Bloom Energy – 1000kW from 64 therms

February 25, 2010

So, I read about the Bloom Energy Fuel Cell technology today and calculated some interesting numbers based on the data sheet on their website (link below).

The unit produces 100kW using 0.661MMBtu/hr of Natural Gas. Based on a conversion I got from Google, 10 therms is equal to 1.034MMBtu/hr, so 0.661MMBtu/hr is equal to 6.39 therms.

So to generate the following, you would need the corresponding amount of gas:
1kW – 0.0639 therms
1000kW – 63.9 therms
2500kW – 159.75 therms

If you can get Natural Gas at $1 a therm, that puts power from the Bloom Energy Server at 6.39 cents per kW not including the cost of the unit, which is 1.5 to 3x that of Nuclear, depending on where you get your numbers from.

Bloom Energy – http://www.bloomenergy.com/products/data-sheet/


iPhone 3GS vs Nexus One in 3D game test

February 25, 2010

I was just checking out the video here were they ran a 3D game fps test on a iPhone 3GS and also on a Google Nexus One phone, and the iPhone 3GS was between 1.5x and 2.0x faster.

Engadget Artcle


Yahoo’s YQL Web Sevices

January 31, 2010

At ConvergeSC 2009 Jonathan LeBlanc from Yahoo’s Developer Network came and gave a presentation on YQL. This language allows developers to access a web service to gather data and then use syntax similar to SQL and query the XML data they get back from the YQL service. From what I remember of the demo presentation last year, they have a web console that allow you to build a YQL query URL, and then you can use this URL in your applications. Using this YQL service console, many if not all the URLs you can build are of a REST nature. To find more info, check the YQL site below.

Yahoo’s YQL – http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/
ConvergeSC – http://convergesc.org/


Columbia Code Camp 2010

January 31, 2010

Even with the bad weather, and the freezing temperatures, we had our first code camp in Columbia SC.  It was held at the Swearingen Engineering Building at USC.  We had over 200 people register, and over 140 showed up.  All in all, it was a big success, and we plan to have another one next year.  We are also thinking of organizing a SQL Saturday event later this year.

Some other code camp like events coming up in Columbia SC of this year are ConvergeSC and POSSCON.

Columbia Code Camp – http://www.columbiacodecamp.com/
Converge SC – http://convergesc.org/
POSSCON – http://posscon.org/


Code Camp directory in HTML5 for mobile devices

January 24, 2010

We are organizing a code camp in Columbia SC for Saturday January 30th, 2010. If you live in Columbia SC or the surrounding area, check out our code camp site to register.
http://www.columbiacodecamp.com/

One of the things we are planning is to use the software described in the post below for our code camp directory.
http://navel-labs.com/blog/2010/1/13/codemash-iphone-schedule-app.html


Reachability in iPhone OS 3.0 with 1 line of code

January 24, 2010

In iPhone OS 2.0 I used this:
if ((([NSString stringWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.google.com/"]]!=NULL)?YES:NO) == NO) {}

In iPhone OS 3.0, they deprecated stringWithContentsOfURL, so I rewrote this as:
if ((([[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.google.com/"]]!=NULL)?YES:NO) == NO) {}

Then inside the {} of this IF statement, I display a UIAlertView.

The benefit to this code is you do not need to know if the device is in Airplane Mode or if the WiFi antennae is turned ON or OFF. Also, I would recommend deallocating or using autorelease to free up memory for the NSString.


iPhone apps in Xcode without IB

November 6, 2009

I just finished listening to the Mobile Orchard podcast and Dan interviewed Jack Behrens. Jack talked about building iPhone apps and debugging them without using Interface Builder. How this makes your app more responsive and use fewer resources on the iPhone.

Jack Behrens article:

Mobile Orchard podcast