Tag Archives: mobile

TwimGo with Location Support

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It’s already a week since last release of TwimGo. Last release included the clickable user tags and improved follow/unfollow functionality.

On last Tuesday I went to Tampere MeeGo Network MeetUp and I had an opportunity to talk to Qt Web Runtime developer, Xizhi Zhu. We talked briefly about the location support in current version of Qt WRT and a day later I had a good instructions on how to use the location API in my apps.

Here you can see how you can easily add your current location to your tweets in TwimGo:

1. Click the “Get your location” button in tweet dialog

2. Now your phone starts to pickup GPS signal

3. Once the GPS signal is good enough it’ll show your current coordinates. You can click the button again and it will update the coordinates. Sometimes the GPS signal gets accurate in a minute so you could refresh your location just before tweeting.

4. Twitter will show your location with nice little map beside your tweet.

This version also includes saved searches support and ability to search tweets near you. I have found really interesting tweets with this feature.

Download the latest release to your Nokia N900 from http://twimgo.com.

Mobile Task Manager v1.4

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It’s been a while since the last update to any software. Now I had an inspiration to open up the NetBeans IDE and do some coding for the GTD app. This version includes few fixes:

  • Don’t crash when exported file already exists. Display readable error
  • Don’t export new line characters in notes as it invalidates the CSV

I also added few improvements as well:

  • Don’t add duplicate items when importing items from CSV
  • Very simple touch screen support (not tested on any device)

I hope that you like the new version! You can download the v1.4 from here. For anyone interested in the source code you can browse or checkout the code from here.

LWUIT 1.1 for Java ME Developers

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One of the problems with Java ME applications containing more advanced UI components have been that it is really painful to have it rendered consistently across different platforms and devices. I’ve used to implement my own set of practices on displaying lists of tweets in Twim or todo lists in Mobile Task Manager. Now I came across a nice looking UI library for Java ME called LWUIT.

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LWUIT supports such nice things like theming, transitions and animation. It also includes new UI components like TabbedPane and Dialogs.

I just got a new book to review, LWUIT 1.1 for Java ME Developers, written by Biswajit Sarkar. If you think that LWUIT could scratch your itch then I’d recommend on having this book on your desk as it works pretty nicely as a reference as well as good introduction to the whole library.

Book contains lots of emulator screenshots which help to understand the concepts very well. This combined with lots of sample code makes it really easy to learn all features of LWUIT library. Only one oddity is that it’s referencing to Sprint SDK where it could as well be the Sun’s original WTK but that doesn’t really have any affect on code samples.

Book’s first chapter is a good introduction to the library. The following chapters explain the default components and then there is one chapter on how to create a custom component. Last chapters dig into resources, LWUIT designer, themes, animations and transitions, painters, effects and logging. The index is also very complete which makes the book work well as a good resource in the bookshelf even after the first reading.

Check out the publisher site for more information about the book.

Getting even more things done

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When I crafted the Mobile Task Manager application this summer I didn’t expect it to have that good response in community. It was even mentioned in many blogs like Nokia Mobile Talk and even reviewed on one of my favorite Symbian sites, all about symbian.com, by Ewan Spence. Ewan pointed out good ideas how application could be improved to be even better GTD application for mobile phones.

Splash screen Task list

Last week I miraculously had few spare hours here and there and I was able to improve this app a little based on feedback written on the application page and based on Ewan’s review. Today I’m able to release the version 1.2 of the Mobile Task Manager with the following new features:

  • You can prioritize todo items (none, low, normal, high)
  • Priority shown as flags (none, green, yellow, red)
  • Priority can be changed from item view (left/right key)
  • …or straight from item list with ’0′ shortcut key
  • You can sort items by name, done-status or priority
  • Import items from text file or CSV file
  • FIX: pressing ’3′ causes the item below the one highlighted to open up for editing
  • FIX: “Delete selected” will not delete the last entry on a folder
  • FIX: pressing ’9′ does not work for quick note editing

Unfortunately I had to rename the JAR file in this release as it previously contained the version number so you can’t update your existing instance. From now on I’m keeping the same name (MobileGtd.jar) so future releases are going to update the existing installation. You can download the binaries (JAR/JAD files) from here.

Mobile Task Manager is still open source so if you like to check out the code you can do so in here.

Getting Things Done – With Mobile App

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Splash Screen

Splash screen of the new GTD application.

I like to get things done. For years I’ve followed my own action management methods but recently I’m leaning towards the David Allen‘s GTD method which he describes in his book Gettings Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I have used many tools to store the actions like traditional pen and paper and several desktop apps, like MiniTask and Evernote. I haven’t found any decent (and simple) mobile apps to do the same. I have used the Groceries app for this purpose but it was lacking in some areas of usability. This was the reason I created the Mobile Task Manager application.

I got good feature ideas from Jorge Ledesma who is a blogger at NokiaMobileTalk.com. The current set of features include:

  • Create actions
  • Edit actions (with 3 key)
  • Mark action as done (with fire key)
  • Purge done items
  • Create folders
  • You can add notes to actions (with 9 key)
  • You can rearrange the actions (with left/right keys)
  • Mark action as favorite (with 7 key)
  • Backup actions to CSV file

Check out the software page for additional screenshots and download links.