Building code using QuantLib with CMake

Having just installed QuantLib I followed to build and run one of the examples published on the QuantLib site: DiscreteHedging.cpp

I didn't quite knew how much is needed to do that, but I began with the simplest possible CMakeLists.txt:

ADD_EXECUTABLE( DiscreteHedging DiscreteHedging.cpp )
TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES( DiscreteHedging QuantLib )

after executing 'cmake .' it worked straight away. Amazing.

QuantLib 1.1 ebuild

I decided to install QuantLib on my gentoo today, but as I found out - the most recent ebuild for QuantLib in the portage comes from 2008 and installs the 0.9.6 version :/

So, as usual, I attempted to hack the existing ebuild and try if it works. I copied the quantlib-0.9.6.ebuild inside /usr/portage/dev-libs/quantlib as quantlib-1.1.ebuild. Then I just downloaded QuantLib 1.1 into the local distfiles directory and the executed

ebuild /usr/portage/dev-libs/quantlib/quantlib-1.1.ebuild digest

Then I run emerge. The default, successful install took 1 hour 40 minutes.

VPS and Cloud Computing - free test accounts. Part II

In my previous post I focused on russian solutions, so this time a little break to the english side :) Before I dived into East European territory I had a glance at HostSearch VPS listing. What you will find there are offers from VPS companies along with coupons and discount codes. Give it a shot, maybe you'll find something for you.

VPS and Cloud Computing - free test accounts. Part I

There was a time, not long ago, when I needed to find as many as possible free VPS or Cloud Computing (CC) trial accounts for carrying intense mathematical computations. I did succeed, there was plenty of them, and I'd like to share my results. Be not scared, though, many of them are being hosted in russian speaking countries, so you will need basic vocabulary to be able to swiftly use them.

BT747 on gentoo

Last week I bought a Pentagram PathFinder P3106 GPS logger device. To use it I decided to install BT747 - a swiss army knife for MTK chipset-based devices - as it is called. First I tried install from portage - it succeeded, but I couldn't make it to connect to the device. I googled for help, but nothing seemed to work for me. I've even installed 2.2 version of rxtx from portage overlay but without aby difference.

Eventually, I found out that I did not have an USB_ACM module (USB Modem (CDC ACM) support) selected and compiled in my kernel. When I did that at least a /dev/ttyACM0 device began being visible in my system after connecting the logger. Then I downloaded and unzipped the newest version of bt747 (not in the portage) and this one worked!

QT3 - BOUML - CMake: Hello World!

I am going to demonstrate how to combine the two tools, BOUML and CMake, to create the simplest possible QT3-based classic "Hello World" application.

First, in BOUML create a project under a name hello_world in a directory hello_world/model. Then select c++ as a working language. In the browser pane right-click to access the Edit  generation settings menu, where in the "Directory" tab we will enter hello_world/gensrc as a c++ root directory, where all the generated source code will be saved.

DVD quality scans on GNU/Linux

Yesterday I bought a decent DVD recorder - Lite-ON DH 20A4H. As for now (two DVDs burned) I can't say a bad word about it. However, one of the reason why I bought a recorder from this particular vendor was support for quality scans of recorded media. For GNU/Linux based OS there is already the QPxTool, which allows for PIE/PIF analysis. Nonetheless, stability of this program leaves some place for improvements. My attention, thus, quickly turned to Wine and possibility to run such tests using win32 apps. I tried CDSpeed from Nero Utilities, but despite positive feedback on the cdfreaks forums I could not run it. Then I tried Kprobe2. It does PIE/PIF analysis, just as QPxTool, but not jitter. Same with DVDInfoPro, which should support jitter scans, but for some reason I cannot have them done.

Maybe one day NeroLinux will support jitter scans, or I will be able to trace bus data flow with CDSpeed run on Win32 to see what is being sent between the system and the hardware. With this in hand I might then write a utility myself, or contribute to the already existing GPL projects.

A tip for other users who'd like to run Kprobe2 or DVDInfoPro: in the Graphics tab of winecfg turn off the option which allows your WM to manage wine apps windows.