Monthly Archives: January 2011

Tom.DeVito 1.25.2011

Visual Studio Issues:

  • Tried to compile RCS System and I keep getting:  ERROR spawning ‘RC.exe’
  • I thought this might have been because my libraries were in the wrong spot but then I noticed that I could not compile any C++ programs.
  • Forums say to reinstall VS 2008 or install vc++ components
  • If you have this problem and need to look up you VS key, this post will tell you where to find it:  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/529064/visual-studio-2008-product-key-in-registry
  • Download for VS 2008 pro kept stopping.  Going to try to download it at home.
  • Installed VS2010 because we had it.  Using it for now but I still want to get 2008 back on so I don’t have to worry about the projects being compatible.
  • ctrl+j forces the auto-complete to pop-up when programing in VC++

Learning 3d opengl:

  • While waiting for the terminal pads and other components to come, I have decided that it would be good to take another look at openGL so I can be more useful on the software side of the project.
  • Previously, I only used opengl to make a 2d sliding box with friction, for testing our first prototype.  This was very simple because the camera could be straight on and there was only one object to worry about moving.
  • Phil recommended that I make a planetary system with 3 planets, moons around the planets, and moons around the moon to practice the basics.
  • I am going to read through the openGL book tonight and start trying to make the system tomorrow.  If the pads arrive, I will start attaching them first so we can get the hand working.

Mike 1.25.2011

Working on a real report widget instead of hard-coding one over and over:

  • Pretty much stealing the design from Microsoft Word’s navigation layout.  Here’s what it looks like so far:
  • The widget takes in a hierarchical configuration object.  A node in hierarchy receives one of the rollupcontainers in the report and the navigation pane on the left is actually pointing directly at the configuration object.
  • Next I’m going to try adding in the ability to click items in the tree and have the report navigate to that spot
  • Then simple editing like removing / moving items around in the tree

Dong Shin 01.25.2011

  • PPM changes
    • fixed DateFields not working properly – null out when editing is done
      • default parseFunction fails on labelFunction – set parseFunction to null
    • Server filters out SELECT SQL statements – too many statements
    • working on Project and Budget selection for FinancialStatus

Phil 1.25.2010

8:00 – 5:00 VISIBILITY

  • Tentative meeting to discuss + data with Anne and Matt on Wednesday afternoon
  • Looks like I’m going to be taking classes at UMBC from 10:00 – 11:00 Wed/Fri. No one schedule meetings then until May 13 🙂
  • Working on automatic table creation. Instead of using the describeType xml directly, I now use it to create a smaller table that gets size information from the data in the object. Next is automating that process and inserting some data.
  • I really want to see how  data comes to a remote object, so I’m attempting to connect the debugger to my Tomcat instance.
    • Downloading the server adapters from the Eclipse  Web tools package. Actually, it looks like you have to download the whole WTP. I did not download the SDK version
    • Got Eclipse to control the server instance in the installed directory.
      • Create a new server in the Eclipse “Server” view
      • Right-click on the server and select “Open F3”. This brings up a configuration page.
      • Set the “Server Location” to “Use Tomcat Installation (takes control of Tomcat installation)
      • Tried just connecting to the remote object, but no joy. Next thing will be to try to create a dynamic web project in the normal Tomcat location where I can see the logs. Also, general behavior should be easier to tease out.

Christine 01.27.2011

  • Met with Phil to discuss what to work on next. Decided to take on the Ingest application. Over the next few days I will be checking out the project, reviewing it and writing up my plan of attack

Tom.DeVito 1.24.2011

Simulation Physics:

  • The Havok physics engine, commonly used in video games, is free for academic purposes.
  • Pretty sure we can use this but it might be overkill.
  • There is another popular one that is open source called bullet
  • Cannot find any inventory of what functions are in the libraries.  I don’t know if you can get impulse forces from this.

Integrated Circuits:

  • Reviewed the soldering techniques video from youtube.  The maker of the video has a website: http://store.curiousinventor.com/
  • Lots of good guides and projects there
  • Found a pcb board simulator with guides for how to use it on his site.
  • The AD5248 seem to be a good digital potentiometer.  It is 2-bit addressable, has 10k ohm resistance, 2 circuits per package,and 256 steps.

Phil 1.24.2010

8:00 – 5:00 VISIBILITY

  • Got a screenshot of the condition where PPM runs a dialog about saving financial data. I can’t tell what other windows are open, but from the position of the scroll bars, at least one is.
    • The dialog reads: “Data have been changed. Do you wish to save before close?”
    • According to Christie, the only way to get out of the screen is to answer “no”. Changes to the spreadsheet are not changed if she exits and reopens the spreadsheet.
  • Walked Christine through work options on Vis4. She’s going to work on making a new Ingest Manager front end that customers will have more success interacting with.
  • Got a good deal of work done on generic infoObject exchange.
    • Creating descriptive XML from actionscript objects that will be used on the java side to build tables
    • Working on reading and writing data to/from tables.
  • Ordered some FP parts for Tom
  • No ride today – *WAY* too cold.

Mike 1.24.2011

  • Updated report from Allan, looked through it and added a few things to the prototype report
  • Added in some navigation code to the report window so a button in the quad chart can open sections of the report.  (scrolling to a grandchild of a component is quite the pain)
  • Added collapseAll and expandAll to the report
  • Checked in the rest of the debug code to svn and added the RollUpContainer to FGMUtils

Dong Shin 01.24.2011

  • working at home
  • PPM Changes
    • setting up project_portfolio database for Financial Status Data
    • additional fields to Funding Requests
    • fixed data editing errors in CurrencyTextInput
    • send changed data back to FinancialStatusDataDataGrid from FinancialStatusDataFromWindow for update
  • need to look at why Financial Data Save Confirmation not working properly……

Thomas.DeVito 1.21.2011

MISC:

  • Spent most of the day switching and setting up the printer for people
  • I could not find the hp solution center software for windows 7.  This is needed to set a destination for easy scanning

KF:

  • Still looking for a good chip to control the gain on our amplifier chip
  • I2C needs to have a 1k resistor connecting each signal to 5v coming from the usb-i2c adapter.  This is called a pull-up resistor not sure why its needed.  Pull-up is when you connect something to the high side, pull down is when you connect something to the low-side or gnd.
  • So far I have found big chips with large resistances and tiny chip with good resistance range.  I am leaning towards a 14 pin tssop package which will need an adapter(tiny but at least proto advantage sells the adapters).  The optimal resistance of the i2c variable potentiometer is 5k ohm  which will be in series with another 5k ohm fixed resistor.  The reason 5k is the target rating is because the mechanical variable pot we have has a maximum for 1ok.  The max volume we want happens around 7680 which is approximately half of the maximum resistance of the variable pot in series with a 5k resistor.  Each step in a 7bit(128 step) 5k variable pot is each to about 40 ohm, which means we have roughly 36 steps of control over the volume range we want to use.  Most of the chips I am looking at have dual potentiometers which means we will only need 3 to control 5 fingers.
  • Tried putting a resistor between the + side of the amp output and the speaker to see if anything good would happen due to confusion of how one of the ICs worked.  Nope nothing good happened as expected so I must have been misreading tat ones documentation.

Phil 1.21.2011

7:30 – 3:30 VISIBILITY

  • Deployed Dong’s changes to PPM. All went well. I also ran TRUNCATE on the query_logs table and the size of the backup went from 78 megs to 4.5 megs. It was easily 90% SELECT statements. I asked Dong to only log DB access that affects the tables. That should keep things under control and make it more searchable.
  • Working on my Java db accessor classes. Decided that I’m going to work on building FLAILS to do this. it’s a good opportunity, and the other objects were just dissimilar to be annoying.
  • Took a detour into the javax xml parsing code and it still sucks. Dom4j has moved from dom4j.org to sourceforge. Had a bit of cognitive dissonance for a while at the website.
  • Added dom4j utilities from MavenAssist to JavaUtils, and found that we had commented out the part of MaveAssist that puts the deployment urls in the POM. That’s back in and we have a new Maven on the repo.
  • Created a SQL table from describeType xml!

Christine 1.20.2011

  • Read through Visibility 4 document. Need to talk with Phil on next steps.
  • Took a look at the assets directory issue (b/c it was driving me bonkers). I think it may have something to do with how Maven and Flex interpret their directory structure.

Christine 01.19.2011

  • Dong helped me fix MavenAssist problem (due to my blindness)
  • Could not reproduce Phil’s AirfileImageAppMaven error. Could be something specific to his machine. At least we know Maven and Flex can work together on Mac and Windows. Unresolved issue: Incorrect location of the assets directory. Maven places all files within Flex assets directory under target root directory. Need to look into why
  • Received Phil’s Visibility 4 Initial Plan document to read through

Mike 1.20.2011

  • More hard-coding of prototype quad charts and reports:
    • Made a real looking quad chart with images, html text and fake looking links
    • Filled in the report with better formatted text and some more tables
  • Sent a detailed email to Alan explaining how to upload files to the blog
  • Talked to Brian more about what a quad chart is and how it should work with the reports