Why University of California at Berkeley chose Google over Microsoft for email/calendaring services

As a public univerity supported by people's taxes, the transparency of UC Berkeley in selecting Google over Microsoft to provide online email and calendaring services is very welcome. Here is a decision table showing the strengths and weaknesses of the two opposite solutions (one free, the other commercial).

Productivity Suite Comparison Matrix

Install Sympy: A symbolic math software package in pure Python!

What is nice about Sympy?

It aims to be a simple but full-featured, extensible computer algebra system and it is written in pure Python. There is no need for external libraries!

Here are some information extracted from the home page of sympy.
What are the available features in Sympy?

The current core of Sympy have the following capabilities:

• basic arithmetics *,/,+,-,**
  
• basic simplification (like a*b*b + 2*b*a*b -> 3*a*b**2)
  
• expansion (like (a+b)**2 -> a**2 + 2*a*b + b**2)
  
• functions (exp, ln, ...)
  
• complex numbers (like exp(I*x).expand(complex=True) -> cos(x)+I*sin(x))
  
• differentiation
  
• taylor (laurent) series
  
• substitution (like x -> ln(x), or sin -> cos)
  
• arbitrary precision integers, rationals and floats
  
• noncommutative symbols
  
• pattern matching
  

What are the avaialable modules aside from the core?

• more functions (sin, cos, tan, atan, asin, acos, factorial, zeta, legendre)
  
• limits (like limit(x*log(x), x, 0) -> 0)
  
• integration using extended Risch-Norman heuristic
  
• polynomials (division, gcd, square free decomposition, groebner bases, factorization)
  
• solvers (algebraic, difference and differential equations, and systems of equations)
  
• symbolic matrices (determinants, LU decomposition...)
  
• mpmath (multiprecision floating-point arithmetic)
  
• geometric algebra (GA)
  
• Pauli and Dirac algebra
  
• quantum physics
  
• geometry module
  
• plotting (2D and 3D)
  
• code generation (C, Fortran, LaTeX)
  

We wish that Sympy will become standard and integrate with the other package called Symbolic. It is a long time coming. This will not supplant the need for Maxima and will enable Python loving scientists and applied and research mathematicians. But I got the following error on installing Sympy in Oneiric:

sudo apt-get install sympy 
[sudo] password for toto:   
Reading package lists... Done 
Building dependency tree         Reading state information... Done 
E: Unable to locate package sympy 
toto@toto-Aspire-4520:~$ sudo apt-get install python-sympy 
Reading package lists... Done 
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done 
The following NEW packages will be installed:   
python-sympy 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded. 
Need to get 1,694 kB of archives. After this operation, 9,490 kB of additional disk space will be used. 
Get:1 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe python-sympy all 0.6.7-1.1 [1,694 kB] Fetched 1,694 kB in 19s (84.8 kB/s)                                                                                           
Selecting previously deselected package python-sympy. (Reading database ... 552034 files and directories currently installed.) 
Unpacking python-sympy (from .../python-sympy_0.6.7-1.1_all.deb) ... Processing triggers for man-db ... 
Processing triggers for menu ... Setting up python-sympy (0.6.7-1.1) ... Processing triggers for menu ... 
Processing triggers for python-support ... Compiling /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/mpmath/libmp/exec_py3.py ... SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/mpmath/libmp/exec_py3.py', 1, 12, 'exec_ = exec\n'))  Compiling /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/libmp/exec_py3.py ... SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/libmp/exec_py3.py', 1, 12, 'exec_ = exec\n'))  Compiling /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/tests/extratest_gamma.py ... SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/tests/extratest_gamma.py', 50, 35, '        print("%s ok;" % name, end=\' \')\n'))  Compiling /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/tests/torture.py ... SyntaxError: ('invalid syntax', ('/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/mpmath/tests/torture.py', 80, 27, '            print(".", end=\' \')\n'))   

Yet when I fired up ipython and imported Sympy, there were no errors. But lets spend more time with this package on our blog. Oh, I removed sympy and reinstalled the package using sudo easy_install-2.7 sympy Here are some simple examples.

>>> sympy.factor("(x^2 + 2*a*x + a^2)")
(a + x)**2

>>> sympy.diff("x^2*y", "x")
2*x*y

>>> sympy.diff("log(y)")
1/y

>>> sympy.simplify("(x-a)/(x-a)")
1

Of course we just cannot trust the results blindly. Integration is somewhat convoluted. Here is the help documentation for integrate:

integrate(expr, *args, **kwargs)
    integrate(f, var, ...)
    
    Compute definite or indefinite integral of one or more variables
    using Risch-Norman algorithm and table lookup. This procedure is
    able to handle elementary algebraic and transcendental functions
    and also a huge class of special functions, including Airy,
    Bessel, Whittaker and Lambert.
    
    var can be:
    
    - a symbol                   -- indefinite integration
    - a tuple (symbol, a, b)     -- definite integration
    
    Several variables can be specified, in which case the result is multiple
    integration.
    
    Also, if no var is specified at all, then the full anti-derivative of f is
    returned. This is equivalent to integrating f over all its variables.
    
    **Examples**
    
    >>> from sympy import integrate, log
    >>> from sympy.abc import a, x, y
    
    >>> integrate(x*y, x)
    x**2*y/2
    
    >>> integrate(log(x), x)
    x*log(x) - x

This is module worth having in your system. We hope that this will be more robust as time goes by.

Kile works in KDE window manager in Ubuntu! and the video cam, wireless, and microphone divices all work!

I got a surprise when I tried KIle in the kdm (KDE window manager or desktop). Kile latex IDE works fine in it and there are no more annoying messages about creating a default factory method. I can now insert math symbols selected from the left panel.
Its still the same 2.1.0 version of Kile. So I suspect that there were wrong settings for GNOME when I was still in Ubuntu 11.04.

This may now be my default window manager in my laptop while my ACER ONE still uses unity desktop. The system response is perceptibly fast!!

I went back to GNOME and I pleasantly discovered that I got my video and microphones and wireless working! Of course I updated my packages after upgrading to the Ocelot Ubuntu distribution. This may have fixed any issues with the softwares in the first upgrade.

Scite 2.03 is immovable on the desktop!

After trying out drpython, I installed scite and run it. But bad luck struck under Ubuntu. The editor screen cannot be moved! It was immobile on the left side of the screen and I cannot strangely zoom it. So another editor bit the dust in our Ubuntu natty narwhal OS powered desktop!

Note: Feb. 19, 2012. I looked at scite and since I have upgraded to Ubuntu oneiric ocelot OS version, Scite is working properly.

Dr Python is a nice lightweight Python editor but there is something wrong with screen rendering.

The following image shows that the screen rendering of drpython leaves much to be desired.

You have to scroll down and up so that the screen will be properly rendered.

Octobet 30, 2011: The funny and erroneous black bars have disappeared! after a few updates!

Alternative sites for information on free-software.

I will start collecting some urls which are good sources for free-software. The first esteemed entry is

1. Free Software Foundation Directory
2. Feeding the Snake
3. PyPi: Python directory of applications.Almost all are FREE!
   

As usual, most posts I have written are works in progress.

Installing Gretl in Ubuntu Natty

I get segmentation fault on startup of gretl. Here are some steps I took to make it run again
on my 64 bit ACER laptop. Download the 1.9.5 source code by clicking on

sourceforge: gretl

The actual download site link I got was

http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/gretl/gretl/1.9.5/gretl-1.9.5.tar.bz2

and if you prefer the command line(with a network connection!)

wget -ct0 http://nchc.dl.sourceforge.net/project/gretl/gretl/1.9.5/gretl-1.9.5.tar.bz2,

but that is not recommeded as the actual download site may be too busy!


Now go to the directory where the bzip file is, and unpack it with

tar xjvvf gretl-1.9.5.tar.bz2

then, goto the gretl-1.9.5 directory, and perform the standard

./configure; make; make install

incantation to compile and install from source files.


Here are some errors I got when compiling the sources:

../lib/src/gretl_fft.c:22:19: fatal error: fftw3.h: No such file or directory

Fix: install libfftw3 development files.(libfftw3-dev)

../lib/src/monte_carlo.c:40:17: fatal error: gmp.h: No such file or directory

Fix: install gmp development files. (libgmp3-dev)

Typing gretl on the command line does not do anything! So we type gretl again and the TAB key:
gretl
gretl gretlcli gretl_x11

Trying out gretlcli,

toto@toto-Aspire-4520:~/Downloads/gretl-1.9.5$ gretlcli
gretlcli: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libgretl-1.0.so.0: undefined symbol: omp_get_wtime

So back to installing omp (open MP). Fix: install libgomp-1-dbg

Darn, I still get the error!

gretlcli: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libgretl-1.0.so.0: undefined symbol: omp_get_wtime

So I thought that that we remove some remaining packages which are not in use anymore.

sudo apt-get autoremove.

Now we get a sweet response from grelcli:

gretlcli
gretl version 1.9.5
Copyright Ramu Ramanathan, Allin Cottrell and Riccardo "Jack" Lucchetti
This is free software with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
Current session: 2011-09-09 09:45
gretl is process 20218, '/usr/local/bin/gretlcli'
gretldir is maybe '/usr/local/share/gretl/'?

"help" gives a list of commands
Type "open filename" to open a data set
? ^C

and typing gretl now give us a more familiar qui (from our experience with previous versions).

I ahve upgraded to the newest Ubuntu distribution Oneiric Ocelot and gretl seems to work ("seemst to") because I have to spend more time with this econometrics software.

Links to Online Documentation

I am starting to gather links to manuals, tutorials  of free software.

1. Maxima Computer Algebra System.
   Manual: http://maxima.sourceforge.net/docs/manual/en/maxima.html
2. Python Programming Language.
   Main Documentation Page: www.python.org/doc/
   Reference: docs.python.org/reference/   
3. R statistical  software.
   Index to manuals: http://cran.r-project.org/manuals.html
4. Gretl Econometrics Software.
   Gretl-Guide: http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/pub/gretl/manual/en/gretl-guide.pdf
5. Scipy and Numpy.
   http://docs.scipy.org/doc/

Plotting Small Samples with R.

R has a comprehensive set of routines for visualization of data. Here we show some of its capabilities on  a small sample Y containing positive values.


library("vioplot")

X <- c(rnorm(50, 10, 3),rnorm(50, 15, 5))
Y <- c(runif(10, 5, 20))


par(mfrow=c(3,3))

pie(Y, main="Small sample", sub="A Pie Chart")
dotchart(Y, main="Small sample", sub="A Dot Chart")
stripchart(Y, main="Small Sample", sub="A Strip chat")

barplot(Y, main="Small sample", sub="A vertical Bar Chart")
barplot(Y, horiz=T, main="Small sample", sub="A Horizontal Bar Chart")

boxplot(Y, main="Small sample", sub="A box plot")
vioplot(Y)  # package vioplot
title <- "A vio plot"

plot(Y, type="p", main="Small Sample", sub="A Scatterplot")
plot(Y, type="l", main="Small Sample", sub="A Line plot")


First a few observations:

  1.The vioplot function does not allow seting the main title or sub title. Instead you should call title("title of graph") after the call to vioplot.

  2. Pie charts are not well loved by statisticians, they cannot represent negative values and its difficult to judge magnitudes.



Here is a screenshot of the small sample plots.

Next time we will present plots which can handle a larger number of data points.

Updating Opera to Version 11.5! (Again to Version 11.61.1250)

I am currently updating the Opera software to Version 11.5 codenamed Swordfish. Opera is a standards compliant software with a history of introducing innovations liked tabbed browsing and speed dial.

Further reading: Inquirer.net

And click here for an impressive list of the changes in 11.50 Swordfish edition.

Feb 19, 2012: I will be upgrading to version 11.61today! How time flies!
The default software manager spents a long time to install the downloaded file. So I have to do a manual install:

sudo dpkg -i opera_11.61.1250_amd64.deb 
(Reading database ... 677957 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace opera 11.52.1100 (using opera_11.61.1250_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement opera ...
Setting up opera (11.61.1250) ...
Error in file "/usr/share/applications/gnumeric.desktop": "zz-application/zz-winassoc-xls" is an invalid MIME type ("zz-application" is an unregistered media type)
Updating software catalog...this may take a moment.
Software catalog update was successful.

How to move and resize Windows in Ubuntu 11.04

Funny, I was not paying attention to my 11.04 Natty Narwhal Ubuntu Desktop. I dont like surprises and
the new Ubuntu surprised me when I noticed there are no more window Maximize, Minimize, buttons on the top corners.

Anyway, to move windows, Press Alt-F7 with the mouse on the window you want to move. Move the mouse to the final location of the window.

To resize windows, Press Alt-F8, and move the mouse up or down to resize vertically or left-right to resize horizontally.

We will revise our just recent posts on Latexila and Texmaker.In time, we might love this strange behavior of Ubuntu. Right now, we dont. Please bring back the traditional window controls!

latexila, an Integrated Gnome Latex editor

Latexila, is currently at version 2.06 in my new Ubuntu 11.04 Linux desktop at my ACER 4520 laptop computer.

I can only two things and I am surprised both Latexila and Texmaker suffers from the same major problems, namely Windows cannot be resized, and Windows cannot be moved. Here is a snapshot of Latexila in my ACER:

June 20, 2011. This just in! I discovered that Ubuntu 11.04 windows do not contain Windows minimize and maximize buttons or controls. Press F7 while mouse is on the window and move the windows to the desired location. Press Al-F8 to to resize the windows. This is unnerving for new users of 11.04 Ubuntu.

October 30, 2011. The spate of package updates after updating Ubuntu to the latest and greatest version oneiric ocelot has fixed the above issues!

Texmaker, current version not functioning well

I encourage developers to produce more softwares and we will focus on describing how well they are designed and testing them for ease of use.

I have installed texmaker and it is a far cry from the old versions. It sports a new version of
the graphical interface and is more integrated with other latex utilities like Kile. However, I am shocked that

windows cannot be resized! windows cannot be moved!

These are negatives for the current version (2.2.1) of this Latex editor.

This just in! I discovered that Ubuntu 11.04 windows do not contain Windows minimize and maximize buttons or controls. Press F7 while mouse is on the window and move the windows to the desired location. Press Al-F8 to to resize the windows. This is unnerving for new users of 11.04 Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal: Kile Latex IDE is broken

When I first tried using Kile in my new OS Ubuntu 11.04, it refused to insert math symbol selected from the left panel. So I removed the application and reinstalled again only now the program does not even run!

For published bug reports, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kile/+bug/772631. I am now
trying to downgrade the version of KIle now back to 2.0.

Tried first to install a beta 5 version (kile_2.1.0~svn2010122beta5-1ubuntu1~natty1~ppa1_amd64.deb) but it still does not execute??!).

Even the downgrade does not work even!
Will watch for developments on Kile.

In the meantime I have installed texmaker and trying out its capabilities. The important thing in Linux is the freedom to choose from various softwares. Now a dedicated Latex editor is not only for beginners of Latex, it can also be used as a productivity enhancement for intermediate and advanced users of Latex, when time is important. Of course we allow other people the freedom to say that real Latex users dont use dedicated Latex editors, Emacs or Vi will do!


February 19, 2012. Kile works now in my upgraded Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot. But Kile is still in version 1.2.

Ubuntu 11.04 breaks a lot of third party software

Ubuntu 11.04 does not package anymore some of the computational programs. The result is that
the software installation may not give hints of trouble, but running them give segmentation fault!

Here is one about Euler:

toto@toto-Aspire-4520:~$ euler

(euler:4939): Gdk-CRITICAL **: IA__gdk_char_width: assertion `font != NULL' failed
Segmentation fault

Gretl, an econmetrics package also gives a segmentation fault error. From gretl.sourceforge.net,
there is this message:

The default gretl package for Ubuntu 11.04 (natty) is broken; it should be replaced with gretl version 1.9.5, which is available via packages.debian.org.

We will add more after we install and run them in the latest version of Ubuntu.

An amazing open letter from the Free Software Foundation about Gmail.

Did you know that, like you, nearly 50% of the 40,000 subscribers to the FSF's supporter mailing list have an @gmail.com email address?

JavaScript, once lauded for adding simple visual effects to web pages, is now used by web sites like Gmail to run powerful programs on your computer. These programs, like any other program running on your computer, should be free software. But right now, the vast majority of JavaScript programs do not respect your essential freedoms to run, study, modify and share them. They take control of your computer away from you; the same control we have been working for over 25 years to protect.

Because of the incredibly high percentage of Gmail-using free software supporters, we're taking action to raise awareness about how to use Gmail without using proprietary software. We'll also be working on longer term solutions, but the most immediate positive step to take is to stop running the proprietary programs.

Many people suggest that you shouldn't use Gmail at all, because it means losing control over your data and privacy. We agree that this is a very important factor for you to consider when choosing how you will handle your email.

But since you are already using Gmail, please help us build momentum for change by not using the proprietary JavaScript on your system -- and helping others to do the same.

Yours sincerely,
Matt Lee
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation

--

Sent from the Free Software Foundation,
51 Franklin Street
Fifth Floor
Boston, MA 02110-1335
United States

Maxima released!

From the mailing list of Maxima software:

Announcing Maxima 5.24

Maxima is a GPL'd branch of Macsyma, the venerable symbolic
computation system. Maxima 5.24 is a bug fix and feature
enhancement release. The current version is 5.24.0.

Maxima has functions to work with polynomials, matrices, finite sets,
integrals, derivatives and differential equations, linear algebra,
plotting, floating point and arbitrary-precision arithmetic, etc.

Maxima can run on MS Windows and various flavors of Unix,
including MacOS X.
There is a precompiled executable installer for Windows,
RPM's for Linux, and source code tar.gz.

Maxima is implemented in Common Lisp; several Lisps can compile
and run Maxima, including CMUCL, SBCL, Clisp, GCL, and ECL.
The default Windows installer (maxima-5.24.0.exe) was compiled
with GCL, while maxima-5.24.0-ccl.exe was compiled with Clozure CL.

The Maxima project welcomes new participants. You can contribute
in several ways: reporting bugs, fixing bugs, writing new add-on
packages, revising core functions, user interfaces, documentation, ....
Why not see what's happening on the mailing list and consider how
you might contribute to the project.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the 5.24 release.

Regards,
Robert Dodier
Maxima developer and 5.24 release manager

Project page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/maxima

Documentation:
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/documentation.html

Bug reports. You must create a Sourceforge login
before filing a bug report (anonymous reports no longer allowed).
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=4933&atid=104933

Mailing list. Please sign up before posting a message.
http://maxima.sourceforge.net/maximalist.html

Download page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=4933

Ports page:
http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/maxima/index.php?title=Maxima_ports

Project home page:
http://maxima.sourceforge.net

Change log:
http://maxima.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/maxima/maxima/ChangeLog-5.24

The current stable version at maxima.sourceforge is 5.18.1, which is older than my Ubuntu 10.04 package version Maxima 5.21.1!

Installing the latest version over the Ubuntu version may result in aggravations. You are on your own.

Our main blog is suffering from WP supercache bug.

When I put the url http://adorio-research.org in the address bar of the browser, I only get a blank page! Here is the contents of the blank page with the comment delimeters removed:

Page not cached by WP Super Cache. Blank Page. Check output buffer usage by plugins.

Page not cached by WP Super Cache. No closing HTML tag. Check your theme.

Yet when I go to a specific post like http://adorio-research.org/?p=3470,that post jus shows up fine! Going to settings of the plugins, I get this one for WP Super Cache:

Permlink Structure Error

A custom url or permalink structure is required for this plugin to work correctly. Please go to the Permalinks Options Page to configure your permalinks.

I wanted to remove the WP Super Cache plugin but it does not appear in the list of installed plugins! We have an unhappy future days trying to fix this WP Super Cache problem.

Incredible widgets from Opera.

The current Opera amazes me. Though I have tried some of the widgets before, the speed of the modern widgets is almost unbelievable. According to the Opera site, it uses hardware acceleration. How it does it is magical, but I am blown away by the following science widgets (in Ubuntu, they are accessible in Applications/Other menu.

Spirograph

Widtex

Scientific Calculator

Math Workpad

There are a host of other applications, and you will not be sorry if you install Opera in your Windows, Linux or Apple/Mac computers.
The widgets are available from http://widgets.opera.com/.
The widgets can run even if Opera is not installed. I just wish, Nokia can install these widgets in the C3 phone.

Amazing!

Hooray for Libre Office 3.3!

Take a look at the impressive list of new features of the LibreOffice, the opensource and still free fork of the OpenOffice package or OO. OO is now under the control of the new owner of Sun Microsystems and software products and we are glad the fork will develop into a more open and inviting office productivity software.

The impressive list of features and fixes (to the last OO version) is available in
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/new-features-and-fixes/

We are still downloading the software as we write this. Should be able to add more to this blog post.


Update: You dont have to download manually any deb packages if you are using the latest Ubuntu! I wasted time for the downloading and manual install via dpkg -i install command.
Instead the reader should consult https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LibreOffice. LibreOffice is part of the latest Ubuntu OS! The first step is to add the package repository so we would be able to get any latest updates.

Here are the steps:

1. Install the repository for libreoffice.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:libreoffice/ppa
2. Next perform an update.
sudo apt-get update
3. Then do the package install
sudo apt-get install libreoffice At this point however libreoffice is not available from the Applications menu! You still have to install the GNOME interface package.
4. sudo apt-get install libreoffice-gnome