What's been going on...

So, if anybody ever comes to my blog, he might be thinking, "What happened to NXTism?" Well, the truth is that I haven't been messing with my NXT for a long while: neither programming nor building. I know, this is sad. I just haven't really been in to NXT (especially the building aspect) for quite some time. Visiters to NXTism may have noticed that all I hardly ever posted about was NXText, a program I had been developing for the NXT. When I first got my NXT, which was only two years ago, I was NXT crazy! I was building new things, putting vids on Youtube, and programming my 'bots. I got my second NXT one year later, but didn't use it as much as I thought I would. I kinda fell into a slump, where whenever I tried (and still try) to build something, I just don't get any creativity. It stinks. If I would get some "creative juices" flowing, as they say, then I would still love to build with my NXTs. Even though I wasn't building anything, I was still programming the NXT with NXText. NXText is a program that runs on the brick without the need for any external sensors or motors. As of v2, it lets you open, delete, send, archive, and unarchive text files on the brick. This program is, honestly, pretty silly, because it runs on the NXT, which is nothing like a real computer. Basically, out of the NXT came my love for programming. So, I discovered that I loved to program; "Where to next?" I thought. I have always loved Macs and Apple, so I knew that if I were going to develop computer applications, I would want to do so on a Mac (sorry, but I kind of hate PCs *please don't take this personally; it's just my opinion). The current and probably best way to code for the Mac is by using Objective-C and Cocoa. So that is where I headed; I bought Kochan's Programming in Objective-C, and Hillegass' Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X. Where am I today? Starting to develop my first little REAL applications! I am very excited. I am currently following Hillegass' book and am in chapter 6. I had been previously reading Kochan's book. So from NXT-G to NXC to Objective-C/Cocoa! Can you believe that? Only two years after getting my first NXT, I am now just starting to create applications on the Mac (very small, insignificant ones, that is. I'm only in the sixth chapter you know...). Pretty cool huh? And this may never had happened unless I had gotten my first NXT. Thank you Lego for creating such a great thing: it has helped me find my true passion for programming. So there ya' have it. Just some reflections on what's been goin' on in my life lately. NXTFreak

NXText NXC v2

Lately I have been working on NXText NXC v2, and all I can say is that it is going to be awesome! On the left is a little sneek-peek of what's coming in this next release. This is the list of text files on the NXT. As you can see, multiple files are selected! Yup, multiple-file-selection support is coming to NXText! There's even more new stuff that's equally exciting, but I'm not gonna' tell you what those other features are just quite yet. You'll have to wait to see what they are. I'm planning on releasing V2 when I get a few other things working right. Until then, NXTFreak

NXTasy problems?

I haven't been able to access www.forums.nxtasy.org at all today; the server must be having some issues. I really wish I could get on the site, because I want to check the BricxCC/NXC wishlist topic in the Software sub-forum. Are any of you guys having problems accessing NXTasy, or am I the only one? NXTFreak

Objective-C

So lately I have been doing absolutely nothing related to the NXT (which is why I haven't been updating this blog).  :-(  Instead, I have been learning Objective-C using Stephen Kochan's book, Programming in Objective-C.  I wish that I could just know it all automatically, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  It's a long learning process instead.  Specifically, I am currently learning about categories, posing, and protocols.  After I finish this book, I am probably going to read Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X.  So there's a little update of what I have been doing recently.  What are you guys up to?  NXTFreak

What's on your Christmas list?

Well, with Christmas only 8 days away (screams with excitement like a little girl), I have been trying to decide what I actually want. Here are the books I would like to get:

• Programming in Objective-C
• Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK
  
• LabVIEW for LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT

As you can tell, I would LOVE to become an iPhone app developer. And to think it all started with NXT-G (I know, comical). So what's on your Christmas list? NXTFreak

It's here!

I finally released NXText NXC v1; you can check it all out here. One thing I might want to implement is a little startup graphic for NXText, kind of like the startup graphic the NXT firmware uses. Any ideas? If so, please share! NXTFreak

Memory management in NXText NXC

I recently posted over at NXTasy's forums (link) on some issues I have been having with NXText NXC where, after adding the ability to read text files that contain line breaks, my program could only open small files (3 kb).  I therefore decided to take out this ability so that my program could open larger files.  I then started using the ReadLnString function to read text from a text file.  Well, trying to open a 6 kb file took 25-30 seconds using this function!  That is WAY too long.  I posted about my problems in the above-mentioned topic, and Mr. Hansen graciously helped me and came up with a solution.  Using his code, my program can now open a 12 kb file (the largest I have tested so far) in a fraction of a second!  If you render this baby, it ends up being 99 PAGES LONG!  This greatly improved the speed of my program and works like a charm.  I am now very happy...  NXTFreak