Issue: 7

EDITORIAL

I�m back from my research trip and it looks like things have been busy in my absence! I�d like to say thanks to all the contributors for the Exposium issue (of which there is more this week). It made me very jealous that I couldn�t be there. Thanks to everyone who contacted me with information or opinions. It made me feel a little closer to the event.

So this week we have the usual software round up from Richard with its usual distinctive style. Andy brings us his view of the Exposium and Ewan on to the B�s. There�s a few more Exposium bullets before we get Ewan�s (tongue in cheek) guide to running a stand. Finally Hayden is on about the changing face of servicing / playing with / breaking computers.

For those of you getting sick of the Exposium stuff � fear not � the next issue will see us move back to a more end user perspective. Look forward to more reviews, news and opinion.

"I don't know where the hell we are!"

"Well you're the one that's supposed to be reading the bleed'n map!"

"And you're the one that's supposed to be following my directions, you wazzuck!"

"How was I supposed to know that there'd be a traffic jam!? I ain't got no crystal ball!"

"Just you wait! You know that there are only two lanes on this stretch and now I'm going to be late for my crochet class! You are so selfish!"

You've been there. That's right - stuck in the traffic and it's your fault! Ok, maybe you should have known that the bottleneck would cause you to be late, especially at that time of the day, but hey! Why not off-load some of your thinking requirements onto your phone. For a monthly payment of only a couple of quid, you can have all the traffic information on your Symbian based smartphone. You can't go wrong with that, so give it a wallop on your unit and see what you think! It's can't be bad, and could save you a lot of hassle in the future (http://www.traffic-i.com).

But why so small minded! Think big! Don't think in terms of the road, the motorway or even the congestion charge, think bigger� That's right, you want to be thinking of the World there Mate! Worldmate by Mobimate (http://www.mobimate.com) is more than your basic World Clock. Oh, yes, it does that very well, so you can tell what time it is in San Francisco and be informed of the fact that phoning your Uncle Bruce right now would certainly offer you a mirth-moment worth savouring. Oh, but it does a whole lot more! It even has that 'Which bits of the earth are dark?' view which is so cool (I know, but don't worry, I'll be let out on my own soon). Also, you can not only know what time it is somewhere, whether the sun or the moon is shining, but you can also know what the weather is like! So not only can you phone uncle Bruce, but you can phone him and say "Uncle Bruce! How's the snow/rain/hailstorm/tornado (tick as appropriate)? It's scorching here!� Of course,

If your timing is anything like mine, and you're using the Hantro video recorder on your Series60 smartphone, then you'll know the frustration of trying to catch a moment only to have the main bit, the focus of your filming happen just after the 100Kb limit has been reached! Arghhhhhh! Well, not to worry! A video recorder has been released in beta for those who are interested. It is not limited by anything other than your smartphone's capacity. For more details, visit http://www.allaboutsymbian.com.

Finally, those of you who are old enough to remember the Commodore64 will be able to really appreciate how technology has moved on now that you can have your trusty old shoebox on your phone! Wow! What took eight minutes to load from tape is now in the palm of your hand! You can't go wrong! I loved my C=64, it was outstanding and SID was a good friend of mine what with his Envelope and all that (VIC was a nice ol' chap too, I always used to store my sprites from location 12288, depending on the size of what I was writing). Anyway, sorry - I was going off on one there! If we do actually live in a Matrix, then I think it's nice of The Architect to have given us another synthetic feeling of joy by giving us the talent of Hanu Vitala (http://koti.mbnet.fi/~haviital).  Now we can continue in our illusion... with at least a sensation of fondness for what we think is the past.

Now, if you ever happen to be passing someone who is looking at their Nokia92x0 based smartphone, but look like they're trying to crawl into it and under it, don't worry. Leave them to their world and don't try unplugging their minds. They're in a cave and that's where they're better off - and if you have any sense that's where you'd want to be as well. It may not be 3D, it may not have Dolby Surround Sound, but it's massively addictive and again, we see that "just one more try" factor come into play. The evil genius behind this is Ewan Spence of FreEPOC (http://www.freepoc.org), so any litigation or law suites for time wasted should be sent there. Flying through a cave never sounded so good and never was so excellent! You just use one key to navigate your little cave-ship and that's it. You think it sounds easy, go on then and try to get your name on the Internet high score table!

Just when you thought that Series60 was getting all the push the 'box around the room' games, here comes RMRPush by Andrew Harsent. And no, this isn't a cheap clone because this author has been around since, like, forever. In fact, he's been around for so long, he's probably one of those rogue Matrix programmes that pop up now and again ;-) Anyway, with colourful graphics, simple objectives - the only obstacle really is your own brain! Is it up to the challenge? Visit http://www.rmrsoft.com and find out if you're up to it!

There have been updates of sLauncher and the Editor for Series60 (http://www.symbianware.com) as well as a number of MGS titles for specifically optimised for the 3650.

So, until next time, may all your ears be trimmed and wax free!

Why was I lying awake in my hotel room at 5am? I don't know! I try to convince my body that it�s in the wrong mode. I should be comatose and keeping the people in the next room awake with my own sleep-induced rumblings, but no by 6.30 I gave up and got up. I look around the room thoroughly but its not there, it must be, I mean it is the 21st century, London is not in the 3rd world there must be some, but no, there are no Coffee making facilities! My body does not start to function until it�s had an injection of caffeine, in fact I could not even tell if I had a hangover or not. Breakfast did not start until 7.30 and I was going to have to skip it, I had to be at the Symbian Exposium an hour across London, by 8.30. I have to suffer!
 
The journey to the Expo tube station was unremarkable apart from the lack of anywhere to buy any damn coffee. They were checking people�s baggage at the entrance to the conference centre and after they established that yesterdays used clothing was yes, a) offensive, but b) not actually an offensive weapon, they let me in. �Right, thirst things first. Coffee and something to eat whilst waiting for the rest of the AAS crew to turn up.�

I was well early and things were just opening up. There were only two people in the Starbucks queue so I joined it. A mere 15 minutes later they had got their two coffees. How the hell do they expect to make any money if they can only pour 8 cups an hour! 10 minutes later with 1 medium black, 1 breakfast sandwich and �6 poorer I found out.

I finished the last of my sandwich and heard a bit of a commotion I looked up to see Ewan proudly wearing his kilt striding straight through the security cordon. They never got a chance to check his baggage and were quite frankly looked a bit bemused. They made up for it by giving Rafe and Dazler who was following a good once over. �Hello Ewan� I said, �Your Symbian, IT�S CRAP� said his T-shirt.

We all went to get our conference passes and found out that I�d mysteriously become Andy Langdonna (should be Langdon) - Still it had a bit of a continental feel about it. In we went to find the AAS stand. Well �Stand� may be a slight exaggeration but we did have a nice table with two chairs and they�d kindly made a little plastic placard for us with the AAS logo on it. We quickly jazzed up our area with some snazzy graphics of Rafe�s own design by which time the keynote speeches were about to begin.

Rafe and myself decided to go to these, so we wandered round to the auditorium, which was impressively large. It reminded me a bit of being back at school because everyone was going for the seats at the back. We decided that the Community People needed full representation so sat right at the front. I�m sure it�s just a coincidence but there are no pictures of the keynote audience in Symbian�s own Exposium coverage.

The keynotes started very strangely, we were treated to about 15 minutes of a laser light show that Hawkwind would have been proud off. This was accompanied by a video that rabbited on about the future of mobile communications without really telling you anything. I�d have preferred one of Stacia dancing. (Apologies if only Steve Litchfield understands this but if you don�t, try a web search using the words Hawkwind and Stacia � which will, probably, reveal mild nudity). The following presentation by David Levin Symbian�s CEO was much better even though it was mainly a rallying call to the Symbian community. His most interesting point was that there were lots of companies working on Symbian devices although they are not all public yet and may not come to fruition. David was followed by Rikko Sakaguchi from Sony Ericsson (SE) whose main points were that they should have produced more P800�s to meet demand, they were fully committed to Symbian and were working on new devices. He even hinted that the Symbian OS fitted in well with Sony�s as well as SE�s vision of the future, though did not go as far as saying they would actually use it.

About this stage the caffeine started to work and I was beginning to realise that I was indeed suffering from a hangover. I was delighted to discover that there was lots of free coffee on offer. The best thing I found on this quick tour around the hall was getting to play with all the new devices that were due to come out. They all have their strong points and look good. This hasn�t helped me at all in my quest for what phone to get next. I had a nose around a lot of the other exhibits and got a good impression of how the Developer World was starting to adapt to the smartphone phenomenon. It was becoming apparent that these devices would start making a big impact in people�s day-to-day lives.

I spent some time manning the AAS round table experience. It was very satisfying that so many people came up for a chat. These included representatives of many of the companies that were exhibiting their products. It was even more pleasing that the vast majority of them were regular visitors to the site and said how much they enjoyed it. One of our main objectives was to build up a number of contacts within the industry and Rafe was picking up a remarkable collection of business cards. Ewan meanwhile had picked up a remarkable number of playing cards and was showing off his impressive one-handed cuts and general deck manipulation.

The highlight of the afternoon was to be Ewan giving a Developer Presentation about the newly Open Sourced programming language OPL. So we arranged for someone to watch our table (thanks Appforge!) and all went off to watch it. It was a fine performance! Ewan explained exactly why people should take notice of OPL and how it will encourage more development for Symbian devices in general. He kept it very dynamic by asking questions and throwing sweets at anyone whom answered correctly. This kept everyone on his or her toes, as Ewan's aim was not too accurate - if you weren�t watching you were liable to end up with a lollypop in your ear. The presentation finished and he took a bow whilst the audience applauded him.

I then proudly realised I had witnessed a unique event. Here we were at *the* major Development Conference for the future of Mobile Phones and PDA�s� and there onstage was this slightly wild looking kilted Scotsman wearing a smart black waistcoat and the word CRAP printed boldly across his chest. Oh, by the way he�d overrun by ten minutes so was late again! But anyway the general consensus when speaking to people afterwards was that it was the best and most entertaining presentation of the day!

After that things started to wind down. I noticed that waiters and waitresses were starting to appear with trays of Bottled beer and glasses Champagne. Things were looking up. Ewan�s already covered the evening meal in detail (check out issue 6 in the archives) but I think he was a bit harsh. For a meal for about 1000 people I thought it was pretty good, although I�ll eat just about anything. I was even more pleased when Jordan discovered that he did not like Guinea Fowl. Ewan may have speed when it comes to manipulating cards but few people are quicker that me at using a fork to nick meat off other peoples plates. It was a good time to talk and I had a nice conversation with a Programmer from up north and someone from Russia who, as normal, I embarrassingly can�t remember the names of.

I left straight after the meal, as I had to get back to Bristol for work the next day. I got into Bristol on time at 1am, knackered, but having had a wonderful time. The Symbian OS looks a great place to be for the next few years�

No web watch this week - it�s not as if I can keep up with my GSM connection, hundreds of miles away from the next habitable coastline without failing my exams (Snap! � Rafe).

Sophie

BEMUSED
Completely useless, but 100% essential application for the Series 60 phones. Take control of your PC�s MP3 player (via bluetooth). Invaluable for skipping over that Burt Baccharach track when you�re soaking in the bath.

BLESSED, BRIAN
Brian Blessed has a beard. A very large beard. He also likes to climb mountains. He�s had frostbite in many of his extremities but strangely enough, never on his chin. He is a well-known and respected actor and shouter, having appeared in such classics as The Sooty Show in 1993 (playing Santa), Blake�s 7, Doctor Who, Space 1999, Blackadder, and a little-known role in a film called �Flash Gordon.�

BLIM!
An expression of giddy delight � notably experienced when you hear the scream �Gordon�s Alive!� in a little-known film called �Flash Gordon.�

BORLAND
One of the two main companies geared to helping C++ programmers (the other being Metrowerks), Borland provide their C++ Builder application, and a similar Java Builder. Essentially these IDE�s make the programmer�s job a lot easier, providing nice drop down menu�s, highlighted commands, online syntax checking, etc. Of course *real* programmers use notepad.exe. http://www.borland.com/

BOUNCE
The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is they aren�t frustrated by Nokia�s bundled arcade exploring adventure. If you haven�t experienced bouncing the red ball of anger around then you can load up Homerun (the Solitaire Game) on your P800.

A very quick break from my exams means I can bring you some more Exposium bullets. These aren�t comprehensive, but they include some of the things we haven�t talked about that were still interesting.

BORLAND were showing off several different SDK�s, and seemed very keen to encourage their users to develop for Symbian. I�m sure developers coming to Symbian will be glad to see somewhat familiar IDE�s.

MOBIMATE were showing their best selling MobiMate product (world clocks, weather report, currency conversion and more). The release of a Series 60 version has been announced since the Exposium.

XEN GAMES were in evidence in several places showing off their games which aside from being high in eye candy and very good value. There�s more to come from them too which can only be a good thing.

EMCC were demoing Magpie technology. This will see information snippets inserted into the programs of your phone. An example of this might be having weather reports in your Agenda. It can be location based too and makes the delivery of content and information more seamless. I�m sure it will be popular with the networks as a way of putting stuff in front of eyeballs.

The Symbian Guy from the WIRELESSDEVNET was in attendance and I had a quick chat with him. He�s done his own write up of the Exposium which you can read via www.wirelessdevnet.com

CRAZYWARP were showing off their software which allowed you to bend and morph photos. You could make everyone from your granny to next door�s cat look like something from Aliens.

And now some rather more obvious ones�

SYMBIAN � yes they too had a stand. It was inflatable, but the important thing was everyone there was friendly. They were mainly talking about the various devices. OS 7.0s and phone vision.

NOKIA what seemed like the biggest stand. Everyone had a chance to play with the N-Gage and contrary to what�s been coming out of E3 the general reaction was very positive. If you haven�t heard it seems the launch price will �200ish on October 7th. Of course Series 60 was the main part of what Nokia were preaching, but there was the odd hint of 2 or possibly 3 9210 �class� devices. There�s also going to be a lot more Series 60 activity.

It struck the YS crew that while you can get self help guides for pretty much every topic under the sun, there was one area sadly lacking. How should you set up, run, and promote your Stand at the next Symbian Dev Expo? Well worry no more, here's the YS cut out and keep guide you've been waiting for.

** Location **

According to that lovely brochure, the more money you pay, the better location you get. What they actually mean is the more money you pay, the closer to the front door you'll be. The monthly tax bill of a South American country should get you one of their prime positions. But those aren't the key locations that will maximise your stand's visibility.

By trying to make it comfortable and simple for visitors to the Expo, similar groups of companies are going to be grouped together. If you are one of fifty-four instant messaging platforms, the last thing you want is to be right next to the inferior java midlet that gets all the credit. Try to get yourself in the area with all the corporate database access people - you'll find that your little oasis of calm will be like manna from heaven (just don't mention MySQL to anyone). Keep within sight of that midlet company though - just roll your eyes occasionally as people look around for safety while listening to another Messaging Product Evangelist. Bingo, one more person converted to your platform.

The killer location though, is simple. Find out where they serve the coffee, and get yourself right next to that table. It's a given that everyone at the Expo will walk past your stand at least three times, and on the second day, all you'll have to do is stretch out a hand for a frothy morning mocha.

** Staffing your Stand **

Then there's the freak. The entire hall here is going to full of middle-aged men and spotty youths in pin stripe suits. You need one person to stand out, to make sure they all remember your stand. Short of hiring the thigh-high booted Dominatrix with a purple leather skirt best described as a belt (after all, how do you explain that you know her from your University days), you could consider branded shirts in a distinctive colour (all the better as your competitors know who to avoid), ridiculously bright body paint, or bringing along the seven foot high Mountain Giant from the Management team.

Just make sure that one person isn't insane enough to wear a kilt.

** Business Cards **

Every company walks into the Expo with 2000 business cards. After they are all exchanged with other companies throughout the Expo, you will find you have 3000 cards. Of which 5 people are important, you'll email 2 of them, and one will respond.

** Freebies **

The ultimate freebie would be to have an espresso machine dispensing it's contents into Edinburgh Crystal shot glasses, with your company logo lovingly emblazoned on the hand numbered collectors certificate.

Of course, you'll end up with something practical, like branded notebooks, pens, or origami representations of your games console rather than the real thing (of which only six exist, and some nutter has installed Vexed on all of them).

The whole point of a freebie is to placate the one individual who will go round every stand asking for the freebie and leave without asking about "Handy Signal Strength Monitor." You should make sure you have a different set of pens on the second day and refuse to give him any because "he got the yellow ones yesterday."

Under no circumstances should you have a stack of "comedy" postcards advertising yourselves. They'll just end up as coasters for the espresso glasses.

** Gimmick **
With 70 companies, all in a room, you need to be remembered long after the event, and while all the above should manage that, you might want to make one last throw of the dice. You'll need your gimmick.

Something indispensable. Discreet, but in demand. Whichever company turns up at the next evening meal with a GPRS powered, location based Pizza Delivery screen on their Series 60 phone ("click here to get a Pepperoni Grand Slam in... 24 minutes and 12 seconds") is going to be the most popular dinner in the hall.

** Conclusion**

A fair few companies (including ourselves) have been sent up in this article, let's hope they take it in the spirit it was intended. Everyone at this year's Expo made the YS (and AAS! - Rafe) team feel very welcome, and we look forward to seeing where the Symbian OS goes this year - and if we'll be allowed into Dev Expo 4!

A common site on most electrical and mechanical products available today is a notice to point out that you shouldn't play with what you don't understand.  Unfortunately with the increasing amount of non-user-maintainable products about there is more wastage where people dispose of things because it works out cheaper to get another than to get the old one repaired.  Take cars for instance, years ago you were expected to perform some maintenance on them yourself, on modern cars checking the oil and water levels is almost a job for the mechanic.  I've read an article on this in Land Rover Enthusiast magazine recently and it got me thinking, not only has this happened to cars, but to computers too.

Rewind 18 years or so, the average home computer was an 8 bit, which came with manuals detailing almost everything you'd need to know, including pin-outs of all the ports, and how to use the bundled software.  This bundled software almost always included at least 1 game, some kind of productivity app like a word processor, and 1 programming language.  In these now rather distant days, it was common place to go round a friend�s house and find them copying code out of magazines onto their computer to get games, and in a sense get more from their computer.  One such electronically minded friend of mine would be found with various wires and components on a bread-board hanging out of the back of his computers, while making some software to control this device.

Roll forward 3 to 5 years where the 16bit computers grabbed the home market.  More advanced machinery but again with the same basics of enough manuals to get the most hardened insomniac to sleep and the ubiquitous programming language and pin outs.   Again my friend from above could be found exhibiting the same behaviour on this kit, and to an extent so could I.

Now look a few years later to when the IBM compatible pc hit the mainstream home computer market. Computers soon lacked manuals, there were no pin-outs, as the majority shipped with MS-DOS and Windows installed you still got a programming language, Q-basic, or GWbasic, although you didn't have any information on how to use them.  For all but the experienced home programmer, and the few people willing to take on the challenge, home programming for the computer started to decline about here.

Now a Windoze PC ships with almost no documentation and no programming languages, leaving programming firmly in the laps of those who know what they are doing and know they want to do it.  Fiddling with electronics and code to make your computer change the channel on your telly, while not entirely useful, was a part of having a computer that has since been lost.  Sure installing Linux or BeOS on your computer brings you dev tools, and the docs you need to carry on as before, but unfortunately these are tools for the more experienced user.

The ability to program and in a way control what your computer did was a kind of user satisfying past time that at the time could take the least experienced person and teach and help them.  While some people are willing to just use the computer and ignore the rest, there are the serial fiddlers, who like to feel a deeper involvement.  Similar to the people who spend money buying kits to do up their car as they can't play with the important bits under the bonnet they upgrade what they can on the outside, which I'm afraid I must admit to doing too.

I'm not talking about a full return to the old days where magazines were known to print plans of the circuit boards and give advice on modifications, but the release of pin-outs and manuals explaining how to use the supplied programming tools that would be supplied with the machine.  Until recently the Psion had OPL installed on it and came with a second manual dedicated to the language. With the Psion's demise, there is currently no PDA that you can code for on the device itself out of the box, and even worse no device that I know of that you can code for out of the box on a computer either.  The pin-outs are not documented and there is none of the ability to "fiddle" with the device.

Most people reading this are probably thinking that I'm going mad and that no-one could be expected pick up one of these devices and code for it.  Step back and think for a minute, are there any apps that you could think of that would make your life easier, or you would find handy on your device?  9 times out of 10 these apps are small and simple but are only really attractive to so few people that programmers will not think of them or if they do they'll feel the market is too small to produce for.  This is where there is a need and a use for programming tools to be distributed.

Use is made more fulfilling and gives a greater sense of achievement if you have the chance to have a deeper involvement of the device.  This is how you create a larger user base of people who will stick with a device.  This will also lead to a fuller software selection for the device both for those who like to "lift the lid" and for those who prefer just to use.  The ability to get a device and instantly develop for it has been slowly vanishing over recent years. Lets hope that the errors of this can be seen before we are all left to forking out �xxxxs for software to do something we used to be able to do for free.

Comment on this article at http://www.thesoundlab.co.uk

And that�s issue 7. I hope you�ve enjoyed reading and if you have any feedback, you know where to send it. Anyone looking for Ewan�s P800 Part Two review, he promises it�ll be here in time for Issue 8.
 
Let me know what you think! A short email to [email protected] with what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you would change, would go a long way to making a better magazine.

Your Symbian was brought to you by the letters "Y" and "S" and the
number "7"

Copyright (c) Your Symbian 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be coped in any form without written permission.

Some trademarks are referred to in this publication; these are for information purposes only. All trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. The views expressed within are not necessarily the view of Your Symbian, but rather the individual authors. The accuracy of the contained information is not guaranteed. And a little note for D�Arcy. Puffins can fly, penguins can�t.