Nope, not an ounce of coding.
I needed a break.
I was feeling burnt out.
Not even a ride on my motorbike because of bad guts.
And I’m not even thinking about coding tonight before I go bed because this chilled out weekend seems to have done some good for me.
Another week done and a few wins at work. I’ve been writing code to display graphics for statistical data. ie. Sales targets and stuff. Most of the awkward stuff was having to accommodate for different resolutions, portrait and landscape modes and also having to calculate the font metrics. All done though although I do need to make a few adjustments to get the advanced settings to work properly.
My personal project has gone on hold until this weekend (tomorrow), because two hours on an evening is not enough time to get stuck in to it. I need thinking time more than I need coding time. And then I need debugging time.
I have noticed though over this past year, I can write a shed load of code, a good few hundred to over a thousand lines of code, before I can finally test it out and it works. Well, saying it works, it’s easier to fix the bugs when it finally comes to testing.
This weekend I want to test communication over the internet using a crypto secure pseudo random number generator, or CSPRNG. Basically the client and server socket connections will be able to communicate without the transmitted data being viewed by any outsiders. The technique is quite simple, it’s the implementation of it and how it is handled that needs to be secured. Other systems use private keys, hashes, passwords, etc. A long list of security protocols. I kind of like the two stage authentication. Because this will be running through four pieces of software, I’ve devised a two way security system. Only access is allowed from the outside from my PC (if that is my work station) or my phone. And then, if this takes off, text message stage too. It boils down to a ‘real’ MAC address and the ‘fake’ MAC address. TCP communications can hopefully solve this by authenticating a number of things.
Anyway… I’m tired. Beers are knocking me out, and as usual, not my brain cell. So good night…
PS. Any up-scaling in the future I’ve made a few mental notes.
Yep, a day of blitzing code.
There’s a total of four pieces of software I’m writing for this project. The server. The media manager. The device manager. And the device player. All four of them are now well on the way to being tested out soon enough.
So far the server works flawlessly with the media manager which can run on any OS, ie Linux, Windows or Mac.
The player is for embedded Linux only and also has some in built security layers.
The device manager runs on Android which makes it so much easier when setting up the devices.
The next step is to get the device player software to handle communication with the server and retrieve its playlist and it’s all ready for the big demo.
Once the demo setup has been produced I can move on to adding all the security layers in which will include encrypted communications over the internet.
I’ve got the mother-in-law down for a few days so programming after work is out because I can’t ‘zone’ with all the conversations going on.
This hasn’t stopped me from working with Blender to increase my skills with it though.
I can now easily import 3D models and animate them. Slamming text and jiggling them around is very easy too. All in all, another good demonstration video produced in a little over an hour. Fast moving 3D animated text and models with a video textured background. I’ve impressed myself this time. No stopping me now.
The server software and the Android app development will continue within the next two days when I can ‘zone’ again. There’s not much left to do on the media management software. Then there’s the device management through an android app. I’m also looking into SSL and other cryptography methods for secure communication all round.
As well as the programming blitz I had over this weekend to get my server up and running which still has a bit of work left to do, I’ve also done a few bits with Blender.
In blender, I am still having an issue with the sun light shadow not being consistent. This ended up with me asking some of my contacts on social media about it.
One suggestion worked which was using an orthographic camera instead of the perspective. It was short lived though as all my animations would end up being flat.
In the same response, the friend also suggested angling the camera and using a bevelled edge on the text. Now this technique did work much better but the sun light is still causing the lighting shadow problem.
Now what I’ve done is to angle the camera and set the sun light up at the angle that works best for now. The text creation in blender get extruded and a light bevel which gives the rendered image an almost decent look to it. It will work for most things, so that will have to do for the time being. I may dig further into blender.stackexchange to see if there are any solutions to this, and if not then I will ask a question.
For text produced using GIMP, I’ve also figured out how to cast shadows through the transparency of the image. This will come in handy for a lot of things.
When using the animations, i.e. moving objects around the scene, the default movement settings for most things were fine. But I wanted to ‘slam’ text on the screen. The default settings would slow down, or ‘ease in’ the movement. Without even googling it, I figured out how to change the ‘ease in’ and ‘ease out’ settings. I can now ‘slam’ objects onto the screen. A simple, but effective effect.
I’m glad to announce that my media server manager is very almost completed. The files upload to their respective categories and the Java application handles the media library perfectly.
It took a bit of learning Swing in Java but that wasn’t hard at all.
There’s a couple of things to do in the media manager before it is completed. Remove media and categories from the server. And add descriptions to the media files. And that’s it.
The next step is the Android application to manage devices so that I can set them up on the go without the need to get back to my PC.
Unknown devices (those that are ready to be set up) will be stored in the root directory of the media server. The Android application will then assign it a category and a playlist.
All looking good now.
(I’m having a bit of difficulty with WordPress Code Snippets so I’ve been unable to add any snippets recently)
I’ve an old Dell Precision 4500, i7 @ 2Ghz with an nVidia Quadro 1800M. I got it cheap off eBay and upgraded it. RAM went from 4Gb to 8Gb, replaced the 320Gb HD with a 960Gb SSD and added a 1Tb HD in the place of the DVD drive. I use it for 95% of home use now.
Oh, and I added USB 3.0 to one of the PCI slots.
The eSata port has come in extremely handy on many occasions too. I don’t know what it would be like having to swap drives in the laptop all the time whilst I was upgrading other laptops.
Simply put, it is fast…
Tonight I tested myself against the clock with creating a demonstration video in Blender. In the background my laptop was moving a load of files from the SSD to the 1Tb HD. I wanted to get everything done within an hour. No programming tonight.
First 5 minutes was thinking of an idea, then it took about 10 minutes to collect artwork together and create the project folder with the assets.
The demonstration, with a video texture, lighting and shadow, was all done within an hour. I was happy tonight.
The test of my laptop didn’t end there.
I decided to create a new project with another demonstration idea, while Blender was rendering the project as a video file. *big grin* nothing slowed down even though the CPU was being obliterated.
Yup, I like this laptop.
Running Linux and Windows 10, but all my work gets done in Linux.
After work today I was zapped, but I got the file structure tested and confirmed on the server side for the initial testing. Everything is using Linux so it is easy to set up the testing grounds. I’m trying to make the device installation as quick as possible with minimal fussing about.
Oh and I also fixed a bug with the ‘~’ (home) location in java. Using ‘user.home’ gives me the home directory (actually on Windows too I found out but not tested, no need).
Eventually all of this will be in C++ so I’m 0% stressing at the moment. The servers will need to be C++ because of the JVM overhead.
I also fixed my PC in Linux which was not connecting to many websites. I had set up the fixed IP for testing without setting the routers gateway correctly. Chrome seems to mask this by loading up some websites but the rest it couldn’t find. The fix was done by assigning the fixed IP on the routers side. Eventually a VPS will cause me a few headaches.
I think tomorrow I will get back down to using Blender because that is the main source for this project. Royalty free 3D models/animations I want to test out.
For my own website I do not need SEO. Those who view it have come through searches or from my own online profiles. There’s absolutely no need for me to up views on my pages because I class this as a personal blog/diary and therefor I’m not wanting to advertise myself to the world or other outlets. Simple really.
My other website is for that and I’ve already got it covered.
Now back to some coding.
I’ve been doing odds and sods today.
To do:
That’s the plan for the next couple of weeks. Just so long as I get some free time I can move along quite quickly with this with the exception of the bully testing and updating.
Right now, things are looking almost bullet proof. Fingers crossed.
EDIT:
I forgot to add the VPS (Virtual Private Server)