- Communicating with the SpotOn server
We decided to create a background application which will have a constant connection with the spoton server. Once a user has started an application, it will, through inter-process communication, obtain the user id from the the background app. We also plan to use the background app to personalize the first screen the user will see when obtaining the device. Initially, when the device is free, the screen will simply be blank. However, once a user is authenticated, the screen will alter to contain the user's name and perhaps start the application last used. - Altering the protocol for the instant messenger
Upon developing the instant messenger application, we realized that the current protocol was not sufficient. Instead, the application hack the way the protocol is used. Jing has a web page describing how we used the current protocol for the instant messenger. - Porting code for WinCE
It turn out to not be too difficult. The majority of the MFC api was provided in developing for WinCE. The only issue came in realizing that WinCE strings were all in unicode format, while the profile server only accepted ascii strings. However, altering from unicode to ascii was not difficult at all. - Communicating with the profile server
Each application will keep an open connection with the profile as long as the application is open. Once it is killed, the connection is lost.
- The background app
It has been developed and tested with the ToDo application. However, it has yet to be tested with the memo pad and instant messenger application. - Spoton Server
The spoton hardware has not yet been tested with the spoton server code, but this code is only slightly deviated from highly stable code from Jeff Hightower. - Profile Server
Put something here - Supporting the Palm Pilot
We have tentative plans to try and support the instant messenger for the palm pilot. However, nothing is concrete at this moment. We will also need to incorporate the concept of a background app informing the applications about the user id.
- Supporting multiple applications at one time
All the tests performed so far have been testing one application against the test server. It currently has no problem handling multiple instances of the same application. However, we have yet to test the application and server, while running multiple applications at once. - Memo Application
Development is virtually completed on the PC and the iPaq. It has been tested against the server and the PC and iPaq and everything looks great. - Instant Messenger Application
Development is virtually completed on the PC and the iPaq. Tests have been ran against the server using the PC and the iPaq. One minor issue is that we are currently having trouble altering the display to show a specific color in our list box. It should be easily fixed reading MSDN. - To Do application
This is basically done. It has been tested with no problems against the test server. I have yet to test it with the real profile server yet. In addition, this application now works with the Background app communicating with the SpotOn server. - Profile Server
Put something here - Background Application
Put something here - Spoton Server
An appointment with Jeff Hightower is pending -- March 5 or 6 -- at which point the hardware will be tested against the packet handling stack. This is expected to take only a few minutes. - Palm applications
Put something here
Here is a flow diagram how how the various modules of our system communicate:
