I recently installed Matlab v7.0 (R14) on my new computer and ran into some troubles. After starting Matlab, the program window would open as normal, but then it would shutdown almost immediately, usually after about a second or so delay, allowing me to tantalizingly see that it almost working. I did a search and found this helpful article on how to fix the problem.

The issue (Matlab closing right after start-up) stems from Matlab (at least this version, the newer versions might not be affected) not “recognizing” the processor string for newer AMD Athlon 64-based processors; in my case, I had an Athlon 64 X2 3800+. Matlab relies on different Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (or BLAS) routines for different types of CPUs, and these are stored in different DLL files.

The BLAS file responsible for telling Matlab which DLL file to use for what type of CPU is located at:

%MATLAB7%\bin\win32\blas.spec
(where %MATLAB7% is the path to your Matlab installation)

To fix the problem, open up the file in a text-editor, and add the following two lines to the bottom:

AuthenticAMD Family 15 Model 12 atlas_Athlon.dll # Athlon 64 (Newcastle)
AuthenticAMD Family 15 Model * atlas_Athlon.dll # AMD64

This will tell Matlab to use the proper DLL file with your newer AMD-64-based CPU, instead of apparently defaulting to using a Pentium DLL file when an unrecognized CPU is detected.
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Google recently acquired Neven Vision, a company with lots of technology related to image-processing, specifically, facial recognition. The initial aim of this IP acquisition is to integrate it with Picasa, Google’s photo-organizing tool and online-photo sharing site. According to Google:

“It could be as simple as detecting whether or not a photo contains a person, or, one day, as complex as recognizing people, places, and objects…”

The article goes on to speculate that Google may use this technology to enable searching of people on the web by any photos of them that may be online. Certainly, this wouldn’t be out of their league, and they’ve been interested in this technology for some time. Indeed, Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google, has said that image recognition is something they’d like to do. Despite the obvious usefulness of such a tool, it does raise privacy questions.
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Yes, I went to see SoaP last night. Despite the obvious expectations of seeing a movie “so bad, it’s good”, I didn’t think it was that bad; there are certainly more horrible movies out there. Though I don’t think it was originally intended to be this way, the movie eventually became a sad commentary on the clichéd rubbish that Hollywood pumps out, and to that effect, SoaP accomplished its task, keeping me (and the rest of the theatre) basically chuckling or in outright laughter throughout most of the movie – you just can’t take anything in this movie seriously. And of course, all of it builds up to the Samuel L. Jackson one-liner that fans had requested.

However, what I think is more important is how the hype and buzz about this movie came about – all of it happened through entirely untraditional channels, and SoaP may be the first movie that was heavily promoted and spread through viral marketing on the Internet, actively encouraged by New Line Cinema. This sets a precendent that other marketers are sure to notice
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Google recently opened Writely, their online Ajax word-processor, to the public as an open beta, though in web 2.0 terms, “beta” basically means “final” or “we’ll continue to update and change it randomly”. It has been many months since Google acquired Writely; during that time it was a private beta, open only to a select few and fueling rumours that Google was going do something super with it as part of their growing “online office” services list, which includes things like SpreadSheets, and their Calendar web-app.

While I am impressed by the features offered by Writely (and in general, what’s possibly with technologies like Ajax), it doesn’t offer anything, feature-wise, that would make it a killer of current online word processors, such as Zoho Writer. Don’t get me wrong – Writely does seem like a good web-app, but if it’s going to eat into the market share of its competitors, it’ll probably be because of the Google brand name.
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In the lead up to World Trade Center, I’ve recently been reading up on some of the background, though it was such a major event that I still remember the day quite clearly, even if it didn’t directly affect me. While searching the web for more information, it’s quite hard to discern fact from fiction, with all the “conspiracy theories” that are out there. The Wikipedia article does a pretty good job on the main background facts, and the 9/11 Commission Report is probably the most in-depth report you’ll find. (I actually bought the paperback version when it came out)

I won’t bother to cover the conspiracy theories here, instead sticking to the “official version” because I believe that’s more than enough – I’ve always been interested in the events surrounding September 11th, mainly because the coverage seemed so surreal because the actual events were so astonishing – perhaps the most important geopolitical event of our time, and if not, the most sensational. Here are some other documentaries about the event that you might find interesting.
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If you have WordPress installed in the root directory of your website, as many people do, then the entire website is subject to the .htaccess rules defined by WordPress, if you’re using a permalink structure that uses mod_rewrite. (Again, most people use this option, as it allows for human-readable URIs instead of ones filled with GET queries) Because the WordPress .htaccess file resides in the site root folder, it allows WordPress to handle all URIs relating to requests from the site – this is good, as it allows WordPress to handle 404s nicely, and you can define 404 pages from within WordPress rather than having to resort to server directives.

However, this can create problems if you want to create password-protected directories. Accessing them sometimes doesn’t work because of WordPress’s .htaccess file, however this isn’t a WordPress problem per se, but rather a problem with how Apache has been set up. I ran into this problem – I tried accessing a password-protected directory that I knew had been set up properly, but I kept getting a 404 error and was redirected to my WordPress theme’s 404 page. After a little bit of searching over at the WordPress support boards, I found some solutions that were sort of messy, involving editing WordPress files or adding a lot to the .htaccess file.
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Facebook recently released an API for developers in order to allow them to create new applications that use the data available from Facebook, adding to the functionality already offered by the website. There are already applications in development, despite the recent release; the API is in a beta version, and doesn’t offer a whole lot of methods, but it’s a great move and will help to improve the staying power of Facebook, as if it needed it.
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If you’ve been playing TES IV: Oblivion for a while, you’ve probably noticed that while it’s a great game, there are some downsides, mostly due to balancing and the new levelling system. In Oblivion, most NPCs (and enemies) do not have a fixed level, but instead increase their level everytime you level – the idea behind this was to keep the game challenging, so that going into dungeons at a low level would not result in a complete pounding, but conversely, going in at a high level would not be a cake walk.
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I finally started biking again, and so far have gone out three times since Sunday. I’ve gone a total of 70 km since then, with 30 km of that today. Can’t say I feel better (I’m feeling kinda tired/exhausted right now), but everytime I go out it’s an enjoyable, if not a testing, experience. Though, I don’t know if I can keep up the three-times-a-week thing; maybe twice a week is more sustainable. Here’s a few stats in summary.
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With all the attention IE7 has been getting and the long development time, (Internet Explorer 6, the last major version, was released almost five years ago), you’d think Microsoft would have devoted a lot more time to following web standards this time around. Unfortunately, things are not looking so good in this respect.

While everyone (myself included) has applauded Microsoft for making moves towards supporting standards, a mere slight improvement over IE6 is not enough this time. I mean, come on – they’re Microsoft, one of the largest software companies out there. Why can’t they seem to get things right?
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