New Project!

I've been working on a new project recently. The general plan is to create an Android App that will collect data based off a healthcare questionnaire. A short survey, using a number rating system for answers, will pop up at specified time intervals and ask the user to complete it. The data will be stored for various purposes. I'll try to integrate a graph that shows the different levels over the different time intervals.

The inspiration comes from recent visits to the doctor's office and realizing that I'm very unprepared for many of the questions the doctor asks. Details are hard to remember, but they can be helpful for a diagnosis. The goal is only to create something that could help provide a little more information on your next doctor visit if there's a recurring problem that you're watching. I tried to keep a journal/diary, but that proved to be too much to keep up with everyday. Some questionnaires only ask a few questions (under ten) and ask you to give a rating on a numerical scale (ie, 1 to 5).

I worked on an Android App for my class project. While it was relatively easy to create a working app, it seems that there's a lot of potential to create something really great with a little training. So I've found an online class on Udacity, "Developing Android Apps." The class goes over the basics of app developing. It shows you how to do cool things in creating an app, but it also does a great job of explaining the why behind a lot of the tools and design patterns. I highly recommend it so far.

I'll give an update when new progress is made.

Dual Boot Grub Error when updating Windows 10

I currently run both Windows 10 and Linux Mint on my desktop. In the last week or so (early October/late September), I updated Windows 10 (an anniversary update I think it was called? I'll check for sure and update later), and, probably not so coincidentally, I starting having grub errors.

I can't guarantee this will work for everyone, and I have to give credit to this page on askubuntu http://askubuntu.com/questions/654386/windows-10-upgrade-lead-into-grub-rescue, but I just wanted to provide an easy resource to give you something to try to get you back up and running if you're short on time for now. The page was posted last year, so it seems to not be the first time this sort of thing has happened.

Usually grub will open a menu and let me select which OS I want to run when I boot up, but I was getting an error after this Windows 10 update. It said:

error: unknown filesystem.
Entering rescue mode.
grub rescue>

Uh oh, grub rescue? That's not a good sign I thought to myself. Why does grub need to be rescued? So I go searching on my tablet to see if I could find a solution, temporary would suffice as I needed to get some homework done, and I found the question posted on askubuntu.

The problem seems to be that things may have gotten shuffled around a bit with the Windows update. The place where my computer thought grub was located, no longer had grub. So the quick temporary solution is to find where grub actually is now, and set the address to the correct location.

If you type

set

A list of things will pop up. Looking at prefix is where I found my problem. It had mine set to

(hd0,msdos3)/boot/grub

but this wasn't getting the job done.

So type

ls

to see your partitions, and try to find the right one by changing the prefix setting with the following

set prefix=<partition>/boot/grub

where you plug in a partition which in my case was (hd0,msdos4).

You'll know if it works by typing

insmod normal

after setting the new prefix. If it gives you the following error:

error: unknown filesystem.

Then you know grub couldn't be found there, so go back and try another partition (type ls again to see list of partitions).

So for mine I typed in

set prefix=(hd0,msdos4)/boot/grub

and I didn't get an error after typing

insmod normal

Great news! Now just type

normal

and it should take it back to your normal grub menu screen where you can select your OS.

Unfortunately, this is just a temporary solution which you'll have to do any time you reboot, but the partition shouldn't move so you can change the prefix to the right partition right away without having to guess and check. It looks like you can change this setting permanently in a grub file on the filesystem, but I have yet to play around with it.

Hope this helps you get going in the meantime, let me know if you find out more about the problem, or a permanent solution!

Continuation from wordpress blog

Just wanted to make sure I don't forget to connect this blog to the blog I started before this at:
anthonykdombrowski.wordpress.com
.

From now on, I'll be posting to this one, unless stated otherwise.

Passed the Half Way Point of My Last Term!

This week marks the beginning of week 6 in my 8 week course term. I've learned quite a bit in both of my classes, and I thought I'd give an update on what kinds of things I've been working on.

In my graphics class, I've gotten more comfortable with Visual Studio and using C++. I still rely a lot on the notes from class, but once the week's fundamentals are learned, I'm able to play around and learn how things work.

In my project course, I've been working on building an app that'll run a simple number guessing game. The user thinks of a number within a range, and the computer tries to guess it by showing a number and asking if the user's number matches it, is higher, or is lower than the guess. I've been learning a lot about Android Studio, and it's been great to see my work tested on my own phone (Nexus 6). My group seems to be working pretty well. Everyone has been contributing components where they're strongest in. We had some complications when a member had difficulty working on the database, but were able to sort through it as I offered some tasks on my app and others offered to give their expertise in that area. I'm excited to keep working on the app and to get more comfortable with Android Studio. I hope to create more apps in my spare time, like the random exercise routine program I've been working on.

I've also been quite busy prepping for interviews at Google for a software engineering residency. It looks to be a fantastic opportunity to gain some experience at one of the top technical companies in the world with some of the brightest people out there through training and working on actual projects!

I'll post an update on how everything progresses from here!

Start of Last Term of Classes, Fall 2016!

I've just started classes after a short break from the end of the summer term. The last two classes are a course on computer graphics, using C++, and a capstone project course.
The graphics course has been interesting so far using opengl and Microsoft visual studio, and C++! Most of the work in the major up until now has been in Java, so it'll be a little learning curve to work with C++. However, it seems that C++ and Java have a lot in common, so it shouldn't be too tough. I've had to make use of my windows OS on my dual boot comp to run the full microsoft visual studio.
The capstone course placed us into groups to come up with our own ideas for projects. My group has come up with an idea of creating a website with a database and a few apps. I will be working mainly on one of the apps. It's an interesting idea since it blends different skillsets of the groupmembers, some are more comfortable with programming languages more commonly used for website design like HTML, CSS, and others. Although most of my studies has been in Java, it'll be interesting to learn from the others and work on how to make components of different languages compatible.

Woohoo new blog

Creating a new blog this summer of 2016 to talk about tech and other random stuff that may be related. I welcome any feedback. Enjoy!