Tutorials

--D. Thiebaut 16:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

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This page contains various tutorials for getting things done with different software tools. Whenever I need to learn something, I teach myself how to use the new tool, but quickly forget it, unfortunately. From this experience I have learned that it requires less time for me to write a tutorial as I go along the first time, so that the second time I don't have to reinvent the wheel again. I try to make the tutorials informative and helpful so that others can benefit from them as well. Enjoy!

Hadoop/MapReduce Computation at Smith College

See the Hadoop/MapReduce Tutorials page for up-to-date information.

Tutorial	Comments
Tutorial #1	Running WordCount written in Java on the Smith College Hadoop/MapReduce Cluster
Tutorial #1.1	Creating timelines of the execution of tasks during the execution of a MapReduce program.
Tutorial #2	Running WordCount in Python on the Smith College Hadoop/MapReduce Cluster
Tutorial #2.1	Running a streaming Python MapReduce program on XML files
Tutorial #2.2	Running C++ programs under Hadoop Pipes
Tutorial #3	Running Hadoop jobs on Amazon AWS
Tutorial #3.1	Uploading text to S3 and running Amazon's WordCount Java program on our own data.
Tutorial #3.2	Uploading and Running our own streaming version of the WordCount program on AWS.
Tutorial #3.3	Computing the cost of maintaining a cluster of 6 MapReduce instances on Amazon's AWS
Tutorial #4	Start a server on Amazon's EC2 infrastructure
Tutorial 5: Setting up a Virtual Hadoop Cluster	This tutorial is a list of steps taken to create a working Hadoop Cluster. The system is setup on an Ubuntu desktop with an 8-core processor running Ubuntu. The virtual servers are setup using VirtualBox

MPI and C Programming

Tutorial	Comments
Combining MPI and MySQL with C	A tutorial showing how to run an MPI program written in C' that walks directories, grab image files, identify them with ImageMagick to get their width and height, and enters the information in a MySQL database.
Create an MPI Cluster on the Amazon Elastic Cloud (EC2)	This tutorial presents the series of steps necessary to setup a simple MPI cluster on Amazon EC2. This setup is used for the CSC352 seminar on Distributed and Parallel Computing taught at Smith College.

XGrid Programming at Smith College

These tutorials and examples are taken from the pages I maintain for the XGrid working group at Smith College. More information can be found in the Smith XGrid page.

Title	Environment/Language
Controlling the XGrid from the Command Line	Command Line
Running the Mandelbrot demo program	XCode
Tutorial Part 1: Monte Carlo	Python
Tutorial Part 2: Processing Wiki Pages	Python
Tutorial Part 3: Monte Carlo on the Science Center XGrid	Python
Introduction to the XGrid Part I: Generating histograms in parallel.	Perl
Introduction to the XGrid Part II : Creating a pipeline.	Perl
Running a C program: The N-Queens Problem on the XGrid	C
Running a Perl script on 10,000 files], Version 1	Perl
Running a Perl script on 10,000 files, Version 2: faster I/O	Perl
Running a Perl script on 10,000 files, Version 3: Batch Scheduling.	Perl
A pipeline in Perl: this version uses a graphical utility to create the batch file.	Perl
Generating Batch Files in Plist Format	PList Format
Counting the number of hosts in an XGrid	Python
Running Qt C++ Programs on the XGrid	Qt C++
Programming FAQ	XGrid

Geo-Mapping Data

Title	Description
Geo-Mapping Data with Google Charts	A very simple set of steps taken to convert a somewhat buggy CSV-formatted list of locations containing city and country names into an interactive Geographical Map showing the number of entries in the list corresponding to a given city.
Geo-Mapping Data with Tableau	Another simple set of steps needed to convert the same CSV-formatted lit of locations with city and country names into a Tableau map.

Processing and Eclipse

Title	Description
Kinect + Processing + Eclipse	A simple installation tutorial to get Eclipse all set up to run Shiffman's Kinect demo Daniel Shiffman's demos.
Skeleton Project in Processing and Simple Exercises	This tutorial assumes some basic Java programming skills. Start with the basic: create a new Processing project in Eclipse with simple animation.
Processing Tutorial: Creating a trail behind moving objects	A page presenting several options for creating a path behind animated objects.
Profiling a Processing Application with JVisualVM	This tutorial quickly introduces VisualVM (which is included in Sun's JDK) for profiling a Processing application running on Eclipse (or in its default IDE).

SQLite and Processing

Title	Description
Tutorial #1	A simple tutorial for accessing an SQLite database from Processing. This tutorial uses the Processing native IDE
Tutorial #2	This tutorial is similar in its goal to Tutorial #1, but it uses Eclipse as the IDE, requiring the setup of the SQLite libraries and class files in the Eclipse project.
Introduction to Processing	A quick introduction to the language Processing, with some references and links.

Formatting Papers with ShareLatex

Title	Description
Formatting research papers with ShareLatex	This is a short tutorial that will get you to create a skeleton Latex document formatted for the ACM publication standard
A Latex Skeleton for Technical Reports	This skeleton is simply the v2-acmsmall package stripped of most extraneous information. The full template can be found on the ACM Latex Styles page.

iBook Author Animations

Title	Description
A skeleton widget	This is not really a tutorial, but rather a minimal series of files one can start with to create a new widget by hand.
Creating a simple animation with Hype	A short tutorial illustrating how to create a 2-image animation with buttons allowing the user to go from one image to the other. .
Programming a Javascript Calculator Widget by Hand	This tutorial takes the excellent article for creating a javascript calculator by Simon Southwell and inserts it into the skeleton widget of this section.
Converting a GWT project into a Dashboard Widget	A quick and tiny tutorial illustrating how to take a Google WebKit (GWT) project and convert it into a Dashboard widget ready for export into an iBook.

Google's DSPL (DataSet Publishing Language)

Title	Description
DSPL: First Contact	A first look at DSPL with a simple example showing how to plot two columns of numbers as a function of time (years)

MatPlotLib for Python

Title	Description
MatPlotLib Tutorial #1	An introduction to the MatPlotLib Python library allowing you to generate MatLab-style graphs in Python.

Raspberry Pi

Title	Description
A simple Client-Server example on the Raspberry Pi	A simple client-server example illustrating how to control a simple data exchange between a laptop (a mac in this instance) and a Raspberry Pi.
Interrupt-Driven Event Counting	This example shows how to count events with a Raspberry Pi using user-level interrupts. The tutorial ends with suggestions to further increase the resolution and accuracy of this setup.
Raspberry Pi Communication with Processing	This example simply takes the client of the client-server tutorial of this section and replaces it with a client written in Processing 2, using communication over sockets.

Arduino

Title	Description
Introduction to the Arduino	An in-class introduction to the Arduino. Not useful if not accompanied by in-class presentation. Refer to the Arduino Web site if working on your own.
Arduino and XBee Communication	A quick presentation of communication between an Arduino sending characters of the alphabet via an XBee to another XBee connected to a Windows PC.

C++ with Qt 4

Title	Description
Tutorial #1	: Creating a simple application with VC++ 2003.
Tutorial #2	: Simple signal/slot experiment with VC++ 2003.
Tutorial #3	: Creating an application from the console (without IDE).
Tutorial #4	: Using a Python script to generate the project around a .ui file.
Tutorial #5	: Adding a debug window and facility to a form.
Tutorial #6	: The implementation of a memory module for a computer simulator.
Tutorial #7	: Using a QTableWidget to show data in a tabular form.
Tutorial #8	: A simple listView model/view example (taken from Qt's doc)
Tutorial #9	: A model/view implementation of a 2 dimensional array
Tutorial #10	: Launching a subprocess...

C++ with Qt4/Qt Creator

Title	Description
Hello World (Console Mode)	: Creating a simple console Qt4 application with Qt Creator.
Read MySql Table (Console Mode)	: Access a MySql database and read the contents of a table.

PyQt3

Title	Description
Tutorial #1	: Creating a simple form with PyQt.

PyQt4

• Tutorial #1: Creating a simple editor window in Qt 4.

PhPRunner MySql tutorials

• Tutorial #1: A quick intro to PhpRunner and MySql.
• Tutorial #2: Playing with SQL queries.

MySql tutorials

Tutorial	Comments
Tutorial #1 and exercises	Creating tables, generating SELECT queries.
Tutorial #2 and exercises	Update queries, and left join operations.
Combining MPI and MySQL with C	A tutorial showing how to run an MPI program written in C' that walks directories, grab image files, identify them with ImageMagick to get their width and height, and enters the information in a MySQL database.

BioInformatics Labs in Proce55ing

These labs were created as an introduction to Bioinformatics using the language Processing. Some of them are very short. Others require some amount of programming.

• Lab #0: Introduction to Proce55ing
• Lab #1: Retrieving DNA sequence from database
• Lab #2: Retrieving protein sequence from database
• Lab #3: Aligning sequences in Proce55ing
• Lab #4: Finding repeats in DNA sequences with Proce55ing
• Lab #5: Finding repeats in DNA sequences using a Web-server
• Lab #6: Playing with FoldIt!
• Lab #7: Sequence Logos with Proce55ing
• Lab #8: Sequence Logos on the Web
• Lab #9: Where/How do I get proteins?
• Lab #10: Finding the secondary structure of a protein

• Miscellaneous Links and Resources
  • E Coli sequence in FASTA format
  • A good tutorial ( pdf ) on Processing by Josh Nimoy, from NYU.

Assembly Crash Course

This is a one-evening crash-lab on assembly language. This is a good introduction to the 80X86-family assembly for students with no background in assembly, and taking a microprocessor-based course.

Creating Printed-Circuit Boards

Title	Description
Tutorial: Printed-Circuit Boards	With thanks to Paul Voss for his sharing his tools and secrets!

Xilinx ISE and The CoolRunner II CPLD

Title	Description
Lab #1: Schematics: Simple gates	A first lab/tutorial illustrating how to create a digital circuit from schematics and testing its behavior with the ISim simulator.
Lab #2: Verilog	Lab 2 in the series. The same 2-bit adder, but this time in Verilog.
Lab #3: Sequential Circuit Schematics	A 3-flip-flop sequential circuit activating two blinking lights and behavior simulator.
Lab #4: 4-Bit Adder in Verilog	Lab 4 in the series. We use two modules to build a 4-bit adder made of four full-adders.
Xilinx ISE 13.4 Installation Guide	Extensive installation guide for ISE 13.4 on Windows 7 PCs

Bash Scripts

Title	Description
Building a self-refreshing Kiosk on a Mac Powerbook	A Bash script that watches when a new movie has been updated on a server, and automatically downloads it and plays it in a continuous loop, in full-screen mode on a Mac Powerbook