PC Build for MRI image processing

PC for preprocessing/tractography

It has been after long time I had the opportunity to build a PC. Actually it was not for me but for my wife who is doing a Phd. She is using following MRI image processing tools,

Freesurfer (https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/)
MRtrix (https://www.mrtrix.org/)
FSL (https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki)
Advanced Normalization Tools (https://github.com/ANTsX/ANTs)

These tools uses memory and process heavily and she was struggling to do the process in her laptop(Intel core i7 with 16 GB memory).

So I started doing research what best components I can used to build a powerful PC that can handle neuroimaging processing tools.

Process wise I had 2 choices Intel or AMD, These days AMD is beating Intel in the process market with giving high processing power for less money. After doing some research around I selected AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (8 core) processor with Wraith Prism cooler.

MSI B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard

As the motherboard I selected "MSI B450M MORTAR Micro ATX AM4", which support maximum memory of 64 GB and is within my budget. Also got two 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3000 Memory modules after reading some reviews. Hoping to upgrade to 64 GB in future.

As the main hard disk, I got Samsung 860 Evo 1 TB SSD drive. As the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X does not have inbuilt GPU, I went with MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB graphic card.

As for the casing I selected "fractal design focus g mini microatx mini tower case", which has a good build quality for the price. Also it comes with 2 front panel fans which improve the air flow inside the casing.

I used pcpartpicker.com site to build my spec, which is a useful site for anyone who wish to build their own PC. pcpartpicker.com site will highlight if there any incompatible components in your build, which is very useful and free of charge as well.

Use the below link to see my full PC specification,

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/LXVBZf

My wife was happy with the PC build as she manage to run neuroimaging tools without any problem.

But if you have big budget I recommend going for a AMD processor with more cores (such as AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12 core or AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 16 core) with memory of 64 GB or more. This will make you run several MRI processing tools parallel.

Enjoy!

Is your email address has been compromised - haveibeenpwned.com

In this fast moving world everyone has an email address that used to communicate and register to the different online services. This give cyber criminal an ideal opportunity to target innocent victims and use the victims email address to access the victims other online services.

In recent years there have been various big company data breaches such as yahoo, Linkedin, Myspace, Adobe, Equifax etc.. with these data breaches hackers and cyber criminals manage to get huge data sets of email addresses and passwords.

A security researcher Troy Hunt have collected all theses data in to a one site so any one can check if their email address or passwords have been leaked due to these major data breaches. The site haveibeenpwned.com is free to use and you can enter email addresses and see which ones have been compromised and what data breach that have caused it as well. 

Also haveibeenpwned.com have the functionality check if the passwords you used also is not matching with any leaked passwords from the data breaches. 

I hope every one don't use same username & passwords combination, and after checking the haveibeenpwned.com site please change the passwords if compromised.

Enjoy!

Best way to test the Spammyness of your Emails for free - www.mail-tester.com

Now a days emails are very important part of the day today life. Loads of on-line systems are using emails as the username and use the emails to communicate with their users.

Sometime system generated emails get spammed or rejected by the mail servers due to configuration issues in the server that generated the email.

As a web developer/system administrator/ Application developer it's your duty to check the Spammyness of your Emails and keep the users happy.

www.mail-tester.com site give you the way to test your email easily and give you suggestions how to improve your ranking.

Only thing you need to do is go to the mail-tester.com site and it will generate a random email address account that you need to send your test email to. Once you send a test email to that account and click on the "Check your score" it will validate your email and let you know what issues you have in your system generated email.

Following are the 5 different images given depending on the ranking.

So next time when users complain that they are not receiving any system generated emails, mail-tester.com is the best way to solve the mystery.

Visit :- https://www.mail-tester.com/

Enjoy!.

whatbrowser.org - Another Free Service From Google

Whatbrowser.org is a simple site that Google have created to help to answer the question, “which web browser you’re using and why to keep your browser up-to-date” .

This is a useful site for non-geek people who haven't got a clue about a web browser and who think Google or Yahoo is their web browser. This site clears out lot of misunderstanding regarding web browsers for non technical people.

Also whatbrowser.org site helps people who are working as IT support & web developers who sometime struggle to find out, the customers web browser & it's version in order to identify an web site issue.(Specially when it comes to IE web browser & it's version.). So rather than asking lot of questions from customer to find out which browser version they use, asking them to visit the whatbrowser.org site will give the answer quickly without any hassle.

Visit : whatbrowser.org

Enjoy!

Review on Nikon D5100

Like many people, when I decided to buy a new DSLR camera I researched various DSLR models, on line to the point of going crazy. 

Lot of web sites argue that some brand is better than other brand (As an example Nikon vs Canon war)

At last after going through various web sites DSLR reviews & youtube videos, finally purchase the Nikon d5100 with 18-55mm kit lense.

First of all I am really happy with the purchase and also I got a cash back deal from Nikon UK, so that I can spare some of my budget on SD card, camera bag & a tripod.

Secondly I am happy because I managed to take decision and leave the tiresome research & start taking photographs.

My first impresion of the Nikon d5100 is that it seems really light for a DSLR camera. I am not a professional photographer although I like taking photography as a hobby. In my opinion I can summarised pros & cons as follows,

Pros

• Flip-out screen
• Good image quality (Specially in low light condition) 
• Value for money deal comparing to other competing DSLR models

cons

• No weather sealing
• Lack of  panorama feature (not that important)
• Battery life average.

Checkout out my photo blog (photospear.blogspot.co.uk) where I have post latest  images that has taken from my Nikon D5100.

By the way below are some of the web links that I used in my research to buy my first DSLR.

http://snapsort.com/

http://www.dpreview.com

http://www.kenrockwell.com/

http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d5100/index.html (D5100 Manual)

http://www.cameratips.com/d5100

I hope above information will be very helpful for people who wish to purchase their first DSLR.

Enjoy.  

Learn A Language for Free using Duolingo (www.duolingo.com)

Learning languages in Duolingo is completely free with no ads or hidden fees.

Duolingo  is designed so that, as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents in return. So while you are learning for free, you actually giving the world something valuable in return.

You can use the http://www.duolingo.com/ web site to access the free resources or else its available on Android and iOS as an app.

Check out the below video that explain how this thing works.

Enjoy!

Internet Explorer The Nightmare Of Web Developer

After long time of silence I thought of writing a blog post about a web browser that have slowed cyber world. Internet Explorer is considered to be the nightmare of web developer due to its notorious way of rendering web pages. Recently I came across several bugs of IE and it really made my life a hell.



The funniest thing is that I need to write separate specific code for not only for IE browser but also to it's different versions as well.I don't know why Microsoft does not understand the meaning of the English word 'standards' or 'consistency'.

And other thing is that other web browsers will force their users to upgrade to newer version of a software as soon as there is a update but in IE, Microsoft is not bothered to force their clients to upgrade or at least inform the users there is a new version released.




Google has come up with a good solution for IE issues with introducing Google chrome frame plugin. This enable IE users to experience what they have missed in web. For more information visit chromium project.

I don't know why Microsoft is acting like a bunch of idiots while other people like Google have to fix issues of IE. So I think Microsoft must rethink their strategies and help the web to grow rather than slowing the web community.

Google launched another attack on Facebook

Google has started a new project call Google plus which directly targeting Facebook users. This is not the first attempt of Google to gain the territory of Facebook, Previously Google Wave and Google Buzz were launched but they were not effective in capturing the grounds of Facebook.

Under the Google plus it has introduced new functions such as Circles, Hangouts, Huddle, Sparks. All though the names are new to the social networking domain the functions behind these names are much more similar to Facebook.

Still this project is in development stage and Google have given a sneak peak about it's development under https://plus.google.com link. So we will have to wait till Google plus is released to public and time will tell who will be the leader of social networking in cyber world.
Enjoy!

Visit - Google PLUS!!!!

copyscape.com - Search for copies of your page on the web

copyscape.com is a web site that gives web site owners the ability to check whether their web site has been copied by some others in the internet. You only need to submit your web site URL to copyscape.com web site and they will search the internet and generate a list of web sites that have identical content of your web site.
Enjoy!!!

Visit:- Visit copyscape.com

captureFox Free Screen Capture Tool

captureFox is a good plug in that is developed for the FireFox web browser in order to capture screen movements.

This plug in is supported for Windows VISTA, Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems and you only need to have FireFox web browser install in order to use this tool.

So if you need to record a video tutorial or capture a screen, this free tool will be very useful for you.
Enjoy..

Visit :-
Visit FireFox Add-on

Visit www.capturefox.com

Gmail Priority Inbox

Gmail is getting more innovative day by day when considering with other email service providers. Check out this video and make your life easier..
Enjoy!!

Tracing the original source of an image in internet

Have you ever wonder of tracing an image in the internet to identify the source of the image?? tineye.com website gives you the solution for your query.

tineye.com website is a reverse image search website which allow users to upload images or give the url of the image and it will automatically search and gives a list of sites that the image you search is in.

This site will not work for some images such that are in social network website but overall this website is a good way to trace an image in the internet.
Enjoy!!

Visit :-Visit www.tineye.com

Facebook and Privacy

This week big revolution happened in the most popular social network web site Facebook with it's introduction of new privacy settings. So I just did some analysis going through some forums.

The changes treat as "publicly available information" the following: your name, profile picture, current city, gender and networks, and the pages you're a fan of.
Until now, you had the option of restricting much of that information. That option has been removed.

And also friend list is now included in mandatory public information and users can no longer control which friends can see their friends list.This was another negative point in privacy that pointed out in some forums.

And also the other shocking thing that I found out that the Facebook people have reset the privacy settings of the users accounts and some users who haven't logged in recently does not know that all their details are now can be access publicly.

I think Facebook people should be more careful about what they do in connection with privacy of Facebook users.

For More Details:-
CNN
Techcrunch

Free Online Photo Effects (www.photofunia.com)

PhotoFunia is an online photo editing tool that gives you a fun filled experience. You upload any photo and just wait to see the magic.

Now you don't have to be a expert in photo editing just use photofunia that let you add cool photo effects and create funny face photos.

So visit www.photofunia.com and use this free tool.
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.photofunia.com

Acrobat.com suite of free web applications from Adobe Systems...

Acrobat.com is a set of online services you can use to create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with others.

According to Acrobat.com you can do the following:

1) Store up to 5 GB of files in your online organizer, accessible from anywhere with a web browser.

2) Share large files with others, without sending the files by e-mail. You can limit access to just people you invite, or make your documents accessible to everyone by embedding a link on a web page or blog.

3) Convert five documents to PDF.

4) Create documents with Adobe® Buzzword®, an online word processor.

5) Hold web meetings with Adobe ConnectNow web conferencing software.


Users need to sign up for an account in order to use these free services. So visit Acrobat.com free services and experience the newest happenings in adobe world.
Enjoy...

Visit :- acrobat.com

Watch Full Movies Online For Free (www.watch-movies-links.net)

If you are movie lover www.watch-movies-links.net website will be surely going to be book marked in your web browser.

Being a movie-lover, I searched for a site where I can watch movies online for free i found some web site but some of those web sites only allowed to watch the film for about 45 minutes and tell you to buy their premium account. I came across this www.watch-movies-links.net web site and still i haven't faced any issues yet.

The best thing of this web site is that you can search a movies through their categorize and also we can choose which link we can use according to previous users rating.

So check this awesome website and enjoy your favorite movies.
I also should give you this advise, pause the movie first for 30 minutes before playing it so you would enjoy watching the movie without buffering.
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.watch-movies-links.net

New E-learning system in Sri Lanka (www.webceylon.com)

Today i got a email probably a spam email from a person call Chatura Perera about a web site call webceylon.com, because of my curiosity i checked the web site and found that it is a new E-learning system for Sri Lankan students.

Although this web site state that this is the Sri Lanka first video based Sinhala and English E-learning system, i do not agree with it because there are some web site such as kuppiya.com that have entered to the cyberspace before webceylon.com.

There are lot of improvement is needed to webceylon.com web site that is allowing people to go through download section without registering.Because normally people are reluctant to register because it is time consuming and do not wish to give away there details to unknown people.

At the moment this E-learning system only have few basic video tutorial probably because it's new to cyberspace.
It's grate to see that the videos can be streamed through this web site but it will be fabulous if there is a facility to download videos also.

So at the end i can only say that if you a person who are searching for video tutorials this is going to be good spot for you in the future.
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.webceylon.com

Sri Lankan Students Educational Network (studentlanka.com)

studentlanka.com is a good web site specially for every student in Sri Lanka from School children to university students.

This web site is similar to a blog where there are lot of information about O/L, A/L syllabuses and past papers and have given the facility to download these materials for free. Also this web site include tips & advises, scholarship information and lot of other stuffs that will be very useful for Sri Lankan students.

So if you are student in Sri Lanka studentlanka.com web site will be a very valuable resorce for you in the cyberspace.
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.studentlanka.com

Get Free Tutorials & Web Resources From tutorial9.net

"tutorial9.net" web site is a online tutorial resource which has lot of tutorials about graphics and other web stuffs.

This is a collection of teachers, experts, and caring folk from around the world, all gathered in one place to pass along their knowledge to absolutely anyone interested in learning.

This web site is absolutely free so if you want a tutorial about graphic software's such as photoshop or any tutorial regarding web development then tutorial9.net web site is the best place for you!
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.tutorial9.net

Fine Tune Your Blog and Make it Load Faster

If your blog loads very slow it will have bad impression of your blog and the blog readers will not wait till your blog they will go away after some other blog.

So it's your responsibility to make fine tune your blog so that it's loads the blog in a efficient way. To analyze which issues you have websiteoptimization.com have given free analysis. You need to enter your blog URL and this web site will freely analyze your blog and give immediately a summery report of your blog status.

So if you are blog owner websiteoptimization.com will be a very useful place for fine tune your blog.
Enjoy..

Visit :- www.websiteoptimization.com Free Blog Analyzer