"K Barrett" wrote in message
...
wendy7 wrote:
I wonder about screen brightness in a GH situation (Lord knows the LCD
screen on my digital camera is worthless in a GH) - but that concern would
hold true for either a laptop or a PDA.
This is a valid concern. I have an excellent notebook, but the screen on it
can not be used unless the light is very subdued (as happens at dawn or
dusk). However, there are improvements coming For example, I have an Acer
AL1913 flat screen, thin panel monitor. It is amazing. I can easily read
it in the brightest of light. Once the technology used in it has been
adopted in PDAs, this won't be an issue any more.
And as for whomever said a smaller version of OrchidWiz (or Wildcatt for
that matter) without pictures or most of the functions could indeed work
on a PDA. I'm pretty sure Alex has that (or can come up with it), since he
was working on a PDA type program to begin with. But the functions are
what you want in the first place.... so why bother?
Stripping down the application would be a mistake, IMHO as a software
developer. A smarter approach would be to transform the application into a
combination of client and server applications. This would be routine for an
experienced software engineer, taken almost automatically when there is a
need to use an application on an under-powered machine. The idea is to have
a thin client application which handles almost nothing but data transfers to
and from the server, and displaying it on the screen. It is my
understanding that many PDAs have a stripped down version of Windows. If
they have a standard Internet Explorer binary, they don't need anything else
on the PDA, and the application developer can use standard web programming
techniques to provide all the expected functionality using probably a blend
of web pages and applets. Of course, the program will still probably be
slow because of the need for bandwidth across the Internet, but it should be
usable if the developer has done his homework in optimizing his database
access for performance across a heavily used network.
As to whomever said any geek could take apart the program and work on it
themselves. Indeed. I know a person who has done that with Wildcatt. I
know 2 people who have done that with the old AOS award CD. No doubt
someone's already working on OrchidWiz, LOL!! That's not the problem. The
problem is being creative enough to know what functions one would like and
making it work. So then it becomes an exercise in 'what features can you
live without?" and then 'what features do you absolutely need?' and one
gets stymied and gives up to go get a glass of wine. Let's face it,
creativity takes brains and vision. I ain't got neither.
As I said, if I were hired to work on such a project, I would not look at
stripping away some of the functionality. Instead, I'd work on a
client/server web application with the thinest client interface that I can
deliver.
BTW, if one of my students slandered themselves in the way you did, they
would have received a scolding like they never experienced before! You are
respected and valued, and I hope you won't slander yourself again. Besides,
I am probably the only one here who has cause to say depricating things
about myself! ;-)
I have asked out of work silicon valley programmers if they could rewrite
Wildcatt for a PDA and they have told me the operating systems for a PDA,
either PalmOS or microsoft's OS are a real bear. However if one was
dedicated one could write a program to allow Wildcatt to work on a
microsoft OS PDA. (There's that word again - dedicated...) I have
wondered, what with everything else getting outsourced to India, why I
couldn't hire a programmer to do this for me. Which got too complicated,
and I went and got a glass of wine. Probably some brie, too.
Based on what I saw in India, you are not likely to save much, and there are
countless "developers" there I would not consider hiring. While I met some
outstanding developers there, your problem would be how to distinguish
between those who know what they're doing and those that don't. My approach
would be to offer software engineering courses to kids whose only
qualification would be that they can read and write English well (and if
they have more skills, so much the better). Then I can teach them everything
they need to now about software engineering. There are two ways to gain
employees who are capable and useful: try to hire them, or train them in
house. I prefer the latter.
I'd suggest that your least expensive, and yet most reliable, option is to
go to the nearest, good quality college or university, and arrange with the
IT faculty to hire a student to work on your project under the supervision
of one of the faculty. In that way, you get the enthusiasm of a kid who
still loves IT, but working under the guidance of an expert who presumably
understands how to get an application developed. And students will work for
a small fraction of te cost of a software development consultant.
I understand the size of the program won't fit on a PDA. I understand
there's not enough memory in a PDA to move data around in order to make it
work in a rapid fashion. I understand the chips aren't fast enough in a
PDA to handle the speed at which one would want the data moved and
accessed. What I don't understand is why one can't carry OrchidWiz on a
512 memorystick and access it via the PDA. Like an outboard harddrive. I
think the answer is because PDAs don't have a USB port in which to plug
the memorystick. Even still, the computer runs so slowly you'd probably
die and vultures could pick your bones clean before you'd access the data
you want.
The reason for all you've noted here in this paragraph is that the processor
has to handle all the processing involved in the application. You can
accomplish what you're after by offloading most of the required processing
to a server, resulting in a thin client. What you lose in the cost of
transfering data over the Internet will be more than compensated for by the
power of server side computation. That said, the developer has to get a
good handle on the demands placed on the server so that he can ensure that
his server machine can handle the load. This is relatively easy if the
program is accessed only through an Intranet (a network that exists only
within an office or building). It can be challenging, though, if the
program is configured to be accessed through, or from the Internet.
Does this help?
Cheers,
Ted
--
R.E. (Ted) Byers, Ph.D., Ed.D.
R & D Decision Support Solutions
http://www.randddecisionsupportsolutions.com/
Healthy Living Through Informed Decision Making