Stephen's Thoughts » java http://www.stephendowney.net/blog Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:37:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Developing applications for Layar Augmented Reality browser – Android http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2009/12/03/developing-applications-for-layar-augmented-reality-browser/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2009/12/03/developing-applications-for-layar-augmented-reality-browser/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:49:15 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/?p=291 I finally managed to get my HTC Hero via an upgrade to Meteor.   After using the phone for only a day I am extremely impressed with the applications I have used and the ability of the phone.

The one application that I was really excited to use was Layar.

Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.



Developers can create Augmented Reality layers that can be viewed in the browser.   There are a few Irish examples out there like

Dublin Bikes

Dublin Bus Stops

Daft.ie

I’m glad to see there are a few Irish developer doing a great job here.   This video will give you an idea of what layar can do.

Here is a presentation from Dirk Groten of Layar on how to develop Layers.  You can read more about the presentation on the layar blog.

I am really looking forward to developing applications for android and some layers for the layar browser.

If you are a java developer, download the eclipse plugin for android development and look at some of the sample applications out there.  You will be amazed how easy it is to move over to android development.  I can really see a lot of developers moving to android in the next few years.   With so many java developers out there at the moment, this could be the driving force that pushes android ahead of iPhone.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2009/12/03/developing-applications-for-layar-augmented-reality-browser/feed/ 0 Java Programming for the Nintendo Wii http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/05/08/java-programming-for-the-nintendo-wii/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/05/08/java-programming-for-the-nintendo-wii/#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 15:00:23 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/05/08/java-programming-for-the-nintendo-wii/ There is a great article over at Ajaxian on programming for the Nintendo Wii. I bought a Wii myself a few weeks back and have been having great fun with Tiger Woods golf. (It is actually my first game console) Up until down the idea of playing a game console alone did not appeal to me but the Nintendo Wii experience is amazing.

The Wii console connects to the controller or Wiimote via bluethooth and uses an accelerometer built into the wiimote to detect the location of the wiimote as well as it’s acceleration. This leads to a really interactive experience for the user.

I have been amazed by responsiveness of the Wiimote and now Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith over at Ajaxian have developed an Ajax app that uses Wiiusej to interact with the Wiimote. The Wiiusej API is a java wrapper for the C based Wiiuse library.

We then wrote a Java class that acts as a state machine for what the remote is doing. It understands the movements, which buttons are pushed, how fast you are moving the device. With this data we could build a simple darts game. With the state machine Java code, and an Applet wrapper that exposed the information, we were ready to get to the Ajax side of the house.

Checkout the video below of the guys in action:


Wii Darts in Ajax from Dion Almaer on Vimeo.

You can find the article here.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/05/08/java-programming-for-the-nintendo-wii/feed/ 2 Great blog for Java Design Patterns http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/15/great-blog-for-java-design-patterns/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/15/great-blog-for-java-design-patterns/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:10:51 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/15/great-blog-for-java-design-patterns/ I came across this great site via DZone. The site provides a great overview of the Gang of Four patterns as well as J2EE patterns with UML diagrams and sample code for each one. Here what the author, Andre Mare wants to get from the blog.

Java Design Concepts will provide information on how to design, implement and deploy system in a high availability enterprise environment. The design concepts include design patterns, and Object Oriented Programming (OO). Java technologies include J2EE, EJB, JAF, JMS, JSP, JSTL, JDBC etc..

As the site is still in development some of the J2EE patterns are not complete yet but this is definitely one for your RSS reader.

Check out the site here...

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/15/great-blog-for-java-design-patterns/feed/ 0 Ever want to run your web application on Google’s infrastructure? http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/ever-want-to-run-your-web-application-on-googles-infrastructure/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/ever-want-to-run-your-web-application-on-googles-infrastructure/#comments Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:38:23 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/ever-want-to-run-your-web-applications-on-googles-infrastructure/ Well now you can….

Google just launched a preview of their app enigne. You can read all about it here.

With Google App Engine, developers can write web applications based on the same building blocks that Google uses, like GFS and Bigtable. Google App Engine packages those building blocks and provides access to scalable infrastructure that we hope will make it easier for developers to scale their applications automatically as they grow. This means they can spend less time dealing with system administration and maintenance, and more time building and improving their applications. (There’s more detail on the new App Engine Blog.)

I tried to sign up but it looks like the first 10,000 have already applied. You can still download the API from here in the mean time if you want.

]]> http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/04/08/ever-want-to-run-your-web-application-on-googles-infrastructure/feed/ 0 Need an end to end web solution using the latest Frameworks? http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/need-an-end-to-end-web-solution-using-the-latest-frameworks/ http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/need-an-end-to-end-web-solution-using-the-latest-frameworks/#comments Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:37:27 +0000 Stephen Downey http://www.stephendowney.net/blog/2008/03/07/need-an-end-to-end-web-solution-using-the-latest-frameworks/ …then check out iWebMVC.

I came across this framework during the week via Ajaxian. It provides an end to end solution with all of the plumbing in place for DWR, Dojo, Spring and Hibernate/JPA. This is a great place to start for someone that wants to get up and running fast with inner plumbing in place for these frameworks. Here is what the developer Jose Noheda said he was looking for from the project:

Nonetheless, in my mind what I really needed was a platform that:

  • Is based on Java
    Although supporting Grooy / JRuby is a plus
  • Helps me to kick start a project
    But simplifying the process by giving me the best (and this can be tricky) set of frameworks for each task
  • Integrates both server and client sides
    And it’s lightweight, robust and extensible. Read enterprise quality.
  • Supports all the common tasks a web app has to handle
    I include here: User Management, CRUD operations, i18n support (both framework & data), AJAX and astounding visuals

The project is only at the preview stage so it does come with caveats. When you start up the app you get a sample app showing some of the Dojo widgets in action as well as some screens demonstrating basic CRUD operations.

If you want find out more you can download the project from here or check out Jose’s blog here.

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