UPDATE: This widget no longer works. Please consider the Commodities Widget instead. Apple Mac OS X (version 10.4 and above) has this neat feature called dashboard. It lets tiny programs, called widgets, run as an overlay to your screen when you press ‘F12’. There are widgets that show the current time in any timezone, hurricane… Continue reading »
What really happens when you hit the ‘Calculate fastest roundtrip’-button in OptiMap? The problem we attempt to solve is a classic and is called the ‘Travelling Salesman Problem’ or simply TSP. Before we dive into this intrigueing question, some definitions are useful. Each location will be referred to as a node, with location number denoted… Continue reading »
Imagine you are a salesperson and have to visit a number of customers. However, you want to spend as little time as possible driving. If you only have to visit two or three locations, it is usually easy to find the optimal route. You can use regular map services such as Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps or MapQuest to find the shortest path between two places. However, as the number of… Continue reading »