Who said Google Squared will kill Wolfram Alpha?

About 3-4 months ago one of my coworkers emailed me about this amazing computational engine - Wolfram Alpha (still in beta at that time). And this engine really awed me with its computational abilities. Some of the search terms did bring some blank results though but that was expected as a lot of data was being fed to the Wolfram servers at that point.

A few days ago when I heard about the deal between Bing and Wolfram (Bing strikes licensing deal with Wolfram Alpha) it occurred to me to check the site again and to see what other bloggers are writing about Wolfram.

I searched for articles and blog posts on Wolfram and came across this article on TechCrunch - What Is Google Squared? It Is How Google Will Crush Wolfram Alpha. 

If you look at the date this article was written, I think you can guess that author was speculating at that point because both these technologies were just about to be launched. But I was wondering and wanted to ask the author - Have you even tried Google Squared?

Now that both these engines have matured I can say this out loud that Google Squared is a complete failure. I had doubts on the success of Google Squared right from the beginning.

If for some reason you are still in the stone age or yawning your way out of hibernation, here is a little info on Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha -

So what is Google Squared?

Google Squared extracts data from Web pages and presents them in search results as squares in an online spreadsheet. For more info on Google Squared check out this video - http://www.youtube.com/v/t2onuEXThPs

And what is Wolfram Alpha?

Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. Enter your question or calculation, and Wolfram|Alpha uses its built-in algorithms and a growing collection of data to compute the answer.

For more info on Wolfram Alpha check out there site - http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Did Google Squared really killed Wolfram Alpha?

Well I think its really doesnt make any sense to compare the two. Wolfram is a computational engine whereas Google Squared is a spreadsheet with organized information picked from all over the web.

So what is Google Squared good for?

And that is what I am not sure of. We ran a test on both Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha and searched for the term - planets. And follow is the screen shot of the searches on Google Squared and Wolfram Alpha.

Google Squared returns a list of planets but along came some vague information which was related to Astronomy but not really what we were looking for.

Wolfram Alpha really turned out to be a winner here - Not only it returned a list of planets but also complete details for each planet and even there current sky positions from Toronto (from where the search took place)

We leave it on the readers to decide who killed whom, but for now we can say that Wolfram Alpha is a clear winner. What do you think? Please leave your comments and share your views with our readers.

Prototype and jQuery conflict resolution. Prototype JavaScript Library interferes with jQuery.

I experienced this conflict quite recently when I was working on WordPress Featured Articles Plugin. Normally jQuery.noConflict() comes to the rescue but not in my case. And the reason being - prototype was already interacting and was included at the top, so it was already using the $ variable.

This conflict causes the creation of the jQuery object to fail.

 

All the following errors are related to this conflict and you might get one or all of the following while using Prototype (Scriptaculous) and jQuery -

jQuery is not defined

$ is not a function

$ is not defined $(document).ready(function(){

Component returned failure code: 0×80040111 JavaScript error

uncaught exception: [Exception... "Component returned failure code: 0x80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIDOMViewCSS.getComputedStyle]” nsresult: “0×80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)”

What can we do to fix this?

You can try moving the jQuery.js to top and than use jQuery.noConflict().

If that is not an option you can do the following -

IMPORTANT - Do not use [REPLACE ALL]

• Edit prototype.js - find where it defines function $() and change the name to function $$$()
• Still in prototype.js, carefully replace each occurrence of $(…) with $$$(…), but don’t touch anything which says $$(…)
• Edit each of the other *.js files (e.g. effects.js) and carefully replace each occurrence of $(…) with $$$(…), but don’t touch anything which says $$(…).
• That is it.

And just in case you have trouble doing the above, Following links point to already edited prototype.js and effects.js. Please remember all the references to these files must start with $$$ instead of $.

Download - Prototype.js

Download - Effects.js

Hopefully this article will help some of our fellow coders and save them some time and frustration. Happy Coding guys :)

Apps running from Network Share run under Full Trust in .NET 3.5 SP1

.NET 3.5 contains a change to the default grant set, applications launched from Local Intranet Zone will now run under Full Trust. This make the user experience and trust levels as if the app is launched from the local computer itself.

How this works?

When an .exe is launched directly off a network share, rather than giving it the Zone evidence of [Local Intranet], framework instead give the Zone evidence of [My Computer].  This causes the .exe to match the default [My Computer] code group rather than the [Local Intranet] group, and by default CAS policy grants Full Trust to that code group.  

In addition to the entry point .exe of the application, framework also extend [My Computer] evidence to any assembly loaded from the same directory as the .exe.  So, if you place any managed DLL’s immediately next to your .exe, those will also all be given Full Trust by default in .NET 3.5 SP1.

Will this work for DLL’s in sub directories?

And the answer is NO.

It will only work for assemblies loaded from the same directory as the entry point application. Apps that need to load assemblies from different sub directories or other network shares may not see all of their assemblies get fully trusted by default.  For these type of applications, [Click Once] deployment is the recommended way to grant Full Trust.

Articles explaining Full Trust -

• What is ASP.NET Full trust hosting? and A few good Full trust hosting plans.
• Why Full Trust hosting is not recommended when using a shared ASP.NET or shared Windows hosting plan?
• How to grant Full Trust to your ASP.NET web site on your VPS / Dedicated Server
• Running Full Trust applications under Windows Azure.
• Microsoft Azure now supports PHP and allows full trust development

As per msdn web site -

Assemblies which will now receive Zone evidence of [My Computer] and therefore be fully trusted by default are:

• Any managed .exe which is launched directly from a network share
• Any assembly in that .exe’s process which is loaded from the same directory as the .exe itself was.

Assemblies which will not see this change include:

• Assemblies loaded from a subdirectory of the share where the .exe was launched from
• Assemblies loaded from shares other than the one where the main .exe was launched
• Any assembly loaded on a machine with the LegacyMyComputer registry value set to 1
• Any assembly loaded into a CLR host, including assemblies loaded into Internet Explorer as controls.
• Any assembly loaded from shares by an application that was launched from the "real" MyComputer zone.

What to expect in .NET 4 ?

In .NET 4.0 beta 1, Microsoft has significantly expanded this exemption, and all assemblies loaded by unhosted applications are fully trusted by default.

Maximize Affiliate Sales and Small Business Profits using Neuromarketing.

If you are a small business owner or run a blog or website, the above headline would have made you quickly apply breaks to your Internet surfing Ferrari and made you click on this article. And rightly so because just like any other business we too want to maximize our profits. So to take first step towards understanding what this article is all about, lets first understand what neuromarketing really is -

What is Neuromarketing?

Have you ever wondered …

• Why even the highest priced or lowest quality products sometimes outsell their competitors’?
• Why and how your prospects buy the products or services they do, even if their choices seem irrational or impractical?
• Why some brands have a devoted cult-like following while others have zero loyalty?

A new field called NeuroMarketing - combining neuroscience, marketing and technology, has generated a buzz across every industry and every business sector.

NeuroMarketing uses high–tech brain scanning techniques, such as MRI and EEG, to investigate brain activity. This neuro–imaging hardware enables us to examine and analyze what really drives our behavior, our opinions, our preference for Corona over Budweiser, iPods over Zunes, or McDonald’s over Wendy’s.

Keys to Neuromarketing and applying Neuromarketing for Affiliate Conversions.

Christophe Morin, co-author of Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain, says entrepreneurs can improve their products, services, marketing and advertising by learning six keys to neuromarketing. These tenets stem from Morin’s argument that most purchase decisions are made subconsciously, in the nether regions of the mind he calls the primal brain, areas where basic fight-or-flight instincts kick in. We buy, he says, out of fear.

• We’re self-centered: Nothing triggers self-centered action like a transaction. “People are completely egocentric and all they want is something that will create a difference in their lives, eliminate pain and possibly bring them more pleasure,” Morin says.
• We crave contrast: “The bottom line is, on any given day, we will receive about 10,000 ad messages, and only the ones that are huge contrasts will get any attention,” he says.
• We’re naturally lazy: Abstract advertising and marketing won’t get through. Keep it simple, but strong. “Most companies tend to create abstract messages and use too many words,” Morin says. “Reading is much more a function of the ‘new brain.’ We recommend that, of course, companies use a lot of concrete visuals.”
• We like stories: Advertising and marketing with strong beginnings and ends create anchor points that we latch onto, so Morin advises entrepreneurs to sum up and recap their strongest selling points at the end of any promotional material. “The brain has a natural tendency to pay attention at the beginning and end of anything,” he says.
• We’re visual: Appealing video and graphic presentations can make the difference at cash registers where price and reason can’t. “We process and make decisions visually, without being aware of them,” Morin says. “Only later do we rationalize decisions we made.”
• Emotion trumps reason: Give us the right emotion to ride on, and we’ll buy what you’re selling. “When we experience an emotion,” he says, “it creates a chemical change in our brain, hormones flood our brain and change the speeds with which neurons connect, and it’s through those connections we memorize. We don’t remember anything if there isn’t an emotion attached to that experience.”

There is a very fascinating book entitled Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, by Martin Lindstrom. We often discuss why our online visitors/clients/consumers do the things they do.  Lindstrom, an international marketing and branding expert commissioned a three year study that goes beyond the usual qualitative, quantitative and tracking methodologies to look at how our brain architecture activates when we make behavioral decisions or respond to a marketing strategy.

This is a great book and I would recommend this book to every small business as well as website / blog owner.

Buy from Amazon: Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy

Some of the amazing findings mentioned in the book are that cigarette warning labels, no matter how graphic, actually stimulate the part of the brain responsible for addictive behavior; that appeals which engage our emotions trump “rational,” cognitive appeals in the brain’s responses; and that product placement in movies and TV shows probably do not motivate buying behavior in this day and age!  The book also contains additional interesting marketing facts, such as that new product launches in Japan fail 9.7 out of 10 times, and that by age 66 we will have viewed nearly two million commercials on TV!

Running Full Trust applications under Windows Azure.

What is Windows Azure?

Microsoft’s Azure Services Platform is a cloud platform (cloud computing platform as a service) offering that “provides a wide range of Internet services that can be consumed from both on-premises environments or the Internet (though the platform itself will not be made available for on-premises deployments.

To read more about Azure please visit Microsoft’s Official Website on Azure Services Platform.

What is Full Trust and why is it required?

Full trust (CAS - Code Access Security Level) allows ASP.NET applications to execute native code, to read from the Registry and Windows Event Log, and to read and write to files outside of the application’s virtual directory. In short, with full trust one web application could delete the entire contents of another web application.

To read more on Full Trust Hosting please visit What is ASP.NET Full trust hosting?

Looking for good Full Trust Windows / ASP.NET Hosting Plans - Try Webhost4life OR Alentus (We have been using them for years now)

Windows Azure and Full Trust.

Windows Azure now offers the option of running the code in your Web and Worker roles under full trust. As a developer this opens up a lot of exciting and compelling options -

• Inter-process Communication via Named Pipes:

  If you application spawns processes, you can communicate among them via named pipes.

• Invoking non-.NET Code:

  Many developers have existing investments in native code or may choose to use native code for some specialized tasks. .NET full trust makes it possible to use native code via spawning processes or Platform Invoke (P/Invoke).

• Using .NET Libraries that Require Full Trust:

  Certain .NET libraries, including libraries in the .NET Services SDK, require full trust and can now be used in Windows Azure.

To enable full trust, simply add the enableNativeCodeExecution attribute to your role in the Service Definition file and set the attribute value to true:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<ServiceDefinition name=”MyService” xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2008/10/ServiceDefinition”>

  <WebRole name=”WebRole” enableNativeCodeExecution=”true”>

    <InputEndpoints>

      <InputEndpoint name=”HttpIn” protocol=”http” port=”80″ />

    </InputEndpoints>

  </WebRole>

</ServiceDefinition>

Windows Azure applications run with restricted “User” privileges in the cloud.  Accordingly, certain operations such as modifying the registry and writing to the system directory are not possible at this time (even though they may succeed in your local development environment). To read more on more on Custom Trust visit Why Full Trust hosting is not recommended when using a shared ASP.NET or shared Windows hosting plan?

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