mobile cloudable applications

I have a dilema:
- how should I connect the mobile apps to the cloud? -> webservices .... YES, YES, YES ... pretty old style. I want something smarter.

Having a mobile application which just simply consume content provided by a webservice, does not make the application cloudable :). Why? Using webservice from internet and saying that we are using cloud services is just another buzz for the clasic client-server paradigma.

I want something different.
I want to implement a java class(yeah :) do you know any other portable language running on cloud and mobile?) and I want to have it running either on mobile or on the cloud.
I want to be transparent for me as a developer where the class is running.
I want to have my device deciding when the class has to run on mobile and when it has to run on the cloud.
I want to have an elastic mobile app able to run also on the cloud.

Any ideas about how can I do it?

I have some ideas, but first I want to hear if my challenges are interesting or I am just tired and I try to reinvent the mobile-cloud.

Any constructive comment is highly appreciated.

Ocna-Mures are aplicatie mobile pe Android

Aplicatia mobila Ocna-Mures poate fi descarcata de pe android market. Pentru instalare pe telefon doar accesati url-ul de pe Android Market.

Cum sunt un Ocna-Muresean get-beget, m-am gandit sa fac ceva pentru orasul meu pe cale de disparitie ;).

Orasul se scufunda la propriu, pe zi ce trece. Pentru asta am lansat o mica aplicatie care:

• Prezinta imagini frumoase din Ocna-Muresul de alta data
• Prezinta imagini din zile noastre
• Prezinta ultimele video-uri despre calamitatea din Ocna-Mures
• Prezinta ultimele stiri despre viata din Ocna-Mures

De asemenea, cei care vor si pot sa ii ajute pe ocna-mureseni sa isi reconstruiasca orasul, pot dona sume de bani prin intermediul aplicatiei.

Orice feedback legat de aplicatie e binevenit.

O mica galerie cu screen-uri din aplicatie:

Trip Journal allows now to export trips to blogs

We have released today a great new feature for Trip Journal.

Embedded trips on your blog!


Here are the steps to achieve it:
1. get trip journal for your phone(www.trip-journal.com). It works for Android, iPhone, Symbian and soon BADA.
2. document you trip using Trip Journal
3. export the trip to facebook from the Trip Journal application
4. get the trip from facebook and embedded to your blog.

Here is an example:

Android Development Challenge experience

Did anyone hear about ADC2? It is a challenge organized by Google in order to promote Android.
I've heard about it in May 2009.

We have a lot of experience in writting Java code so we thought that participating would be a very good idea. Therefore, we started learning Android.
After working with it on a daily basis for some time now, I have a few considerations I want to make about its features. It implies:
- simple java based API;
- very good layers organization;
- powerfull system calls;
- small learning curve.

We have chosen one of the company ideas about a product and decided to implement it in Android.
A team of 6 Java developers started to implement it and we were ready by the end of August.

On the 30th of August 2009, we submitted the application to ADC.
When the first phase of the challenge ended, we were hoping that someone would review our application :) (I'd say that Google could improve the process a little bit: we were expecting at least one confirmation email, but it wasn't the case.)
We got our first feedback over email, eventually (a reviewer said the application is COOL).

On the 6th of November we finally got an email from Google saying that we were in the Finals (we were very happy). (thought the email went in SPAM :)).

This morning (December 1st, 2009) we received a message with an amazing news: "Your application, Trip Journal, was chosen by users and judges as the #1 winner in the Travel category." 
What can we say :)? --> JOS PALARIA :).

Are you curious about our application? Here's a short description of it:
Trip Journal is the ultimate trip tracking and sharing solution currently available on Android powered Smartphones. Impress your friends by sending them real time updates from the places you are visiting. GPS route tracking, record waypoints, photos & notes, trip statistics, KMZ & Picasa exports, incorporated Google Maps.

More information on: http://www.iqapps.eu/tripjournal

See you all soon on the Android market!! 

RIA with Java?

I was searching for a briliant Java framework to let me to create a RIA in 2 hours :).
It seems that I was really really naive :(.

I was attracted by:
- Flex
- Java Fx

Flex looks very promising. It has even an UI builder. Good. I've started the download, then I installed it.

I've spent 20 minutes to figure out how the hell I can link all those UI widges. I've started the tutorial to find out how :(. The documentation is cryptic and pretty dummy :(. Where the hell is "hello word" example. I see examples of complicated things but not a simple "how to configure and use it" example :(. This is really nasty.
I gave up :(.

Let's try the JavaFx.
There are some marketing materials which look promising. Ok. Let's search for a builder or for a plugin.
The only good plugin is for NetBeans :(. So I have to get used with a different IDE. Very good :(. Wait:) I see the light: JavaFx for Eclipse. Come on, that is a joke:(. I do preffer to use text editors instead of using that plugin.
I see there is a coming release for JavaFx. I registered to their site 3 times to get an invitation. Nothing in 1 week. Ok, it seems that JavaFx is a BIG SECRET. Ok SUN guys keep your technology for yourself. Maybe you will be the only user of the "new" JavaFx ....


I am really disapointed. Is it so difficult to find a good framework to let you to build simple CRUDs for 5 entities in less then 2 hours :(?
I expect from a RIA framework to have the following:
1. simple custom scripting language
2. simple configuration
3. simple deployment description
4. simple integration with the bussines logic
4. UI designer
5. to be able to build non-ajax/ajax like UI
6. to have the same UI code both for a web and for a desktop application :)
7. to let me code in Java

Does anybody know such framework?

Supermarket anti-pattern

Consider the following scenario:
- dozens of classes used to define the object model
- one class to manage their update
- one class to manage their creation
- one class to manage their deletion
When the model had only 3 objects the class did not look so bad. But let's see what happen when the model was extended to 20 objects:
- nobody thought of refactoring the classes
- these classes have now 40-60 public methods

Problems:
- they have almost no cohesion
- almost unreadable
- full of duplicated code
- unstable

What the project achieved by doing it like this:
- one big class which does all
- few code dependencies; the rest of the code has to depend on only one class :)

I call this kind of "design" a Supermarket anti-pattern because we have everything in one single place :).

Don't do this in your projects!!

Jazoon '07 - day 3

Keynotes:

Eclipse way to Jazz
Eric Gamma(do I know him from somewhere? … hmm … GoF ? J) presented the development process that his team is using in developing different Eclipse projects.
The motivation of Jazz is to reduce the “boring tasks”. He said “devs do not like to read” J. It is so true.

The features of Jazz are quite interesting:

- Management of release plans

- Management of deliverables

- Management of builds

- Cooperation support for devs

- Nice web and desktop interfaces

I look forward to test Jazz. I will check if it is able to use another tool stack than that presented by Eric: Equinox, Derby and Tomcat.

I was nicely surprised to see Eric’s interest in defining and implementing a development process. I hope that I can make our clients more aware of the need of the process. The like Eclipse, so it would be a good reason to develop the project in the same way as Eclipse is developed. I see at least a light in the darkness.

Technical presentations

Persistence with EJB 3.0
It was a good presentation with expressive examples about how can we should use the new JPA in our projects as ORM.

Spring 2.1
Juergen presented some nice features from Spring 2.1 such as:

- annotation configuration

- auto-wiring via annotations

- component scanning

He also pointed out that a lot of performance improvements and fixes had been included I this release. So if you use Spring in your project keep an eye on the release date and switch to the new version.

Java FX
I am not a UI developer. I can say that I am not too enthusiastic about the way in which Java supports UI development, BUT JAVA FX IMPRESSED ME.

It is not yet another scripting language. Here is why:

- It is simple, powerful,

- has a syntax close to Java,

- can use Java objects easily

- can produce extremely nice examples

I do not say these because the speakers had said it, BUT because they shown us.
Flash is dying, long live Java FX!!!

Die hard 4
The organizers had a surprised for us: Die Hard 4, the movie. It was nice to relax after 3 days of conference. I am not a movie critic, but I would say that it is more violent and has more special effects than the previous one. By coincidence or not, the action from the movie is related to IT and hackers J. So go and see Die hard 4 if you like Bruce Willis and you want to see an action movie J.

Conclusions:
The third day was the best one, because of the topics and the speakers ;).

As a summary I would say that it was a nice experience to participate to this Java conference; there were a lot of new things that I had found. Some things to improve:

- extend the time for one presentation – 40 minutes in some cases is to less

- invite known speakers;

- do not accept some presentations only because the company is a sponsor

- do not feel the gaps with a lot of useless presentations from sponsors employees