Glen Cordrey

Hello everyone. I'm Glen, the new kid at the helm of the J2ME section. I'll start by thanking Jason and Alan for the opportunity to expostulate in these hallowed pages. Like many Java developers I find JDJ an indispensable resource in my everyday work: its code and technical enlightenment have often saved me time and work, so I'm pleased to be associated with the magazine. I'm particularly gratified to be involved with the J2ME section, because J2ME has been the most interesting and exciting technology I've worked with in awhile. I still work frequently with and enjoy J2EE, but J2EE has been around long enough to acquire a middle-age maturity, polish, and sophistication, while J2ME has the brashness and enthusiasm of a youngster. It's especially interesting to be part of the early years of a technology, when you can see its promise, grapple with some of the fundament... (more)

Quality Is Job n?

At a training session I recently attended, a presenter mentioned that his cell phone crashes whenever he runs a simple MIDlet that he wrote. While it may have been inevitable that poor-quality environments would make it onto J2ME platforms, it's still distressing to see some J2ME development proceeding down the trail blazed by the megacorp in Redmond. Now I am not one of those who despise Microsoft. Microsoft is not inherently evil, and both good and bad have come out of it, as is true of just about any corporate entity. But I do feel that Microsoft's sins have been egregious in ... (more)

Pushing the Limits

Developers new to the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP) are often surprised by some of the limitations and their consequences, because they seem to be omissions of obviously needed functionality. In this article I discuss my personal favorites - the rationale (to the degree I can discern it) for them; the impact of their omission; workarounds and alternatives; and the efforts that exist to address these limitations. These efforts often involve Java Specification Requests (JSRs), which I'll reference when applicable. Some of the limitations are in fact limitations of the Co... (more)

Convenience Apps

What is a killer app for J2ME? Well, if I had a specific answer to that question I'd be slaving away over it during all my free time, dreaming of the riches and life of ease ahead of me. If you scan various MIDlet sites, you'll find a preponderance of games, numerous business applications, and a scattering of "other." The appeal and value of business applications has been widely discussed, so I won't rehash old ground. It's also easy to see the appeal of developing games, as the portability of handheld devices makes them an obvious target for entertainment applications. However,... (more)

The MIDlet Marketplace

Where can you go to make your MIDlets available to the public? Let's take a brief tour of some of the Web sites that offer MIDlets to the public and explore some of the factors you should consider. As with so much in life, one discriminator is money - are you providing your apps for free, or do you want to make money from them? Some sites, such as midlet.org, offer only free MIDlets, so if you want to make money you need to look elsewhere. Some sites provide a mix of free, shareware, and pay-per-download MIDlets, and some provide just the last. Another factor is which devices you... (more)