More about Riya

One good thing I really forgot to mention about Riya was text recognition. Although I am not really focusing on it now as I test Riya, the text recognition system Viggly is amazing. It recognises text and in some cases it recognised the text where it is nearly unreadable by me and very small text. I like the feature that Vincent is discussing on Riya blog, where Viggly can tag the images based on signage of a place. Technorati Tags: , ,

Riya Alpha release second update

So been testing Riya's Alpha release for a while now. To say the least, things have improved compared to the last release (this is obvious, you would expect that won't you? ). There are few things I will like to comment on here starting with Uploader. Uploader:- Uploader is a tool that uploads the photos from the desktop computers to the Riya web server. I like the new uploader, why? At least it shows me how many pictures are uploaded and how the progress is going. I can stop the uploads and start them again. The average time it takes the uploader to stop now is nearly 2 minutes after I press the "Stop upload" button. Although I understand that it needs to process the existing image that it's uploading and complete few other things that it might be doing, in the long run I would say that this is not acceptable really. Stop/pause should stop the things immediately. The uploader uses Java and javaw.exe process eats nearly 50-60% of my processing power and more than 100 MB of RAM at times. Again in the long run not really acceptable. I did uninstall Google Desktop Search as it was just taking too long to index my hard disk and was slowing my system down. Why doesn't Riya just upload the pictures and do the processing at their end? I know it will be resource intensive but better experience for the users. But overall, the uploader seems to be doing what it is supposed to do. Face Recognition:- I find the overall website to be a bit faster than last time, not sure how true that is. Face recognition process has improved. Now I am getting more sets of photos that I can tag at once which is good and less time consuming. Tagging faces without putting their email address on a mandatory basis reduces the time it takes me to tag the faces and improves my overall experience. I can always put the email address later in the address book. A note for Riya developers (you guys can show tips on a regular basis as to why it is advisable to put email addresses). Although on the face recognition itself I think lot more needs to be done. Of the 2000+ images I have uploaded to Riya so far ( my computer was just too busy uploading other stuff ) I have trained Riya very well for at least mine and my wife's images. I have trained Riya 112+ (that is lot of training I think) plus for my wife's photos and it still fails to recognise all of the pictures of my wife. And come on my wife's pics hasn't changed that much in last two years (that is when most of the pictures are from). So that side needs to be improved. The another thing is system fails to differentiate male from female. I will give you an example in the picture below. There are few more that I came across while training the system.
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Again as a user, I am not interested into algorithms, but just the result that I get :). Menu Problem:- If you see the picture below, it's painful to scroll down the list of people when I am nearly at the bottom of the browser window. In such situations, the drop down box should be smart enough to pop themselves up on the top side of the window.
Media_httpwwwsoftware_wkgqn
Excuse me if I am too harsh, I remember it's an alpha release! But want this system to be as good as possible so more people can realise the beauty of such a service. But overall I am happy Riya's system is shaping up. Word 'Excellent' goes out to Mario (he listens to me complaining things about Riya). I think he's a great asset to Riya. The best thing about him is he understands the problem in really less words and even when I am not really able to explain it properly. Some good signs for a technical support person. Update:- I had few other questions which I did not mention here as they are already covered on Riya blog at http://blog.riya.com. Technorati Tags: , , ,

Screen scraping using XmlHttp and Vbscript ...

I wrote a small program for screen scraping any sites using XmlHttp object and VBScript. I know I haven't done any rocket science :) still I thought of sharing the code with you all. XmlHttp -- Extensible Markup Language Hypertext Transfer Protocol An advantage is that - the XmlHttp object queries the server and retrieve the latest information without reloading the page. Source code: <html> <head> <script language="vbscript"> Dim objXmlHttp Set objXmlHttp = CreateObject("Msxml2.XMLHttp") Function ScreenScrapping() URL == "UR site URL comes here" objXmlHttp.Open "POST", url, False objXmlHttp.onreadystatechange = getref("HandleStateChange") objXmlHttp.Send End Function Function HandleStateChange() If (ObjXmlHttp.readyState = 4) Then msgbox "Screenscrapping completed .." divShowContent.innerHtml = objXmlHttp.responseText End If End Function </script> <head> <body> <input id="divResult" onclick="ScreenScraping()" type="button" value="Click here to start screen scraping" name="btnScreenScraping"> <div id="divShowContent" /> </body> </html> Points to note: 1. Many sites have policies against screen scraping ... so before trying to screen scraping any particular site .. do check / respect their policy. 2. I have checked for readyState = 4 property value. It means, we have received complete data in responseText. If we don't do this check we might end up getting incomplete data .. if the site takes longer time to process our request. 3. In objXmlHttp.Open the third parameter takes boolean value. True means, scripts run without waiting for a response from the site/server which we are hitting. False means, if would wait for server response before starting its processing. For understanding the basics of XmlHttp object, check ... 1. http://www.w3schools.com/dom/dom_http.asp 2. http://jibbering.com/2002/4/httprequest.html

Google online status display

John Burrows has created a system where Google Talk online status can be displayed. It's very simple. No lengthy registrations needed. You just need to add "gtalkonlinestatus@gmail.com" email to your Gtalk buddy list and you will get a message with the code straight away. You can then post that code to your site or as email signature and it will appear as an icon. So how is the usage of Google Talk going on? I have not seen it widely used as or widely spoken about as Skype. Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Restore Windows XP native zip file!

I am using Windows XP and couple of months back for some crazy reason I uninstalled WinZip from my machine. I was shocked to see that the native compressed zip options of XP is missing. I "googled" and found the quick way of restoring the windows xp's native zip file option. Just do the following step to restore it. Go to Start >> Run >> Regsvr32 Zipfldr.dll That's all. Pretty neat isn't it. Source: windowsxp.mvps.org/zipfldr.htm

Restore Windows XP native zip file!

I am using Windows XP and couple of months back for some crazy reason I uninstalled WinZip from my machine. I was shocked to see that the native compressed zip options of XP is missing. I "googled" and found the quick way of restoring the windows xp's native zip file option. Just do the following step to restore it. Go to Start >> Run >> Regsvr32 Zipfldr.dll That's all. Pretty neat isn't it. Source: windowsxp.mvps.org/zipfldr.htm

Firefox 1.5 released

Firefox 1.5 is released!
. I just installed it and works good. This meant that I had to move away from Stipe version of Firefox. I had 1.0.6 installed on my system and was working fine so far. Moving to the new version of Firefox has meant that I cannot use quite a few extensions for now (Chatzilla and Greasemonkey do not work). Anyway, I am sure there will be updated extensions available soon. The release notes for version 1.5 are :- What's New in Firefox 1.5 Firefox 1.5 is the next version of our award-winning Web browser. Here's what's new in Firefox 1.5: * Automated update to streamline product upgrades. Notification of an update is more prominent, and updates to Firefox may now be half a megabyte or smaller. Updating extensions has also improved. * Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance. * Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs. * Improvements to popup blocking. * Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut. * Answers.com is added to the search engine list. * Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and "Safe Mode" experience. * Better accessibility including support for DHTML accessibility and assistive technologies such as the Window-Eyes 5.5 beta screen reader for Microsoft Windows. Screen readers read aloud all available information in applications and documents or show the information on a Braille display, enabling blind and visually impaired users to use equivalent software functionality as their sighted peers. * Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox. * Better support for Mac OS X (10.2 and greater) including profile migration from Safari and Mac Internet Explorer. * New support for Web Standards including SVG, CSS 2 and CSS 3, and JavaScript 1.6. * Many security enhancements. I only hope that there is either a Stipe version of Firefox 1.5 release soon along with Moox version of Firefox :). Technorati Tags: , ,

Cool search utility ...

Find below the script which would help you all in searching contents within "msdn", "dictionary", "msn", "yahoo", "netscape", "Google" and "SoftwareAndTools" with ease. Script: Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\dic] @="http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\google] @="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\msdn] @="http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?qu=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\net] @="http://search.netscape.com/ns/search?fromPage=NSCPTop&query=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\msn] @="http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\yahoo] @="http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=%s" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl\softwareAndTools] @="http://www.softwareandtools.com/index.php?sentence=AND&submit=Search&s=%s" Step 1: Copy - Paste the above script into a notepad. Save the file as "SearchUtility_IE.reg". Step 2: Double click on the .reg file. Step 3: Open Internet explorer and try >> dic test Step 4: Try >> msdn vista Step 5: Try >> net vadivel Step 6: Try >> google vadivel Step 7: Try >> msn Linq Step 8: Try >> yahoo vadivel Step 9: Try >> softwareAndTools sql If you feel this tip would be useful do feel free to spread the word around .... if at all by any chance you run into any issues write back to me alone :) Disclaimer: Though it works pretty well in my machine ... normally it is not advisable to edit the registry keys directly. So if at all you are going to try it ... please be advised that you doing it at your own risk. Don't hold me responsible for anything :) Good luck!

Saving images as BLOB into SQL Server 2005

In this article we would look into the easiest way of importing an image as BLOB content into a SQL table. 1. Openrowset has new bulk features introduced in SQL Server 2005. 2. Openrowset supports bulk operations through a built-in bulk provider that allows data from a file to be read and returned as a rowset. 3. Using the BULK rowset provider you can load a file into a table's column using regular DML. 4. Unlike SQL Server 2000, instead of being limited to Text, NText and Image datatypes for large objects, in SQL Server 2005 we can also use Varchar(max), nvarchar(max) and Varbinary(max) datatypes. The new MAX option allows you to manipulate large objects the same way you manipulate regular datatypes 5. With OPENROWSET you'll be able to return a rowset from a file as a single varbinary(max), varchar(max) or nvarchar(max) data type value. We'll use "SINGLE_BLOB", "SINGLE_CLOB" or "SINGLE_NCLOB" to diffentiate what kind of single-row, single-column data is being read. Sample table structure: Create Table EmployeeProfile ( EmpId int, EmpName varchar(50) not null, EmpPhoto varbinary(max) not null ) Go Import image into this table: Openrowset with the Bulk option requires a correlation name (also known as a range variable or alias) in the FROM clause. Insert EmployeeProfile (EmpId, EmpName, EmpPhoto) Select 1001, 'Vadivel', BulkColumn from Openrowset( Bulk 'C:\Blue Lace 16.bmp', Single_Blob) as EmployeePicture I suggest to read http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms175915.aspx to know more about "BCP, Bulk insert, and Openrowset (Bulk)".

Riya uploader just does not want to work

Riya,Riya Riya, why don't you work for me. I installed Riya uploader and it just does not want to work. It's been nearly seven hours since I installed and configured it to upload images. Still no images are uploaded neither I see any activity.
Photos uploaded: 0 of 0
When I check the client.log file under 'Ojos' folder I see a 12+ MB text file and some last lines are as follows:- 2005-11-28 19:02:46,203 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information 2005-11-28 19:02:46,312 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information 2005-11-28 19:02:46,406 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information 2005-11-28 19:02:46,515 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information 2005-11-28 19:02:46,609 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information 2005-11-28 19:02:46,703 INFO [main] (MainClass.java:85)- Waiting for tray for information So, it does not seem to be working for me. Anybody else getting the same problem? Technorati Tags: , ,