ScanR (Beta): This stuff really works

"Scan documents or whiteboards, anywhere, anytime, using only your camera phone. "

This is a neat idea and really simple to use. I must say I am amazed with the result. I have seen similar stuff being done before. In asia (read japan), some phones come pre loaded with this feature but again these are phones that are years ahead of the devices available here in the states.

The only issue with this type of service is that the user has to be smart enough to get a good shot of the material to be scanned. I tried the service out with document and white board snapshots and got excellent results for whiteboards and documents (A4 size) with limited data. Haven't actually got a good shot of a complete A4 size page whose PDF came out with readable characters.

The image processing logic running behind seems pretty good and fast. I get the PDF in my email within 2 minutes of actually sending the MMS out. The adaptive thresholding that they are running on the images is pretty robust and does take care of shadows and residual noise pretty well.

I have a demo account with the service and I get the PDF document sent to my email address (entered during registration). I would really like to have the feature of sending a PDF to some one else's email directly from my cell phone without having to open my email and forward the email to a bunch of people. To do something like this, they might need to come up with a client application which leads to a lot of complexity(1: User has to install the app 2: get megapixel shots on devices using camera API).

More Information : ScanR
Original Post at : alarm:clock

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Wishing everyone happy holidays.

Snow comes to deserts of Dubai

Whats Next ? :-)

Sprint PCS toolkit and Netbeans 4.1 (How To)

This post deals with ONE way to get the Sprint PCS toolkit 2.0 to work with the Netbeans 4.1 (Mobility Pack) IDE.

1) In the IDE, Open the Java Platform Manager (Tools->Java Platform Manager).
2) In the Platforms: section, select J2ME.
3) Click on the Add Platform Button.
4) In the Dialog that opens up, navigate to the Sprint Toolkit installation directory and select the 'EmulatorWTK2.0" directory.
5) Click Next and Finish up the process.

Now that the Sprint Platform has been added to the IDE, you can test it out by importing a project from the Sprint PCS toolkit. I am using the MapMuglet MIDlet suite as this uses the com.sprintpcs.util package.

Note: While importing the application, Set the Emulator Platform as the Sprint PCS toolkit 2.0 from the drop down in the final step of the import.

Complete Shutdown

I dont know if this is the work of Rahu or Ketu but the last week or so has been a complete shut down in my life.

It started early last week with my Laptop stopping to work completely. Just got it fixed today. There was some issue with the fan on the motherboard. Even without my laptop, I was some what at ease with my desktop and then all of a sudden on Wednessday night both the comcast internet connected and cable TV connection had some issues and gonked out on me. I have been waiting for the service guy to show up and am quiet pissed now at the so called customer service comcast offers. The service guy isnt available till Saturday !!!... thats a whole week and half without any service and they expect me to pay for it ???

Anyways, since I have almost nothing to go back home to, I decided to spend some time in the office and voila... my hard disk crashed today. My admin says he will not be able to get something working on my machine till tommorrow and even then he isnt sure about the data. Damm... feeel completely pissed off right now.

The only bright shining light... got my laptop back from the repair shop. Its working fine :-).

J2ME Wonderland

Been out of the posting loop for quiet a while. Found myself working on J2ME after about 6-7 months of hardcore BREW development last week. The whole time I spent on working in Java for mobile phones made me appreciate BREW even more. Its not the development environment or anything of that sort. Developing in Java is great, its the implementation of the JVM (KVM) on the handsets that sucks. I know the whole security, write once run everywhere routine but I feel Java draws the short straw when it comes down to cell phones.

BREW isn't perfect but it does give a developer a whole bunch of control over the flow of the applet. J2ME is sadly, very implementation dependent. Things that work flawlessly on a Nokia device will crash on Sanyo. Developing a MIDlet that in truly cross platform is an art that you learn from experience.

I learnt something new about the Security Architecture of Java MIDlets this week. On certain implementations the permissions to ask for in the MIDlet-Permissions: attribute of your JAD file are not exactly the same as mentioned in the JSR's.

For Instance, I kept getting a Security Exception while trying to access the camera on the device (JSR 135). I had everything in place. The MIDlet was signed and I was even asking for permission to capture frames from the camera.

javax.microedition.media.control.VideoControl.getSnapshot

I believe the specs on JSR 135 state that this is the permission to ask at install time but they don't mention that on certain implementations you might also want to also add permissions for other classes in a "protected package". This is the part that sucks, the specs on the JSR are too vague and give a lot of freedom to the implementers. This is good in a way cause the implementation of KVM on a device also has to take into consideration the device limitations and the carrier requirements but to a lowly developer like me .. it sucks big time. Had to add these permissions to the Jad file to finally get the MIDlet to run on the device (Thanks to some help from the Carrier support after 2 frustrating days)

javax.microedition.media.Player
javax.microedition.media.Manager

For more info on the security architecture of J2ME : Article in Sun's J2ME section

Motichoor : Get a Desi Touch

Pretty nice collection of Tshirts from Tantra and Barking Dog. I love the name 'motichoor' though... excellent name for a shopping portal with a desi touch.

Magic Weekend

week·end (wēk'ĕnd')
The end of the week, especially the period from Friday evening through Sunday evening.

mag·ic (măj'ĭk)
A mysterious quality of enchantment.

[definitions from Answers.com]

A weekend becomes a "Magic Weekend" when on Sunday evening while rushing through your laundry in laundromat you have a smile on your face. The smile of satisfaction of having done away with the little "TODO's" that keep piling on.

I have a few "TODO's" piling up in post-its on my screen and have been waiting for a weekend to take care of them but for some reason or the other I keep getting out of my jammies. Lets break down a magic weekend for the uninitiated.

Saturday:
Wakup : 10:30 am ...... well 11:00 actually.
Caffiene Fix : Dunkin Donuts and back by... 12:30 pm.
Reflection time: Time spent staring at the computer screen and then looking at the post its selecting the Post it to hit first .... 2:00 pm.
Let the magic begin: work on the thingie till about 5.00 pm .. this is the time u spend downloading the tools you dont have or researching on the gie's that might hit u later.
Nap time : Behind every great piece of code is a short Nap in front of the TV. 5.00 to ....
Free your mind: go out .. dont get drunk.

Sunday:
Session 1: there is just something about starting to work at 1: 00 am ...
Sleepy time: Goto sleep around 4:00 am after 3-4 hours of intensive coding... by this time you have laid all the ground work of your little project and need only minor tweaks here and there.
Wakey wakey : go easy on urself... its a weekend after all.. get up by 12 -1.00 pm,
Caffiene fix: Get ur caffiene fix by around 2:30
Wrap Up time: By this time you are pretty happy with urself and despite the drousy feeling you have already accomplished abt 80 % of the task at hand. Wrap things up ... lets say by 6.00 pm..
Laundry time: Hit the laundromat by 8:00 with a smile on ur face.

Its been quite some time since I spent a weekend like this. Not that I am complaining but would love to have a weekend like this one in a couple of months... a few thingies can only be done on a weekend. Stuff that I need to take care of One by One

1) Screen Gabber Application for taking screenshots. The little module I use at work is good but I do have to go through the trouble of adding it to my applet.

2) Amazon and Ebay seller Applet. Applet allows the user to keep track of stuff (s)he is selling on an online market place.

3) Complete XML parser on BREW. My firm wont buy the one from Reaxion and the one that I wrote for the application is toooo dam specific to the applet. Requires a bunch of changes here and there to make the changes. Need to convert something like expat into BREW. Should add only about 15 kb to my applet binary.. I can live with that.

4) Porting dynamic UI controls to j2me.

Hopefully will have some time in coming 2 weekends to launch the magic mode.

Note to Self : Get an Extra Umbrella

Its rainy Thursday morning here in Jersey. Its pouring all right. I am sitting at home all ready to go to work but cannot leave the house as I left my Umbrella at the office. Lazy me .. never remember to get the stuff I take to work. Hopefully the rain will ease out in the next half hour or so .....

scanLIFE : My Very own Barcode

Been waiting for this. Barcode scanning has finally arrived in states, well it has been around for some time now but scanning a regular retail barcode required a ugly add on lens that kept getting lost.

With scanLIFE the need for lens is gone. These 2D barcodes scan really well even with the not so perfect camera's on the phones available here. The whole concepts is really great. This is my barcode.. what they call the personel ID code. Scan It!!! and get my Info on your cell phone.

But that's not all... When you scan my barcode and the application makes a lock on the screen it provides you with options.

1) You can call me.
2) You can send me an SMS
3) You can even see my Blog on your phone.

All this, just my simply rotating the phone on the code. How cool is that ????

I see a lot of places where I can place my code ... I guess the recommended place would be Visiting Cards. Will post some action shots when I do get around to exploring the whole system.

Check it out for your self : scanLife.com

P.S : The app that scans the barcodes is FREEEEEEE!!!!!. Who said there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Steps to get your own code.
1) goto the site and fill in your info in the form. Click Here !
2) Once you have filled in your information, Hit the Generate Code button and Walah! you are done.
3) You will recieve an email with your own code as an attachment. For some reason you also recieve a Outlook VCF file.

The email looks something like this.

J2ME Emulators : Impressive

This is an Impressive collection of the emulators etc needed while developing in J2ME. Hats off to guys at ShareMe technologies to take the time out to compile this.

Link : ShareMe Technologies LLC

Jumped out of an AIRPLANE

I finally did it... one more thing out of my todo list. feeeeeelin so happy bout this...:-)

Took a tandem sky dive yesterday from 13500 feet. After about 25 - 30 seconds of freefall gazed at the view of philadelphia and Atlantic city while descending with a parachute. It was AMAZING !!!!... Have a video of it too and will be getting a DVD in 2 to 4 weeks so will be posting the putri falling from the sky in some time.

Had been planning for like 2 months now to go down and try out sky diving but something or the other kept coming up on the weekends but yesterday I had the right group of friends and more importantly they were in the right frame of mind. Jeez I can still remember the view and the force of the wind on my face when I was falling down.

As soon as I got on the ground, everyone around was asking me "Would you do it again ?"... Hell Yeah .. but not in the near future ;-)..

Check out Free Fall Adventures. The place is really nice for first time jump. Will post some pics on this post as soon as they are available.


Next : I am thinking "Bungee Jumping" or maybe "Scuba Diving"

Plenty good Application Names

Nice place to get names for your beta applications.

Video Booth for Mobile Phones

Saw this post on picturephonning.com . QR Code again !!! The concept is real simple. You go into this booth, record a short video and then download the video on your phone by scanning the QR Code that appears after the recording. QR code like other 2D barcodes can contain binary data and I assume the recorded video is converted to cell phone compatible video format and then dumped into a QR code. Once you scan the barcode the application recognizes that the data is binary data and after probing the mime type of the file launches the approriate player to display the video.

Download video on your phone without Bluetooth, Infrared or data service ???? amazing aint it... Now it seems easy with using a 2 dimensional barcode that can encode images and even video into a static image but I assume there is a very small limit to the size of the video that can be encoded. A 2 dimensional barcode does have its limitations on the size of data encoded and if you make the barcode big enough you can run the risk of having the barcode tooo big to scan.

Most Japanese phones out there are excellent pieces of hardware with a cool cool camera but lets think global here. Would such an app be popular in US or Europe or any other part of Asia ??? could be ... there are plenty of malls all around the place.

Whats gets me really interested in this though is the fact that I download a Video clip using my camera. Cannot stress this fact enough. No cables, No Wireless service .. No Bluetooth ..... aint this great.
Offcourse there is a limit to the amount of data that you can download and the speed of download when u are using the camera.... In the above case they were using just one 2d barcode to get the video clip but since the barcode is displayed on a LCD screen ... It could easily have been 3 or 4 barcode frames. Since the average time to decode a barcode is 200 ms , you could have the user point the camera to the screeen for 1 second and capture 5 different barcodes.. These inturn would then be appended together to create one huge clip .....

I am sure there might be people reseaching this area and the way I see it there are quite a few questions that need to be answered before actually coming up with a working scheme. But its worth a try ...

Trackback : picturephonning.com

CamReader

"CamReader, including barcode scanner is superior image processing software that is designed for mobile terminal (cell phone etc).
CamReader enables you to develop superior image processing application on the resource-limited devices."

CamReader is provided by MEDIASEEK Inc. and is now available on almost all Japanese phones. I have seen their barcode scanner application and its really cool. Qr codes are being used widely in Japan for almost everything and MediaSeeks QR decoding engine comes pre installed on almost all KDDI devices. The devices have a cool optical focus assembly that allows the devices to focus on the code. I was looking through the documentation but since it was all in japanese, I wasnt able to make out how the embedded application actually works. I believe the calling application has to the set the zoom to a pre defined level and then invoke the decoding engine. More on this when I fond out how it really works.

Why is CamReader so interesting ?? not only does it offer barcode decoding but there is mention of OCR, Facial Recognition and even motion detection. Talk about using the camera on the device :-)... I am not sure if there is a working version of CamReader that supports all this but if it does then we have killer app in the making here. A single application that does everything. I was trying to find out their presence in the US and European markets but I guess they havent yet launched here.

As of right now, the application is primarily BREW based. I guess the next platform to cover would be Symbian as this is where the money is in Europe. I am looking forward to a public extension on Qualcomm's rack specially for Motion Navi. There is a lot of potential here specially since games are the biggest money makers in the business.

Wonder if they have a version for Brew devices in US.

ICAMERA_Pause() and ICAMERA_Resume()

Last week I was playing around with an applet that required me to pause the camera while it was in preview mode on a key press. Sounds simple enough !!!

To Pause the Camera

1) Check if the camera is in preview mode.

if(SUCCESS != ICAMERA_GetMode(pMe->m_pCamera, &lMode, &bPaused))
return;
if (CAM_MODE_PREVIEW == lMode && !bPaused)
{
//Pause the Camera
ICAMERA_Pause(pMe->m_pCamera);
}

2) The above call should return the status of CAM_STATUS_PAUSE in the callback
Function of the camera control. The AEECameraNotify structure will contain the following values.

nStatus = CAM_STATUS_PAUSE
nCmd = CAM_CMD_START
nSubCmd = CAM_MODE_PREVIEW

Do any thing that you want to do while the camera is paused here.

To Resume the Camera

1) The resume call will place the camera back in the preview mode. The process is similar to the call to the Pause function.

if(SUCCESS != ICAMERA_GetMode(pMe->m_pCamera, &lMode, &bPaused))
return;
if(CAM_MODE_PREVIEW == lMode && bPaused) //check for pause
{
//Resume the Camera
ICAMERA_Resume(pMe->m_pCamera);
}

2) The above call returns the status CAM_STATUS_RESUME in the callback function of the camera control. The AEECameraNotify structure will contain the following values.

nStatus = CAM_STATUS_RESUME
nCmd = CAM_CMD_START
nSubCmd = CAM_MODE_PREVIEW

Once you receive this callback, the applet should automatically start receiving the callbacks with CAM_STATUS_FRAME.

Handling Suspend (EVT_SUSPEND) and Resume (EVT_RESUME) Events.

Conventional wisdom dictates stopping the camera altogether and releasing the reference to the ICamera interface when your applet receives a EVT_SUSPEND event.

NEVER NEVER NEVER let your applet release the reference to the ICamera interface when the camera is in paused state. When you receive the EVT_SUSPEND event make sure the camera is not in the paused state, if it is then put in a call to ICAMERA_Resume(). Do not know if this is a bug or a feature (J) in the ICamera but once you put the camera in the pause state and release the reference, you need to restart the device to be able to use the camera again.

case EVT_SUSPEND:
if(SUCCESS == ICAMERA_GetMode(pMe->m_pCamera, &lMode, &bPaused))
{
if(CAM_MODE_PREVIEW == lMode && bPaused)
{
ICAMERA_Resume(pMe->m_pCamera);
}
}
//you could call ICamera_Stop(), but it works without it.
ICAMERA_Release(pMe->m_pCamera);
pMe->m_pCamera = NULL; //Always a good idea to null it out.
return TRUE;

Starbucks and My Name

I am all for the Starbucks policy of putting ur name on ur glass when u order so that there are no mixups..but... the name "Punit" has been taking a beating lately. These are some of the interpretations of my name taken from my handy Nokia 6260.

These days I have begun to look forward to my Starbucks Name of the Day. :-)

"B" .. I am just going to put "B" is that ok ...

is it "Benit" ???.... Did u say Benit ???

Poni... I am sorry "Noni" ......

"Blinit" ... interesting name ...

BREWDIR Launched

Have been meaning to do this for some time now and finally got around to doing it. The site BREWDIR has officially launched today :-)

QRCode Blog

My infatuation with the Japanese mobile technology continues :-)... This is a site that has all its blogs in the form of a QR code. The text of the blog has been encoded into a QR Code. I don't get the practically behind the site ...but then I don't think that it was meant to be practical at all :-)...

If only the text in the code wasn't in Kanji script, I could read what's actually written in the blog.

Check it out : QRCode Blog

ICamera Preview Mode: Recieve SMS or In coming call

Got my app back from NSTL stating this bug:
" If the application has the camera in the preview mode and an incoming voice call is received, then the handset’s ringer is distorted. "

For some reason when the ICamera is in the preview mode, it shuts off the ringer on Moto V265. Havent actually figured out why this is happening ... dont know how I can figure this out either. The native camera application on the handset does exhibit the same behavior. My application displays the notification on the screen but just shuts of the ringer.
This is something I will have to look at in the future and try it out with the other handsets but for now a temporary fix ( thanks to Ilho) has done the job. When I start the camera I register for a notification:


ISHELL_RegisterNotify(pMe->pIShell, AEECLSID_MYAPPLET_ID,AEECLSID_TAPI, NMASK_TAPI_STATUS NMASK_TAPI_SMS_TEXT);


and when I stop the camera internally, I unregister for the notification:

ISHELL_RegisterNotify(pMe->pIShell, AEECLSID_MYAPPLET_ID, AEECLSID_TAPI, 0);


In my main applet handle event function I have dumped in some code to shutt off the camera as soon as you get an incoming SMS or Phone call.


case EVT_NOTIFY: {

AEENotify * ns = (AEENotify *)dwParam;

if(NMASK_TAPI_STATUS == ns->dwMask NMASK_TAPI_SMS_TEXT == ns->dwMask){

//Shut off the camera and show a pause screeen

// If user accepts the incoming call or reads the message then the applet

// will recieve a EVT_SUSPEND event. Else have the Select key ready to

// activate the camera on the pause screen.

}
return TRUE;
}

Note: Set the privelege level in the MIF to have access to TAPI.

Eye Mobile

Read this blog at textually.org.

I loved the movie that these guys have made with the demo app. Motion detection is nothing new but I dont think there are several libraries out there that do this.. atleast for the BREW and J2ME environments.

check out the demos here.

Recruiters and Mailing lists

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the amount of emails we get from recruiters in mailing lists. I dont mind the ocassional email or two but lately almost all the development mailing lists I am registetered in have no questions ... just mails from recruiters enticing me to join a MNC in banglore. Thats not the end of it, I guess my email address was picked up and I keep getting emails from staffing firms (atleast 6-8) in a day. 80% of these emails are not even for my field of work. Some even offer me positions related to Mechanical engineering.

Now, lets get something straight. I am not against recruiters. They have a job to do like me but c'mon would you look at the profile of the person before approaching him. Maybe, I am irritated casue I am not in the Job Market but even if I was I would have appreciated just 1 email a week from a recruiter who has gone through my profile and had some work related to what I want to do. I would never be happy about getting 20 mails a day offering me jobs from desk clerks to .NET professionals.

I have already unsubscribed from most of the mailing lists... leaving only the ones that do have an occasional technical discussion.

Back from BREW2005

Got back on Sunday from San Dieogo. Spent Saturday in Diego soaking in the great weather in Diego. Met a couple of old friends.. all in all the trip was nice.

The conference was well organized and the auidience though limited was very focussed. Kudos to QGuys again. The Golden Ale served in BREWfest deserves special mention ;-)

BREW 2005

Attending the conference these days .. will post when I get back

QR-CLIP

This is something that I wanted to do myself for some time now and today I found out that it already exists. The Japanese are way ahead of the rest of the world :-)....

The idea is to encode sound into a QR code(which is capable of handling a byte stream). Most of the phone's in Japan come with a in built QR code reader and this reader will then decode the printed QR and play the sound. Its as simple as that.. funny no one here in states is doing it.

Heres some stuff from the website.
"At this corporation with the audition sight which is offered, the QR cord/code is issued. As for the general viewer, if it photographs by the portable telephone to which bar-code reading function is attached, the same, audition becomes possible. In addition, being to issue the QR cord/code of 10 types classified by advertising media, at it is possible to investigate the announcement effect classified by medium " the management tool " top. For example, it becomes possible for the announcement effect and the like classified by store where the flier is distributed to investigate in detail." [Translated using google language tools]

"With this service, the private sight which can do the audition first by the portable telephone is offered. Because it is playback by the portable telephone, anytime, the actual CD and the demonstration tape, the audition the event and the live sound source et cetera it is possible and * anywhere to do. Unless it purchases the CD, or goes to the event * live meeting place and the like it becomes in advance the audition possible really not to be able to inquire about performance. At this corporation, expanding the chance of the promotion to the chestnut thornback tar * event plan person of especially インディーズ type, we think you can utilize widely, as the tool which it receives. Being free, to inquire about tune it can do the general viewer with making the transmission system, " audition ". Inquiring about music widely, it is possible to do the promotion which is different to the improvement of the frequency of mobilization of of sales promotion * live and the event of the CD until recently by receiving."[Translated using google language tools]

For the curious, here is a link to the original website :QR-CLIP . The page is in japanese but you should be able to read that ;-)

Novii.tv / NoviiRemote for Nokia 6600 & 6620

"NoviiRemote for Nokia 6600 & 6620 is a software program that provides a convenient means of controlling your home entertainment devices, such as TVs, VCRs, satellite and cable boxes, right from your Symbian OS smartphone."

This is something that a lazy ass like me can find excellent use for. Stuff I would like to control from my cell phone.
1)The television (changing channels , adjusting volume levels .. the works)
2) DVD player.
3) The temperature of the air conditioner.
4) A robot that fetches snacks from the fridge ...
All this while I relax on my lazy boy. :-).... this would be great.

Needless to say, I believe NoviiRemote is a good concept. The only reason I can think of that would make me think twice before running this app on my phone is the battery drain. They must be using IR port of the phone to send the signal ... and I dont think the IR beam produced by the devices is strong enough to hit the TV when I am lazying around on the couch. They would have to boost it and doing this needs power...lots of power...

Check out the product : NoviiRemote for Nokia 6600 & 6620

Velly Velly Intalesting

Found this article while surfing the web. Makes interesting reading :-)

BBC NEWS | Americas | Christians purge video game demons

Postcards from Chatteris

I came across this in a post on textually.org . The idea is really simple , it is a record of school kids from Fenland, Cambridgeshire, using mobile phone picture messages.

Info on their site
"Each person taking part had the camera phone for one week. They sent one picture message each day direct to this site, showing something from their day-to-day lives in Fenland, and it was completely up to them what they decided to photograph and send in. Nothing was more or less important than anything else. At the end of one week, they passed the phone on to the next person in the chain"

There is nothing new about photo blogs, the idea of photo blogging (well atleast photo sharing) was the the original concepts behind introducing a camera in the cell phone. I believe Phlog.net was one of the first sites that came up that were made specifically for camera phones. The creator had made this site for his mother to share pictures and it quickly evolved into a place where anyone and everyone could post and share pictrures.

Postcards from Chatteris does offer some amusing pictures... great to kill some time in the office.

You can access the site here Postcards from Chatteris

Mail from xiaoxiazhang09@yahoo.com.cn

I usually dont spend time on reading through spam but I was exceptionaly bored today. It does make interesting reading... The following email was sent to publicnetwork@gmail.com and it ended up in my inbox. Didn't know the publicnetwork email address existed.

From: 晓霞 张
To: publicnetwork@gmail.com
Date: May 10, 2005 12:28 PM
Subject: Thank you for your advices and recommendations in the YAHOO chat room...

Hi,
Thank you for having a cheerful chat with me the otherday in the YAHOO chat room.

Already forgot me? Hehe...I was that 20/femalecollege student in Shanghai. During our cheerfulchat, you kindly indicated that my English was justso-so and definitely could need some improvements.

So I took your advice and paid a visit tohttp://www.hellofrogs.com/, a web site that was highlyrecommended by you while we chatted. And guess what?You were absolutely right! The educational materialsin that web site are so hilarious!

As I've been learning American English fromhttp://www.hellofrogs.com/ on a regular basis, Ibelieve my English skills have drastically improved.Amazingly enough, I feel my confidence in English isgetting higher and higher every day. All thanks toyou and your recommendations last time when we chatted.

Look forward to seeing you in the chat room soon.

Xiaoxia Zhang
Shanghai Fudan University

KDDI devices Rock

Have been playing around a KDDI device ( W2SSA) for the last week or so and I am just wonder struck right now. The implementation of the BREW API speically the ICamera interface is just perferct. Havent seen a device yet that supported so many of the parameters that are mentioned in the BREW API. The specs too are very detailed, the only down side ... all the info available on the phone is in Japanese. Its been tough trying to translate the Japanese into English using the google language translator service.

Here are a few titbits... the default size to run the preview mode is 320 * 240 pixels ... snaps go upto 1280 *960 pixel resolution. The camera on the device has a autofocus that can be controlled through the code.

For a complete list of the device refer to http://www.au.kddi.com/english/product/index.html

Wonder what happened to this project

Motorola, Firms to Transform Bar Codes

Wonder what happened to this project ... must have been scrapped cause I dont see any motorola devices that scan barcodes and nor do I see the camera's of moto phones to be anywhere close to allow barcode decoding at the native level.

Handset Blues

I have a plan with T-mobile USA and the contract that I had with them expired last November(2004). I have a Motorola V300 and frankly I got tired of it the second week after I got it. Its been a painful relationship for the last one and half years. I have endured it primarily cause I am just lazy, toooo cheap to spend money on buying a kickass handset and also bound by a one year contract. Now that it has been some time since my contract has expired I have been royally confused about the handset that I want to get.

Features I am looking for:
1) Good quality camera with access to the camera through my applications.
2) A decent programming platform : Symbian or BREW or even .NET with support for Java MIDP2.0 with as many additional JSR's as possible.
3) Bluetooth or IR connectivity.
4) Flip phone would be ideal.

Nokia 6600 was a phone that I was very excited about and almost got it but the non-flip on the phone was a big turn off that made me wait for some more time. The LGVx8000 from Verizon wireless is an awesome phone but to get that on a decent price means signing a contract for 2 years and also pay for almost anything I want to do with my device. Joining Verizon will be like going over to the dark side and I am not sure its something that I want to do right now, even though I am gooo gooo gaaa gaaaa over the bandwidth of data connections on the device. I don't know when the phones from AT&T and Cingular will be able to provide 3G like data service. Recently, I got a chance to play around with the Nokia 6260 at work ... hmmm.. this is something I could work with ... series60 version 2.0 , MIDP 2.0 , bluetooth, USB and a flip to boot. The only issue is that it is a bit bulky and has a stupid design as far as the placement of keys is concerned.

Is this a phone I can see myself carrying around for a year ???? .... lemme think .....

Still Alive

Wow... its been a long time since I made a new post .... the last month or so has gone by soooo fast ... I turned 25 and load at work increased many fold...

Hopefully I will be a bit more regular in my posts from now on.

LGE VX8000 and ICamera (Brew)

Have been trying to get my app working on LGE VX8000 and was facing all sorts of issues starting with finding the drivers for the USB cable. For some reason the drivers for LG VX6000 dont work too well with the VX 8000. Got hold of the drivers for VX 7000 from LG(Click on the link for USB Modem Driver) website and it works like a charm now.

But another issue was that I couldn't get ICamera to work on the phone. The device kept throwing out the error code EPRIVLEVEL when I tried to create an instance of ICamera in my code. Finally found out how to avoid that. In the MIF a dependency has to be added to the class Id AEECLSID_CAMERA. All I had to do was create a bid file camera.bid and add that to the MIF file in the dependencies tab. I have included the text of camera.bid below:

-------------Camera.bid--------

#ifndef CAMERA_BID#define CAMERA_BID
#define AEECLSID_CAMERA 0x01002013
#endif //CAMERA_BID

--------------------------------------

Feels good to finally be able to play around with the phone. The device has a lot of promise and the screen size is as big as the series 60 devices. Will post more about the phone in the days to come.

IHtmlViewer - Input Mode for Data (Brew)

My frustration continues with IHtmlViewer in my BREW application. I have a HTML Form that I want the user to fill out. Some of the fields can be only numeric and it becomes a pain if the user has to use the Multi- tap input mode for this.

The viewer operates in 2 modes - the Inline edit mode and the normal mode (Each field opens up in another window). In the second mode it does allow the user to change the input mode but I would prefer using the inline edit mode.

Have searched through the API and I cannot seem to find a single method that would set the Input mode. Offcourse I can do that for a ITextCtl that I create but not for IHTMLViewer. I can see why it was designed in such a way but that doesnt help me :-(.

The power of a Weekend

I was analysing my time management and just realised how important a weekend is to my existence. Just woke up about an hour back and have been lazying around watchin TV. My room is in a mess and the only reason for this is that I have skipped the last couple of weekends.

So what are the most important tasks that a person like me performs during the weekend.
- Laundry
- Collect all the small stuff lying around in the room and dump it in a big box ( well hidden from the view)
- Go out and blow a lot of money.
- Check the mail (snail mail)
- Get the grocery shoppin done so that I do not have to rely on chineese delivery every night.
- Check the bank and credit card accounts.
- Read other peoples blogs.
etc etc

My room is in a mess right now .. theres stuff all around the room and most of it is trash ... I was supposed to go to work today but I guess thanks to the expected snow storm in the evening I will just tanker down at home today. This should give me some time to get my lazy bones into action and get some stuff done. But right now ..its time to hit the bed again and lazy around a bit more :-).... weeekeend ... I just love it.

Books added to the collection

Over the last month I have been adding some good books to my collection. I usually depend on articles on the web and when I started out programming for mobile devices most of these books werent available...



1) J2ME :
This one has just come out - Developing Scalable Series 40 Applications -- A Guide for Java Developers. I have the earlier book by Micheal and read only a couple of chapters... rest of the stuff was not relavant for me. This book however is a charm. I know it deals with only nokia specific issues but it does provide a lot of handy code examples that will work on all phones. I think this could be labled as a complete j2me book. I havent read any j2me books and am sure there might be better ones out there but this book does it for me.

2) BREW : Wireless Game Development in C C++ with BREW
This book is really good and I mean it. I have been through a 4- 5 chapters and loved the writing style. Some people may argue that its a bit old but compared to what is out there these days this book still rocks.

3) Symbian series 60
Well Its been a long time since I worked in this platform but will have to start soon. So I got these 2 books.
- Developing Series 60 Applications
- Professional Symbian Programming.
The first book i believe is the best to start off coding with. It explains everything and gets u started. Very easy to get through the symbian learning curve with this one. The second book ..i just got a very good deal on it and i figure it will be a good reference book as time goes on. Havent even opened the book yet.

Will be adding more books as I look towards more time reading stuff ... havent done that for a while.

On the way back - Seoul Airport

on the way back right now. The sleep cycle that I had planned for this trip worked out. Now I have to see whether I still have a Jet lag. I am feeling tired though , would love to lie down in my own bed.
Have been doing some thinking on the plane (when I was awake) and have come to the conclusion that there are a few things that I want to do in the coming years. Offcourse I havent set any date for when to accomplish these tasks...yet...
- visit amsterdam for 3 days.
- go sky diving
- drive from New Jersey to Seattle in a week. This should be fun.
- Be regular in the gym for atleast a month.
- get up everyday at 6:00 am (work days) and go to sleep on 11:30 pm.
- Would love to go Bungie JUmping some time

well thats a part of the list .. cant wait for the plane to land. This is torture - sitting in one seat for over 12 hours. Will close down my Laptop now and try to get another hours sleep.

Leaving Bangkok

Well my time in Bangkok is over now. It was a very very short trip. I will be leaving for the airport in an hour so I thought I might as well let the world know that I will be back in Jersey tomorrow morning after a gruelling 23 hour flight. I hope to stay awake for the first leg of the journey between Bangkok and Seoul and plan to sleep from Seoul to New York. This should get me to the office on Thursday morning in good shape but I don't think this is gone happen. Already my body clock is telling me that its sleepy time. Can hardly keep my eyes open.

Anyways, personally this trip was a good experience. There will be more blogs in the days to come about topics that I have thought abt blogging in the recent past but haven't been able to for some reason or the other.

3 days and 4 nights in Bangkok

Its my third day here in bangkok and its been a good trip so far. Havent done a lot of exploring so as to say but have been to the markets here in Nana, Ari and Sana. The Thailand downtown is a awesome place. Its very much like an Indian city minus the livestock on the roads. There are high rise buildings and banners of branded goods and also plenty of old style buildings with really small walk ways. There is also a lot of new construction coming up. I am staying in the LandMark hotel in Nana district. Very nice hotel. Will be getting back stateside tommorrow after a 23 hour flight.

23 hours..... not looking forward to this at all.

En route to Thailand

On me way to Bangkok right now... Completely exhausted more so mentally than physically. I started on saturday afternoon 12:00 pm from JFK New York and now the clock on my laptop shows 7:38 am in the morning. There are still 3 and half hours left till my plane touches bangkok so this will be a nice 24 hour jaunt around the globe. My first stop was Tokya(Nikara) airport for a couple of hours.. Changed planes there and now I am on a United flight to Bangkok. The flight is packed and I did not get aisle seats either. Note to self :- The next time the firm decides to send you around the globe do not settle for anything less than Business class.
I will be in Bangkok for about 3 days and 4 nights. Have meetings during the day but hope to explore the bangkok night life. Have heard a lot about it by now.
We kinda have some turbulence on the plane now so the skipper has asked everyone to return to their seats and fasten their seat belts. Will write more later

Goin to Thailand

Found out yesterday that I will be going to Thailand and then found out last night that I will have to go to Thailand on saturday morning to be able to attend a meeting on Monday morning ... Been running around since then. Hopefully my tickets will arrive by mail tommorrow and so will the visa.

Back after a long long long time

Wow... This has been the longest time since I last blogged. Have been very very lazy. There have been a lot of changes in my life and was kinda tooo banged up to write anything down on the blog. Rest assured there will be a lot of stuff posted in the following days.

A bit of good news. A couple of Patent Applications that I am listed on as a Coinventor have been published. I have been told that this is the step before they are awarded. They were filed by my firm for products we built. Check them out if you get a chance : 20050015311 and 20050015310.

Dynamic Interfaces with IHtmlViewer (Brew)

Was playing around with generating a different User interface generating different user interfaces dynamically using the IHTMLVIEWER interface. I must say I wish there was a similar class in J2ME and Series 60. Its just to easy. Have the HTML file on the server. When the applet launches for the first time, download and store the html code in a file on the handset. Now that you have the html file, load it into an instance of the viewer and set it to active. Walah ! you have a complete display that can be altered based on the html file that you download.

There are other ways to do it but this way is just so dam simple. Took me about half a day to set up for my purpose. There are a few limitations though - In forms you cannot set the input mode for text boxes and the html tag list is only HTML 3.2 compliant. There might be others but these are the ones I noticed so far. Just glad to have got the job done with so little effort. :-)...

looking forward to a weekend at my sisters place... great food and no worries!

Blog calling Punit ... Come in Punit over.

Been a long long time since my last blog. I tried staying away from computers this holiday season and from the looks of it, did a good job. Spent the holidays at my sisters place where the family had gathered. It was fun playing with my nieces and nephew. Now I feel like I need to sleep for 12 hours to recharge my batteries.