Coding tips, resources, project ideas?

[nsgrimace]

I have been viewing this site for quite a while but just recently started interacting. I am in school for programming and know about enough to break stuff. My step father is a programmer for a financial software development company and has been itching to get some experience with building mobile apps, so we are looking for a project that we can both learn on.

I am looking for advice from any seasoned vets about good resources, development environments, or background to help us get in to this. My step dad works primarily in C++ but is pretty well versed in most modern languages.

I am also curious to hear some requests for apps that someone might want to see built.

I use ROAM ONLY a lot and it would be nice to see that in the Comm Manager as an on/off, so I might tackle that unless someone has already done it, if so please post link? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!