Tuesday 22 May 2012

Raspberry Pi

Bought myself some Raspberry Pi

Ok, it's official. My name finally came up on the pre-order list and I purchased a Raspberry Pi! Not sure exactly what to do with it yet, but I figure it must be worth the $35 US (+shipping). Came out to about mid-$40's. In any case, hopefully total will be under $50 for a Linux machine.

So here's some thoughts. I plan on embedding this thing inside a small keyboard case. Then I just take it with me and plug into a monitor and power supply. The SD card should have the Linux distro on it and boot up from that. I can also attach USB memory if needed to access stuff. Basically a nice Linux toy to play around with. Can make it into another media box, a small laptop, whatever. Just need to source the parts and patch something together.Will keep you posted!


Monday 21 May 2012

Posting from my Playbook

Posting from my Playbook

So I am trying to post this next blog entry entirely using my Playbook. It is a little tougher since there is no mouse control. The small icons on most of the Google docs pages have always been tough to tap using a touchscreen only. I am pinch zooming in order to get close enough to activate the buttons. Nevertheless, I am making progress. I managed to open another tab, find an image of the PlayBook and link it here. 

I look forward to testing out more blogging in preparation for the app generation for my clients. The question will be, who will continuously update their blogs? Will I do it, or will they have to make a parallel site to theirs which will also need updating, if they do not have blog format for news at the moment? Seems to me that the static web design model with periodic page edits by a designer are not going to cut it. The news pages should be formatted as a blog and embedded within the website instead, and page edits would occur in the blog site.


My Blogging Journey Begins

My Blogging Journey Begins

I have finally plunged into the world of "blogging". After considering myself relatively techno-savvy I realized that having a Facebook account, Twitter account and website were not enough. I rarely use or update any of them. At this point in time I am working to develop some Blackberry Applications for several organizations. In particular, I wanted to enhance their mobile-presence and it seems there are a number of new services which create customized RSS newsfeed "Apps" for iOS, Blackberry and Android patforms with little to no programming experience needed. This is the start of my experimentation with blogging, creating an RSS feed and seeing how I can make an app out of it!

Newsreader Automatic Apps

Sites which I have found that can create apps out of RSS, which are in turn created out of blogs, are as follows:

http://www.andromo.com/ (for Android)

Essentially, Google-search for "app generator for <insert platform here>" and you will find a number of automatic app generators which essentially are pre-made RSS newsreaders, that insert your RSS feed into their code and basically create a newsreader "locked" on to your feed, with the ability to customize the icon.