Archive for the 'BlackBerry' Category

Kids & Cell Phones

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 17, 2007
in BlackBerry and Geeky Stuff
. 1 Comment

You know what they say about kids and electronics … they know more about them and are more comfortable with them than their parents. Well, this morning, my daughter taught me something about my BlackBerry that I hadn’t figured out in the three weeks I’ve had it.

Thing is, she’s 14 months old.

I keep the phone on my nightstand because a) I get alerts from my monitoring services about my servers and such letting me know that they are down or just not working quite right, and b) I use it as my alarm clock in the morning.

Some days Autumn is awake before I am, and Rachel lets her wander around on the floor (and watches her) until I awake. Most days she picks up my phone and plays with it.

I’m going to have to be more careful, because today she managed to unlock the keypad, dial a couple of numbers (none valid, fortunately).

Plus she managed to re-arrange the icons on the BlackBerry. I hadn’t even considered that such a thing was possible. I wasn’t happy with the default arrangement of things, but I had been living with it because I figured that was the way things were. As a result of her meddling with the phone, I figured out that I could change the order, and even create folders to categorize icons. So, I’ve now moved my lesser-used apps and options into folders, and gotten things to the point that I have only 14 icons available at the “main” level, and I’ve got my five most used icons on the “home screen” (or whatever you call it).

Thanks, Autumn!

I suppose in a year or so she’ll be teaching me new things about programming …

Roll Your Own Over-the-Air Install for Your BlackBerry

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 11, 2007
in BlackBerry and Geeky Stuff
. 5 Comments

As promised a few days ago, here’s how you can create your own over-the-air (OTA) install for BlackBerry software.

Please note that these instructions will only work for you if a) you have access to a web server running Apache, and b) your provider allows you to use .htaccess file to modify the way Apache runs on a particular directory. These are absolutely essential, because the second step involves telling Apache about the files you’re going to be using for the over-the-air install … specifically what they are, and what to tell the BlackBerry they are. Without this information from the web server, the BlackBerry will have no idea what kind of files they are, and will not install them.

If you have some sort of free web hosting account, I can already tell you that you most likely cannot use .htaccess files, even if the server is running Apache.

This may or may not work for all software. So far, it’s worked for four out of five things I’ve tried to install, and I’m pretty certain the fifth program just isn’t compatible with my 8130.

That being said, here’s how to do it …

1. Create a folder somewhere in your web hosting account for the BlackBerry software. For the sake of this tutorial, let’s call the folder “bb”.

2. Create a text file on your computer, and call it .htaccess. Open it up in some kind of text editor, and enter the following information:


AddType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor .jad
AddType application/vnd.rim.cod .cod

Upload the .htaccess file to your “bb” folder.

3. Create a sub-folder of your “bb” folder and give it a descriptive name for the software you want to install. For the sake of this example, let’s call the folder “keyboard”.

4. Now, look at the archive of the software you want to install. You should have one or more files with a .cod extension. Upload these files into the /bb/keyboard folder.

5. On your computer, create a text file and call it keyboard.jad. Open it in a text editor. The information you put in the file is going to look something like this:


MIDlet-Description: Stowaway Keyboard Driver
MIDlet-Name: Stowaway
MIDlet-Vendor: Think Outside
MIDlet-Version: 2.0.0
RIM-COD-URL-1: Stowaway.cod
RIM-COD-Size-1: 58176
RIM-COD-URL-2: Stowaway420.cod
RIM-COD-Size-2: 1380
RIM-COD-URL-3: Stowaway421.cod
RIM-COD-Size-3: 3660

The first few fields are not as important … they are simply going to be used to tell your BlackBerry what the name of the program is, who wrote it, what it does, and what version it is. For the sake of your sanity, I suggest that you at least make sure you get the MIDlet-Version information correct.

The latter fields are of utmost importance. You should have a RIM-COD-URL and RIM-COD-Size field for each .cod file you have in your application archive. In my example above, I have three. The size is going to be the size of the .cod file in bytes.

If you’re a Windows user, you can probably get this information by right-clicking on the files and choosing something that looks like “Get Properties” or “File Information” or something like that. Sorry, I don’t use Windows on a regular basis, so I’m not completely sure.

If you’re a Mac user, just highlight the file and type Apple-I, and Finder will give you a nice details window that includes the file size in bytes.

If you’re a Linux user, you probably don’t need me to tell you how to figure out the size of the file in bytes.

If you’re still using your Atari 800XL, please let me know how you got it on the internet in the first place, because I just might dig out the one I played with as a kid and give your method a try.

Once you get done with your .jad file, save it and upload it to the same directory as the .cod files. If you’re using Windows, be absolutely sure that it doesn’t helpfully append .txt to the end of the file name, because if it does, this will not work.

Now that you’ve uploaded the files, open up the browser on your BlackBerry. Go to http://www.example.com/bb/keyboard. You should see a list of files in the directory, select the keyboard.jad file, and in theory, it should ask you if you want to install the program. If all goes well, you’ll have your program installed in a few seconds.

If this does not work for you for some reason, I blame the economic policies of Grover Cleveland during his second term of office.

Addendum: @Brett Mark below wrote me with the following information about the SHA1 hashes:

This is added once the app [all cods in the main cod] are certified.

Once certified nothing can change except the name of the JAD file. COD file names must not change.

Obligatory BlackBerry Pearl Update

Published
by
Jeremy Clifton
on December 4, 2007
in BlackBerry and Geeky Stuff
. 0 Comments

So, I’ve had my BlackBerry Pearl for about ten days now. I’m so happy with it that I ditched the Asus (Windows Mobile) PDA and put it in my desk drawer over a week ago, and I haven’t missed it. I’ve become very proficient at entering text using the odd keyboard setup, and I’m thrilled that I’m getting phone plus PDA in the same amount of pocket space that my phone previously took up.

I’m really wondering why I resisted having my PDA integrated with my phone. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Early last week I discovered that it’s got GPS stuff built in, and I can use it to find directions to somewhere I want to go. That’s nifty.

I’ve even figured out how to get around Missing Sync’s inability to install software by converting most desktop installation packages so that they will work with an over-the-air install (I’ll write up a tutorial on this later).

It’s far more stable than the Windows Mobile device. I’ve yet to have to reboot it because it became unresponsive. It’s not nearly as complex, so it’s easier to use. Really, the only thing I miss from the Win Mobile PDA is the nice “Today” screen that Win Mobile has. There is a similar theme for the BlackBerry, but I Just don’t care for it … but I’m getting along just fine without it.

I give this device an A+++. If I just consider the phone capabilities of the device, it’s by far the best phone I’ve had since I’ve been using cell service (and this is … uh … my ninth cell phone, I think). Add in the PDA features, and this thing hits a home run. If you’re in the market for a small, compact phone that doubles as a PDA/organizer, I wholeheartedly recommend the Pearl.