Part 1 of this series appeared in the August issue of Java Developer's Journal (Vol. 8, issue 8), and Part 2 appeared in the September issue (Vol. 8, issue 9).

Part 1 of this series appeared in the August issue of Java Developer's Journal (Vol. 8, issue 8). JDJ: I'd just like to pick up on that 85% portability goal Jeff mentioned earlier. I'm just going on assumptions, but I think if you were developing a title for the PS2, GameCube, and XB...

I recently had a hankering to play an older (not ancient) PC game that I used to enjoy. Since I've moved my entire desktop over to Linux (for almost a year ago now) that meant stealing my wife's Windows laptop and trying to install the game on that.

This review has, admittedly, been quite some time coming. Had I been looking at basic phone features, I could have produced something months ago - however, this magazine is not the mobile phone-geek's equivalent of the Trainspotter's Almanac (fortunately), and we have slightly more rel...

This will be my last outing as J2ME Editor for JDJ. It's been an interesting 22 issues, with big changes within both the Java and the J2ME spaces. Over the past two years, the number of JSRs related in some way to J2ME has increased (almost exponentially), an assortment of competitors ...

Thanks to the nice folks at Metrowerks, I finally have a smart phone to play with. As some of you may well be aware, I was suffering from an affliction of round-the-corner-itis that had prevented me from investing in a Java phone. However, when one is provided for you, this unfortunate...

Along with many others, I've believed for quite some time now that there must be a change in the custodianship of Java for the platform to survive these uncertain times. My personal belief is that any future custodian of the Java platform must be an organization of community members (b...

I recently noticed that Qualcomm has licensed the ARM1136J-S microprocessor core. The interesting thing to note about this announcement is one of the letters in that microprocessor version: the 'J'. ARM's 1136J-S is a Jazelle-enabled chip, meaning it's optimized for the Java instructi...

It's just as well I'm not a gambler. After pessimistically deciding that it would be a clichéd 'cold day in hell' before I saw a Java-enabled phone arrive on these shores, our local Vodafone launched the excellent Nokia 7650.

Where do market analysts get their figures? When you get a job as an industry or market analyst, do they give you a complimentary calculator that has a single button with a label marked 'Random' on the front?

Apparently it hasn't been a good quarter for many PDA makers. Shipments were down from the same period last year so, of course, doom and gloom are predicted by all and sundry. Actually I'm exaggerating; one of the reports I read was fairly evenhanded in its approach ­ another was abou...

At times, I wonder just how far short the computer industry has fallen of its promise of a few decades ago. I'm not talking about the lofty ideal of the computer of the future that science fiction authors were predicting we'd be using by now, such as machines capable of holding a prope...

A recent press release from Palm got me thinking about their PDAs, as well as why Palm (in the UK) never returned my e-mails...but that's another matter (and half a world away now). In any case, according to the release, 5,000 Palms are to be purchased as part of a three-year grant pro...

I've been thinking a PhD student should consider doing a thesis on the life expectancy of a pen after it's purchased. I've come up with an approximate calculation for mine: LE (Life Expectancy) =DWU (Date of Wanting to Use)-1; in other words, a pen will go missing the day before you...

JavaOne is over, and it's time to sit back and reflect...and to sift through the hundreds of press releases and announcements that ricochet around the Internet like balls around a pinball machine. While I couldn't be there myself, when I checked my e-mails each day, I felt as if I was...

A strange accident occurred on my flight back to New Zealand. Somehow, the plane flew through a rip in space-time and we wound up in a freak alternate dimension. The thing is, it was initially very difficult to tell that we weren't in the right dimension anymore, because everything was...

A few months ago Alan mentioned that he had finally shifted to Star Office. As someone who has been using the software suite since Sun took it over, I applaud his decision to move away from that other office package. However, the shift doesn’t come without a few challenges that c...

You've heard this said before.  In fact, If you regularly peruse the pages of JDJ, you've heard it here more than once.  In case it hasn'y sunk in, repeat after me: J2ME (especially MIDP) will provide tremendous opportunities for developers

I've been hearing lately that Bluetooth is making a comeback. Considering that it had hardly gotten started when it was written off in certain quarters, it's amusing to see a comeback prediction so soon. In any case, I can see that short-range wireless protocols, such as Bluetooth, wil...

I was reading a forum discussion recently that argued that J2ME was a mess. The general consensus (admittedly there weren't that many messages) seemed to be that this conclusion was correct. My automatic response was 'What a complete load of bollocks' (which I think means I've been...

After what seems like months of waiting (and it probably has been), a color mobile phone (as opposed to a PDA/phone combination) has finally appeared on the British market. With a 101x80 pixel 256-color STN display, an e-mail application, calendar, games, and PC synchronization, it has...

I don't usually buy technical books. Most of the time I manage to find what I'm looking for after a bit of hunting on the Web, virtual elbow-grease, so to speak. However, occasionally a tree-killing madness does come over me and Amazon gets the chance to clear the electronic cobwebs ou...

A contagious disease that results in oddly colored teeth? A South Seas pirate with a penchant for eating toxic sea food? Or perhaps a superhero with really unhelpful superpowers? If you answered yes to any of these questions, chances are you've had your Java blinkers on and haven't bee...

A big date in the European gamer's calendar is the European Con- sumer Trade Show (ECTS) in London. It's a time for 16-year old boys to polish up their fake IDs, dust off the letters confirming their internship at a large game publisher (printed earlier in the week on letterhead paper ...

Before we get started, it's worthwhile noting that I'm not a big fan of WAP. Well, not the protocol itself exactly, but WML-based Web sites - the whole idea of browsing the Web on your mobile seems somewhat flawed when your screen real estate is minimal and you probably have only one m...

I've come to the conclusion that Japan is the place to live. Not that I really want to move to a country that by all reports is an extremely crowded and busy place, but the Japanese always seem to get the best gadgets.

Convergence. A word loved by PR companies and feared by nontechnical consumers. If you believe industry pundits, we'll all be carrying combination mobile phone-PDA-TV-toasters in the next few years. You'll be able to make a phone call, write a memo, watch the morning news, and cook you...

If the computer industry was a cat fight, right now fur would be flying in every direction. Microsoft's recent decision to drop Java from their Windows XP distribution is a prime case in point. Spin merchants pop up left, right, and center to fire a barrage of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, a...

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we covered the basic features of the various MIDP APIs. We looked at creating and packaging a MIDlet, creating a user interface, and some basic graphics operations. We also discovered how to store data with the record management system and how to commu...

If you've ever spent time in the Middle East, you'll know that bargaining is a way of life. You haggle over everything, especially if you're a tourist - they automatically triple and quadruple the price if you're a foreigner. So it doesn't seem that unusual to be arguing over the price...

In Part 1 of this article, which can be found in JDJ (Vol. 6, issue 7), we covered the basics of creating a Mobile Information Device Profile application (also called a MIDlet). We covered some of the functionality available in the user interface packages and a slightly more advanced g...

It's an odd sensation when you're wandering around and everyone immediately looks at your chest. (No, I don't have a strange growth protruding from my sternum.) I recently visited the Embedded Systems Show (ESS) in London. The offending item, attracting all the attention, was the print...

The first thing you're likely to see, upon sitting down to learn a new language, is the ubiquitous 'Hello...' application. My father bought me the TRS-80 Basic for Kids book when I was 8-years old, and I'm pretty sure that the first example was either 'Hello World' or 'Hello, my name ...

Okay. Let's get one thing clear right away. I am not writing (or better yet, dictating) this on a Java-enabled PDA while sitting on the bus on my way to work - a fact that I find somewhat disturbing, and more than a little annoying. Perhaps not as disturbing as my fellow passengers wou...

Technology seems at times to proceed at a breakneck pace. The downside to this expectation for a consistently high rate of technological improvement is that at other times, progress comes at a more leisurely pace - analogous to watching paint dry or sloth racing.

It's a well-known fact that Web forums seldom stay on topic - and even if they do, there's usually one group of contributors who like to wander off on a tangent. There's nothing particularly wrong with that, in fact, it makes for interesting reading at times.

Source Control. The bane of software developers; if only because you have to interrupt your thought processes in order to make sure you've safely backed up those preceding thought processes. That fact doesn't change whether you're a J2EE, J2SE, or J2ME developer... or working in any ...