Category Archives: Computers

Nomadness

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I’m putting this post here so that I don’t forget about this blog. (http://www.nomadness.com/blog/)

It’s about a Techno Nomad who travels around on a huge boat that fitted out with all kinds of cool geeky gadgets. I’ve been reading about his adventures over a number of years which started off with a Bicycle equipped with lots of cool computer gear and slowly evolved into amphibious boats and finally ending up with this huge sail boat.?

It’s an awesome site if you’re interested in gadgets, sailing or just travelling and is very well written and includes tons of pictures. I also like his cat that lives aboard the ship called “Java”.

Java on Pocket PC / Windows Mobile

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I need some help, so I’m asking the internets…?

Anyone gotten Java apps to run on PocketPC’s/Windows Mobile devices? I need a minimum of J2ME support (MIDP 2.0) but I would really like some a bit fancier, say with Swing support? Anyone know if this is possible??

I’ve done some searching and so far I haven’t found much online other than people asking the same questions.?

My awesome/crazy idea is to develop a application that runs on desktop machines (Windows, Linux Mac OSX and anything else that’ll run Java) and that will hopefully work on PocketPC’s too with minimal changes. I’m hoping for the mythical… “Compile Once, Run Anywhere” sales pitch that made Java so cool in the beginning.?

So far I’ve found this open source JRE for Pocket PC – Mysaifu JVM but I’m not sure how good it is, I plan on trying it this weekend.

I’ve also heard that there is one by IBM called J9 but that you have to pay for, I’m ideally looking for something that doesn’t cost money, so my future users don’t have to shell out even more cash.

Update: So it turns out after a little searching that PhoneME (a open source project to create a J2ME JVM) is now available on Windows Mobile too. I’ll have to try this one out over the weekend too.

Firefox 3.0 – Stop auto hiding the toolbars in full screen mode.

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I’m running Ubuntu 8.04 – Hardy Heron on my Asus EeePC 2G Surf with Firefox 3.0. The problem I have is that by default in Firefox 3.0 if you fullscreen Firefox (F11) it now auto hides the toolbar and address bar which gets a little annoying if you’re like me and have lots of tabs open or like using the address bar for things alot.

A bit of googling and I found the solution, which I’m writing down here in case I forget it. You need to go to the about:config page in Firefox and change browser.fullscreen.autohide to false. (Just double click it.)

Google Notebook API

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Anyone know if there is an API to access notes in Google Notebook ? I’ve been using the notebook alot lately, as I’m normally on one of 4 computers (sometimes 5) and its nice to have a central place to put all my notes about stuff or sites I want to visit etc.?

The other day though I came up with a crazy idea for a little application that I would love to link to Google Notebook (essentially I want to read & write notes) but I haven’t found an API for it yet. I guess I could perhaps reverse engineer the Firefox plugin ??

If anyone knows where to look… leave a comment.

EDIT: I was really stupid 🙁 Typed “Google Notebook API” into Google and I found this only problem is that the official API only allows reading of the public notebooks.?

Would it be possible to impersonate a user in a browser to read/write notes? Or is that just too complicated?

Google Chrome

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I’m jumping on the current big “band wagon” and going to review the new web browser on the block, Google Chrome. I’m a long time Firefox user, who’s tried Apple Safari and various other browsers over the years. On my Windows XP machine I mostly use Firefox 3.0 and Apple Safari.

Today I installed the new Google Chrome, after a friend said it was really cool.?

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Idea: Small Tablet PC

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This morning while making notes in my paper notebook, I started day dreaming… wouldn’t it be cool if I could replace this notebook with a Tablet PC? I do currently own a Tablet PC, an ageing LG LT20 Tablet PC, but its too big for what I want.

I want a Tablet PC the size of a A5 piece of paper about 2cm thick that’s got the processing power of an EeePC or a MSI Wind, it has to have instant on though and have a good battery life.

(In the famous words of the Top Gear Hosts) How hard could it be?

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IBM PC turns 27 today.

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IBM PC (model 5150) - From Wikipedia

The original IBM PC turns 27 today… That’s older than me !!!

While I wasn’t around when this computer came out, I spent plenty of time in my later years (around age 13-15) taking them apart and making them work again. You could get these machines for free or really cheap then and they were fun to modify and hack. Friends and I over clocked one, expanded the RAM and put in a huge 200MB drive. I even learnt assembly on one of the later clones.

These machines were solidly built and were practically indestructable, we always joked if we ever need armour plating for anything the cases used on these old IBM PC’s would be perfect.

Wired Magazine’s Birthday Article
Old Computer Museum’s IBM PC Entry
IBM PC Wikipedia Entry