Jservers.com

Well now that Amazon has let the cat out of the bag, I can say what I've been up to for the past few weeks.  HandMark Studios contacted me about an opportunity to develop there Zagat app on a new device.  So I figured they would say Android (no thank you) or the Blackberry, but as luck would have it they said the Kindle. 

Having known that the Kindle was based on JavaME for a few years now I had given up hope of it ever having a SDK for developers to use.  But over the past couple days they have announced AppStore pricing (which I laughed about since I knew why), and now the SDK program "coming soon".   However for me it has already been here, and I have enjoyed it.   

Enjoyable JavaME development, not because of the tools, nor any standardization on the ME spec.  No, the enjoyment comes from the lack of tools, the full VM (this ain't no MIDP joke, it's PBP) and support on the Mac OS platform.   Now I am able to build cool ME apps like I should have been able to do for years on cellphone had SUN not dropped the ball and let Carriers stamp out innovation and stonewall device consistency.   

So thanks to Sun Microsystems being the completely unsupportive group that they are, and the iPhone being such a mobile crack device, I have put together my first mobile phone app to be sold to the general public.   

Now with 10+ years of JavaME experience, working with big names and having the inside track on many aspects you would think my first app would have been out years ago, and using Java.   Well it's not like I haven't tried, and I actually had an app for a PDA get sold at Handango, but nothing for cellphones.

So hopefully in the very near future a new iPhone app with my name all over it will appear on the appstore.   The interesting thing is I enjoyed every minute of the development process.  Why you might ask?  Because I ran it, mapping the path, the requirements, the design, adding, and pulling back features, scheduling next release features and simply put making the business decisions that have caused more than one project that I've been on to flounder and in some cases get cancelled.  

Wow, so the past 2 weeks have been to say the least HEAVEY!!

The first week was all things JavaOne... well okay, all things JavaFX. :(  

They ripped me off by not giving me an alumni jacket because I won a contest a couple years back and get to go on a special pass... not so special I see after all.  

JERKS!!!

With that there were some good takeaways, those being that Groovy has the ability to code JavaFX... and do stuff that not even JavaFX is known to do.   Maybe that is what you can do when you have a real language instead of a scripting language. ;)

The Netbeans 4.7 tools were interesting, and maybe worth a look as they seem to get out of the way a bit more than they use to or as eclipse does.. (not fully reviewed).   But they say in the future (sometime before December. [note no year is stated] ) we may have a Mobile development version for Mac. 

Then there was the "After Hours Bash"  Now that was really cool.  They brought in the WCR.com folks (World Class Rockers) from vintage bands of my youth, very good stuff that I totally enjoyed.

Now WWDC... OMG.. Wow they totally took the 1299$ investment in a system I made 9mo ago and completely invalidated it. :(   The things about my 13" macbook that I was bummed about was the 2.0 ghz CPU, was hoping for 2.1 or higher, the lack of Firewire was almost a deal killer, and the lack of keyboard backlighting, and some type of external memory support was a bit sad.... well this summer's version totally delivers.  While they had to remove the digital optical line out that goes through the headphone jack... (what... it had what?? I didn't even know about that feature until 2 months ago.... crud, why didn't they just give me that one last Oct.... oh well)

Ok enough about the hardware... OMG look a new iPhone and 2 that's right 2 new OS's..  Hey they gave me a CD for a preview of Snow Leopard... WOW this thing totally rocks.  Upgrade to "snow leopard"  You bet your sweet butt I will be upgrading.  

The sessions were good, but way too much info to really allow me to focus on in one hour session.   That's where JavaOne has the formula down... don't give too much info, or the attendees brains will POP!.    My brain popped in the first session.  Ouch!!

However the final call is I don't think I'm going back to JavaOne again (even if it's free), but I am not going to WWDC either, it's too much info and it is better, for me, to pull the info out of the videos as I have done with the iTune-U Stanford courses.  Oh but I will get the videos for the WWDC's in the future, I hope the not so distant future so the info is still useful.  

However the "After Hours Bash" for WWDC  started out pretty good, unlike J1 where it was 2 free drinks and some not so tasty food, WWDC had some great asian cuisine, and the american staples (hotdogs), however who the heck is "cake"?  that was the band, and honestly... Apple you can do better on the music.... seriously!!!