More App stuff

So my app is coming along nicely!

I have a main page with three buttons each which go to the next screen.  well one of the buttons work.. I'm still working on the other two.. I thought copying and modifying the code would work.. but it doesn't, I was able to find a page outlining what I need to do to fix it.

The next thing is to get the math in the background to get working.. that is the goal for Wednesday night.
Tonight is to work on my Physics Assignment.. right I still do have school work!

My App and Go!

So I have been learning to program in Java with the intent to built an app in android. It has been a rough start with no real great tutorial. I was able to find a decent one on Youtube, edu4java.  I finally have a working app that can multiple two numbers together!!  Now to expand that for more numbers and make the user interface a little better and bam, I'll have a working app to submit!!

In my searching for sample code to work from I found out about Go - it's a new programming language that Google made.  I have only seen demos of it but it seems very fast!!  The thing that I am interested it is the learning curve.  If the curve isn't very steep, this would be a gret addition to a high school classroom!

'via Blog this'

'Smart' Bus Shelters

So Ottawa is replacing some bus shelters.  The interesting thing is that they are adding HD tvs to them for ads and that is it.  I hope they have something to do with the buses or this will be a waste of money, but from I'm gathering it's just for advertising.  

The thing that sort of bothers me is they can't go a step further and add a solar panel to the roof.  San Francisco annouced they are doing the something similar a few weeks ago, but it will be a lot better. Solar roof, Wi-Fi, real-time bus schedule, LED lighting after all this putting power back into the grid.


Why not go as far as they did in Italy? These bus stops look awesome and they have great features - touch-screen, LEDs, features a bus map, plotting locations in real-time, e-mail and Web access, tools for planning a best route and getting directions, a community bulletin board, and, of course, a place for silent video advertisements.

Round the world in the fastest time!

 Since I have been interested in peoples journeys around the world I read a few books about traveling around the world either using only human power or only using ground transportation.  This lead me to an interesting documentary with Mark Beaumont.  In 2007/8 he cycled around the world in 194 days and 17 hours to break the world record by 81 days.  He had a camera with him and a series was on BBC. I have also tried to read other stories about other people trying to break this record.


Well it turns out there is a race coming up!  The World Race is starting Feb 18th from the UK and there are 12 riders out to race around the world.  I really really hope that a film crew will be following a couple of the riders because this could be an awesome journey. Here is another link to the race from the folks over at Cycle The Earth.

OC transpo GPS

So I read in the paper that OCtranspo still doesn't want to open up the GPS location of the buses to the public for App development.  They opened it for a few days (maybe not too sure) and a few apps came out of it.  Then the OC closed the source, hoping to develop their own apps (i.e. tap into a source of revenue).  I think that they have realize that there is a great potential to make money I agree, however, if I think that if they really want to have the best app, they should have a contest for something and get people to develop one.  Then they can take the best parts of the apps and develop a great official app and to think most/all the work with me done for free!!  If the OCtranspo develops an app, I'm sure they will make us pay for it and it might not have all the options that we as users might want to use.  I'm excited to see where this will go.

As for STO, they are light-years behind everyone.  I think that they first to develop their schedule for Google Transit.  Time will tell!