I have been in an unbelievable amount of
pain over the past 40 well 13 days and
Counting 1313 lasting about pain last
week note - yeah last week I kind of
mentioned I don't know if it was during
the show or just behind the scenes I
think was behind the scenes maybe yeah
just mentioned I don't listen behind the
scenes but but the past week has been
excruciating so I suffer from ulnar
nerve entrapment which has flared up and
those who are aware of what that means
I've got a nerve and so do you that goes
down your arm and if you go the the
repetitive stress injury causes it to
swell and when that happens the pain is
unbelievable so I'm actually wearing a
brace today and I may not be able to use
my right arm quite as much as I normally
would and and I might flinch a little
bit as I do use my right arm but that's
what I've been going through for the
past 13 days mm-hmm and it's there it
comes and goes but it comes in waves and
it's been really really bad you do such
a good job of not being in pain visually
your thank you show I realize that
you're so close to me that you probably
see the little bit of a yeah I've got
like a little bit of a like a like nerve
painter like flinches and and spasms and
my back has been spasming my my right
pack has been like pulling a Terry Crews
but unintentionally no control over that
just but that's what I've been going
through and and those of us who work in
an office environment where you're
sitting at a desk all the time now I'm
not saying it's okay for me to work as
hard as I have in the past few weeks
that caused this injury that I'm
learning to say I have to learn to say
no yes we kind of have to learn to say
no when when we've got those kinds of
deadlines that are or at least say you
know maybe next week I was facing a
really strong deadline that I promised
the customer and I really wanted to
achieve that but other things happened a
server went down on Monday that I had to
deal with and other things took place
throughout the course of the week and so
I was behind schedule and I had to
over the course of two weeks I put in 80
hours on this one project plus working
full time plus doing everything else
that I did that's a lot so it was really
tough and I didn't realize that I was
hurting myself and I did so so if you're
that person who's sitting at your desk
and thinking no I can I can just get
through the pain for just a you might
have to feel that pain for the next few
weeks so so please be careful
but my whole reason for explaining this
to you is okay for one thing yeah
Robbie's human too and so we we all go
through the same kind of things that you
go through in your office environment
and with with life in general but but I
had to figure out okay I still have to
go to work everyday I still have to sit
at my desk and I still have to program
websites and do sales and do support and
everything else and answer tickets and
how can I do that
it's been tough I'll admit the paint
Voice automate some of that stuff I'm
like a headset probably yeah yeah but
you get into some expensive stuff the
pain has also caused it to be really
hard to focus and concentrate so if I
seemed to drift during the show tonight
just kind of hate take over for me well
yeah I'm happening as well so you you
ought to be really happy that it's me
standing on your right side so I will
not like poke you that it's like oh just
the guy is gonna hurt Robbie yeah so so
if I if I lose my train of thought just
know that that's why that that's
happening tonight what you mentioned you
mentioned that maybe you could use a
headset or maybe you could use a device
or an accessibility device and yeah yeah
absolutely and and on category five
technology TV we have in in fact looked
at some of some set devices oh cool one
of them was a sensor that you put above
your monitor and then you wear a special
baseball cap and that baseball cap has a
sensor dot that the sensor would read
and would be a
to track your movement of your head and
things like that but they get expensive
you can get like things that you put on
your head that that have sensors that
you know you can control that way and
I'm by no means in the worst State uh
you know there are people that are well
worse off than I am and the state that
I'm in right now but through trying to
figure out how can I still continue to
work I thought this would make a really
good demonstration because of what I had
to go through so as I mentioned we've
looked at some technology in the past
and the TLDR
here's what we're getting into we looked
at a program called e via cam a long
time ago
so enable via cam is what it stands for
and it's a free tool for Linux that
allows you to control your mouse cursor
using your facial movements so in
assuming that you you have the
capability of moving your head right
reasonably precisely so you know you
can't it probably won't work for
somebody who has mobility issues in
their neck those kinds of things or
certainly if you have pain in your neck
it's probably not a good idea but as a
free option for accessibility not
necessarily to replace my mouse but to
add some accessibility as an alternative
to my mouse so with the mouse still on
my desk I can forget about the mouse for
a few minutes put my arm at my side and
let it rest and control my mouse with my
face okay imagine if that was possible
but unfortunately that demonstration was
so old like we're going back many many
years here 2012 is when we did that
particular demonstration and it was
groundbreaking technology at the time
but unfortunately it I tried to install
it and it didn't work okay so shall we
get into it yeah again TLDR I got it to
work and I'm gonna show you how to do it
tonight okay so let's let's jump right
into it I'm gonna show you what happened
so first of all the way that I normally
would install this and I'm doing this on
Linux Mint 19 is I bring up my package
manager and just do a search
for Evy acam and you'll see that the
package comes up there and I can mark it
for installation and apply so this is
going to download this through the
interwebs and install it on my on my
Linux Mint system so keep in mind this
is a modern Linux Mint system not
something like a boon - from 2012 so
this is the 2012 software this is the
old software right now they've kept up
development but let's see what happens
so I'm gonna click it's finished
installing I'm gonna click on my my
applications menu and type in Avaya cam
and click on it and I would expect that
it would come up but it's not actually
doing anything so you know maybe it's
not loaded yet or something like that so
let's try again and click on it I mean
it looks like it installed but it's not
actually doing a darn thing right which
is not very helpful for me so one way we
can find out what's going on with a
program is to jump into our terminal and
then type in the command that you would
use to launch it which is e V ik a man
do you see what happened there it's
looking for GT k23 but it's got GT k two
symbols installed on on this version of
Linux Mint so what I actually need to do
is install the proper drivers and it can
be very very onerous it can be really
tough to figure out what do I need to
install now right so through this
process I decided hey I'll write an
installer so get it working for myself
but then release this so that you can
install this on your Linux Mint 19
system as well if this would be helpful
for you and again this is not
necessarily a replacement for your mouse
but maybe you know somebody or maybe you
sometimes need a break and you just need
to be able to put your hands down and
forget about the mouse for a little bit
and this may be the answer for you so
resuming there I'm going to jump into my
terminal first before I do anything
further I'm going to uninstall the
version from the repository so again
back into synaptic package manager' do a
search and unmark it mark for complete
removal and apply that so this is just
going to rip out all of the stuff that
installed before and clean things up I'm
not gonna use a flat pack I'm not gonna
use snaps I'm gonna use good old Bosch
so we're gonna I've got get installed
you're gonna need that apt install get
but with that installed let's jump into
slash temp and get clone my repository
which is HTTP colon slash slash
github.com slash cap 5 TV / e via cam
and hit enter that's gonna clone the
software that I created for you CD e bio
cam and now just simply sudo dot slash
install dot SH and I'm gonna let that
run and explain to you what's happening
here as I kind of speed that up for the
sake of TV so it wouldn't run this fast
it takes about 15 minutes to set up so
but you can kind of get an impression as
to how much junk is actually needed in
order to make this go so you would have
had to go through this process all by
your lonesome there it is WX widgets is
what we need to replace so we're
actually compiling a new version of
wxwidgets after removing the included
version on mint 19 because we need to
have that GT k3 extension included so
and then we're downloading and
installing a via cam this it compiles it
like this is all a bunch of gibberish I
know right this is intense so what the
script does and if you look at the
install dot SH file is it remove some of
the stuff that is that is incompatible
full disclosure or disclaimer it could
technically break things it's probably
not going to but understand what's
happening here we're removing WX widgets
and installing a new version that has GT
k3 and apparently it's done so that it
says the command to run a via cam is a
via cam just like that right so let's
try running the command so remember what
it's done is it's removed a couple of
things it's installed a whole bunch of
dependencies things that are required by
a Viacom in order to
rate and by WX widgets in order to be
compiled and then it's compiled a custom
version just for you just for your Linux
Mint system I'm going to jump back to my
terminal window here just bring backup
I'm just going to minimize a couple
things there and jump back on to my
laptop and if I type e via cam
it says not found user slash bin slash
via cam let's see if I can make that a
little bit I can't make that a little
bigger for you I'm gonna tell you
verbally what I'm typing so I'm gonna
type which evey acam which will show me
the actual location of Avaya cam which
is user local bin Avaya cam which is
apparently not in my path but that's
fine I can just I can just run that
command and if all goes well so as soon
as I hit enter we should see my web cam
now keep in mind you do require having a
webcam in order to do this but most of
us like the laptop has one installed you
may have one kicking around and if it's
reasonably good quality it should work
for you with a via cam running now you
can see it's actually tracking my face
see that see the box around my face and
we've got some some green dots that are
happening that are kind of tracking
things there that is cool I want to take
it to the next level and actually show
you how this works but I think before we
do that we got to take a break so right
after that right after that stick around
we're actually going to configure it
with the wizard and then we're gonna
give it a couple of tests and see like
can this really help so that I don't
have to put my hand on my mouse I think
it's gonna work because nothing ever
breaks when you do it when it's when
we're on live TV applications we're
taking two and now it shouldn't be
possible yeah
all right for a limited time get your
hands on limited-edition shirts from the
category 5 TV network these high quality
shirts are manufactured by teespring a
fundraising website and your purchase
will help support the shows we produce
get yours today and send us your
pictures to be featured on the
corresponding show visit cap 5 dot TV
slash shirts to support us and get your
official Network shirt today cap five
dot TV slash shirts welcome back to
category five technology TV we have been
learning how to hack 2012 not quite we
have time travel make it go on 2019 this
for us know so we even talking about Evo
cam yeah that was originally a 2012
software for Linux well it's been around
for a long time first came we to clarify
we did a demonstration of it back in
package development remember yeah and it
worked great back then but it didn't
work on a modern Linux operating system
right and so you had to make some tweaks
download a bunch of yeah I just wrote an
installer script just wrote a script
that made it go right fair enough
yeah now on the break there was two
questions that popped up it ok shout
room what one was more so of a comment
but the one question was from uberaba
says what is the application tracking is
it the face in the eyes the nipples cuz
on your screen you've got the the red
box that picks up your face yes and
there's the green dots for the okay so
let's actually get in there and see what
it's seeing do you see that so it's
figuring out what is a face so it's
putting dots around my nose it's putting
dots on my eyes do you see the green
dots yeah
okay so it's tracking all kinds of stuff
all right and now the other comment was
from soul boo and so he was watching the
compiling and he said the only thing he
didn't like is that it was done in route
is there another way to do it without
being in route you could modify the
install that Sh file so that just the
make install process happens as route
but there are a couple of things that
have to be route obviously app install
which you can change to sudo if you want
within the script also apt remove to get
rid of WX widgets it has to be sudo and
of course make install so both of those
tools WX widgets and Viacom
are compiled which does not require
route and it's done in a temp folder so
it has it is able to access that even as
your non root user but that final step
the make install requires being able to
access system components and of course
that requires route right okay so you
can modify that I see another issue that
you know you know you do raise is that I
am accidentally running his route I
could no I'm not I'm actually not
running his route I thought I was I
don't know if you see that I'm running
as Robby I had I had run the installer
as sudo right sudo dot slash install I
didn't do a sudo su so I'm actually
running a via cam as a non root user so
to answer your question yes you could
hack that up feel free to do a PR if you
prefer it's up to you but if you look at
the script the only things that are
happening that are as root that
shouldn't necessarily be as root is
compiling the software within a slash
TMP folder so if there's no harm no foul
you can look at the source code and see
exactly what's happening there all right
let's see it okay so you want to
actually get in and see how this works
okay so keeping in mind I want to
deprecate the need for my mouse or at
least supplement the need for my mouse
I'm going to click Next and it says ok
yeah it detected the integrated camera
that's the built-in one and I also
tested this with a Microsoft LifeCam
and it worked flawlessly okay so locate
face automatically yeah of course
disable Avaya cam if no face is found I
like to turn that on so that if I walk
away from my desk it's going to turn off
until I turn it back on again that's
kind of cool
that way if someone sits down at my desk
it doesn't start moving to their face
right okay next up perform assisted
calibration yeah let's do that because I
want it to be as accurate as possible
move your head left and right so left
right left right left right left right
how long after my right
I don't know Jeff I'm just doing what
I'm told here come on okay laughs up and
down up and down that hurts to look down
this is what you don't want to have any
neck problems yeah this is like a 19 oh
okay now look look at what's happening
now Oh sweetie okay Lincoln it says
hover move your head to see how it works
which I'm doing so if I move my head and
then it disappeared and now I've lost
control and I have to actually use my
mouse again I was enjoying that that was
fun
so next Oh well enable pointer control
let's set up our axis speed so this is
all being controlled with my face so if
I go to the left I'm going to zoom out a
little bit so that you can see the full
window here I'm gonna go to my right and
I'm just moving my head here I feel like
that's pretty natural like it's it's
following but I don't like that I can't
oh I can stay Oh neat I can kind of like
stand up it might be because it's
looking up at me right but that that
could be a little bit faster so I'm
going to increase that to 14 for looking
up and down yeah that feels much nicer
left and right feels pretty good that
that I don't like having to look up like
that so I can adjust that by just kind
of adjusting my axis speed now the other
thing to keep in mind is when I look at
dead center of the screen and I'm not
sure that don't worry about the little
staticky things they're at
what that is but when I look dead center
of the screen I can use the touchpad on
my laptop or your actual physical Mouse
to Center the cursor while I'm looking
dead center so now it's basically
calibrated because if my mouse is over
here and then I look at the screen and
then I go left I'm gonna have to go left
left left left left left right if I
instead look dead center of the screen
and then Center it with my mouse or with
my cursor with the touchpad then I feel
like hey this is much much more natural
good I'm gonna hover over next and I'm
not clicking anything I'm just hovering
because it waits for a moment to see if
I've welled see that well click default
gesture click is also available though
I've not figured it out and I'm getting
some anomalies on the screen I don't
I've never had that happen yet and so it
may be just the laptop and the way that
I've got that connected so just know
that that anomaly that you see that
flickering that is not something that
I've encountered yet but this is the
first time that I've plugged in the HDMI
to the laptop could it also be because
of the calibration that you're doing no
I think it's like a video driver issue
because I've got HDMI output going to
our broadcast server so now I can hover
over next and just wait and it clicked
ok so now I can go run this wizard at
startup click start a Viacom at user
login click impossible to get
permissions for file no such file or
directory oh no because it doesn't have
a launcher that's fine enable Avaya cam
and startup good ok finish again I'm
controlling that 100% exclusively with
my face hands-free yeah hands-free so my
hands are up here folks
nobody is nobody's messing around this
is not a gimmick so you know folks are
aware know where your mouse is it's just
a touchpad just a touchpad on the couch
ok yeah so I'm going to with my
hands-free I'm just gonna like try a
couple of things oh I see like a window
up here that allows me to change the
click action which is kind of cool
and I'm gonna probably try that I'm
gonna go down and and click on the menu
by just hovering my face and then let's
go on to let's say the Internet Chrome
so I've kind of gotten used to now
you've lost me I wonder if I can get
over can I with my face actually get
over to the restore button and now I'm
not sure if the window yeah I'm not sure
how to move it so what I'm going to do
is I'm just gonna touch my mouse button
and then move it and my face okay so I'm
using the hovering the dwell to click
which I don't particularly like myself
so I'm gonna hover over pause there we
go so now as I move around because what
I find happens in that instance is that
I'm clicking on stuff as I'm reading
websites because when you're when you
dwell to read something all of a sudden
you start clicking with your face right
so what I prefer now I have a trackpad
at my desk so I actually turn it
sideways and use my left hand to just
tap the mouse button so I don't have to
use the trackball or anything I just use
my face and I control it with that way
but then I click with my left hand this
is great this instance so what I'm going
to do is I'm actually going to tap the
mouse button on my laptop so again with
my left hand which is not affected by
the ulnar nerve entrapment I'm going to
just put my hand over top of that mouse
button so now I can look around and I
can move the window see what I'm doing
there with my head it's a very subtle
gesture but I can you know go like that
and let's let's actually do some stuff
can I get rid of this window here yes
I'm gonna hover my head right there
click and that gets rid of that can I
make a request
you can absolutely can you quest type
something can you pull up a keyboard and
type something you could if you wanted
to use an on-screen keyboard oh I don't
I I I'm not at that point like I can
still use my hands okay I just want to
get away from using the mouse right and
an on-screen keyboard could be pretty
yeah
the the scope of where you could take
this technology oh yeah you all that
stuff you if you have real issues with
like that extend beyond I can still use
my mouse it just really hurts so I try
and and you know I'm told I really need
to let this rest for three weeks so I
try to stay away from the mouse if I can
so this gives me an opportunity to only
use my left hand and then I'll type with
my left hand but sometimes I'll bring my
right hand in and I'll start typing as
well okay so no yes Jeff what if you
throw a second face on the screen
doesn't mess it up we could always try
that Jeff I mean typically you're
sitting at your desk with with yourself
right so here's me controlling yeah does
it pick you up
no no so now if I get out of the rain
org can you control it now oh yeah yep
you're not calibrated see it was off to
the right calibrated Soyuz so because
this is your first time ever doing it
Jeff use the mouse to put it in the
center while you look into the center
all right hold on so actually well
you're moving your head at the same time
as I'm saying okay all right all right
Wow so that that switches to a different
user very easily yeah
now get out of here get out of here all
right yeah and the calibration is pretty
simple right so I'll just use my
touchpad so let's say okay so I brought
up Chrome let's bring up my website so
oh I've probably already got it here so
category five TV remember I'm just using
my left hand my right hand is completely
free okay so I'm just clicking oh that's
the forum so do I have home yes
beautiful see how how easy it was for me
to actually point with my head to the
home button and that's not a small like
that's not a big button all right okay
so we're live on the air let's let's
actually use the search feature so I'm
going to bring up search and I'm going
to type a via cam on our website because
that's how you can find this video once
it goes live and let's actually use that
scroll bar on the right hand side and
see if I can actually manage and I'm
looking down that is see this
and there's that episode yeah that's the
episode episode 259 from September 2000
2012 so Wow okay so I'm able to click
around pretty accurately is that Sasha's
for show says introducing Sasha yeah
yeah your first show remember my first
oh well now you know I account so and
now you have the answer to that so I was
impressed with the touch screen when you
used your touch to click the X because
that takes some precision the X is
pretty small do you think I can click
the X and close Chrome with my face now
I'm gonna click with my finger my left
hand but can I do this with my face so
yes yes I can as I nod and the cursor
goes all over the place that's another
thing to to mention I'm gonna just show
you this really really quickly
let's say I look way up because oh
there's a bird up oh right Reese entered
actually yeah now with the calibrations
a little bit off so what I can actually
do is I can look up until it hits the
edge of the screen look down till it
hits the edge of the screen look left
and look right and and it will basically
send her itself as well so now when I
look dead at the center of the screen
the mouse cursor is basically in the
center of the screen it's amazing when I
move to the left it's moving with me and
and it's actually it gives the sense
that it's following my eyes because it's
so incredibly accurate now if you go
it's free if you go closer to your
webcam would your face movements be
smaller to impact the movement like a
baby has limited neck mobility if they
were fabulous right in here yeah so what
is the mobility like here so it's much
more sensitive but I could adjust that
remember my sensitivity settings so I
could adjust that and it is right now
I've got it set for me standing back
here right because that's how I
calibrated it okay so you did have a
webcam closer to your face you could do
with limited movement oh yeah oh
absolutely sure yeah and it's very it's
very sensitive so I'm gonna just barely
move my head watch the mouse cursor I'm
gonna look
I'm going to point to the number one
there that's in green are you ready okay
so watch how sensitive this is okay so
I'm just barely moving there get down to
that see that
okay so let's click the X hello easy
okay so let's bring up calc so where
would I find that office LibreOffice
calc
okay this is similar to me wanting you
to use it I keyboard you know sure
yeah but here I am controlling this and
I promise you I'm not touching the
touchpad no gimmicks no tricks
I am only controlling this with my face
but clicking the mouse button on the
laptop with my left hand so here I am in
calc so and and this is being controlled
with my face I'm just gonna calibrate by
looking left and looking right looking
up looking down and let's click on give
me a cell number that's on the screen so
like k10 i think that would be well
here's kay and there's that's 9 10 no 11
there let's do one a little closer to
here so I can see the edge so B what B 5
B 5 okay there you go
so I'm doing that with my face so it's
that simple I can I can click with my
left finger and drag click around and
I'm not having any trouble getting my
you know no pun intended but my head
around this I'm not having any trouble
with the controls mm-hmm I did turn off
the dwell clicking because I find that
it's easier to just use my left hand to
click right but other than that
beautiful there you have it folks I
cannot believe that it was my first show
there you go now you know right this is
not gonna be my last show yeah I lost
there we are now I mean obviously we're
not set up for this but it makes me
wonder could you use this for you know
other purposes like yes like I don't
know like some sort of you know simple
gaming or something like as a first
practice shooter
like I don't that's it I don't know
- Christmas points and click games yes
yeah I don't see why not but
realistically this is just like controls
for your computer to help with your
day-to-day yeah ok can you click by
winking no so what you can do is a left
click is a tap your head to the left
a right click is a tap your head to the
right double-click is a tap up/down is
um I don't know I never got that working
personally I but I didn't I didn't need
it right is there let's let's actually
bring that up and I clicked on the run
now in my new line of work I have
encountered people with very significant
dwell mobility issues and now I'm just
gonna be talking this up all the time
you you get into the to the
documentation for that there is that
capability but I didn't I can like it or
why it's helpful in my case because I'm
using the click button but there is the
feature to use that like quick look to
the left - left click for example so
there you have it that is a via cam is
running on Linux Mint 19 in 2019 so my
system if I did an apt upgrade an apt up
dist upgrade
everything's current I'm running the
current kernel and it's up to date and
we're now running a via cam on this
system using it all install script
nana's and just so I'm clear I didn't
create a via cam I didn't do anything
more than look through some of the
issues that were posted on their github
see what how other people have fixed
this and then just made it easier for
you so that if you want to use this you
don't have to do the same process and
maybe there's somebody out there who
wants to use this and is not quite as
technically savvy to follow those kinds
of things so so it really helps now
thinking about what you said about you
know this is your Linux Mint 19 yeah if
you did a because something had to
change in order to make this happen if
two weeks down the road you do an update
and an upgrade is that going to undo
that stuff no so it should all still be
in place crypt
moves the stuff that affects its
functionality and replaces it with a pre
compiled version right get overwritten
no no no it'd be good to go
only a final note is that it's for Linux
as you're probably aware so way to go
Linux yeah you win again that won't be a
problem for any of us or remember it's
Linux updates don't generally break
things Jeff that's true dude give a
warning all the links are below yeah
that's just a caveat there a protection
for myself breaks if it breaks your
system don't come runnin to me
yeah but it links are below you can
click click around to to find your way
to Eve I account enjoy
[Music]
[Applause]