Working with Apache Cordoba to make a cross-platform hybrid Mobile App
Write once, run anywhere
A pile of mobile devices including smart phones, tablets, laptops and eBook readers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Despite its best intentions, the motto of Java did not ring quite so true when it came to natively supporting the complex slew of Mobile devices such as Smart Phones, Tablets, E-Readers and Fitness Devices (wearables, smartwatches, etc) that began to emerge in the mid 2000’s through to today. Theoretically, yes, one could write a small basic Java project using only the most essential native Java library packages/APIs, which “should” then pretty much just run on any device upon which you were able to get root access and install a JVM (if one weren’t already installed), and then run your compiled code. On smaller less powerful devices like Mobile phones in the early days we could use various flavours of Java Micro Edition (or “JME”, then called “J2ME”, although rarely used it is still deployed in edge contexts, mostly just for IoT and embedded devices these days). The problem was we could not use the full suite of Java Swing or later JavaFX UI components, and had to learn a whole new set of UI programming techniques which was more similar to the “bad ol’ days” of Applets and raw GUI programming via the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT). Inefficiently re-painting the complete GUI with each interaction programmatically, and commonly needing to get right down to X,Y,Z graphics programming, rather than deferring to UI libraries for rendering reusable components.
“Ok, I’m sold already” you say? Then jump to the Apache Cordova instructions! If not read on for the rest of the abbreviated/opinionated take on Mobile development history.
HTML Tutorial and Web History lesson
Today, something unexpected happened. I had the (somewhat unplanned and impromptu) pleasure of showing the ropes to the “new recruit” at work, a student here for a work term over summer break.
Now, we’re not necessarily doing that much coding here yet, as we’re still in the process of bringing back large portions of IT functionality in-house. We do, however, do a lot of software configuration, release management, testing/QA tasks, and, we are ramping up to use a major enterprise CMS to be able to create front-end content quickly (HTML/JS/CSS backed by JSP & EJB following OSGI structure).
I’ve always wondered in the back of my mind, if I were “in charge”, how would I more gently introduce the younger generation to the world of “enterprise programming”? Certainly the “enterprise world” is often significantly different, if not completely far-removed, from the real-world of cutting edge software development based on agile methodologies and lightweight web frameworks, co-developed with the customer in real-time, or implemented competitively overnight at a weekend hackathon. It is also far-removed from the naiively specialized world of “academic coding”, where “programming problems” (albeit sometimes very tricky ones) are assigned with a very clear set of up-front requirements and well-defined metrics for acceptance, where every assignment is given a certain amount of time to complete and graded for completeness and of course for “originality” or “ability-to-follow-the-book-without-copying” (where copying any minor component is seen as the devil’s work, labelled plagiarism, and ostracized).
Enterprise application development on the other hand, often times has no clear-cut requirements, no well-defined acceptance criteria (other than customer happiness) and is both behind schedule and over-budget before coding even begins. That thing about the no copying? Yeah that’s tossed out the window in favour of cutting corners and “getting it to market” as quickly as possible, often at the expense of quality (or in some cases even the development team understanding the solution, the most recent case that comes to mind is this hilarious StackOverflow verbatim copy “programming faux pas” from a Nissan connected car developer). All that being said, enterprise application development isn’t that hard, just more complex and frustrating than greenfielding, open source work, or even consulting. So it turned out to be a good opportunity to take a stab at it, as the student in question only had a year of Computer Science so far and despite some exposure to Java had not much in the way of Web development yet as those courses were coming later in the program. He did however, have a healthy interest in the Gaming industry, an industry which is increasingly finding an audience and monetization options for its wares on Mobile and Web platforms.
“The only thing constant is change”
LayerPlayer released for SkipSearch
Announcing the availability of SkipSearch’s new Layer Player ALPHA version. This is still early days even though its a multi-year project for me, as I continue to work on this in my very rare spare time. This new feature will much more readily bring to light the capabilities of the recommendation engine built under the hood of SkipSearch (powered by OpenRecommender). With this release, SkipSearch is effectively moving from Alpha to Beta in 2015 and getting further and further from vaporware and inching slightly closer to being a legitimate full-blown, widely usable (and hopefully well-used) Web 3.0 application. Please take a moment to check it out, and sign up for the BETA if you haven’t already:
For comparison’s sake, here’s the architecture of a typical Web Crawler that powers most Search Engines:
JS Podcatcher (a Podcast client written in JavaScript)
English: The “Made for iPod, iPhone, iPad” emblem appearing on accessories approved by Apple Inc. for iPod, iPhone, and iPad. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
So just this month my 5-year old iPhone3GS finally bit the dust. I had been hanging on and managed to extend its life well beyond its 3-year Telco contract (which I immediately cancelled the day I was out) by pairing it with a MiFi hotspot for much cheaper VoIP-based calling and using data-intensive applications only when on WiFi. That trusty iPhone3GS made it through a major liquid submersion (thanks to the good folks at Atlantic Cell Phone Repair) two cracked screens (thanks to the good folks at iCracked). At some point I may even replace the screen again, which is what’s gone a third time. I’m pretty stubborn though, and now that I’ve finished off my Mobile contract for the MiFi as well, pretty much at all costs I really didn’t want to have to buy another discounted device which usually requires one to agree to the terms of a foolishly one-sided/restrictive 2-year or 3-year contract; likewise, I really don’t want to shell out anywhere near the full asking price in the $500-$1000 price range for a new smartphone. So it’s either go back to my old Nokia flip-phone and live in the early 2000’s on a basic voice-calling only plan, or, hack my old 4th generation iPod Touch into something with phone call abilities. Of course, I opted for the latter!
iPhone 3G and iPod Classic 5G. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Luckily thanks to an excellent VoIP app called BRIA (of which a 4th gen. iOS 4 version is still available in the iTunes App Store), I was able to continue doing voice calling by using my Anveo VoIP service (highly recommend this low-cost VoIP provider, please enter Referral Code 5334764 if registering). I was already using Anveo through BRIA on the iPhone, over MiFi when on-the-go, for over a year and a half since I got out of that first contract. I’ve described Anveo in great detail in “My Experiment in Cutting Cords (and costs) with VoIP” where I went over setting the VoIP service up on an iPhone (with BRIA app) and just how much could actually be saved per month by taking the plunge and switching to VoIP instead of a traditional Telco calling/data plan. I’ve found that with a little patience and using replacements (such as Slingplayer in place of Bell MobileTV, or, SoundHound in place of Shazam) along with some occasional disappointment (can’t get older versions of Netflix, Skype, Fitocracy, and several other top apps), I was able to get a good amount (about half) of the apps I was most frequently using on my iPhone3GS, downloaded to the iPod4th gen, in their older iOS 4-supported versions.
One somewhat irreplaceable app though that I just simply could not find, nor find a replacement for was the basic “Podcasts” app built by Apple (common alternatives such as Overcast, Downcast, TuneIN, Slacker, and even RSSradio all did not work on my device either). I mean, seriously Apple, WTF!? Even the very first iPod devices were within a few years of their release to become known as the cannonical “Podcatcher” (Podcatcher means a podcast downloader/player).
The term “podcasting” itself was first mentioned by Ben Hammersley in a February 2004 article in The Guardian newspaper as a portmanteau of the words “pod”, from the success in consumerizing digital music with the “iPod” line of Apple products and “broadcast” (as in traditonal Radio/TV broadcasting to many receivers over a wide area, constantly). As such, the native “Podcasts” app has been around since the early days, as Podcatching (better known as receiving and listening to Podcasts), became one of the main functions of iPods just as it continues to be a core functionality on the many other iOS devices. Why then, are older (iOS < 6) versions of the Podcasts app not still available through the iTunes App Store? The app existed back then, for those devices, and now its just plain unavailable it seems. Why not keep the old versions around? What if a legacy iPod user (anyone still on iOS 4 or lower for that matter) accidentally wipes or restores their device to factory settings? Tough luck if they didn’t store a backup that had that legacy version of the app which still runs on their device. This is an example of planned obsolescence at its worst!!!
Apple be damned, could the Podcast app’s functionality be replaced with a quickly hacked together web app though? Being a developer, that’s the question I wanted an answer to. So I realized it definitely should be doable, as Podcasts to me have always simply been RSS news feeds with links to Audio files embedded in them in a variety of ways. Thanks to Apple’s aforementioned “Podcatching” dominance, and iTunes’ position of oligopoly, Podcasts also need to be garnished with plenty of Apple-specific syntactic metadata to satisfy the behemoth that is the iTunes Store and rank better therein, so have to be able to parse that crap too.
All that to set the context for this experiment, which aims to concisely (I promise hah, from here on) describe how I took my original RSS parser from the post “RSS Reader in jQuery .vs. JavaScript”) on using JavaScript and/or jQuery to implement an RSS news reader, and modified it a few weeks ago to allow me to read the media links and embed codes.
Musa Betsu Kyu Judo club website launch
Japanese judoka ,Jigoro Kano(right) and Kyuzo Mifune(left) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Just a quick update on what I’ve been up to lately in my spare time (well one of the many projects), working on the site for the local (Greater Moncton area) Judo club called “Musa Betsu Kyu”. It is run by Sensei Earl O’Blenis who is an excellent Judo instructor that we’re fortunate to have in the area. If you have a moment please signup for the site and/or Facebook Group and support the club.
The highlights of the site so far are the ability to pay for your monthly club dues online with a single click (for the forgetful you can either set it up as a monthly subscription or one-time payment), as well as two interactive charts; the first being the “Gokyo Tachi Waza” (Judo’s 5 levels of standing techniques) and “Ne Waza” (Judo’s ground grappling/wrestling).
Check out the new website/blog at:
monctonjudo.com
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.