Running Android Studio on Windows 7/8 (JAVA_HOME issue)

A lot of people have experienced bugs with running Android Studio on Windows 7/8 and have no idea why the program "simply doesn't run", now that it was announced in Google I/O. A lot of people are experiencing this issue because they have not set their JAVA_HOME variable, or don't have the JDK, so this covers both of those issues.

Go here to install Android Studio.

After installation, it just seems like nothing happens, and if you are an astute observer, you might see two command prompts open in the task manager that just seem to hang.

These are the steps you should follow:

1. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Java\
2. See if there is a folder called jdk../ (the two dots stand for whatever version you are running, etc)
3. If there is not, you need to install the JDK before running Android Studio, from here.
4. NOTE: If you are running 64 bit, and you have the 32 bit JDK, you may run into trouble, just install the latest 64 bit JDK version if you do not have it.
5. Now, you need to set your JAVA_HOME path, which will allow Android Studio to run, and not mysteriously open and close without you seeing any of its beauty.
6. Right click your Computer icon, and click Properties.
7. Windows 8 Users: Then click Advanced System settings to your left.
8. Now, go to the advanced tab, click Environment variables, under system variables, click New, and add a JAVA_HOME variable, it should look like this (relative to your jdk version, if its the latest it should be identical).

Once you have completed this, you should be good to go. Launch Android Studio and bathe in its glory.

Props to all the work Google is releasing, I feel like a child in a playground that goes on forever.

Cheers.

Daniel.

Where to next?

Hello everyone :),

The past month has been interesting. I'd best equate to saying that I burnt out. I started getting headaches and it seemed like it was at random times, but the doctor mostly pointed it to stress. So I took a well deserved break, and enjoyed playing some games for the very purpose of relaxing. I can say it was definitely for the best, and that now I can be back in good shape. I definitely need to work out more activities that are for fun, since for a second, I had lost the joy of working for fun. If this ever happens to you, just ask yourself that one question, Is work still as fun as when you started?, and then you'll know.

I'm a very reserved person when it comes to work, so it tends to be the case that I don't share the things I do with others, and I keep that with me. I have always felt that the opinion of others (and I am to blame in this sense too) is often discouraging, and rarely ever excites you more about your idea. If you have an idea, chase it on your own. Run and do it, and once you've done it, then share it with others. There's no way you're going to be able to explain the idea that's in your head to others in a brief 2 minute speech, because once you do, all they will do is say "that's already been done, that sounds boring, that's dumb, that's impossible.", so there really is no point in my opinion. I am to blame for this too and although I try to be better when someone shares an idea with me, its as if we're wired to look for the flaws and question their thought process. I generally try to be better at this in terms of politely pointing some out or trying to be encouraging about it, but we all make mistakes and sometimes forget. But its not just on the end of other people, but on my end. I have to get better at listening to what people say and taking it with a grain of salt but reasonably, that's a little more difficult. A general piece of advice for sharing your ideas, if you'd like to, I recommend getting a blog! It seems when I share my ideas here I don't get that much backlash because people aren't obligated to respond (in a real conversation it just gets awkward if someone hears what you say and doesn't say anything back haha :P ).

So, i'd also like to announce that I have accepted Georgia Tech's offer to return to its Computer Science PhD program in the Fall of 2013. I am incredibly proud of this stepping stone in my life, and will truly put all of my effort into making this program the proudest moment of my life thus far.

That stated, I wanted to point out the few things that I will be doing in my future:

• Updating my personal website. Adding an admin page (w/ Django) so that I can add new projects, and categorize them by completed, in progress, or long term project.
• Generate a list of all the projects I have accomplished (include my Machine Learning projects).
• Glass Project (keeping this one a surprise for later).
• SimpleCV + Raspberry Pi may come in handy here.
• Media Project (a frontend for displaying all the media that you have stored locally, including movies, tv shows, and it'd be amazing to have audio too). (Long term project).
• Emory Kinect Project (Active)

Cheers,

Daniel.

SimpleCV and Raspberry PI

I woke up this morning to watching this video, and I was quite intrigued to try a simple computer vision library with the Raspberry PI, so I'd like to check this out.

Here's the video!

I'm very intrigued at the simplicity of it, i'll report back when I have the time with some results I hope! Let me know if you have any ideas for this!

Cheers,
Daniel.

Mounting two drives into one virtual directory (Ubuntu)

Here's a quick tutorial on how to mount two hard drives onto one virtual directory and (intelligently) manage the files inside of it. I am not 100% sure how it deals with exact replicas but from what I have tested I do believe it just picks the first one it finds and if there's a second one it gets ignored.

Step 1: sudo apt-get install mhddfs.
Step 2: Mount your drives to two directories, (For example, media/drive1 and media/drive2).
Step 3: sudo mhddfs /media/drive1,/media/drive2 /directory/to/mount/to -o allow_other

Cheers,

Daniel.

Kinect and the Raspberry Pi

My newest project will be to connect the Kinect to a Raspberry Pi and get it to work. There are some obstacles / limitations but today will be my first day playing with the Raspberry Pi which I ordered quite a few weeks ago, which is why I am so excited to finally put it together.

Some of the links I have looked at are:

1. Seems to have gotten tilt to work in a very straight forward manner.
2. Installing OpenCV with Raspberry Pi (Interesting...)

Hopefully these will get me to be more familiar with it, i'll report back later (possibly with a video!)

Daniel.

Kinect - Collaboration with Emory

Recently I have started a project in collaboration with Emory University, in order to use the Kinect to record data from patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in an effort to potentially predict Alzheimer's Disease (AD), due to the fact that there are measures of gait that could indicate potential initial stages of AD. Don't quote me on any of this as I am not thoroughly well-versed on the subject in medicine, but here is a decent paper from the University of Missouri that combines the use of the Kinect with these gait parameters.

That summarized explains my video which shows a quick initial demo of the application I worked on for putting two Kinects together to capture a patient walking.

Enjoy, and sorry I haven't posted as much recently, I've taken a break but I am now coming back :),
Daniel.

Back in town, more research!

Hi everyone,

For the first two weeks I have been preparing a relatively long blog post to get back into the research mode, I haven't finished it though since I am stuck solving the main problem. Nonetheless, I think it shouldn't be too far away from being solved so I'm excited.

The problem I am tackling is implementing the Eulerian Video Magnification paper.

I hope to be done by the end of this week perhaps for labor day. I moved myself back to my apartment and installed some huge cheap whiteboards I got my hands on at Home Depot.

Lastly, I will be working with the Makey Makey and the Raspberry Pi this Fall, so stay tuned for some fun projects!

More research to come,
Daniel.