Jason R Briggs

Part 1 of this series appeared in the August issue of Java Developer's Journal (Vol. 8, issue 8), and Part 2 appeared in the September issue (Vol. 8, issue 9). JDJ: Microsoft has received quite a lot of good press (or propaganda, however you'd like to look at it) for their .NET ... (more)

Part 1 of this series appeared in the August issue of Java Developer's Journal (Vol. 8, issue 8). JDJ: I'd just like to pick up on that 85% portability goal Jeff mentioned earlier. I'm just going on assumptions, but I think if you were developing a title for the PS2, GameCube, an... (more)

I recently had a hankering to play an older (not ancient) PC game that I used to enjoy. Since I've moved my entire desktop over to Linux (for almost a year ago now) that meant stealing my wife's Windows laptop and trying to install the game on that. Two FDISKs and one Windows rei... (more)

This review has, admittedly, been quite some time coming. Had I been looking at basic phone features, I could have produced something months ago - however, this magazine is not the mobile phone-geek's equivalent of the Trainspotter's Almanac (fortunately), and we have slightly mo... (more)

This will be my last outing as J2ME Editor for JDJ. It's been an interesting 22 issues, with big changes within both the Java and the J2ME spaces. Over the past two years, the number of JSRs related in some way to J2ME has increased (almost exponentially), an assortment of compet... (more)

Thanks to the nice folks at Metrowerks, I finally have a smart phone to play with. As some of you may well be aware, I was suffering from an affliction of round-the-corner-itis that had prevented me from investing in a Java phone. However, when one is provided for you, this unfor... (more)

Along with many others, I've believed for quite some time now that there must be a change in the custodianship of Java for the platform to survive these uncertain times. My personal belief is that any future custodian of the Java platform must be an organization of community memb... (more)

I recently noticed that Qualcomm has licensed the ARM1136J-S microprocessor core. The interesting thing to note about this announcement is one of the letters in that microprocessor version: the "J". ARM's 1136J-S is a Jazelle-enabled chip, meaning it's optimized for the Java inst... (more)

It's just as well I'm not a gambler. After pessimistically deciding that it would be a clichéd "cold day in hell" before I saw a Java-enabled phone arrive on these shores, our local Vodafone launched the excellent Nokia 7650. Color and Java, no less. Of course, certain internatio... (more)

Where do market analysts get their figures? When you get a job as an industry or market analyst, do they give you a complimentary calculator that has a single button with a label marked "Random" on the front? The reason I ask is that I read an article from Reuters a while back in ... (more)

Apparently it hasn't been a good quarter for many PDA makers. Shipments were down from the same period last year so, of course, doom and gloom are predicted by all and sundry. Actually I'm exaggerating; one of the reports I read was fairly evenhanded in its approach ­ another was... (more)

At times, I wonder just how far short the computer industry has fallen of its promise of a few decades ago. I'm not talking about the lofty ideal of the computer of the future that science fiction authors were predicting we'd be using by now, such as machines capable of holding a... (more)

A recent press release from Palm got me thinking about their PDAs, as well as why Palm (in the UK) never returned my e-mails...but that's another matter (and half a world away now). In any case, according to the release, 5,000 Palms are to be purchased as part of a three-year gra... (more)

I've been thinking a PhD student should consider doing a thesis on the life expectancy of a pen after it's purchased. I've come up with an approximate calculation for mine: LE (Life Expectancy) =DWU (Date of Wanting to Use)-1; in other words, a pen will go missing the day before ... (more)

JavaOne is over, and it's time to sit back and reflect...and to sift through the hundreds of press releases and announcements that ricochet around the Internet like balls around a pinball machine. While I couldn't be there myself, when I checked my e-mails each day, I felt as if ... (more)

A strange accident occurred on my flight back to New Zealand. Somehow, the plane flew through a rip in space-time and we wound up in a freak alternate dimension. The thing is, it was initially very difficult to tell that we weren't in the right dimension anymore, because everythi... (more)

You've heard this said before.  In fact, If you regularly peruse the pages of JDJ, you've heard it here more than once.  In case it hasn'y sunk in, repeat after me: J2ME (especially MIDP) will provide tremendous opportunities for developers. Not convinced? Think about it, then: ... (more)

A few months ago Alan mentioned that he had finally shifted to Star Office. As someone who has been using the software suite since Sun took it over, I applaud his decision to move away from that other office package. However, the shift doesn’t come without a few challenges that c... (more)

I've been hearing lately that Bluetooth is making a comeback. Considering that it had hardly gotten started when it was written off in certain quarters, it's amusing to see a comeback prediction so soon. In any case, I can see that short-range wireless protocols, such as Bluetoot... (more)

I was reading a forum discussion recently that argued that J2ME was a mess. The general consensus (admittedly there weren't that many messages) seemed to be that this conclusion was correct. My automatic response was "What a complete load of bollocks" (which I think means I've be... (more)