Install MySQL

I also find myself needing to install MySQL 5.6.25 as well for my classes. Step by step how to install...

1. Visit mysql's website and obtain a copy of mysql-5.6.25-winx64.zip (standalone zip file, NOT the installer).

2. Extract it to the desired drive. In my case this is drive G. Rename to mysql.
3. Create an option file with the following contents and save it to G:/mysql/my.ini
[mysqld]

# basedir to installation path
basedir=G:/mysql

# location of data directory
datadir=G:/mydb/data
4. Ensure both the basedir and the datadir exist, creating them if necessary.
5. Copy the contents of directory G:/mysql/data/ to G:/mydb/data/. This gets you an empty database. (if you don't follow this step you will get an error [ERROR] Fatal error: Can't open and lock privilege tables: Table 'mysql.user' doesn't exist)

6. Start mysql
cd /d G:
mysql\bin\mysqld --console

Output should end with:
2015-06-13 16:56:04 1388 [Note] mysql\bin\mysqld: ready for connections.
Version: '5.6.25'  socket: ''  port: 3306  MySQL Community Server (GPL)

7. Open a new command prompt and login to the database
G:\>mysql\bin\mysql --user=root
mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
+--------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)
If you see database "mysql" all is well.

Now you can do whatever you need to with the new database, or create another database/schema if you wish.

JAI Tutorials

Found links to some JAI examples since the top links on Oracle's site return 404 not found errors on the actual tutorials. Turns out that the tutorials/demos were migrated over to java.net under jai-demos and jaistuff projects.

Links are:
https://java.net/projects/jai-demos
https://java.net/projects/jaistuff

You can browse the code through these projects or download the source through SVN.

The source compiles through ant (there is a readme with instructions on how to compile the examples) or you can pull it into your favorite IDE, add the JAI libraries to the classpath, and run from there.

More useful links to JAI related code are here: http://www.silverbaytech.com/2014/05/16/java-advanced-imaging-downloads/

Setting up Java Advanced Imaging (JAI)

Java Advanced Imaging (henceforth referred to as just JAI) is a relatively old (hasn't been updated since 2006) package used for advanced image manipulation. Working with images has been built into Java Swing, but the functions provided aren't...everything...that you might need to do.

According to the readme provided with version 1.1.3, JAI does the following:

Java Advanced Imaging extends the imaging functionality provided in the Java 2D API by providing a more flexible and scalable architecture targeted for complex, high performance imaging requirements.

I find myself taking a class where JAI is a required library, and that means I need to install it on my computer.

First off, the download location:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/current-142188.html

I have a Windows 7 64-bit computer, so this could get a bit interesting. Looks like there are instructions for setting it up on 64-bit Solaris, so hopefully there won't be too many issues.

I decided to download this file: jai-1_1_3-lib-windows-i586.exe.

Step 1: Run the installer.

• It's one of those old-style installers built using InstallShield.
• Use the default installation location of: C:\Program Files (x86)\Sun Microsystems\Java Advanced Imaging 1.1.3\ 
• And do a "complete" install.

That produces a directory with the following files:
JAR files:
    jai_codec.jar
    jai_core.jar
    mlibwrapper_jai.jar
DLL files:
    mlib_jai.dll
    mlib_jai_mmx.dll
    mlib_jai_util.dll

Step 2: Test the install by getting a "Hello World" program working.
Let's fire up Eclipse (Luna, x64) and see what can be done....

Eclipse is setup to use its own built in compiler at a compliance level of 1.7.
I have set Eclipse up with the JRE built into my installed JDK, so the JRE that we're going to use for the first test is an x64 JDK 1.7.0_51.

I found an example test application at this URL: http://jai-api.blogspot.ca/ (JAISampleProgram) which looks like it's reasonably short.

Copy the code into Eclipse and add all three JAR files from the JAI install location in step 1 to the classpath. When I save the code it now compiles.

Change the location of the image to load to a file that actually exists. I'm using a random jpeg.

Click Run (or Debug) and wow, it works!

That's a 10% scale in both X and Y dimensions of my source image. Note that since nobody bothered to code the X button to actually do anything you'll have to kill the app through Eclipse or the command line.

When I ran the application, I got the following error:

Error: Could not load mediaLib accelerator wrapper classes. Continuing in pure Java mode.

Occurs in: com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor

com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibLoadException

Sounds like native acceleration isn't working. I don't really care at this point if it works or not, so let's just get rid of that warning....

static
{
    System.setProperty("com.sun.media.jai.disableMediaLib", "true");
}


There are other ways to get rid of it too, as described on this post: 

https://www.java.net/node/666373

And there we have it. Apparently JAI does indeed run in an x64 bit environment. Can't say the same for JMF, which is another one of my required libraries, so this will be getting demoted to x86 when I start doing actual development.