Sending SMS with SMPP, Kannel and Java
There are many technologies and protocols that can be used to send and receive SMS from an application. This article focuses on sending SMS via a Short Message Service Center (SMSC), with the help of the Kannel SMS gateway. In order for an application to send a SMS, it generally has to communicate with a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) over the Internet. To understand in more detail consider the following example. A Media service provider wants to send a program timetable as an SMS to its end customers. The application is running on a Linux based java application server. more...
Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 3: More Views
In the previous article, you saw the various basic views such as the TextView, EditText, Button, and how you can use them in your Android applications. In this article, we shall continue our exploration of another three categories of views - Picker views, List views, and Display views. The views discussed include: TimePicker view DatePicker view ListView view Spinner view Gallery view ImageView ImageSwitcher view GridView view more...
Getting Started with Java ME
As the world gets connected, we see the emergence of a wide variety of sophisticated and personalized mobile devices. Although the number-crunching power of the higher-end devices is very respectable, there is still a need to build applications that use minimal resources, and that are portable. Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME), formerly known as J2ME, with Java’s inherent ‘Build once, run everywhere’ concept has been adapted to build resource constraint applications for these myriad devices. more...
Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 2: Views
In the previous article on Android UI you saw the components that make up the UI of an Android application. The basic unit of the Android UI is the View. A View represents a widget that has an appearance on the screen. In this article (and the next two), you will learn about the various common views that you would likely use in your journey of Android development. In particular, I have categorized the views in this series into the following group: Basic Views - commonly-used views such as TextView, EditText, and Button views more...
Understanding User Interface in Android - Part 1: Layouts
So far in my previous few articles on Android I have focused on showing you how to get things done in Android without really spending too much time discussing the visual aspect of Android application development - User Interface design. In this article, and the next, I will walk you through the various elements that make up the UI of an Android application. In this first part of the article, I will discuss the various layouts available in Android to position the various widgets on your screen. more...
Using Google Maps in Android
Google Maps is one of the many applications bundled with the Android platform. In addition to simply using the Maps application, you can also embed it into your own applications and make it do some very cool things. In this article, I will show you how to use Google Maps in your Android applications and how to programmatically perform the following: Change the views of Google Maps Obtain the latitude and longitude of locations in Google Maps Perform geocoding and reverse geocoding Add markers to Google Maps more...
Ready.mobi API update
We've just gone live with an new version of the ready.mobi API. (Full details and code samples here). So what's new in this version? The most notable feature in this version is the ability to post markup directly to the ready.mobi API without having to supply a publicly accessible URL to the service. This is the result of some early feedback on the API that during the development cycle pages often did not have a public URL, and so they could not be tested with ready.mobi. more...
SMS Messaging in Android
It would be safe to say that nearly every mobile phone sold in the past decade has SMS messaging capabilities. In fact, SMS messaging is one great killer application for the mobile phone and it has created a steady revenue stream for mobile operators. Understanding how to use SMS messaging in your application can provide you with many ideas to create the next killer application. more...
Getting Started with Android Development
Unless you have been hiding in the caves for the past couple of months, by now you must have heard of the mobile platform from Google that everyone is talking about. Yes, that's right, I am talking about Android. Android is an open source mobile operating system that is based on the Linux kernel. Using Android, device manufacturers can customize the OS to suit their particular hardware design, thereby allowing them to innovate without limitations. more...
Going Native (or you had me at 'hello') Part I
So I’ve got a confession to make here, I’ve been working on this bit for the better part of a month now in fits and starts, and having a hard time getting my head around it all. I started out with the notion of a quick primer comparing what it would take to knock out a quick ‘hello world’ on the various native platforms out there if you were to decide to do something other than a web app. more...
