Friday, January 21, 2011

HackOTT: A BlackBerry PlayBook App

What is HackOTT?


Hack Ottawa = HackOTT is part of the HackDays across Canada. Here's how it works:


  • Gather developers
  • Provide food, space to work, and APIs (Application Programming Interfaces, the building blocks for applications that programmers use to like you know, build stuff)
  • Let them code for 8 hours.
  • Judge the results

Read more here: http://hackdays.ca/2011/01/hack-ottawa-is-here/


Register Here: http://guestlistapp.com/events/42672


I've signed up for the event here in Ottawa and am starting to prep for the event. So, let's get down to the title tagline of this post: A BlackBerry PlayBook App.


If you don't know, I work for Research In Motion, better known as RIM. The RIM tablet offering is the PlayBook and it's coming soon. Being a geek, lover of new tech, and always in pursuit of a challenge; I've decided I'll design my app to run on the PlayBook.


Dude a PlayBook, Like Let Me See It


"Cool, Mark, you've got a PlayBook to use already? They aren't even for sale yet," you say. Well, the truth is I don't have a PlayBook and if I did I would not be bringing it out to play. So, don't expect me to be toting one around to show you and demo. I have to wait for them to be available for sale like everyone else.


Well then how am I going to develop for the PlayBook? With the dev tools including the BlackBerry Tablet SDK and the BlackBerry Tablet Simulator for VMware Fusion; on my Mac Book Pro of course. All further discussion is specific to programming on the Mac. If you are a Windows dev, sorry, this might be of little use to you.


Setting Up A New Project


Let's jump in and get started.

BlackBerry PlayBook Resources


Ok, got that done? Good. Let's drop a couple links to resources to help you along the way of coding up your BlackBerry PlayBook App.

Ok, that's all for tonight. Next, I'll be reading up on the WebWorks SDK and the Adobe AIR SDK to see which one I'd like to use for the project.