Announcing FallME

I am proud to announce a new open source project for the Java mobile and embedded community. Jim Shingler and myself have released the first version of FallME version 0.5. FallME is a Java ME framework based on the popular Spring Framework but designed for mobile devices including those running MIDP. This framework provides an IoC container as well as a RecordStoreTemplate. You can download it and find more details at https://fallme.dev.java.net/.

Touch is a PDA not an iPod

I don't understand why Apple will not just admit it. They have admitted the iPhone is a smart phone. With the recent enhancements and the soon to be released SDK, the iPod Touch is a PDA not an iPod. Assuming somebody comes out with an application that enables me to do a timesheet (preferably something like the Palm based ThinkDB which was a nice relational database with form designer) that I can sync with my Mac, I will be able to retire my old Sony CLIE for an iPod Touch and be able to justify the cost. See, I prefer to think of the device as a PDA I can play music on rather than an iPod with a browser. Best yet is it has to sync with my Mac better than my CLIE. The other two things I would love to see added since it is a PDA is extended memory and bluetooth. I would love bluetooth, so I could use a bluetooth keyboard to enter data.

Open source of the week - PDFCreator

Do you ever have documents you want to convert to PDF? Maybe you want to prevent modifications by others or you want to make sure everybody can read it since PDF is a widely used format and the Adobe PDF reader is free. You could buy one of the Adobe products for creating PDFs. They cost between $299-$499. But if you don't want to spend that much or you are on you mother's machine over the holidays, there is a great free open source tool called PDFCreator. Just download it from http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ and run the installer. You will now have a new printer named PDFCreator and you can simply create a PDF by printing any document to this printer.

Rod Johnson is coming to COJUG

I am excited to announce, Rod Johnson, "Father of Spring" is going to be speaking at a special Central Ohio Java Users Group (COJUG) event January 24th. Chech out the COJUG website for more details.