Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Palm, not dead, innovating!
I have been a Palm device owner since 1998. I have owned 4 different models and I am now on my 5th, a Palm T|X. However, I have to admit, I haven't used it much lately as it has no phone capabilities and most of the other functionality is in my ordinary GSM phone.
I have tried to develop for the device, but failed misserably as I don't like programming in C and the available J2ME version for Palm OS was misserable.
It has been quite quiet about Palm the last years or so. They tried to introduce the netbook like phone-extension / laptop, which wasn't a hit in any way. The market they where aiming at was way to narrow. Since then nothing has happened, until now.
At CES they introduced "Palm Pre". Pressrelease here, product info here, demo here, good coverage article from Engadget here.
It's a complete game changer. iPhone looks cool, but Apple has a terrible attitude towars developers and their customers I think. Google Android is also interesting but they don't have the experience of mobile devices, although they are aiming at the same future as Palm: the web OS.
Everything in their new OS is based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the kind of vision Google has with Chrome. But they also have hooks into the raw OS from these web applications. It will be very interesting to build GWT applications for this platform! 3D graphics aren't possible in this first version, but I guess it will come later.
Palm has also proved their experience in building mobile devices from scratch. The device is faster than anything else on the market according to what I have seen and read. And it has all those things you want it to have: GPS, 802.11 b/g WiFi, slide out keyboard, SMS, MMS, 3.5 mm headphone jack, USB 2.0, bluethooth, 3 MP camera.
Do I have to say that I want one?
I have tried to develop for the device, but failed misserably as I don't like programming in C and the available J2ME version for Palm OS was misserable.
It has been quite quiet about Palm the last years or so. They tried to introduce the netbook like phone-extension / laptop, which wasn't a hit in any way. The market they where aiming at was way to narrow. Since then nothing has happened, until now.
At CES they introduced "Palm Pre". Pressrelease here, product info here, demo here, good coverage article from Engadget here.
It's a complete game changer. iPhone looks cool, but Apple has a terrible attitude towars developers and their customers I think. Google Android is also interesting but they don't have the experience of mobile devices, although they are aiming at the same future as Palm: the web OS.
Everything in their new OS is based on HTML, CSS and JavaScript, the kind of vision Google has with Chrome. But they also have hooks into the raw OS from these web applications. It will be very interesting to build GWT applications for this platform! 3D graphics aren't possible in this first version, but I guess it will come later.
Palm has also proved their experience in building mobile devices from scratch. The device is faster than anything else on the market according to what I have seen and read. And it has all those things you want it to have: GPS, 802.11 b/g WiFi, slide out keyboard, SMS, MMS, 3.5 mm headphone jack, USB 2.0, bluethooth, 3 MP camera.
Do I have to say that I want one?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
A story of project failure
I've been delaying looking at a video for a long time, but tonight I took the time.
Go to Mitch Lacey's presentation at InfoQ and remember all your old projects going wrong.
It really highlights the importance of understanding the customer and making sure the customer understands you. If this fails it doesn't matter what process you use, be it agile and Scrum'y or heavy and RUP'ish.
It's in my collected experience that to often the customer is the biggest issue. Software engineers are good at building whatever they are told. But customers to often doesn't have a clue what they are asking for. To often it's the wrong people asking for something to be buildt!
It's our job as software engineers to see this. Send the customers to product owner training or whatever necessary. But make sure you are talking to the right people and ensure you understand each other. Don't just take their word for it whne they say that you are building the right thing. Have then to really feel the system you are building, early, and make then understand that this is what they are going to get. No magic is going to happen later.
A friend of mine is writing an interesting PhD on using ontologies as an early mean to communications in software projects. That could be an insteresting take on this issue. I'll post about it when it's done.
Go to Mitch Lacey's presentation at InfoQ and remember all your old projects going wrong.
It really highlights the importance of understanding the customer and making sure the customer understands you. If this fails it doesn't matter what process you use, be it agile and Scrum'y or heavy and RUP'ish.
It's in my collected experience that to often the customer is the biggest issue. Software engineers are good at building whatever they are told. But customers to often doesn't have a clue what they are asking for. To often it's the wrong people asking for something to be buildt!
It's our job as software engineers to see this. Send the customers to product owner training or whatever necessary. But make sure you are talking to the right people and ensure you understand each other. Don't just take their word for it whne they say that you are building the right thing. Have then to really feel the system you are building, early, and make then understand that this is what they are going to get. No magic is going to happen later.
A friend of mine is writing an interesting PhD on using ontologies as an early mean to communications in software projects. That could be an insteresting take on this issue. I'll post about it when it's done.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Certified ScrumMaster
I'm a certified ScrumMaster (CSM) since a couple of weeks. The training was great. I went to Uppsala and was trained by Mikeal Lundgren from Citerus.
It was happy to take this training in Swedish with a Swedish trainier talkng about Swedish cases. If feel that is often a problem when you read books on the topic, that you feel a bit unfamiliar with the compay culture that is portrayed. Mikeal has a lot of experience from the inside of swedish companies and is a great speaker.
Now, my task is to try to apply this knowledge in my small upstart company. That's a challange! I have to try to find a form for Scrum with a small team, where everyone splits his time with other things and the majority are consultants. And getting money into the company is top priority.
It was happy to take this training in Swedish with a Swedish trainier talkng about Swedish cases. If feel that is often a problem when you read books on the topic, that you feel a bit unfamiliar with the compay culture that is portrayed. Mikeal has a lot of experience from the inside of swedish companies and is a great speaker.
Now, my task is to try to apply this knowledge in my small upstart company. That's a challange! I have to try to find a form for Scrum with a small team, where everyone splits his time with other things and the majority are consultants. And getting money into the company is top priority.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
SpringSource Tool Suite is out
SpringSource Tool Suite is out. It's Eclipse based, but I'm still in love with IDEA. But I guess I have to have a look at it.
I wish JetBrains could port their stuff to the Eclipse platform so I could have both worlds, in one IDE.
I wish JetBrains could port their stuff to the Eclipse platform so I could have both worlds, in one IDE.
OSGi link collection
- Paremus - we will consider using their distributed platform for our product
- Spring DM - a must for enterprise class OSGi systems
- Maven OSGi Bundle Plugin (BND) - darn, it took too long time before I found this one for some reason
- Eclipse Equinox - now a first class Eclipse project, and (other says) the best OS OSGi implementation
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