My first Raspberry Pi project

I won a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B during the Singapore Microsoft Build 2015 at Sentosa Resort World.

Rather I was quite surprised by it because it was the last prize that was won by me. (How I wish I have won the Microsoft Band too so I can work on something!) I have actually planning to get either one soon maybe end of this year or next as I am thinking to work on some IoT project on home automation.

Anyway here's how it look like after unboxing it.

The size is about a little bigger than a credit card size

My initial project is to make a casing for it

Well it didn't quite make it because

• It was left in open air and there is no way for me to cover it up.
• The plugs didn't fit quite well as it was obstructed with the lego pieces from Mindstorm.
• It was quite flimsy and not easy to remove the pi.

I decided to scrap it and worked on using lego bricks instead and here is my result.

Start from the left : Usb cable as powered adapter, HDMI cable. RJ-45 cable and Bluetooth dongle to control my keyboard and mouse.

The interior how it looks like.

Installed Kodi aka xbmc for media box home entertainment. Able to stream internet TV without any lag in performance. Very satisfied how small this Raspberry Pi 2 can do with just a small piece of device that cost 49 SGD. You can get it from here to start your own project too!

Tweets on Mr Lee Kuan Yew before and after his passing.

I have created a project collecting information on social media about Founding Father of Singapore Mr Lee Kuan Yew to find out what are the people tweeting and also who are the people tweeting about it most.

You can use visualization here.

Unfortunately one of the Tableau component is not showing up and leaving a blank space on the right. I will update it when they get back to me. That space was for the information who is the person tweeting it and what he is currently tweeting. Scary huh?

Out of Memory Exception running Java in R

I encounter this problem when I tried to run a function that execute Java to export a dataset from R to xlsx. It seems like its not a good way to export large dataset using the library(xlsx) as it may eat up the java memory. So I do I resolve this?

I have tried running the following command to expand the heap size but it does not work. options(java.parameters = "-Xmx1000m")

The way I found is to use XLConnect library.

Instead of using write.xlsx(myDataset, file = "myfile.xlsx") from the xlsx library, I used library(XLConnect).

writeWorksheetToFile(myFile, data=mydataset, sheet="mySheet")

It has a function to clear the memory, xlcFreeMemory().

If all else fails, try writing to CSV format then convert into xlsx from Excel.

V Day... Vader Day

Vader promise not to use the force on Valentines Day. Instead, he chose another "force".

Java plugins not able to run on Chrome problem.

Recently Java has new update for their application and may need you to replace your old version of your Java. There are quite a number of users encountering an issue about chrome not able to run the plugins.

They tried various way from uninstall and install Java completely. The reason it does not work is not due to anything bug errors. It depends on your main system. If you have follow some of the tech news recently, chrome has updated their application to 64bit. Main reason why it is unable to install is simply the link java website provided by default only direct you to 32bit updates.

To ensure that you have the similar issue, check if you are running 64 bit chrome by following these steps.

1. Go to About page from the hamburger icon.

2. Check if you are running 64bit to resolve this problem.

3. Go to this http://java.com/en/download. Click download and you will have options to go for other downloads.

4. Download the 64bit, close the broswer and install it.

Voila! You can now run java plugins on chrome! Hope it helps you!

Galactic Empire Got Talent!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away... Darth Vader do spends alot of time holding concerts around the universe before attacking Corellian corvette Tantive IV...

Lego 300

THIS IS SPARTAaaaaaaaaa~~~~~~~~!

Coming Soon...

After being absent in lego photography for 3 years, I think its time I should revisit this hobby. :)

Beginner's Guide on using Angular.js

A very detail guide why you need to use angular when coding javascripts. Very powerful indeed.

A brilliant way to 'hibernate' your cat.

No worries, it has been published on papers that its safe to work on them.
http://vet.osu.edu/cvm/clipnosis-technique-can-calm-cats-vets-office-and-home