​After really pressing the issue, I finally was granted super user access to the compsci02 mySQL server.  This is when I began to really focus in on creating the admin side of my app.  I wanted all data about admins and buildings to be stored in the database and easily managed via the admin interface housed on my app.  My initial vision for the design of my database was far more robust than I was able to implement.  Selecting, updating, inserting, and deleting data seemed like it was going to be a simple task at first because Microsoft had created classes that allowed Java to easily interact with a mySQL database.  After spending an evening trying to get these classes to work, I abandoned that method and went with a more traditional method of utilizing PHP to help communicate between my Java and mySQL database.  When I was developing the create and update building activities for my app, I was beginning to realize that I did not have enough time anymore to go ahead with my more complicated (though better) design.  I instead opted for a far simpler design that saved me time in development but frustrated me because it made my app more vanilla feeling.
 
Now it came time to my presentation.  Going second, I was able to get my presentation out of the way early and really sit back and enjoy everyone else's projects.  I was pleased with how my presentation went.  My app crashed when it was decoding my pictures for the building info pages a few times but I was expecting that so that did not faze me at all.  Additionally, many of my classmates' projects impressed me and I think many of them should take great pride in what they accomplished.  None of us could have gotten our final versions where they were without Dr. Pankratz, Dr. McVey, and our other classmates so I feel almost everyone's project was not only a culmination of each individuals effort but the entire department's effort as well.  Overall this capstone experience was a new test and I enjoyed the challenges it presented.  I faced questions that no one had the answer to, forcing me to come up with solutions on my own and often with the help of the internet.  Its biggest challenge was testing everyone's determination to drive toward a finished project without anyone watching over your shoulder, assigning hard deadlines (aside from the presentation date).  All in all, I think I grew from this class and I now understand why our professors call this the capstone experience; because it is just that, a learning, growing, fun experience.

I'm back after a blogging hiatus.  Hopefully that doesn't hurt my final grade too much.  Now to the project, I have been making fantastic strides over the past few weeks.  I have been able to incorporate a functioning hamburger button, I've gained access to the phones compass, and finally was able to get the phone to recognize that I was pointing at a landmark.  The project is really coming together.  But with good news comes frustration from other directions.  I've been working with ITS for three weeks now to get a database that I can use for my app but I've been on the short end of faculty vacations.  Many key people have been gone for weeks at a time so I am hopeful I will have an answer tomorrow but I'm not expecting much.

This week, in my walk-through, I was given a lot of good advice on where I could possibly improve on my design for my project.  I took these ideas to my project and realized that this was probably a good point for me to make version number two of my app.  I've been adding onto my project these past few weeks and reorganizing the code I think is going to pay off in the coming weeks.  After I reorganized my code, I began working on figuring out how to read data from a file on compsci02.  A major shout out to Jordan Henkel for his help on this.  He saved hours of headaches!

I meet with some members of ITS this past week and I was finally able to get a copy of part of the SNC database with building information.  Out of my excitement with this new breakthrough, I created a new app to try to work with getting data from the database queried up and displaying to the screen.  Does it work yet, no.  But that is not for a lack of effort, I just need to do some additional research to get this working.

​​This week I got a new Android device from Dr. Pankratz.  I spent some time messing with the settings on the new device so that I was finally able to get my app to download and run on the phone.  I also spoke with some people in ITS about getting a copy of certain parts of our schools existing database.  Getting a copy of this is looking less and less promising but I'll trying speaking with a few more people before I give up and make my own database.  Other than that I did not do a very good job managing my time this week so I did not make much progress on my app aside from testing the compass on my phone.  Bad Mike.

​This week I was able to make solid progress on my project after getting next to nothing done  the previous week.  I have been really trying to focus on the augmented reality portion of my project this week and I have made a few interesting discoveries.  Online I found android SDK that handles some augmented reality features.  Though none of the examples are what I hope to create, the code in the examples is helpful to look through and can help me with ideas going forward.  On my project, I got past my frustrations from last week and I have been able to make contact with my phones compass;  now I know which direction my phone is facing.  This is a big step for the point at a building for information feature.  This upcoming week, I really want to work to get my app to recognize one building on campus by pointing at it, I'm not really sure how that is going to get done at the moment but I guess that's the fun of it.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, this past week has been very busy for me.  I had several late nights with other class work, so unfortunately I was unable to dedicate a lot of time to my project.  This was particularly frustrating because in our conversations during class this past Thursday, my classmates offered me a plethora of great ideas that I really wanted to get to work on.  That was the busy part, now for the frustrating part.  I began to work on my project today and I had errors pop up in code that had compiled previously but now was causing errors when I compiled my project.  I spent a considerable amount of time researching the issue and tried all the proposed solutions that the internet would offer but I am currently at a loss.  Instead of wasting more time banging my head into my keyboard over this issue, I've opted to get ahead on other school work so that I can have more time during the week to work on this.  Maybe my classmates and Dr. McVey or Pankratz can help me out.

​I'm very pleased with how my project is progressing.  My app currently displays Google Maps and has a the "Where are you feature" implemented.  These were both surprisingly simple so that leaves me with a positive outlook for other steps in my project moving forward.  The only hang up I had this past week was that I could not get Google Maps to appear at first because I had yet to register my app.  Once that process was done, everything went much more smoothly.  However, this week is going to be a very busy one for me so I'm not sure how much progress I'll make this week.  I hope to get in contact with Pat Wolfe-Thornton about getting a copy of SNC database information for future parts of the project.  I also think a having another meeting with Dr. Pankratz this week would be helpful to fine tune my vision for my app now that I've had time to research and get my feet wet with the project.

This week I met with Dr. Pankratz and for my capstone project I have been tasked with building a virtual tour that guides visitors through the St. Norbert College Campus with emphasis on augmented reality features.  I've decided to develop my app for Android and I've taken a look at past iterations of the SNC mobile tour guide created by Corey Hahn and Andrew Jacobson.  I've gone through the long process of downloading all the software I need to get started and have even created a 'Hello World' App!  This upcoming week, I plan layout what I want my UI to look like and begin looking into the Google Maps Android API.