Often when doing image dataset evaluation you want a quick easy way to either see how different descriptors perform or just get an evaluation measure for your system. Well I have created a tool to be able to do the former. This is a simple tool so you can select images, if that image appears in another descriptors results it is auto-magically highlighted to avoid bias or mistake. As you scroll the query image stays with you and finally you can upload a relevance result for each descriptor to the server.

<p> </p> <p>Of course to use this requires you being able to ping against my server so isn’t for public use, but is quite fun to play around with javascript and see how easy although painful it can be to create GUI’s for distributed use.</p>
Stuart James  …

Visual Studio

I have been a Visual Studio user for many years so trying out Visual Studio 11, isn’t a big surprise. I like the restyle that VS11 has received doesn’t encourage me to run out and get add-on to get VS theme add-on. As for C++ coding sadly I haven't had much time to see what the changes are but general functionality seems more stable such as intelligence, highlighting and the right click goto  definition. This functionality was broken in Visual Studio 2010, taking forever to find a definition in the same file. I also noticed a considerable improvement in compilation time, rebuild of my un-optimised(e.g. not precompiled header) library was greatly improved.

Example code: clapack

Aptana Studio (for PHP and JS)

I have started doing increasing amounts of web development for projects I am working on. Writing mark-up tools search systems and generally are all Ajax enabled with DOM. All my backend API is written in PHP although I may get tempted to change this at some point, but writing and managing the code has been a bit of a pain. Visual Studio has little(via add on) to no support for PHP and most other tools have out-dated versions of support for JS and HTML, not including the HTML5 draft standard. No obvious IDE has resorted in me abusing editors like notepad, programmers notepad, gedit, geany although all great for editing files not really designed for proper coding.

So over time I have played with a few different IDE’s including Eclipse with add-ons. Never really settling into one that I liked for long and often returning back to my trusty friends the editors. But I think I may have found a hit, Aptana Studio (modded eclipse) seems to be a nice environment for writing JS code especially.

Example code: secret-ish project ;)

A lot of functionality works well, auto complete function descriptions jump to file. Oh and good layout of windows (always a must in my book). Works through the multiple languages html,js,php so is a nice IDE. I have to use it for a few more weeks but I think this one is a keeper!

Stuart James  …

To make the ghinda player a look a bit nicer, I went through and edited the theme, looks pretty stylish and fits nicely with default bootstrap. For more information see earlier posts!

Stuart James  …

If you have read my previous posts I have been working on an interface involving a skeleton and dance postures. As this project moves forward the interface continues to expand. Just to give a brief update of some of the more interesting things you can do with JavaScript. Here you can see a skeleton query and click the search button (not shown) and you get results on the right, all generated via an Ajax query and JavaScript DOM. Is very easy to implement and with the Bootstrap UI kit is easy to add relevance feedback such as green/red button and a grouping of results shown by the number in blue on bottom right.

Stuart James  …

I have been looking forward to Diablo 3 for a long time, I enjoyed playing a bit of the beta but didn’t want to play too much for fear of spoiling the game. Since coming out I haven't had much time to play with travelling home for the weekend and a heavy payload of work makes it difficult to find time to play games. On the day of release I got the got the game and was happy to accept launch problems.

Today I sat down to play, going with the logic the problems should be resolved by now and will be able to enjoy a nice solid hour or two of playing. After playing for a few minutes I got a disconnect and haven't been able to login since…

I am loosing hope for Diablo, by the time I get to really play all my motivation will be gone and the story line will be common knowledge.

Stuart James  …