MatConvNet with Visual Studio 2015.3 Toolset and MATLAB R2017a

MATLAB VS2015.3 Toolset

Introduction

After a recent re-install of Windows on my laptop, I decided to install the latest version of the software packages that I frequently use. This include MATLAB R2017a ,Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise and MatConvNet.

However, it turns out that MATLAB R2017a does not support using VS2017 out of the box (patch required). What’s worse is that CUDA Toolkit 8.0 also doesn’t support VS2017 yet.

In order to use MatConvNet for my research, I had to install VS2015.3 Toolset (optional component of VS2017) and configure MATLAB R2017a to use it.

 

System Environment

ComponentVersion
OSWindows 10 Home 1703 Build 15063.0
MATLABR2017a
CUDA Toolkit8.0.61
CuDNN5.1
Visual Studio2017 Enterprise with 2015.3 Toolset

Continue reading…

Userscript for Fetching duitang.com Album Images | 堆糖的抓图脚本

So userscripts are local scripts written by the user and executed in the browser. This process can be done by manually typing in your script in the console and hitting enter, but there are browser extensions to help you do this automatically.

The most famous ones are GreaseMonkey for Firefox and TamperMonkey for Chrome although the latter also supports other Chromium/WebKit based browsers.

With the help of such extensions, interesting things can be done. And in this case, it is about fetching the album images on duitang.com, a chinese website very similar to pinterest.com.

Instructions can be found here: https://github.com/kaneorotar/duitang-userscript

Have fun and Enjoy!

P.S. This is my first public GitHub repository. Hopefully more is on the way~
—————————————————Lang Cut——————————————————-
所以最近写了个GreaseMonkey/TamperMonkey用的脚本，用于抓取堆糖相册中所有图片的链接。
安装说明在此：https://github.com/kaneorotar/duitang-userscript

P.S. 这是本人第一个GitHub的repository，希望未来能增加更多~

How to Find Name of Music Using the Melody

So I came across this piano solo which I found familiar in an animation and wanted to know the name of it very badly. Although it is a BGM, meaning that there are other sound or voices going on at the same time, the melody is easily recognizable.
So I started looking for its name and here’s the tools I used:

1. Midomi (SoundHound)
This is a famous tool for finding music by singing or humming. It records at least 10s of sound using the microphone and then search in the database. For most song it works, however, since it is a piano solo this time, there was no result.

2. Shazam Encore
This tool is famous for finding out music with part of it. It requires recording the original song and therefore failed because there were other voices and sound effects in the animation as the music plays.

3. Musipedia Music Search by Flash-based Piano
Failed with my usual tools, I googled ‘how to find a piano music’ and found this to be the first result. I was not disappointed. In fact, I was even impressed because the website allows me to find the music by playing the melody! I was not sure about the notes so I tried several times. Finally I was able to recreate part of the melody using the simulated piano and proceeded to search. It took a little while (about 1 min) but there were results with Youtube videos of the music being played! I clicked the first one and Voilà! There it is! It’s Claude Debussy’s ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’!

That sums up my music seeking journey and I wish that everyone can find the name of the music they like~

P.S. For more related tools, check out this wikiHow page.

稍微吐个槽| Just some thoughts about the rumors of 4G network

I’ve recently been seeing posts talking about how fast the 4G network is going to be and how ‘absurd’ the prices for data packages are depending on the ‘fact that the allowance could be depleted within several seconds.
There are mainly 2 misunderstandings in here:

    1. Mb/s is not MB/s

Some people are not aware of the differences between Mbps and MBps. They are quite similar, however, the relationship between them is actually:
8 Mbps (Mega bits per second) = 1 MBps (Mega bytes per second)
Generally the bandwidth we see in every advertisement are using the Mbps as it obviously tends be a bigger number.

    2. Being able to reach a higher speed doesn’t mean using your allowance at that rate

Some people are saying things like ‘I pay 40 RMB for 300 MB data allowance, which can be used up in a few seconds under the 4G speed’. Despite the fact that he made the aforementioned mistake, he is also assuming that during his time of using the network connection, data will be constantly downloaded to his phone at the highest speed causing his remaining allowance to shrink at the same speed. This can be true if he is trying to stream an online video, which is an unwise action considering the allowance is relatively not big. Most webpages are only within several hundred kilo bytes in size and applications that utilize Internet access tend to consume maximum allowances of a few mega bytes per day, which is acceptable.
In a nut shell, what the increase in speed does is simply reducing the time for data to be fetched to your phone.

J-无线网络问题诊断-1

唔，这两天被无线网折腾得头晕。于是刚刚终于解决了总是在“连接上→掉线→看似连接上其实没有→已连接上但是无线标志是叉叉→掉线”的恶性循环~

成功解决这次问题的方法是：

1.网络邻居属性-无线网络属性-无线网络配置
先在“用windows配置我的无线网络设置”前点勾，然后设置你要连接网络的密钥，确定是WAP还是什么类型，然后输入密钥，点确定，这时候图标就会显示连接！（但没有结束，如果不进行下一步过2 3分钟就会变成未连接，但还能上网，在过一会就彻底断开了）
2.现在，再进入网络邻居属性-无线网络属性-无线网络配置，把“用windows配置我的无线网络设置”前的勾取消，然后就应该好了，如果还有问题，只说明前面环节设置不对（比如密钥设置1 2 3之类

按照这两个步骤，俺的恶心循环结束了，万岁！虽然不知道这个是为什么~o(╯□╰)o

Day 2 in New York

Just like every sleep I spent in new places, I woke up early this morning. After a little chat with my love, I started the journey for my 2nd day in the NYC.

Most likely because it was early in the morning, there weren’t many people around so I was able to have my breakfast purchased at 7/11 and hopping into the train heading to Uptown without much trouble. The subway arrived at Battery Park in about 20 minutes and the Statue of Liberty could be seen from the shore, although being tiny due to the distance. Then I got my tickets from thr pre-paid window and checked-in at the ferry. The temperatures was still freezing, and with the presence of the strong sea wind, I stayed most of the time in the cabin. During the sailing, Miss Liberty gets magnified gradually as the cruise approaches and the details of her face, hair, robe and the torch becomes clearer and clearer. Not to mention that the view of the New York City skyline from the cruise was also very enjoyable.

After grabbing an Audio tour, I headed straight to the pedestal entrance that lead to the museum inside the pedestal that displays story and history of the statue. One little story to mention before the musueum: before entering the pedestal, I went to the locker room to have my backpack saved. They were using some hi-tech fingerprint protected lockers that costs $2 to store for 2 hours. So I had the money paid and my fingerprint scanned before seeing an instruction saying ‘Put your belongings into the locker and press the lock button to lock.’. I then opened the door and had a look at the locker to see if it has enough space for my bag. Just as I was sorting out things in my bag, the door closed and locked on its own! Then I saw the notice that says ‘You can only open the locker once to take your things out’. ‘Okay. Now this auto-lock feature is truely surprising.’ I thought. So I was about to get another locker when I found that I didn’t have enough 1 dollar notes. With the hope of solving the problem, I asked a lady who seemed to be a shopkeeper in the souvenir store beside the locker area. Amazingly, after knowing my locker number, she walked directly to the machine and opened the door immediately using some administrative tools. I was therefore able to avoid wasting my money on purchasing another locker! ‘Thank you and Happy New Year!’ I said joyfully. This experience, in a way, demonstrates that one should not be afraid to seek for help from others when in trouble, a simple solution might be waiting for you in someone else’s hands.

To be continued…

Day 1 in New York

Follwing my mom’s suggestion, I decided to spend the end of 2013 and the begining of 2014 in the beautiful New York city. The only thing I initially decided to do was to join the 2014 New Year countdown so I booked the flight and a hotel online (single bed in 4 bed shared room, much cheaper than other ones) near Times Square. After some hours of online searching, some other sites are added to the list of places I would like to visit, including The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, 9/11 Memorial, Guggenheim Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Central Park and American Museum of Natrural History.

I was already excited the night before the flight but managed to take a nap during the transfer flight. Right before the aircraft landed, I got my first impression of the Manhattan area: the amazing skyscrapers in the CBD and the distinct rectanglular-shaped Central Park. From a distance, the Manhattan Island looks like an extremely detailed miniature artwork that you can place on your palm. Then I was greeted by a sign on the meadow in the airport saying “WELCOME TO ♥ NEW YORK”.

The public transportation of New York City was fascinating. I was able to get on a Q70 bus just outside the airport and reach the Broadway St. Station where I then take the subway to Times Square – 42 St, all with just $2.50. The Midtown area, where the Times Square lies, reminds me of streets in London, Manchester and streets in the UK: grocery stores, restaurants, shops and things like that, all available within walking distance. I was able to check-in at the hotel at 4 PM and head to Times Square at about 5 PM. I was going later until a kind roommate reminded me that the NYPD have already blocked several streets and it won’t be possible to get a glimpse of the crystal ball if I’m not setting off ASAP.

I finished my dinner, a footlong Chiptole Chicken & Cheese, in Subway and grabbed 2 bottles of Spring water from 7/11 before joining the crowd that goes around the blocked Times Square region trying to get in. It was about 7 PM that I finally discovered the correct way to approach the ball, but there were already countless number of people ahead of me so I had to join the queue and move about 100m every half an hour. However, the ball’s in sight, so I got that going for me, which was nice. The rest of the night was filled with memories of freezing winds and squeezing crowd. My honey (loveya~ O3O) has been my strength to help me get through all the waiting and after seeing numerous couples/lovers around, I sincerely wished that she could be there with me to spend the night. The next time I come for the new year countdown, I’m definitely bringing her with me to enjoy the wonderful evening.

With the ball dropping and the crowd greeting each other “Happy New Year~” at 00:00 on 01/01/2014, my first day in the New York City has ended. Although being physically exhausted, I was happy that I made it to the last and shared my experiences with my love. It was a great day.

Happy New Year~!

I’m Back!

Long time no see. It’s been almost a year and I hope that I have not disappointed anyone who’s interested in my blog. Hopefully I’ll start blogging regularly from now on.
Currently: Busy doing assignments and projects. Will try to learn more about WebGL and implement something like MabinogiWebVer(Prototype). 😉