How can we adjust the size of Android Camera Preview on the Screen

In this Android Camera test example, we will see the full screen preview view on the screen.
However, we can not set arbitrary camera size we want. We can only select one of the sizes returned from getSupportedPreviewSizes call, like:

    mSupportedPreviewSizes = mCamera.getParameters().getSupportedPreviewSizes();

And later we set the Preview size with the call setPreviewSize() in the surfaceChanged method:
    parameters.setPreviewSize(mPreviewSize.width, mPreviewSize.height);

We can not set any other values. Otherwise the app will generate error.

Then, How can we adjust the size of Camera Preview on the Screen if we don't any of the Supported Preview Sizes?

Simple! Since we cannot change the input of the surface View, but we change the
surface View output. We can adjust  the size of the surface View to any value as we wish.


Reference:

josnidhin/Android-Camera-Example

Animation of Aerobic Exercise, Jump and Kick

This is an animation of Aerobic Exercise. The 3D model does the Jump and Kick exercise for both forward and backward direction. Not only the body, we also generate the movements of cloth and hair while jumping.

Animation of Aerobic Exercise-Jump and Kick

Jump and kick left leg forward.

Jump and kick right leg forward.

Jump and kick left leg backward.

 Jump and kick right leg backward.

Jump and left knee up.

 

Jump and right knee up. 

Convert Sales Opportunity to Quotation on your Sales system

After the meeting and calls with the potential customers, it will be the time to send the reference prices of products for their reference. We can convert sales opportunity to quotation on the OpenERP sales system.

From the Sales-Opportunities view screen, we can check which can be converted into the quotation stage and click it.

 Then we can see the detailed form view of the Opportunity.

 Click the Convert to Quotation button.

Click the Edit button to add some items into the quotation and then click Save to convert it into a formal Quotation.

Install CentOS Linux on Windows with VMware Player

It would be very helpful for a programmer to run different virtual machines on one desktop PC while we test our program.  Here we show the procedures of installing CentOS under the VMware Player.

Start the VMware Player.

 Click 'Create a New Virtual Machine','Next'

 

Select 'I'll install the operating System Later'

 

Select 'Linux', click 'Next'

Set Location if you want to change  the default setting. Click 'Next'

 

 

Click 'Next'

 

Click 'Finish'

 

 

Click 'Edit virtual machine settings'

 

Click 'OK'

 

Select 'CD/DVD'. Select 'Use ISO image file' if you are using an ISO centos file.

 

 

Click 'Play virtual machine'

 

Start installing CentOS6 as usual.

From Leads to Opportunities on the Sales Process

    A sales process includes the stages of Prospecting, Approaching, Presenting, Closing, Following up and Referral. The first sales stage is prospecting. Normally a company will attend trade shows,  conferences or seminars to meet the prospects. Sales people collect their name cards and come back to the office to analyze who will be the possible customers. How can we keep track of these leads and plan the future activities? The answer is the Sales system of the OpenERP.
   
    We can create a new lead by entering the Sales-Leads view and click the Create button. Then we input all information from the name cards of prospects.

Click Save button after we finish the task. We can see the new lead has been added into the Leads view.

After the internal analysis process, we will filter the leads and convert them into Opportunities by clicking the Convert to Opportunity button on the Leads view.

If we select the Sales-Opportunities from the left hand side menu, we can see the form of all opportunities.

 

It's also possible to show the opportunities distribution of different sales stages by clicking the Graph icon on the right hand side of the screen.

 

 

 If we select the KanBan view, we can move opportunities between stages by drag-n-drop.

 

W can also fold or unfold different stage columns, or increase a new sales stage column into the view.

Create a new company on the Sales system of the OpenERP(Odoo)

For the medium or small businesses, the business automation is quite a helpful tool to increase the productivity. With a limited budget, an open source software is quite suitable for concept building and feasibility study of an ERP system. Here we introduce an Odoo(formerly known as OpenERP) open source ERP system, A system with two million users currently.

Starting from the Sales system, the first thing we need to do is to create a company name. Select the Company-Company from the menu.

Click the Create button to create a new company. Input the company name.

Click the Save button. Then we've created a new company name.

Then we click the Your Company Logo and click the pen to update the company logo.

The present value of the future money calculator

The present value of a certain amount of the future money is how much money we need to invest today in order to get  return of that amount of money in the future. Normally the investment today will receive the investment return plus capital in the future. Therefore the present value of money is less than the amount of the future money if the interest rate is positive.

CubicPower provides a calculator to calculate the present value of the future money.

http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/php/Mobile/EN/PresentValueInterestFactorMobile.php

We only need to input the interest rate and the periods, then click the SEND button. The returned value is how much is the present value of one dollar in the future.

Practice the Vertical Addition from CubicPower online

The Vertical Addition is quite a basic skill of math. Once the a student has learned the meaning of the number and addition of two numbers, then it will be the time to practice the skill of the vertical addition. The CubicPower Vertical Addition online practice allows students to set the digits of number and correct the error on each digit.

Click the following link to start the practice on the CubicPower:
http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/php/Mobile/EN/VerticalAdditionMobileEN.php

Click the New button to get a new pair of numbers.

 

Select your answer of each digit column, then click the Check button.

 

You can correct your answer and then click the Check button again.

 

Or we can set the Digits to  two, then click the New button to get a pair of double digit numbers.

 Or three-digit numbers.

Too Many Startup Pitching Events

    Since last few years, we've seen so many startup conferences, competitions, pitching events,  government schemes, accelerators and incubators around us. Do they actually work?
Actually, same people attended most of these events. Investors got bored to listen to these similar pitches. And the founders spent so much of time and budget to prepare the presentation on the events. How many founders actually got a check from the investors on these events?
    The founders of the startup  companies should spend time on the business development process. Get in touch with potential customers and generate more revenue. Once you have an impressive growth in your business, investors will come to see you.


Reference:

Beware of Startup Prostitution — Life Tips

My Notes:

10 personal reasons why you should stop taking part in beauty parades and spend more time building your business:

- Too Many Startup Pitching Events

- Fundraising

- Startup Conferences 

- Women & Startups 

- Hiring 

- Mentor Backlash

- Product Market

 - Startup Training 

- Let’s Talk Money

- EXIT is a Dirty word. OR NOT.

 

 

 

 

 

Start building an IoT gateway HTTPS program on the Ubuntu Linux platform

Many ARM IoT platforms support Ubuntu Linux. Once we've selected an IoT gateway hardware board, we then can put this image into the board and start running Ubuntu. This Ubuntu on an IoT board actually is just like your desktop PC. It provides web browser, editors,.., and so on. Once we link the board into internet and enable the auto ethernet from the desktop, we can start our development of the https application program.

First, we should download an openssl example program:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-openssl.html

Then we can start the trial as follows:

-Edit sources.list file
$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Insert the following lines:

deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ trusty main universe restricted
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ trusty-security universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ trusty-updates universe

-Update apt-get

$ sudo apt-get update

-Install gcc and libxml2

$ sudo apt-get install gcc

$ sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev

-Compile program

$ gcc test.c -I/usr/include/libxml2 -lxml2 -o test

-Test program

$ ./test

-Install libssl,pkg-config

$ sudo apt-get install libssl

$ sudo apt-get install pkg-config

-Check libs needed by libssl

$ pkg-config --libs libssl
-lssl -lcrypto

•-Compile and link libs

$ gcc nossl.c -I/usr/include -lssl -lcrypto

The Key Components of a Perfect Pitch to Your Investors

    There is an article  "The 7 Key Components of a Perfect Elevator Pitch" posted by Noah Parsons at the bplans website. It mentions that there are seven key components that must be listed on our pitch to the investors. We'd better cover these seven topics on an A4 size paper as an abstract and present it to our target audiences within 60 seconds. 60 divided by 7, that's about eight seconds for each topic.  It means that one or two sentences for each topic.

    Most of the time we always started with what do we want to do, what our products/services are. But the first thing we should think about is: what is the problem we'd like to solve. If no problem can be solved by our products then there will be no feasible business to do.

    Once we have a problem to solve, then we can describe how do our products/services solve it. And to whom do we sell our products/services.

    Goals are clear now. We now need to find out who is standing between customers and us. They are the barriers of our business. We must identify them to differentiate ourselves and create a unique selling point.

   Finally, we should describe who are our team members, how much money we are going to spend and how long will we achieve our goals.



Reference:

http://articles.bplans.com/the-7-key-components-of-a-perfect-elevator-pitch/

My Notes:
-Problem
-Solution
-Target market
-Competition
-Team
-Financial summary
-Milestones

 

 

 

 

 

CubicPower New York Maze: a 3D street VR viewer

Let's try to click the CubicPower New York Maze Index-Aa as follows:

http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/BigData/NewYorkMaze/locations/Aa.htm

We can see lots of names with an Aa prefix and the street names  like:

New York Maze index-Aa

AA Bus-E Broadway New York

AA Ichiban Sushi-7th Ave New York

AA Ichiban-W 28th St New York

AA Nails Spa-Pine St New York

AA Stylist Barber Shop-34th Ave New York

AAA Ami Vegetarian-2nd Ave New York

AAA Architectural Hardware-W 46th St New York

Aaa Auto Body Shop-W 38th St New York

AAA Cleaners-Ave A New York

AAA Dental PC-W 48th St New York

Aaa Glass Plus-Avenue C New York

AAA Ichiban Sushi-Orchard St New York

AAA Laundry-2nd Ave New York

AAA Marrakech-E 7th Street New York

AAA Range INC-W-37th St New York

Aaa Super Nail Salon Incorporated-3rd Ave New York

AAA Towing Service-351st New York

AAA-Broadway New York

A AAA Alliance Moving Inc-St 102 Albemarle New York

A A A Apple Dell Gateway Repair & Data Recovery-W 71st Street New York

A A A Federal Home & Building Inspections-York

AABC Plumbing-East 112 St New York

Aabc Plumbing-W 35th St New York

AAC Realty Corporation-Flatbush Ave New York

 ......


Click any of them like AA Bus, then we can see a map at the top of the screen and a 3D WebGL VR scene of street beneath.

Click the 3D view,hold the left button and move the mouse forward. Actually you are moving the camera forward. Then try to move the camera backward. You will see a bigger view angle of the street.

 Or, you can also use the up, down ,left or right keys to move the camera around the street.
Finally, let's keep pressing the down key and see what's happening.

Future Value Interest Factor Of Annuity (FVIFA) Calculator

Future Value Interest Factor Of Annuity (FVIFA) Calculator is used to compute an annuity. An annuity is a series of equal payments at regular intervals.For example, if we pay one dollar at the start of  every 5 periods with an interest rate of 5% period, we can input these two numbers into the calculator and click Send button. Then we can get a returned number 5.525631. It means that  at the end of 5 periods, we will have 5.525631 dollars.

http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/php/Mobile/EN/FutureValueInterestFactorOfAnnuityMobile.php

CubicPower Future Value Interest Factor (FVIF) calculator

Future Value Interest Factor (FVIF) is used to compute the future value of money. We simply need to input the interest rate and period and click Send button. Then we can see a red number on the top of the screen. This FVIF number means that one dollar over that period of time will become how much in this interest rate.  If we want to calculate 10000 dollars will become how much, we simply multiply this FVIF number by 10000.

We can try it now from the CubicPower:

http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/php/Mobile/EN/FutureValueInterestFactorMobile.php

CubicPower online IRR (Internal Rate of Return) Calculator

 CubicPower online IRR (Internal Rate of Return) Calculator is a very useful tool for different applications. By inputting cash flows of many periods, the app will compute the equivalent return rate of the whole period of time.
The first application of IRR is for the project financial planning. To balance, whether the project is worth to invest,a good IRR number is very important.
The next application is for insurance. If we want to evaluate the interest rate of an insurance plan, we can input the money we pay and the money returned from the insurance company of all periods and the press execute to get an IRR number from the CubicPower online IRR Calculator.

http://www.cubicpower.idv.tw/php/Mobile/EN/InternalRateOfReturnMobileEN.php

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