Disneyland e-Guide

Abstract

In this scientific age, people often demand for better technology and look for mobile electronic version for most textual information. Multimedia nearly becomes a must. With the widely acceptance of WAP phone, PDA and Pocket PC, providing just a paper guide in an amusement park definitely cannot satisfy the need of all visitors. It is time to change. The traditional paper guide for amusement park will soon become out-dated and the introduction of e-Guide will soon be widely accepted. Among WAP phone, PDA and Pocket PC, PDA with Palm OS is the most suitable device for developing e-Guide. PDA’s features of larger screen size, easier to enter information and multimedia environment suit the functionality of e-Guide over WAP phone. Palm handheld’s popularity; its success over its major competitor, the Pocket PC handheld, and its greater flexibility, greater ease of use and greater mobility over other handheld OS also emphasise the advantage of using Palm handheld for developing e-Guide. Disneyland is coming to Hong Kong and is going to open in 2005/2006. It is estimated that Hong Kong Disneyland will attract millions of tourists a year. With the fact that the success of Disneyland is some how relied on continuous improving to satisfy the need of different kinds of visitors, it would be worthy for Disneyland to develop a Disneyland e-Guide especially for those visitors with Palm. This project allows me to integrate a variety of material learned and skill acquired in previous years in exploring an area of computing, i.e., Palm OS programming. In order to construct a working solution for Disneyland e-Guide, I developed various kinds of skill and knowledge which are not only technically useful, but also professionally and personally useful. Technically, I learned to develop Palm OS application using Code Warrior and emulator. And I learned to develop conduit for transferring data between Palm handheld application and desktop application using Microsoft Visual Basic and Conduit Development Kit. The most important achievement in doing this project is the development of the ability to think and work independently in exploring an area of computing rather than the technical knowledge learned. This project provides me a chance to produce a system, from gather information from a wide variety of sources, performing a comprehensive literature review and designing problem to solve, to producing a workable computer system, testing, documenting, demonstrating and even presenting the output independently. Time management is another important skill developed in this project. Defining the scope of the project to fit the time allocated for this course is an important aspect in time management. Another aspect is to define a project plan to demonstrate a structured and organised approach to the project. To follow the schedule defined in the project plan throughout the duration of the project, I get used to work under pressure and thus developed my time management skill. It is amazing to finish the project independently and a valuable achievement is the self-confidence and satisfaction brought from the project.