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7 February 2003
Coming Together
Several things in the pipeline... The FM
transmitter, I'm still waiting for. The 7"
VGA touchscreen monitor I've just paid for, so that's
also winging it's way over to my sweaty palms.
Meanwhile in my car I'm re-wiring and re-installing
everything, to make for a more small and neat experience.
Thanks to my small little DC2DC power supply, I'm finally
able to fit the motherboard, hard drive and power supply
in one of the small metal cases I've got. So tomorrow
I'm heading of the Maplins to buy a Dremol type device
for this purpose. Things are going well.
 As
I'll be getting a touchscreen device, I'm planning to
make best use of this by designing a great little custom
interface. Lucky for me, the last 6 weeks of my
life have been spent developing a touchscreen interface
for the iPlus kiosks that are dotted around my
area of the country. Let's hope this experience will
result in a clear and easy to use interface.
The image to the right of a mock up of what my interface
may look like, I came across this image on another site.
But it depicts some of the main points of my own design.
Clear constrasting colours, with large and easy read
activation areas. I won't be showing off my interface
until I'm happy with how it's looking.
I'll be integrating my voice recog software into the
interface, so major function can be voice controled.
Like turning the PC off or launching the GPS software,
the finer functions still need to be defined.
 In
other news I wanted to share an email I got from
David Hoekstra. He explains how instead of building
a custom carputer like I and many others have done,
he's managed to cut costs my using a tablet PC instead,
instant carputer!
He's already managed to get it to Bluetooth to his
mobile phone so that Internet access isn't a problem.
With a 8.4" touchscreen, using it is a easy experience.
Sadly he tells me, it's not all good. It's only got
64MB of RAM, which is the max it can take. With a Pentium
II running at 233MHz it's not the fastest beast out
there. Also the software is expensive and the audio
output isn't the best.
So there you have it, another way to bring your technology
on any journey, but without having to build your own
PC. Something to consider. Although personally I like
being able to build everything myself, more problems,
more fun ; )
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