You can always tell...
Wed, Jun 19th 2013 4:17p John Wargo You can always tell when I'm busy with something by how long it's been since I've updated the blog. I've got this big list of articles to write, but just can't seem to get to them.
At work, I've joined the Product Management Team for the SAP Mobile Platform, so that's keeping me very busy. I can't talk about what I'm working on yet, but I'll do some writing about it soon.
I learned recently that my PhoneGap Essentials book is the leading book on the topic (as far as sales numbers ind [read] Keywords: mobile
sap
136
Weird Spamming
Fri, May 24th 2013 12:17p John Wargo Just got a weird inquiry from my BlackBerry Development Fundamentals web site. I'm sure it's spammers, but I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish. Either I'm completely missing the point of this or whoever is trying to spam me knows nothing about the English language. Links removed for protection:
"engender links to a empire pinpoint Representing exemplar, you a on fidelity in return looking for to do as a pleasing unskilful verse advidoriecrb Note the spelling of purchased allotm [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
120
BlackBerry Facebook Application Broken
Tue, May 14th 2013 6:14a John Wargo Something’s up with the latest version of the Facebook app for BlackBerry. Parts of the UI simply don’t work and I don’t know how to let BlackBerry know about it. Apps like TeleNav Navigator have a feedback function which allows you to let them know when something doesn’t work or if you have suggestions for the application. All of the different mobile OS are adding APIs for Twitter, Facebook and so on, why not add a feedback API that allows an app to send customer comments/feedback to th [read] Keywords: application
blackberry
facebook
mobile
twitter
128
What Were They Thinking #13 – VZ Navigator
Tue, Apr 30th 2013 10:22a John Wargo While I worked at AT&T, I became a big fan of the TeleNav Navigator application which later became AT&T Navigator. The interface was intuitive and it worked pretty well. When I joined SAP, they gave me a Verizon BlackBerry 9900 and I lost access to the navigation solution I was accustomed to using. On Verizon, they have their own navigation solution called VZ Navigator; here’s what it looks like:
Figure 1
I was using it recently to navigate somewhere and noticed something about th [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
interface
sap
329
The Solution to My Domino Server Configuration Problem
Thu, Apr 18th 2013 7:21p John Wargo Thanks to all of you who helped out last week as I struggled to get my IBM Lotus Domino server to accept HTTP PUT and DELETE requests. I posted two articles about my issues, you can access them here:
Domino Server 405 Error
Update on My Domino Server Problems
Essentially, I was building a sample Sencha Touch application for an article series I’m writing for The View (www.eview.com) and the Sencha Touch proxy by default uses different HTTP request types for each of the CRUD operations. T [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
application
java
javascript
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Calatrava
Mon, Apr 15th 2013 7:21p John Wargo My publisher told me about a cross-platform mobile framework today called Calatrava (http://calatrava.github.io/). I still need to do some reading about what it really is, but something in the announcement caught my eye:
"Mobile is the oncoming train of the future of computing. For more and more users their mobile device is becoming their first way to reach everything on the Internet. You need to be on-board with this. But there are three platforms to support: iOS, Android and Mobile Web."
I [read] Keywords: mobile
324
Update on My Domino Server Problems
Sun, Apr 14th 2013 11:18a John Wargo Thanks to all of you who helped out last week trying to help me fix my Domino configuration problem. Tom Verleysen and Michael Dudding suggested creating an Internet Sites document which I thought made sense based upon what I’d read on the Internet but wasn’t sure exactly how to implement it. I followed the instructions I was given (I think) and setup the following:
I updated the server document so it uses internet sites documents:
Figure 0
I now have an Internet Sites document with th [read] Keywords: agent
domino
lotus
application
server
284
Domino Server 405 Error
Wed, Apr 10th 2013 7:13a John Wargo I’m trying to wrap up an article series for The View (www.eview.com) on developing Sencha Touch applications for IBM Lotus Domino and ran into a problem that I can’t seem to find a solution for – can you help me out? Please?
I’ve created a simple competitive information database in Notes and exposed it to mobile devices using several methods. I first built a Rhodes application (www.rhomobile.com) that synchronized data with the Domino server and wrote a series of articles about it. You [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
application
applications
database
mobile
server
103
PhoneGap Essentials Korean Translation
Mon, Mar 25th 2013 5:14p John Wargo Last week I received a copy of my PhoneGap Essentials which had been translated into Korean (at least I think it’s the Korean translation, I can’t actually be sure – as I don’t read Korean). Here is the book, perhaps you can read it:
Figure 1
Anyway, apparently the book has been licensed for translation into Korean and Traditional Chinese. The Chinese version of the book was supposed to have been published months ago, but I don’t know what happened to it. I’ll receive a copy as s [read] Keywords:
109
Coolendar - Not Today
Thu, Mar 21st 2013 7:14p John Wargo I was going to write a bit about a cool calendar site called Coolendar, but apparently it's not working right now. I'll try again later. [read] Keywords:
135
Wi-Fi Only Tablets
Wed, Mar 13th 2013 4:14p John Wargo I’m not quite feeling the benefits of a Wi-Fi only device. Having worked for a device manufacturer then a carrier, I guess I’m a bit spoiled when it comes to connectivity. Over the years I’ve had several tablets, some with cellular connections and some with only Wi-Fi connections.
I have to admit that I find that the Wi-Fi only devices never seem to have connectivity when I need it the most. At home (of course), at most airports and at many national chains (hotels, restaurants, stores), t [read] Keywords: connections
blackberry
network
networking
office
126
More on Email Message Format for Mobile Devices
Mon, Mar 4th 2013 12:11p John Wargo A few weeks ago I posted an article complaining about how major brands don’t consider mobile email clients when they craft their blast email content. I even showed some examples of poor email content design from American Express and RIM. A reader of the site missed the point of my article and suggested I learn how to use my BlackBerry and enable automatic download of images in the email. Apparently he (or she, not quite sure) skipped reading the article and instead simply saw the screen shots [read] Keywords: blackberry
email
mobile
rim
86
Follow-Up Then
Fri, Feb 22nd 2013 3:11p John Wargo I don’t remember how I first learned about this service, but it’s pretty cool. Followupthen (http://www.followupthen.com/) is a free service you can use to remind yourself of stuff. What’s cool about it is that you configure reminder settings using the email address you send your message to.
First you have to sign-up for an account. Once you’ve completed that step, your remaining interaction with the service is all done via email. For example, to remind yourself to pick up a birthday pr [read] Keywords: email
101
Using GeSHi in Joomla!
Wed, Feb 20th 2013 8:11p John Wargo If you’ve been poking around within this site, you may have noticed that I used to post a bunch of source code to the site. I don’t write as much code as I used to and much less than I’m accustomed to, but when I setup this site, I found myself posting a bunch of code and wanting to make it render properly on the site’s pages.
Being new to Joomla!, I poked around a bit and noticed that there was a code highlighting plug-in called GeSHi installed as one of the core plug-ins in any Joomla [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
java
server
xml
75
Using jUpgrade
Sun, Feb 17th 2013 5:11p John Wargo I’ve upgraded a few sites lately from Joomla! 1.5 to Joomla! 2.5 using jUpgrade. The upgrade from 1.5 to 2.5 isn’t exactly an upgrade, it’s more of a migration, so you really have to use tools like jUpgrade to make it work.
JUpgrade installs as a Joomla! Component and adds its own options to the Joomla! Components menu. It essentially downloads a version of Joomla! 2.5, installs it in a sub-folder from your original Joomla! 1.5 installation then copies ‘all’ of your stuff to the new [read] Keywords: database
mysql
security
server
118
Ignoring Mobile Email clients
Sat, Feb 9th 2013 1:11p John Wargo I’ve always been surprised at how major brands and larger organizations ignore smartphone users in their email blasts. I’m an American Express customer and get email promotions from them on a regular basis. When I open one of their messages, I see something similar to the screen shot shown below.
Figure 1
Everyone seems to think that you have to have lots of color and everything centered in an email blast, but at the end of the day that simply doesn’t work for mobile users – and I ha [read] Keywords: blackberry
desktop
email
mobile
113
Carrier APIs
Thu, Feb 7th 2013 6:11a John Wargo I have to admit that I simply don’t get Carrier-specific APIs. I used to work for RIM (now called BlackBerry), working with their largest carrier and later on worked at that same carrier. I know how desperately the wireless carriers don’t want to simply be a pipe (provide me with network access) – but instead want have all sorts of value-add products they can sell you. At the end of the day, all I want them to be is a pipe and I’d gladly pay them more money per month if they’d simply g [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
development
iphone
mobile
network
rim
wireless
Too Many Eclipse Instances
Mon, Feb 4th 2013 7:11a John Wargo I’ve been doing some more mobile development lately – building some applications on the SAP Mobile platform (what was formerly known as the Sybase Unwired Platform) and therefore cranking up some development environments for Android, BlackBerry and even iOS. In preparation for this work, I was updating my Eclipse instance on my Mac Mini plus creating a new Windows VM with Eclipse and all of the tools I needed. One of the things I noticed is that the whole concept of Eclipse plug-ins is essen [read] Keywords: ibm
applications
blackberry
community
development
eclipse
google
java
mac
macintosh
mobile
rim
sap
vm
DMCA Big Brother
Mon, Jan 28th 2013 10:15a John Wargo OK, let me see if I got this straight:
I have a legal right to make one archival copy of copyrighted material I own, say for example to make a copy of a music CD so that if something happens to the original, I can still listen to the music, but if the disc has copyright protection, it’s illegal (through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)) to break the copy protection in order to make that copy.
If that wasn’t stupid enough, now it’s illegal to jailbreak my smartphone? http://www [read] Keywords: apple
archive
iphone
103
Discovering Raspberry Pi
Sun, Jan 27th 2013 1:15p John Wargo Many months ago I learned about the Raspberry Pi hobbyist computer (www.raspberrypi.org). Apparently it was created to provide an inexpensive system that kids could use to learn programming. At $35US it really hits the mark.
I understand their goals well; I had access to micro computers in High School back in the late 70’s, at home at about the same time and in college as well. The reason I’m a computer developer is because I was able to be one so early in life and it definitely stuck. My f [read] Keywords: apple
blackberry
development
linux
python
server
wiki
52
Take two tablets and call me in 2015?
Fri, Jan 25th 2013 3:15p John Wargo Editors Note: The following is the first guest post published to this site. David Via is a long time friend (a really, really long time) and a really smart guy. Enjoy!
By David Via
I was conducting a ride along activity today when I was struck by a remarkable idea. Could it some day soon make sense for some mobile professionals to carry *two* tablet devices?
Let me backtrack just a bit. A ride along is when I shadow a mobile employee of a large enterprise in his daily activities to help ide [read] Keywords: collaboration
notes
applications
enterprise
macbook
mobile
52
Updated Site
Fri, Jan 25th 2013 8:14a John Wargo Well, I finally did it – I completed the site’s upgrade from Joomla! 1.5 to 2.5. I started the project back in August and I haven’t been working on the project the whole time. I just ran into a couple of small, nagging issues and stepped away from it for a while as I worked on other things (like my day job). Of course, Joomla! 3.0 came out in the meantime, so I have to make plans to do that upgrade soon (as 3.0 is way, way cool and implements some features I really want to use on the site) [read] Keywords: application
database
53
Updated Site
Thu, Jan 24th 2013 6:14a John Wargo Well, I finally did it – I completed the site’s upgrade from Joomla! 1.5 to 2.5. I started the project back in August and I haven’t been working on the project the whole time. I just ran into a couple of small, nagging issues and stepped away from it for a while as I worked on other things (like my day job). Of course, Joomla! 3.0 came out in the meantime, so I have to make plans to do that upgrade soon (as 3.0 is way, way cool and implements some features I really want to use on the site) [read] Keywords: application
database
105
iOS Calendar Problems
Wed, Jan 23rd 2013 8:11p John Wargo I was supposed to be on a conference call a while back with a colleague who never showed up. He emailed later asking about the time of the call and I couldn’t figure out why there was confusion – a calendar entry is a calendar entry, right? As long as he accepted the meeting invite, it should be on his calendar, right? Wrong.
Of course, those of you who work in Mobile are already thinking you know what happened. He was looking at his calendar on a mobile device and was in a different time z [read] Keywords: apple
blackberry
mobile
sap
44
PHP Application Installation Problems
Mon, Jan 21st 2013 1:50p John Wargo I’m a big fan of open source content management systems (CMS) and I’ve built several web sites using Joomla!, Drupal and Concrete5 plus I experiment with many others. I’m also a huge fan of FatCow and recommend them to anyone who is looking for a great hosting provider.
With all of my experience with these tools, I was really frustrated a while back when I stopped being able to install many of these tools in my hosting account. My existing application installations worked great, I simply [read] Keywords: application
applications
database
server
sql
44
Big Brother
Fri, Jan 18th 2013 1:09p John Wargo I was reading an article recently on Popular Science about an algorithm that can stitch together mobile phone video footage of the same event into a single, synchronized, multi-angle film. Here’s the description from the article:
"As we upload more and more videos to the Internet—one hour of new video every second to YouTube alone—experts are finding new ways to mine them. A team led by Igor Curcio of Nokia’s Research Center, for example, has developed an algorithm that stitches concer [read] Keywords: facebook
mobile
security
twitter
wiki
28
Telemarketed by an IVR
Thu, Dec 27th 2012 11:56a John Wargo I just got a telemarketing call from an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. I was sitting in my office and a call came in from a number I didn’t recognize. When I answered, there was a long pause, so I knew someone was telemarketing me. After a while, I usually say something smart-allecky like ‘hello? You called me?” and hang-up if the pause lasts too long.
In this case, a very steady, professional and rich voice clicked in and said “Hello, may I please speak with John?” Still in [read] Keywords: agent
office
Lands’ End Track Order Stupidity
Mon, Dec 10th 2012 3:31p John Wargo I’m a huge fan of Lands’ End (yes, that’s a typo – it’s their typo, not mine) and have been a customer for a very long time. Everyone’s on the Internet now, so you can buy things, check status of orders and even return stuff without ever having to fill out a form or even call a customer service person.
Why is it then that Lands’ End won’t give you an easy way to track your order?
I got an email from them for an order I placed (shhhhh, it’s a gift for my Wife) that included th [read] Keywords: email
password
22
Spain's Secret Strike
Sat, Dec 8th 2012 3:34p John Wargo I was in Spain for a conference back in November and I was there during a nationwide strike against the austerity programs that the EU is putting in place to help enable economic recovery. My employer is international (we have offices and employees everywhere) and very organized, so we knew a lot in advance about the strike and were given very specific instructions on how to stay safe during the… unrest.
After I’d been in Spain for a day or two, I realized that there was a Secret Strike hap [read] Keywords:
28
Mobile on WordPress
Mon, Dec 3rd 2012 4:26p John Wargo I’ve been doing a lot of work in WordPress lately. I’ve always been a fan of the wildly popular, Open Source Content Management System (CMS) but I’ve always thought it was more appropriate for web logs (blogs) than company web sites. Of course, many companies use WordPress for their web sites, and there are even commercial offerings for business customers, so I know it’s common to find business uses for WordPress.
This summer I worked with some neighbors who were opening a boutique oliv [read] Keywords: bes
blackberry
consulting
desktop
mobile
40
PhoneGap and Metro
Mon, Aug 20th 2012 2:07p John Wargo Apparently the folks at PhoneGap have decided to adopt the Microsoft Metro interface for the PhoneGap web site (www.phonegap.com). It's pretty cool what happens when you resize the browser window - whoever implemented this really paid attention to that particular detail. Cool stuff. [read] Keywords: interface
microsoft
29
SAP CodeTalk Series
Mon, Aug 20th 2012 5:53a John Wargo SAP has started producing a series of developer-focused videos. The series is called SAP CodeTalk, and I was asked to participate in the first two videos in the series. You can find the series landing page at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL068D7CC6E905E638.
The first video was recorded with Matt Schmulen from Appcelerator and in the video we talk about how to connect to SAP from an Appcelerator Titanium application using the new OData connector from Appcelerator. You can watch the video [read] Keywords: application
integration
sap
21
ClearOS Server
Thu, Aug 9th 2012 6:11a John Wargo After I became a Novell ECNE and CNI, back in the 80’s or early 90’s, I promised myself that I wouldn’t have a network in my house. Now, my office has a 24 port switch and 9 computer systems (including two Macintoshes) and I’ve networked two buildings here on the property. Oh how things have changed.
I’ve had a Windows server here for a very long time – it has 6TB of storage and I use it to backup all of my other systems (I backup my primary Macintosh computer to an AirPort in a di [read] Keywords: macintosh
microsoft
network
office
server
28
Joomla Upgrade
Tue, Aug 7th 2012 6:51a John Wargo I’m knee deep into a major upgrade for this site. I’ve been running it on Joomla 1.5 for years now and I thought it was time to get caught up on Joomla versions. Of course, there’s no simple path from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5, so I had to do a migration. There’s a cool migration tool called jUpgrade that essentially copies your existing site to a new folder and migrates all of the content. It worked like a champ and I’m in the process of doing all of the clean-up that has to happen.
The bigg [read] Keywords:
22
Olive This!
Fri, Aug 3rd 2012 8:42a John Wargo I’ve been writing a bit about some friends of ours who have opened a specialty olive oil and vinegar store in South Charlotte called Olive This!. Simply two housewives with an idea and a well-known distributor with a quality product. When I heard about what they were doing, I knew they’d need a web presence and immediately offered to help. I would have done it for free, but instead they plied me with cookies, brownies and other food items for my help.
I set them up with a hosting account (a [read] Keywords: community
facebook
19
News from SAP Labs
Mon, Jul 9th 2012 7:17a John Wargo Since joining SAP, I've been heavily involved in our partnerships with Adobe, Appcelerator and Sencha. I'm still trying to carve out some time to play with the new tools we've created in partnership with these vendors, but I've been too busy working on developer enablement activities. One of the things I'm working on right now is preparation for a streaming video presentation from the SAP Labs about these partnerships. I'll be on camera, ding interviews and other fun stuff.
If you get a c [read] Keywords: development
enterprise
integration
mobile
sap
twitter
76
BlackBerry World: Day 1 Begins
Tue, May 1st 2012 7:11a John Wargo Got up early this morning and made it over to the hotel’s gym. It was nice to get some exercise in before starting my day. When I finished, I decided to walk around a bit just to get my back loosened up. As I walked past the BlackBerry World registration desk, I thought about my registration process and thought I’d write about it.
This is my 6th BlackBerry World (or Wireless Enterprise Symposium, WES, as it used to be called), so I knew exactly what to do. I walked toward the registration a [read] Keywords: application
blackberry
email
enterprise
rim
wireless
89
Figured out PhoneGap Development for bada
Fri, Apr 27th 2012 7:12a John Wargo If you remember a while ago I published an article (which can be found here) that explained some of the issues I encountered trying to build and run a PhoneGap application for the Samsung bada OS. Well, with the help of the developer who wrote the bada code for PhoneGap I was able to finally figure it out, get it working and finished the bada chapter for PhoneGap Essentials.
First I’m going to complain a little and then I’ll tell you what you need to do to build PhoneGap applications for ba [read] Keywords: application
applications
development
mobile
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Error Capturing Video using PhoneGap
Thu, Apr 26th 2012 8:11a John Wargo I got up early this morning to answer some last minute questions from my editor for PhoneGap Essentials. We’re almost done with the book; I just had a few questions to answer. The editor asked me to redo one of the screen shots because it was a little blurry. I dug out the device I used to take the screen shot and setup the shot. The device battery had died, so I plugged it into power so it would charge as I began my test. As I loaded the application and started the video capture application u [read] Keywords: application
82
Rhomobile & Domino
Thu, Apr 19th 2012 6:11a John Wargo As part of my role as a technical advisor to the View I decided a long time ago to start writing a series of articles demonstrating all of the different possible ways to mobilize a Notes or Domino application. I had a bunch of ideas and a bunch of different tools I wanted to play with, so I got to work. The cool thing about this was that I wanted to learn these tools, but had so many other things going that I just couldn’t find the time to do it. Fortunately, writing a magazine article about a [read] Keywords: domino
notes
application
database
google
rim
server
61
4,500 Records
Thu, Apr 5th 2012 6:13a John Wargo I came across this press release yesterday:Mobiquity Takes Buildium Mobile; App for Property Management Software Leader Has Native-Like Scrolling. The article explains how the developers were able to build a PhoneGap application that allowed mobile users to scroll through a listing of up to 4,500 records with native-like performance and functionality. While that's probably a pretty good accomplishment, I have to ask why it was ever even done.
Why would you ever want to expose more than four th [read] Keywords: application
mobile
network
58
New Job
Tue, Apr 3rd 2012 7:13p John Wargo You may have noticed that I haven't posted much in a while. Lots going on in my professional life and I've been a bit busy.
I resigned from AT&T a few weeks back. I should't go into why I left, let's just say that it didn't end well.
I have accepted a postion at SAP. I'm in the Mobility Solutions Management group - which is SAP's name for customer-facing product management. I'm really excited to be working at SAP and to be back working for a software company again. In my new role, [read] Keywords: development
mobile
sap
79
Interesting Spam – Airline Ticket
Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 8:11p John Wargo I just received yet another interesting spam message in my inbox. Well actually it wasn’t in my inbox; Outlook recognized it as spam and quarantined it – I’m surprised Norton Antivirus didn’t catch this one (because of the likely infected attachment).
Anyways, here’s a screen shot of the email.
Figure 1
What I imagine happens is someone gets this email and goes “Crikey, I didn’t buy any plane ticket” and opens the attachment to see who purchased a ticket. Of course they open [read] Keywords: email
outlook
46
US Air Doesn't Care
Mon, Mar 5th 2012 7:13a John Wargo Living where I do, I take US Airways flights most of the time. I'm regularly surprised by their inability to use technology effectively and it saddens me. I was checking in for today's flight this morning and decided I wanted to give them some feedback. On the registration form, they asked me for my name, email address and frequent flyer number. Unfortunately, I was already logged into the web site, and this was all information they already had. Why ask me for information when you already have [read] Keywords: email
116
PhoneGap & Samsung bada
Mon, Feb 13th 2012 7:12a John Wargo While working on PhoneGap Essentials, I got a chance to work with some mobile device platforms I’d not worked with before. I did some work with webOS, but as soon as I got ready to write the chapter on webOS development for PhoneGap, HP announced it was killing the platform and the PhoneGap team added support for Windows Phone development. So, I whacked the webOS chapter and cheerfully replaced it with one on Windows Phone.
Another interesting one is Samsung bada, a ‘newer’ OS supposedly [read] Keywords: application
applications
css
development
google
javascript
mobile
wiki
44
Silly CAPTCHA
Wed, Feb 8th 2012 10:11a John Wargo I was registering for access to the Sencha forums (www.sencha.com) today when I saw the following on the registration form:
Figure 1
That's pretty advanced math for a CAPTCHA, isn't it?
So, is the math problem this:
6 – (2 x 3)
Or is it this:
(6 – 2 ) x 3
Having a degree in Physics and more than 30 years of experience as a professional software developer, I was certain I knew what I was doing. However, I'd be lying if I told you I got this right on the first try.
All of my years [read] Keywords: wiki
26
American Football
Mon, Jan 30th 2012 6:11a John Wargo If you know me, you likely know that I'm a big Soccer fan. I regularly irritate my wife by calling American Football...well, you know - American Football. It amazes me that the entire world (except for the United States and possibly Cananda) calls a sport Football but for us in North Americ it means something completely different. That being said, I've been trying to expose my son to the sport so he'll be able to fit in better than I do (wink).
So, for the last few years, I've actually trie [read] Keywords:
54
BlackBerry About
Fri, Jan 20th 2012 7:12a John Wargo I can't remember why, but for some reason I wanted to look at my BlackBerry device software version the other day, so I fired up the Options application and started typing 'about' as shown in the following figure. I noticed some interesting things and that prompted me to write this post.
Figure 1
When you first launch the application, it displays a screen similar to the one shown in the following figure. I'm running a BlackBerry Bold 9900 and I absolutely love it. It's small, fast, eas [read] Keywords: apple
application
applications
blackberry
development
iphone
java
rim
56
Wozniak & Android
Wed, Jan 18th 2012 9:11a John Wargo I like my iPhone. It’s got a cool UI and the apps are great. Unfortunately, I just can’t use one day to day – there’s too many klugy things about it. The BlackBerry has spoiled me with the keyboard, I can so quickly go to the top of a list (by pressing the ‘t’ key), bottom of a list (the ‘b’ key), File an email message (‘f’ key) and most importantly use the keyboard to type the name of the folder I’m filing an email into.
I get more than 100 emails a day and the way iOS an [read] Keywords: apple
blackberry
email
enterprise
google
iphone
laptop
mobile
rim
41
BlackBerry Status Updates Pane
Tue, Jan 10th 2012 11:11p John Wargo I’m struggling to find value in the BlackBerry 7 Status Pane that appears at the top of the BlackBerry home screen and, when clicked, displays the screen shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1
When you look at the image, it should be clear that there’s really very little information displayed on the screen. Now, when I wrote about things like this in the past, I got comments back that the issue I’m experiencing is related to my device’s current font settings. Those comments were correct, [read] Keywords: application
blackberry
43
Finished PhoneGap Essentials
Tue, Jan 3rd 2012 1:12p John Wargo I didn't get a chance to write a formal post about this, but on December 11th I finished the writing process of my forthcoming PhoneGap book called PhoneGap Essentials. I had a contract with the publisher that said I had to deliver the manuscript on February 2nd, but I delivered it about 6 weeks earlier – whew! It was a lot of work and a lot of fun, I really like writing.
Right now the manuscript is going through a technical review; an experienced PhoneGap developer is reading through the ma [read] Keywords:
54
Another Reason I'm Not Going to Lotusphere
Tue, Jan 3rd 2012 6:12a John Wargo I wasn't allowed to talk about this until now, but I wanted to share with you another of the reasons I'm not going to Lotusphere this year.
As I mentioned in my last post, I've made a lot of friends through Lotusphere and even got myself a wife in the process (a very good wife as a matter of fact). I'd also shared my Lotusphere experiences with several very close friends that I've worked with for many (many, many) years.
When I started my first job out of College at Basicomputer, we were [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
lotusphere
notes
rim
40
Xcode Frustration
Mon, Jan 2nd 2012 2:11p John Wargo I’m writing an article for the View on how to access Domino data from an iPhone application. My colleague Sunder Somasundaram built the application and I’m doing the write-up. While I know a bit about iOS development, Objective-C is a challenge for me (having grown up with a bunch of different development languages, Objective-C is very different than anything I’ve worked with in the past).
I have a Mac Mini I’ve been using for PhoneGap development and I’ve been trying for some time to [read] Keywords: domino
apple
application
applications
development
iphone
mac
macintosh
53
Silly Spammers
Tue, Dec 27th 2011 7:12p John Wargo I’m kinda fascinated with spam (the email kind, not the tasty breakfast meat). I’ve had one or more email accounts since the early days of the Internet and it’s been fascinating to watch how the spammer industry has adjusted to different efforts by email recipients to thwart them.
I’ve recently seen an increase in the number of emails I get (from complete strangers of course) asking me to help them bring some money they’ve acquired into the US through my bank accounts. What gets me th [read] Keywords: email
outlook
virus
41
Better Comments
Sat, Dec 24th 2011 9:12a John Wargo I'm already much happier with the new comments component I added to the site. I'd been using the yvComment add-on for Joomla, but it was hard to install, difficult to use and buggy. I'd had nothing but trouble with it from day one. Not that I get many comments on this site, but the comment module shouldn't be hard to use.
I switched to JComment, and it was a quick, seamless install and provides me with a quick way to approve comment posts directly from an email notice I get that a new comme [read] Keywords: email
31
Whacked comments from the site
Thu, Dec 22nd 2011 8:12a John Wargo I had to whack the comments component from the site this morning. I was using a Joomla extension I was never really happy with and I'd been having some problems with the component for some time now. I uninstalled it and installed a different one, so comments are now back up and running. I'll monitor this one for a while and see how well it works.
Unfortunately for those who'd posted comments previously, they are no longer available. I'm sorry. I still have the content, so perhaps I'll be [read] Keywords:
32
Not Going to Lotusphere 2012
Thu, Dec 22nd 2011 8:12a John Wargo For the first time in 16 years, I'm not going to be in Orlando for IBM Lotus Lotusphere. I've attended every Lotusphere but one and presented at many of them. It's been a wonderful experience for me and I'm sad for it to end, but I couldn't justify going this year. I hear from others, more and more people are in the same boat as me.
Too bad. A lot of really great things happened to me at Lotusphere. Let's see:
I met my wife at Lotusphere. I met her briefly at Sea World at Lotusphere 1999 [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
application
applications
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Not Going to Lotusphere 2012
Wed, Dec 21st 2011 4:11p John Wargo For the first time in 16 years, I'm not going to be in Orlando for IBM Lotus Lotusphere. I've attended every Lotusphere but one and presented at many of them. It's been a wonderful experience for me and I'm sad for it to end, but I couldn't justify going this year. I hear from others, more and more people are in the same boat as me.
Too bad. A lot of really great things happened to me at Lotusphere. Let's see:
I met my wife at Lotusphere. I met her briefly at Sea World at Lotusphere 1999 [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusphere
application
applications
rim
42
RIM's Depressing Me
Tue, Dec 20th 2011 8:10p John Wargo I was doing some thinking about Research In Motion today. I was sadly disappointed (is that redundant?) when I heard RIM was delaying the release of the new QNX-based devices until late next year. That's a truly boneheaded move after a series of boneheaded moves.
First they announce that future devices will be running QNX. 6 months or so later, they give the new OS a name – BBX, only to find out LATER that that name was already taken. What? Nobody thought to do a trademark search? Apple's p [read] Keywords: apple
blackberry
linking
macintosh
microsoft
research in motion
rim
51
Weinre Debugger and PhoneGap Build
Thu, Dec 8th 2011 3:10p John Wargo I'm working on the example application for the last chapter of PhoneGap Essentials. The chapter is about the Storage API and I've build a little mileage tracker (for expense management) application to highlight how to use the different capabilities of the API.
I got most of the application working but ran into a problem. I was able to create a local database and write to it, but unfortunately the call to the SQL INSERT method returns an error, even though the record is being successfully writ [read] Keywords: application
applications
database
desktop
google
sql
60
PhoneGap Beginner's Guide
Sun, Nov 27th 2011 2:11p John Wargo Although there are many books out there that mention PhoneGap or cover the topic lightly, it was nice to see books in the works entirely on PhoneGap. With PhoneGap Beginner's Guide being the first one out the gate, I was excited to receive my copy. Unfortunately I agree with many of the other reviewers on Amazon in that there were a lot of incomprehensible sentences in the book. It's clear that Packt, like with many other of their books, rushed this one out and didn't give it the thorough rea [read] Keywords: application
applications
desktop
development
mobile
rim
45
PhoneGap Build Android Woes
Tue, Nov 22nd 2011 7:12p John Wargo I've been using the heck out of PhoneGap Build these last few weeks as I work through the API chapters in PhoneGap Essentials.
For the last three weeks, the process for building BlackBerry applications was broken, it would build an app for you, but it wouldn't include the phnegap.js file, so none of the PhoneGap features in the application would work. They finally fixed it today, but it was broken for about 20 days, and that was painful.
Recently, I've been focusing on Android development s [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
development
google
41
Drupal 7
Mon, Nov 21st 2011 4:12p John Wargo I've been using Joomla! for some time now and I've gotten quite comfortable with it. Recently I've been helping August's cub scout pack, a neighbor and close friend build web sites using Joomla! and I've gotten pretty competent with it.
I branched out a bit and used Concrete 5 for my johnwargobooks.com site. It's pretty cool - it's more of a web based site builder than a true CMS like Joomla and Drupal.
I've setup domains for my new PhoneGap book, PhoneGap Essentials, and another site [read] Keywords:
34
PhoneGap Alerts
Sat, Nov 19th 2011 11:13p John Wargo I was working on Chapter 12 of PhoneGap Essentials tonight and I created a quick PhoneGap application to test something I wanted to verify about the JavaScript alert() function. When I tested the application, I noticed something interesting, taking a look at the following code - when I ran the application on an iOS simulator, the Test 2 alert executed before the Test 1 alert.{codecitation class="brush:javascript; gutter:true"} function onBodyLoad() { [read] Keywords: application
javascript
43
PhoneGap Essentials
Tue, Nov 15th 2011 10:13p John Wargo Lots going on here on the book front. Last week, my publisher and I agreed on a different title for my PhoneGap book. It's going to be called PhoneGap Essentials, and we even finally have a cover for the book as well.
We wrapped up the table of contents, a description of the book and my bio last week and it looks like everything got submitted to Amazon because it went on the www.amazon.com site today for pre-order. You can access the book's page here: PhoneGap Essentials. Please use that link [read] Keywords:
52
(more) PhoneGap Build Problems
Fri, Nov 11th 2011 7:11a John Wargo PhoneGap Build's BlackBerry capabilities have been down for the last two weeks. I've been working through the book's API chapters, writing applications that highlight the capabilities of each and using PhoneGap Build to quickly build an application I can test on multiple devices. It allows me to simply create the index.html file I need, post it up to the server and within minutes (PhoneGap Build is NOT fast) get an application I can deploy to devices for testing.
This capability is especiall [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
server
30
BlackBerry DevCon App on WebWorks
Mon, Nov 7th 2011 9:11a John Wargo During BlackBerry DevCon 2011 I did some analysis of the BlackBerry DevCon 2011 mobile application; it was part of my everlasting "What Were They Thinking" series of articles. In the article, I postulated that the application was a BlackBerry WebWorks application which made sense since it's RIM's direction for mobile application development on BlackBerry and because it's a cool and quick way to build mobile applications.
Quickly after I wrote that article, I was able to validate that it is [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
development
mobile
rim
xml
39
What Were They Thinking #11
Tue, Oct 25th 2011 3:12p John Wargo US Airways is such a technology unsavvy airline. I've been signed up for alerts for a long time now, but they just refuse to alert me when it's time to check in for example. Their day of travel alerts are next to useless as well (see Figure 1). They're notifying me that my flight is expected to be on time, but they refuse to tell me what gate the flight is scheduled to depart from.
Figure 1
If I already have my boarding pass (which I did) and I'm heading to the airport, many airlines lea [read] Keywords: email
security
36
BlackBerry Development Tool Macintosh Installation Weirdness
Fri, Oct 21st 2011 8:12a John Wargo I was excited to learn at BlackBerry DevCon 2011 that RIM had finally released the Macintosh versions of their development tools for BlackBerry and Playbook development. Having a MacBook in my hotel room (my Windows Laptop died ore than a week ago) I downloaded the code and tried to install it. I noticed some weirdness with the tool installation, so I thought I'd write about my experiences here.
The tools download as a zip file, a different zip file for BlackBerry vs. Playbook development. Tha [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
development
laptop
macbook
macintosh
password
rim
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BlackBerry DevCon 2011 Days 2 and 3
Thu, Oct 20th 2011 9:13p John Wargo Today wraps up BlackBerry DevCon 2011. Overall it was a great conference. Like I said in a previous post, the sessions and the pace were great. There wasn't a lot of energy about the place, but it was a big crowd and lots of focus on web development and open source tools.
The one disappointment for me was a session I attended this morning on PhoneGap and BlackBerry WebWorks. I was really looking forward to the content, but the presenter was interrupted with so many general questions about Phon [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
javascript
rim
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What Were They Thinking #9
Thu, Oct 20th 2011 10:13a John Wargo In preparation for BlackBerry DevCon 2011, RIM released this year's version of the DevCon mobile application. I've written here about this application and the BlackBerry World (WES) conference applications over the years and I've never been quite happy with the applications. I've always felt that the applications were hard to use and included features that just weren't needed in an application like this. My belief was that RIM focused too much on making a flashy, showcase application instea [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
application
applications
blackberry
desktop
microsoft
mobile
outlook
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BlackBerry DevCon Day 1
Wed, Oct 19th 2011 10:11p John Wargo Well, Day of BlackBerry DevCon 2011 has wrapped up and it’s been a pretty interesting day.
It started with RIM moving the start time of the opening session to 8:30 AM then delaying the start until 8:50 AM. I showed up later than I wanted to, about 8:20, and there was a huge line of people waiting to get in. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have to wait long and was quickly let in. Being a DevCon Alumnus allowed me to use the line jumper queue and get in right away.
It makes no sense to me – [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
dojo
java
laptop
macbook
macintosh
password
rim
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PhoneGap Build Woes
Wed, Oct 12th 2011 6:11a John Wargo I was planning on being about halfway through the book by the end of last week, but my travel schedule and several very full weekends have kept me from reaching that goal. I’m this close to finishing the chapter on PhoneGap Build, but I’m really making very little progress no matter how much work I put into it.
The problem I’m having is that the PhoneGap Build service is working out to be very unstable. Granted I have been working with an Alpha version of the service which only recently [read] Keywords: application
blackberry
javascript
rim
29
Adobe PhoneGap?
Wed, Oct 5th 2011 8:12a John Wargo Of course things got kinda interesting this week with the PhoneGap project announcing that they're moving over to the Apache Project and changing their name. Originally slated to be called Apache DeviceReady, there's already a name conflict so the newer option looks to be Apache Callback. Ugh. We'll see what new names appear today.
Next came an announcement from Adobe that they're buying Nitobi, the company that founded and is managing the PhoneGap project. This is a very interesting develo [read] Keywords: development
27
MWLUG 2011 Presentation
Tue, Oct 4th 2011 11:11a John Wargo At the MWLUG conference in Milwaukee this year I presented a session on the Mobile Application Landscape for Domino. It was a fun (for me), whirlwind session where I talked about all sorts of things I have been thinking about related to mobile development and, of course, Domino. There were more talking points than real content in the deck, but several people asked me if I'd post the deck, so here it is. Enjoy! [read] Keywords: domino
application
development
mobile
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Amazon's Silk Browser
Sun, Oct 2nd 2011 7:10p John Wargo I'm really stunned by the market's response to Amazon's announcement of their new ereader. Somehow people seem to think that the new Silk browser included with the device is something special - although much of what the Silk browser does is something the BlackBerry browser has done for years. What's the big deal? [read] Keywords: blackberry
35
Macintosh OS Developer Friendly Tools
Sun, Sep 11th 2011 12:14p John Wargo As I work through the chapters of my forthcoming book on PhoneGap, I’m working on both a Macintosh and PC which reminds me of first years of my professional career. I was doing PC support for a PC dealer called Basicomputer and always had a IBM PC and a Macintosh on my desk plus even had an Apple II for a long time as well (it was an Apple IIgs).
Anyway, as I’m writing about installing the PhoneGap software for Android and iOS development I found myself in need of installing Ant and Java on [read] Keywords: ibm
apple
application
development
java
mac
macbook
macintosh
RIM Update
Wed, Aug 31st 2011 9:14a John Wargo Research In Motion made some interesting announcements yesterday.
First of all they announced that they’ve FINALLY launched a private beta for native development tools for the PlayBook. With the device announced more than a year ago and physical devices in the hands of users since May, you’d think a native SDK would have been made available a long time ago, but you’d be wrong.
Here’s the announcement: http://devblog.blackberry.com/2011/08/native-sdk-for-blackberry-tablet-os-closed-beta [read] Keywords: apple
blackberry
development
google
research in motion
rim
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Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS
Tue, Aug 30th 2011 7:10p John Wargo This could be fun!
RIM announced today private beta for the Native SDK for BlackBerry Tablet OS. You can read the announcement here.
I’ve kinda gotten away from BlackBerry development, focusing more on cross platform development tools, so I’ve not really kept up with what RIM’s doing with the PlayBook. The WebWorks stuff is…interesting and Hybrid frameworks like WebWorks is where the market is going (the popularity of the PhoneGap and Titanium frameworks has helped prove that one) bu [read] Keywords: apple
applications
blackberry
development
google
rim
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RAID 5 Pain
Tue, Aug 23rd 2011 6:10a John Wargo At the beginning of the year, I replaced my main PC in my home office. I’d had the last one for more than 4 years and it was really time to get rid of it. When I build a new PC, I always go for the biggest and fastest and this one was really fast 4 years ago, but could no longer keep up.
For the new one, I purchased an Intel i7 quad core, dual graphics cards, 24 GB of memory and a big honking 8 TB drive array configured for RAID 5 (giving me 6 TB of available space). For my boot drive, I impl [read] Keywords: office
What Were They Thinking #9? RIM Again!
Wed, Jul 13th 2011 6:18p John Wargo For a long time now, I’ve been running a series on mobile applications, highlighting where developers build an application for a mobile device without really paying attention to the mobile device or the needs of the mobile user. In this article, I’m going to shift gears and talk about something related to mobile, but not directly to mobile applications. I’ve written about this company many times before, let’s take a look…
I received the following email this morning from Research In M [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
desktop
email
mobile
research in motion
rim
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On the Open Letter to RIM
Fri, Jul 1st 2011 7:18a John Wargo I don’t know if you heard about it or not, but a RIM executive published an open letter to his bosses: Mike L and Jim B of RIM. It’s an interesting read and it had to be said. It’s really sad, but RIM has been slow in its response to market changes and it’s likely that they won’t be able to recover.
Their development tools are sub-par and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to release them. Where Apple and Android pre-release their development tools or at least ship them on the same [read] Keywords: apple
applications
blackberry
development
eclipse
email
iphone
java
linux
mobile
rim
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Seesmic & BlackBerry
Wed, Jun 29th 2011 7:14a John Wargo Apparently Seesmic has announced that they’re dropping support for BlackBerry users. You can read the announcement here: http://blog.seesmic.com/important-update-for-blackberry-users.html. Seesmic makes social media tools for mobile devices and, back when their solution was in beta, it was a highly anticipated product.
I guess I’m not that surprised they’re dropping support for BlackBerry, since BlackBerry and many other device manufacturers have made social media such an integral part of [read] Keywords: application
blackberry
development
facebook
iphone
mobile
rim
twitter
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Concrete5
Tue, Jun 28th 2011 6:15a John Wargo A while back I got really interested in content management systems (CMS). When I discovered Joomla!, I quickly created this site and hundreds of articles later it’s still going strong. A few years ago, Wired Magazine (I think it was Wired) did an article about an open source CMS called Concrete5 (www.concrete5.org) and it looked…interesting. I installed a copy of it, but never really got the hang of it. I didn’t have a site I wanted to build at the time, so I didn’t really have a reason [read] Keywords: database
48
My Books
Mon, Jun 27th 2011 7:14a John Wargo I’m getting ready to start writing my next (third) book. As I mentioned before, I’ve been having conversations with my publisher about what I’m going to do next and I think we’ve decided on the topic. I’m waiting on a contract from my publisher then I’ll get started.
In the mean time, I decided to register a domain and open up a site where I can list information about my different books. Additionally, there’s another John Wargo writing books so I have to have a way to distinguish [read] Keywords:
40
Third Book?
Wed, Jun 22nd 2011 8:14a John Wargo I've been having discussions with my publisher about my next book.We talked a bit about doing an update to BlackBerry Development Fundamentals, but the market has really seemed to stall with regards to BlackBerry development books. Everyone's interests are now focused on iPhone and Android, but there's also a lot of great stuff being done in the cross platform development space.
I got involved as a tech reviewer for the My Motorola Atrix book, and that was a lot of fun. I tried to get on the [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
iphone
Review of Beginning BlackBerry Development
Mon, Jun 20th 2011 9:14a John Wargo Here's a review I wrote more than a year ago for Anthony Rizk's Beginning BlackBerry Development:
Considering how long the BlackBerry platform has been available in the market, it’s amazing that there haven’t been any books on BlackBerry development until very recently. There was Craig Johnston’s Professional BlackBerry that was supposed to be a ‘Programmer to Programmer™’ book but ultimately had very little to do with BlackBerry development (except for some simple chapters on Bla [read] Keywords: application
applications
bes
blackberry
development
eclipse
enterprise
interface
java
mobile
networking
server
51
BlackBerry Developer Book Reviews
Fri, Jun 17th 2011 9:12a John Wargo Back in 2009, right after BlackBerry Development Fundamentals came out, I approached Dr. Dobb’s Journal about writing some reviews of the other BlackBerry development books that were coming onto the market. The editor told me to go ahead, so I did the writing and submitted two reviews. Nothing happened; I’m not even sure the articles were ever read. So, what I’m going to do is publish them here next week.
It’s two years later, my book has sold well but the BlackBerry development and mob [read] Keywords: blackberry
development
mobile
View Article Update
Wed, Jun 8th 2011 6:11p John Wargo I've got an article being published soon that digs into how to use Teamstudio Unplugged to mobilize Notes applications. I had a lot of fun working with their platform and found it to be a very interesting implementation. They created a synchronization engine and client-side development environment for mobile applications without requiring any plug-ins or additional development tools beyond two Notes databases and out of the box Domino Designer. Cool stuff.
I've finished my work with PhoneGap. [read] Keywords: domino
notes
application
applications
blackberry
development
enterprise
iphone
mobile
widget
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Moving Playbook Apps
Mon, Jun 6th 2011 11:09a John Wargo I received a BlackBerry PlayBook at the newly renamed BlackBerry World Conference in Orlando this year. It's an amazing device and except for a few little hardware and UI things (which I know will get fixed) I love it. I'm going to write a series of short articles on the PlayBook just to provide you with my feedback and to give you a general idea of what I think of the device.
One of the things I've been trying to do, and have not been able to figure out how to do, is to move PlayBook applic [read] Keywords: application
applications
blackberry
rim
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Going Cross Platform
Fri, May 13th 2011 12:14p John Wargo I came across an article in APC Magazine this week that discusses problems developers have with cross platform mobile development. The article is called Smartphone Devlopment: Going Cross Platform and what interested me was what was being said about iPhone development.
There’s this perception in the market that since the iPhone platform is so cool and the apps are so beautiful, that it must be easy to develop for the platform. There’s so much bias out there in favor of the iPhone that it is [read] Keywords: apple
application
blackberry
development
iphone
java
macintosh
mobile
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Gartner, MEAP and RIM
Wed, May 11th 2011 7:12a John Wargo In my role at AT&T I work with customers looking to mobilize Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) applications using Mobile Enterprise Application Platforms (MEAP). MEAP is a term I believe was coined by Gartner a few years back and since it’s their term, their publications on MEAP are the industry’s reference on the topic.
In December, 2009 Gartner published a MEAP Magic Quadrant document that talked about the different MEAP vendors, their capabilities and how they [read] Keywords: application
applications
development
enterprise
mobile
rim
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PhoneGap
Tue, May 10th 2011 8:11p John Wargo I started working with PhoneGap today. I've been poking around the framework for a while now and I finally got around to actually working with it. As with most Open Source projects, I find that the documentation is sorely lacking.
I'm building a PhoneGap application that uses the Domino RESTful web service I documented in a previous article on this site (Mobilizing Domino Data Using REST: Part 1). I'll be using what I'm learning now in one of my sessions at the View Domino Developer Confere [read] Keywords: domino
application
