This weeks giveaway

[Carl Trusiak]

This week we are giving away four copies of the book "Java 2 Micro Edition Application Development".
And the best part... The Authors, Michael Kroll and Stefan Haustein, will be online to answer your questions!
Let's give them a warm JavaRanch Welcome!
Thanks to the people at Sams Publishing for the book's!

[Rishi Tyagi]

Welcome Michael Kroll & Stefan Haustein at javaranch j2me forum and be ready for giving answer as i am already here with my lot of problems in j2me.
A warm welcome
Regards,
Rishi

[Axel Janssen]

Hi Michael, Hi Stefan,
Thank You for answering questions.
I don't have any experience with mobile programming. Due to demand here in the company I am interested in Java on Palm Pilot. Does your book help me on this. Or is there a more focused one?
Will there be a german version? When?
regards Axel

[Michael Kroll]

Hello Rishi, Hi Axel,
thanks for the warm welcome. Our book covers MIDP and PDAP application programming as well. Since MIDP4Palm is available you can run MIDP application which are developed using the Wireless Toolkit for instance on the Palm as well. Another good and fast solution to run MIDP applications on a Palm would be to use Jbed from esmertec. In order to run PDAP application we present in the book we recommend to use ME4SE which can be found at http://www.me4se.org, which can be used on a real PDA such as the Compaq IPaq as well.
Yes, we are currently negotiating with a german publisher to create a german book :-)
Perhaps it will be available in some months.
If you got further questions concerning Palm and other J2ME topics don't hesitate to ask me.

[Anders Breivik]

Great to see a book that goes beyond the mere basics, as there is a plethora of books available to get you started.
Is there any focus on security and crypto, for example using the crypto API from bouncycastle.org?
I would really like to see a book go deep in and show what can be done there. The bouncycastle.org documentation is sorely lacking in MIDP examples ...
TIA!

[javababa]

Hi Carl,
I am new to this forum... can you tell me what is the criteria for giving these books

[javababa]

Hi Axel Janssen ,
You can get a lot of info from http://wireless.java.sun.com/ AND from
http://www.billday.com/j2me/
These sites will get you going in no time...

[Juanjo Bazan]

Hi Michael & Stefan,
Thanx for answering our questions.
What kind of reader did you have in mind while writing the book?? A basic level profile? an advanced user??
Did your book cover the basics with step by step examples or is intended as a reference book??

[Michael Yuan]

Originally posted by Anders Breivik:

Is there any focus on security and crypto, for example using the crypto API from bouncycastle.org?
I would really like to see a book go deep in and show what can be done there. The bouncycastle.org documentation is sorely lacking in MIDP examples ...
TIA!

Not related to the book. But I have an article about Bouncy Castle on MIDP published in IBM developerWorks in June:
Securing your J2ME/MIDP apps -- How to digitally sign and verify XML documents on wireless devices using the Bouncy Castle Crypto APIs
It does not cover all aspects of the API. But it should get you started and you've got the source code samples delivered with the package.

[Michael Yuan]

For those who might not know:
Michael Kroll is the author of kAWT, an AWT package ported to KVM.
Stefan Haustein is a lead developer in the EnhydraME project.

[Aaron O'Brien]

Hi,
I am interested to find out what this KAWT can do...any examples? Thanks!
SCJP2

[a sanjuan]

well, here's some questions for you that have nothing to do with midp:
some people have been asking me what the timeline is for getting the new PDAP implemented in actual devices (or even have a reference implementation)
http://www.jcp.org/jsr/detail/75.jsp
are you free to speculate on this?
also, some palm programmers are complaining about the possible SIZE footprint for this (about 1 MB?), and what effect it might have when preinstalled into newer PDAs (ie, that space could've been used for other things).
what do you think are the major advantages for palm/PDAs to having this new profile (as opposed to simply using C/etc to program in Palm)?
thanks.
[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: a sanjuan ]

[Michael Kroll]

Hello Anders,
yes we have a sample application covering the bouncycastle crypto api in out "thrid party api" chapter. We describe it's features and additionaly present a MIDP sample showing how to crypt and decrypt data. All crypt-api stuff is handled in two methods crypt() and decrypt() in order to simply "cut and paste" the functionality to own applications. But the bouncycastle crypto api is only one of many others that are covered by this chapter, so we have not spend many pages to describe it.

[Michael Kroll]

Hello Juanjo,
the reader of our book should have at least some basic java experience. We don't explain how to use prinitive data types nor explain how to build loops and so on. We introduce the MIDP and PDAP api a low level and create complex examples step by step. For example we start to describe the high-level MIDP api my implementing a small application using a Form and some Textfields only. Then the application is extended by Lists and Choices. After that Commands are added, and so on. We hope to give a developer who is familiar with a good book learing how to deal with MIDP/PDAP apis.

[Michael Kroll]

Juanjo, I forgot to mention, that we added "comparsion charts" in the appendix to provide some kind of reference in order to show J2SE developers which classes and methods are included. For example show the developer which methods of the String class can be used in J2ME.

[Michael Kroll]

Originally posted by Michael Yuan:
For those who might not know:
Michael Kroll is the author of kAWT, an AWT package ported to KVM.
Stefan Haustein is a lead developer in the EnhydraME project.

We are both working on kAWT. Stefan is leading some enhydra projects and ME4SE. For the latter I'm contributor of the RMS, CommConnection and the FileConnection. Currently we are developing many other ME4SE enhancements which will be available at the website soon.

[Michael Kroll]

Originally posted by Aaron O'Brien:
Hi,
I am interested to find out what this KAWT can do...any examples? Thanks!
SCJP2

kAWT is a subset of J2SE AWT. You can look at http://www.kawt.de to see some samples. I'm doing application development for IPaq and Nokia 9210 using PJava and the same applications can be run on a Palm using kAWT. Look at http://193.25.22.67/mobile/de/programme/index.html the Application uses the same java source for all three applications. That's what kAWT on a Palm can do ;-)

[Vlad Guru]

Could you guys recommend more good books/links/resources describing real time equity trading system architectures with J2EE&J2ME?
I am interested in examples building Equities/Fixed income/Client Portfolio systems.
thnks a lot

[Anonymous]

all I could say is thank you for answering are questions, thanks

[Stefan Haustein]

Originally posted by a sanjuan:
are you free to speculate on this?
also, some palm programmers are complaining about the possible SIZE footprint for this (about 1 MB?), and what effect it might have when preinstalled into newer PDAs (ie, that space could've been used for other things).
what do you think are the major advantages for palm/PDAs to having this new profile (as opposed to simply using C/etc to program in Palm)?

Hi Sanjuan,
I think the main advantage will be platform independence and simpler development, at least for programmers new to the Palm Platform. Unfortunately, I do not know whether the Palm PDAP implementation will be optional or mandatory, and when it will be available. I hope at least the RI will be available soon, but I do not have any concrete information about a release date. Your size estimation of 1 MB seems very reasonable.
Best,
Stefan

[a sanjuan]

well, thanks for the info. having the RI would at least be a first step, but if Palm OS ships with a JVM sometime in future, that would just be heaven!

Originally posted by Stefan Haustein:

Unfortunately, I do not know whether the Palm PDAP implementation will be optional or mandatory, and when it will be available. I hope at least the RI will be available soon, but I do not have any concrete information about a release date. Your size estimation of 1 MB seems very reasonable.
Best,
Stefan

[Mahesh Sivaraman]

Hi Michael Kroll and Stefan Haustein,
I am a beginner in J2ME development. Does your book contain stuff to help novice J2ME programmers like me ?
I hope i'll get a copy of your book.
Regards
Mahesh

[Michael Yuan]

Originally posted by a sanjuan:
well, thanks for the info. having the RI would at least be a first step, but if Palm OS ships with a JVM sometime in future, that would just be heaven!

Or even better: Palm can ship with a hardware implementation of JVM and support Java natively ...

[Robert Paris]

No, I disagree. If they ship a hardware impl. of JVM then the push for major advances in making the JVM/JRE protable across all devices and making it as lightweight as possible might stagnate. I'd rather see everyone concentrate on making software JVMs so we can keep researching how to make these superfast/lightweight but powerful.

[Michael Kroll]

Hi Mahesh,

Originally posted by mahesh sr:
Hi Michael Kroll and Stefan Haustein,
I am a beginner in J2ME development. Does your book contain stuff to help novice J2ME programmers like me ?
I hope i'll get a copy of your book.
Regards
Mahesh

Yes, the book is intended for developers without J2ME but Java experience. We start describing simple "Hello World" applications for CLDC/MIDP/PDAP describing compilation, preverification and running the app. Then we decribe step by step creating MIDP apps using WTK and describe PDAP step by step as well. So you can use the book to start developing MIDP and PDAP in parallel and see the differences of both APIs. By the way you will learn how to create applications using the same base (RMS and GCF) with sophisticated GUIs. Example Blood Sugar Logger. The app uses the same classes for persistent storage but different UIs.
Hope this helps a little.

[Michael Kroll]

Hi,

Originally posted by Robert Paris:
No, I disagree. If they ship a hardware impl. of JVM then the push for major advances in making the JVM/JRE protable across all devices and making it as lightweight as possible might stagnate. I'd rather see everyone concentrate on making software JVMs so we can keep researching how to make these superfast/lightweight but powerful.

I think and hope Robert meant that the AWT subset which is included in PDAP is mapped to native widgets which enhances the speed of the VM enourmous compared to a software implementation as we did in kAWT. Or did you mean a real Java-Chip? The new ARM architechture that will be available in PalmOS5.0 would make a powerful JVM implemetation supporting PDAP possible, but I think JVMs such as Jbed would make it as well.
Lets wait for first implemetations and Palms RI before we can speculate about how lightweight they really are.

[a sanjuan]

developing java on the palm has always been a chore, even the MIDP2Palm is basically just a stopgap because the MIDP apps load atrociously.
how will the release of the PDAP affect the kAWT?

[a sanjuan]

i just realized something...i have Feng and Zhu's Wireless Java Programming with J2ME, and it is also from the same publisher.
deoes your book cover aspects of j2me beyond that covered by the previous (older) book?
[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: a sanjuan ]

[Debbie Argulkar]

Hi Michael Kroll and Stefan Haustein,
I have a question for you.
Does the book talk about how to deploy applications and how to access them via the mobile device instead of the emulator?
Regards,
Deb

[Michael Yuan]

Originally posted by a sanjuan:
i just realized something...i have Feng and Zhu's Wireless Java Programming with J2ME, and it is also from the same publisher.
deoes your book cover aspects of j2me beyond that covered by the previous (older) book?

If I am not mistaken, Feng and Zhu's book does not cover the official MIDP 1.0 and many third party custom libraries in this new book.

[Michael Kroll]

Originally posted by Debbie Argulkar:
Hi Michael Kroll and Stefan Haustein,
I have a question for you.
Does the book talk about how to deploy applications and how to access them via the mobile device instead of the emulator?
Regards,
Deb

Hi Deb,
we describe JAM in general. Since some devices have a proprietary OTA mechanism we don't cover different ways to achive it. The JAD file properties are covered, but deployment is described only to the step of creating Jar/Jad file pairs.

[Michael Kroll]

Originally posted by a sanjuan:
i just realized something...i have Feng and Zhu's Wireless Java Programming with J2ME, and it is also from the same publisher.
deoes your book cover aspects of j2me beyond that covered by the previous (older) book?
[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: a sanjuan ]

Sure, we cover MIDP and PDAP as well. You will learn how to create the same application using MIDP and PDAP for instance and how to create applications handling PDAPs new PIM API.

[a sanjuan]

ok, then you definitely cover more than that book, which focuses basically on MIDP. it's a good basic book, but it does not really go into PDAs.

Originally posted by Michael Kroll:

Sure, we cover MIDP and PDAP as well. You will learn how to create the same application using MIDP and PDAP for instance and how to create applications handling PDAPs new PIM API.