Win XP	CS3	CS4
Cold Launch on Benchmark Machine*	21.7s	12.8s
Cold Launch on User Machine**	36.4s	19.5s
iMac (Leopard)
Cold Launch	25.5s	16.4s

 

* Benchmark machine is the optimized setup machine for taking consistent launch performance numbers. It has no virus scanner and a totally defragmented hard disk.

** User machine is the one similar to user environment, having a virus scanner, fragmented hard disk with a few common applications installed.

• The team has posted a series of how-to guides and source files created by leading designers.
• Jack Westbrook came up with a set of scripts for exporting each AI layer as a separate PNG.

Theory

Essentially, we are running a network that we can train to recognize data, or solve a problem. We do this by giving the network sample data, and for each set of sample data, running the network through one time. We calculate the error of this run, adjust the weight of the connections between all the neurons in the entire network, and repeat. After running through all the sample data we have adjusted the weights to ‘recognize’ the data. Then, given another set of data, the network is trained to perform the same operation, such as classification (maybe determining forged vs authentic bank notes) or just solving a mathematical equation, such as we do in this particular example.

Code

This simulator is written in Cocoa, requires Xcode 3.1 or later, and is Leopard only. Subclasses NSOperation for multithreading, and have two subclassed NSViews for a ‘Safari Downloads’ style window, just showing the progress of each running experiment, with a cancel button beside it.

Download

Xcode Project (3.1 or later) | Leopard Only

Neural Net | Leopard Only

Biologically Inspired Computation Series

Back Propagation on Wikipedia

Stainless is a multi-purpose browser for OS X inspired (according to its developers) by Google Chrome. The early beta version (0.4) available for download works only with 10.5 (Leopard) and appears to be a fun side project for the engineers at Mesa Dynamics, who developed Stainless to leverage multi-processing technologies they developed for one of their other products, Hypercube.

Blogger Jackson Chung has taken Stainless for a spin and writes that it has potential. “It is a fair bit more stable, quicker and simpler to use [than other Mac browsers] - and that appeals to most people who are stuck with the productivity-driven mindset of Do more with less time.” He applauds Stainless’ simple UI and the fact that every browser tab runs under a separate process.

Unlike Safari, for instance, which runs tabs under a collective process, Stainless ‘feels’ lighter, according to Chung, and the whole surfing experience seems quicker and more responsive.

Google is working on a Mac version of Chrome and Media Dynamics gives the impression that Stainless may well be no more than a demonstration of the possibilities we could see when Chrome for the Mac is finally released. Until then, however, Stainless looks to be a taste of things to come.

Via Make Use Of

It is revolutionary because they simplified it.

They stripped the User Interface down to its bare essentials; made it snappier, more efficient and sophisticated on the inside; then delivered it to the public. And we love it. When I say “we”, I actually mean “they”. That’s because I use a Mac and Google hasn’t quite got the OS X version of Chrome up to speed yet. However, all Mac users can rest assured that they are working on it.

So as usual, Mac users will have to wait it out while everyone else on Windows enjoy their new toy. Luckily, a small group of developers came up with an imitation of Chrome, a Chrome-sque browser if you will, for OS X.

Although it is merely a technological demo, there are 3 words I can utter about Stainless. It has potential - and I’m not the only one who shares this opinion. Most of us who have taken Stainless for a ride will agree that it is quite usable, considering that it is still in its very early stages of development. I’m guessing that it is because it is inspired by Chrome, it is a fair bit more stable, quicker and simpler to use - and that appeals to most people who are stuck with the productivity-driven mindset of “Do more with less time”.

So how does Stainless compare to Chrome? I have no idea. I refuse to run Chrome on Windows or try Crossover Chromium. I want to maintain that purity of excitement and amazement when I run Chrome of OS X for the first time after Google is ready to dish it to us. For the time being, Stainless is the furthest I will ever get to Chrome.

From the screenshots, I assume that Stainless looks a bit like Chrome. It has a very simple user interface: separate address bars for each tab, forward/back/refresh buttons and a New Tab plus (+) sign. Like Chrome, it also comes with its own Process Manager and because it is a multi-process browser, that means each separate browser tab is actually an individual process (not a collective one like Safari, for instance). If a particular tab is irresponsive, you can close that tab without affecting others. This also means that performance is increased since each browser tab is processed separately.

Surfing is noticeably more responsive and quicker. The whole browser ‘feels’ lighter than Safari, definitely. There is also an option to open a Private Browsing Window where no history, cache or other information are stored. Personally, I don’t see the point of the private browsing mode for the time being - I don’t think Stainless stores browsing history just yet! It doesn’t even have a bookmark manager and it isn’t integrated with Keychain so usernames and passwords aren’t stored.

Overall, Stainless has managed to impress me, even if it is only a demo. I can’t even begin to fathom what Google Chrome on OS X is capable of.

If you want to take Stainless for a spin, you can download it here. Take note, it is for Leopard only. For those of you who have actually used Chrome, let me know how Stainless compares. I can only read your experiences since I want to keep myself a Chrome-virgin.

(By) Jackson Chung is a full-time medical student attempting to perform a juggling act with relationship, studies and his future.

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Continue reading Ask TUAW: Reinstalling, auto-saving, license keeping and more

TUAWAsk TUAW: Reinstalling, auto-saving, license keeping and more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

BitTorrent today has made further progress on the Mac platform, and have released a version of the popular thin client.

The version is still in Beta though, and as the download page says:

This is beta software, and may contain serious bugs. We think its stable enough to share and hope your feedback will help us improve it.

Beta version are meant to have bugs, and that’s why software is released as beta so real-time bugs could be discovered. But another interesting issue here is that it only supports Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard running on Intel x86 processors.

Nevertheless, uTorrent is the most popular BitTorrent client for the PC due to fact that it packs a huge amount of features in a single executable which is only 243kB and takes about 6MB of RAM. So even a beta version wouldn’t stop torrent lovers to trying it out on their Macs.

Be sure to check back later for a review on the product and any potential bugs we might encounter.

Direct Download Link

© 2008 Sizlopedia All Rights Reserved

The same goes for Blogger and TypePad users, and as well as options like MySpace and Vox. But if you’ve grown tired of those standard frontends, and would prefer to utilize software to blog for work or for personal enjoyment, there are alternatives that you should know about. For Mac users in particular, there are several that prove as useful, powerful, and visually worthwhile as any comparative webware.

Here we present our best discoveries. Share your suggestions in the comments, too!

Flock

People conditioned to regard their Web browser as their de facto “blogware” will likely warm to Flock fairly quickly. You might say that’s because Flock is a browser as well. Its foundation is the Mozilla platform. The joy in using Flock and all that it grants easy access to is that it’s built for the social web. You can network and share photos and cool web pages with little effort. And, yes, you can blog, all while navigating the web just as you ordinarily would.

MarsEdit

One of the most celebrated of publishing utilities for Mac OS X users, MarsEdit, now in version 2.2.2, is not a free package. Its cost is $29.95 after a free 30-day trial. But a common refrain heard by users is that the more often it is employed the more the price is so clearly justified.

Apart from dead simple uploads and a quickly-learned interface, MarsEdit sports features like compatibility with Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, Movable Type, Vox, and more, a Flickr connection, and integration with more hardcore Mac-specific text editors like BBEdit and TextMate. In short, it’s a power tool.

ecto

Another multi-service editor of MarsEdit-like design, ecto puts considerable emphasis on getting you from A to B to Z as quickly as possible. It certainly holds its own by comparison with others on the market. Its list of supported blog services is extensive, to say the least. Presently in Version 3 form, ecto has been around for over 5 years, and costs $17.95 to own.

Blogo

Launched by Brainjuice, Blogo seems simply drawn and puts your typical blogware to shame. As with the other editors above, its support list for blogging services is long, allows you to quickly publish media, and can even manage to publish Twitter and Ping.fm messages in association with your blog feed - call it streamlined PR, if you will.

Finally, Blogo gives users the option to produce content distraction-free with an on-board full screen mode. That’s a nice little dollop of GTD whipped cream, for sure.

Tumblr Dashboard Widget

Here’s a super small and super lightweight Dashboard application tossed midstream into the mix. We think Tumblr Dashboard Widget is worth mentioning simply for the fact that Tumblr itself is a bare boned and ultra-minimalist invention. A widget of this size is a fine complement. Enough said.

Mac Journal

An appreciable application both for its adherence to the traditional idea of journaling as well as its implementation of color to make the editing environment that much more colorful, Mac Journal is something that, while quite costly at $34.95 for a license, runs with the best in the business. It may not carry the same fanboy cache as that held by MarsEdit and others, but it’s a strong delivery nonetheless.

Blog.Mac

Intended to be a generally fool-proof development, Blog.Mac is more or less the closest thing to something that would come out of Apple’s own software assembly room. It’s not heavy on the details. It’s personal blogging made simple.

The current release, Version 1.3 Beta 4, talks to Apple’s MobileMe web hosting service and offers better Mac OS X Leopard integration. It will set users back $29.99. The creators at Largemouth Software also offer a Blog.Mac template editor free of charge.

iWeb plus MobileMe

You could go with something independently-made like Blog.Mac, but if you prefer something actually from the halls of Infinite Loop, Apple presents its own website and webpage editor in the form of iWeb. It’s a very controlled setup, and comes with all Mac computers sold today (standalone iLife suite runs $79), and to make use of it in ways that takes advantage of the “Apple experience,” you’ll need to pony up $99 per year for MobileMe hosting (formerly “.Mac”) and photo gallery access and so forth.

RapidWeaver

Some people just want to blog in their own unique way, requiring a departure from many popular web services today. RapidWeaver lets users wield an editor’s stick in ways that no other application here is able. Of course, that can mean a concerted effort to continue a blog for a significant period of time within the environment provided by RapidWeaver and the folks at RealMac Software, but hey, if you want choices, you’ve got choices with this one. Nearly limitless options, really.

Fluid

Okay, so you’ve parsed the choices listed above, and you’re not quite sold on any of them. Perhaps you recognize more than ever your liking for the way your blog service of choice operates, but you’d rather have it resemble an application within your Dock or menu bar. Fluid lets you do just that. It behaves as a kind of super powerful webclip creator that allows you to access web applications without having to visit the URL in Firefox or Camino or whathaveyou. There’s a bit of a wow factor that goes with this download.

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BitTorrent client uTorrent which was available on Windows PCs only, is now available for Mac as well. uTorrent is one of the most largely used application of BitTorrent. The company started working on their Mac project two years back. The alpha version of the release was leaked a few months back but the official release contains some improvements and is much better. Currently in Beta, the latest release can only run on Leopard/Intel Macs.

According to the VP of Product Management at BitTorrent, Simon Morris:

We’re obviously really psyched that we finally got this beta out there. This is indeed a port of the uTorrent source on top of OSX.

On Windows, uTorrent is by far the best BitTorrent client out there on a power:performance basis. Following on from uTorrent’s roots, we have continued to focus on only features that users really want, and we have avoided bloating up on lots of clutter. We’re now looking forward to bringing that specialness to the world of Mac-lovers.

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Related Articles at Startup Meme:

Theory

From Wikipedia:

  A Hopfield net is a form of recurrent artificial neural network invented by John Hopfield. Hopfield nets serve as content-addressable memory systems with binary threshold units. They are guaranteed to converge to a local minimum, but convergence to one of the stored patterns is not guaranteed.

Basically, you can fine tune the weights (connections between neurons) in the network so as to ’store’ data in the network. Imagine a square area, not necessarily flat, with a few deep potholes in it. Now, we start the network anywhere on this grid, and as the network progresses, it moves towards the nearest pothole. At the bottom of this pothole is a stored pattern, which is ‘remembered’ by the network. So given a corrupt image, the network can ‘remember’ the real image as it works its way to the sinkhole.

This simulation investigates how many patterns a network can hold versus the accuracy with which the network can recall. For example, a network with only 5 neurons simply cannot accurately recall many patterns, and this simulator allows you to investigate this relationship.

There are two PDFs included with the Xcode project, a theoretical overview and a detailed implementation guide. The simulator produces comma separated value (CSV) files, which can be opened in Numbers or Excel for graphing.

Get Started Now

Of interest to Cocoa programmers, this project makes use of NSOperation and NSOperation queue for quick and efficient multithreading.

Xcode Project (3.1 or later) | Leopard Only

Hopfield Network | Leopard Only

Hopfield Network on Wikipedia

Activation/Inhibition Cellular Automaton Simulator