There is Writing… And There is Writing

I enjoy writing, I really do.  If I did not I would not spend my time blogging and writing novels. Heck I even like writing documentation in my code at work. The written word is nothing I fear nor loathe. However there is some writing I could do without. Or rather, prefer not to do.

One such type of writing is writing e-mails to clients or business correspondence. Not that I can not communicate effectively. Rather I dislike the whole political tip-toeing on does. Formalness and diplomatic speak is something I do out of necessity.

Another type of writing I never cared about is essay writing. Yes, yes I can give argue a point and give evidence. But in high school, teachers want you to use their silly hamburger paragraphs and their thesis and conclusion setup. I mean for real? Read a real essay and see how real writers argue their points. You argue the point quickly to the point, without going on and on and on about boring redundant evidence. Just to make a point. Not to mention page length expectations. Make your point and use as much or as little as you need. Do you wonder why journalism instructors have to first unteach all the folly of high school.

So why the rant? I had to do both recently. But helping my brother work on his essays, just brings back less than fond memories of high school English. I liked the reading, but the only English class I enoyed was the one with the cute attractive teacher. I don’t blame her, because she had to teach a curriculum set out by a merry band of bureaucrats. And most of the class was not imaginative enough to write anything half decent. But irritated me to no end.

Fortunately most of my writing nowadays consists of technical work, blogging and novel writing. So once I finish helping my brother I can get back to writing my novel.

MeeGo Nowhere

My previous blog post about MeeGo was completely off-base. So it looks like Nokia decided to go with Windows Phone 7. Personally I don’t see the point, but then again I don’t run a Fortune 500 firm either. Apparently there are still plans for a MeeGo powered handset/mobile computer. Sometime in May, maybe? However it does not bode well for us from the Maemo community.

So what about the dreams of having a real Linux running on handsets, netbooks and all that jazz? Well it looks like WebOS gets that privilege and honour. Maybe others will run with MeeGo, but this all is starting to all look a lot like the OpenMoko or LiMo. In other words, a Linux + GCC + X + Gtk + Qt stack is something that for now will remain in the corner. Something that the free software idealists, early adopters and researchers will run. But otherwise, rather irrelevant to the rest of the world. I’m also worried that closed, locked down garden walled ecosystems will prosper rather than something totally free and flexible. So Stallman’s dystopian future of the Luna colonies looks all the more real, each and every day.

So what about our man, Nokia, jumping off a burning oil platform into the “safety” of the North Sea, as CEO Elop so eloquently quipped? Hope they don’t die of shock. The North Sea is not exactly a safe and nice place to take a pleasant dip into. I wish them the best and hope they don’t end up washed up on the shore of some strange mobile country as a frozen corpse. Because baby, it is cold outside (the mainstream mobile ecosystems).

So where does that leave us? Knowing Qt is still a good idea for other reasons. The Maemo user and developer community should prepare to become self-sufficient because there probably will not be anymore Maemo-like devices out there. As for MeeGo? Come back in May and we’ll see if anyone gives a damn. The most widely adopted, open and flexible mobile OS right now is Android. At least thats how I see things playing out.

Odds and Ends and Everything in Between

When one ought to go sleep, but instead insists on staying up to finish one more thing… than one is an workaholic.  But who am I kidding here?  My excuse is really that I’ve realized that this week is a crucial crunch week.  And that once things are done, I can take things a bit easier.

So why am I posting this instead of finishing off my odds and ends?  And getting some sleep?  I want to start some good habits that I want to carry out through the new year and beyond.  One of them is writing everyday, and moving forward on my long overdue tasks.  Hence this is today’s blog entry.  I apologize if it sounds like filler but it isn’t.  Anyways, now I really need to finish work and get some sleep.  Good night and good day!

justCheckers for Android is On the Move

I’m pleased to announce that I have gotten back to developing justCheckers.  I missed coding on my own projects.  And I am glad that I motivated myself to get back on it.  This time around I went the Android route, since the Android framework makes development of multimedia, threaded applications really easy in Java.  And it gets around the nasty distribution problems involved with desktop applications.

I also decided against working with a team this time around.  I came to this decision after realizing how much more productive I am coding by myself.  And how much solo coding I do at my day job.  Also I spent more time organizing teams and tasks then actually getting them done.  So I quietly disbanded the potential dev teams and closed down the mailing list.  At least for now.  I might look to building a team after I scale up.

At the moment I finished building a decent looking first draft user interface.  Now I am trying to hook the UI to the existing game engine/controller.  Once that works, I’ll get back to fixing the game engine to make it generic enough to handle the different rules for the different variants of checkers.  Hopefully I’ll be able to release something soon.

Nokia and Qt, I Choose You!

Since I commented on this post about MeeGo here, I really should explain.

I went to a Wavefront/Nokia seminar about Nokia’s Qt and Ovi store on Friday.  Partially out of curiosity, partially to network and partially to perhaps win a brand new spanking N8.  Not that I want to hand in my N900, but I like new kit.  And as a research & development mobile developer it is my responsibility to learn about the whole of the mobile ecosystem.

First of all I want to say is that I am amazed by the pains that Nokia goes through to maintain being a market leader.  Not to sound like a PR person for Nokia, but the number of countries and languages that Ovi is available is astounding.  And for anyone wanting to integrate their app purchases with a carrier’s billing system Ovi is the only way to go.  Why?  The Google Market integrates with 2 carriers.  Nokia’s Ovi Store integrates with 99 carriers.  So while Apple iOS and Google Android do a remarkable job, they don’t scale like Ovi does.

Another thing that Nokia does well is compete in various markets against various vendors at the same time.  In the superphone market it is up against Apple, Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Microsoft, Google, etc.  In the business space against RIM’s BlackBerry.  And it wipes the floor in the feature phone market.  Yes, the superphone market is proving difficult for them.  Hopefully MeeGo will change all that.

Qt is amazing, and Nokia is pushing Qt hard.  Very, very hard.  This is awesome news for the KDE community.  And it also provides a glimmer of hope for developers who would love to learn one framework very, very well and use everywhere.  Java failed, and if Android (which ONLY works on smartphones or smartphone-like handsets) is the best we can do then we have failed.  This is coming from someone who earns his bread and butter as an Android developer.  I love working in Android, even with all of its quirks and oddities.  But Qt… thats a whole new level, especially if the market accepts MeeGo.

So know there is a bunch of speculation about Nokia CEO Stephen Elop dropping a platform and merging with something Microsoft.  And everyone is speculating Symbian, Symbian^3 or MeeGo.  Symbian is not going away.  And I don’t think MeeGo will go for three reasons: it took years to get MeeGo to where it is.  Second is that already most of the up and coming in-vehicle interface systems will run MeeGo.  And third is this interesting tidbit:

Audience: So when is the next Qt training session for Toronto?

Nokia Rep: There is one in March for Montreal.  There will be one in Vancouver in April.  And there will be a whole new set of sessions including Toronto, around MeeGo devices.

That and other comments at the seminars point to MeeGo device appearing sometime before May.  So what about this mysterious announcement?  Well everyone seems to have forgotten that Nokia has a gaming platform: NGage.  Yes, that NGage.  The one that is not doing so well.  So how will they compete in the mobile gaming space with the iPhone/iPad and Sony’s next PSP that is Android based?  How about bringing Microsoft’s XBox to mobile devices?  Hmm…

Discuss!

As a sidenote, I’m planning to learn Qt while working on my current work project.  I can’t wait.