Update: RhodeCode was eating up to much memory on my small VPS, so I re-moved the projects to github. (http://github.com/dendiz)

I just moved all my project related stuff, including musical projects to a new sub-domain, http://labs.dendiz.com. This way I can free up the blog from the clutter and rid myself of the arduous task of updating the project pages and documentation from the less than friendly and slow-as-a-tortoise pages of the word press administration console, and enjoy the delight of documenting through a wiki. I couldn’t be bothered carrying all the pages from the blog to the wiki so I only migrated the most useful and active projects. I only wiped the links from the blog pages to those pages, they still exist in the blog, and can be reached through a google search, but I won’t be actively maintaining these pages any more. I also open my GPL’d projects repositories through rhodecode.dendiz.com, and patches are always welcome.

Update: This method has become obsolete now, because evernote has added support for all types of attachments on free accounts.

Evernote is a great note taking application, giving you synchronization and access to your notes from almost any device. They offer a free subscription and a paid subscription. Paid subscription has the benefit of attaching any kind of file to a note, the free one limits you to images and pdf’s. Well not anymore: Here is a little trick that you can do to store any kind of attachment/file as a note.

On linux (and possibly mac) install the sharutils package. On debian based distros:

sudo apt-get install sharutils

After that use the uuencode program to transform your binary file (zip, rar, whatever) into a ASCII text file.

uuencode mybinaryfile.zip mybinaryfile.zip > mybinaryfileastext.uue

This will transform the binary file and save it as mybinaryfileastext.uue. Now just open mybinaryfileastext.uue in a text editor and copy the contents and paste it into evernote as the notes body.

To get back your original binary file, copy the notes body into a text called myfile.uue file and run

uudecode myfile.uue


Caching is an integral part of developing scalable application that are responsive. Distributing the cache is important for achieving availability and scalability. Applications programmed in a garbage collected language are prone to garbage collection pauses which reduce the responsiveness of the application, as in the case of a caching application. Minfrag is a caching application/api that tries to overcome some of these problems.

More…

Evernote is a greate online note taking service but the ads on their interface are bugging me because they take up space and create a distraction. The easiest way of getting rid of the add on the web interface is by adding the rule

*evernote.com##div[class*="SidebarInfoContainer"]

to the filters in the blacklist tab of adblock for chrome.

Just finished coding a demo version remake of the game crimsonland from 10tons. It runs in the browser using the canvas element for graphics rendering, and some Js for the AI of the NPC’s. Checkout the dedicated page for the game here for a video and screenshots and play the game it self.

By enabling some Gmail labs features and with the help of a label and filter you can use gmail’s web interface to manage your todo list. Here’s how:

First create a label called TODO by clicking settings then labels.

now create a filter by going to settings, filters that will match the word TODO it the subject. In the second step choose apply label action and select the new label TODO that you just created.

Now from the Labs features in the settings page enable the multiple inboxes feature and select the label todo as the display setting and you’re set to go.

Now any messages that you send to your self with the subject line TODO will be shown in the second inbox.

Abstract – Poker is a game of incomplete information which contains elements that hold a challange for artificial intelligence agents due to the nature of the game. These challanges are examined along with the methods used to solve these problems and different approaches for building a strong poker AI agent.

full article

Abstract –
Computer based poker agents are a current hot research topic with many
universities producing publications and implementations about their advances
on the subject like the University of Alberta which produced Poki
and Vexbot. Also many hobbyist computer programmers
are implementing different agents and are constantly arguing on forums (such as http://www.pokerai.com)
which approach to implementing the perfect player is better. There are many
different approaches that can be taken when designing a poker playing program such as game theoretic methods,
game tree search methods, Bayesian methods, etc. and it is not always easy to measure
the competence of the program with regard to other players. Spate is a platform
and API that tries to eliminate this handicap by providing agents with a poker playing
environment and a detailed trace of the game later analysis and
measurements. The document will explain the architecture of the Spate system.

full article

Abstract – This report will review four different artificial intelligence agents implemented to play the game of Texas Hold’em poker. Each agent applies a unique approach to the problems presented in creating a powerful poker player. The report will summarize the challenges in these approaches, the implementation and results of the agent if available. The agents being surveyed are GS1, SARTRE, AKIREAL Bot and CASPER.
Full paper

This one is a note so that I don’t have to struggle again:

The mysql client that ships with the latest mysql doesn’t play nice with the mysql gem. Even after gem install mysql you still get the annoying error that says

!!! The bundled mysql.rb driver has been removed from Rails 2.2. Please
install the mysql gem and try again: gem install mysql

Well the trick to fix this is simple. Download the old libmysql.dll from here and move it into the bin/ directory of your ruby installation and restart the mysql service.