View source for User:Kgarms

I am Kyle Garms, I am a Computer Science and Philosophy major and a Math minor.

I am working on the Blackberry project.  The goal of the project is to make an app for the blackberry that allows you to pick an exit on your current highway/interstate and then know what places to eat, what gas stations and what hotels are at that exit before you get there, so you can make a decision based on what you want to do before the last minute.



May 12th

Install eclipse along with the blackberry plug in for eclipse.
Worked on making eclipse actually accept the blackberry plug in.
Achieved making the blackberry plug in install without error.


May 18th

Did a lot of reading on how to write a Blackberry program.


May 19th

Wrote a simple hello world program for a blackberry.
Advanced the hello world program with several interesting extras.
Found useful APIs for the blackberry, but was still not able to find a useful API about the GPS part of the blackberry.


May 20th

Made the Wiki page for the project.
As well as looked for an API for the GPS in the blackberry.
Found the blackberry GPS Api.
Used the GPS Api to try accessing the GPS part of the blackberry.
Had to find the new plug-in for eclipse and install the plug-in so that the gps would work on the simulator. (much harder to do than it sounds)
Wrote and executed a few simple GPS programs, but had trouble understanding the meaning of the output, but I have an idea.


Trying to upload screen shots of the project but the screen shots failed.

June 15th

At long last, There has been a successful returned data about the GPS location and the returned data was correct.
Remaking of a clean project with only the needed calls was created.

The current project can now return your latitude and longitude positions based on your GPS location.
Testing on how well accurate the values are is being tested. (because the accuracy seems off a bit (3 blocks, but real GPS positions are needed for it to be tested)
The ability to find out which highway you are on, is the new problem, and how to access the internet to get the upcoming exits restaurants, hotels and gas.
Direction is another problem as well, but that should be easily solved.

Side Note:  The blackberry GPS is not as user friendly as it could be.


June 20th
Worked on implementing a save and loading ability so that preferences could be saved.
After a few hours of trying to implement the save, i choice to make the one option asked on load, but a problem that the program would just continue on even if the choice was never made.  This problem was worse than all others so the option was undone.

June 22nd
Worked on implementing menu items of all the options.
All menu items were correctly implemented, but the main scene would not update causing yet another set back.
Did reading on how to refresh the main screen and add new parts after loading the program.
Also found a useful API for the map app, implementation.


June 25 & June 28
Successfully made the GPS device update my location, as well as successfully made the the GPS device allow for choosing of allowing GPS costs or not allowing GPS costs. (huge advancement even though it does not seem like much)


July 1-10
Worked on and successfully connected the blackberry simulator to the internet, and had a web page load and tested to make sure all internet was available.


July 17
Found out that blackberry simulator hates 64 bit windows.  Had to make a work around to make simulator work again.

July 21
Successfully implemented a HTTP call from my application, to load a page.  (still in development is showing that page to the user).