Interview Q&A

• What’s the difference between PageRank and Toolbar PageRank?

  Internally PageRank is constantly updated while toolbar PageRank is updated every 2-3 months. Toolbar PageRank is a single digit integer while the internally calculated PageRank is more like a floating-point number. And the final answer: Wh...

• What is page segmentation?

  VIPS is a research paper from Microsoft that stands for Vision-based Page Segmentation which is just an offshoot of the general topic of page segmentation. It is an analysis of how a user understands web layout structures based on visual pe...

• What format is used for the blank graphics?

  The blank images are in either .gif or .jpg format. This allows for modification in the widest range of graphics programs.

• Are navigation buttons included?

  For Dreamweaver templates, blank images are included for both the on and off state of the rollovers. Modify these images in a graphics program by adding text to reflect the names of your pages.

• How can I modify any of the graphics?

  Open the blank image, contained in the package, in the graphics program of your choice. Make any changes, such as adding your company name, and save the image with a new file name. Place the modified image in the same location as the sample...

• Am I required to use the MSU logo?

  yes. Our logo is a very important part of our public identity. The correct and standardized use of the logo is highly advantageous to projecting and reinforcing our identity in our messages. According to the MSU Graphics Identification and...

• How rendering in WPF differs from WIN32 applications?

  A WIN32 application uses immediate mode graphics system wherein the application is responsible for repainting the client area when they are resized or the object's visual appearance is changed. WPF on the contrary uses retained mode graphic...

• How do I enumerate child objects in a visual tree ?

  We can define three paragraphs under one section as follows. In the following example, the section has a "Background" property value of Red, therefore the background color of the paragraphs is also red.

• What is the order in which the controls are rendered ?

  The visual tree determines the rendering order of WPF visual and drawing objects. The root of the visual tree is first rendered and then it's child visual objects are traversed from left to right. If the visual object contains a child objec...

• WHAT IS FILE AVAILABILITY?

  The latest version of Ralf Brown's Interrupt List is 60, dated 3 Jan 99. The files are available directly from his home page, from SimTel, or Garbo

• How do I post-process a gnuplot graph?

  This depends on the terminal type you use. You can use the terminal type fig (you may need to recompile gnuplot to enable this terminal type, by putting #define FIG into ), and use the xfig drawing program...

• How do I change symbol size, line thickness and the like?

  Gnuplot offers a variety of commands to set line and point properties, including color, thickness, point shape, etc. The command test will display a test page for the currently selected terminal type showing the available pre-defined combin...

• How do I include my graphs in <word processor>?

  Basically, you save your plot to a file in a format your word processor can understand (using "set term" and "set output", see above), and then you read in the plot from your word processor.

• How do I modify gnuplot, and apply 'patches'?

  For this, you will need to recompile gnuplot.

• Is gnuplot suitable for scripting?

  Yes. Gnuplot can read in files containing additional commands during an interactive session, or it can be run in batch mode by piping a pre-existing file or a stream of commands to stdin. Gnuplot is used as a back-end graphics driver by suc...

• THE plot AND splot COMMANDS

  plot and splot are the primary commands in Gnuplot. They plot functions and data in many many ways. plot is used to plot 2-d functions and data, while splot plots 3-d surfaces and data.

• How do I print out my graphs?

  The kind of output produced is determined by the 'set terminal' command; for example, 'set terminal postscript' will produce the graph in PostScript format. Output can be redirected using the 'set output' co...

• How do I get gnuplot to compile on my system?

  Read the files README and README.Install, edit the Makefile according to taste, and run make or whatever is suitable for your operating system. If you get a complaint about a missing file libplot.a or...

• What is the current version of gnuplot?

  The current version of gnuplot is 3.5, which is a bugfix release over 3.4. Version 3.6 is in beta status. Please note that this is still unstable, and may not compile correctly on your system.

• Where can I download the current version of gnuplot ?

  The newest version of gnuplot is 4.2 (Mar. 2007).

• What Fortran compiler should I use?

  G95, Gfortran, and Silverfrost (Windows only) are free Fortran 95 compilers, and Absoft, IBM, Intel, Lahey, NAG, Pathscale, PGI, and Sun sell Fortran compilers. Comparative information on Fortran compilers from Polyhedron Software is availa...

• Should I learn Fortran? Is it obsolete?

  Fortran is a good language for scientific programming, because it is fast, is good at handling arrays, is standardized, is portable, and because many high-quality libraries of numerical algorithms exist. The language itself is also maintain...

• How does Fortran 90 relate to FORTRAN '77?

  With a few minor exceptions, Fortran 90 is a superset of X3.9-1978 FORTRAN. But this does not mean that all "77" codes will port sans changes. Many (if not most) programmers employed constructs beyond the '77 standard, or rely on unspecifie...

• How does the Fortran 90 interface differ from the C interface?

  The Fortran 90 interface provides the same functionality as the FORTRAN and C interfaces, but the interface is substantially smaller. We've done this by using optional arguments in the file, dimension, variable, and attribute inquire functi...

• How does the FORTRAN interface differ from the C interface?

  It provides all the functionality of the C interface. The FORTRAN interface uses FORTRAN conventions for array indices, subscript order, and strings. There is no difference in the on-disk format for data written from the different language...

• How do I create numbered file names such as out_01.txt, out_02.txt etc.?

  Use an "internal write" to create the file names, for example write (file_name,"('out_',i2.2,'.txt')") i

• What is the best (FORTRAN 77) compiler for a PC?

  There are many products, some are quite good. Few are free. f2c and gcc can be had for the PC environment.

• Why can't I APPLY or FUNCALL AND or OR?

  The simple, but not necessarily satisfying, answer is that AND and OR are macros, not functions, and APPLY and FUNCALL can only be used to invoke functions.

• Why doesn't Common Lisp have continuations?

  Continuations are a great theoretical tool; if a language has first-class, multiply-invocable continuations then one can build threads, exceptions, coroutines, and the kitchen sink on top.

• What is Lisp?

  Lisp is a family of programming languages descended from a language John McCarthy invented (or more accurately, discovered) in the late 1950s. The two main dialects now are Common Lisp and Scheme. We're working on a new dialect called Arc.

• Is there a second edition of ANSI Common Lisp?

  Some databases say that there is, but there isn't; not yet at least.

• What is on-topic on comp.lang.lisp?

  Disscussion of the language defined by the ANSI Common Lisp standard is definitely on-topic on comp.lang.lisp. Unlike comp.lang.c, we do not restrict our discussions to the standard, but also actively discuss the differences between impleme...

• What is the purpose of comp.lang.lisp?

  It is somewhat in the nature of things that newsgroups' purposes evolve, as do names. Firstly, the newsgroup has evolved such that the main topic of discussion is ANSI Common Lisp, though discussion about other lisp variants is welcome with...

• Is Scheme a lisp?

  Scheme is a member of the greater family of Lisp languages, assuming that is considered to include others like Dylan and Emacs Lisp. The design of Scheme predates the ANSI Common Lisp standard, and some CL features such as lexical scoping m...

• What is PNG

  Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is an image format offering lossless compression and storage flexibility. The MIDP specification requires implementations to recognize certain types of PNG images.

• What is Personal Profile

  The Personal Profile is a J2ME profile specification. Layered on the Foundation Profile and CDC, the Personal Profile will be the next generation of PersonalJava technology. The specification is currently in development under the Java Commu...

• What is PCS

  Personal Communications Service (PCS) is a suite of second-generation, digitally modulated mobile-communications interfaces that includes TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. PCS serves as an umbrella term for second-generation wireless technologies operat...

• What is optional package

  An optional package is a set of J2ME APIs providing services in a specific area, such as database access or multimedia. Unlike a profile, it does not define a complete application environment, but rather is used in conjunction with a config...

• What is Obfuscation

  Obfuscation is a technique used to complicate code. Obfuscation makes code harder to understand when it is de-compiled, but it typically has no affect on the functionality of the code. Obfuscation programs can be used to protect Java progra...

• What is MSC

  A Mobile Switching Center (MSC) is a unit within a cellular phone network that automatically coordinates and switches calls in a given cell. It monitors each caller's signal strength, and when a signal begins to fade, it hands off the call...

• What is Modulation

  Modulation is the method by which a high-frequency digital signal is grafted onto a lower-frequency analog wave, so that digital packets are able to ride piggyback on the analog airwave.

• What is Mobitex

  Mobitex is a packet-switched, narrowband PCS network, designed for wide-area wireless data communications. It was developed in 1984 by Eritel, an Ericsson subsidiary, a nd there are now over 30 Mobitex networks in operation worldwide.

• What is MIDP-NG

  The Next Generation MIDP specification is currently under development by the Java Community Process. Planned improvements include XML parsing and cryptographic support.

• What is MIDP

  The Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is a specification for a J2ME profile. It is layered on top of CLDC and adds APIs for application life cycle, user interface, networking, and persistent storage.

• What is MIDlet suite

  MIDlets are packaged and distributed as MIDlet suites. A MIDlet suite can contain one or more MIDlets. The MIDlet suite consists of two files, an application descriptor file with a .jad extension and an archive file with a .jar file. The de...

• Comparison of Borland Pascal to the Pascal standards

  As mentioned earlier, Turbo Pascal does not conform to any of the Pascal standards. If you carefully chose a subset of unextended Pascal, you may be able to port code if you're lucky/careful.

• Who creates the standards?

  The Pascal standards are development and maintained by the American committee, X3J9, and the International working group, WG2. Most of the standarizers actually belong to both committees.

• Can I make an indirect call to an object's method, using a pointer or a procedural type?

  Yes, but you'll need to make aggressive use of casting, and to have a bit of background on just what a method call is. While method calls look and act very differently than normal calls

• How to find compilers for each standard?

  For unextended Pascal, there are dozens of compilers that accept unextended Pascal programs. They range from PCs (Prospero Pascal) to large Digital Alpha machines, IBM mainframes, HP workstations, etc.. Unfortunately, Turbo Pascal does not...

• Required Interfaces to Extended Pascal

  The Extended Pascal standard includes 2 concepts that provide hooks for interfaces to things outside of Pascal.