Encoding Webcam data in Java

Java is the blue eyed boy of modern society. From Open Source lovers to Oracle, they all love Java. So, apparently, something like capturing data from a webcam and creating a video out if it should be a walk in the walk in the park, right?


Well, in this case, the walk appears to be rather full of potholes! Not only that, the road seems to veer off and disappear at times.


You see, there are various multimedia frameworks available in Java that allow you to capture webcam, but all of them have a JNI interface. This is where things so ugly. On Linux, such specific bits of code rely on Video for Linux (v4l or v4l2) abstractions. On Windows, DirectShow is the way to go.

Genetic Algorithms

I have been busy for the past few months and it reflects on the time it took to bring out another post on my very beloved blog. Since getting admitted to post-graduate studies I have been fascinated by non-deterministic algorithms that are used to solve NP hard problems with reasonable accuracy. The branch of study I am referring to is known as "Soft-Computing".

There are various such algorithms that are based on the natural actions or inspired from nature. Some examples are Genetic Algorithms, Artificial Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, et cetera. What is so fascinating about this branch is that non-determinism and confusion are the concepts that determine the solution! When I say determine the solution I never mean to imply it finds out the exact solution always, it does not. These computations will find out the approximate results that are good enough for humans to understand and apply.

Let me try to elaborate each of these wonderful concepts to the best I can. In this part I shall be elaborating on Genetic algorithms.

Iterative Inorder Traversal of Binary Search Tree

A student from my undergrad college asked an innocent question to me on a facebook group to write an iterative implementation for In-Order Traversal of a Binary Search Tree. Of course I obliged and wrote up a code. However, I had never dug deeper into the properties of such traversals before and my observation was quite unexpected.

I was asked a question in the M.Tech. programme interview at NIT Durgapur about the significance of In-Order traversals of BSTs. I wasn't aware of any! So I gave a prompt reply, that it prints the elements in a sorted order. I was sure I was correct but the expression on their faces led me believing I was surely wrong! Oh well, I never did study theory before, so I guess my anguish was justified.

So, for my fellow junior, here's the code I promised:

Solving KDE Freeze

It was after a long time, I decided to install (and use) KDE4 on my desktop. I had always a notion that KDE4 was slow.. especially after trying the initial releases. I was a KDE3.5 person and loved it since Slackware had it. However after trying the latest version available on the Ubuntu (And Hence LinuxMint) repositories, I found my assumption to be pretty flawed!


I installed KDE4 and started it... After a while, the screen made no movements. It froze! Now I put on my debugging hat and started scouring forums for a solution. So here's what I had to do: