Category: Web Services

Following the announcement of SNAP, and the fact that it will first be ready for Series 60 MIDP 2.0, the question is out there in plain sight: What about Enterprise SNAP?

No really, I’m serious.  Why not use SNAP as a platform for enterprise apps?  With MIDP 2.0 you’ve already got an extremely easy form-based user interface.  Writing a basic MIDP 2.0 form is just above the complexity level of creating a VB form.  Really, it’s simple.

How much of a gaming framework can be used in the enterprise?  Quite a bit actually.

The presence info could be killer.

“Where’s Johson?”
“One second, let me check.” <our geek hero glances at his 6600> “He’s online, I’ll have him call in.”

After that, our geek hero can send Johnson a quick message using SNAP’s instant messaging API.

SNAP may be a useful extension to traditional J2ME->J2EE enterprise solutions, or it might just be useful for some enterprise hacks.  Either way, I can’t wait to take a look at it.

Scoble is defending the Tablet PC team from an article at Microsoft Watch.  I wish that there wasn’t so much to defend.  Tablets are one of those things that I’ve wanted to see take off since the 486 Fujitsu days.  Every few years someone has a go at it, and Microsoft (along with their hardware partners) have a better shot at it than anyone before them.

But there are problems.

Price is probably the number one factor that is keeping the Tablet PC install base down.  I’ve looked at a few TabletPC models at my local Micro Center, which usually has a few in stock, and their sales guys know much more than your standard CompUSA or Best Buy.  I played with a Tablet PC.  It was a compelling experience.  Unfortunately it wasn’t two grand compelling.  It wasn’t twice as much as I ended up paying for a higher spec’d but bigger (and non-tablet) laptop that I ended up getting.

Twice the price is no big deal if the price itself does not concern the buyer.  Unfortunately we don’t all drive 7 series BMW’s and we can’t all write it off as a business expense.  I could quite easily pick up a well endowed mid-range budget notebook (like the $1000 HPs, Compaqs, E-Machines, etc) plus a good desktop and a LCD panel for the price of one of the Tablet PCs that was on display.

I know that Tablet PCs are different.  They’ve got to be a little lighter, they’ve got to have a detachable keyboard or that cool little rotating double swinging hinge thing that rocks so much.  That’s more expensive.  They also tend to use the (more expensive) little low-powered chips from Intel.  I know that all of the more expensive components combined with a big R&D bill equals a higher price tag.

But dude, we can’t afford it.

If there had been a $1000 Tablet PC right next to a $1000 laptop, I’d pick up the Tablet PC, hands down.  I’ve never seen such a thing in the flesh though.  I would so rock a Tablet PC.  It’d be with me ready to whip out at a moments notice.  Tablets promote casual everyday use that you just can’t do with a laptop.  You can cradle the tablet in your arm while scribbling, while I can assure you that balancing a laptop and typing while moving is no easy task.

The moral of the story: make these things cheap.  It’s the only way you’re going to get market share.  There are lots of people that would buy a Tablet PC in an instant, they just can’t afford the tablet tax.

• OSDir pointed to a new and improved Markup Validation Service at the w3c.
• Jeremy pointed to these Pine first use statistics and thinks that we can extrapolate the adoption rate of Unix-like systems from it.
• I’ve subscribed to the official Google blog.  I’m pretty sure that the version of Rawdog that I’m running can handle it.  Also of note is the recent Blogger relaunch.
• I just installed the latest version of PmWiki.  I’m still really impressed with the quality of this wiki.  It reminds me a lot of JSPWiki but it’s extremely lightweight (no database requirements)
• Mobiletracker points to a news story about a Sony Ericsson phone that is 9 cm tall, 3.9 cm wide, and 1.9 cm thick.  That’s a small phone.  It weighs about 69 grams.  NEC also has a slightly larger but much thicker camera phone.
• FreeCache is the poor man’s Akamai.  More cool stuff brought to you by The Internet Archive.
• Slashdot carries the news of the first BMW-numbered Pentium M: the M755.  It’s nice to see Intel bit by The Megahertz Myth.
• Wireless DevNet reports that RenderWare is coming to the N-Gage platform.
• Michael Yuan has the skinny on the J2ME MultiMedia API on the Nokia 6600 and 6230.
• The Symbian Q1 2004 results look good.  Very good.
• Gizmodo links to an article at USA Today.  Will the real Nintendo DS please stand up?

Last week we all found out that Comcast is firing 285 TechTV workers.  Today Slashdot linked to G4TechTV.com and a FAQ.  I have problems with the purchase and the merger on so many levels.  It looks like Leo will be out of the picture entirely, as Call for Help was not picked up on the new network.  I have no idea what The Screen Savers is going to look like when the new channel goes live on May 28.

I used to catch TechTV in the background over satellite and cable years ago, and it’s been a part of my geeky existance off and on ever since.  I’ll have The Screen Savers from last night on while I’m getting ready for work today.

I’ve always had a bit of a problem with G4.  They have a few solid hours of programming each day, but their filler far outweighs their content.  That’s not to say that TechTV doesn’t have its fair share of filler, but most of the time it’s half way decent.  I guess that I’m just not a hardcore enough gamer to watch the same old filler.

I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to watch the new network once it goes live later this month.  The Screen Savers is already loosing my attention now that Leo has left.  If he leaves the network completely, my motivation level will lower further.  I may stop watching completely out of disgust.  I’ll definitely have to send a complaint on to mergerinfo@g4techtv.com.

I apologize for the lack of updates.  It took me longer than it should have to troubleshoot and resolve connectivity issues at the house.  I’m back though, with a bit of a blog backlog.

Infoworld notes that Microsoft and Intel have released a Devices Profile for Web services.  It builds on WS-Discovery and will allow enterprise level peripheral connectivity.

Tying devices together today is too complicated

Ahh yes, adding another layer of complexity on top is going to help.  Really!

Furthermore, UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) 1.x used today is not enterprise ready, according to Allchin.

My dream enterprise class peripheral connectivity platform would be built on top of Rendezvous/Zeroconf, would involve XML over HTTP (or something like that), and might even involve a little RDF.  It sure would not involve WS-anything and under no circumstances would UPnP be allowed to play.

I’m sure that Microsoft and Intel want to make our lives easier, but WS-this on top of WS-that is getting on my WS-nerves.

There is a new version (1.1) of the Tapwave SDK available to registered developers.  They will also be at E3 next week, showing off their wares and they are also eager to speak to game developers.

The Tapwave Zodiac is a really slick Palm-based gaming platform, though I’m sure they haven’t sold as many units as they would have liked to at this point.

As I mentioned last month, Starsiege: Tribes and Tribes 2 are available for free.  I may pick up Computer Gaming World just to save the download time.

Just in case I’m 364th among 585 people in the queue.

The Wireless Development Weblog points to an article at Smartphone Thoughts about the limited nature of AT&T Wireless’ $49.99 Mobile Internet Unlimited PDA Plan:

“AT&T Wireless further reserves the right to move a subscriber from the Mobile Internet Unlimited PDA Plan to the standard $79.99 monthly unlimited Mobile Internet Data Plan, without notice, if the subscriber uses more than 100 megabytes of data in each of two consecutive months.”

Where am I, the UK?

I must have not been looking.  A new version of Netstumbler came out late last month.  The 0.4 release sports a help file and compatability with more cards.  There is also a new release of Ministumbler (for Pocket PC) out.  Thanks to a series of semi-dark tips on yesterdays The Screen Savers (which makes great background at 8am) for the heads up.

On *nixen, Kismet is the wiffy sniffer of choice.  Kismac is supposed to be a really pretty but functional GUI interface for OSX.

Even though it’s old news for those that live on GMT, a slashdot story prompted me to download Thunderbird 0.6.  I’ve been using 0.5 since it came out, and I’d have to say that overall I love it.  IMAP support in Thunderbird has been great, and I’m hoping that things are just a little bit more refined in the new release.  The new logo is slick, and the upgrade seems to have gone over smoothly.  Time to poke around…

Update: The junk mail filtering in 0.6 seems to be significantly improved.  It looks like passive junk identification is enabled by default (good) and I haven’t seen any false positives yet.  I tried to train 0.5 unsuccessfully but it either missed spam or produced false positives.

Here are a few links for a lazy Sunday afternoon:

• OSNews: “This beta of BeOS LiveCD(XBEOX) contains the BeOS 5 Personal Edition with some drivers. It is the first BeOS live CD since the 4.5 days in 1999.”  I’ve already downloaded it and will check it out later.
• Via PyPI, IMDbPY allows you to access IMDB data from Python.
• VB At The Movies looks like fun, I might watch some later.
• Early Adopter has links to a hotfix for Sasser .A and .B and what to do if you’re infected.  You’re looking for MS04-011.

Via dailywireless by way of Wi-Fi Networking News, Ewrt looks like an excellent alternative firmware for the Linksys WRT54G.  It was forked from the Sveasoft distro (the bleeding edge Samadhi2 stuff is now non-free) and includes NoCatSplash, traffic shaping, SSH/telnet management, and lots more.

This looks like a great alternative firmware for the WRT54G.  The WRT54G is on the top of my tech to buy list.  It’s so hackable.

XHTML in Easy Steps (subtitled Web Pages for the Desktop & Mobile Internet) is probably the best book on modern mobile markup that I’ve ever seen.  The book is part of Barnes and Noble‘s in Easy Steps series.  These books are $10, no BS guides to the subject covered.

They remind me of what I would have liked the Visual Quickstart Guide series of books to be.  I’ve looked at serveral Visual Quickstart Guides, but have never been able to jive with the format and layout of the books.  They feel too cluttered, and too “hey look what I can do” for my tastes.

In contrast, the in Easy Steps layout is simple but functional.  There’s usually some full page text discussion at the beginning of the chapter, followed by several examples.  A typical example page will consist of XHTML and CSS listings followed by (get this) the design as displayed by the Nokia browser as well as what it looks like in a shrunk down IE window.

How freaking cool is that?  The author gets across basic XHTML markup concepts while keeping the user focused on “how is this going to look on a phone?”

The huge thing for me is the audience that this book is geared for.  It’s not designed for bleeding edge developers who are eager to learn advanced mobile markup.  This is a boook that your mom might pick up if she had the sudden need to learn XHTML.  It’s going to be the cheapest tech book I’ll buy all year.  It’s absolutely wonderful.

My hat is off to you, Mike McGrath and whoever is behind the in Easy Steps series.  Good move.  Freaking genius move.

Update: it looks like Barnes and Noble has exclusive distribution rights in the US, but the book can be purchased for under 8 GBP at Amazon.co.uk.

The Washington Post:

Frisbee-throwers and lawmakers alike could soon be able to access free wireless Internet on Washington’s National Mall under a plan announced by a nonprofit group on Wednesday.

Members of the Open Park Project already have set up a wireless access point covering the Supreme Court and the Capitol and say they hope to extend wireless broadband coverage across the capital’s monument-filled core within a year.

Hey, that totally rocks.  I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on The Open Park Project.  The FCC already provides free Wi-Fi at their headquarters.  Many local coffee houses also provide free Wi-Fi for their patrons.  For-pay Wi-Fi is also abundant.  There are 38 Starbucks locations, three Borders stores, and seven FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Centers in the district.  These are all T-Mobile hotspots that can be accessed for as little as $6 an hour.

Converge Digest has some stats on Verizon and Verizon Wireless’ Q1 2004 stats.  Here are some of the highlights from last quarter:

• 1.4 million new customers.  They’re definitely one of the benefactors of number portability.
• Customer loyalty is big.  Fewer customers jumped ship last quarter.
• The average customer (voice, DSL, or wireless) paid Verizon $48 monthly.
• They’re ramping up on EV-DO

Now here’s the biggie: Verizon customers sent 2.1 billion text messages in Q1 2004.  They downloaded 19 million apps to their phones (directly through Verizon).  They sent 21 million picture messages.

Those numbers are for one carrier (now the number 2 carrier in the US) over one quarter.  The stats mentioned by the BBC yesterday were for all UK carriers in the month of March.  We’re obviously not sending as many SMSes over here as they do in the UK, but we’re catching up fast.

SMS pricing structures also tend to be different over here.  Most carriers offer SMS bundles.  I’ve got an add-on for my T-Mobile plan that gets me 500 SMS messages for $2.99.  Other carriers have similar plans, or you can just pay $0.10 a pop.

Dave Winer might not have a use for SMS (other than as an illustration for an RSS vs. Atom argument), but Americans are indeed sending text messages.  Quite a few of them.

BBC News:

According to the Mobile Data Association (MDA), 2.1 billion text messages were sent in March 2004, a 25% rise on the total from the same month last year.

That is a lot of text messages.  I mean more than a metric tonne of text messages.  We’re talking more than a humpback whale of text messages.

If I were a Stupid American, I might not be able to fathom such a large number of text messages.  Luckily I’m a mobile tech geek and that number excites me.  In a big way.

If only we could figure out that your phone is capable of doing more than just talking.  Stupid Americans…

Update:

<Moof> Netminder: you forgot the “at 5 cents a text, that’s $LOTS, or at 160 bytes a message, that’s $MUCHO per megabyte” at the end of your post

So true.

I reported on the purchase of Kinko’s by FedEx when it happened late December.  Now FedEx is rebranding the stores:

Memphis-based FedEx said Monday the stores will be renamed FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Center.

This is similar to what UPS did when it picked up Mail Boxes Etc.  Good move again, FedEx, although the new name is a bit much to swallow.  Something like FedEx Office Center or Kinko’s by FedEx would probably roll off the tongue a little better, but I understand the need to keep both FedEx and Kinko’s in the longer name.  If they are smart, FedEx will keep the T-Mobile hotspots active.

John C. Dvorak:

I hate the IMs (instant messages), the paging, the PMs (personal messages), the private chats, the open chats, the IRC, AIM, ICQ, and MSN Messenger. I particularly despise the small talk that is an important part of chat, and I loathe all the phone SMS chatting and its entire infrastructure.

Dvorak has a rather clueless (but I’m sure valid in some situations) rant about chatting online.  It’s not about the “hi. hi. how are you? fine.” conversations.  It’s about communication.

Let’s take #mobitopia as an example.  We’re a loose knit bunch of mobile tech enthusiasts sprinkled throughout the globe.  During the day I can expect to chat with Jim.  He routinely IRCs from his mobile phone during his morning and evening commute.  I can check in with Matthew and Frank in Germany.  I wonder if Martin in Scotland has managed to fix his Garmin Forerunner?  When I’m starting to get hungry for lunch, Russ and other left-coasters start popping online.  There are a few people that say “good morning” when I’m getting ready for bed.  Erik doesn’t sleep much, so he’s always throwing my mental clock off.

On any given day we will communicate constructively.  We trade links, ideas, opinions, thoughts.  If Nokia is holding a press conference, chances are that Ewan, Rafe or Jim will have play by play coverage from a taco.

Of course we discuss other things (holy crap, did you see episode 18 of 24?  What an ending!).  We don’t talk tech 100% of the time.  That would be too geeky!  But the mobile shop talk and the sense of community that the channel and site have given us keep us coming back.

Via j2k in #mobitopia, Expansys lists a Nokia 6600i as a pre-release phone.  What is the 6600i?  My guess is that the 6600i is similar to the 6620 but for European markets.  It will probably be the 6600 + 6620 enhancements/bugfixes + EDGE + more? + European frequencies.

I haven’t heard about this, but once it is officially announced, if it is for real, this page at Nokia should work.  That is, of course, if the phone is for real.

So far I’ve only seen rumors (like the one at 6600.info), but nothing solid.  Is this a case of Expansys hoping that the rumors are true, or do they know something that we do not?