Archive for February, 2008

Java vs. Groovy vs. JRuby

I was doing some benchmark testing on my robotics programs for vision testing and I got some interesting results. For the most complicated program Java took 5312ms, Groovy took 5453ms, and JRuby took 5531ms. I was amazed at how close they were given that all the computer shootouts say that Groovy is slow and JRuby [...]

Goodbye Window XP – For Robots

For sometime I have used Windows XP for my robots, but now that I have been able to get text-to-speech and vision via webcam handled via Linux, I think my days of using Eclipse as an IDE and WindowsXP are coming to a close. Using WindowsXP has been fine for the most part, but the [...]

Finally, An Ubuntu Webcam

pre{border-left:2px solid #666666;background-color:#CCCCCC;} Once I got it working I was amazed at how easy it would have been if I had the proper instructions. Even the Ubuntu site does not work well for this but here are the steps I followed to get it working. Updated /etc/apt/sources.list with: deb http://blognux.free.fr/debian unstable main sudo apt-get update [...]

Getting URL Parameters in JavaScript & PHP

Being a web person I was so use to getting parameters from the URL in Java via the request.getParameter() method. I have found it really cool to use the same functionality in JavaScript and PHP. Here is a JavaScript function: function getParameter(name){ var out = “”; var href = window.location.href; if ( href.indexOf(“?”) > -1 [...]

I want my FIOS!!!

I just called Verizon and I really want my FIOS. This will allow me to get about 15+MB upload and download, but they said it was not available in Columbus, Ohio.

Web 3.0 – Where's the data?

I have been looking tonight about what people are saying about Web 3.0. I have found one common theme. Web 1.0 – Small number of content providers, large number of readers, data proprietary. Web 2.0 – Users provide content via social network, data proprietary, but available via API, syndication is apart of data delivery to [...]

Blogs that look alike.

Since I have started with Google Reader I have subscribed to a few blogs I notice the exact same content and pictures. For example: Engadget and Gizmodo pretty much target the same audience and eventually have exactly the same post. I am contemplating killing one of my feeds but I am not sure which one.

Dell D820 only supports 3326 MB of memory.

Contrary to the website and the claims when I purchased this laptop, it DOES NOT support 4 GB of memory. Apparently because they are using an old cheap chipset that only supports 3GB, they make this ridiculous claim that they need 500MB for PCI express, and 250MB for shared video. You can read more about [...]

Disgruntled Members of TechColumbus

I have had two people email me over the past few weeks because they Googled "TechColumbus Sucks" and my blog popped up as #1. Though I never really talked about how bad they sucked, I have mentioned their organization a few times. I actually met with one entrepreneur last night that confirmed my opinion that [...]

Viewing A Web Camera with Java

I used this to test Video For Windows and the Java Media Framework (JMF) for my robotics code. If you install the JMF this should work fine for displaying the image from your webcam. public class WebCamViewer extends SimpleSwing { private Timer timer = new Timer(); private GetFrame getFrame; private ImagePanel imagePanel; private int fps [...]