T00:52:00.000+02:00

After the invaluable help of guru, I am getting closer and closer..

The updated selections are here.

Actually, I can relax for a while because the database will be open until the 2nd week of September :)

I just wanted to conclude on some good courses and sign up for them, because later they might be full. Currently I have singed up for 7 courses :)

But still, if you have any comments(or you want me to learn something in order to hire me later), post your comments or send me an email..

Courses selection

2005-06-02T15:22:00.000+02:00

The ITU course database is open for the next semester's courses.
For those who don't know, I have to select 3 courses out of many offered.
At my ITU website I have made a list of 10 potentional selections.. I still have to throw out 7..

If anyone wants to give any reason for selecting one course or another, he is welcome to make a comment or send an email.

Το χάσαμε και αυτό γαμώ!

2005-06-01T01:29:00.000+02:00

Η Συναυλία: Την Πέμπτη 2 Ιουνίου, στο θέατρο Βράχων "Μελίνα Μερκούρη" εμφανίζεται (στο πλαίσιο της παγκόσμιας περιοδείας του) ένα από τα πιο αγαπημένα γκρουπ του ελληνικού κοινού, το οποίο εκπροσωπεί με τον καλύτερο τρόπο την progressive σκηνή, οι Thievery Corporation.

Ολόκληρο το άρθρο είναι εδώ.

Τι να πεις;
Δε θα γυρίσει ο τροχός;

Getting closer and closer

2005-05-27T15:21:00.000+02:00

I just woke up(15.00) after being at the university for 18 hours(about 15 hours of studying).. Today was the deadline for handing in the project that I was doing!
My Greek fellows know that while I was studying in Greece, the longer I have stayed at the university was 4 hours and that was only for exams.

So, at one of project's breaks, I finally booked a ticket to my homeland!!!
26/6 01.30 I will be in Greece!!

For the time being, I have 4 exams.. 3 for the courses and 1 for the project..
Let's see..

Tired of being absent..

2005-05-23T00:18:00.000+02:00

I was trying to recover from not being at Anathema concert with my friends..
I am listening to Anathema for almost the last 5 years and they are one of my best bands. And they decided to give a concert at Thessaloniki. And my friends called me from inside the concert.. And I was in Denmark.. That was too painful..

But, since I am studying and I have a lot of things in my mind here, I managed to get over it.

And then, Greece won the Eurovision 2005 contest!! Greece was burned!! There was a party at every corner!! And I was still in Denmark..

I am counting the days like a prisoner until going back..

Horoscopes..

2005-04-09T15:12:00.000+02:00

I am going back to a subject about which I have published a post before, but I found some very nice information..

Unfortunately, some links are in Greek, but there are some in English also..

The main idea is that astrology is not a science and shouldn't be concerned seriously.
Horoscopes are meaningless and are just fooling people.
There is absolutely no reason to believe in horoscopes, as there is no approved scientific background.

If you disagree with the above, you should follow the links below..

Greek links:
- Απο αυτό το link, αξίζει να διαβάσει κανείς τα "Τι έδειξαν οι έρευνες των επιστημόνων" και "Τα τεχνάσματα των αστρολόγων"..

English links:
- Skeptical Studies in Astrology presents an double-blind test of astrology made by a researcher of University of California and published in Nature (December 5, 1985).

- The astrology page publishes a list of scientific tests that were made in the past in order to prove that astrology does not work.

Intoduction Week Project

2005-02-04T18:36:00.000+01:00

WE WOOOOOOON!!!!

Me and 5 more teamates had the chance to work together and make a project of a phone. The project's objective was to make a phone prototype, make a webpage of the phone and finally present it to some professors. The idea of our team was to make a simple phone, easy to use for everybody and rather cheap. So we created simple phone, which has large buttons, has no menus, no sms and no confusing stuff. It was built for older people that don't like technology and don't want to get used to it, as well as, for young people that want just a cheap phone to make their phonecalls.

With this idea we won the first prize, which actually was more less 80€ each. Something like the first book for our studies, for free :)

The judgement of each group's product was about supporting your product, marketing it, making a webpage that is linked with the product and a general overview from the idea to the final result.

The webpage of our product, is http://www.itu.dk/~ppserek/home.html and is better viewed with internet explorer.

Are light cigarettes healthier?

2004-11-16T12:18:00.000+01:00

Many smokers have switched to "light" or "low tar" cigarettes thinking they are a healthier alternative to regular cigarettes. This assumption could not be farther from the truth. The numbers for tar and nicotine attached to brands of cigarettes comes from a smoking machine that "smokes" every brand of cigarettes the same way. These machines cannot tell how much tar/nicotine an individual smoker will receive because people do not smoke cigarettes the same way the machines do. Find more, here.

Since the 1970s, cigarette manufacturers have altered the composition and design of cigarettes to reduce the amount of nicotine and tar measured by federal machines. By lowering the cigarette emissions detected by federal machines, manufacturers could justify marketing these products as safer alternatives. Cigarette design revisions for these purposes include adding a filter, increasing the size of the paper wrap that covers the filter and adjusting the blend of tobacco with fillers and additives. Read more, here.

Smokers often choose light cigarettes as a way of lessening the damage to their bodies and abating their guilt. Even if light cigarettes do contain less tar and nicotine than the regular versions, that does not mean a person who smokes them inhales less of those compounds, according to past research and a new study from Japan. Doctors think that even though light cigarettes may appear more healthful, people smoke them more often, inhale deeper, or take more puffs off those types. Read more about this research, here. The full research, can be found here.

Free Games..

2004-11-09T16:48:00.000+01:00

After a long time, I am posting again.. I was trying to write a nice article, which I wont tell you because I hope to post it..

For the time being, I just want to upload two of the latest games I developed in Delphi 7. If anyone has any suggestion, I am full of ears :)

The games are on the right, at the 'My games' section.

NOW without bugs..
I hope.. :)

Maps and driving directions online

2004-10-02T18:11:00.000+02:00

The reason of this post, is that I can't remember how many hours I have spent in front of my computer trying to find an online map. I just want to introduce maporama to everybody that don't know it.

According to the company, the simplest expression of Maporama's location-centric technology is that it provides relevant answers to the three omnipresent questions everybody is faced with when planning a trip:
Where is this address?
How to get there? and
What is located around it?

In addition, you can have information about the length of the trip, the average time, the weather of the place you are going, as well as comprehensive driving details.

I believe that once you try it, you wont search for other online map again :)

SysInternals

2004-09-27T19:52:00.000+02:00

A computer software company which is worth mentioning is SysInternals. There are various useful freeware utilities that make the use of Windows much easier..

I believe that every computer using windows should have at least Process Explorer, which is a utility similar to default Task Manager of Windows, but much better and with more options.

A very useful utility is Autoruns, which shows all the auto-starting programs that start at System bootup or login. With this program it is very easy to boost you system's boot time, as you can indicate which programs you want be executed at start up and which not.

Is the use of mobile phones at gas stations safe?

2004-09-23T17:02:00.000+02:00

There is a rumor that mobile phones could cause explosion if used in gas station. I couldn't believe it so easily, so I did a research on it. I found that there might have been some explosions at gas stations in the past, but there is no evidence that the reason was the use of mobile phone. Motorola and others, including petroleum industry organizations, have looked into this matter at length and have conlcuded that mobile phones are safe. Their report is here.

A test that a British technology TV programme did, is also interesting. They filled an old caravan with petrol and petrol fumes and then placed six mobile phones inside it. More information here.

Mobile phones on airplanes

2004-09-21T13:22:00.000+02:00

It was some days ago, when my friends and I, were trying to find the reason of forbidding the use of electronic devices on an airplane. I decided to do a small research on internet about this and I found this.

The result of researches on the impact of mobile phones on airplanes lead to the permitting of the use in the near future. This is stated here.

To conclude, there was no reason to forbid the use of mobile phones on airplanes..

SETI

2004-09-14T15:54:00.000+02:00

I heard and used the SETI program 4 years ago. SETI stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It is a scientific effort seeking to determine if there is intelligent life outside Earth. Everyone having internet connection can participate in this effort by downloading a software that listens and analysis artificial radio signals coming from other stars. You can download the software from here.
And who knows, maybe your computer will detect Extraterrestrial Intelligence!!
More information about SETI, click here.

Αστρολογία

2004-09-12T14:43:00.000+02:00

Για όσους συνεχίζουν με πάθος να πιστεύουν στην αστρολογία, υπάρχει αυτό.
Αν και μετά από αυτό, συνεχίσουν να υπάρχουν κάποιοι που πιστέυουν στα ζώδια, τότε υπάρχει και αυτό.
Ελπίζω να είναι αρκετά.. Τα παραπάνω sites έχουν πολύ καλά παραδείγματα και αποδείξεις για αυτό το οποίο υποστηρίζουν..