Final year project

[jez]

Hi guys,

here I am, back on the newsgroup (*sorry* ). I thought I'd ask the wise
guys about their opinions.

Basically, as I said in a post some time ago I'm a student on placement now
and I'm going back to uni to do my fourth year in CS in October. I just got
an email today asking us to submit our topics for our final year projects.

I thought I'd base my project on the .NET Framework - Full and/or Compact. I
started this placement with no knowledge at all and I think that by now I
have acquired (hopefully) the basics

To cut the long story short: What interesting final year project would you
recommend ?

I am pretty keen to do something with .NET (although I studied Java for 2
years at uni - but I think it's crap), most probably the CF. I was
thinking of doing something that involves some kind of networking, most
probably WiFi. But that's as far as I got. I definitely want to do something
interesting (I'll be spending most of my nights on it.. so I better like
it).

Any suggestions ?

I'd love to hear from you all !

Thanks,

jez

 

[John T]

I am pretty keen to do something with .NET (although I studied Java
for 2 years at uni - but I think it's crap), most probably the CF.
I was thinking of doing something that involves some kind of
networking, most probably WiFi. But that's as far as I got. I
definitely want to do something interesting (I'll be spending most of
my nights on it.. so I better like it).

Any suggestions ?

You want *us* to tell *you* what you'll find interesting?

Think of your hobbies and things you enjoy doing. Think of an application
that would be useful there.

 

[jez]

Thanks for that reply

obviously I'm not asking for a full description of a project. Perhaps more
ideas of technologies/things that I could use in my project.

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Thanks for that reply

obviously I'm not asking for a full description of a project. Perhaps more
ideas of technologies/things that I could use in my project.

I find that going from a set of technologies to a project is the wrong
way round. Think of some itch you want to scratch - and then work out
which technologies are appropriate to implement it.

You can limit it to some extent: if you want to do a Compact Framework
project, start asking yourself what you can't currently do with a PDA
that you *want* to be able to do.

 

[jez]

I thought I'd go that way as I'm interested in working with new
technologies - or at least something I haven't done before.

I guess you might be right. Perhaps by working that way I'd absolutely try
to use some kind of technology in my project.

 

[Ginny Caughey [MVP]]

jez,

Maybe developing a useful app for a Smartphone would be fun for you, but you
have to think of what that app would do. It might be a game or useful way to
keep track of things you want to remember or just about anything, and if you
haven't worked with Smartphone before, that might provide the little
technology challenge you want.

----------------
Ginny Caughey
..Net Compact Framework MVP

I thought I'd go that way as I'm interested in working with new
technologies - or at least something I haven't done before.

I guess you might be right. Perhaps by working that way I'd absolutely try
to use some kind of technology in my project.

 

[jez]

I supose that means I would have to buy a smartphone ?
Is there any kind of difference between programming for the PPC and the
SmartPhone ?

By the way, are smartphones with the CF actually already available ? Might
have a look in that direction.

jez,

Maybe developing a useful app for a Smartphone would be fun for you, but you
have to think of what that app would do. It might be a game or useful way to
keep track of things you want to remember or just about anything, and if you
haven't worked with Smartphone before, that might provide the little
technology challenge you want.

 

[Ginny Caughey [MVP]]

You'll need a Smartphone 2003 to use the CF. They aren't available in my
area, so I'm using the Smartphone Developer Kit which has a dummy SIM that I
think can be ugraded to a real one from a GSM carrier. (I haven't tried that
yet since currently I have a plan with a CDMA carrier.)

The main difference with Smartphone from a development standpoint is that
some controls aren't available on the platform (like buttons since there's
no touch screen) and designing apps for a tiny screen requires a somewhat
different mindset I'm finding. You could ask on the smartphone.developer
newsgroup about Smartphone 2003 phones in your area.

 

[Isaias Formacio Serna]

A year ago we created this idea, it surprised everybody and we won the
national contest of enterprenours here in Mexico with it, take a look at it,
you'll find it interesting and challenging.

Note: We were a team of six people, so, if you're doing it alone, you might
want to consider it twice.

http://www.atom.com.mx/questasoft/productos.html

If you don't understand spanish... use babelfish...
http://babelfish.altavista.com

Have fun!!

Isaias Formacio

 

[jez]

Hi all,

I had a bit of a thought about something that _I_ would find
interesting. So here it is, please give me some comments on it but
also more essentially ideas of interesting things I could add to spice
up my project. This is my final year project, the most important piece
of work in 4 years time - i'm really looking to do something good
(i.e. worth lots of marks) :
_

Implement an application that runs on the PPC for travelers while
they're at the airport. The application gives the gate and flight time
and refreshes it automatically. All done over wireless connection.
_

This is a short description. I travel a lot and I think those are the
main things that I'd want to have on such an application.. What other
features would you think it would be nice to implement ?

Thanks all for your input!

jez

 

[Isaias Formacio Serna]

Just one question, where are you going to get that information from?? Do the
airlines have that available to the regular traveler?

 

[Isaias Formacio Serna]

Actually, they were two questions. =S

Just one question, where are you going to get that information from?? Do the
airlines have that available to the regular traveler?




at would

 

[jez]

Actually, that's not really important at the moment. I can just kind
of "invent" that information I guess - to show an example.

And, well, normally the major airlines have got a website with up to
date information about the flight numbers and times - but I don't
intent to grab info from those websites.

I was wondering - in a more general vision - whether anything
interesting could be added to such a project..

 

[asj]

I suggest going back to Java, since in addition to the 250 million
cellphones that are running MIDP 1 and 2 (it looks like MIDP has
pretty much become the de facto standard for mass-market cellphones,
running in Symbian, Linux, BREW, and Windows phones), you'll soon be
able to run much more powerful "Xlets" using the Personal Profile on
upcoming enterprise phones like the Nokia 9500:

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,015_91,00.html

CF.NET? hmmm....PDAs will soon be near-extinct it looks like,
swallowed up by the smartphones, and microsoft smartphones are so
negligible in numbers it's not even funny anymore.

then again, maybe you just love being a niche player ;-)

 

[Rob S. Pierre]

I suggest going back to Java, since in addition to the 250 million
cellphones that are running MIDP 1 and 2 (it looks like MIDP has
pretty much become the de facto standard for mass-market cellphones,
running in Symbian, Linux, BREW, and Windows phones), you'll soon be
able to run much more powerful "Xlets" using the Personal Profile on
upcoming enterprise phones like the Nokia 9500:

http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/0,6566,015_91,00.html

CF.NET? hmmm....PDAs will soon be near-extinct it looks like,
swallowed up by the smartphones, and microsoft smartphones are so
negligible in numbers it's not even funny anymore.

then again, maybe you just love being a niche player ;-)

The funny thing is that Microsoft-Smartphones like Motorola MPXxx-series
have *no* Java installed. OK nothing new but what kind of incredible
arrogance from MSFT to ignore an existing standard.

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

It's not arrogance, nor does Microsoft have anything to do with the face.
Due to the lawsuit, Microsoft couldn't include a JVM if they wanted to, so
it's up to the OEM.

The OEMs are driven by one thing - the bottom line. Adding a JVM would add
cost to each (already expensive) device. What benefit would be gained by
adding one of the many JVMs out there? Maybe if there was some
standardization, but it's not like you can just add some JVM and run every
mobile-phone java app on it. Java on these devices is just too fragmented.

If you don't like Microsoft, fine, but blaming them for what the OEMs do is
shortsighted. My house doesn't have a hot-tub, but blaming the lumber mill
that made the boards would be a bit misplaced.

-Chris

 

[asj]

The funny thing is that Microsoft-Smartphones like Motorola MPXxx-series
have *no* Java installed. OK nothing new but what kind of incredible
arrogance from MSFT to ignore an existing standard.

i could be wrong, but i believe it actually runs MIDP 1 (which is
dated as of this year), but nothing like the newer MIDP 2 or more
powerful profiles of J2ME like the Personal Profile. Motorola is
hedging its bets and supporting every single OS platform out here
(Symbian, Linux, Windows, Palm?), but i believe java is present in all
its mid and upper range phones as the "default" app development
environment to tie them all together.

 

[Rob S. Pierre]

i could be wrong, but i believe it actually runs MIDP 1 (which is
dated as of this year), but nothing like the newer MIDP 2 or more
powerful profiles of J2ME like the Personal Profile. Motorola is
hedging its bets and supporting every single OS platform out here
(Symbian, Linux, Windows, Palm?), but i believe java is present in all
its mid and upper range phones as the "default" app development
environment to tie them all together.

According to my information MPX-series definetely
has **no** JVM installed. Make a google-research.

 

[Rob S. Pierre]

The OEMs are driven by one thing - the bottom line. Adding a JVM would add
cost to each (already expensive) device. What benefit would be gained by
adding one of the many JVMs out there? Maybe if there was some
standardization, but it's not like you can just add some JVM and run every
mobile-phone java app on it. Java on these devices is just too fragmented.

If you don't like Microsoft, fine, but blaming them for what the OEMs do is
shortsighted. My house doesn't have a hot-tub, but blaming the lumber mill
that made the boards would be a bit misplaced.

This is a joke, right? "adding additional costs to a Smartphone"

Motorola is the driving force behind J2ME. Each and every
Symbian- and Linux-Smartphone has Java installed. And this is
not a question of additional costs it is just simply an important
formfactor.

 

[Chris Tacke, eMVP]

So you're saing that the JVM is free, testing it is free and supporting it
is free? Just because a product is expensive doesn't mean that raising the
price further doesn't have adverse effects.

"Driving force" or not, Motorola has customers and shareholders, both of
which need to be pleased. Adding cost to an already expensive phonemakes a
competitor's offering look better. Customers then leave. That leads to
product failures and excess inventories. That makes shareholders unhappy.
Unhappy shareholders mean executives get fired. You can bet they they look
at cost on Linux and Symbian devices too.

And note again, Microsoft has nothing to do with any of this. They sell the
software platform. They don't design the hardware.

-Chris