team: PySoy

Now that SoC mid-term has arrived, here's bit of update about what I have done till now. The wiimote xinput driver IR update is almost done. Though just like it can said about any piece of software, it's never fully complete. 

@setlocal enableextensions
@cd /d "%~dp0"

The dependencies can be on .exe or .msi extensions. Each one should be treated differently. Dependencies with .exe extensions are called directly, while the ones with .msi extensions are called using msiexec command. There's a wizard for each dependency. The user should just accept any license agreements that might occur and choose the default options.

Then, it's necessary to change the environment variable Path to include Python and Gstreamer. To do that, I used a VBScript that appends Python and Gstreamer locations to Path. There are some dependencies (feedparser, pygtk and yapsi) downloaded via easy_install.

Gstreamer uses the bindings for Python 2.6 by default. The next step is to put the correct files on the correct folders so Gstreamer can use Python 2.7. The script moves Python 2.7 bindings to Gstreamer's main folder (the one that we set in the environment variables before, remember?) and copies Gstreamer's site-packages folder to Python's site-packages folder.

The final step is, of course, install Freeseer itself. I hosted Freeseer installer here, because I was facing authentication problems while trying to wget it from GitHub's page.

Finally, we can run freeseer:

python C:\Python27\Scripts\freeseer-record

I have been trying to use the ir pointer as a mouse for quite a while now. The major problems I faced was that it was really shaky. So, I looked up the net and turns out most mice send only the difference of position to the driver. And maybe there's a freeze time to not receive input. I also came across this nice post on mouse drivers: bit.ly/M2rVXy. Seems I have found some stuff to add to the driver. I need to start storing some state into the driver to keep track of a little history of the mouse pointer.
Also, I have planned a simple game where random cubes appear on the screen and you're supposed to shoot them down using a mouse or ir pointer.

After having made cursor move using the ir pointer last week, I am trying to add the ability to click on items like you would with a mouse. Also, I tried creating a new pointer for the wiimote. You can do that using the xinput program. However, for me xinput --create-master lead sometimes to a complete loss of control and to a lot of crashes the other times. I haven't really been able to move that second cursor using the ir input yet. I plan to complete the driver this week leaving aside the second cursor problem. From next week onwards, I'll start working on the input module of libsoy and think of ways to integrate this driver with it.

In other news, I completed udacity's cs212 final exam. The finals had six questions, all involving varied areas of program design including a question to simulate the parking lot puzzle of rearranging cars and a probabilistic puzzle on darts. The parking lot puzzle gave the most pain but like all others it fell.

Ok. Long time no post. Accepted. So, here's what's up recently... I have taken up another SoC with PySoy. Considering a lot of stuff from last year wasn't finished, this was an obvious choice. I have started writing a wiimote xinput driver taking help from david herrmann's current driver that provides key-mappings. I am trying to add IR cam support. And for that I had to build a homebrew wii sensor bar and I came up with this. Good enough until it gets the job done. Couldn't find battery holders around so had to use the arduino for power. Yeah, you can see the IR light in the picture. So far, I have been studying documentations on the internet, reading sample xinput drivers, and looking up the API of the kernel driver. I'll start some coding today.

Apart from that, I received my Diablo III preorder two days back. \m/ Have been levelling up since two days. Also, My GRE is on 24th July, so have been pumping up my vocabulary recently.

In another news, My ISP MTS has been a lot of pain in the past two days. If this continues on I plan to switch to Tata photon. Have been getting speeds <22KBps. Really sad :(

Also, something about online courses. I had planned to do finish off three udacity and two coursera courses these holidays. But the workload seems overwhelming and I have rounded down to completing the courses Machine Learning (coursera) and Design of Computer Programs (udacity). Both courses are really awesome. Design of Computer Programs is being taught by Peter Norvig and it teaches advanced python and software design. Machine Learning is an area I have always wanted to learn about and the course is giving me what I wanted. I may do an MS in this area soon. (One year to go)

A note about competitive programming. I have been trying hard to get good at code-jamming for two years. I believe I have become better but I am no competition against most good jammers. So, recently I bought this book http://bit.ly/Jv6q4d and it seems to be a really great book for people like me who have no people around to tutor them. This book contains pointers to >500 problems from UVa along with hints and all very well categorized. I have tried lots of other books and I thought cormen and my DSA class would help me get better. Yes they have but they haven't made me competitive. This book targets today's codejams and contains topics that are common in the current scenario. Another good point about the book is that UVa has a special section that contains all the questions from this book arranged categorically. However, I missed topics like Grundy games on whom I have seen a lot of questions these days. Anyways I plan to finish off atleast 100-150 questions from important topics from the book this summer.