Posted by samson on Jan 20, 2012 in
Computer World Ever since I started blogging again, I’ve chosen to blog most of the time on my iPodTouch instead of actually sitting in front of a computer. This makes my ability to blog much more flexible and allows me to blog literally anywhere and anytime.
The problem with blogging on the iPodTouch all the time is that the soft keyboard is relatively small, even when it is on landscape mode. So I started a quest to find a keyboard that I can use with the iPodTouch whenever I feel like.
The first one I am test driving right now is the old Apple designed iPad Dock. Apparently with iOS 5, even the iPodTouch can now connect to the list of iPad accessories. Allowing me to open my doors to a great selection of devices available, including bluetooth keyboards and the more traditional plug in keyboards.
This no longer in production iPad Dock keyboard have the look and feel of a typical Mac keyboard. With Command and Option buttons located in the exact same location as the modern Mac keyboards. Since I have been a Macbook owner for approximately three years now, adapting to this keyboard is literally a matter of nano-seconds.
The biggest difference between this keyboard and the Mac’s keyboard are the row of function keys at the top of the keyboard. The keys on the iPad Dock are specially printed for the iOS. With several buttons that only make sense to iOS devices.
The Home button, functions exactly like the device’s home button when the device is plugged in.
The Screen Lock button.
What is more interesting are the two buttons in the above picture. The one with the flower in it is for Picture Slide show, used to start a slideshow with all the pictures on your iOS device. The key next the flower button is the soft keyboard button. This button would toggle the soft keyboard on and off in any text entering mode. I find this ability extra useful when I want to use multiple languages. With English on the physical keyboard and the secondary language on the soft keyboard. It is ideal for me as I do not know how to input Chinese characters using a keyboard, but writing it out with my finger is a very good option and this have been supported natively since iPhoneOS 3.
The keyboard is actually pretty good and I’ve typed this entire article on it instead of using the soft keyboard.
However good it maybe, there are several obstacle in my path before I am willing to consider buying one of this. The most important one is the design of the dock. The iOS devices must be in a vertical position to use this device and not in Landscape mode. This actually limits the real estate available while using an external keyboard. A second one is the lack of audio volume control. There are buttons for the volume, but it only responds if there is nothing plugged into the line out of the dock. Considering that I want to listen to some music while I type, I must either get a pair of speakers or use the internal speakers of the iOS device. A third problem is the weight of keyboard itself, it is approximately three quarters the weight of my Macbook. Just Imagine carrying this weight around with the iPodTouch, I might as well carry my MacBook with me instead. A forth problem is that auto spell check is not functional once the iOS device is plugged into the physical keyboard, included in this list is the auto capitalization at the end of each sentence. With a few more flaws that do not trouble me much, I honestly understand why this dock is no longer in production. It is not a very good design, especially when it is something designed by Apple.
Tags: iPad, Mac keyboard, MacBook, soft keyboard
Posted by samson on Jan 12, 2012 in
Computer World Some time ago, I have put a team together to give the Keynote event utilizing the AdobeConnect system in the Regent Theatre a test run. The event is basically a broadcast of a live keynote presentation onto the internet via AdobeConnect and having live audience in the theatre at the same time. During the session, questions from the live audience and virtual audience will be ask and answer by the keynote speaker live. UOIT have never attempted something like this and we are all really excited.
The setup basically take full advantage of several systems available to the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Professional level video camcorders will act in place of the standard computer webcam and professional level audio equipment will feed the computer with audio signals. The keynote presenter will wear a wireless microphone enabling him or her to roam around the stage. A professional video camcorder will be focused on the presenter as he or she move and will feed a video switchboard which in turn feeds to the computer. The wireless microphone will also be linked into an audio switchboard, allowing the controller to duplicate the signal for the theatre’s speakers and AdobeConnect simultaneously. Since the event includes a question and answer section, live audiences have to queue up at a question booth where the dean of the faculty of education will be moderating. The dean’s primary role is to moderate the questions from the the online section of the event and ask the presenter these questions, his secondary objective is to ensure the audiences are able to speak into the audio equipment. As the dean or the audience ask their questions, the video and audio will be switch at the switchboards to broadcast their image and voice instead of the presenter, hence decreasing the demand of the screen real estate. The current plan is to have two separate feed for the projector within the Regent, the presenter’s computer and the AdobeConnect host. The presenter’s computer is basically the slide machine controlled by the presenter and the AdobeConnect machine is where I switch the slide mimicking the presenter’s.
Everything was fine and going well, I have contacted the audio specialist ahead of time and have altered the initial plan which involves two question booths instead of the single question booth according to his suggestions. I have also contacted the video specialist, who assured me that his cameras would work perfectly within a computer. He said he tried it before and it worked out extremely well!
When we got there and started the hook up of putting everything together, the audio portion worked perfectly. We tested it before hand and matched the audio standard jacks, basically audio performed as plan. Video on the other hand, gave four of my laptops a blue screen of death!
This RCA to USB device basically destroyed the entire test. The reason behind the RCA to USB device is that our professional level video cameras are still on the older 480i/p standard and our HD video camcorders do not support streaming easily.
Since AdobeConenct can only broadcast 640×480 video signal, I did not push for HD video signals. The USB device requires a device driver but the company that produced the device have stopped their production at the end of Windows Xp’s life. When the device driver was installed onto a Windows 7 machine, it immediately blue screened.
As of right now I am looking for either an updated version of a similar device or an analog to firewire converter, as I know firewire works perfectly well with AdobeConnect. Yet another lesson learn!
Tags: computer, professional level, Regent Theatre, University of Ontario institute of technology, video camcorder
Posted by samson on Jan 1, 2012 in
Computer World Happy new year! Wow 2012 is here! One of the first things that greeted me to the new year is finding out that my post from yesterday night failed to publish, yikes!
I have started blogging on a computer several years ago and as time changed, I have moved onto an iPod touch for daily blogging. Secretly considering the iPad too! The WordPress app for iOS is amazing. I can manage my blog almost anywhere. With it I can even start a new post, continue on a draft, edit a post or do other basic blog management directly without touching a computer! The only slight problem I found with the latest updates is that my posts keeps on failing when I attempt to publish or update them. Maybe I should have waited a bit before updating the WordPress engine to the latest and greatest version. None the less, I hope this will be another great year!
Happy new year to all!
Tags: computer, WordPress
Posted by samson on May 28, 2010 in
PulpCore Proper coding practises dictates that we classify our code according to the nature and function of the class, making it as descriptive as possible. However, using Pulpcore Module for Netbeans, we cannot do that.
By default, we are prompted for a new project name, which is used only as the directory name, while the rest of the generated files are simply copied over and dump into the directory. When starting a new Pulpcore full project, we will be presented with the following listing for files.
After you have converted the pulpcore libaries to the latest release, you are still stuck with a group of files that would compiled to display ‘Hello World’, with a program title called ‘Hello World’ and a class called ‘Hello World’!
My method of changing this with little to no headaches is using Netbean’s refractor.
The following window will then pop up, change the class name to whatever you want.
Remember to check ‘Apply Renmae on comments’ as that will make your JavaDoc making more sense should you refer to the class that you are changing name for.
Now, if you attempt a build, it will actually compile. However, if you launch it, the player will state that it can’t find the class ‘HelloWorld.jar’. So to fix that we have a few more steps to take.
Next, navigate to 
and change the two ‘HelloWorld’ to ‘MovingText’ or whatever you name your former ‘HelloWorld’ class.
Then, let’s navigate to 
and change all the ‘HelloWorld’ to ‘MovingText’ or whatever you name your former ‘HelloWorld’ class.
Lastly, navigate to your Netbean’s project folder and find a file called ‘build.properties’, open it notepad or other simple text editor. Replace all ‘HelloWorld’ with the new name of the class file.
Now, you can go back to NetBeans and have the system ‘Clean and build’ again. All files in the ‘build’ folder will now be regenerated and linked properly to launch ‘MovingText’ instead of ‘HelloWorld’
Tags: Apply Renmae, Hello World, pulpcore, Using Pulpcore
Posted by samson on May 27, 2010 in
PulpCore One of the major personal love for Java is its JavaDoc description, it is extremely handy when you are coding something and is on a quest for the proper method to resolve your problems, especially when you are not extremely familiar with the library that you are using. However, upto the latest post I wrote on Pulpcore, we are still getting a screen that looks like this when we attempt to read the documentations within Netbeans.
Annoying isn’t it? We know there’s JavaDoc with Pulpcore, in fact, we can easily access it online! Don’t believe me? Click here for the Pulpcore 0.11.5 JavaDoc API!
So, how do we go about doing this? According to the original authors of the NetBeans Module, you need to add some jar files and a brunch of doc files to get this up and running, I’ve found a more simple and reasonable approach.
Code Assist JavaDocs from what I recall back from Java 1.4 is actually source code related. If you have your source code there, the engine will first attempt to look for the method or variables and display the JavaDoc style comments you have included with that method or variable.
Luckily, Pulpcore is released with Source, we can easily take advantage of this.
- Navigate to your Pulpcore 0.11.5 folder and look for a zip file called ‘src.zip’ extract it to a sub folder called src.
- At this point, if your Pulpcore 0.11.5 files are in C:\pulp, then you should have a sub folder called C:\pulp\src\.
- Within C:\pulp\src, is a folder called src, and within this folder is a folder called pulpcore.
You should have a file structure like C:\pulp\src\src\pulpcore\, if you don’t just look for the plupcore folder, the name of the parent folder of pulpcore is the one that you need to remember. For my example, it is C:\pulp\src\src.
- Go back to Netbeans and navigate to the project properties.
- Navigate to Java source Classpath
- click on
- Type in C:\pulp\src\src and click on open.
- Click OK to save the Project Properties.
- Test the Code assistant again.
You are done 
Now, you are not only getting the live documentations from the Java code of Pulpcore 0.11.5, when you are running into problems during debugging, you can easily access the source code of the Pulpcore to find out whether you are using a method properly or not.
Tags: java, JavaDoc, JavaDoc description, JavaDoc style, Navigate, Netbeans, proper method, pulp, sub, zip