rohitj's domain

Remember I once said that C is better than C++, so, I know I am completely biased. But I simply like C. I am a fan of its simplicity. And of course C has to be faster than C++ (which was never distinguishable in the type of programming I have done till now  ). So, today I got another material to support the point that C is better than C++. Checkout here. I will keep calling Linux Linux, not GNU/Linux .

So, finally CS Department of IIT Kanpur has taken a step to decrease faculty-student distance. Every Wednesday students and faculty members meet at 5PM and talk over a cup of tea and samosas. The topics are supposed to be informal. So, it wouldn’t be just about acads. Today was second meet. I couldn’t attend last meeting, but today I was there. I was 20 mins late, so missed tea and samosa. But  it will be compensated next time, we are going to have pizzas and cold drinks in next get-together . Yes baby, CS department is the coolest (at least pretends) department of IITK.

As of now, we are still talking about different serious issues about department, but I am sure if this meeting will keep going, we will have some real informal chat. There were 4 professors. Prof. Manindra Agarwal (HOD), Prof. Sanghi (DUGC), Prof. Jain, Prof. SKA. I appreciate that these professors were there. I think in last meeting Prof. Karnick were there. I hope others will show up as well. Though for one meet, I think 4-5 professors would be enough. But that shouldn’t mean that same professors are there in every meet. Special thanks to Prof. Manin and Prof. Sanghi for taking this initiative.

So, how is this meet helpful? Lets take one example. Prof. Manindra is a real cool personality. He is one of the best professors, IITK has. Though UGs usually do not get to interact with him, because he (usually) teaches only PG courses, and also he is a laconic speaker ( Am I wrong?), though he is very down to earth. There are other such professors. These interactions will remove such distances. These interactions will surely show students that professors are not devil. You can talk to them as frankly as you talk to others ( but you have to be a bit formal). I am sure this interaction will make the department a better family.

And yeah, please keep variety of stuff to eat and drink. I don’t want to miss these meeting. 

In my post about google products, I had shown my wish to have a desktop application for calendar which should sync it’s data with an online server so that I will not have to open browser to see calendar, and I will be able to see calendar even if I do not have my laptop with me.

Now, in software engineering course, we are asked to make a software using different software engineering techniques. And I could persuade my project partners to work on this dream calendar. Mainly the calendar will have following properties :

1. API for making desktop application and web application. First release will have API for perl only. (will serve both desktop and web application )
2. All normal calendar things
3. The software will be under GPL.
4. Others will be able to change your calendar, if you have given them permission.
5. others will be able to send you a request to add an entry in your schedule, like your friend may want you to attend a meeting, (s)he can put an entry for that in your calendar, but you have to accept that request so it finally appear in your schedule.
6. We are trying to understand how iCal works, once we understand that, we will try to include iCal as well, so that you could use current softwares which supports iCal. (iCal is RFC standard for calendars, that means I can freely use it. right?)
7. As of now, if iCal doesn’t make sense, we will have our own thing, for now we are calling it oCal.
8. I will run this server on my web server, so if you others wouldn’t have a server to sync their data, they should be able to do that.
9. We are thinking of including some plugin system as well, so users could modify the calendar functionalities, though we are looking at how different plugin systems works
10. Current status of the project can be seen at http://rohitj.net/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=software_engineering_project

If you think you want a particular feature in the calendar, let me know. We want to know what users want.

So, you are a geek. You want to write lot of technical things on your wordpress blog. And since you are a geek you want to write technical things in Latex. How do you do? One way is that you write latex code, make pdf, take screenshot, pick the desirable part, and use that image on blog. Ofcourse thats inconvenient and surely doesn’t go with your nerd personality. You want to write Latex code in your blog post. Here are 2 solutions. One is that you use wp-latex plugin. Using this plugin you will be able to write proper Latex code in your blog using <latex></latex> tags. But the problem is that this plugin uses Latex, which is not usually supported by web hosts, including Bluehost. And installing tetex locally is painful. So, here comes the second solution. Use mimetex. Checkout http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mimetex.cgi?l_2 . Similarly you can get other latex output by replacing l_2. One guy used this property and made a plugin. Using this plugin you can use latex code, basically mimetex (which is a bit different from Latex) with <tex></tex> tags. I couldn’t get it working. Another guy changed this script and made it working with \[tex\]\[\/tex\] tags. It didn’t work as well. This new plugin downloads this image and stores in wp-content/cache folder. But it downloads this image every time someone opens the post. Of course it consumes lot of server and bandwidth. So, I made a small tweak in it. I replaced it’s 15 lines with 1 line. Basically, now instead of downloading the image, it puts src as http://www.forkosh.dreamhost.com/mimetex.cgi? blah blah. And see I am able to use latex code.

Enjoy

Update : You can download the plugin (after my modification) from Plugin for using Latex

Update2 : The plugin is under GPL.

Update3 : So, the code I changed was suggested by Nitin Munjal. You can find him here

Last week was a different week for me. My schedule was all screwed. In general, I slept at around 4PM (IST) and woke up at 11PM. But, this wasn’t that bad schedule as I got good peaceful lonely time to work. Though, last week I slept for just 30 hours. I had exam which is screwed big time. Then had assignments and the biggest part was used for BTech Project. I had some tough time doing the work my guide gave to me. Though it was interesting at the end. As, I got to learn lot of things. And then yesterday’s meeting went well. I have now a lot of things to do. Most of it are the things that even my professor himself have no idea about. I think I am going to enjoy my BTech Project.
And yeah, I have started another blog to write about the work I am doing in the project. Check out  www.rohitj.net/researchblog/ . It’s again powered by wordpress.