John Flinchbaugh's Weblog

Watching for Linux WTK 2.5

john — 2007-04-16T14:01:17Z

I love the new software rat race for some reason, so I was all excited to see WTK 2.5 was released. It's only for WinXP at this point, though, so I'll be watching for the Linux one. I hope it won't be too long, since my Linux notebook is my only mobile development platform. I've been using WTK 2.2 for the longest time.

Update (13 April 2007): I see that Sun has an early access version of WTK 2.5.1 available for Linux.

Update (16 April 2007): Thank's to an explanation at man-di's weblog, I see that it's built against a newer version of GLIBC (2.4 I guess), so the emulator doesn't want to run on my Debian unstable box.

Fortunately, I just did an update of Debian and found that GLIBC 2.5 just hit the unstable tree. Awesome! I'm up and running now.

Cingular Settings Are Moving Targets

john — 2007-02-06T20:00:25Z

A month or 2, Doug's Cingular phone stopped getting proper DNS settings, so his Java applications which used hostnames to make HTTP connections just broke mysteriously. We poked a hard-coded DNS server in there, and all was well again.

Yesterday, I noted that my Groovr emails silently stopped getting delivered. Further testing today showed that no outgoing email was working, so I went through the normal dance of digging up the configurations from the Cingular Support site. I found it now recommends setting the outgoing server to cwmx.com, and not cwmx.net. I experienced these same kinds of shifts with the SMS-to-email gateways a while ago.

I'm glad that I've learned where to find these answers and don't need to call up tech support every few months when they change things on me.

Update (2007-02-06): cwmx.com has been broken all morning now. The phone just said "Email failed." -- it doesn't really give much clue. I just tested again, though, and the message finally went through. I wish there was somewhere to track these known outages. I really don't feel like contacting a help desk that probably has no idea either.

Mobile Flickr Browsing

john — 2006-11-22T14:55:13Z

Flickr Mobile is available now. There are so many beautiful and interesting photos coming across Flickr, and this makes it available in those spare moments when you're looking to kill some time.

The native browser in my SE S710a didn't want to display the page, but Opera Mini does just fine.

Figured Out Sudoku

john — 2006-11-16T13:13:15Z

I loaded the little Sudoku Spot JavaME game on my phone a long time ago, then wiped it, because I couldn't figure out a strategy to play. Bryn recently expressed interest in getting a Sudoku game loaded on her phone, so I suggested this one, since it had a better interface than any of the others that I had seen.

I figured I'd load it myself again, and see if I could figure it out, and this time, it clicked, so I finally figured out the strategy for this game. I've actually completed a few boards.

Now I just need to figure out how to get the Linux bluetooth stuff to push Java applications to the Motorola V551/V557. I did find that I can put the jar in the Other directory on my SonyEricsson S710a, and I can push it from there to other phones, including the Motorola phones.

Using My Phone to Learn Japanese

john — 2006-10-13T17:12:17Z

I'm now using my S710a to study Japanese. I have a 128M memory stick in it, so I can easily carry around a handful of 10-minute podcasts from JapanesePod101. I'm listening to the Beginner and Survival lessons. The production is very good and the material is presented very well, so it's a pleasure to listen.

Having it in my phone, I can easily play a lesson on the speaker phone a couple times a day while I'm driving. I intend to take my time, so I try to do a lesson each couple days, and I step back to previous ones that are still on my phone for a review.

There's already nearly a year of material posted, so it's going to take me a long time to catch up, if I ever do.

Bar Codes and Mobile Phones

john — 2006-10-03T13:59:43Z

According to MobileCrunch, it seems that Coca Cola will be using ShotCodes on some bottles. I'm sort of disappointed that they chose ShotCode when there are other attempts that make more sense to me. It's all very marginal work, and boosting the right standard into the spotlight would help immensely. I just don't feel that ShotCode is the right choice.

ShotCode was the first example I had seen of these 2D barcodes for use with mobile phones, and I was really impressed. It's used for quick downloads from GetJar using the camera on your phone to scan the ShotCode off the computer display.

My excitement quickly fell off when I saw that I couldn't openly create ShotCodes of my own. They seem to be assigned and centrally mapped through shotcode.com, so it represents nothing more than a serial number.

As an alternative, SemaCode was used by area/code gaming. SemaCode has a more open SDK, and it seems that they encode the URL or text into the 2D barcode -- I've seen the little application show me the target URL without having to connect to a lookup service, and I've used their Java-based tools to generate barcodes on my Linux box. This obviously feels like the better solution.

I still hope to find the time to develop and setup my own "little" Geocache/SemaCode game in the style of what area/code does.

Vacation Stress

john — 2006-09-15T19:35:19Z

I'm sort of panicked about going on vacation. It just feels like I'm being plucked from all the stuff I'm trying to get done to allow it to all pile up for my return. I'll be missing a very important week at work and removing myself from many of my normal technical comforts.

I'm trying to remain calm by reminding myself that a tethered EDGE connection is reasonable to use, and I may get some time to sit and read and work on some code. I also look forward to chasing the kids and playing with the camera a bit.

Getting normal life wrapped up in preparation to drop it for a week is hard work.

Latest Google Maps Mobile?

john — 2006-08-22T10:59:41Z

The Google Maps Mobile page is so void of details that I can't tell what version number they've released or even when they release them. The client really should alert you when there's a new version.

I've just happened to stumble upon the latest (1.3.1) version, because I saw mention of the traffic feature which I did not have. I wasn't positive of what version I was getting until I actually downloaded it to the phone. I found a quick message buried in a Google Group about a new release, but nowhere official, like the homepage for the thing.

It really is my current killer app on my phone, and they keep making it better, but they need to market it a bit more effectively.

Photography

john — 2006-07-21T14:12:37Z

I've been reading and learning many tips from the Digital Photography School Blog. I like the tips about composition, tuning, and all that, but I'm not sure how to actually accomplish it. Testing, adjusting, reshooting, and taking your time is fine with a bowl of fruit, but I'm usually in a quick camera-phone mode.

Fortunately, my S710a makes for one of the better camera-phones available in the United States, so my shots come out reasonable. Unfortunately, my real camera is getting pretty old, so it has no better resolution than my camera phone (1.3MP), and it's much slower to use. I've actually been using my camera phone much more than the real camera.

Most my shots are just quick shots of something interesting, and often, I'm photographing the kids. I've never exactly felt the necessary patience exuding from the adults I've tried to photograph, and I know I need to be much quicker with the kids. There's just no time to snap a few shots, play with settings, snap a few more, reposition. Maybe I need to find a photo editing school blog.

Bluetooth is Dead, Long Live Bluetooth

john — 2006-07-14T12:49:13Z

It's funny to see articles today exclaiming how 55 million bluetooth headsets will ship this year, when just 3 years ago, everyone knew it was dead.

I've been using bluetooth for its mobile data networking since about the time of its death, and I really was concerned for a bit -- there weren't many bluetooth phones from which to choose, and the ones that did exist were considerably more expensive. Today, it's much more common, since everyone wants the wireless hands-free kit. My next car will probably have bluetooth as well.

I'm very pleased that the personal-area-network has finally become useful for the normal people. Now I just hope that the manufacturers don't let the data side of the devices slip in favor of only supporting voice services, like some errant carriers try to do.