A few weeks ago I've tried setting up Wake-On-Lan on my Asus X99 based Windows 10 machine.  I tweaked the Wi-Fi driver, Windows and the BIOS but I just couldn't get it to work.  When I got my new Asus GR8 II with Ubuntu 17.10 installed I figured I give it a try. 

Fortunately, I found this great guide.  It made it look really easy.  It was.  It only took three commands!

$ iw phy0 wowlan show
WoWLAN is disabled.

$ sudo iw phy0 wowlan enable magic-packet disconnect
$ iw phy0 wowlan show
WoWLAN is enabled:
 * wake up on disconnect
 * wake up on magic packet

BTW, APM configuration was the default: ErP set to Enable(S5).

The solution is quite simple.  From your tensorflow environment, first install ipykernel. Then you register the kernel with the tensorflow environment.

$ source ~/tensorflow/bin/activate
$ pip install ipykernel
$ python -m ipykernel install --user --name=tensorflow

Finally, when you open your notebook you will have to change kernels from the default Python ones to the special tensorflow one.  

To be clear, I have Ubuntu 17.10.  I am installing OpenCV 3.4.0 and Python 3.6.3 which are the latest versions as of Feb 3, 2018.  The guide uses OpenCV 3.1 and Python 3.5.2 on Ubuntu 16.04.

Basically, I followed the guide exactly as written for Python 3 except for the following tweaks below.  I didn't bother with Python 2 configuration.

Step #1 modifications

I had issues installing libpng12-dev.  apt-get couldn't find the package so I had to update /etc/apt/sources.list as suggested here to include the following line:

deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu xenial main

However, you might be able to skip libpng12-dev altogether since installing libgtk-3-dev later on in the guide seems to uninstall libpng12-dev.

To get the headers and libraries for Python 3.6:

$ sudo apt-get install python3.6-dev

Finally, you need to install Qt 5.  In the past, I don't think we need to install this.  Maybe a recent dependency change?

$ sudo apt-get install qt5-default

Step #2 modifications

Instead of using wget to download OpenCV 3.1.0 I just downloaded the latest version 3.4.0 from the official GitHub repo https://github.com/opencv/opencv/archive/3.4.0.zip.

Likewise, I instead of using wget to pull opencv_contrib I pulled the latest from GitHub https://github.com/opencv/opencv_contrib.  On the web page, just click "Clone or download" on the top right to get the zip file: no need to use git.

Step #4 modifications

Since I installed a different version of OpenCV and related contributed code, my directory names are slightly different.  Also, I don't like building stuff in the root of my home directory. 

More importantly, my machine has TensorFlow with GPU support installed.  However, I couldn't get OpenCV to build properly with GPU support so I had to turn support off.  Notice the last part "WITH_CUDA=OFF". Also, we need to enable QT.

$ cd ~/Downloads/opencv-3.4.0/
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE \
    -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local \
    -D INSTALL_PYTHON_EXAMPLES=ON \
    -D INSTALL_C_EXAMPLES=OFF \
    -D OPENCV_EXTRA_MODULES_PATH=~/Downloads/opencv_contrib-3.4.0/modules \
    -D PYTHON_EXECUTABLE=~/.virtualenvs/cv/bin/python \
    -D BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON \
    -D WITH_QT=ON \
    -D WITH_CUDA=OFF  ..

Step #5 modifications

My OpenCV library binary came out with a different name and in a different directory than the ones in the guide which is expected. 

Here is where I found my build library.

$ ls -l /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/

To change the binding name:

$ cd /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/
$ sudo mv cv2.cpython-36m-x86_64-linux-gnu.so cv2.so

To symlink binding into virtualenv:

$ cd ~/.virtualenvs/cv/lib/python3.6/site-packages/
$ ln -s /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/cv2.so cv2.so

Step #6 changes

This is a screenshot of what Python 3.6.3 looks like with OpenCV 3.4.0 bindings.

I hope you find this micro-guide useful.

Just got this in my inbox today.  For all you die-hard Microsoft fan boys, Microsoft will be ending Skype service on Windows Phone 8 on July 1, 2017.  If you still own a phone with Windows Mobile may I suggest upgrading to an iPhone or Android?  Time to move on.  Seriously.

Yesterday, I attended the NYU's Future Labs AI Summit event.  Frankly, it wasn't what I expected.  Most of the "more technical" talks were very superficial on the state of the art: very little in depth details on any specific research.  The other talks were focused on the world of start ups focused on AI/Machine Learning based in NYC.  I think it was best suited for venture capitalists who wanted to take the afternoon off from work. 😉

The one slide I found interesting Yann LeCun's discussion on reinforcement learning used for Star Craft.  During his talk, he asserted the future of machine learning is in unsupervised learning. [Mic drop]

The Arduino Platform course was a little bit too generic as it mainly focused on Standard C.  The introduction to the Arduino coding environment and hardware was useful though. The big draw back is that there are no forums to post questions and get answers.  Most of the projects involved coding in C that could be done in any compiler. The final projected involved blinking the built in light on an Arduino board.  If you have some C experience and minimal to no Arduino experience, I give it 3 out of 5 thumbs up.

As I mentioned, the second course is the Interfacing course.  The final project involved adjusting the brightness of an LED using a potentiometer using the standard Arduino Servo library to adjust the LED itself.  This was pretty interesting project but technically it was kind of silly.  The PWM signals normally used to control a servo does not allow one to fully light or dim an LED.  Think Rube Goldberg.   

I just completed the Android App Components - Intents, Activities, and Broadcast Receivers MOOC taught by Vanderbilt University on Cousera.  Since I did pay $49 for the course, I'd like to share my thoughts.  

This is definitely a useful class.  I think if you plan to be an Android developer, its important to understand the intricacies of the architecture and structure of apps.  I was disappointed by the fact that there were no mandatory programming assignments.  Also, beyond the normal instructional videos, there were a lot of videos on code walk-throughs.  After a certain point my brain just shut down.

Will you learn how to program Android with this class alone? Absolutely not.  Will it explain how to app screens communicate with services and other screens? Yes.  Will you be able to implement real Android apps without other courses/education? No.

This class is part  of the Android App Development Specialization.  I think you need to take most of these classes before you can really start Android development.  Is this MOOC worth $49?  Yes, only if you plan to complete the whole specialization.

OBTW, I did find out that Udacity has an interesting single MOOC course on Android development. It would have probably made more sense to try that first before going down this more academic route.

Unless you've been living under a rock, Evernote is in a death spiral..  You don't need to be a VC to know that giving away free services competing directly with Microsoft's One Note  isn't such a great idea.

Today, I needed to pull some data off of one of my Evernote notes.  I know a few days ago, Evernote is forcing its free service users to a limit of only 2 clients.  Over the past several years, I must have installed Evernote client on 7 or more devices.  Today, I wasn't ready today to just pick two devices so I decided to log on to Evernote using my tablet's web browser.  Guess what?  Evernote is blocking web access!  They want everyone to use their mobile client on our mobile devices.  Without web access on your devices, you will be forced to upgrade to a paid plan if you own more than two devices. Their web error page even has a URL to the web app.  Fuck you Evernote.

I got this email this morning.  Seems LinkedIn got hacked again.  According to another site, the 117 million accounts were comprised.  Although Linked-In recommends changing passwords, I fail to see how changing our passwords would prevented 117 million counts from being stolen in the first place or stop any future hacks.  For any online presence, everyone should at least have a strong password that is unique for EVERY site.  Praying also might help.

I've been using a LG G4 Android phone for a months now.  One nice app they included  is the LG Bridge app.  On Windows, it allows you to backup and restore the data from your phone to your PC.  It also allowed you to backup your phone data to the LG cloud.  The main reason why I never used it is because I thought backups would probably take forever.  It already takes 10 of minutes to backup to the PC via a USB cable.  The other reason I didn't use the app is that I thought LG would eventually discontinue the service.  Its not like they are making money hand over fist like Apple.  Why would they give away free space?

In less than a year of owning the G4, I received this letter from LG.  As of Sept 1, 2016, LG plans to turn off cloud storage of backup data and delete all my data.  Not surprised.  They should have never even bothered offing this service anyway.  When will companies learn?

To generate a SHA256 checksum for a file, all you need to do is is use -hashfile give it the file name and then specify the hash scheme.  For example:  

d:\certutil -hashfile pycharm-community-2016.1.exe SHA256
SHA256 hashof file pycharm-community-2016.1.exe:
3c b3 39 66 02 aa 0c 57 06 48 9e af 16 6b 4f 52 be 78 5b d7 17 da d5 49 21 20 f3 e4 de 25 91 cb
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

Been cleaning up my hard drive and came across a strange problem.  No matter what I did, I could not delete some directories.  The "Item Not Found" box kept popping up.  I can rename the files but I couldn't delete it.  I tried chkdsk with many, many options many, many times but it couldn't find the problem.  The only thing that worked was a little tool called DelinvFile.  I don't know how it works, but it just works.  If your are stuck in a similar problem, try it out.

Building a "Drone" is fun and easy once you get the basics down. This is the first episode in a series with the goal to build a general purpose "learner" quadcopter in the FAA registration exempt 250 gram class.

Drone Building 101

If you own a Roku box and ever searched around for content, you've probably come across the Revision3 channel.  Other than the Ben Heck Show, I never watched any of the shows like Hak5 because of the super silly names or the boring "me too" tech reviews.  Recently, I rediscovered Hak5 on my podcast player and I couldn't be more wrong.

Many of the shows really contain nuggets of useful information on interesting topics like software defined radio and virtual machines servers.  Recently, they are doing a series of episodes on scratch building drones.  The first episode discuses the overall process while future episodes will focus in on specific components.  Enjoy!

I've need more storage for my computer.  Currently, I have two Seagate Barracuda 3TB drives in a software mirror configuration for  my vital "data."   I figured having a level of redundancy would buy me some time before needing backups.  Unfortunately, its been reported that Seagate Barracuda 3 TB drives have been failing like crazy.   Although I don't own the same exact model reported  but what happens if both my drives fail because of a systemic manufacturing flaw?  What to do?  Go to Micro Center!

I picked up a Toshiba X300 5TB drive for $139.99 which includes a $50 discount.  Amazing.  I don't think you can get a better deal than that at this moment.  I paid $103 for my 3 TB Seagate a little over a year ago.  

How well does the Toshiba drive perform compared to my Seagate Barracudas?  Pretty darn well.  In single queue and thread reads, the Toshiba does well.  On multiple queue and threads reads it does worst.  On all modes of writes, Toshiba is killing it.  Its 62% faster on single queue and thread 4K writes.  Toshiba is just killing it.  

How well does this Toshiba drive perform against my Intel 730 Series SSD drive.  Not well at all.  That's to be expected.  

I finally completed the MOOC from Columbia on Machine Learning for Data Science and Analytics and received my verified certificate.  I didn't mention this in my past post, but in the end I did decide to register for the verified course.  I was hoping it would improve.  As you can see, I think it was a total waste.  

This was by far THE worst and THE most expensive MOOC I've ever taken.  There was no math or any programming.  I did learn some information on interesting topics like genetics and depression etc but that's about it.  Nothing that was discussed about machine learning went beyond the superficial.  No a single formula on linear regression or logistic regression.  Not even a discussion on the differences between SVN or Neural Networks.  This was really a waste of my time.  I regret paying $99.   

Last week, I attended a local JavaScript Meetup group.  This was a hands on workshop where we built simple circuits with Ardruino powered by Node.js and the Johnny-Five library.  Using only several lines of code,  its quite easy to control LED lights, read button presses and drive servo motors.

If you are interested in building your own system, you can follow the presentation here.  Now, if we could actually build robots that could battle each other.

Robot Sumo, as it is 'played' in Japan is truly a robot version of real sumo with all the action, excitement, and drama. For the latest robot news, information, reviews, hacks, photos, and videos with special on-site coverage direct from Japan, see Robots Dreams at http://www.robots-dreams.com.

If you ever played any of the X-Men versus Street Fighter series of arcade games with Infinite Combos, you know how it feels to be an Android user on T-Mobile.  You just get constantly beat up.

For the past several months, I've been using my glorious LG G4 without problem.  Then a few weeks ago, T-Mobile decided to OTA push Android Marshmallow.  During the update process my phone stopped working.  I tried rebooting it and it kept on crashing.  I tried wiping the system but it would either crash again immediately or go into restore mode and require my Google account authorization to unlock the phone and then crash.  No matter what I did it just kept crashing.  I tried pulling the battery out and reinserting it and then rebooting the phone for several days hoping it would actually startup again.  No dice.

Eventually, I called T-Mobile tech support for a replacement phone and they said they would ship me a replacement phone for $20 and that it would take 5 to 7 business days.  I waited for 8 business days and the phone didn't arrive.  I called up T-Mobile support and found out that tech support person never submitted the order for a new phone.  They did document in their system that the phone needed to be replaced.  After 5 days my new finally phone arrived.

All said and done, I had to wait 3 weeks to get my replacement phone.  To make matters work, due to all the skinning of the OS by LG I can't visually see the difference between Lollipop and Marshmallow.  I found out that the list of new features are pretty much meaningless to me.  I don't use Google Voice nor do I care about 200 new emojis or new wall paper themes.  Thanks for nothing Google and T-Mobile.

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]]>smart phoneCode MonkeyThu, 03 Mar 2016 18:00:00 +0000http://rndness.com/blog/2016/3/1/stop-annoying-ios-updates-now56a24e8ddf40f37f5ea3df81:56a24ebf0ab377b2678e2581:56d61f0b859fd0c74befb6f7

If you own an iPhone or iPad, you've definitely seen the above image before.  Probably a few times everyday.  No matter how many times you click "Later" it just doesn't seem to leave you alone.

In order to stop this message and to prevent future messages from appearing, you need to first delete the update and then disable automatic download.  The truth is, if you see this message on your device, the iOS update has been already downloaded. Your device is just pestering you for permission to apply the update.

To regain your sanity:

• Delete iOS update.  Go to Settings, General, Storage & iCloud Usage, and then Manage Storage.  Now scroll down and find the iOS update in question, tap it  and then select "Delete App."

• Disable automatic OS updates.  Go to Settings, iTunes & App Stores and deselect Updates.

It dawned on my that if you load images into Google Docs it will automatically OCR the file for you.  I also have 10 year old Xerox scanner with some old software called PaperPort that handles scanning, OCR and document management.  I'd figure that modern Google cloud software would be way better than desktop software.  I was really wrong.

I took some photographs of pages that contained BASIC code in my book with iPhone 4.   Its not a great image but a company such as Google that can build self-driving cars should be able to adjust images automatically, right?

On my desktop computer, I uploaded the images to Google Drive.  Then for each file, I imported them into Google Docs.  The import process automatically creates a new Google Doc with both the original image and the OCR'd text.  For a comparison, I used my ancient Windows XP-era PaperPort to OCR my images.  Here is the output for each side-by-side.

Its absolutely mind blowing how poorly Google Docs OCR performed. Its really, really bad: I  see bits of Chinese characters and the formatting is all over the place.  The output is completely unusable.  On the other hand, the PaperPort OCR output was quite good.  The main issues were the insertion of spaces that didn't exist and confusing the letter O with the number 0. 

Frankly, the Google translation is so bad  I might have as well as dropped my book onto my keyboard and use whatever it typed as the code translation.  Unacceptable Google.

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