(Negocio, 25 de noviembre 2009)

En el transcurso de una emocionante ceremonia militar, el grupo EADS celebró la entrega de la unidad número 200 de producción en serie del avión de combate Eurofighter Typhoon.

La división Defence & Security (DS) del grupo europeo de defensa y aeronáutica entregó el último ingenio a su cliente final, la Fuerza Aérea alemana.

Según informó EADS en un comunicado, el evento, que concluye todas las entregas de aparatos procedentes de las cuatro instalaciones internacionales de montaje final, tuvo lugar ayer en el Centro de Aeronáutica Militar de Military Air Systems (MAS), Unidad de Negocio de DS, y reunió para la ocasión a la comunidad industrial y militar del Eurofighter.

Tecnología punta

Bernhard Gerwert, CEO de MAS y Presidente del Consejo Supervisor de Eurofighter GmbH, dio en su discurso de apertura la bienvenida al Director General de la agencia internacional Netma, dependiente de la OTAN, que representa al cliente, el Teniente General Antonino Altorio; a su General Adjunto, Werner Sabarz; al General Peter Schelzig, Jefe de Estado Mayor del Ejército del Aire alemán; y Enzo Casolini, CEO de la organización industrial Eurofighter.

B.Gerwert declaró que “la entrega de la unidad 200 del Eurofighter representa la mejor tecnología punta en el sector de la aeronáutica de defensa europea actual”. A continuación, Gerwert agradeció a todos los implicados que han hecho esto posible: las naciones cliente, Netma, y todos los socios del consorcio industrial Eurofighter.

Conviene recordar que, dentro del grupo Eurofighter, se encuentran la compañía británica BAE Systems, la italiana Alenia Aeronautica, la española EADS CASA y EADS Deutschland.

En su repaso sobre el desarrollo del programa, Berndt Wünsche, Director del programa Eurofighter en MAS, rememoró el desafío histórico que empezó hace 20 años con la disolución del pacto de Varsovia y la reunificación alemana que le siguió, lo que conllevó la necesidad por parte del sector industrial y militar de un programa de reorientación técnico y operativo alejado de los escenarios de la “Guerra Fría”. A continuación también comentó que “gracias a estos puntos de realineamiento, nuestro programa es hoy en día el único que se ha convertido en una referencia y está literalmente fortalecido para afrontar amenazas, actuales y futuras”.

Pedidos foráneos

“Estoy encantado de que al entregar la unidad 200 del aparato, la cartera de producción sea tan consistente, con una cartera de pedidos superior a los 700 aviones y una previsión por parte de Enzo Casolini de 300 aparatos más para exportar.

Todos nosotros nos sentimos privilegiados de trabajar en un programa tan potente”, continuó B. Wünsche.

El Eurofighter número 200 de producción en serie, que lleva la cifra táctica 30+51, fue entregado a continuación a la Fuerza Aérea alemana y operará desde el Ala de Caza 73 Steinhoff, situada en la base de Rostock-Laage, al noreste de Alemania.

Fuente: Diario CASA – Nº. 2401

Well, it has been around 24 hours, and after looking into Android development tutorials I have managed to come up with some answers on what I need in order to create the application and what the answer should be able to do. Below is the content outline:

• Going to be a singular application as opposed to modular
• Sends a text message at a time set by the user
• Provides a time mark signature
• Let users manage messages to be sent
• Will not use gateways… will use inbuilt functions
• Must sync in with built-in ‘Messages’ application
• Must retrieve contact info

• Application could power on phone to send the msg?
• Could be sent to a server to hold the message and then send?
• Support multiple recipients?
• Support recurrence?
• Send texts internationally? Different time-zones info

The top section are ideas I aim to implement. The bottom section will be ways of further developing the application should I have the time and should I find that they are still needed.

new EP from the big homie Khizman of DMP, featuring production & appearances from Keelay & Zaire, Skyzoo, Nottz & more. shout out to the whole 757! VA wdup tho!

Download: Khizman – The Trophy Winner [EP]

Today I had another session with my project supervisors. I proposed my idea along with some questions that I needed help with after looking into SMS technology.

My supervisors were very helpful, coming up with ideas to help me expand on my initial ‘text later’ app, and also discussed on what I will need to include in my poster presentation (ie. leave out all of the idea exploration).

My next step is to look further into SMS technology, figure out what my app needs to do, who it is going to be used by, how to do it and then finally start working on it. I am hoping by the next session that I will have some kind of working prototype.

Last week my assigned project supervisor (Dan Dixon), sent me a few links showing me other phone apps that are already doing the same thing as me. I looked into these, and realised I could not improve on anything they have done.

I didn’t want to create something that had already been done. So I came up with a new idea ‘text later’. It’s still working with the android and development tools, but the application itself is about setting texts to be sent at certain times; quite different to treasure hunt.

I proposed this idea in my meeting session with my supervisors (Dan Dixon and Ben Templeton), and they decided that I would need to go and come back next week with a set idea.

The first credit counseling agencies were created in 1951 in the United States when credit grantors created The National Foundation for Credit Counseling, or NFCC. According to W. Patrick Boisclair, Chairman of the NFCC’s Board of Trustees, “the NFCC initially monitored legislative and regulatory activity for its retail credit members” and “also conducted public awareness campaigns on credit.”(source) Their stated objective was to promote financial literacy and help consumers avoid bankruptcy, but they did not serve as collection agencies for the creditors. The first local credit counseling franchises emerged in the 1960s, offering education and counseling directly to consumers.

In 1993, the “Association of Independent Consumer Credit Counseling Agencies,” or AICCCA, was founded, citing a need for “industry-wide standards of excellence and ethical conduct.” This formally organized the NFCC’s competition. The AICCCA was formed from the group of counselors who favored telephone delivery of debt management programs. The NFCC was, in the beginning, strongly opposed to this telephone business model, primarily favoring face-to-face counseling as a more effective solution. Eventually, all organizations practiced both phone and face-to-face processes with some agencies using large inbound call centers driven by mass media advertising.

The credit counseling industry’s third major trade organization is its largest: the American Association of Debt Management Organizations, or AADMO.

However, not all credit counseling agencies belong to a trade organization, nor are they required to do so; there are well over 1,000 active credit counseling organizations in the United States.

In 2005, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 made credit counseling a requirement for consumer debtors filing for Bankruptcy in the United States. In order to meet this requirement, during the 180-day period preceding the filing of bankruptcy, the debtor must complete a program with an approved nonprofit budget and credit counseling agency. Such a program may include, but is not limited to, one counseling session conducted by phone or over the internet. In addition, a post-filing debtor education credit counseling session is required in order to complete the bankruptcy process and to have your debts discharged.

Credit Counselling is also a growing industry in Europe, both for profit-making debt management companies and charities such as Christians Against Poverty and the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, Britain’s largest debt advice charity.

Starting to think blogging is a waste of time. I feel like I have to take notes so that I can blog about it later (when I finally get round to it), thus taking all the fun out of stuff I’m actually supposed to be enjoying. Going to keep it simple in future, rather than write about every single little thing.

As mentioned previously in my post ‘Project Direction’, I took a look at the app called ‘Geocaching’. I decided to try and evaluate this app properly and get an idea of what I might want to include in my app and what could be improved upon. There is a mountain of features that this app includes that didn’t really occur to me beforehand. I will blog more about this at a later date, after having gone through the list by creating a Persona and looking into some other Geocaching App reviews. After this research has been completed, I will write out my list of implentation ideas and then go through them with users of the Geocaching App.

I may still carry on working with the Android SDK for a while though, as I’m actually quite enjoying it and I’m not in contact with Geocaching users until I get back to Uni (Tuesday).

http://developer.android.com/guide/tutorials/hello-world.html – Where i began my learning

http://developer.android.com/sdk/eclipse-adt.html – I was told to download these tools

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/eclipse/downloads/drops/R-3.5.1-200909170800/eclipse-SDK-3.5.1-win32.zip – The Eclipse IDE im going to be using

Above are the links I have used to begin my learning on how to create an Android app. It is shockingly difficult, so much harder than I originally thought it would be. I’m being told to locate random files and then edit them and look at the results. If it wasn’t for the tutorial, I wouldn’t have a clue what to even change >.< So far I have managed to complete the first part of the tutorial. It is starting to get me to think about creating the app like you would with a website. I had no idea that creating the app was like this, and of course, this is great news because I am already familiar with how web programming works (keeping the interface seperate from the functionality, etc).

Today I missed my first session with my tutor, Dan Dixon. I am going to write out this blog in an attempt to get the blog up to date as a lot has happened over the past week in terms of progress.

First thing to mention is that according to my Project Plan, I am behind as far as research is concerned. The research that I mentioned in my Project Plan involves looking into other technologies that I could perhaps use for my application to make it more powerful and functional. Another idea was to integrate it with an open-source community app. However, after deciding on a specific app direction, I feel that this research is not needed right now. I may carry out some research into this area at a later date.

As far as the rest of the project is concerned, I am up to date. I have carried out research into other Geocaching apps, and I have a good idea of what needs to be implemented into my Geocaching app. I have also been working with the Android SDK and Eclipse in order to start creating some simple functions for my app and perhaps even create a prototype shortly. However, I have skipped a part mentioned in my Project Plan, and that is to use a persona, and research into the design of the application. I will need to do this before I start getting deep into the development of the application. (though this is some time away, as creating an Android is so much harder than I originally thought)

I am of course, yet to post blogs for research into other applications. Although I have previously carried this task out, I have carried out some more focused research into Geocaching apps. I am also yet to discuss the Android SDK and Eclipse, I will do this now, but as far as the Geocaching Apps research goes, I want to look into more before I finalize it.

I think i have finally decided on a direction for my project. I came to this decision after playing around with the app ‘Geocaching’ available on the iPhone. I am yet to provide a full report on this app yet as I still need to look into other reviews on other iPhone apps.

I have decided that I want to create an app for Geocaching on the Android. Although this has already been done for the Android, it hasnt really been done very well when compared with the app ‘Geocaching’.

I am slightly disapointed about straying away from my initial idea of creating a Treasure Hunting App, because this sounds like it could be alot of fun and it would be a relatively new concept for both the iPhone market and the Android market.

However, right now i cant see it being much of a great success. Firstly, this kind of app depends on a large user base, which (from my current knowledge) is almost impossible without the right funding. There are also of course usability problems with creating a treasure hunting app. It could be exploited, or not really used to its full potential.

Geocaching on the other hand, already has a huge user base and the objects found whilst hunting are quite entertaining.

Its also worth noting that the treasure hunting app for the Android that i previously came accross, does not have a very high base of users. There are less than 250 downloads recorded.

(Madrid, October 22, 2009) — An Airbus Military A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) fitted with the Air Refuelling Boom System (ARBS) successfully performed the first in-flight refuelling with two F16s from the Portuguese Air Force on 21st October. This first “wet contact” using the advanced in-house designed boom system demonstrates that the refuelling system is well integrated into the airframe, with all systems functioning satisfactorily. It also validates the fuel transfer capability of the A330 MRTT to receiver planes through this refuelling means, as tested on the ground in early September.

desde: 1st A330 MRTT Wet Contact Through in House Designed Boom – ASDNews – Be the first to know.

The NYS DEC have begun mailing about 21,000 leftover Deer Management Permits (DMPs) to hunters who were previously denied during the initial application period. This correction process occurs each year and lets us issue the target number of permits in units where we didn’t receive as many applicants as we expected.

DEC will also have several Wildlife Management Units with DMPs available on a first-come, first-serve basis beginning Sunday, November 1. During this extended application period, hunters can apply for up to 2 additional DMPs in these units.

See http://www.dec.ny.gov/press/59293.html for the full announcement and list of units involved.

If you are curious about the DMP quota setting and issuance process, you may enjoy reading about it at http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/47743.html

A comment about HDS’s Zero Page Reclaim on one of my previous posts got me thinking about the effectiveness of thin provisioning in general.  In that previous post, I talked about the trade-offs between increased storage utilization through the use of thin-provisioning and the potential performance problems associated with it.

There are intrinsic benefits that come with the use of thin provisioning.  First, new storage can be provisioned for applications without nearly as much planning.  Next, application owners get what they want, while storage admins can show they are utilizing the storage systems effectively.  Also, rather than managing the growth of data in individual applications, storage admins are able to manage the growth of data across the enterprise as a whole.

Thin provisioning can also provide performance benefits…  For example, consider a set of virtual Windows servers running across several LUNs contained in the same RAID group.  Each Windows VM stores its OS files in the first few GB of their respective VMDK files.  Each VMDK file is stored in order in each LUN, with some free space at the end.  In essence, we have a whole bunch of OS sections separated by gaps of no data.  If all VMs were booting at approximately the same time, the disk heads would have to move continuously across the entire disk, increasing disk latency.

Now take the same disks, configured as a thin pool, and create the same LUNs (as thin LUNs) and the same VMs.  Because thin-provisioning in general only writes data to the physical disks as it’s being written by the application, starting from the beginning of the disk, all of those Windows VMs’ OS files will be placed at the beginning of the disks.  This increased data locality will reduce IO latency across all of the VMs.  The effect is probably minor, but reduced disk latency translates to possibly higher IOPS from the same set of physical disks.  And the only change is the use of thin-provisioning.

So back to HDS Zero Page Reclaim.  The biggest problem with thin provisioning is that it doesn’t stay thin for long.  Windows NTFS, for example, is particularly NOT thin-friendly since it favors previously untouched disk space for new writes rather than overwriting deleted files.  This activity eventually causes a thin-LUN to grow to it’s maximum size over time, even though the actual amount of data stored in the LUN may not change.  And Windows isn’t the only one with the problem.  This means that thin provisioning may make provisioning easier, or possibly improve IO latency, but it might not actually save you any money on disk.  This is where HDS’s Zero Page Reclaim can help.  Hitachi’s Dynamic Provisioning (with ZPR) can scan a LUN for sections where all the bytes are zero and reclaim that space for other thin LUNs.  This is particularly useful for converting thick LUNs into thin LUNs.  But, it can only see blocks of zeros, and so it won’t necessarily see space freed up by deleting files.  Hitachi’s own documentation points out that many file systems are not-thin friendly, and ZPR won’t help with long-term growth of thin LUNs caused by actively writing and then deleting data.

Although there are ways to script the writing of zeros to free space on a server so that ZPI can reclaim that space, you would need to run that script on all of your servers, requiring a unique tool for each operating system in your environment.  The script would also have to run periodically, since the file system will grow again afterward.

NetApp’s SnapDrive tool for Windows can scan an NTFS file system, detect deleted files, then report the associated blocks back to the Filer to be added back to the aggregate for use by other volumes/LUNs.  The Space Reclamation scan can be run as needed, and I believe it can be scheduled; but, it appears to be Windows only.  Again, this will have to be done periodically.

But what if you could solve the problem across most or all of your systems, regardless of operating system, regardless of application, with real-time reclamation?  And what if you could simultaneously solve other problems?  Enter Symantec’s Storage Foundation with Thin-Reclamation API.  Storage Foundation consists of VxFS, VxVM, DMP, and some other tools that together provide dynamic grow/shrink, snapshots, replication, thin-friendly volume usage, and dynamic SAN multipathing across multiple operating systems.  Storage Foundation’s Thin-Reclamation API is to thin-provisioning what OST is to Backup Deduplication.  Storage vendors can now add near-real-time zero page reclaim for customers that are willing to deploy VxFS/VxVM on their servers.  For EMC customers, DMP can replace PowerPath, thereby offsetting the cost.

As far as I know, 3PAR is the first and only storage vendor to write to Symantec’s thin-API, which means they now have the most dynamic, non-disruptive, zero-page-reclaim feature set on the market.  As a storage engineer myself, I have often wondered if VxVM/VxFS could make management of application data storage in our diverse environment easier and more dynamic.  Adding Thin-Reclamation to the mix makes it even more attractive.  I’d like to see more storage vendors follow 3PAR’s lead and write to Symantec’s API.  I’d also like to see Symantec open up both OST and the Thin-Reclamation API for others to use, but I doubt that will happen.

I havn’t blogged in over a week, so there’s a bit of a catch up needed.

I tried out the Geocaching app as planned. I didn’t attempt to be critical with it, I just wanted to try and gain an understanding how it worked and get an idea of what features were implemented.

The app that I evaluated is called ‘GeoBeagle’. Found here: http://code.google.com/p/geobeagle/
The first thing that I noticed with this app was how difficult it was to actually get coordinates on there. It wasn’t a simple click and there we go. I had to go through the Geocaching website (www.geocaching.com), scroll down to the bottom and then click on the link that says ‘Google Maps’. The instructions were vague and if i didnt watch a youtube video i wouldnt have figured it out.#

When finally getting the location data of the GeoCache in my GeoBeagle, it was off to find it. The app was surprisingly accurate, infact, it could be said that it was more accurate than me because i decided to be stubborn and look where i thought it was for the first 30 minutes. In the end, the app was right, and the GPS was accurate to sometimes 3 metres! and this is without 3G. I found the cache and finished my first test of the app.

The app had a few features i didnt really think about before. Such as the distance in metres and the list of added geo locations. It also occured to me that I am going to have to implement an offline version, this is because not everybody will have the internet but maybe GPS, and vice-versa.

The next step in the project at this stage was to write up the project proposal.

The next step in my research is going to be looking into other Latitude Apps. I may be jumping the gun a bit here, but i don’t see any harm in post-poning research into other areas till a later date.

Below is a direct copy of a bunch of notes i made in notepad whilst carrying out this research. I suggest reading the evaluation instead though which is found at the bottom.

Some things ive learnt from using apps, is the best way to be successful is to never be difficult to use and work in a niche. For me, this means i will have to design for the user and decide how i want my app to be used. Will it be a letterbox type treasure hunt? Will it be a method of people discovering new places? Will it be a way to meet new people (an advance on this idea would be dating). Or will it just be something people can do for fun… I need to choose one of these to focus on. If the app proves successful, i could then branch it off into other areas if i want to do so.

http://www.geocaching.com/ – I am thoroughly impressed by this website. It just has everything i was thinking of in terms of community. I am thinking, i may even create an Android app specifically for this website… After looking on the internet for Geocaching apps for the Android, it appears that this market has already been rather saturated.

Evaluation
Well, one of the biggest disappointments i came accross was that somebody had already produced a treasure hunting and marking app before me. Thankfully, however, they havn’t done it very well and have missed out alot of features i was going to add.

I came accross a site called ‘GeoCaching’ as well. This site is similar to the take off i was thinking about doing if i was to create an app for ‘Letterboxing’. There are already plenty of apps for this website though, so i dont see any point in my persuing this path; especially since one of them is done very well.

Just to make sure this app met every one of my needs, i decided to go on a GeoCache hunt of my own. The app worked very well and i found the geocache i was after. Infact, i realised something from using this app, and that is i will have to make more use of the GPS technology than the internet (which is what i originally thought was needed to track a phone).

I also have a bit of a decision to make. From my research, i found that the most successful apps were the ones working in a niche market. This means i will have to come up with some ideas on what niche market i could aim mine at. So far im thinking in the direction of dating or meeting new people would be best, as there is quite a rage going on in this area at the moment.

Google search – ‘how does latitude work’
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9127462/FAQ_How_Google_Latitude_locates_you_

From reading this article, my understanding is that location tracking technology uses a wide range of hardware/information to triangulate accurate positioning. And, the more hardware available (ie. Wi-Fi), the more accurate the tracking becomes.

What i don’t understand though, is this basically GPS in a nut shell? or is GPS a completely different technology. So, i decided to search into a bit more.

Google search – ‘how does gps work‘
http://www.nasm.si.edu/gps/work.html

Well, GPS is easy enough to understand. But it doesn’t give any definitive answer as to if its any different between the method thats used by Google or other location tracking applications. So, i will need clarification on this subject matter from Chris Wallace.

Evaluation

From carrying out this research, i have found out the limitations of GPS and location tracking technology. It isn’t completely accurate, and the less 3rd party technologies available, the less accurate it becomes. I will of course have to clarify my information or maybe even carry out a small investigation myself to determine the differences.

To me, the first step that makes sense to start my Latitude App is to research into how it works exactly. The questions i seek to answer are:

• What Hardware is used – Satellites. Types of Phones.
• What kind of Protocols are used – HTTP? Does it even use Protocols?
• What Software is used – Does the phone need software?
• Limitations – Precision, Availability
• Can it be replicated using a computer or a small object

The final question is a stretch, but it would be interesting to theorize on how this treasure hunting api could be advanced in the most ideal world (technologically, economically, etc).

In order to find out these questions and help me to come up with more, i will be using the internet as my main source of information as well as one of my tutors, Chris Wallace. I know that Chris Wallace is clued up in many areas of new technology (including latitude) and clarification on information findings would be a major help.

The post i made previously is exceptionally large, so i have decided to cut it down and provide this post for the marker so they dont have to spend too long reading through everything… basically i had a change of heart on how i was carrying out the project. I had a number of ideas and didnt really explore them too much, so i decided to do just that and halt the decision on what i was going to produce and discuss in my Project Proposal document.

The idea that i first decided to go with was JQuery. I am no longer doing this since im going to learn this in another module and thus to me, defeats the whole point of me taking it on in the first place. Instead i am going to find out how to create a treasure hunting api, where users can leave clues and riddles on how to find an item they have hidden or perhaps even a nice hidden retreat not many people know about. This could also advance into the ‘Letterboxing’ thing that is going on at the moment and even involve an entire chain of different people.

I may produce the app on the Android for a number of reasons. Firstly, it suits the api perfectly to have it portable. Secondly, i am under the impression that iPhone charges developers a license where as i dont think this is true for the Android. I will also look into seeing if it is easily portable onto the iPhone as this would give the app a wider range of users and thus (in theory) more enjoyable.

Tomorrow i have a nice and early 3 hour lecture for this final major project, but ive only just realised that i’ve missed a huge gap in my usual project management. The way they seem to be teaching project management in this module seems to go like this, ‘get an idea, theorise/research it, do it’… thats all well and good, but i like to explore paths to begin with, i like to make sure that the idea im going to stick with is the best choice. How do i know that Ben and Jerrys ‘Phish Food’ is the best flavored ice cream unless ive tried their other flavors? So, ive decided to carry out this project my own way… this usually spells bad news for me as im not very good at sticking to the expected outcome, but seeing as we can create pretty much anything we like im sure this wont be the cause of my failing

So, first and foremost, i will have to quickly note out my ideas before researching into them. The reason for coming up with my ideas is that all of them could turn out to be successful, enjoyable and most importantly educational. Some of them even have a chance to become profitable… but this is perhaps a stretch away from the provided brief ^^

• Spotify – This is a free search application that provides music to stream for listening. What i would want to do with this application is improve it by adding functions that i think would provide better usability for its general audience. The reason i think these functions would be useful is because i am one of the general audience that Spotify aims to satisfy.
  
  One of the key features that i would like to add to this application is the chance to add music the user already has on their computer into its playlist. I could then perhaps further improve on this by allowing users to import music into their playlists from YouTube. However, without even having to research into it, i know that Spotify is not open-source, meaning that i would have to develop my own application to compete with it.
  
  This sounds like an enjoyable thing to do, but it is way beyond the scope of the project and i dont want to have to strip a project down to a ‘prototype’ or ‘theorizing’ outcome as i would feel that my time wasn’t put to the best of use.
  
  References – http://www.spotify.com
• Android App – This idea is fairly self explanatory for the most part. Though i dont know what app i would create exactly, i do know that the Android Market lacks a serious amount of apps that the iPhone store has.
  
  Since i use an Android OS myself, i want to help solve this issue.One of the most useful apps ive found that iPhone has and Android doesn’t is SMS texting through a web gateway… i found this out after researching into another idea i came up with which i shall mention next
• SMS Gateway – Now, this is an idea that i came up with the other night whilst lying in bed. In fact i wasn’t in bed for very long after coming up with it because i was so excited about it that i had to stay up and research into it, i struggled to get a decent nights kip for uni the next day!
  
  The reason i was so excited about this idea was the idea that i could ’send text msgs for free’, and possibly ‘make phone calls for free’… now, i knew some people had looked into this, but in my eyes they had barely touched the sides. With 3G around now, what if a phone company decided to provide an ‘internet only’ package? All this money were paying out now for minutes, texts etc, when all we really need is a connection to the satellites floating around in space.#
  
  So, i got thinking… since the internet is the future for phones, i should be ready for it. Without straying far from the brief provided, i would have to create an sms gateway and application in order to allow my friends to send free sms text msgs from their phones… well, after researching, i realised this had already been done for the iPhone.
  
  Of course i could create an app for the android to do this, but its such a niche it hardly seems worth it anymore. So, my attention turned to phone calling… well, i already know Skype does P2P calls, and after a quick google check up i find that people have already started to get programmes talking to each other so you dont even have to use Skype.
  
  Because this idea turned out to either be done already or hardly beneficial, i decided to give this one a miss and move on to my next idea.
  
  References – http://www.tm4b.com/ & http://www.cbfsms.com/
• JQuery Exploration – So here i am, back to the first idea that i came up with, exploration into JQuery. The reason i want to explore JQuery is because (like i may have mentioned previously) it’s in such a high demand in the job market and i dont even know what it can do exactly.
  
  I know it’s just a Javascript library, but i dont even know what that can do if used to its full potential.After i had spent a small ammount of time looking over what JQuery was and tutorials on the web, i eventually came up with the idea of creating a ‘Lights Out’ game. This could turn out to be fun and the outcome would be useful as a form of entertainment.
  
  However, it seems very limited and i don’t see any way i could expand it other than how the game works. Because of this, i have decided that if i was to carry on with this idea, then creating putting many aspects to use from JQuery would be most beneficial for me in terms of challenging myself so that i can try to learn as much as i can.
  
  References – http://docs.jquery.com/Tutorials:Getting_Started_with_jQuery (the tutorial i started to work through)
• Latitude/Environmental App – This is an area that i havent had the chance to fully explore yet. I dont quite know what i want to do with it, as i know that most areas have already been covered. I do know that i want to give myself the chance to work in this area though as it is something that i have always found fascinating, how a satellite can find your exact location… its kind of creepy, but still awesome.
  
  Something that i could create in this would be perhaps a treasure hunt app, where the user has to track down something that another person has left clues for.To me this just sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, even if it’s just between 2 friends, but of course it could expand into an entire stream of winners who then move the object and perhaps add something to it… I guess in that aspect its similar to the new craze that is happening at the moment actually called ‘Letterboxing’, but its something that the average person could get involved in rather than the usual hitch hiking type.
  
  There are so many ways to advance this though, there doesnt even have to be an object it could just be a really quirky hunt leading the follower through some nice places in the area/map.
  
  This kind of app would be better of being created for a smart phone such as the iPhone or Android. I am unsure which one i should make it for though so i will have to look into what i need to do in order to get myself licensed with either one of them and if it’s even possible to port over the exact same programming for both smart phones.

In conclusion, i am pleased with the nice batch of ideas that ive got lined up ready for pickings im swaying towards the Latitude option though, just because its such a new technology and ive managed to come up with an idea thats got me actually quite excited ^^though, i need to look into as to whether it’s even possible with my knowledge and if it’s within the scope, since i dont want to have to just produce a prototype or a batch of research… there doesnt seem to be any point to that in my opinion.

Well, after 2 hours of typing and exploring ideas, i think thats me done for the night. I have to get up in less than 6 hours for the lesson… sigh, my own fault, maybe this module will help me with my time management!

In order to reach some solid decisions on my project, i needed to carry out research into JQuery as well as ‘Lights Out’. The reason i want to research into the game itself is because i want to see if anybody has created anything similar, and then perhaps use some of the ideas that they have implemented.

…. This post was haulted, since i began to realise that i had skipped a major part in my usual method of carrying out a project.

Before the lesson for DMP on Friday the 2nd of Oct, i had no idea what i wanted to do for my Final Major Project.

I knew i wanted to do something in JQuery because i had seen a high demand in the job market for this skill, however, i didn’t even know what JQuery was. So before turning up to the lesson i decided to do some quick reading and find out what it was exactly and try to cover some of the basic functions of what it could do.

I still had to come up with an idea though, so with a very small amount of knowledge of its capabilities i decided to mix them in with an image of a piece of abstract canvas work i remember seeing. After some brain wracking i came up with the idea of creating a simple ‘Lights Out’ game. I loved playing this game as a child, and being able to create my own would mean i could make it even more challenging and functional.

I don’t want to be limiting myself to this, as another reason i wanted to learn JQuery was so that i could apply AJAX to any contact/registration form that i may want to create in the future. So, when it came to the lesson, i decided to just leave my initial brief completely open and leave myself time to decide on what i could do… whether it be somehow integrating AJAX with my game or creating 2 closely related applications.

remember these?

Well check this out:

Sadly it’s only a design concept but it’s still freakin awesome.

10.09.09: Ärzte und Kassen fordern neue Wege in der Demenzversorgung

Mediziner und Kassenvertreter haben gestern auf einem Symposium des Zukunftsforums Demenz neue Wege in der Demenzversorgung gefordert. Unter anderem sprachen sie sich für die Auflegung eines Disease Management Programms (DMP) Demenz aus, um den bevorstehenden Herausforderungen der alternden Gesellschaft zu begegnen.

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