Now you have to cover as many platforms and take care of device fragmentation if your application or service has to give you good coverage across various markets and regions.

I had developed for WindowsMobile since the PocketPC 2002 days, for J2ME since its inception,  and Symbian S60 since the first device was released, but I never was doing mobile device development as a full time job or even hobby, I did however, develop applications and snippets that the usual mobile developers did not venture to.

My most work was on J2ME which I did take up on professional level apart from a few projects in S60, where I found out that I knew much more about mobile device development than I thought I would. I was able to port most of my J2ME stuff to BlackBerry with added features using native classes and APIs. Unintentionally I knew the S60 API inside out without developing many applications and even the versioning issues and workarounds when a specific API was not working as intended under particular circumstances.

Then the dreaded iPhone was launched, an expensive mega mobile device with features unheard of and NO J2ME. Well it was only Web / AJAX development for the first few months. The requirement of owning a Mac for iPhone development is too huge a commodity, not that S60 development could be done on a Mac (out of the box), but Android has nailed it with support for not only these two but my favourite platform, Linux.

As a user, I like the Nexus One, but some things I can only do on the Nokia N97, even if its the most inferior looking to some out of the above devices. The Fuze / TouchPro was my biggest disappointment and hence no other WM phone is going to land in my pocket any time soon.

Now lets go through each of them briefly (trying to be in chronological order, omitting revisions):

Windows Mobile (PocketPC):

Supported by Microsoft it is one of the oldest platforms around in relatively similar shape. Although the .NET framework has changed it a lot but the main goal remains the same as always, to keep development similar to desktop Windows development. I am not sure about other developers but I do not think that worked for me, I was not a Windows developer ever, and Visual C++ or VB where alien terms for me, and knowledge of all things Linux never helped, my applications remained to eVB (embedded VB) because of its visual interface designer. I have later done C# applications as well but the memory management and background running things annoyed me more than any segfault on Linux.

Pros: Windows API, .NET, Familiar languages and constructs, Microsoft Tools, great on device debugging, can run J2ME applications

Cons: Mostly for Windows developers, SDK / Tools only for Windows OS.

Symbian S60:

Symbian also has its roots to older PDAs but in my opinion has changed too much from that era, I have done a few professional projects and know my way around its usually difficult documentation. With Carbide C++ getting better and now free its a good platform outselling most in some regions. All devices run J2ME with multi-tasking, leaving C++ to be used at will and when certain aspects of the phone are to be used.

Pros: Getting OpenSource, Carbide C++ free, Some Linux development possible, Ajax / J2ME applications work

Cons: Variant of C++, Troublesome signing, not so easy to set on device debugging

J2ME (Java):

J2ME is as close to normal Java as it could be on mobile devices, this approach has its own drawbacks but got developers attracted easily and applications rolling. Although the fragmentation with respect to screen colors, dimensions, and keypads killed the enthusiasm as quickly as it began. Although color screen devices with or without touch and any kind of keypad, keyboard, or the lack of it could be handled in one single application and all my applications were based on this. Most of my mobile device work is on this platform ranging from general purpose APIs to stock market and streaming media applications.

Pros: Familiar language and constructs, Cross Platform development, major device share

Cons: device fragmentation, tricky on device debugging, RMS is evil.

BlackBerry:

RIM used J2ME as its starter and provided APIs for native additions, this approach worked well for BlackBerry devices and enough professional applications are out there as this platform targets such users. I liked the native APIs for trackball, special keys, and network integration, etc. I ported some of my J2ME work with native APIs others were just re-packaged to work on RIM devices.

Pros: Similar to J2ME, native APIs and Classes.

Cons: tricky packaging and deployment

iPhone:

The most hyped platform, restricted by Apple and available to the masses unlocked and jailbrocken by I would like to know who. The one iPhone I had corrupted and had to reflash, jailbreak, unlock to get it to work again makes me think that the whole process is not anything like discovering X-rays or the sorts, there is simply no logic behind the precisely timed steps and so on. I have flashed official and not so official operating systems and ROMs to nearly all devices I ever owned (number goes into dozens) so I understand how you can accidentally hit a bootloader and how you need inside info to know it.

Owning a Mac is another bottleneck for iPhone development, its just too expensive compared to similar specification machine of vendors for Windows or Linux. So being unsure if I would do anything commercial I used a Hackintosh, but do not promote it, once you feel you are going to earn from it, go buy a Mac.

The final nail in the coffin, pay US$99 to get on device debugging to work, my foot, ok go ahead and google a free way around, I am still not impressed, the device itself has not seen any changes. Good thing is developers do not need to worry about device fragmentation but iPhone was supposed to be all about innovation, which we have not see between 2G, 3G, and 3GS.

Pros: Hot Platform, First AppStore

Cons: Mac OS X only, built upon antiques, costly on-device debugging / deployment, too much hype.

Android:

Aah, the new kid on the block, but this is how a mobile device platform should be like in this day and age, needs a bit more work on the usage side and I have high hopes associated with FroYo / Android 2.2. Has the best support for development on all platforms (Mac / Win / Linux) on-device debugging was so painless that I could not believe myself if its really my application or if HelloWorld! was installed by Google itself

Java in its full glory with APIs having access to anything on the device and then a Native Development Kit (NDK) for those who want to dive deeper, fixed a bug in the OS, fix it yourself (well a bit more difficult than that, but you got what I mean). Flashing a different OS / ROM does not feel like doing anything risky or potentially harmful to the device. Great work google. The applications maybe low in numbers but with more users jumping on with a better user OS, this is bound to change. Market has potential to attract developers, for the passion and of course the money.

Pros: Familiar language and constructs, vast and well organized API, superb on device debugging, Cross Platform development, OpenSource, use og XML resources.

Cons: low market share of devices,

These are my opinions. Other developers can have their own. Feel free to comment to discuss, but please avoid flaming just because I do not like what is dear to you. You can write about it on YOUR blog, thanks

6th February 2000 was my first day at wor as far as I remember, although I was employed as of 1st January 2000 and got my salary before even going to work because the office was under repairs, and they got the drift that I was appearing in “interviews” at other companies. Anyways according to my calculations I have completed 10 years at work.

First job at Global Information Systems for Voice Mail and Paging systems was landed through a phone call after my final exams, ended on 15th October 2000 when they decided to wind up operations in Karachi.

Second job at Matrix Systems (SoftPak Financial Systems) started the next day i.e. on 16th November 2000 through the only interview I appeared in till then mentioned above, had a hobby of mobile development on the side so finally quit in Feb 2005.

Third job was the second worst time of my career with 3 resignations in 11 months I was given a three months leave and landed at my first consultancy end of Jan 2006 later on this proved to be my longest employment stint. The leave at the mobile development organization only ended in a farce from their end.

But I was the next day at my own company providing consltancy with the same client Rockville Technologies, it slowly changed to permanent employment selling off my company and then moving to the main office in Islamabad still here and things are looking great.

I mentioned my second worst time, but not the WORST, lets better not talk about that but the thing is that no employer / company can hurt anybody, solet them try and just keep doing your work, you won’t need interviews and a few references will do

In short 10 years with 4 jobs with two covering eight years, and one company sold, its not been bad at all and a lot more is waiting for me in the future. Whatever you do just make some kind of webpage and maintain an online resume, you’ll never sit at home.

View of Islamabad from Margalla’s

For the convenience of others I am making this sheet available for everybody to download. Sheet1 has some Finance / Leasing figures specific to Pakistan and Sheet2 has a list that should cover all features available in this car, the car has so much to offer that the list should suffice for other vehicles of the manufacturers that need this kind of checking. Obviously Lexus, BMW, Ferrari and the likes have a kind of Quality Control which does not leave room for broken equipment to reach a customer anyways. Suzuki maybe a reliable name for two wheelers but we are talking about a car and that too assembled for a country where we are learning to spell “Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y”.

Download the spreadsheet (excel) here:

This one comes with Shimano derailuers and index twist shifters. Brakes are normal MTB ones, but rims and frame is good light weight, fork and frame shock absorbers make the ride comfy in offroading as well.

I put on a computer for speed, odometer, tripmeter, calories burnt, etc. Stop / night lamp with turn signals and siren, a halogen lamp for front and holders for cellphone and GPS navigation system. Unfortunately the frame has no holes for mounting a water bottle stand and I am on the look for a clap like system to fit on the frame, right now I have to use my backpack for that.

• Know how to use a computer mouse
• Have a free Yahoo! account
• Some idea what Feed, RSS, CSV, String, URL, etc. mean

You actually use the most simplistic IDE that is out there and draw your “pipe” which is like the basic definition of a computer:

1. Input
2. Processing
3. Output

The ouput is pre-defined by Yahoo! and can be an RSS Feed, an email, or a JSON (leave that to javascript or Ajax guys)

The input can be a URL which publishes a feed (auto-detection is available as well) or a CSV, although being an advanced developer I would have wanted to see more like what WebWag has to offer so a div or segment of a web page could be used as input.

The processing is what you have to define using the modules on the left and your imagination, you can combine search results of Yahoo! and Google in a unified web page with your user interface or multiple feeds or translate from a language to another and what not, give it a shot to see more. Every module has an example available which can get any body starting to create pipes

And that is not all, Yahoo! has taken care of us developers of the object oriented and software engineering era to give RE-USABILITY! your pipes become modules in other pipes, and you can publish your pipes to be used by others. Which means that soon various pipes are going to show up on the Internet which can make your task even easier of creating a pipe of your imagination!

One other thing could be improved by letting advanced developers write some kind of code themselves, this could open the door to mashups of mashups, e.g. the APIs mentioned on Programmable Web could be integrated in Y! Pipes.

I have never seen any operating system upgrade itself so smoothly, apart from the nVidia proprietary issue on which Ubuntu has no control everything was without human intervention.

The feel of the operating system is very solid, getting any kind of application I need, or would need is just a mouse click and a few mega-bytes away. Now why would I anybody want to use windows? Even if you are not sure that it is that good, just give the live CD a try and you would find yourself installing it soon after.

For those who are using other linux distros would also want to use Ubuntu to answer all the questions raised by Windows or Mac OS X users.

• In fact Linux has come a long way since I first installed it in 1996, it had a total nightmare installation and configuration compared to Windows 3.1
• Then the phase of KDE beta started when Linux was building a UI copying visually Windows but secretly creating a foundation which was to outclass the win kernel in the days to come
• Finally now we see the tables have turned and Nautilus features have been copied by the guys in Seattle to integrate in Vista, but even then the same hardware running Ubuntu gives Vista a run for its money in performance and visual effects, not even mentioning the hundreds of applications you can install so much easier in Ubuntu which was the advantage windows had a decade ago!

UBUNTU! for humanity!

However, more importantly I have decided to add content and posts on a regular basis, well as I have got every way of mobile blogging working this was inevitable.

Apart from adding details of upcoming projects I also need to put online latest screen shots and source code / sample projects for existing APIs that I have mentioned here on this site.

So if you find here something interesting keep checking and you may find something soon.