Yan

save data in local storage

2011-11-15T09:34:00.001-08:00

localStorage.setItem("name", "Brian");
var name = localStorage.getItem("name");
localStorage.setItem("data", {"foo":"bar","flip":"rep","arr":[1,3,4]});
var data = localStorage.getItem("data");

NFC Primer for Developers

2011-10-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

NFC Primer for Developers

A good turtoial for object saving on plist

2011-10-25T11:35:00.000-07:00

http://cocoadevcentral.com/articles/000084.php

Add UIProgressView to UITableViewCell

2011-10-25T11:33:00.000-07:00

 UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"downloadcell"];
if(cell==nil)
{
    cell = [[[UITableViewCell alloc] initWithStyle:UITableViewCellStyleSubtitle
                                 reuseIdentifier:@"downloadcell"] autorelease];
    UIProgressView* downPreView = [[UIProgressView alloc] initWithProgressViewStyle:UIProgressViewStyleDefault];
    downPreView.tag = 1234;
    downPreView.frame = CGRectMake(400,70, 200,10);
    [cell.contentView addSubview:downPreView];
}

//update the progress

UIProgressView* downPreView = (UIProgressView*)[cell viewWithTag:123];
downPreView.progress = downloadPre;

PhoneGap and ASIHTTPRequest conflicting problem

2011-10-17T18:39:00.001-07:00

Re: Conflict with ASIHTTPRequest (Reachability Issue)

by ryanagler » Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:12 pm

I dont know the reprecussions of this, but it appears I got it to work by replacing the Reachability.h that comes with ASIHTTPRequest with Apple's version 2.2 here:

http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/ ... lementID_5

get iPhone udid by phoneGap api

2011-10-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

var string = device.uuid;
PhoneGap api docs are here if you need any more info...http://docs.phonegap.com/phonegap_device_device.md.html#device.uuid

How to get the Blackberry address book image photo

2011-10-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

Vector contactList = Phone.getContactsByPhoneNumber(inputNumber);
Contact contact = (Contact) contactList.elementAt(0);
byteStream = contact.getBinary(Contact.PHOTO, Contact.ATTR_NONE);
   
EncodedImage contactPic = EncodedImage.createEncodedImage(byteStream, 0, byteStream.length); 
String picType = String.valueOf( contactPic.getImageType() );

iphone webview loading percentage

2011-06-01T08:34:00.001-07:00

Instead of using a UIWebView, you can pull the webpage down as an NSData object using an NSURLConnection. When you get the initial response from your request from

- (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveResponse:(NSURLResponse *)response

the webserver should return a value of "expected content size" (which should be included in the response). Then you will keep getting the following method called each time you receive data:

 - (void)connection:(NSURLConnection *)connection didReceiveData:(NSData *)data

Keep appending the data to an existing NSData object. Then you can check the size of your current data object (NSData.bytes) against the expected response size.

percentage = (myData.bytes/theResponse.expectedContentSize)*100;

Then you can update a progress bar with that percentage! When

- (void)connectionDidFinishLoading:(NSURLConnection *)connection

runs, use your data to call

[myWebView loadData:myData MIMEType:myMimeType textEncodingName:myEncoding baseURL:baseURL];

and it will load everything you pulled down into your web view.

UITables with Downloaded Images – Easy Asynchronous Code

2011-06-01T07:51:00.002-07:00

http://davidgolightly.blogspot.com/2009/02/asynchronous-image-caching-with-iphone.html

an example of method swizzling by customizing an UINavigationBar

2011-06-01T07:51:00.001-07:00

an example of method swizzling by customizing an UINavigationBar

posted on Sep 08, 2010 at 7:46 a.m. EDT in

/*  * Some references:  *     http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?MethodSwizzling  *     http://samsoff.es/posts/customize-uikit-with-method-swizzling  *     http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Articles/ocCategories.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP30001163-CH20-SW1  *     http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/uikit/reference/UIKitFunctionReference/Reference/reference.html  *     http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/GraphicsImaging/Reference/CGContext/Reference/reference.html  *     http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/Cocoa/Reference/ObjCRuntimeRef/Reference/reference.html  *  */   /* UINavigationBar+Additions.h */ #import   @interface UINavigationBar (Additions)  - (void)drawRectCustom:(CGRect)rect;  @end   /* UINavigationBar+Additions.m */ #import "UINavigationBar+Additions.h"   @implementation UINavigationBar (Additions)   // When the object is set up it calls drawRect, which then loads this method because of the method swizzling - (void)drawRectCustom:(CGRect)rect {      // If the style of the bar is the default style, apply our custom visuals     if (self.barStyle == UIBarStyleDefault) {          // Create the drawing context         CGContextRef ctx = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();          // Set the background color of the navbar         [[UIColor blackColor] set];         CGRect fillRect = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, self.frame.size.width, self.frame.size.height);         CGContextFillRect(ctx, fillRect);          // Create an instance of the image we want to draw         UIImage * logo = [UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"path/to/logo" ofType:@"png"]];          // Get the absolute center points relative to the image and the screen         NSNumber * centerX = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:(self.frame.size.width/2 - logo.size.width/2)];         NSNumber * centerY = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:(self.frame.size.height/2 - logo.size.height/2)];          // Draw the image         [logo drawInRect:CGRectMake(centerX.floatValue, centerY.floatValue, logo.size.width, logo.size.height)];          // End execution of the method         return;     }      // By this time drawRectCustom is actually referencing to drawRect     [self drawRectCustom:rect]; }   @end   /* main.m */ #import  #import  // Needed for the Method objects #import "UINavigationBar+Additions.h" // Needed to reference the method we wish to swizzle  int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {     NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];      /* Method Swizzling */      // Get our drawRectCustom method     Method drawRectCustom = class_getInstanceMethod([UINavigationBar class], @selector(drawRectCustom:));      // Get the original drawRect method     Method drawRect = class_getInstanceMethod([UINavigationBar class], @selector(drawRect:));      // Swap the methods, drawRect now becomes drawRectCustom and vice-versa     method_exchangeImplementations(drawRect, drawRectCustom);      /* End Method Swizzling */      int retVal = UIApplicationMain(argc, argv, nil, nil);      [pool release];     return (retVal); }   @end

几个常用的Objective-C开源类库

2011-05-28T20:13:00.001-07:00

几个常用的Objective-C开源类库

发布者: indream 分类: ios开发|转载

1. json-frameworkA strict JSON parser/generator for Objective-C
2. GTMBase64 Google Toolbox for Mac
3. TouchXML xml解析
4. SFHFKeychainUtils 安全保存用户密码到keychain中
5. MBProgressHUD 很棒的一个加载等待特效框架
6. ASIHTTPRequest http等相关协议封装
7. EGORefreshTableHeaderView 下拉刷新代码
8. AsyncImageView 异步加载图片并缓存代码
9. 类似setting的竖立也分栏程序

How To Choose The Best XML Parser for Your iPhone Project

2011-05-19T13:59:00.001-07:00

How To Choose The Best XML Parser for Your iPhone Project

XMLPerformance Test App Extended To Compare 3rd Party Libraries

There are a lot of options when it comes to parsing XML on the iPhone. The iPhone SDK comes with two different libraries to choose from, and there are several popular third party libraries available such as TBXML, TouchXML, KissXML, TinyXML, and GDataXML. How is a developer to choose?

I have been recently taking a look at the various options out there, and ended up extending the XMLPerformance sample from Apple to try out each of the above libraries to learn how they worked and compare their performance. I thought I’d share what I’ve learned thus far to others who might be searching for the best XML library for their iPhone project.

In this article we’ll give a detailed comparison of the features and performance of the most popular iPhone libraries, explain how to choose between them, and give a sample project showing how to read XML data using each of the above libraries.

SAX vs. DOM

Before we begin, I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of the most important difference between XML parsers: whether the parser is a SAX or a DOM parser.

A SAX parser is one where your code is notified as the parser walks through the XML tree, and you are responsible for keeping track of state and constructing any objects you might want to keep track of the data as the parser marches through.
A A DOM parser reads the entire document and builds up an in-memory representation that you can query for different elements. Often, you can even construct XPath queries to pull out particular pieces.

Ok, now let’s discuss some of the libraries!

The Most Popular XML Parsers for the iPhone

In my research, here’s what seemed to me to be the most popular XML Parsers for the iPhone, and a brief description of each one:

NSXMLParser is a SAX parser included by default with the iPhone SDK. It’s written in Objective-C and is quite straightforward to use, but perhaps not quite as easy as the DOM model.
libxml2 is an Open Source library that is included by default with the iPhone SDK. It is a C-based API, so is a bit more work to use than NSXML. The library supports both DOM and SAX processing. The libxml2 SAX processor is especially cool, as it has a unique feature of being able to parse the data as it’s being read. For example, you could be reading a large XML document from the network and displaying data that you’re reading for it to the user while you’re still downloading.
TBXML is a lightweight DOM XML parser designed to be as quick as possible while consuming few memory resources. It saves time by not performing validation, not supporting XPath, and by being read-only – i.e. you can read XML with it, but you can’t then modify the XML and write it back out again.
TouchXML is an NSXML style DOM XML parser for the iPhone. Like TBXML, it is also read-only, but unlike TBXML it does support XPath.
KissXML is another NSSXML style DOM XML parser for the iPhone, actually based on TouchXML. The main difference is KissXML also supports editing and writing XML as well as reading.
TinyXML is a small C-based DOM XML parser that consists of just four C files and two headers. It supports both reading and writing XML documents, but it does not support XPath on its own. However, you can use a related library – TinyXPath – for that.
GDataXML is yet another NSXML style DOM XML parser for the iPhone, developed by Google as part of their Objective-C client library. Consisting of just a M file and a header, it supports both reading and writing XML documents and XPath queries.

Ok, now let’s start comparing all these libraries!

XML Parser Performance Comparison App

Apple has made an excellent code sample called XMLPerformance that allows you to compare the time it takes to parse a ~900KB XML document containing the top 300 iTunes songs with both the NSXML and libxml2 APIs.

The sample allows you to choose a parsing method and then parse the document, and it keeps statistics on how long it took to download the file and parse the file in a database. You can then go to a statistics screen to see the average download and parse times for each method.

I thought this would be an ideal way to test out how these various APIs performed against each other, so I extended the sample to include all of the above libraries. You can download the updated project below if you want to try it out on your device. It also serves as a nice example of how to use each of the above APIs!

Download Updated XMLPerformance Project

A note on the project: if the library included XPath support, I used it for a single lookup, because I felt it represented the way the library would be used in practice. But of course XPath is generally slower than manually walking through the tree, so it adds to the benchmarks for those libraries.

So anyway – I’ll discuss the results of how things performed on my device here with the sample written as-is – but feel free to give it a shot on your device, or tweak the code based on the actual XML data you need to parse!

XML Parser Performance Comparison

Here’s some graphs that shows how quickly the various parsers parsed the XML document on my device (an iPhone 3Gs):

As you can see here, NSXMLParser was the slowest method by far. TBXML was the fastest, which makes sense because many features were taken out in order to optimize parse time for reading only.

I was surprised, however, to see that TBXML and some of the other DOM parsing methods performed faster than libxml2′s SAX parser, which I had thought would be the fastest of all of the methods. I haven’t profiled it, but my guess as to why it is slower is because of the frequent string compares needed to parse the document in the SAX method.

However, don’t discount libxml2′s SAX method by looking at this chart. Remember that libxml2 is the only one of these methods that can parse the document as it’s reading in – so it can let your app start displaying data right away rather than having to let the download finish first.

Ok, here’s a graph that shows the peak memory usage by parser (this was obtained through running the various methods through the Object Allocations tool):

Note that the DOM methods usually require more memory overhead than the SAX methods (with the exception of TBXML, which is indeed quite efficient). This is something to consider when you are dealing with especially large documents, given the memory constraints on an iPhone.

Also note that libxml2′s SAX method is the best option as far as peak memory usage is concerned (and I suspect it would scale better than the others as well).

Finally, let’s wrap up with a chart that summarizes the differences between the parsers and everything we’ve discussed above:

	NSXML	libxml2 – SAX	TBXML	TouchXML	KissXML	TinyXML	GDataXML	libxml2 – DOM
Included with SDK?	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Seconds to Parse	1.87	1.19	0.68	1.1	1.37	1.27	1.07	0.84
Peak Memory Usage	3.11	3.01	3.07	6.5	5.25	4.8	4.15	4.97
Parse While Downloading?	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Edit/Save XML?	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
XPath Support?	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes*	Yes	Yes
C or Obj-C	Obj-C	C	Obj-C	Obj-C	Obj-C	C	Obj-C	C
License	Apple	MIT	MIT	MIT	MIT	ZLib	Apache	MIT

* = with TinyXPath

Which To Choose?

Which XML parser to choose really depends on what you want to do with the parser.

If you just want to read small XML documents, performance doesn’t matter as much with small documents. You probably want to pick something with XPath support and something that is written in Objective-C to make your job easier. So I’d recommend either TouchXML, KissXML, or GDataXML for this case.
If you want to both read and write small XML documents, again performance doesn’t matter as much as functionality and ease of use. You probably want to pick something with XPath support, written in Objective-C, with read/write capability. So I’d recommend KissXML or GDataXML for this case.
If you want to read extremely large XML documents, performance is the critical issue here. You’ll want to consider libxml2 SAX, TBXML, or libxml DOM for this, depending on what your exact situation is.

What about the ones I didn’t mention?

NSXML is a decent choice if you’re dealing with relatively small documents, and you don’t feel like adding a third party library to the SDK.
TinyXML could be an OK choice for medium sized documents if you already have experience with the API and are comfortable with C as it ports quite easily over to the iPhone.

I took a look at two other XML libraries during the course of this investigation (VTD-XML and Objective-XML), but I couldn’t get them working. If someone else has had more luck with these, feel free to extend the sample project to include them!

Where To Go From Here?

If you’re looking for some help using one of these libraries, check out my post on How to Read and Write XML Documents with GDataXML.

And if anyone has any additional feedback about these libraries or tips that may help other developers, please chime in below!

Singletons, AppDelegates and top-level data.

2011-05-18T11:00:00.001-07:00

Singletons, AppDelegates and top-level data.

If you require only a single instance of an object in your application, where should it go? How should you control and manage it? Here are some different approaches, their implementations, their strengths and their weaknesses.

A little about global variables

They should scare you

Global variables is a term that invokes a sense of dread in experienced programmers. They are feared because a program filled with global variables (when it should use scoped variables instead) is a program without structure; a totally unmanageable mess.

This post will be entirely about writing and using global variables.

They're essential

The reality is that applications need to have some global state; we must have global variables. A variable will need to be global if all of the following are true:

No other object owns, manages or is otherwise responsible for it
There is exactly one in the whole program
It is not a constant (like a string or number)

If all of these are true, then you should use a global variable.

If you're wondering, variables that fall outside these rules should be (respectively):
child variables of the object that manages them
children of the object that manages the collection
a #define or a const (constants are state for the compiler, not the program)

In Cocoa, they're not quite global

Actually, what I will be showing are the "in practice" global variables of a Cocoa program — in reality, none of the techniques I show you will be true global variables in the Standard C Language sense but these approaches have replaced true global variables in Cocoa programs in almost all cases.

I will be showing you top-level child objects (children of the application delegate) and singleton objects. Explaining why these are normally considered equivalent to globals:

The application object is the first constructed object in the program from which all other hierarchically arranged objects are constructed, making it effectively the top-level scope in the program (like a global scope). The application delegate should be considered a basic extension of the application object itself (especially since you should never override the application class).
A singleton is an object that can be allocated only once (and can't be deleted) — making it a single, global instance. While singletons are stored in a true global variable, they are never accessed that way in Objective-C (a class method is used to access them), providing a least some abstraction around the implementation.

AppDelegates and AppControllers

As every Cocoa programmer knows, an application delegate is created in the MainMenu.xib file:

or the MainWindow.xib file for the iPhoneSDK.

A globally accessed variable can be initialized in the applicationDidFinishLauching delegate method:

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification {     myGlobalObject = [[MyGlobalObject alloc] init]; }

and assuming myGlobalObject has an associated getter method, you can now access it globally using:

[[NSApp delegate] myGlobalObject]

or on the iPhone:

[[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate myGlobalObject]

Since the delegate property returns an id (instead of the actual class of your delegate), you can't use property notation for the myGlobalObject itself unless the myGlobalObject is a property and you wrap the delegate in parentheses and inside the parentheses cast the delegate to your application delegate's class, like this:

((MyAppDelegate *)[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate).myGlobalObject

Although I have seen people declare the following macro in their delegate's header:

#define UIAppDelegate \     ((MyAppDelegate *)[UIApplication sharedApplication].delegate)

which then allows you to use:

UIAppDelegate.myGlobalObject

from anywhere that includes your delegate's header.

Why AppDelegates are bad

Having explained that the above could be done, I will tell you that in my programs, I avoid using the AppDelegate for anything other than:

implemenations of the NSApplication delegate methods (including applicationDidFinishLaunching: to finalize application construction)
handling menu items for items that don't exist in a window (for example, opening the application Preferences window)

Relying on your AppDelegate object to manage your global variables can quickly get scary for the same reason that global variables in general are considered scary: you can easily put too much into this top level and it becomes a big, unstructured mess. This problem is an anti-pattern, often called the Big Ball of Mud.

It is a bad idea structurally for two reasons. The first is encapsulation. The AppDelegate should only really be connected to things related to the AppDelegate (i.e. the NSApplication object and related state). If you store data related to other objects inside the AppDelegate, you rob those other objects of control over themselves.

Separation of concerns is the other serious problem. It is not the application delegate's responsibility to be the gatekeeper and manager of non-Application-related variables within the program.

A well-designed program organizes its classes so that they are all discrete, self-contained entities, shoving connections to everything into the AppDelegate violates this idea.

Singletons in Cocoa

The solution to the encapsulation problem is to create classes that manage any global data as discreet modules. This is done through a singleton.

The basic recipe for making a singleton is given by Apple: Creating a Singleton Instance.

I personally like to put these singleton methods into a macro, which you can download in my SynthesizeSingleton.h file. If you #import this header at the top of a class implementation, then all you need to do is write:

SYNTHESIZE_SINGLETON_FOR_CLASS(MyClassName);

inside the @implementation MyClassName declaration and your class will become a singleton. You will also need to add the line:

+ (MyClassName *)sharedMyClassName;

to the header file for MyClassName so the singleton accessor method can be found from other source files if they #import the header.

Once your class is a singleton, you can access the instance of it using the line:

[MyClassName sharedMyClassName];

Note: A singleton does not need to be explicitly allocated or initialized (the alloc and init methods will be called automatically on first access) but you can still implement the default init method if you want to perform initialization.

Advantages of a singleton

A well-designed singleton is a discrete, self-managing object that manages a specific role within your program.

Where variables hung off the Application delegate may have nothing in common with the delegate object itself, a singleton should be entirely focussed on its own specific role and responsibilities.

Search the Mac OS X 10.5 Reference in XCode for methods that begin with "shared" to see the ways in which Apple use singletons to create "manager" objects which allow you to get, set and manipulate entities that exist only once in a program.

Also, since the singleton is accessed through a method, there is some abstraction around the specific implementation — you could move from a true singleton to a per-thread based implementation if you needed, without changing the external interface.

Conclusion

Don't use globals unless you need to do so. An overwhelming majority of the data in your program has a sensible parent that is not the top-level. Singletons and top-level data should be used only when the data they contain truly belongs at the top level.

Cocoa singletons are flexible and useful when you need them. Using your application delegate to hold top-level data will work but try to limit its responsibilities to MainMenu.xib allocated objects where possible.

Posts Tagged UIActivityIndicatorView

2011-05-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

Posts Tagged UIActivityIndicatorView

Apple iPhone Web Kit with Activity Indicator

Posted by Chris Danielson in iPhone Development on December 4th, 2009

Welcome to the club of searching for an overly simple UIWebView a.k.a. WebKit example! In this example, I’ll show you simply how to hand code a quick UIWebView into your program as well as to add a UIActivityIndicatorView a.k.a. an activity indicator. Without jabbing Apple too hard here, the documentation is pretty bad and that is why it’s nice to have an example just shown to you as-is. I hope this example helps shine a light on the situation for anyone wanting to implement a nice and quick Apple iPhone WebKit solution.

View Code OBJC

  #import    @interface FirstViewController : UIViewController  {  UIWebView *myWebView;  UIActivityIndicatorView *activityIndicator;  }

View Code OBJC

/* Inside the @implementation FirstViewController ...  */ - (void)viewDidLoad { //We have a NIB file in play here, so I dropped the loadView here.  Just make sure that your loadView is not getting called twice!     [super viewDidLoad];     [self loadView]; }   - (void)loadView {  UIView *contentView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:[[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame]];  self.view = contentView;     CGRect webFrame = [[UIScreen mainScreen] applicationFrame];  webFrame.origin.y = 0.0f;  myWebView = [[UIWebView alloc] initWithFrame:webFrame];  myWebView.backgroundColor = [UIColor blueColor];  myWebView.scalesPageToFit = YES;  myWebView.autoresizingMask = (UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleWidth | UIViewAutoresizingFlexibleHeight);  myWebView.delegate = self;  [self.view addSubview: myWebView];  [myWebView loadRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://www.maxpowersoft.com/"]]];    activityIndicator = [[UIActivityIndicatorView alloc]initWithActivityIndicatorStyle:UIActivityIndicatorViewStyleGray];  activityIndicator.frame = CGRectMake(0.0, 0.0, 40.0, 40.0);  activityIndicator.center = self.view.center;  [self.view addSubview: activityIndicator]; }   - (void)dealloc {  [activityIndicator release];  [myWebView release];         [super dealloc]; }   #pragma mark WEBVIEW Methods   - (void)webViewDidStartLoad:(UIWebView *)webView {  // starting the load, show the activity indicator in the status bar  [UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = YES;  [activityIndicator startAnimating]; }   - (void)webViewDidFinishLoad:(UIWebView *)webView {  // finished loading, hide the activity indicator in the status bar  [UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = NO;  [activityIndicator stopAnimating]; }   - (void)webView:(UIWebView *)webView didFailLoadWithError:(NSError *)error {  // load error, hide the activity indicator in the status bar  [UIApplication sharedApplication].networkActivityIndicatorVisible = NO;    // report the error inside the webview  NSString* errorString = [NSString stringWithFormat:         @"

Error

Your request %@",         error.localizedDescription];  [myWebView loadHTMLString:errorString baseURL:nil]; }

That is all there is to it. It’s really simple as you can see. Feel free to copy and paste accordingly.

iPhone Dev Sessions: Making a Splash Screen

2011-05-16T11:47:00.001-07:00

iPhone Dev Sessions: Making a Splash Screen

By Geoffrey Goetz Apr. 20, 2010, 3:00pm PT 17 Comments

All too often an iPhone application’s launch sequence is an overlooked detail. The most common approach is to misuse the provided Default.png file as a splash screen. As it turns out, this detailing of an application is more than a little challenging if you want to get it right and stay within Apple’s guidelines.

The key to a smooth and professional looking launch sequence starts with knowing exactly where the application will land at startup. Some applications start at exactly the same place each and every successive launch, others attempt to preserve the application’s state and launch into the screen where the user last used the application. Keeping this in mind can change the strategy of how the launch sequence is implemented. This includes screen orientation as well as how and even if the status bar it to be displayed.

One may witness flickering of the status bar from blue, to black or from black to blue during the launch sequence. This is mainly due to the fact that there are two places to change the behavior of the status bar. One is hidden in the info.plist file, and the other is typically via code in the Application Delegate’s applicationDidFinishLaunching method. The info.plist configuration is used before the main window is loaded, and the code in the Application Delegate is used during the launching of the main window. The reason one may want to utilize both styles is to take advantage of a full screen splash page, and then enable the appropriate looking status bar once the application has finished loading.

For the purpose of this example application, we will assume that the user state is preserved between executions, and we do not know exactly what the screen will look like when the user enters the application. We will therefore be implementing a full-screen splash view that will have the status bar hidden during the launch sequence. Once the splash view has disappeared, a black opaque status bar will be utilized throughout the application. It is also assumed that the application will launch in portrait mode, and that the first screen the user will see will also be in portrait mode.

Editing the Configuration File

The first order of business is to take care of the status bar. In Xcode, locate the info.plist file for the project. To add an additional property to the plist file, simply select one of the entries and click on the plus tab that appears to the right and select Status Bar Style from the drop down list:

Edit Projects plist File

There are only three different styles to choose from. Try each style out to see which one fits the needs of the application being developed. For this example we will set the style to UIStatusBarStyleDefault.

UIStatusBarStyles:
UIStatusBarStyleDefault — Gray (the default)
UIStatusBarStyleBlackTranslucent — Transparent black (specifically, black with an alpha of 0.5)
UIStatusBarStyleBlackOpaque — Opaque black

If on the other hand the desire is to hide the status bar when the application launches, then yet another property needs to be set. In this case, add the “Status Bar is initially hidden” property to the plist file and be sure to check the box next to the property.

Editing the Application Delegate code

So now that the status bar style is set, and initially hidden, how does one get the status bar to display again? You can actually turn the status bar on and off programmatically via code. This is particularly handy when the need arises to display a full screen view, such as the splash screen this application is utilizing. In the applicationDidFinishLaunching method of the Application’s designated AppDelegate class, add the following line of code to make the status bar visible again:

1- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
2    // Override point for customization after app launch
3    [window addSubview:viewController.view];
4    [window makeKeyAndVisible];
5    [[UIApplication sharedApplication] setStatusBarHidden:NO animated:YES];
6}

Adding a Default.png Image

Surprisingly, the size of this file is not as important as the naming convention of the file. Default.png is a case sensitive PNG file. The image should be 480×320 according to Apple. Following Apple’s conventions, this image should look like the view that the user will see when the application has launched, and not the actual splash screen.

Xcode provides a mechanism to create a Default.png file from an attached device running the application. From the Organizer window, select the device, click on screenshots and click capture. To make that screenshot your application’s default image, click Save As Default Image. Even though the image that is created includes the status bar as it looked when the screen shot was captured, the iPhone OS replaces it with the current status bar when your application launches. Just to be clear, this is not a splash screen…not yet.

Long Launch Sequences to Varying Views

So far, this is what most applications will implement if they implement any sort of controlled visual experience when the application launches. If you follow Apple’s guidelines, and the image you produce is the first screen that the user will see, all is good. Except, what if the launch sequence is not as fast as the user expects? What if the application preserves state and lands on a different view based on the users last know state? Then this technique is not up to the task.

Photoshop a branded image representing the application and save it as a PNG image sized at 480×320. Do not include a status bar of any kind in the image file being created. Add this image file to the project. Now the application sort of has a splash screen, through a misused implementation of the Default.png file. To correct this, simply add an image view as a property to the App Delegates header and create it as follows:

1splashView = [[UIImageView alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0, 0, 320, 480)];
2splashView.image = [UIImage imageNamed:@"Default.png"];
3[window addSubview:splashView];
4[window bringSubviewToFront:splashView];

At this point, the image view is utilizing the exact same image file that was created in Photoshop. There’s no chance of the initial view being different than the Default.png file at this point. The one remaining problem is the timing of when to remove the image view from the subview. This can be handled in one of two ways…

Controlling the Duration of the Splash Screen

The first option is for those with quick startup times that just want a splash screen. In this situation, create a method to remove and release the splash view, then calling that method via a timed perform selector call as follows:

`1`	`[self` `performSelector:@selector(removeSplash) withObject:nil` `afterDelay:1.5];`

The removeSplash method does just that, removes the image view from the subview and releases the object.

1-(void)removeSplash;
2{
3  [splashView removeFromSuperview];
4  [splashView release];
5}

The second method uses the same remove splash method, but relies on the built in event management to trigger when the method gets called.

1[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self
    selector:@selector(saveClaim:)
    name:@"RemoveSplashScreen"
    object:nil];

Now all that needs to be done is to post the notification from anywhere. This technique is particularly useful if the reason that the launch sequence is taking a long time has nothing to do with code that was implemented in the App Delegate.

1[[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter]
2      postNotificationName: @"RemoveSplashScreen"
3      object: nil];

This technique can be employed from anywhere within the application. Removing the observer after the fact may avoid crashes if there is an opportunity for this notification to be fired multiple times. Releasing an object when no object it there to be released can lead to troublesome crashes to track down. The quick and dirty is to use the delay on the performSelector call.

Conclusion

And there it is, a splash screen that conforms to Apple’s guidelines. No hidden APIs, no hacks, no special sauce. A simple, straight forward approach to making the initial interaction with the user as pleasant as possible.

References:

how to set background for container

2011-01-17T07:23:00.001-08:00

how to set background for container

12-17-2010 02:05 PM

hey shethab,

dont sweat it we've all be there! here's how you set the background color of your application. Where there are two ways:

First set the meta data to a solid background color like this:

package
{
 import flash.display.Sprite;
 
 [SWF(width="1024", height="600", backgroundColor="#CCCCCC", frameRate="30")]
 public class MyApplication extends Sprite
 
  public function MyApplication()
  {
   (...)
   
  }
 }
}

The background is in the same format as HTML coloring. The second way is by creating a shape object as large as the screen and adding it as the first child to your program like so:

package
{
 import flash.display.Shape;
 import flash.display.Sprite;

 [SWF(width="1024", height="600", backgroundColor="#CCCCCC", frameRate="30")]
 public class MyApplication extends Sprite
 { 
  public function MyApplication()
  {
   
   var appBackgroundColor:Shape = new Shape();
   
   appBackgroundColor.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
   appBackgroundColor.graphics.drawRect(0,0,1024,600);
   appBackgroundColor.graphics.endFill();
   
   addChild(appBackgroundColor);


   (...)
  }
 }
}

To add an image is like the second step only using the Image class like this:

package
{
 import flash.display.Shape;
 import flash.display.Sprite;
 import flash.filesystem.File;
 
 import qnx.ui.display.Image;

 
 [SWF(width="1024", height="600", backgroundColor="#CCCCCC", frameRate="30")]
 public class MyApplication extends Sprite
 { 
  public function MyApplication()
  {
   
   var appBackgroundImage:Image = new Image();
   
   appBackgroundImage.setImage(File.applicationDirectory.resolvePath('path/to/image.png').url);
   appBackgroundImage.setSize(1024,600);
   appBackgroundImage.setPosition(0,0);
   
   addChild(appBackgroundImage);

   (...)
   
  }
 }
}

hope that helps! good luck!

J. Rab

Blackberry background key event

2009-11-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Implement the KeyListener interface and then put your app to the background. Only few key events will send you from foreground.

Like Red, Green key and the mute.

how to detect application is in foreground

2009-09-30T07:44:00.000-07:00

net.rim.device.api.system.Application

void activate()
Handles foregrounding event.

iPhone development short cuts

2009-09-25T11:18:00.001-07:00

Reorienting the screen. With the Hello World application running, you can
reorient the Simulator using Command-Left arrow and Command-Right arrow.
n Going home. Tap the Home button (Command-Shift-H) to leave the application
and return to the SpringBoard home screen.
n Locking the “phone.” Hardware, Lock (Command-L) simulates locking the
phone.
n Viewing the console. In Xcode, choose Run, Console (Command-Shift-R) to
view the Xcode console window.This window is where your printf, NSLog, and
CFShow messages are sent by default. In the unlikely case where NSLog messages
do not appear, use the Xcode organizer (Window, Organizer, Console) or open
/Applications/Utilities/Console to view NSLog messages instead.
n Running Instruments. Use Run, Start with Performance Tool to select an
Instruments template (such as Object Allocations or CPU Sampler) to use with the
Simulator. Instruments monitors memory and CPU use as your application runs.

call permission manager

2009-09-18T06:13:00.001-07:00

The code I am using is as follows:

ApplicationPermissionsManager apm = ApplicationPermissionsManager.getInstance();
       if (apm.getPermission(ApplicationPermissions.PERMISSION_INPUT_SIMULATION) != ApplicationPermissions.VALUE_ALLOW) {
           ApplicationPermissions ap = new ApplicationPermissions();
           ap.addPermission(ApplicationPermissions.PERMISSION_INPUT_SIMULATION);
           ApplicationPermissionsManager.getInstance().invokePermissionsRequest(ap);
       }

This brings up the interface for the user to set the permissions. In the Input Simulation options, the only option available is Deny, there is no Allow or Prompt. But on other options, for example Files, all the options are available. Also on the other devices the Input Simulation has all these options available.

Control the screen orientation

2009-09-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Details

BlackBerry smartphones with accelerometer support, such as the touch screen BlackBerry® Storm™ Series, are capable of changing the display orientation between portrait and landscape mode, depending on how the BlackBerry smartphone is held.

It may be desirable for certain applications to limit the possible orientations. For example, a video player application may need to fix the display orientation to landscape mode.

The screen can be oriented in any of four possible directions: north, south, east and west.

To set the allowable screen orientations, MIDlets should use code similar to the following example, prior to calling Display.setCurrent() from the MIDlet constructor.

DirectionControl dc =
DirectionControl)((Controllable)Display.getDisplay(this)).getControl("net.rim.device.api.lcdui.control.DirectionControl");

int directions = DirectionControl.DIRECTION_EAST | DirectionControl.WEST;

dc.setAcceptableScreenDirections(directions);

The above example forces the display into landscape mode.

Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) applications should make the following call before any invocation of UiApplication.pushScreen().

int directions = net.rim.device.api.system.Display.DIRECTION_NORTH |
net.rim.device.api.system.Display.DIRECTION_SOUTH;

net.rim.device.api.ui.Ui.getUiEngineInstance().setAcceptableDirections(directions);

In the above example the display is forced into portrait mode once the BlackBerry smartphone user rotates the BlackBerry smartphone.

from

http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenterpublic/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/348583/800332/800505/800608/How_To_-_Control_the_screen_orientation.html?nodeid=1487645&vernum=0

How to use third part lib in BB project

2009-09-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Some related post here
http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=java_dev&message.id=22240&query.id=82860#M22240

Basically, preverify the jar, make sure no other missing dependence packages. Import it into your project, or make a separated project to work as lib project.

Blackberry connections

2009-09-11T08:49:00.001-07:00

Do not understand why BB makes a Http connection so complex, but still need to face it.

If you were trying these methods, then the preferred order, based on various posts on this forum, seems to be:
1) BIS-B
2) WAP 2
3) Direct TCP
4) WAP 1

This is the best post talking about this topic

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=java_dev&message.id=29105#M29105

http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=java_dev&thread.id=29103

What Is - Network Diagnostic Tool

2009-09-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

From RIM

http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenterpublic/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/348583/800451/800563/What_Is_-_Network_Diagnostic_Tool.html?nodeid=1450596&vernum=0

Details

BlackBerry smartphones support many different transports that facilitate reliable data communication between third-party applications and the Internet. The transports available are direct Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), BlackBerry® Mobile Data System (BlackBerry MDS), BlackBerry® Internet Service Browsing (BIS-B), BlackBerry® Unite!™ software, Wireless Access Protocol (WAP)1.0, WAP2.0 and Wi-Fi® technology. It is important to understand the differences between these transports and how and when to leverage each transport. It is also crucial to determine if a transport is available for use before trying to use it. The Network Diagnostic Tool is essentially a role model that answers all these questions and is a functional diagnostic tool for testing a URL over various transports supported by the BlackBerry solutions, as well as for displaying the values of many network attributes during the test period.

This article refers to the source code of the Network Diagnostic Tool, which can be downloaded here.

To better understand how each transport works, see the video Network Transports found on blackberrydeveloper.com.

Determining transport availability

The first step to determining the availability of a transport is to check if the ServiceRecord for that transport is available. This can be done programmatically as follows:

Get the ServiceBook instance by calling the static method ServiceBook.getSB().

Get the ServiceRecords from the ServiceBook by calling the instance method ServiceBook.getRecords().

Iterate through each ServiceRecord and determine if it is for the transport you are looking for.

This is demonstrated in the Network Diagnostic Tool's IOThread.initializeTransportAvailability().

The next step is to determine if the BlackBerry smartphone has network coverage to communicate through the transport. This can be accomplished by calling the application programming interface (API) CoverageInfo.isCoverageSufficient(int coverageType).

Refer to the method IOThread.initializeTransportAvailability()for a sample implementation of this.

">Creating connections

Developer knowledge base article DB-00396 illustrates how to create an Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or socket connection.

The IOThread.get*URL() methods in the source code shows how to construct URLs for each transport.

Once you have the URL you need, you can create an HTTPConnection instance using the Connector.open(String url) static method and start communicating with that URL. See the IOThread.do*() methods in the Network Diagnostic Tool source code to see a detailed implementation of this.

Note: The BIS-B transport is available only to partners of the BlackBerry Alliance Program, and therefore is not implemented in the attached source code of the Network Diagnostic Tool. For more information on the BlackBerry Alliance Program, visit http://na.blackberry.com/eng/partners/why_join.jsp.

Displaying network and radio information

Besides testing the different transports for a given URL, the Network Diagnostic Tool also displays network and radio information such as signal level, network name and type, and available network services. Refer to the method ReportScreen.displayNetworkInfo() in the Network Diagnostic Tool source code for more information on how to display this information.

RadioStatusListener

It is also possible for an application to listen for changes in the radio such as signal level and available network services. To accomplish this, you must implement the interface RadioStatusListener. The Network Diagnostic Tool implements this interface in the class named IOThread.

Automatically detecting wireless service providers

It is very useful to be able to detect wireless service providers, especially for applications using the Direct TCP transport for BlackBerry smartphones that operate using Global System for Mobile communications® (GSM®). For these BlackBerry smartphones, correct access point name (APN) information must be specified by the BlackBerry smartphone user before any application can leverage the Direct TCP transport.

APN information can also be set programmatically, which is demonstrated in the referenced Network Diagnostic Tool source code. The details are also explained in DB-00532. If the current wireless service provider for the BlackBerry smartphone can be determined, then the APN information can be set up programmatically from the application. This improves the BlackBerry smartphone user's experience because the APN does not need to be specified manually. To detect the wireless service provider, use a table that contains the name, mobile country code (MCC), mobile network code (MNC) and the APN details of each wireless service provider. Compare the MCC and MNC values returned by the BlackBerry smartphone against the values in the table. Once a match is found, set the corresponding APN information programmatically. For more information on how to read the MCC and MNC values from the BlackBerry smartphone, see DB-00688.

The complete process to automatically detect wireless service providers is also demonstrated by the Network Diagnostic Tool. The Network Diagnostic Tool stores the wireless service provider table in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) file that can be downloaded from here. This file must be stored on the BlackBerry smartphone in the following location: file:///store/netdiag/carrier_info.xml unless this path is changed in the source code. You can add details for as many wireless service providers as you want to the XML file.

Changes required for earlier versions of the BlackBerry Java Development Environment

Although this article is targeted for BlackBerry® Java® Development Environment (BlackBerry JDE) 4.5 or later, the source code of the Network Diagnostic Tool can be easily modified and compiled using earlier versions of the BlackBerry JDE. Consider the following changes:

Before BlackBerry JDE 4.3, RadioStatusListener had an additional method named mobilityManagementEvent(int eventCode, int cause). This method must be implemented if you are using BlackBerry JDE 4.2 or earlier.

CoverageInfo.COVERAGE_DIRECT is not supported until BlackBerry JDE 4.5. For BlackBerry JDE 4.3 or earlier, use CoverageInfo.COVERAGE_CARRIER.

WLANInfo class is not available until BlackBerry JDE 4.5. For BlackBerry JDE 4.3 or earlier, use the following logic:

if(CoverageInfo.isCoverageSufficient(CoverageInfo.COVERAGE_CARRIER,RadioInfo.WAF_WLAN, false)){
coverageWiFi = true;
wifiLog.addlog("Coverage Status: Online");
}

RadioInfo.NETWORK_SERVICE_GAN is not supported in BlackBerry JDE 4.2.1 or earlier. Remove any references to this constant for those versions of the BlackBerry JDE.

RadioInfo.NETWORK_SERVICE_EVDO_ONLY and RadioInfo.NETWORK_SERVICE_UMTS are not supported in BlackBerry JDE 4.2.1 or earlier. Remove any references to these constants for those versions of the BlackBerry JDE.

The CoverageInfo class is introduced in BlackBerry JDE 4.2.0. Remove any references to this class if you are using an earlier version of the BlackBerry JDE to compile this application. However, it is possible to do the following in versions of the BlackBerry JDE earlier than 4.2.0:

if(RadioInfo.getSignalLevel() != RadioInfo.LEVEL_NO_COVERAGE) the BlackBerry smartphone has radio signal.

if(RadioInfo.getNetworkService() & RadioInfo.NETWORK_SERVICE_DATA)>0 the BlackBerry smartphone has data connectivity.

How to get Blackberry device information?

2009-09-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

String userAgent = "Blackberry" + DeviceInfo.getDeviceName() + "/" + getOsVersion() + " Profile/" + System.getProperty( "microedition.profiles" ) + " Configuration/" + System.getProperty( "microedition.configuration" ) + " VendorID/" + Branding.getVendorId();

public static String getOsVersion()
{   String version = "";
   ApplicationDescriptor[] ad = ApplicationManager.getApplicationManager().getVisibleApplications();
   for( int i = 0; i < ad.length; i++)
   {   if( ad[i].getModuleName().trim().equalsIgnoreCase( "net_rim_bb_ribbon_app" ) )
       {   version = ad[i].getVersion();
           break;
       }
   }
   return version;
}

How To - Compile a jar file into a BlackBerry Library

2009-09-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

come from here

http://www.blackberry.com/knowledgecenterpublic/livelink.exe/fetch/2000/348583/800901/How_To_-_Compile_a_JAR_file_into_a_BlackBerry_Library.html?nodeid=801017&vernum=0

Details

You can include classes from other compiled JAR files in your application. To include these files, save the JAR file in a new project in the same workspace as your application. Make this new project a library application and make your application dependent on this library. You can then import all of its classes. The following steps make up this procedure.

To create a new project

Open the workspace that contains your application's project.

Create a new project.

To add a compiled JAR file to the project

In the navigation pane, select the project.

On the Build menu, select Project > Add File to Project.

Select the appropriate JAR file and click Open.

To make the project a library

In the navigation pane, select the project.

Right-click and select Properties. The <Project name> Class Properties window appears.

Click the Application tab.

From the Project Type drop-down list, select Library.

To compile the project

In the navigation pane, select the project.

Right-click and click Build Project.

To make the project dependent on the new library

In the navigation pane, select the project.

Right-click and click Project Dependencies. The Class depends on <Project name:> window appears.

Select the check box.

Your application can now import the classes in this JAR file with the import “xxx.yyy.*” command.

Displays a route between locations on a map.

2009-08-29T07:33:00.001-07:00

/**
* Displays a route between locations on a map.
*/
private MenuItem viewRouteItem = new MenuItem("View Route" , 3000, 10)
{
public void run()
{
StringBuffer stringBuffer = new StringBuffer("");
stringBuffer.append("");
stringBuffer.append("");
stringBuffer.append("");

Invoke.invokeApplication(Invoke.APP_TYPE_MAPS, new MapsArguments( MapsArguments.ARG_LOCATION_DOCUMENT, stringBuffer.toString()));
}
};

C# calls command

2009-08-07T06:03:00.000-07:00

Example 1. Running a command line application, without concern for the results:

private void simpleRun_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e){
 System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(@"C:\listfiles.bat");
}

Example 2. Retrieving the results and waiting until the process stops (running the process synchronously):

private void runSyncAndGetResults_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e){
 System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo psi =
  new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo(@"C:\listfiles.bat");
 psi.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
 psi.WindowStyle = System.Diagnostics.ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
 psi.UseShellExecute = false;
 System.Diagnostics.Process listFiles;
 listFiles = System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(psi);
 System.IO.StreamReader myOutput = listFiles.StandardOutput;
 listFiles.WaitForExit(2000);
 if (listFiles.HasExited)
 {
  string output = myOutput.ReadToEnd();
  this.processResults.Text = output;
 }
}

Example 3. Displaying a URL using the default browser on the user's machine:

private void launchURL_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e){
 string targetURL = @http://www.duncanmackenzie.net;
 System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(targetURL);
}

Using the Code

The code given below creates a process i.e. a command process and then invokes the command that we want to execute. The result of the command is stored in a string variable, which can then be used for further reference. The command execution can happen in two ways, synchronously and asynchronously. In the asynchronous command execution, we just invoke the command execution using a thread that runs independently. The code has enough comments, hence making it self-explanatory.

Below is the code to execute the command synchronously:

Collapse

/// <summary> /// Executes a shell command synchronously. /// </summary> /// <param name="command">string command</param> /// <returns>string, as output of the command.</returns> public void ExecuteCommandSync(object command) { try { // create the ProcessStartInfo using "cmd" as the program to be run, // and "/c " as the parameters. // Incidentally, /c tells cmd that we want it to execute the command that follows, // and then exit. System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo procStartInfo = new System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo("cmd", "/c " + command); // The following commands are needed to redirect the standard output. // This means that it will be redirected to the Process.StandardOutput StreamReader. procStartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true; procStartInfo.UseShellExecute = false; // Do not create the black window. procStartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true; // Now we create a process, assign its ProcessStartInfo and start it System.Diagnostics.Process proc = new System.Diagnostics.Process(); proc.StartInfo = procStartInfo; proc.Start(); // Get the output into a string string result = proc.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd(); // Display the command output. Console.WriteLine(result); } catch (Exception objException) { // Log the exception } }

The above code invokes the cmd process specifying the command to be executed. The option procStartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput is set to true, since we want the output to be redirected to the StreamReader. The procStartInfo.CreateNoWindow property is set to true, as we don't want the standard black window to appear. This will execute the command silently.

Below is the code to execute the command asynchronously:

Collapse

/// <summary> /// Execute the command Asynchronously. /// </summary> /// <param name="command">string command.</param> public void ExecuteCommandAsync(string command) { try { //Asynchronously start the Thread to process the Execute command request. Thread objThread = new Thread(new ParameterizedThreadStart(ExecuteCommandSync)); //Make the thread as background thread. objThread.IsBackground = true; //Set the Priority of the thread. objThread.Priority = ThreadPriority.AboveNormal; //Start the thread. objThread.Start(command); } catch (ThreadStartException objException) { // Log the exception } catch (ThreadAbortException objException) { // Log the exception } catch (Exception objException) { // Log the exception } }

service book sample

2009-07-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

import net.rim.device.api.system.*;
import net.rim.device.api.servicebook.*;

public class ServiceBookExample extends Application {
ServiceRecord[] _sRecordsArray; // Creates a ServiceRecord array.
ServiceBook _servicebook; // Creates a ServiceBook variable.
String cidValue, sbName, sbAPN;

public static void main(String[] args) {
// Create a new instance of the application and
// start the event thread.
ServiceBookExample app = new ServiceBookExample();
app.enterEventDispatcher();
}

public ServiceBookExample() {
// Returns a reference to the service book from the factory.
_servicebook = ServiceBook.getSB();
// Returns an array of all registered service records.
_sRecordsArray = _servicebook.getRecords();
// Loops through the service record array
// and obtains specific information relating
// to each item and prints it to the debugging output.
for (int i = 0; i < _sRecordsArray.length; i++) {
// Obtains the Service Book CID
cidValue = _sRecordsArray[i].getCid();
// Obtains the Name of the Service Book
sbName = _sRecordsArray[i].getName();
if (cidValue.equals("BrowserConfig")
&& sbName.startsWith("WAP Browser")) {
// Obtains the Service Book's APN
// (Associated Access Point Name)
String sbAPN = _sRecordsArray[i].getAPN();
}
}
}
}

About pushing for iPhone and Blackberry

2009-07-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

I must say apple did it a neat and easier way, BB is not :(

BB
http://na.blackberry.com/eng/developers/javaappdev/pushapi.jsp#tab_tab_works

iPhone
A nice guide to setup your server:

http://www.macoscoders.com/2009/05/17/iphone-apple-push-notification-service-apns/
another good one:

http://blog.boxedice.com/2009/07/10/how-to-build-an-apple-push-notification-provider-server-tutorial/

basically you need a developer's id, then apply for the iPhone Push Notification Server (PNS) service. After got the certificate, you just put it on your Apache server. Or you may write a Java or .Net program to load the certificate and send out your testing data.

package com.demo.samples;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.security.KeyStore;

import javax.net.ssl.KeyManagerFactory;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLContext;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSocket;
import javax.net.ssl.SSLSocketFactory;

import java.awt.image.RenderedImage;
import java.io.IOException;

public class pushdemo {

/**
* @param args
*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(args[0]);
if (args.length != 2) {
System.out.println("Usage: KeGenerator phonenumber ExpireDate(yyyy-MM-dd)");
System.exit(0);
}

// TODO Auto-generated method stub
try {
int port = 2195;
String hostname = "gateway.sandbox.push.apple.com";

char []passwKey = "keypassword".toCharArray();
KeyStore ts = KeyStore.getInstance("PKCS12");
ts.load(new FileInputStream("devCert.p12"), passwKey);

KeyManagerFactory tmf = KeyManagerFactory.getInstance("SunX509");
tmf.init(ts,passwKey);
SSLContext sslContext = SSLContext.getInstance("TLS");
sslContext.init(tmf.getKeyManagers(), null, null);
SSLSocketFactory factory =sslContext.getSocketFactory();
SSLSocket socket = (SSLSocket) factory.createSocket(hostname,port); // Create the ServerSocket
String[] suites = socket.getSupportedCipherSuites();
socket.setEnabledCipherSuites(suites);
//start handshake

socket.startHandshake();

// Create streams to securely send and receive data to the server
InputStream in = socket.getInputStream();
OutputStream out = socket.getOutputStream();

// Read from in and write to out...
ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
baos.write(0); //The command
System.out.println("First byte Current size: " + baos.size());

baos.write(0); //The first byte of the deviceId length
baos.write(32); //The deviceId length

System.out.println("Second byte Current size: " + baos.size());

String deviceId = "02da851db4f2b5bfce1982700d3dac72bc87cd60";
baos.write(hexStringToByteArray(deviceId.toUpperCase()));
System.out.println("Device ID: Current size: " + baos.size());

//{ "aps" : { "alert" : { "body" : "Bob wants to play poker", "action-loc-key" : "PLAY" }, "badge" : 5, }, "acme1" : "bar", "acme2" : [ "bang", "whiz" ] }
String payload = "{\"aps\":{\"alert\":\"I like spoons also\",\"badge\":14}}";
System.out.println("Sending payload: " + payload);
baos.write(0); //First byte of payload length;
baos.write(payload.length());
baos.write(payload.getBytes());

out.write(baos.toByteArray());
out.flush();

System.out.println("Closing socket.." + in.read());
// Close the socket
in.close();
out.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

}
public static byte[] hexStringToByteArray(String s) {
byte[] b = new byte[s.length() / 2];
for (int i = 0; i < b.length; i++){
int index = i * 2;
int v = Integer.parseInt(s.substring(index, index + 2), 16);
b[i] = (byte)v;
}
return b;
}

}

monitor Blackberry BackLight

2009-07-16T14:18:00.000-07:00

SystemListener2
backlightStateChange

You need to implement the SystemListener2 interface and will be called when light changes. .

void backlightStateChange(boolean on)
Invoked when the backlight state changes.

http://www.blackberry.com/developers/docs/4.5.0api/net/rim/device/api/system/SystemListener2.html

Free tools

2009-07-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

SVG Anti-Virus Free
WINScp ftp client
SciTE edit tool
Actual Multiple Monitors

Setting up a Subversion Server under Windows

2009-07-10T21:01:00.001-07:00

Setting up a Subversion Server under Windows

I talked a little bit about what Subversion is in my previous post. Now, let's get it set it up in Windows.

Luckily for us, Joe White has done most of the work already; he has a tremendously helpful post that documents how to set up Subversion. I'll see if I can streamline his excellent post a bit further, and illustrate it with screenshots.

A) Download Subversion

You'll need the latest version of..

the Windows binaries
the "run Subversion as a windows service" wrapper
the TortoiseSVN shell integration utility

B) Install Subversion

Unzip the Windows binaries to a folder of your choice. I chose c:\program files\subversion\ as my path.
Now, add the subversion binaries to the path environment variable for the machine. I used %programfiles%\subversion\bin\
You'll also need another environment variable, SVN_EDITOR, set to the text editor of your choice. I used c:\windows\notepad.exe

C) Create a Repository

Open a command prompt and type

svnadmin create "c:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"

Navigate to the folder we just created. Within that folder, uncomment the following lines in the /conf/svnserve.conf file:
```
[general]
anon-access = read
auth-access = write
password-db = passwd
```
Next, uncomment these lines in the /conf/passwd file:
```
[users]
harry = harryssecret
sally = sallyssecret
```

D) Verify that everything is working

Start the subversion server by issuing this command in the command window:

svnserve --daemon --root "C:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"

Create a project by opening a second command window and entering this command:
```
svn mkdir svn://localhost/myproject
```
It's a standard Subversion convention to have three folders at the root of a project:

/trunk
/branches
/tags
At this point, Notepad should launch:

Enter any comment you want at the top of the file, then save and exit.

You'll now be prompted for credentials. In my case I was prompted for the administrator credentials as well:

Authentication realm:  0f1a8b11-d50b-344d-9dc7-0d9ba12e22df
Password for 'Administrator': *********
Authentication realm:  0f1a8b11-d50b-344d-9dc7-0d9ba12e22df
Username: sally
Password for 'sally': ************

Committed revision 1.

Congratulations! You just checked a change into Subversion!

E) Start the server as a service

Stop the existing command window that's running svnserve by pressing CTRL+C.
Copy the file SVNService.exe from the zip file of the same name to the subversion\bin folder.

Install the service by issuing the following commands:

svnservice -install --daemon --root "C:\Documents and Settings\Subversion Repository"
sc config svnservice start= auto
net start svnservice

Test the new service by listing all the files in the repository:
```
svn ls svn://localhost/
```
You should see the single project we created earlier, myproject/

F) Set up the shell extension

Run the TortoiseSVN installer. It will tell you to restart, but you don't need to.
Create a project folder somewhere on your hard drive. Right click in that folder and select "SVN Checkout..."

type svn://localhost/myproject/ for the repository URL and click OK.
Create a new file in that directory. Right click the file and select "TortoiseSVN, Add"
The file hasn't actually been checked in yet. Subversion batches any changes and commits them as one atomic operation. To send all your changes to the server, right click and select "SVN Commit":

And we're done! You now have a networked Subversion server and client set up on your machine. Note that the default port for svnserve is 3690.

For more tips on using subversion, take a look at the free O'Reilly Subversion book.

good J2me UI framework

2009-07-10T14:12:00.000-07:00

Great User Interface Libraries for J2ME Developers

J2ME
Written by Vimal
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 09:12
Currently 2.80/5 1 2 3 4 5 Rating 2.8/5 (10 votes) J2ME is a primitive but powerful development platform for devloping applications for mobile devices. A serious issue with J2ME is the lack of built in libraries to accomplish several common tasks. There are several free and commercial libraries availbale that can be used to provide more functionality in our J2ME applications. In this article I shall list down several famous User Interface libraries for J2ME. Apime License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Apime is a framework to offer more funcionality to J2ME/MIDP. The core is the user interface, with basics components to make applications with swing structure. Also it includes classes for file manage and customization (skins, internacionalization, keyboards for differents languages and mobiles, ...) BaseMovil License: GPL Category: User Interfaces BaseMovil is a framework for fast development of J2ME applications: a powerful J2ME database engine, a scripting engine and an ui toolkit which is fully integrated with both and allows xml view definition. The framework handles device differences/bugs. Fire License: LGPL Category: User Interfaces Fire (Flexible Interface Rendering Engine)is a lightweight themable GUI engine for j2me MIDP2 applications. It is designed to be an eye-candy replacement to the traditional midp GUI components. It provides more than the forms and items functionality and its not kvm-implementation depended. LwVCL License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Another User Interfaces library for the J2ME platform providing many UI components like Buttons, Checkbox, Radio Box, Progreess Bars, Tabbed Panes etc.. It is designed as a replacement to the traditional J2ME Widgets. J4ME License: Apache License 2.0 Category: User Interfaces, Utilities J4ME is an open source library to help build J2ME applications. It solves many of J2ME's shortcomings including: Uese Interfaces, Logging, GPS and various other utility classes and methods. jMobileCore License: LGPL Category: User Interfaces , Utilities jMobileCore library is powerful tool for creating J2ME applications. jMobileCore provides support for developing compact and rich Canvas-based GUI, fast data access, reliable communications and simplifies creation of multithreading midlet applications. kUI License: GPL, Commerical Category: User Interfaces kUI is a Canvas based replacement for the high level LCDUI classes. It can be styled to meet your own branding requirements,avoids problems with implicit close commands, does not require a preprocessing step and offers a consistent behaviour and user interface experience among different devices, simplifying your development and documentation process. Kuix License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Kuix (Kalmeo User Interface eXtensions) is a development framework that allows to create easily high end J2ME applications. It provides most graphical elements (buttons, textfields, lists, menus, etc.) needed to create advanced user graphical interfaces and uses an XML/CSS approach to describe the screens and the user actions in the application. LWUIT License: GPL Category: User Interfaces LWUIT is a UI library that is bundled together with applications and helps content developers in creating compelling and consistent Java ME applications. LWUIT supports visual components and other UI goodies such as theming, transitions, animation and more. Mewt License: GPL Category: User Interfaces An advanced widget toolkit for J2ME devices, supporting cross-platform components such as tables, trees, graphical buttons, theming etc. MWT (Micro Window Toolkit) License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Inspired by its UI big brothers as AWT, Swing and SWT, MWT comes into the scene providing an UI framework designed and optimized for small devices. Nextel's Open Source J2ME Toolkits License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Nextel's Open Source J2ME Toolkits contain libraries for user interface and RMS development on J2ME handsets. The windowing toolkit, OWT (Open Windowing Toolkit), employs a container/component model, and provides interfaces to permit developers to create their own user interface components. The toolkit is designed specifically for MIDP handsets with a small amount of screen real estate. It is built on top of MIDP's Canvas class. The RMS toolkit provides classes that simplify record management on MIDP devices. Thinlet License: GPL Category: User Interfaces Thinlet is a GUI toolkit, a single Java class, parses the hierarchy and properties of the GUI, handles user interaction, and calls business logic. Separates the graphic presentation (described in an XML file) and the application methods (written as Java code). Thinlet runs with Java 1.1 to 1.4, Personal Java, and Personal (Basis) Profile. Its MIDP version was dropped, but you still can find the last MIDP version at Thinlet Download page. Synclast UI API License: GPL Category: User Interfaces The Synclast UI API is an extensible toolkit for creating colorful custom user interfaces on MIDP devices in an intuitive yet efficient manner, It provides several Widgets, Layouts, Backgrounds, Powerful Forms and Menus.

ant build for your blackberry

2009-07-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

configure the eclipse for BB

http://www.blackberryforums.com/developer-forum/138210-setup-up-eclipse-blackberry-development.html

Blackberry ant tool
http://bb-ant-tools.sourceforge.net/docs

Apache ant here

http://gulus.usherbrooke.ca/pub/appl/apache/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.7.1-bin.zip

How To - Format the electronic serial number (ESN)

2009-07-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Details

The following code can be used to format the ESN of a BlackBerry smartphone to match the format that is shown under Options > Status on the BlackBerry smartphone.

Note: ESNs are only present on BlackBerry smartphones that operate on the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network.

public String getDecimalSerialNumber()
{
StringBuffer esnStringBuffer = new StringBuffer();

//Determine if the BlackBerry operates on the CDMA network.
if( RadioInfo.getNetworkType() == RadioInfo.NETWORK_CDMA )
{
//It does, so we'll format the ESN number.
int sn = CDMAInfo.getESN();
int firstPart = (sn >> 24) & 0xff;
int secondPart = sn & 0xffffff;

String firstPartString = String.valueOf( firstPart );
String secondPartString = String.valueOf( secondPart );
padESN( esnStringBuffer, 3 - firstPartString.length() );
esnStringBuffer.append( firstPartString );
padESN( esnStringBuffer, 8 - secondPartString.length() );
esnStringBuffer.append( secondPartString );

return esnStringBuffer.toString();
}
else
{
//This BlackBerry does not operate on the CDMA network,
//return 0.
esnStringBuffer.append(0);
}

return esnStringBuffer.toString();
}

//Inserts zeros into the ESN string.
private void padESN(StringBuffer esnStringBuffer, int padCount)
{
for (int i = 0; i < padCount; ++i) {
esnStringBuffer.append('0');
}
}

How To - Define a rollover icon for an application

2009-05-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

How To - Define a rollover icon for an application
Last Updated: 14 November 2008
Article Number: DB-00467
Summary

This article applies to the following:

* BlackBerry® smartphones based on Java® technology
* BlackBerry® Device Software 4.1 and later
* BlackBerry® Java® Development Environment (BlackBerry JDE) 4.1 and later

Description
BlackBerry JDE4.7 and later

BlackBerry JDE 4.7 and BlackBerry JDE Component Package simplify the creation of a rollover icon. Rollover icons can now be specified in a project's properties.

Specifying a rollover icon in BlackBerry JDE 4.7

Complete the following steps:

1. In BlackBerry JDE, right-click the project.
2. Select Properties.
3. Select the Resources tab.
4. Add the non rollover/unfocused application icon in the Icon Files field and add the rollover/focused icon in the Focus Icon Files field.

Specifying a rollover icon in BlackBerry JDE Plug-in for Eclipse

Note: While this option is always present in the BlackBerry® JDE Plug-in for Eclipse™ it will only take effect when the application is built using the BlackBerry JDE Component Package 4.7.0 or later.

Complete the following:

1. In the Eclipse™ Package Explorer, right-click the project.
2. Select Properties.
3. Select BlackBerry Project Properties.
4. Select the Resources tab.
5. Add the non-rollover/unfocused application icon in the Icon Files field and add the rollover/focused icon in the Focus Icon Files field.

Before BlackBerry JDE 4.7

A new application programming interface (API), introduced in the BlackBerry API 4.1 set, grants the ability to add a rollover icon to an application. To leverage this new API correctly, the application must run on startup so the call is executed, and can thus take effect before the BlackBerry smartphone user scrolls to the application. The application itself should not run on startup, but an alternate entry point to the application should be defined to do so. The main entry point should be configured to pass in an argument to the main() method so that the application can identify a startup launch from a BlackBerry smartphone user launching the application from the ribbon.

The rollover icon application’s main() method will now resemble the following:

public static void main(String[] args)
{
if ( args != null && args.length > 0 && args[0].equals("gui") ){
//main entry point
Test theApp = new Test();
theApp.enterEventDispatcher();
} else {
//alternate entry point
Bitmap icon = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("2.png");
HomeScreen.setRolloverIcon(icon);
}
}

Due to an issue in BlackBerry Device Software 4.1, the HomeScreen.setRolloverIcon(Bitmap image)method can throw an IllegalArgumentException. This issue has been resolved in BlackBerry Device Software 4.2. The following code sample shows how to work around this issue:

public class HomeScreenIcon extends UiApplication
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
//Check for the argument defined in the project properties.
if (args != null && args.length > 0 && args[0].equals("gui"))
{
HomeScreenIcon theApp = new HomeScreenIcon(false);
theApp.enterEventDispatcher();
}
else
{
HomeScreenIcon theApp = new HomeScreenIcon(true);
theApp.enterEventDispatcher();
}
}
public HomeScreenIcon(boolean autoStart)
{
if (autoStart)
{
//The application started using the auto start entry point.
//Setup the rollover icons.
final Bitmap regIcon = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("1.png");
final Bitmap icon = Bitmap.getBitmapResource("2.png");

invokeLater(new Runnable()
{
public void run()
{
ApplicationManager myApp =
ApplicationManager.getApplicationManager();
boolean keepGoing = true;

while (keepGoing)
{
//Check if the BlackBerry has completed its
startup process.
if (myApp.inStartup())
{
//The BlackBerry is still starting up,
sleep for 1 second.
try
{
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
//Couldn't sleep, handle exception.
}
}
else
{
//The BlackBerry has finished its
startup process.
//Set the rollover icons.
HomeScreen.updateIcon(regIcon, 0);
HomeScreen.setRolloverIcon(icon, 0);
keepGoing = false;
}
}
//Exit the application.
System.exit(0);
}
});

}
else
{
//The application was started by the user.
//Start the application and display a GUI.
MainScreen ms = new MainScreen();
ms.setTitle(new LabelField("Hello there."));
pushScreen(ms);
}
}
}

Note: After running on startup to define the rollover icon, the application exits so that it does not run needlessly in the background.
Additional Information

For more information, see DB-00008 regarding alternate entry point applications and DB-00126 on defining an application icon.

Upgrade existing Eclipse to 3.4.2

2009-03-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

Download the latest version 3.4.2 from eclipse site
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/ganymede/SR2/eclipse-jee-ganymede-SR2-win32.zip

Download Jboss or other plug-ins you want to install

Extract new Eclipse version to the old eclipse folder
Overwrite everything in the old folder

Run eclipse
first time should have error, no matter, just close the environment and run it again. Then should success.

How to - Leverage pattern matching in BlackBerry smartphone applications to provide an integrated user experience

2009-03-26T05:49:00.000-07:00

Summary

This article applies to the following:

* BlackBerry® Device Software 4.0 and later
* BlackBerry smartphones

Description
Background

You may have noticed how certain strings are underlined in native BlackBerry smartphone applications. For example, phone numbers are underlined or highlighted when composing or reading messages. Once selected, these special strings are assigned a context-sensitive menu item, for example call a phone number. Third-party applications can take advantage of this functionality to add custom context-sensitive menu items to standard BlackBerry smartphone applications. These menu items can be used to launch a custom application, open the BlackBerry® Browser to a specific URL, send a message, or do any number of other things.

This functionality can be achieved by using one of two application programming interfaces (APIs):

1. net.rim.device.api.util.StringPattern - This API was introduced in BlackBerry Device Software 4.0 and requires you to implement your own string matching algorithm.
2. net.rim.blackberry.api.stringpattern.PatternRepository - This API was introduced in BlackBerry Device Software 4.3.0, and allows the use of Perl style regular expressions.

The samples provided in this article match a United States zip code and allow the BlackBerry smartphone user to lookup more information on the zip code.
Procedure
net.rim.device.api.util.StringPattern

The StringPattern source code example uses the string pattern matching that was introduced in BlackBerry Device Software 4.0. It requires implementing another string matching algorithm.

There are four major components required for this implementation

net.rim.device.api.util.StringPattern - This class represents the pattern that you want to recognize. It can be as simple as a zip code, or as complex as an address in its various forms. To write an effective StringPattern, remember that each character typed into the applicable field will be parsed by your implementation. As such, efficiency is important in this class.

net.rim.device.api.ui.component.MenuItem - The MenuItem includes the majority of the implementation for this capability. The MenuItem typically includes or references the action that will occur once a match is found and invoked by the BlackBerry smartphone user. For example, the run method for the MenuItem is invoked when a zip code has been recognized and the BlackBerry smartphone user selects the Lookup Zipcode menu item.

net.rim.device.api.ui.component.ActiveFieldCookie - The ActiveFieldCookie is a container object that allows the StringPattern class to transfer the context-sensitive information to the MenuItem. It also allows the implementation to add the appropriate menu item, or multiple menu items, when a string pattern match is found.

net.rim.device.api.util.Factory - The implementation of the Factory class links the StringPattern to the ActiveFieldCookie when a match is recorded in the StringPattern implementation. Typically, the Factory implementation is quite compact but a necessary requirement for the system.

The ZipCodeLookupSample class provides the starting point for the application. The application is configured as an auto-start system module so that all of the components can be registered upon start up. It is important to note that the main class initializes all of the required components described above, and has been implemented carefully to only initialize these components once.
net.rim.blackberry.api.stringpattern.PatternRepository

The PatternRepository source code sample uses the API that was introduced in BlackBerry Device Software 4.3.0 and allows the use of regular expressions for string matching, which makes the sample much simpler than the prior sample.

There are two major components required for this implementation

net.rim.blackberry.api.stringpattern.PatternRepository - This class will register a Perl-style regular expression or a specific string with the systems pattern repository. When a match is found the ApplicationMenuItem(s) associated with the pattern will appear in the current application's menu.

net.rim.blackberry.api.menuitem.ApplicationMenuItem- The ApplicationMenuItem includes the action that will occur once a match is found and is invoked by the BlackBerry smartphone user.

The application is once again configured as an auto-start system module. This is done to register the regular expression and menu item with the systems pattern repository upon system start up.

To access the sample code, download the attached ZipCodeLookupSamples.zip file.

Integer (computer science)

2009-03-24T10:22:00.001-07:00

Integer (computer science)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references (ideally, using inline citations). Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

In computer science, the term integer is used to refer to a data type which represents some finite subset of the mathematical integers. These are also known as integral data types.

[hide]

[edit] Value and representation

The value of a datum with an integral type is the mathematical integer that it corresponds to. The representation of this datum is the way the value is stored in the computer’s memory. Integral types may be unsigned (capable of representing only non-negative integers) or signed (capable of representing negative integers as well).

The most common representation of a positive integer is a string of bits, using the binary numeral system. The order of the bits varies; see endianness. The width or precision of an integral type is the number of bits in its representation. An integral type with n bits can encode 2ⁿ numbers; for example an unsigned type typically represents the non-negative values 0 through 2ⁿ−1.

There are three different ways to represent negative numbers in a binary numeral system. The most common is two’s complement, which allows a signed integral type with n bits to represent numbers from −2⁽ⁿ⁻¹⁾ through 2⁽ⁿ⁻¹⁾−1. Two’s complement arithmetic is convenient because there is a perfect one-to-one correspondence between representations and values, and because addition, subtraction and multiplication do not need to distinguish between signed and unsigned types. The other possibilities are sign-magnitude and ones' complement. See Signed number representations for details.

Another, rather different, representation for integers is binary-coded decimal, which is still commonly used in mainframe financial applications and in databases.

[edit] Common integral data types

Bits	Name	Range	Decimal digits	Uses
8	byte, octet	Signed: −128 to +127	3	ASCII characters, C/C++ char, C/C++ int8_t, Java byte, C# byte
8	byte, octet	Unsigned: 0 to +255	3
16	halfword, word	Signed: −32,768 to +32,767	5	UCS-2 characters, C/C++ short, C/C++ int16_t, Java short, C# short, Java char
16	halfword, word	Unsigned: 0 to +65,535	5
32	word, long, doubleword, longword	Signed: −2,147,483,648 to +2,147,483,647	10	UCS-4 characters, Truecolor with alpha, C/C++ long (on Windows and 32-bit Unix), C/C++ int32_t, Java int, C# int, FourCC
32	word, long, doubleword, longword	Unsigned: 0 to +4,294,967,295	10
64	doubleword, longword, long long, quad, quadword	Signed: −9,223,372,036,854,775,808 to +9,223,372,036,854,775,807	19	C/C++ long (on 64-bit Unix), C/C++ long long, C/C++ int64_t, Java long, C# long
64	doubleword, longword, long long, quad, quadword	Unsigned: 0 to +18,446,744,073,709,551,615	20
128	octaword	Signed: −170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,728 to +170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727	39	C only available as non-standard compiler-specific extension
128	octaword	Unsigned: 0 to +340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,455	39
n	n-bit integer (general case)	Signed: $( - 2 n - 1)$ to $(2 n - 1 - 1)$		Ada `range 2(n-1) .. 2n;`
n	n-bit integer (general case)	Unsigned: 0 to $(2 n - 1)$		Ada `mod 2**n;`

Different CPUs support different integral data types. Typically, hardware will support both signed and unsigned types but only a small, fixed set of widths.

The table above lists integral type widths that are supported in hardware by common processors. High level programming languages provide more possibilities. It is common to have a ‘double width’ integral type that has twice as many bits as the biggest hardware-supported type. Many languages also have bit-field types (a specified number of bits, usually constrained to be less than the maximum hardware-supported width) and range types (which can represent only the integers in a specified range).

Some languages, such as Lisp, REXX and Haskell, support arbitrary precision integers (also known as infinite precision integers or bignums). Other languages which do not support this concept as a top-level construct may have libraries available to represent very large numbers using arrays of smaller variables, such as Java's BigInteger class or Perl's "bigint" package. These use as much of the computer’s memory as is necessary to store the numbers; however, a computer has only a finite amount of storage, so they too can only represent a finite subset of the mathematical integers. These schemes support very large numbers, for example one kilobyte of memory could be used to store numbers up to 2466 digits long.

A Boolean or Flag type is a type which can represent only two values: 0 and 1, usually identified with false and true respectively. This type can be stored in memory using a single bit, but is often given a full byte for convenience of addressing and speed of access.

A four-bit quantity is known as a nibble (when eating, being smaller than a bite) or nybble (being a pun on the form of the word byte). One nibble corresponds to one digit in hexadecimal and holds one digit or a sign code in binary-coded decimal.

[edit] Bytes and octets

Main article: Byte

The term byte initially meant ‘the smallest addressable unit of memory’. In the past, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-bit bytes have all been used. There have also been computers that could address individual bits (‘bit-addressed machine’), or that could only address 16- or 32-bit quantities (‘word-addressed machine’). The term byte was usually not used at all in connection with bit- and word-addressed machines.

The term octet always refers to an 8-bit quantity. It is mostly used in the field of computer networking, where computers with different byte widths might have to communicate.

In modern usage byte almost invariably means eight bits, since all other sizes have fallen into disuse; thus byte has come to be synonymous with octet.

[edit] Words

Main article: Word (computing)

The term word is used for a small group of bits which are handled simultaneously by processors of a particular architecture. The size of a word is thus CPU-specific. Many different word sizes have been used, including 6-, 8-, 12-, 16-, 18-, 24-, 32-, 36-, 39-, 48-, 60-, and 64-bit. Since it is architectural, the size of a word is usually set by the first CPU in a family, rather than the characteristics of a later compatible CPU. The meanings of terms derived from word, such as longword, doubleword, quadword, and halfword, also vary with the CPU and OS.

As of 2008 practically all new desktop processors are of the x86-64 family and capable of using 64-bit words, they are however often used in 32-bit mode. Embedded processors with 8- and 16-bit word size are still common. The 36-bit word length was common in the early days of computers.

One important cause of non-portability of software is the incorrect assumption that all computers have the same word size as the computer used by the programmer. For example, if a programmer using the C language incorrectly declares as int a variable that will be used to store values greater than $216 - 1$ , the program will fail on computers with 16-bit integers. That variable should have been declared as long, which has at least 32 bits on any computer. Programmers may also incorrectly assume that a pointer can be converted to an integer without loss of information, which may work on (some) 32-bit computers, but fail on 64-bit computers with 64-bit pointers and 32-bit integers.

[edit] See also

Signed number representations
Integer (the mathematical concept)

[edit] Notes

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_(computer_science)"

Categories: Data types | Computer arithmetic

Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from January 2008

Media types supported on the BlackBerry smartphone

2009-03-18T07:52:00.000-07:00

Media types supported on the BlackBerry smartphone

Doc ID : KB05482
Last Modified : 01-20-2009
Document Type : Support

Print this page

Environment

BlackBerry® smartphones

Overview

In the Media application on the BlackBerry smartphone, you can open media files such as videos, ring tones, pictures, and songs that are stored in the BlackBerry smartphone memory or on a media card.

Note: For instructions on how to transcode audio and video files for the Media application, see KB05419.

The following tables list what codecs are recommended and supported for each specific file format for video and audio on the different BlackBerry smartphones, as well as whether Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) streaming is supported using that file format.

BlackBerry® Storm™ 9500 smartphone and BlackBerry® Storm™ 9530 smartphone

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 M4A 3GP 3GP2	Video	H.264	Baseline Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 2 Mbps, 30 frames per second	Supported
		MPEG4	Simple Profile Level 3, 480x360 pixels, up to 2 Mbps, 30 frames per second	Supported
		H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 30	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
		AMR-NB		Supported
		QCELP EVRC
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile Level 3, 480x360 pixels, up to 2 Mbps, 30 frames per second	Supported
AVI	Audio	MP3
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows® Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple Profile, 480x360 pixels, 30 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9		Supported
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional		Supported
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	H.264	Baseline Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 2 Mbps, 30 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

BlackBerry® Curve™ 8900 smartphone

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 M4A MOV 3GP	Video	H.264	Baseline Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
		MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
		H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
AVI	Audio	MP3
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple and Main Profile, 480x360 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Advance Simple Profile, 480x360 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

BlackBerry® Bold™ 9000 smartphone

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 M4A MOV 3GP	Video	H.264	Baseline Profile, 480x320 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
		MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 480x320 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
		H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 480x320 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
AVI	Audio	MP3
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple and Main Profile, 480x320 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Advance Simple Profile, 480x320 pixels, up to 1500 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8100, BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8110, BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8120, and BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8220 smartphones (Global System for Mobile communications (GSM®), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), and Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) networks)

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 M4A MOV 3GP	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
	Video	H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
AVI	Audio	MP3
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback (BlackBerry® Device Software 4.5)

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

Recommended video format for local playback (BlackBerry Device Software 4.2 and 4.3)

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second
AVI	Audio	MP3

BlackBerry® Curve™ 8300, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8310, BlackBerry® Curve™ 8320, and BlackBerry® Curve™ 8350i smartphones, and BlackBerry® 8800 and BlackBerry® 8820 smartphones (GSM/GPRS/EDGE networks)

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 M4A MOV 3GP	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
	Video	H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple and Advance Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
AVI	Audio	MP3
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback (BlackBerry Device Software 4.5)

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

Recommended video format for local playback (BlackBerry Device Software 4.2 and 4.3)

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
AVI	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second
AVI	Audio	MP3

BlackBerry® Pearl™ 8130 smartphone (Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) network)

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 3GP	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
	Video	H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 240x320 pixels, up to 384 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

BlackBerry® Curve™ 8330 smartphone and BlackBerry™ 8830 smartphone (CDMA network)

Supported formats

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes	RTSP Streaming
MP4 3GP	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second	Supported
	Video	H.263	Profile 0 and 3, Level 45	Supported
	Audio	AAC-LC, AAC+, eAAC+		Supported
	Audio	AMR-NB		Supported
ASF WMV WMA	Video	Windows Media Video 9	WMV3, Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, 24 frames per second
	Audio	Windows Media Audio 9 Standard/Professional
	Audio	Windows Media 10 Standard/Professional
MP3	Audio	MP3

Recommended video format for local playback

File Format / Extension	Component	Codec	Notes
MP4	Video	MPEG4	Simple Profile, 320x240 pixels, up to 768 kbps, 24 frames per second
MP4	Audio	AAC-LC

Additional Information

Note: Streaming requires BlackBerry Device Software 4.3 or later.

Mobile Media API Overview

2009-03-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

Mobile Media API Overview

by Jonathan Knudsen
June 2002

The Mobile Media API (MMAPI) provides a powerful, flexible, and simple interface to multimedia capabilities. It exposes a clean interface for playing and recording audio and video data. This article provides an overview of the concepts of the MMAPI and a quick tour of its classes and interfaces.

Mobile Media API Architecture

The Mobile Media API is based on four fundamental concepts:

A player knows how to interpret media data. One type of player, for example, might know how to produce sound based on MP3 audio data. Another type of player might be capable of showing a QuickTime movie. Players are represented by implementations of the javax.microedition.media.Player interface.
You can use one or more controls to modify the behavior of a player. You can get the controls from a Player instance and use them while the player is rendering data from media. For example, you can use a VolumeControl to modify the volume of a sampled audio Player. Controls are represented by implementations of the javax.microedition.media.Control interface; specific control subinterfaces are in the javax.microedition.media.control package.
A data source knows how to get media data from its original location to a player. Media data can be stored in a variety of locations, from remote servers to resource files or RMS databases. Media data may be transported from its original location to the player using HTTP, a streaming protocol like RTP, or some other mechanism. javax.microedition.media.protocol.DataSource is the abstract parent class for all data sources in the Mobile Media API.
Finally, a manager ties everything together and serves as the entry point to the API. The javax.microedition.media.Manager class contains static methods for obtaining Players or DataSources.

Using the Mobile Media API

The simplest thing you can do with Manager is play tones using the following method:

public static void playTone(int note,
int duration, int volume) throws MediaException

The duration is specified in milliseconds and the volume ranges from 0 (silent) to 100 (loud). The note is specified as a number, as in MIDI, where 60 is middle C and 69 is a 440 Hz A. The note can range from 0 to 127. The playTone() method is appropriate for playing a single tone or a very short sequence. For longer monotonic sequences, you'll use the default tone player, which is capable of playing an entire sequence of tones.

The real magic of the Mobile Media API is exposed through Manager's createPlayer() method. There are three different versions of this method as follows:

public static Player createPlayer(String locator)
throws IOException, MediaException
public static Player createPlayer(DataSource source)
throws IOException, MediaException
public static Player createPlayer(InputStream stream, String type)
throws IOException, MediaException

The simplest way to obtain a Player is to use the first version of createPlayer() and just pass in a string that represents media data. For instance, you might specify an audio file on a web server:

Player p = Manager.createPlayer("http://webserver/music.mp3");

The other createPlayer() methods allow you to create a Player from a DataSource or an InputStream, whatever you happen to have available. If you think about it, these three methods are really just three different ways of getting at the media data, the actual bits. An InputStream is the simplest object, just a byte stream. The DataSource is the next level up, an object that speaks a protocol to get access to media data. And passing a locator string is the ultimate shortcut: the MMAPI figures out which protocol to use and gets the media data to the Player.

Using a Player

Once you've successfully created a Player, what do you do next? The simplest action is to begin playback with the start() method. For anything beyond the rudiments, however, it helps to understand the life cycle of a Player. This consists of four states.

When a Player is first created, it is in the UNREALIZED state. After a Player has located its data, it is in the REALIZED state. If a Player is rendering an audio file from an HTTP connection to a server, for example, the Player reaches REALIZED after the HTTP request is sent to the server, the HTTP response is received, and the DataSource is ready to begin retrieving audio data. The next state is PREFETCHED, and is achieved when the Player has read enough data to begin rendering. Finally, when the data is being rendered, the Player's state is STARTED.

The Player interface provides methods for state transitions, both forwards and backwards through the cycle described above. The reason is to provide the application with control over operations that might take a long time. You might, for example, want to push a Player through the REALIZED and PREFETCHED states so that a sound can be played immediately in response to a user action.

The Mobile Media API in the Java Platform

Where exactly does the MMAPI fit in the Java 2 platform? The answer is just about anywhere. Although the MMAPI was designed with the contraints of the CLDC in mind, it will work just fine alongside either CLDC or CDC software stacks. As a matter of fact, the MMAPI can be implemented with J2SE as a lightweight alternative to the Java Media Framework.

What Media Types are Supported?

If you get a device that supports the Mobile Media API, what kinds of data can it play? What data transfer protocols are supported? The Mobile Media API doesn't require any specific content types or protocols, but you can find out at runtime what is supported by calling Manager's getSupportedContentTypes() and getSupportedProtocols() methods.

What's the worst that can happen? If you ask Manager to give you a Player for a content type or protocol that is not supported, it will throw an exception. Your application should attempt to recover gracefully from such an exception, perhaps by using a different content type or displaying a polite message to the user.

Media in MIDP 2.0

The MIDP 2.0 specification includes a subset of the Mobile Media API. It is upwardly compatible with the full API. The MIDP 2.0 subset has the following characteristics:

Only audio playback (and possibly recording) is supported. No video-specific control interfaces are included.
Multiple players cannot be synchronized.
The DataSource class and the rest of the javax.microedition.media.protocol package are excluded; applications cannot provide their own protocol implementations.
The Manager class is simplified.

MIDP 2.0 requires support for tone generation and sampled .wav audio playback.

Summary

The Mobile Media API provides a compact, flexible, and clean API for using multimedia capabilities from a Java application running on a mobile device. At the time of this writing, the Mobile Media API is finished with its public review in the Java Community Process; expect a reference implementation release in the summer of 2002.

J2ME

2009-03-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

1. What is J2ME

Java 2 Micro Edition is a group of specifications and technologies that pertain to Java on small devices. The J2ME moniker covers a wide range of devices, from pagers and mobile telephones through set-top boxes and car navigation systems. The J2ME world is divided into configurations and profiles, specifications that describe a Java environment for a specific class of device.

2. What is J2ME WTK

The J2ME Wireless Toolkit is a set of tools that provides developers with an emulation environment, documentation and examples for developing Java applications for small devices. The J2ME WTK is based on the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) and Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) reference implementations, and can be tightly integrated with Forte for Java

6. What is CDC

The Connected Device Configuration (CDC) is a specification for a J2ME configuration. Conceptually, CDC deals with devices with more memory and processing power than CLDC; it is for devices with an always-on network connection and a minimum of 2 MB of memory available for the Java system.

11. What is cHTML

Compact HTML (cHTML) is a subset of HTML which is designed for small devices. The major features of HTML that are excluded from cHTML are: JPEG image, Table, Image map, Multiple character fonts and styles, Background color and image, Frame and Style sheet.

12. What is CLDC

The Connected, Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) is a specification for a J2ME configuration. The CLDC is for devices with less than 512 KB or RAM available for the Java system and an intermittent (limited) network connection. It specifies a stripped-down Java virtual machine1 called the KVM as well as several APIs for fundamental application services. Three packages are minimalist versions of the J2SE java.lang, java.io, and java.util packages. A fourth package, javax.microedition.io, implements the Generic Connection Framework, a generalized API for making network connections.

13. What is configuration

In J2ME, a configuration defines the minimum Java runtime environment for a family of devices: the combination of a Java virtual machine (either the standard J2SE virtual machine or a much more limited version called the CLDC VM) and a core set of APIs. CDC and CLDC are configurations. See also profile, optional package.

14. What is CVM

The Compact Virtual Machine (CVM) is an optimized Java virtual machine1 (JVM) that is used by the CDC.

16. What is EDGE

Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE) is a new, faster version of GSM. EDGE is designed to support transfer rates up to 384Kbps and enable the delivery of video and other high-bandwidth applications. EDGE is the result of a joint effort between TDMA operators, vendors and carriers and the GSM Alliance.

20. What is Generic Connection Framework

The Generic Connection Framework (GCF) makes it easy for wireless devices to make network connections. It is part of CLDC and CDC and resides in the javax.microedition.io package.

21. What is GPRS

The General Packet Radio System (GPRS) is the next generation of GSM. It will be the basis of 3G networks in Europe and elsewhere.

22. What is GSM

The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a wireless network system that is widely used in Europe, Asia, and Australia. GSM is used at three different frequencies: GSM900 and GSM1800 are used in Europe, Asia, and Australia, while GSM1900 is deployed in North America and other parts of the world.

30. What is 3GPP

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a global collaboration between 6 partners: ARIB, CWTS, ETSI, T1, TTA, and TTC. The group aims to develop a globally accepted 3rd-generation mobile system based on GSM.

37. What is KJava

KJava is an outdated term for J2ME. It comes from an early package of Java software for PalmOS, released at the 2000 JavaOne show. The classes for that release were packaged in the com.sun.kjava package.

33. What is JCP

The Java Community Process (JCP) an open organization of international Java developers and licensees who develop and revise Java technology specifications, reference implementations, and technology compatibility kits through a formal process.

34. What is JDBC for CDC/FP

The JDBC Optional Package for CDC/Foundation Profile (JDBCOP for CDC/FP) is an API that enables mobile Java applications to communicate with relational database servers using a subset of J2SE's Java Database Connectivity. This optional package is a strict subset of JDBC 3.0 that excludes some of JDBC's advanced and server-oriented features, such as pooled connections and array types. It's meant for use with the Foundation Profile or its supersets.

35. What is JSR

Java Specification Request (JSR) is the actual description of proposed and final specifications for the Java platform. JSRs are reviewed by the JCP and the public before a final release of a specification is made.

38. What is kSOAP

kSOAP is a SOAP API suitable for the J2ME, based on kXML.

39. What is kXML

The kXML project provides a small footprint XML parser that can be used with J2ME.

40. What is KVM

The KVM is a compact Java virtual machine (JVM) that is designed for small devices. It supports a subset of the features of the JVM. For example, the KVM does not support floating-point operations and object finalization. The CLDC specifies use of the KVM. According to folklore, the 'K' in KVM stands for kilobyte, signifying that the KVM runs in kilobytes of memory as opposed to megabytes.

42. What is LCDUI

LCDUI is a shorthand way of referring to the MIDP user interface APIs, contained in the javax.microedition.lcdui package. Strictly speaking, LCDUI stands for Liquid Crystal Display User Interface. It's a user interface toolkit for small device screens which are commonly LCD screens.

43. What is MExE

The Mobile Execution Environment (MExE) is a specification created by the 3GPP which details an applicatio n environment for next generation mobile devices. MExE consists of a variety of technologies including WAP, J2ME, CLDC and MIDP.

44. What is MIDlet

A MIDlet is an application written for MIDP. MIDlet applications are subclasses of the javax.microedition.midlet.MIDlet class that is defined by MIDP.

45. What is MIDlet suite

MIDlets are packaged and distributed as MIDlet suites. A MIDlet suite can contain one or more MIDlets. The MIDlet suite consists of two files, an application descriptor file with a .jad extension and an archive file with a .jar file. The descriptor lists the archive file name, the names and class names for each MIDlet in the suite, and other information. The archive file contains the MIDlet classes and resource files.

46. What is MIDP

The Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) is a specification for a J2ME profile. It is layered on top of CLDC and adds APIs for application life cycle, user interface, networking, and persistent storage.

47. What is MIDP-NG

The Next Generation MIDP specification is currently under development by the Java Community Process. Planned improvements include XML parsing and cryptographic support.

48. What is Mobitex

Mobitex is a packet-switched, narrowband PCS network, designed for wide-area wireless data communications. It was developed in 1984 by Eritel, an Ericsson subsidiary, a nd there are now over 30 Mobitex networks in operation worldwide.

50. What is MSC

A Mobile Switching Center (MSC) is a unit within a cellular phone network that automatically coordinates and switches calls in a given cell. It monitors each caller's signal strength, and when a signal begins to fade, it hands off the call to another MSC that's better positioned to manage the call.

52. What is optional package

An optional package is a set of J2ME APIs providing services in a specific area, such as database access or multimedia. Unlike a profile, it does not define a complete application environment, but rather is used in conjunction with a configuration or a profile. It extends the runtime environment to support device capabilities that are not universal enough to be defined as part of a profile or that need to be shared by different profiles. J2ME RMI and the Mobile Media RMI are examples of optional packages.

53. What is OTA

Over The Air (OTA) refers to any wireless networking technology.

54. What is PCS

Personal Communications Service (PCS) is a suite of second-generation, digitally modulated mobile-communications interfaces that includes TDMA, CDMA, and GSM. PCS serves as an umbrella term for second-generation wireless technologies operating in the 1900MHz range

55. What is PDAP

The Personal Digital Assistant Profile (PDAP) is a J2ME profile specification designed for small platforms such as PalmOS devices. You can think of PDAs as being larger than mobile phones but smaller than set-top boxes. PDAP is built on top of CLDC and will specify user interface and persistent storage APIs. PDAP is currently being developed using the Java Community Process (JCP).

57. What is PDCP

Parallel and Distributed Computing Practices (PDCP) are often used to describe computer systems that are spread over many devices on a network (wired or wireless) where many nodes process data simultaneously.

58. What is Personal Profile

The Personal Profile is a J2ME profile specification. Layered on the Foundation Profile and CDC, the Personal Profile will be the next generation of PersonalJava technology. The specification is currently in development under the Java Community Process (JCP).

59. What is PersonalJava

PersonalJava is a Java environment based on the Java virtual machine1 (JVM) and a set of APIs similar to a JDK 1.1 environment. It includes the Touchable Look and Feel (also called Truffle), a graphic toolkit that is optimized for consumer devices with a touch sensitive screen. PersonalJava will be included in J2ME in the upcoming Personal Profile, which is built on CDC.

60. What is PNG

Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is an image format offering lossless compression and storage flexibility. The MIDP specification requires implementations to recognize certain types of PNG images.

63. What is preverification

Due to memory and processing power available on a device, the verification process of classes are split into two processes. The first process is the preverification which is off-device and done using the preverify tool. The second process is verification which is done on-device.

64. What is profile

A profile is a set of APIs added to a configuration to support specific uses of a mobile device. Along with its underlying configuration, a profile defines a complete, and usually self-contained, general-purpose application environment. Profiles often, but not always, define APIs for user interface and persistence; the MIDP profile, based on the CLDC configuration, fits this pattern. Profiles may be supersets or subsets of other profiles; the Personal Basis Profile is a subset of the Personal Profile and a superset of the Foundation Profile. See also configuration, optional package.

67. What is PSTN

The public service telephone network (PSTN) is the traditional, land-line based system for exchanging phone calls.

68. What is RMI

Remote method invocation (RMI) is a feature of J2SE that enables Java objects running in one virtual machine to invoke methods of Java objects running in another virtual machine, seamlessly.

69. What is RMI OP

The RMI Optional Package (RMI OP) is a subset of J2SE 1.3's RMI functionality used in CDC-based profiles that incorporate the Foundation Profile, such as the Personal Basis Profile and the Personal Profile. The RMIOP cannot be used with CLDC-based profiles because they lack object serialization and other important features found only in CDC-based profiles. RMIOP supports most of the J2SE RMI functionality, including the Java Remote Method Protocol, marshalled objects, distributed garbage collection, registry-based object lookup, and network class loading, but not HTTP tunneling or the Java 1.1 stub protocol.

70. What is RMI Profile

The RMI Profile is a J2ME profile specification designed to support Java's Remote Method Invocation (RMI) distributed object system. Devices implementing the RMI Profile will be able to interoperate via RMI with other Java devices, including Java 2, Standard Edition. The RMI Profile is based on the Foundation Profile, which in turn is based on CDC.

71. What is RMS

The Record Management System (RMS) is a simple record-oriented database that allows a MIDlet to persistently store information and retrieve it later. Different MIDlets can also use the RMS to share data.

73. What is SIM

A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) is a stripped-down smart card containing information about the identity of a cell-phone subscriber, and subscriber authentication and service information. Because the SIM uniquely identifies the subscriber and is portable among handsets, the user can move it from one kind of phone to another, facilitating international roaming.

74. What is SMS

Short Message Service (SMS) is a point-to-point service similar to paging for sending text messages of up to 160 characters to mobile phones.

75. What is SOAP

The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) is an XML- based protocol that allows objects of any type to communicated in a distributed environment. SOAP is used in developing Web Services.

77. What is T9

T9 is a text input method for mobile phones and other small devices. It replaces the "multi-tap" input method by guessing the word that you are trying to enter. T9 may be embedded in a device by the manufacturer. Note that even if the device supports T9, the Java implementation may or may not use it. Check your documentation for details.

79. What is Telematics

Telematics is a location-based service that routes event notification and control data over wireless networks to and from mobile devices installed in automobiles. Telematics makes use of GPS technology to track vehicle latitude and longitude, and displays maps in LED consoles mounted in dashboards. It connects to remote processing centers that turn provide server-side Internet and voice services, as well as access to database resources.

81. What is UDDI

Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) is an XML-based standard for describing, publishing, and finding Web services. UDDI is a specification for a distributed registry of Web services.

85. What is WAP

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a protocol for transmitting data between servers and clients (usually small wireless devices like mobile phones). WAP is analogous to HTTP in the World Wide Web. Many mobile phones include WAP browser software to allow users access to Internet WAP sites.

86. What is WAP Gateway

A WAP Gateway acts as a bridge allowing WAP devices to communicate with other networks (namely the Internet).

87. What is W-CDMA

Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), also known as IMT-2000, is a 3rd generation wireless technology. Supports speeds up to 384Kbps on a wide-area network, or 2Mbps locally.

88. What is WDP

Wireless Datagram Protocol (WDP) works as the transport layer of WAP. WDP processes datagrams from upper layers to formats required by different physical datapaths, bearers, that may be for example GSM SMS or CDMA Packet Data. WDP is adapted to the bearers available in the device so upper layers don't need to care about the physical level.

89. What is WMA

The Wireless Messaging API (WMA) is a set of classes for sending and receiving Short Message Service messages. See also SMS.

90. What is WML

The Wireless Markup Language (WML) is a simple language used to create applications for small wireless devices like mobile phones. WML is analogous to HTML in the World Wide Web.

91. What is WMLScript

WMLScript is a subset of the JavaScript scripting language designed as part of the WAP standard to provide a convenient mechanism to access mobile phone's peripheral functions.

92. What is WSP

Wireless Session Protocol (WSP) implements session services of WAP. Sessions can be connection-oriented and connectionless and they may be suspended and resumed at will.

93. What is WTLS

Wireless Transport Layer Security protocal (WTLS) does all cryptography oriented features of WAP. WTLS handles encryption/decryption, user authentication and data integrity. WTLS is based on the fixed network Transport Layer Security protocal (TLS), formerly known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

95. What is WTP

Wireless Transaction Protocol (WTP) is WAP's transaction protocol that works between the session protocol WSP and security protocol WTLS. WTP chops data packets into lower level datagrams and concatenates received datagrams into useful data. WTP also keeps track of received and sent packets and does re-transmissions and acknowledgment sending when needed.

C/C++ software memory corruption types: There are two forms of Linux Memory accessible to the programmer: 1. User's virtual memory space in which

2009-03-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

C/C++ software memory corruption types:

There are two forms of Linux Memory accessible to the programmer:

User's virtual memory space in which application is run.
Register memory.

The most obvious memory errors result in a "Segmentation violation" message. This may alert the programmer to the location of the memory error when the program is run in gdb. The following errors discussed are the not so obvious errors.

Memory errors:

Heap memory errors:
- Attempting to free memory already freed.
- Freeing memory that was not allocated.
- Attempting to write to memory already freed.
- Attempting to write to memory which was never allocated.
- Memory allocation error.
- Reading/writing to memory out of the bounds of a dynamically allocated array
stack (local variables) memory errors:
- Reading/writing to memory out of the bounds of a static array. (array index overflow - index too large/underflow - negative index)
- Function pointer corruption: Invalid passing of function pointer and thus a bad call to a function.

Memory Leaks:

Memory leak description: Memory is allocated but not released causing an application to consume memory reducing the available memory for other applications and eventually causing the system to page virtual memory to the hard drive slowing the application or crashing the application when than the computer memory resource limits are reached. The system may stop working as these limits are approached.

Many C library functions malloc's memory which MUST be freed: i.e.: strdup(),

#include 
#include 

...

char *oldString = "Old String";
char newStrig = strdup(oldString);
if(newString == ENOMEM) ... // Fail!!!!

...

free(newString);

Note: You can NOT use the C++ delete call. The strdup() function is part of the C library and you must use free().

Any routine which is supplied by the C libraries or ones written within an application which allocate memory must have the memory freed. Comments on this need should be included in the include file to make users of the function aware of their duties to free the memory and the mechanism by which it is to be freed (free() or delete).

Programmer must free() malloc()'ed memory:

Also for calloc(), malloc() and realloc();

#include 

char *textString = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
if(textString == ENOMEM) ... // Fail!!!!
...
free(textString);  // Don't free if allocation failed

Check for memory allocation errors. Can't free it if it didn't get allocated.

Programmer must delete new'ed memory:

using namespace std;

ptr = new ClassTypeA;

...

delete ClassTypeA;

New/delete is preferred to malloc()/free() because it can initialize the memory and it invokes the constructor for new objects. New/delete also point to the correct memory type. Note on mixing source code containing new/delete and malloc()/free(). This is not a problem with the GNU C++ compiler but this is not guaranteed for all C++ compilers.

Inheritance, polymorphism and the wrong delete:

BaseClass* obj_ptr = new DerivedClass;  // Allowed due to polymorphism.
...
delete obj_ptr;  // this will call the destructor ~Parent() and NOT ~Child()

If you are counting on the destructor to delete memory allocated in the constructor beware of this mistake as it will cause a memory leak. Use a virtual destructor to avoid this problem. The ~BaseClass() destructor is called and then the destructor ~DerivedClass() is chosen and called at run time because it is a virtual destructor. If it is not declared virtual then only the ~BaseClass() destructor is called leaving any allocated memory from the DerivedClass to persist and leak. This assumes that the DerivedClass has extra memory allocated above and beyond that of the BaseClass which must be freed.

The same ill effect can be achieved with a C style cast to a class of less scope which will dumb down the destructor to that which may not execute all the freeing of the original class. A C++ style dynamic cast may prevent this error as it will recognize the loss of translation and not allow the cast to take place resulting in a traceable crash rather a tough to find memory leak.

Pointer re-assignment error leads to dangling pointer:

If the pointer is re-assigned a new value before being freed, it will lead to a "dangling pointer" and memory leak.

Example:

char *a = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
char *b = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
b = a;
free(a);
free(b); // will not free the pointer to the original allocated memory.

Default copy constructor may not give correct results:

Memory allocated by copy constructors for pointer duplication. Check in destructor and delete if necessary. Memory allocated in passing class by value which invokes copy constructor. Also beware, the default copy constructor may not give you the results you want especially when dealing with pointers as the default copy constructor has no knowledge of how to copy the contents of what the pointer points to. To prohibit the use of the default copy constructor define a null assignment operator.

ClassA& operator=(const ClassA& right_hand_side);

Good practice: Use assert to check pointers before freeing or using:

assert(ptr !=0)

Memory Corruption:

Memory Corruption: Memory when altered without an explicit assignment due to the inadvertent and unexpected altering of data held in memory or the altering of a pointer to a specific place in memory.

Buffer overflow:

Example 1:
Overwrite beyond allocated length - overflow.

char *a = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
memcpy(a, data, dataLen);      // Error if dataLen too long.

Example 2:
Index of array out of bounds: (array index overflow - index too large/underflow - negative index)

ptr = (char *) malloc(strlen(string_A));  // Should be (string_A + 1) to account for null termination.
strcpy(ptr, string_A); // Copies memory from string_A which is one byte longer than its destination ptr.

Overflow by one byte.

Using an address before memory is allocated and set:

struct *ABC_ptr;
x = ABC_ptr->name;

In this case the memory location is NULL or random.

Using a pointer which is already freed:

char *a = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
..
..
free(a);

cout << a << endl;  // This will probably work but dangerous.

... Do stuff. Probable overwriting of freed memory.

cout << a << endl;  // No longer the same contents. Memory overwritten by new stuff.

Freeing memory which has already been freed. Also applies to delete.

Freeing a pointer twice:

char *a = malloc(128*sizeof(char));
free(a);
...   Do stuff
free(a);  // A check for NULL would indicate nothing.
         // This memory space may be reallocated and thus we may be freeing
         // memory we do not intend to free or portions of another block of
         // memory. The size of the block of memory allocated is often held
         // just before the memory block itself..

Freeing memory which was not dynamically allocated:

struct ABC abc;
struct ABC *abc_ptr = &abc;
...
free(abc_ptr);

Incorrect use of delete: The delete must match the use of new.

The pairing is new/delete and new [] / delete[]

ClassABC *abc_ptr = new ClassABC[100];
...
delete [] abc_ptr;

Use of "delete abc_ptr" is an error.

Do not use malloc()/free() with a C++ class as it will not call the constructor or destructor. Also malloc()/free() can not be mixed with new/delete. i.e. Free() can not be used to free memory allocated with new and delete can not be used to free memory allocated with malloc().

Exception Errors:

Freeing memory never allocated. If you use a constructor to allocate memory but an exception is thrown before all is allocated, the destructor needs to be aware that fact or else it may try to free memory which was never allocated.

Also the converse is true. If the destructor throws an exception, subsequent steps which free memory may not be executed. This applies to the destructor and all nested destructors which handle/re-throw the exception while the stack unwinds.

Pointer persistence:

Function returning a pointer from the stack which can get overwritten by the calling function (in this case main()):

int *get_ii()
{
  int ii;        // Local stack variable
  ii = 2;
  return ⅈ
}
main()
{
 int *ii;
 ii = get_ii();  // After this call the stack is given up by the routine
                 // get_ii() and its values are no longer safe.

 ... Do stuff
 ..  ii may be corrupt by this point.
}

This is also true for a local variable within the scope of only { and } as well as for the scope of a function.

Incorrect passing of a function argument:

If the pointer is passed around as an argument and does not get passed correctly, one may try to free the incorrect pointer.

Mixing the object base class and derived class:

If mixing the object base class and derived class when passing an object by value as a function parameter, make sure that you understand what may be lost.

function_A(BaseClass baseClass_ptr)
{
...
}

// Call to function
function_A(derivedClass_ptr); // Note that much of the information contained
                           // in the derived class will not be passed into
                           // the function including virtual destructors.

Copying an object:

Don't use memcpy() or any bit for bit copy function to copy an object. It will not execute the class constructor. What kind of person would do this?? Passing an object in a va_arg() list will result in a bit for bit copy and will not use the default copy constructor.

Links:

Interview questions

2009-03-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

1) What's the difference between fopen and open?
fopen/fread/fwrite have buffer to fasten I/O process, but open/read/write
dosen't

open() is not standard and might not be implemented in some standard-conforming hosted environments, whereas fopen() is standard and is implemented in all standard-conforming hosted environments. Therefore for portability, use the standard functions, not (emulated)
Unix system service calls.

There are other functional differences, the most notable being that the stdio stream uses a buffer in "user space", whereas the direct system-call I/O does not. (There might or might not be kernel-space buffers in both cases.) This can matter if record length is important; for example, if you want to write a magnetic tape record of length 80, write(fd,buf,80) will do that, whereas fwrite(buf,80,1,fp) will likely just put the data in a user-space buffer, with the actual write occurring eventually when the buffer is full - which will result in something like a 512-byte
magtape record. You could perhaps work around that by issuing a fflush(fp) after the fwrite(), but it's a kludgy way to accomplish what write() does directly.

2) Difference between Threads and process

A single process can have multiple threads that share global data and address space with other threads running in the same process, and therefore can operate on the same data set easily. Processes do not share address space and a different mechanism must be used if they are to share data.
If we consider running a word processing program to be a process, then the auto-save and spell check features that occur in the background are different threads of that process which are all operating on the same data set (your document).

Creation of new process requires new resources and Address space whereas the thread can be created in the same address space of the process which not only saves space and resources but are also easy to create and delete,and many threads can exhists in a process.

Threads share the address space of the process that created it; processes have their own address.

Threads have direct access to the data segment of its process; processes have their own copy of the data segment of the parent process.

Threads can directly communicate with other threads of its process; processes must use inter-process communication to communicate with sibling processes.

Threads have almost no overhead; processes have considerable overhead.

New threads are easily created; new processes require duplication of the parent process.

Threads can exercise considerable control over threads of the same process; processes can only exercise control over child processes.

Changes to the main thread (cancellation, priority change, etc.) may affect the behavior of the other threads of the process, changes to the parent process does not affect child processes.

Both have an id, set of registers, state, priority, and scheduling policy.

Both have attributes that describe the entity to the OS.

Both have an information block.

Both share resources with the parent process.

Both function as independent entities from the parent process.

The creator can exercise some control over the thread or process.

Both can change their attributes.

Both can create new resources.

Neither can access the resources of another process.

3) Difference between mutex and critical section

A concrete example of program using a mutex between process, is the registry (advapi32.dll).

All registry operations use the same mutex to modify the internal hash-table that represents the registry (Under Windows 95 and 98 at least).

So remember (on multiprocessor platform at least) that a registry function is relatively slow.

I think that CriticalSections use internally a Semaphore, and that a request to a critical section is very, very fast if the critical section if not currently used (for many applications, that is almost always the case), and if not it is slow like a normal mutex or semaphore.

Quite often you'll see reference to the speed differences between the user mode critical section and the kernel objects mutex and semaphore. I really don't pay much attention to these 'speed' differences because either you can use a critical section or you can't.

If you are synchronizing data shared between multiple threads of the same process, you can use a critical section. Yes, you *could* use a mutex or semaphore, but they will be a few clock cycles slower because they are kernel objects. A good general usage rule is: When in the same process, prefer to use the critical section.

When you are synchronizing data shared between multiple processes, you can't use a critical section. So it doesn't matter that the mutex or semaphore is slower than the critical section, since you can't use a critical section anyway across processes.

I usually follow this rule: "Slower, properly synchronized data is still better than fast, corrupt data!"

A critical section object provides synchronization similar to that provided by a mutex object, except that a critical section can be used only by the threads of a single process. Event, mutex, and semaphore objects can also be used in a single-process application, but critical section objects provide a slightly faster, more efficient mechanism for mutual-exclusion synchronization (a processor-specific test and set instruction). Like a mutex object, a critical section object can be owned by only one thread at a time, which makes it useful for protecting a shared resource from simultaneous access. Unlike a mutex object, there is no way to tell whether a critical section has been abandoned.

[C++] Returning Vector from Function

2009-02-26T08:35:00.001-08:00

[C++] Returning Vector from Function

Code:

std::vector foo()
{
 std::vector v;
 /* fill it */
 return v; // (1)
}

void bar()
{
 std::vector v = foo(); // (2)
 v = foo(); // (3)
}

What really happens here?

First off, despite the apparent notation line (2) really is a copy constructor, and not a default constructor + assignment. This is mandated by the standard, and that's the reason why I used both examples (2) and (3).

So...
(2) call foo
(1) copy constructor
(back to 2) copy constructor again (ouch!)

(3) call foo
(1) copy constructor
(back to 3) assignment operator, which is usually implemented as a copy constructor (ouch again!) + swap

So as you can see, the problem is that returning an object will trigger a copy. Most modern compilers have an optimization called "Return Value Optimization" (RVO for short) which is most of the time able to merge the steps (1) and (back to...). But as with any compiler optimization you shouldn't really count on that...

That leaves us with at least one copy, which could easily be avoided:

Code:

void foo(std::vector& retVal)
{
 std::vector v;
 /* fill it */
 retVal.swap(v); // (1)
}

void bar()
{
 std::vector v; // (2)
 foo(v); // (3)
}

Now we're left with:
(2) default constructor, quite lightweight to say the least
(3) call foo
(1) swapping both vectors, again hyper lightweight
(back to 3) nothing more

So as yabbadabbadont put it, the best way to pass big objects back from the callee to the caller obviously is to use a reference argument.
Although this doesn't really matter for small datasets, returning vectors or other containers from a function can quickly introduce huge overhead when the dataset grows (since it involves copying the whole dataset at least once).

Which leads me way off topic:
A class supporting copy / assignment should always have a swap() method too...
- the copy constructor just does its job
- the swap method quickly and safely (as in nothrow-guarantee) exchanges the contents of two objects
- the assignment operator is implemented in terms of copy + swap (after checking for self-assignment of course)

This way you end up with an exception-safe assignment operator for almost no effort, and many use cases can be optimized away thanks to the swap() method. It's a win-win...

Detect iPhone browser

2009-02-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

How do I detect an iPhone user coming to my site?

Amazon.com's jumped on the wagon, and Meebo has too: they automatically give you a different version of their site if you're browsing from an Apple iPhone. I want to do that too. How the heck do I detect that a visitor has an iPhone?

Dave's Answer:

The key to detecting a browser type is to remember that there's an environment full of information transmitted with each query sent from the web browser to the server. It includes the obvious things like the requested data file

(which can be an HTML document, GIF or JPEG image, AVI movie, FLV animation or related) and the IP address of the browser's computer, but it also includes a critical variable called HTTP_USER_AGENT.

Visit with a regular browser from a regular computer and you'll see something like this:

HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)

Here you can see that I'm testing from Firefox (which identifies itself as Mozilla for historical reasons) running on Windows XP (though it's identifying it as Windows NT for some cockamainie reason) and that I'm also running .NET.

Grab that same environment value from a slick Apple iPhone query, though, and the values are quite a bit different:

HTTP_USER_AGENT=Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)
AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1C25 Safari/419.3

Pretty interesting reading if you're a geek: You can see where it's also identifying itself as Mozilla, but this time as Mozilla/5.0 rather than Mozilla/4.0. The string "iPhone" appears, which is what we'll key on, but notice also that it says that it's on a system with a "CPU like Mac OS X", just as we iPhone users have been suspecting for a while.

You can see the basic test we'll need to do here to ascertain if the visitor is using an iPhone or not: if their HTTP_USER_AGENT environment value contains the string "iPhone", we've got a match. Otherwise it's something else on some other device or computer.

You can do this test and act on it in a zillion different places, ranging from the actual Web server ruleset to JavaScript code to PHP conditional code to even having a separate "gateway" script page that everyone hits and redirects them to the iPhone or non-iPhone version of your Web page and site.

A JavaScript snippet might look like this:

var agent=navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
var is_iphone = ((agent.indexOf('iphone')!=-1);
if (is_iphone) { conditional code goes here }

Rather do it as a shell script? Me too. Here's how I'd do that as a rudimentary Linux shell script:

#!/bin/sh

if [ ! -z "$(echo $HTTP_USER_AGENT | grep iPhone)" ] ; then
echo "Location: iphone/index.html"
else
echo "Location: index2.html"
fi
exit 0

You can also have the conditional directly in CSS itself, if you're really into cryptic notations:

The basic idea in either case is that once you have detected that they're running an iPhone, you can modify what you deliver to them, either changing what's on the page, perhaps giving them a completely different version of the page, or even taking them to a different site entirely.

Hope that helps you out! Don't forget while you're here that I have quite a lot of iPhone help here too.

BLACKBERRY 解锁

2009-01-09T15:53:00.001-08:00

搞定BLACKBERRY解锁了。现在俺ROGERS的黑莓回国探亲时候中国的卡也能用了。提醒大家不用花钱解锁了

据说是RIM的测试程序泄漏出来了。叫做 MFI MULTILOADER。今天把自己的解了。很爽。大概过程如下：
1.下载4.7版的DESKTOP MANAGER，安装
2.下载你黑莓那个版本的最新OS。安装，安装完以后去删除VENDOR.XML （C:program filescommon files research in motionpploader
3. 下载并安装微软的NET FRAMWORK 2.0
4. 下载并安装MML,（5M左右）
5. 下载MFI MULTILOADER 解压缩到C:MML目录下覆盖文件(大约700M）
6. 执行MML（桌面上有图标），等READY了，插上BLACKBERRY。会自动开始解锁。
7. 解锁完成后，拔下来黑莓，关闭MML。这时黑莓绿灯会闪来闪去，在黑莓上输入START。
8。再次插上黑莓，打开DESKTOP MANAGER，升级黑莓操作系统。
9。升级完后黑莓自动重启，搞定！！
如何检验：进入OPTION--ADVANCED OPTION--SIM CARD 输入MCPD，如果看到NETWORK是DISABLE，那就解锁成功了，没解之前是ACTIVE。
现在随便什么卡都能用了，不用花20刀去找人解锁了。提醒：备份好数据先！！

SUN WTK 2.5 + EclipseMe 1.7.9 + Nokia S60 5Edition

2009-01-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

Nokia is always the super, I do not what to say, they create the most weird development tools ever!!!

Trying to build a package with the tool chain (SUN WTK 2.5 + EclipseMe 1.7.9 + Nokia S60 5Edition). I do not know for what reason it does not work, finally figured out and make a memo here.

Wish can help you.

Put the class entrance in the %project%.jad file to mention the project name and entrance class. Then the generated deployed jad and jar will work for the phone and the simulator.

Good luck.

Switching Dialog

2008-12-27T14:38:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the answer, i think that then i have to do it for myself, for now i have one dialog similar to that, only that whith vertical scroll.

package es.telefonica.ui.menus;

import net.rim.device.api.i18n.ResourceBundle;
import net.rim.device.api.system.EncodedImage;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.Field;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.Keypad;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.Manager;
import net.rim.device.api.ui.component.Dialog;
import es.telefonica.cmcore.ComunicadorCore;
import es.telefonica.common.MensajesLog;
import es.telefonica.countryinfo.CountryResource;
import es.telefonica.icons.IconosResource;
import es.telefonica.ui.componentes.BotonContactos;
import es.telefonica.ui.componentes.ImagenException;

/**
* Dialogo que sirve para seleccionar los posibles estados de presencia
* Ejemplo:Ausente, Conectado, etc..-
* @author jose
*
*/
public class DialogoEstados extends Dialog
{
 
 private static ResourceBundle countryResource = ResourceBundle.getBundle(
   CountryResource.BUNDLE_ID, CountryResource.BUNDLE_NAME);
 
 private static ResourceBundle iconResource = ResourceBundle.getBundle(
   IconosResource.BUNDLE_ID, IconosResource.BUNDLE_NAME);
  

 private BotonContactos desconectado; 
 private BotonContactos conectado;
 private BotonContactos ocupado;
 private BotonContactos vuelvoEnseguida;
 private BotonContactos ausente;
 private BotonContactos alTelefono;
 
 /**
  * El constructor ya crea un dialogo con los botones y el titulo correctos
  */
 public DialogoEstados()
 {
  super(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Title_Status_Dialog),null,null,0,null,Manager.VERTICAL_SCROLL);
  try
  {
   desconectado=new BotonContactos();
   desconectado.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Disconnected)));
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
   desconectado.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Disconnected)); 
   
   this.add(desconectado);
   
   conectado=new BotonContactos();
   conectado.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Connected)));    
   conectado.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Connected));
   
   this.add(conectado);
   
   ocupado=new BotonContactos();
   ocupado.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Busy)));    
   ocupado.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Busy));
   
   this.add(ocupado);
   
   vuelvoEnseguida=new BotonContactos();
   vuelvoEnseguida.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Back_Right_Away)));    
   vuelvoEnseguida.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.BackRightAway));
  
   this.add(vuelvoEnseguida);
   
   ausente=new BotonContactos();
   ausente.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Absent)));    
   ausente.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Absent));
   
   this.add(ausente);
   
   alTelefono=new BotonContactos();
   alTelefono.setImagenEstado(ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_To_The_Phone)));    
   alTelefono.setLabelNombre(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.ToThePhone));
   
   this.add(alTelefono);
  }
  catch (ImagenException e)
  {
    e.printStackTrace();
  }
  
 }

 /**
  * Metodo que se ejecuta cuando se pulsa la rueda
  */
 protected boolean navigationClick(int status, int time)
 {
  onSeleccion();
  return super.navigationUnclick(status, time);
 }

 /**
  * MEtodo que se ejecuta cuando se pulsa una tecla, en este caso no interesa solo el Enter y el Escape
  */
 protected boolean keyChar(char key, int status, int time)
 {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  if(key==Keypad.KEY_ENTER)
  {
   onSeleccion();
  }
  else if(key==Keypad.KEY_ESCAPE)
  {
   this.close();
  }
  return super.keyChar(key, status, time);
 }
 
 /**
  * Este metodo es el que extrae el boton que actualmente esta seleccionado, y ejecuta el cambio de estado
  */
 private void onSeleccion()
 {
  Field panelVertical = this.getFieldWithFocus();
  if(panelVertical instanceof Manager)
  {
   Manager manager=(Manager)panelVertical;
   Field campoSeleccionado = manager.getFieldWithFocus();
   campoSeleccionado.getBorderBottom();
   
   EncodedImage imagenEstado=null;
   if(campoSeleccionado instanceof BotonContactos)
   {
    try
    {
     BotonContactos boton=(BotonContactos)campoSeleccionado;
     String id = boton.getLabelNombre();
     if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Disconnected)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Disconnected));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Disconnected));
     }
     else if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Connected)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Connected));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Connected));
     }
     else if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Busy)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Busy));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Busy));
     }
     else if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.BackRightAway)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Back_Right_Away));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.BackRightAway));
     }
     else if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Absent)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_Absent));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.Absent));
     }
     else if(id.equals(countryResource.getString(CountryResource.ToThePhone)))
     {
      imagenEstado=ComunicadorCore.getGestorImagenes().getImagen(iconResource.getString(IconosResource.Image_To_The_Phone));
      MensajesLog.debug(DialogoEstados.class, "Seleccionado: "+countryResource.getString(CountryResource.ToThePhone));
     }
     
     //TODO cambiar el icono del usuario
     if(imagenEstado!=null)
     {
      
     }
    }
    catch(ImagenException e)
    {
     e.printStackTrace();
    }
    finally
    {
     this.close();
    }
   }
  }    
 } 
}

thanks

Blackberry Virtual Keyboard

2008-12-27T14:36:00.001-08:00

Well I have finally resolved this by developing my own home grown virtual keyboard. This should work until RIM fixes the bug with their virtual keyboard. In case anyone else is having the same problem, I have provide the code for it here:

public class MyVirtualKeyboard extends VerticalFieldManager
{
// 1---2---3
// 4---5---6
// 7---8---9
// .---0---x
private ButtonField[] numbers = new ButtonField[]
{
new ButtonField("1", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("2", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("3", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("4", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("5", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("6", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("7", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("8", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("9", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField(".", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("0", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
new ButtonField("x", ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK),
};
private ButtonField close = new ButtonField("Close",
ButtonField.CONSUME_CLICK);
private FieldChangeListener listener = new FieldChangeListener()
{
public void fieldChanged(Field f, int ctx)
{
if (ctx == FieldChangeListener.PROGRAMMATIC)
return;
String val = ((ButtonField) f).getLabel();
if (Character.isDigit(val.charAt(0)) || val.equals(".")
caller.setCharacter(val);
else if (val.equals("x")
caller.removeLastCharacter();
}
};
private Caller caller;

public MyVirtualKeyboard(Caller caller)
{
this.caller = caller;
// 4 rows of buttons will be displayed
int buttonIndex = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
{
HorizontalFieldManager row = new HorizontalFieldManager();
for (int j = 0; j < 3; j++)
{
numbers[buttonIndex].setChangeListener(listener);
row.add(numbers[buttonIndex++]);
}
add(row);
}
close.setChangeListener(new FieldChangeListener()
{
public void fieldChanged(Field field, int ctx)
{
MyVirtualKeyboard.this.caller.closeMe();
}
});
add(close);
}
}

Here is the interface I created callled 'Caller':

public interface Caller
{
public void closeMe();
public void setCharacter(String character);
public void removeLastCharacter();
}

Here is how I invoke it (this code is in my MainScreen subclass, which is implementing FocusChangeListener and my call back interface Caller):

public void focusChanged(Field field, int ctx) {
currentlyEditing = null;
if (field != checkAmt && field != taxAmt)
return;
if (ctx == FocusChangeListener.FOCUS_GAINED)
{
currentlyEditing = (BasicEditField) field;
MyVirtualKeyboard keyboard = new MyVirtualKeyboard(this);
popup = new PopupScreen(keyboard);
getUiEngine().pushScreen(popup);
}
}

Here is the callback methods on the main screen class that take the input from the popup keyboard:

public void setCharacter(String character)
{
String currText = currentlyEditing.getText();
currText += character;
currentlyEditing.setText(currText);
}

public void removeLastCharacter()
{
String currText = currentlyEditing.getText();
if (currText.length() == 0)
return;
currentlyEditing.setText(currText.substring(0, currText.length() - 1));
}

public void closeMe()
{
getUiEngine().popScreen(popup);
}

Also, I have a menu item where if the user needs to display the keyboard, they can:

showKeyboard = new MenuItem("Show Keyboard", 3, 12) {
public void run()
{
MyVirtualKeyboard keyboard = new MyVirtualKeyboard(
MyScreen.this);
popup = new PopupScreen(keyboard);
getUiEngine().pushScreen(popup);
}
};

Here is what the popup virtual keyboard looks like:

Hopefully this will help someone else.

Message Edited by stevewarsa on 12-07-2008 08:02 AM

Redmine

2008-12-09T07:34:00.001-08:00

Redmine¶

Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database.

Redmine is open source and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL).

Overview¶

Multiple projects support
Flexible role based access control.
Flexible issue tracking system
Gantt chart and calendar
News, documents & files management
Feeds & email notifications.
Per project wiki
Per project forums
Simple time tracking functionality
Custom fields for issues, projects and users
SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs)
Multiple LDAP authentication support
User self-registration support
Multilanguage support
Multiple databases support

Documentation¶

You can read the Redmine guide (work in progress).

Others resources:

They are using Redmine¶

This page lists some companies/projects using Redmine.

Support & getting help¶

For getting help or discussing about Redmine, you can browse the Redmine forums hosted right here in Redmine. Or, join #redmine on the freenode IRC network. Prior to March 7, 2008, the Redmine forums were hosted at Rubyforge. You can search the old forum archives as well.

Before submitting a bug report here, please read this: SubmittingBugs.

The Power User's BlackBerry Guide: 121 CrackBerry Tips

2008-11-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

The Power User's BlackBerry Guide: 121 CrackBerry Tips, Hacks and Resources

Addicted to your PDA? It's time to get more from it.

By Inside CRM Editors

CrackBerry addicts, are you ready to take your BlackBerry to the next level? In this list, you'll find some of the most awesome tips, hacks, how-tos and guides for the BlackBerry, making it easy for just about anyone to become a power user.

Tips

These BlackBerry tips will help you work easier, better and faster.

Delete Multiple Messages: Search for messages, then press Delete Prior to delete all of the messages in the results.
Read "A Wired-In Guy Getting Set for a Big Date": Stick your wet BlackBerry, or any other doomed device, (turned off) in a bowl of uncooked rice overnight, and it will suck out the moisture.
Navigate Your Calendar Quickly: First, enable Quick Entry, then press "D" for day, "W" for week, "M" for month and "A" for agenda.
Separate SMS (Short Message Service) Messages and Emails: Select Separate in the SMS and Email Inboxes field under General Options.
Select Text on a Page: To highlight text, press Shift, then move the wheel up or down.
Delete by Date: Click a date and press Delete Prior to restore order to your mailbox while still retaining your most recent messages.
Get BlackBerry Tips, Tricks and Key-Press Shortcuts: Learn important keys, message tips and more.
Permanently Delete Emails: To ensure that you're permanently deleting emails, delete them from your email client rather than using the Delete Prior feature.
Capitalize Letters: Press and hold letters down to make them capitals.
Turn Off Messages: You can choose to turn off messages by going through your security options and modifying your firewall settings.
Get Better Coverage with Your Radio: If your coverage is not doing well, try turning your radio off and on to force a network scan.
Scroll Down: Use your spacebar to scroll down a page, then press Shift and the spacebar simultaneously to move back up.
Get BlackBerry Calendar Tricks: This post covers popular tricks for the BlackBerry's calendar.
Sync Specific Folders: Set up Folder Redirection to sync only selected email folders to your BlackBerry.
Dial Letter Numbers: Call lettered numbers like 1-800-GOOG-411 by pressing Alt, hen typing the letters.
Empty Your Phone-Call Log: Enable Call Logging, then delete items in your Phone Call Logs folder.
Insert the "@" Symbol in an Email Message. Press the spacebar to enter an "@" symbol in a message or press it twice to insert a period.
Dry Your Device with Silica Gel: If you've dropped your BlackBerry in water, dry it out with silica-gel packets, which often come in shoeboxes. This also works with silica cat litter, which is generally labeled as crystal.
Select Special Characters: Press and hold a letter key, then move the thumb wheel up or down to get the appropriate character.
Enable Content Protection: Store data on your device securely by enabling content protection.
Stop a Page from Loading. Press the Escape button to keep Web pages from loading.
Reboot Your BlackBerry: You can reboot your BlackBerry without pulling out your battery by pressing Alt, Caps and Delete simultaneously.
Dry Your BlackBerry with Alcohol: Another drying option that also disinfects is 100 percent alcohol. Turn your BlackBerry off, soak it in alcohol and take it apart as much as possible. The alcohol should evaporate with exposure to air.
Read the Top 10 Phone Tips from BlackBerry: This list includes simple tips for changing volume, speed-dialing and more.
Use Your BlackBerry as a Flashlight: The BlackBerry makes a great flashlight for middle-of-the-night runs to the fridge or the bathroom.
Delete Mail-Client Emails from Your BlackBerry: Select Purge Deleted Items under Email Reconciliation to delete emails on your mail client.

Guides

Learn how to turn your BlackBerry into a supertool with these guides.

BlackBerry on Crack: 25 Tools to Supercharge Your Lifeline: This guide offers useful tools for BlackBerry business users and more.
BlackBerry Software and Utilities: If you're looking for any aftermarket BlackBerry tweaks, this is the place to start.
Mac OS X Tethered Modem Solution for BlackBerry: Find out how to use a BlackBerry as a modem in OS X.
Voice-to-Text Voice Mail Services and Third-Party Alpha Pager Dispatch Services: Check out these services that will transcribe your BlackBerry voice mails.
What Are the Methods of Receiving Email on BlackBerry?: Read this article to figure out your email options.
BlackBerry for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing: This article explains why BlackBerry devices are great for those who are hearing impaired.
The Agony of "BlackBerry Thumb": Learn about BlackBerry-related thumb pain and what you can do about it.
Why BlackBerry?: Find out why the BlackBerry is a superior choice for some people.
BlackBerry HTML Web-Browsing FAQ: Get the lowdown on HTML browsing here.
Basic BlackBerry Etiquette: Here, you'll find a basic list of dos and don'ts for being a polite BlackBerry user.
Buying a BlackBerry on eBay: Check out this guide to learn how to avoid getting scammed when purchasing a BlackBerry from a seller on eBay.
Implementing GTD with Your BlackBerry: This guide recommends applications and more items for helping you get things done on the BlackBerry.
Transfer a File Using Bluetooth Technology Between Two BlackBerry Smart Phones: This guide will show you how to transfer files easily.
Gmail Receiving "Sent Items" You Send On Your BlackBerry: Learn how to turn off this syncing feature for Gmail and more.
BlackBerry Chat Apps/FAQ: Learn about awesome IM (instant messaging) applications and more in this guide.
Remove an IT Policy from a BlackBerry: Here, you'll find out how to rid yourself of a pesky IT policy.
Easy BlackBerry Backup: Use this guide to back up your BlackBerry in just a minute.
The First 10 Things You Should Do With Your New BlackBerry: Before you do anything else with your BlackBerry, do these 10 things.
Appear to Be in the Office While Actually Working from Home: Fool everyone by making these tweaks using your BlackBerry and more.
BlackBerry Messenger: What Is It and How Does It Work?: Get the lowdown on this BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry messaging service.
Maximize the Battery Life of Your New BlackBerry: Follow this tutorial to learn how to get the most out of your battery.

How-Tos

These how-tos will guide you through step-by-step hacks and tricks for the BlackBerry.

How to Use Your BlackBerry to Transfer Between Windows and Mac OS X: In this guide, you'll learn how to port tasks, notes, appointments and contacts from Mac OS X to Windows, and vice versa.
How to Turn on Standby Mode Using the Mute Key: Use this method to avoid pressing keys by accident.
How to Edit a Profile and Set Notifications: Here, you'll find out how to change your BlackBerry's message and email notifications.
How to Restore Your BlackBerry to Default Settings: Perform a security wipe on your device with this quick tutorial.
How to Free Up Memory on Your BlackBerry: Keep your BlackBerry from enabling the low-memory management feature with this tutorial.
How to Get Images onto Your BlackBerry: This quick tutorial offers a few easy ways to get images on your device.
How to Remove "Sent from my BlackBerry": This tutorial will walk you through the steps to changing your signature.
How to Use BlackBerry as Modem For Laptop: Give your laptop full Internet access using a BlackBerry.
How to Increase the Speed of the BlackBerry Browser: Speed things up with these simple tips.
How to Configure Full Internet Access on BlackBerry: Learn how to get full Internet access on your BlackBerry with this tutorial.
How to Install Third-Party Applications (Mac OS X): This guide will walk you through installing apps on your BlackBerry through Mac OS X.
BlackBerry 101: The How-To Lecture Series: This series covers purchasing a BlackBerry, checking out the controls, third-party apps andmuch more.
How to Disassemble a BlackBerry Pearl: Whether you're taking your Pearl apart for fun, hacking or just to air it out, here's how to do the job.
How to Secure Your BlackBerry: Keep your data safe by following the tips in this guide.
How to Clean Your BlackBerry's Trackball: Get your trackball cleaned up with this how-to.
How to Stop the Blinking: Here you'll find out what various blinking lights mean and what you can do about them.
Installing Third-Party Applications: This guide for Windows users walks you through the process of installing of apps.
How to Get BlackBerry Internet Access without a Data Plan: Avoid data plans with this hack.
How to Set up Gmail as a Free Spam Filter for Your CrackBerry: Use Gmail to keep spam out of your BlackBerry.
How to Pair a Bluetooth GPS Receiver with Your BlackBerry: Check out this Bluetooth hack to pair your BlackBerry with a GPS receiver.
How to Transfer Files to Your BlackBerry: This guide will teach you a few different methods of file transfers.
How to Use BerryDialer to Save a Lot of Money on Voice Calls: Use this dialing hack to save some cash.
Turn a Full Length DVD Movie into a Pearl Movie File: This guide shows you how to turn a DVD into an .avi file.
How to Use Your BlackBerry as an Emergency Flashlight: Learn what you need to do to turn your BlackBerry into a flashlight.
How to Remove and Clean the Trackball: Get your trackball squeaky clean with this guide.
How to Put a Full-Blown Windows Desktop Environment on Your BlackBerry: Use your microSD card slot to get Windows on your BlackBerry.

Cheat Sheets

Make shortcuts and formats with these BlackBerry cheat sheets.

Hot Keys: BlackBerry Browser: Use these hot keys when viewing Web pages.
BlackBerry Cheat Sheet: This sheet is full of useful shortcuts.
Compare Cellular: Compare Cellular offers guides to getting started as well as quick reference guides for a number of BlackBerry models.
Supported Document Types: This list offers a glimpse at the file formats that a BlackBerry can handle.
BlackBerry Shortcut Collection: This handy guide has lots of shortcuts for the BlackBerry.
Tip: Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts: This cheat sheet offers lots of shortcuts for phoning, messaging and more.
RIM BlackBerry Quick Reference Guide: Get this handy printable sheet for an easy, quick reference for your BlackBerry.
Cheat Sheet to Share: Here, you'll find loads of shortcuts.
Hot Keys: Calendar: Create appointments and view dates more quickly with these hot keys.
SMS Quick Reference: Get this quick-reference guide to learn about SMS shortcuts for the BlackBerry.
Free SMS Messages: Avoid messaging fees by sending carrier-specific emails.
What Is My Carrier's BIS (BlackBerry Internet Service) Web Site URL?: Here, you'll find BIS URLs for providers worldwide.
The BlackBerry Glossary: Find out what various acronyms stand for in this BlackBerry Glossary.
BlackBerry PIN Quick-Reference Guide: Have everything you need to know about BlackBerry PINs handy with this guide.
Hot Keys: View Word Document: Use these hot keys when working in Word.

Tools

Put these tools to work on your BlackBerry for loads of increased functionality.

BlackBerry Operating System Downloads: Find places to download a new OS here.
Berry Bloglines: Access Bloglines from your BlackBerry device using this RSS reader.
Google Maps Mobile: Get traffic, listings, maps and more with Google Maps for your BlackBerry.
Mobile Desktop: With this software, you can access your desktop PC from anywhere using your BlackBerry.
Mobylo! MultiAlarm: Get ultramanageable alarms with this neat tool.
Black & Whitelist: Keep harassing phone calls at bay using this blacklist application for the BlackBerry.
TryPhone: If you're shopping for a BlackBerry, use TryPhone to find out exactly how your model will function.
Naggie: This reminder application works with your BlackBerry's GPS to nag you about tasks when you get close to a location.
Google Mobile: Sync up your Google Calendar and more with this service.
RepliGo Professional: Using RepliGo Professional, you can view documents as if they were on your desktop computer.
Empower HTML Mail Viewer: See your emails in HTML with graphics, links and more with this tool.
Digby: Shop a number of online stores from your BlackBerry using Digby.
Spot: Get GPS on your BlackBerry with this software.
Necho Expense BlackBerry Edition: This tool makes expense reports a breeze.
Secure Password Manager: With this manager, you can safely store all of your important passwords and numbers on your BlackBerry.
BBTetris: Entertain yourself with this classic game for the BlackBerry (link opens download folder).
ABC Amber BlackBerry Convertor: Transfer contacts, emails, logs and lots more onto your desktop computer with this convertor.
iSkoot: Use this Skype client to get cheap calls on your BlackBerry.
IM+ All-in-One Mobile Messenger: IM on several different accounts and applications with this neat tool.
MicroStrategy Mobile: MicroStrategy Mobile automatically reformats documents so that they can be easily viewed on your BlackBerry.
Mobile SSH: Get access to your server from your BlackBerry using this cool tool.
Windows Live Search Mobile: Get local information, maps and searching capabilities with Windows Live Search Mobile.
StockView: Track stock prices with this free viewer (link opens download folder).
Translator+: Use this tool to get easy foreign translations on the go.
BeamBerry: Make your BlackBerry compatible with PDFs, Word documents, text files and more with this software (link opens download folder).
Beyond411: Get supercharged 411 listings using Beyond411, a service that gives you local prices, listings and GPS searches.
BlackBerry Unite!: Collaborate with up to five users by sharing remote access, calendars, documents and more with BlackBerry Unite!.
Backpack Mobile: Get organized on the go with Backback for the BlackBerry.
BlackBerry Tools: In this suite of BlackBerry tools, you'll find a number of useful applications.

Books

Find out even more in-depth tips and hacks in these BlackBerry reference books.

"BlackBerry Hacks": You'll learn how to supercharge your BlackBerry with this book.
"Professional BlackBerry": Learn how to extend your BlackBerry's functionality, get maximum uptime and more in this book.
"Hacking BlackBerry: Extreme Tech": This book discusses some of the many ways that you can hack your BlackBerry.
"How to Do Everything with Your BlackBerry": Take your BlackBerry way beyond email with this book.

Pegged-To-Primary Orders

2008-11-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

Pegged-To-Primary Orders

Description

A Pegged-to-Primary Order allows you to enter a more aggressive price than the current market price, and have the entered price stay within a fixed interval to the market, should prices deteriorate. A Buy order is pegged to the bid (instead of the best offer) and a Sell order is pegged to the offer. You can enter an offset amount that is added to a buy order price and subtracted from a sell price.

For a buy order, the order is submitted at the best bid, with the offset amount (if used) added to the best bid. If the best bid moves before the order executes, your order price is modified to match to the new best bid with the offset amount added.

For a sell order, the order is submitted at the best offer, with the offset amount (if used) subtracted from the best offer. If the best offer moves before the order executes, your order price is modified to match to the new best offer, with the offset amount subtracted.

TWS Links

For information on how to create Pegged-to-Primary orders, please refer to the TWS User's Guide.

Example

This order type is less aggressive than the pegged-to-market order.

If the market is $50-50.10 and a customer enters a pegged-to-primary buy with an offset of $.05, the order would be submitted at the NBB + offset amount, or $50.05. If the NBB moves to $50.10, your order is resubmitted at $50.15 (NBB + offset of $.05). If the NBB drops to $50.05, the buy order is resubmitted at $50.10.

"SMO (stop market order)" and "SLO (stop limit order)"

2008-11-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

Dear all,

This is a question with regard to the way to handle the following type of orders in FIX:
"SMO (stop market order)" and "SLO (stop limit order)"
Does anybody know the usage of FIX tags for the orders???

==================
1.Stop Market Order
A market order to buy or sell a certain quantity of a certain security if a specified price (the stop price) is reached or passed. The stop price must be below (above) the current price if the order is a sell (buy).

2.Stop Limit Order
This is a limit order to buy or sell at the specified limit price if the specified stop price is reached or passed. The stop price must be below (above) the current price if the order is a sell (buy).
==================

#The direct reason is the 2nd biggest Japanese exchange market, OSE #Osaka Exchange Market)announced to adopt this type of order though...

I would be really happy if I get clues for this.

Best,
Hiromasa

************************************************************************************

Hiromasa,

In FIX 4.4:
- a stop order is indicated using the OrdType (40) = 3 (Stop)
- a stop limit order is indicated using OrdType (40) = 4 (Stop limit)

The stop price is carried in the StopPx (99) tag (required for OrdType = 3 and 4).

Good luck!

************************************************************************************

Hi K. Mahesh,

Yes, it requires three prices.
The following is an example of "SLO" what Osaka Stock Exchange calls.

0) Current market condition
Market price: JPY 11,460
Code: Nikkei 225

1) A trader orders a buy �Stop Limit Order�. On this occasion, she/he must indicate �limit price�, �trigger price� and �new price� in advance.

e.g.)
Limit price: JPY 11,420
Trigger Price: JPY 11,470
New price: JPY 11,480

2) Market price moves up to the �trigger price�. (by other participants)

3) Then, the first order is automatically changed to �new price�. (JPY 11,420 --> JPY 11,480)

Is it clear?

I probably will use custom tags for this order.

Thanks,
Hiromasa

************************************************************************************

Hi again Hiromasa,

I assume your stop orders are executable even before the stop price is reached (a kind of "Limit Stop Limit" or "Limit Stop" order that just changes price when the stop price is reached).

That third price (the new limit price) is currently not in FIX. However, there is a proposal which covers it (and a number of other issues). It is currently posted at the GTC page: http://www.fixprotocol.org/documents/2442/ReserveOrd-PegInst-OrderTriggers%20proposal.pdf

A modified version of the proposal is expected to be published any day as part of the "OMX Order Routing Requirements". Hopefully it can be added to a service pack later this year.

Regards

Rikard

************************************************************************************

Automated Forex Execution Software Directory Menu Automated Execution Software Forex Blogs Forex Brokers Central Banks Charting Software Contests Dat

2008-10-24T07:26:00.001-07:00

Automated Forex Execution Software

Directory Menu

GoForex - GoForex offers third-party programming services for system design and automation of your strategy into any major broker, custom designed automated trading platforms, or complete turn-key technical solutions for setting up your own brokerage with a MetaTrader to ECN bridge. Click Here for More

FXTradeStream - Takes signals from emails and executes them in the MetaTrader platform.
HyperOrder - Takes signals from TradeStation, MetaStock, ESignal or a custom application and sends them to a broker's API including FXCM, MB Trading, MetaTrader, Interactive Brokers and more.
MetaTrader 4 - Run automated systems and execute them into supporting brokers
Neoticker - Create automated systems and execute them into MB Trading, Interactive Brokers or FXCM
NinjaTrader - Sends signals from TradeStation, ESignal or a custom application into Interactive Brokers, MB Trading or Gain Capital
Robotic Forex - Executes systems into MB Trading, CMS Forex, FXCM and more.
SnapDragon - Sends signals from TradeStation to Oanda's API
Thinking Stuff - Backtest and automate your trading system into Gain Capital and Oanda with the click of a mouse. No programming knowledge required.
Trade Bolt - Takes signals from TradeStation, ESignal, MetaStock or WealthBuilder and sends them to Interactive Brokers
TradeBullet - Sends orders from TradeStation, eSignal and custom applications into Interactive Brokers and MB Trading
TradeCompanion - Automates your trading systems written in TradeStation, Excel, Visual Basic or any other proprietary platform and executes them into the BGCFX trading platform.
TradeItself - Takes trading signals from emails and sends them to the FXCM Trading Station
TWS Link - Sends signals from TradeStation, ESignal, MetaTrader and more to the Interactive Brokers trading platform