Wednesday, July 25, 2007

jumbo squid


Voracious jumbo squid invade California - Yahoo! News
An aggressive predator, the Humboldt squid — or Dosidicus gigas — can change its eating habits to consume the food supply favored by tuna and sharks, its closest competitors, according to an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.


yummy

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

j2me 904 errors?

Are you getting j2me errors? This usually means that your cell phone decided to cache the jar file, while updating your jad file. Two possible solutions:

1. clear the history on your phone browser or power cycle the bastard.
2. update the jad/jar name. Stuff a random number param at the end of the jad/jar so that the phone doesnt update it
3. add this to your apache config file

LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.so
.....
AddModule mod_expires.c
.....


ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor "access plus 1 second"
ExpiresByType application/java-archive "access plus 1 second"

so sad

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

j2me woes


Java ME Mobile Phone Applications - Conclusions - www.shinetech.com
Conclusions

In this article I’ve explained the good, bad, and just plain ugly features of Java ME.

First, we saw that "the good” included:

* Core features for interacting with devices
* Easy to develop, and existing Java skills can be leveraged
* Wide ranging availability
* Package portability across different devices
* Deployment is trivial
* Tools are abundant and of an excellent caliber

Next, I explained how "the bad” concerned problems of API versioning and fragmentation, and the associated difficulties of configuring mobile phones for internet access. Finally, we saw how "the ugly” usually concerned the runtime environment (devices and carriers) and centered on security certificates, locked-out functionality and Java verification.

In my opinion the “good” of Java ME far outweighs both the bad and the ugly. There are alternatives to Java ME, but if you want to deliver robust applications to the widest possible mobile phone audience, it’s the best technology to go with. The Java ME community is active and exciting. Furthermore, it’s a technology that is both a de-facto standard and rewarding to work with.

Java ME – a little bit of bad, a touch of ugly, but mostly good.


Decent article summarizing the challenges of using j2me. I'll have to say that porting is a nightmare, especially when you are working on cutting edge work.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Opera 4 mini is good web browser for mobile phones. I’ve used it on a new prototype MOT q9 phone and 8830 black berry. It displays a website, exactly how you would see it on a computer. And it auto-zooms to the readable portions of the website, and the text is sized to fit on the screen perfectly. The text and images in the zoomed in portion are very readable on my blackberry 8830. However in the zoomed-out view, the view is too fuzzy to be useful. You can navigate if you know what you are looking for. Most phones are about 72 dpi, which contributes to the fuzzy screen. The iphone is much more useful in the zoomed out view because of the 140 DPI, and 480x640 screen.

You have be a bit careful though, the websites you visit are processed and read by a server hosted by the opera folks. I would not do any secure type of banking or ebay things with opera mini.

Watch this annoying video about iphone browser against opera mini.

http://www.operamini.com/beta/video/

Monday, July 09, 2007

Annoying blackberry j2me development notes

1. No left or right soft keys.
2. You cannot mix midlets and blackberry APIs.
3. Garbage collection causes hourglass to appear on the screen.
4. Track wheel on older blackberries go only up and down. Trackballs act normally.
5. Video implementation for MMAPI is crippled for video running from http URL.

2 billion Chinese mice overrun lake area - Yahoo! News
Now, an estimated 2 billion mice are ravaging crops in 22 counties around the lake, and authorities were rushing to construct walls and ditches to keep the rodents out. Residents have killed more than 2.3 million field mice — or 90 tons of the rodents, Xinhua said.

In Hunan province's Yiyang County, a ditch along the lakeshore was filled with mice. Residents were using clubs and shovels to beat them to death, while others scooped the furry animals out using fishing nets.


Ratatuillie goes crazy!

Friday, July 06, 2007

i hope there aren't any lines here!


China public restroom has 1,000 stalls - Yahoo! News
BEIJING - They're flush with pride in a southwestern Chinese city where a recently-opened porcelain palace features an Egyptian facade, soothing music and more than 1,000 toilets spread out over 32,290 square feet.
ADVERTISEMENT

Officials in Chongqing are preparing to submit an application to Guinness World Records to have the free four-story public bathroom listed as the world's largest, the state-run China Central Television reported Friday.


My wife would love this, then she wouldn't have to wait in line!