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Mobile
RN Award Recipient
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Spiros has received the Mobile RN Award for developing 3 outstanding
Palm OS applications.
Hi, my name is Spiros and I'm a RN in a Paediatric I.C.U. in Montreal,
Canada.
My fascination with PDAs started a little over three years ago.
It all started with my calculator breaking down just hours before
going to work. Luckily I was over at my brothers when it happened
and he kindly offered to let me to lend me his Palm Pilot (1st version
without backlight). He had just purchased a brand new palm and didn't
need his old one for the moment. And so I agreed to give it a try.
After "playing" with it for a while, I started surfing
the net and finding different Palm sites and I immediately realized
the potential of this little PDA. I had taken some computer courses
back in high school and knew a little of Basic programming and I
also found a little program on a site called CbasPad. I was really
excited and had lots of ideas for some programs that could help
me be more efficient at work.
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After a little Basic programming I finished my first calculator
and called it the "Paediatric RN Calculator". It
worked fine but was kind of slow and I always had to use Cbas
Pad (a third party application) to run my program. Then my
brother introduced me to "C" language programming.
Initially I found it complicated and so I went online and
found some other applications that helped to simplify things
for me.
I used two applications: The first program was an application
that could generate the "C" code I needed. And then I needed
to use a second program called "Pocket C" to run the applications.
This gave me an application that was much faster then the
first version. However I still needed to rely on someone else's
program to run my own. I always needed to use "Pocket C".
But during the learning process I had "picked up" some knowledge
about "C" programming and decided to start building
own independent applications that required no third party
software to run.
All of my current applications, I developed directly on my
Palm PDA with the help of "Onboard C" and "Onboard Assembler".
I then use "qedit", which is a text editing program to write
the code and then use "Onboard C" and "Onboard Assembler"
to compile it. And with the help of another application called
"RscrEdit" I was able to add icons and place the labels and
buttons where I need to have them.
Of course things have appeared complicated from time to time,
but I quickly discovered you could find most of the information
and help about programming you need from the Internet. But
it also helps that my brother Harry has always been there
for me, supplying very useful advice and continuing support.
Thank you.
Spiros Konstas RN
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When Spiros
is not in the ICU or developing cool Palm software for nurses,
he enjoys attending "Black Tie" events.
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Editors Note: When we told Spiros about his Mobile RN Award,
we asked him if he would tell us the how's and the why's of his
Palm OS software development. It took a bit of coaxing on our part
(we've learned that Spiros is modest about his accomplishments)
but he finally agreed to send us his story.
Mobile RN Award
Review
of Spiros's applications
Visit
Spiros' Home Page
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