assertTrue( )'s Image
More about this blog
Latest Post
10 Mar 2010
Total Posts
65
Readers
244
Liked
0
Disliked
0
Views-Per-Post
03.75
vote up
0
vote down

Microsoft Job Interview Questions

I was surprised to see that Wikipedia has started collecting job-interview questions that have been asked by Microsoft's interviewers during followup (second round) interviews. The questions posted so far include the following:Design a cellphone for a
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 10 2010 07:54 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Chrome eclipses Firefox -- for a day

Yesterday's visitorship numbers by browser type (click to enlarge).Chrome-users (blue) edged out Firefox users (green) for the first time.Yesterday, as luck would have it, was the first day (since I've been monitoring Google Analytics for this blog) that
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 09 2010 08:17 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Is Chrome taking share from Firefox?

Silicon Alley Insider ran this graph of browser usage yesterday showing Chrome continuing to make inroads on Internet Explorer and Firefox. The headline was "Google Chrome Is Eating Microsoft's Lunch." I'm not sure the graph actually shows that. What the
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 08 2010 08:34 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Lessons from Amazon's Success

The folks at High Scalability have rounded up some interesting observations on Amazon's success, based on a number of sources, including an interview with Werner Vogels (three years old but still interesting). Some of the bullet points make fascinating
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 07 2010 07:18 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Raytraced Venice in Wikipedia

I became aware this morning of a project by the Computer Graphics Lab at Saarland University called XML3D that aims to "add industrial-strength, high-quality, interactive 3D graphics as a built-in, native data type to the Web." Apparently they have done
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 05 2010 05:12 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Will Larry Ellison buy Novell?

For the first time in years, shares of Novell were in high demand yesterday as investors sensed a possible feeding frenzy over the beleaguered company after private equity firm Elliot Associates made an unsolicited bid for Novell of $5.75 per share. NOVL
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 04 2010 08:13 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Google's Radio Patent Blitz

Not content to be the undisputed overdog of Internet advertising, Google appears poised to take on radio advertising (yes, radio) as its next major target of opportunity.If you go to the US Patent and Trademark Office's site and do a quick search of
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Mar 03 2010 10:33 AM
vote up
0
vote down

Three of five most prevalent Web exploits of 2009 were PDFs

Vendors with the most security vulnerabilities, according to IBM.A few days ago, IBM came out with its IBM Security Solutions X-Force® 2009 Trend and Risk Report (available here with registration; choose the link called Get the IBM X-Force 2009 Trend and
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 27 2010 05:23 PM
vote up
0
vote down

You are not a gadget, progress is not a widget

Lately I've been reading Jaron Lanier's brave new manifesto, You Are Not a Gadget. I admire it greatly. It takes courage, after all, to stand up in public and say Web 2.0 is dehumanizing. It's a book that goes against the populist "information wants to
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 26 2010 06:25 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Part plane, part trike -- a new way to get to work

Samson Motorworks is taking deposits on a new type of roadable aircraft that's part plane, part 3-wheeler motorcycle. Flight tests of the $60K (less engine or avionics) build-it-yourself kit vehicle will supposedly commence later this year near the
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 25 2010 09:20 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Possible bugs in Mozilla Jetpack?

I've noticed a couple of things that don't work in Mozilla Jetpack. One is:var serializer = new XMLSerializer( );This line works fine in the console -- it works in Firebug. But for some reason, in Jetpack, I get "XMLSerializer is undefined."Fortunately,
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 24 2010 08:08 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Is Apple's New Maiden, NC Data Center Really a Data Center?

There's been a lot of speculation online about what Apple might be up to in Maiden, NC. The above video, apparently shot by a local realtor, purports to show the 500,000-square-foot facility being built in North Carolina, 40 miles northwest of Charlotte.
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 23 2010 04:48 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Poor man's CMS: CK Editor + Apache Sling integration in 64 lines of code

I admit to a certain laziness when it comes to rich-text editing: I like the CK Editor (formerly known as FCK), and in fact I'll often just go to the CK Editor demo page to do impromptu rich-text editing online, then (eventually) I'll Cut-and-Paste the
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 21 2010 11:18 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Quantizing the colors in an image, using (server side) JavaScript

Top left: The original image. Top right: The image quantized to 4 bits of color information per channel. Lower left: 3 bits of color per channel. Lower right: 2 bits per channel.It turns out to be surprisingly quick and easy to quantize the colors in an
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 16 2010 08:01 PM
vote up
0
vote down

What's wrong with Mozilla Jetpack

There's been some interesting discussion recently of "what's wrong with Jetpack" by Laurent Jouanneau, Daniel Glazman, and others (see the long comment thread at the end of Daniel's recent post). The criticisms tend to fall along two major axes:
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 15 2010 11:04 PM
vote up
0
vote down

"Edit this page" menu command in Jetpack

Every once in a while, I persist a web page to disk (maybe it's an airline itinerary, or whatever), and I like to make notes to myself in the page before saving it. I have a Mozilla Jetpack script that lets me edit the web page directly (in Firefox)
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 14 2010 08:05 PM
vote up
0
vote down

To hell with browser security, let me cram the Mentos in the bottle

The web browser is much more standards-based than any desktop application any of us normally uses, which makes it a compelling platform for developing personal web apps -- certainly much more compelling than something like Eclipse, say (which is
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 13 2010 11:54 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Saving tab sets in Firefox

I blogged last summer about Using Mozilla Jetpack to save tab ensembles, giving a bit of POC-quality code, but now Davide Ficano has done a proper job of things and written a Jetpack script that lets you name and persist open-tab states, using a very
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 12 2010 06:33 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Jonathan Schwartz's Farewell Memo

Believe it or not, it’s been more than nine months since Oracle first announced their intent to acquire Sun in April, 2009. And the ‘interim’ period has been tough on everyone–on our employees, and our partners and customers. Thankfully, that interim
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 11 2010 09:36 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Modal dialogs are evil

I find it endlessly fascinating (and perpetually frustrating) that 26 years after the introduction of the Mac, all of us -- on Windows, Mac, Gnome desktop, pretty much you-name-it -- are still suffering with the same tired UI metaphors in our desktop
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 10 2010 08:15 PM
vote up
0
vote down

To keep Flash relevant, Adobe must resort to the nuclear option

I keep asking myself over and over again whether Flash has a reason to live, aside from sheer legacy momentum (which is analogous to the "muscle memory" that keeps a dinosaur's tail wagging for a week after it is officially dead). The longer we go in the
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 09 2010 05:02 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Nine Questions to Ask during a Job Interview

It's important, when submitting to a job interview, to realize that the interview process goes both ways: You're interviewing your future employer. It's not just him or her interviewing you.I've been a hiring manager (in R&D) as well as a hiree, and
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 06 2010 11:53 AM
vote up
0
vote down

Information Technology: Land of the Project-Challenged

A 1995 survey of 365 IT managers found that only 16% of IT projects were successful (on time and on budget). Some 31% were impaired or canceled –– total failures. Another 53% were project-challenged, a diplomatic way of saying that they were over budget,
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 05 2010 12:48 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Voronoi tessellation in linear time

Top Left: The source image (600 x 446 JPEG). Top Right: The same image as a collage of 2407 Voronoi cells. Lower Left: 5715 cells. Lower Right: 9435 cells, embossed. Click any image to see a larger version.A Voronoi tessellation is a factoring of 2-space
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 03 2010 04:48 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Generating a color-picker rainbow in 30 lines of JavaScript

Most color pickers, I find, aren't terribly helpful. Fortunately, though, it's relatively easy to create your own. All you have to do is generate a rainbow swatch and capture mousedowns or mousemoved events as the user hovers over the swatch, and sample
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 02 2010 05:51 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Procedural Paint in Java: Perlin noise

A few days ago, I showed how to implement java.awt.Paint in a way that lets you vary the paint appearance according to the x-y position of a point onscreen -- in other words, treating Paint as a procedural texture. It turns out to be pretty
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 02 2010 03:18 AM
vote up
0
vote down

Fast image rotation using JavaScript

Five lines of JavaScript suffice to rotate the image on the left 180 degrees, at a processing speed of one million pixels per second.Rotating an image 180 degrees turns out to be extremely easy -- and as good an illustration as any that JavaScript
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Feb 01 2010 04:48 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Sobel edge detection using Java Advanced Imaging

The Java Advanced Imaging API supports a number of interesting convolutions straight out of the box, and one of them is Sobel edge detection.The Sobel edge-detection kernel comes in two varieties, corresponding to horizontal edge detection and vertical
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
tags: jai
Jan 31 2010 06:08 PM
vote up
0
vote down

How to implement custom Paint in 50 lines of Java

Java offers many ways to customize strokes and fills, including the use of gradient fills and image fills (see this excellent tutorial by Marty Hall), but we tend to forget that "procedural textures" are easily implemented as custom Paint.The text shown
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 30 2010 05:22 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Image rotation in 8 lines using the Java Advanced Imaging API

Last time, I showed that you could rotate an image 180 degrees in what amounts to one line of JavaScript, basically just doing pixels.reverse( ). Rotating an image by an arbitrary amount (something other than 180 degrees) is almost as easy. It requires
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 29 2010 12:13 PM
vote up
0
vote down

HTTPbis

What's up with HTTP?View more presentations from Mark Nottingham.In case you haven't been following developments around things like HTTPbis and the PATCH verb, take a look at this slideshow. HTTP is far from a static specification. It's about to undergo
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 27 2010 08:31 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Sharpening an image using java.awt.image.ConvolveOp

The somewhat blurry image on the left was sharpened, to produce the image on the right, using the two dozen or so lines of JavaScript code shown further below (run in conjunction with the ImageMunger Java app; see text for details).As with contrast
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 27 2010 12:12 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Fast contrast adjustment using Perlin's gain function

Lena (a standard test image in the graphics programming world) is transformed by the Perlin gain function with b = 0.5, b = 0.4, and b = 0.65, respectively (left to right).Coaxing more contrast out of an image is a kind of exercise in weak-signal
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 25 2010 11:48 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Fast conversion of bitmaps to SVG

The image on the left is the 600x446-pixel "original" RGB image; the copy on the right has been tiled into 6706 solid-filled rectangles. See text for discussion.Conversion of bitmapped images (*.jpg, *.gif, etc.) to vector format (Postscript, SVG) is, in
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 23 2010 12:33 PM
vote up
0
vote down

A simple Java class for running scripts against an image

I like to do a bit of 2D and 3D graphics programming in my spare time. The trouble is, Java gets a bit heavy at times, and I look for ways to test new ideas quickly. Testing ideas quickly means scripting. But how do you get at pixel values with
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 22 2010 12:23 PM
vote up
0
vote down

NASA's One-Man Stealth Copter

Over the years, there've been plenty of store-it-in-your-garage one-man "personal helicopter" designs (most of which never flew, of course). It's pretty much been sci-fi until now -- and still is -- but this design from NASA's Langley Research Center in
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 20 2010 11:01 AM
vote up
0
vote down

Identity Hijinks, Sponsored by Novell

This one baffles me. A friend pointed out to me that Novell, a company "with over 20 years of experience in identity and security," a company that in fact specializes in identity management, has been named a Bronze Sponsor of SYS-CON's 5th International
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 19 2010 06:05 PM
vote up
0
vote down

Greasemonkey security fix broke your scripts? Here's what to do

New security settings in Greasemonkey.Not long ago, I upgraded Firefox, and in the process of doing so I upgraded to the latest versions of a bunch of Firefox extensions (including Greasemonkey). And of course, things started breaking.Some of my favorite
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 18 2010 07:10 PM
vote up
0
vote down

How to get 348,946 unique page-views per year for your blog

Above: Traffic for top 40 assertTrue() blog posts of 2009. Vertical scale: 210 readers per pixel. (Graphic courtesy of Google Charts.)By now it's somewhat traditional, if you're a self-indulgent blowhard who blogs (not that I personally know any such
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Jan 15 2010 09:10 PM
vote up
0
vote down

The year in blogs: Yours Truly @ CMS Watch

I wrote a number of blog posts for CMS Watch this year (40 in all, which is far more than I remember writing, actually; but Google doesn't lie). As a free service to those suffering from chronic insomnia, I hereby offer this consolidated listing of my
assertTrue( )
 
Kas Thomas
Dec 31 2009 09:20 PM