Smartphone Application Development

Google's entrance changes the landscape for developers of mobile applications

Google makes a habit of sending shockwaves through the tech world at regular intervals. The release of the Android Software Development Kit, the first effort of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, was no different for the mobile phone marketplace. The Alliance's ultimate goal: to reshape the cell phone universe as we know it.

While there will be no "Gphone," the idea is to crack open software development for mobile applications.Android is built on the open Linux Kernel and encompasses an operating system, middleware, and even some key mobile apps, says Andy Rubin, Google's director of mobile platforms. The Alliance promises that "the platform will continue to evolve as the developer community works together to build innovative mobile applications."

To get the ball rolling, the Open Handset Alliance announced the Android Developer Challenge. During 2008, a total of $10 million in prize money will be awarded to innovative developers. The Alliance suggests they concentrate on social networking, media consumption, collaboration, gaming, rethinking of traditional user interfaces, or "whatever you're excited about." The game is definitely on.

The bottom line is mobile communications is a growth industry. Today's 3 billion mobile phone users outnumber both Internet users and land-line owners. That already huge number has nowhere to go but up. On top of that, each user will demand more from their phones as prices for phone-based Net access drop and data pipes from the Net to phones widen. The mobile landscape is going to change significantly over the next few years, and software developers are going to be the agents of that change.

The best part is Android platform uses the Java programming language with an Eclipse plugin, so there should be no hesitation to start your development (http://code.google.com/android/intro/index.html).

What is Google up to ?

Google's developer conference - Google I/O on May 29th 2008 at San Francisco was a huge hit, with more than 3000 developers attending it for two days. The message was clear and simple: the Web is the new platform for application development. Google wants to make its own slice of Web infrastructure (the Google cloud) more accessible to developers and encourage them to build and run applications in it. Google's idea is to make the client i.e. the browser to be more capable which will ensure that its connectivity with the cloud is powerful to work with harmony.

To showcase its client-cloud connectivity, Google detailed several examples at the conference. The first was the integration of Google Gears (a browser add-on in the Adobe Flash mould that allows for richer browser experiences) to enhance search in MySpace email. Gears works by persistently storing, synchronizing and manipulating data locally in the browser, effectively allowing online applications to function offline. Next it unveiled a new 'rent-a-cloud' pricing for its App Engine software that allows you to build Web applications that run on Google's cloud infrastructure that is based on CPU use per hour - a model that sounds very similar to Amazon.com's Web services.

Google also presented a new version of the Google Web Toolkit which allows developers to build rich Internet applications in Java; the hosting of new Ajax libraries that lets developers improve the performance of their Web applications using JavaScript tagging; and a strategy for transforming Web applications into mobile applications using a new SDK for its Android federated smartphone platform. The SDK basically provides WebKit views and allows mobile applications to be built using Web browser technology as the user interface.

Finally, Google also showcased interesting Web 2.0-like application development technologies for single sign-on for the Web (OpenID), universal authorization (OAuth) and a social network development 'standard' (Open Social). These technologies promise to connect Web pages, applications and service to the 'sticky' social Web.

These diverse tools and technologies might seem loosely unintegrated and targeted at different areas. In fact they're all cogs and wheels of a more meaningfully connected Web that hosts Google Web services powered by the Google App Engine. Importantly some of these Web services and applications aren't written just by Google, but by an entire market of independent developers.

These developers aren't just keen to build 'cool' Web applications for the sake of 'coolness'; they also have an eye on tapping into Google's billion-dollar online advertising revenue stream. Google likes to separate its Web development technologies from its advertising. But the two are inextricably linked. Google's monetization strategy is simple. Invest in advancement of the Web by allowing users to do more on the Internet. That makes the Web a much bigger market for Google to monetize services like search. For that reason we believe that Google sees a pile of money in its Web application development efforts downstream, even though for the time being it is focused on getting developers to build browser-based Web applications to thicken up its cloud.

The moral of the story is "be there where Google wants you to be"

Mac Hiccups

Being a windows user for several years, you master all the keyboard shortcuts. Then, when you shift to the fascinating Mac, you become handicap with the keyboard. This is a huge 'hiccup' which I have experianced. It really frustrates you when you really find it hard to copy a web address to notepad or cannot add a browser tab with the keyboard shortcut. Finally, the 'Knowhow' section of 'The Telegraph' came to my rescue with a classic website 'X vs XP' dot com and this had all the keyboard comparisions. Check Keyboard Comparision Table

Cloud Computing

'Get Your Head in the Clouds' is the first phrase i got when I made a google search for the above title. That idiom meant 'Give more attention to your own ideas, instead worrying about how it will execute'. Thats exactly what cloud computing does. It already has a default infrastructure and platform built for you in the internet cloud. You just need to deploy your application in that platform & you application will be available to everyone. I needed a technical specification and the best article I found was here. Cloud Computing Overview

Jeffrey Archer

Jeffrey Archer is in India, yeah the famous novelist. Had the opportunity to see one of his TV interviews out of the blue. Though I do not go near his novels cause they are fat, I do have something to read now .. 'his blog' . Interesting to know that 25% of his commenters on his blog are Indians, i'll be one of them hopefully. Check out Jeffrey Archer's Blog

Open Source Softwares for Mac OS

I have recently bought Apple Mac book (13.3 ") . Its a real piece of sophistication. I always believed that Mac was the Mercedes of the operating system world (Windows being a truck !!). And now after Mac is running on intel motherboard, it's free software support is increasing day by day.
One such link is this. Go to opensourcemac.
Imagine I just downloaded a free office suite for Mac (Neo office) similar to linux open office :) . Anyways I was almost confident of being an all time user of the online Google Docs after I got a trial version of Microsoft office on my Mac.

Designing the Star Schema [ The article I always refer..]

This article has always helped me in crucial times to get back to the basics of Start Schema Design.
I thought of pasting the article but due to the attached pictures, i preferred to paste just the url link. Go to Star Schema Design

The first entry..

Wow, i am finally in the in the world of BLOGGING !! I want to thank blogger.com for making it so easy for me. :)