Stephen's Thoughts » Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog Java & Android Developer | Dublin Ireland Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:33:12 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Daylight robbery in M&S Ireland http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/daylight-robbery-in-ms-ireland/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/daylight-robbery-in-ms-ireland/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:40:37 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/daylight-robbery-in-ms-ireland/ At a time when the Euro is getting very close to the 80 pence mark, M&S in dublin are ripping people off with an exchange rate of 55 pence to the Euro.

See the example below, a packet of puff biscuits that retails for 99p sterling was being sold for 1.79 Euro in M&S in Dundrum.

Exchange rate rip off in M&S Dundrum

I can understand that not all shops are going to update their prices every week to keep in line with the current exchange rate but an exchange rate of 55 pence is disgraceful.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/daylight-robbery-in-ms-ireland/feed/ 0 The N95 and the rubber band… http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/the-n95-and-the-rubber-band/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/the-n95-and-the-rubber-band/#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:09:02 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/the-n95-and-the-rubber-band/ DSC03870Since I got my N95 last year, I have been really impressed by it’s features and am constantly singing it’s praises. Unfortunately I have found a issue with the phone and it looks like I am not the only one to find this. The catches that keep the back cover from falling off are very weak. I was surviving for the last few weeks on just one catch but the weight of the battery won and I have to finally admit that the back cover is broken.

I was keeping an eye out for a shop that sold covers for the N95 but did not find one. Luckily I came across a link to Blueunplugged.com. They sell all sorts of spare parts for mobiles so I ordered my replacement cover (2 just in case the same thing happens again) as well as a carrying case to protect the phone. It’s worth checking out the site as they have some cool things for sale.

Luckily I have found a high tech solution to hold the cover on the phone until my order arrives. Thank God for rubber bands :-)

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/the-n95-and-the-rubber-band/feed/ 0 What would you use your N95 Accelerometer for? http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/12/04/what-would-you-use-your-n95-accelerometer-for/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/12/04/what-would-you-use-your-n95-accelerometer-for/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:42:20 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/12/04/what-would-you-use-your-n95-accelerometer-for/ Here are some very interesting ideas for the N95 Accelerometer that I came across via NSeries WOM world. I really like number 3:

Want to know how much memory is left in your blower? How about a quick battery update? Give your phone a shake and it’ll actually sound full (or empty)…..

n95Wabble ApplicationI would love to see those games we had when we were younger where you had to get a metal ball into the middle of a maze without it falling between the gaps of the maze wall. See the image on the right for what it would look like.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/12/04/what-would-you-use-your-n95-accelerometer-for/feed/ 0 Facebook release Corba 2.0? http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/29/facebook-release-corba-20/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/29/facebook-release-corba-20/#comments Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:45:56 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/29/facebook-release-corba-20/ I came across this via Oisín Hurley’s Blog.

Facebook have released a new framework to allow languages to talk with each other. This is how Facebook describe Thrift:

Thrift is a software framework for scalable cross-language services development. It combines a powerful software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, and Ruby. Thrift was developed at Facebook, and we are now releasing it as open source.

As Oisín points out, this sounds very like CORBA. I worked with CORBA a few years back when we needed to provide a interface between C++ applications and a Java based configuration server. I am very interested to see what Thrift is providing that CORBA is not? It may be a case of reinventing the wheel with a nice Web 2.0 spin on it.

If I am way off the mark here and Thrift is bringing something new to the table, let me know.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/29/facebook-release-corba-20/feed/ 0 See the accelerometer in action on the N95 http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/01/see-the-accelerometer-in-action-on-the-n95/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/01/see-the-accelerometer-in-action-on-the-n95/#comments Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:27:30 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2007/11/01/see-the-accelerometer-in-action-on-the-n95/ Just found out something cool about the N95; it turns out that it has a Accelerometer (Level Sensor). It is used by the camera in the phone to rotate pictures taken in portrait mode. It makes you wonder why Nokia did not use this to give an auto rotate to the phones screen, similar to the feature available on the IPhone? It looks like there is someone developing this for the phone at the moment. It is called rotateme and should be out later this month. Check out the developers site for more information.


Nokia have released a demo application to show the accelerometer in action. Its a pretty simple application but it shows the power of what can be done. At first I didn’t believe it was possible but check out this video below to see it in action.

They have also released the source code for the game so you can see how it is done. The game uses the N95 RD Accelerometer Plug-in package to hook into the accelerometer on the N95. According to the research group that developed the this:

In a later N95 firmware release you should be able to access the raw accelerometer data by using the official sensor plug-in downloadable from Forum Nokia (Sensor Plug-in for 60 3rd Edition).

I can think of lots of game applications that could use this that I would love to write. Unfortunately my C++ skills are very limited. I wonder if I could hook into it from a JAVA app using JNI?

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