Tag Archive: Visual Basic

Globalized UI for Brachytherapy System

As my partner declared once, you don’t want to be on the business end of one of these devices. That said, if you have a cancer that can be treated with brachytherapy, it beats the alternatives.

The globalized user interface of this Windows 2000 application allows clinicians around the world administer radiation treatments to cancer patients.  It was written in VB, using Multilizer for globablization/localization. It was localized into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese.

Hotel Internet Kiosk

In the days before wifi in hotels, there was a real need among travellers to somehow connect to email. I worked with a kiosk manager to create a system that allowed payment and metering of kiosk usage in hotels.  I used MS Access, Visual Basic and Javascript to control and monitor a credit card reader and currency collector. I also created an email portal that would inter-connect to AOL, Hotmail or whatever server the user desired.

Viosk, Public Information Kiosk with Videophone

While helping Intel create new uses for its ProShare videoconferencing product, I had two projects converge into a single product idea that I called a Viosk.

It’s a computer kiosk for customer service than contains a web browser and video conferencing. The customer and a service representative can see each other by video and share the browser window. For the two banks that were interested in this, it allowed helping customers at unmanned branches to complete forms while maintaining a more personable relationship.

The product got some attention in its day. It was shown at a national banking conference, made the local evening news and the city paper.

To create Viosk I used VB. I still maintain units in Washington, Oregon and Missouri.

MP3 Player UI Concept

Created a desktop UI for focus group testing for Intel’s new MP3 player.   Used VB to simulate the effect and feedback for controls. It turned out the designers were very close because the eventual UI was very similar to what we tested.

Game Controller Prototype

A local company wanted to create an input device for games, starting with a snowboarding game. Using a prototype board that included an accelerometer I wrote a VB program to accept input and display status from the controller to use in demos.

Virtual Reality Product Info CD

Intel was promoting its new video conferencing product called ProShare. At the time, video conferencing required specialized hardware and ISDN and so was more of a high end commercial products. The client wanted to show a number of use cases in a stylish way.

The demo CD that resulted contained a walkthrough of a conference center in which the user finds interactive seminars along with video, audio and text-based instruction about a telecomunications product.  I used VB to help in this effort.

GEM Host Interface

Semiconductor fab equipment needs to provide an interface to factory automation systems. A local company was making planarizers for a new Intel factory and I got the opportunity to help with this SECS II interface. The design encapsulated the Generic Equipment Model (GEM) functionality in a VBX control for use by an existing Visual Basic machine controller application.  The functions included recipe download, process monitoring and material handling. For the project I used C++ and VB.

Shipping Dock System for Retailer

This was an early project for Jay Jacobs, a retail store, to connect a scale and credit card reader to a PC running Access on their shipping dock.