So last weekend I decided to check out the Coderfaire and Hackathon that was held over at the Nashville School of Law. Many topics were platform agnostic (didn't matter if you did PHP or .Net) but some others were less obviously platform specific.
Anyway, at the end of the day, I got to hang out at the Flamingo Lagoon at the zoo and talked with a couple of folks who noticed my new camera, and we geeked out on different camera techniques and camera bodies.
The next morning (Sunday) was the Hackathon. I went in hoping to hook up with some other folks, but even after making my project pitch, was left on my own. Which worked out well, because I won the top prize (alt) and then I didn't have to share it.
My prize winning app is an Android client app that uses the ZXing (pronounced "zebra crossing") library to scan the UPC codes off of DVD packaging. This was a ground up re-do of a windows app I did for my home library several years ago - you try keeping track of 500+ DVDs!
I ported the data extracts from Home Theater Info site and placed them in a SQL Server database and wrote a webservice to accept requests from the android client application. The webservice would return whether or not the DVD was already in my library so that I could prevent double (or triple) duplicate purchases. I can't tell you how many times I bought a DVD on a clearance sale, only to get home and found out I had bought it when it was first released and it had been lost in a back corner of a shelf where I forgot about it.
At some point I am going to get around to fleshing out this client so I can also browse the library and even add or remove the DVD from the library, as well as tie in the old windows app so that they will share a common database.