So I’m working on a small digital signage project. One of the first challenges is getting a computer setup to run the display and the thought occurred what is the best way to do that. In the advent of low power CPUs I took the dive and purchase an OMAP3 based development board. One of the first goals is to build a digital display appliance.

Have a look at the setup.

I choose the ThunderPack from TechNexion because it included the LCD screen, Wifi, Ethernet, HDMI, and a basic build of the Angstrom Linux distribution.

Pros - So far …

• Easy to order, fast shipping, responsive to email support
• Good construction, feels solid when handling it
• Pretty good software builds to get you up and running
• Decent documentation, you will need to have moderate linux systems experience though
• It boots right up and you can start using Angstrom right on the LCD display

Cons - So far …

• The 1st SD card used had a lot of difficulties getting the file system built (start with one under 2GB)

Thats about it, trying to keep it short and simple. Next up is building Android and seeing how it does…

If there are any questions please let me know.

Here is a quick little snippet of TSQL; what is running and that percent complete.  This comes from using dm_exec_requests and the percent complete value there.


select T.text,
R.Status,
R.Command,
DatabaseName = db_name(R.database_id),
R.cpu_time,
R.total_elapsed_time,
R.percent_complete
from sys.dm_exec_requests R
cross apply sys.dm_exec_sql_text(R.sql_handle) T


Click here

Right now the goal is every few days to complete a chapter of the book ‘Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK.”  I’m not a big fan of the title but then again its the title that sells most book; a double ’iPhone’ in the text seems a bit awkward. The book sets out to walk you though the fundamentals of the SDK and being a few chapters in its doing a decent job. Its been some time since I’ve done C development with a language like like Objective-C and development tools such as Xcode. Transitioning from C# and .Net 3.5 is a little bit of a leap but thankfully I did some linux GUI programming back in the day. Having worked with Apress and being familiar with their style guidelines for Curtis’ book; my only critique would be a few minor formatting and style issues in the early chapter. IMO, some links and tips should be formatted differently.

Chapter 3 covered basic interactions and in this case a two button demo. Consisting of a label and two buttons you work though the steps of defining outlets, actions, builder, and linking it all together. When you finally build the project the the iPhone simulator comes up, loads your app, and lets you click left button and right button until your heart is content.

Its nothing to write home yet but getting the fundaments of iPhone development so far is pretty straight forward from a pretty good book.  Next comes working though some advanced interactions and then diving into specific library objects such as sliders, tables, images, network functions, etc…  I’ll keep working a couple of chapters but I’m sure at some point I’ll break from working page to page and begin actual application development; keeping the book on my desk as a reference.

In all of its glory I bring to you … Hello World on the iPhone simulator

The lure of Apple development has captured my interest so its time to begin looking for an inexpensive Mac for development. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a Mac Mini on Craigslist for a few bucks.

If you know of something let me know.

Basically the app will be for the iPhone and targeted towards location based social networking.