Antinormal

New Content

I've been rather busy for the past few weeks but I figured I should be able to get in blog post. And let's face it, I'm just incapable of churning out content too often.

I finally finished up with the new and improved SimpleIRC and submitted it to Ovi Publish. It should be appearing on the Ovi Store anytime soon. I also developed a new application called NSM which essentially means Nigerian Stock Market. As the name implies, it's an application for viewing stock market prices at the end of each stock trading day. It's also been submitted to Ovi Publish, and it's free. You can find screenshots here. I intend to extend the functionality to include price histories, charts and basic portfolio tracking.

So I've got this contract which requires me to extend Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 for a client, which means I may not be able to publish new applications for a couple of months. I'm hoping I should be able to finish up with the Qt version of TopVideo within the next few weeks though. It's also gonna be a free application, with the ability to watch the videos within the app itself. We'll see how that goes.

I redecorated the screen of my E7 and it looked great. I should've taken pictures but I was too sad to think about it at that point. Either way, I'll have to wait till it makes it out of Nokia Care. At least, I've still got my trusty N8 which serves me well.

On to video games, I still have a few to beat - Borderlands, Fallout: New Vegas, Metro 2033. This is just sad as I haven't booted my gaming PC in a while (thanks to EVE Online running quite nicely on my HP Envy). I did finish Portal 2 within a week after I got it though. It's pretty cool but some of the puzzles kinda got frustrating. Maybe I'm just getting too old for that sort of shit. However, Spaaaaaaaaaace!

Happy Africa Day!

Porting SimpleIRC to Qt

Hello Internet. Decided to spend the weekend implementing SimpleIRC in Qt using C++ and QML. I had already started on this a while back, but I sort of lost interest due to other projects I had to take care of. I'm happy with the results so far since the Java version got seriously broken after Nokia implemented kinetic scrolling on the touchscreen devices where you couldn't scroll through the chat history.

I've also been able to add nifty new features: The ability to open links in your device browser directly from chat, auto-join channels on a per-server basis and UTF-8 support. DCC file transfer support is still in the works. I just can't for the life of me figure out the protocol properly.

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete without screenshots. First of all, the basic stuff. Here's the main UI showing just a status tab and the main menu. All shots were taken in portrait mode but the UI auto-adjusts nicely when the screen orientation changes.

Revamped settings and servers configuration sreens built using QML. The QML views are actually integrated with the application UI using a dialog.

Links are underlined in the chat window and will be launched with the native device browser when pressed.

Other fancy stuff: editing servers, error and confirmation dialogs, copying text and UTF-8.

Overall, this is a very, very nice improvement from the Java version. I'm looking to finish it up within the next week so I can get it published once the Ovi Store starts accepting Qt 4.7 applications (within about 2 weeks from what I've heard). As usual, comments and feedback are appreciated.

Well, that’s disappointing

I take back all the good things I may have said about SWIFT Networks. I was pretty excited and upgraded to their unlimited plan. What I didn't know (and wasn't told) was that the unlimited plan has a reduced speed. It's pretty much the same as my former provider, but at twice the price. I have not renewed my subscription and I don't plan to unless they fix that.

Nokia announced a switch to Windows Phone 7 for smartphones and Qt is not going to be one of the development platforms going forward. Now, I'm a bit familiar with Windows Phone 7 development, and it's nice, but I feel like I wasted quite a bit of my time learning Qt. It's not all bad however since there's Qt Quick which is fairly straightforward and easy to use, and I'm liking it. It's probably what I'll solely be using to develop applications for Symbian devices going forward. I also will be getting a free E7 as a Forum Nokia Launchpad member, then a Nokia Windows Phone 7 when they start shipping as encouragement to keep developing for Nokida devices. Sounds like bribery, but hey, I'll take it!

I haven't been doing much development work lately as I've been feeling a bit off, but I should get past that phase in a bit.

Things are good

Happy New Year, folks. Sure it's a month and a day late, but I was just too lazy in January to even bother. However things are looking up this year.

First off, I finally took the plunge and purchased the HP Envy 14 after the Radiance displays were made available for a limited time (they initially ran out of stock). It's got a Core i5-560M processor with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB hard disk drive along with an AMD 5650HD graphics chip for high performance gaming. It's gonna make me productive.

I changed my ISP again. This time, I switched to SWIFT Networks and they've been pretty good so far. Current max download I've got is ~200KB/s which is good enough for my 10GB+ Steam downloads. At least, I don't have to wait days to complete them anymore. See:

I've also recently got back into EVE after taking a break for a whole year. The new character creator is pretty. My new character portrait is pretty. I'm currently focusing on PvP in faction wars which is pretty fun for the most part. I've still got quite a lot of skills to train though before I become a deadly pilot.

I haven't started with university yet. There was a bunch of delays which resulted in me having to move my departure from Nigeria forward to August. Meanwhile, I've got a few things to look forward to while I'm still here, like Nokia organised programmes for Ovi publishers.

So yeah, things are looking good. 2011 looks like it's gonna be awesome. And don't forget, the world ends next year!

Moving forward

I haven't been posting regularly (as usual), and I'm not going to say that that's gonna change but it looks like I'd have to go with the I'll post when I can copout. I'm not going to university yet, which is a long story and a bit of bummer but it'll get get sorted out in 7 to 8 months but I've been doing interesting things! Aside from TopCoder competition madness, I'm almost done porting SimpleIRC to Qt and I plan to develop a couple of mobile games before the year runs out.

First game is meant to be a collection of five card games called Five Card Games. Maybe I'll just add in Classic there somewhere. I'm very creative, I know! The other's gonna be a clone of Paratrooper which is an old DOS game. It's gonna have improved graphics, of course. Five Card Games will consist of Solitaire (Klondike), Last Card, Hearts, Twenty-One (Blackjack) and Texas Hold 'em Poker. There will be single-player and multiplayer options available through peer-to-peer (bluetooth) or Internet servers (3G or WiFi). Obviously, there won't be a multiplayer Solitaire option, but on second thought, that sounds like an interesting game mode. Co-op solitaire, anyone?

You'd think coding card games should be a very easy task. Let me tell you, it isn't. But that probably has more to do with the fact that I'm just learning OpenGL ES. I haven't touched any form of OpenGL in years now, so I barely remember anything.

I've been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum which is rather good. You should watch me break several mice as I try to fight off up to 10 baddies at a time! My progress is very slow though since I've got a lot of work to do. And regarding games I'm looking forward to, there is only one (sorry, Dragon Age 2 but this is my first love).

I’ve been busy with cool things

Literally. So much that I forgot to renew antinormal.org. Who does that?! I guess the lesson to be learned here is that I need to update my blog more. A lot's happened since the last time I posted. Spammers took over the Comments section and they really need to fall off the face of the earth. And check out my new Windows Experience Index score! Look at all the sweet, sweet GTX 460 goodness! However, it looks like it's time for me to jump on the SSD bandwagon.

Windows Phone 7 phones were announced and Windows Phone 7 launched. I particularly like the Samsung Omnia 7, but I'm personally waiting for the first wave of updates before I get one. I still don't like the fact that basic features like copy-and-paste and proper multitasking are missing from the OS but since Microsoft has promised good updates, we'll see how it goes.

I got called up by Nokia yesterday which I thought was interesting. I didn't even know they had an office over here! But I suppose we learn something new every day. Basically, they're reaching out to developers because they want to do everything they can to support us to write apps and publish to Ovi. It was completely unexpected and was very nice. I also got to do an impromptu presentation today about the apps that I published and it went quite well, considering I don't usually do presentations. Funny enough, I've never actually done a real life presentation before. Based on this, I believe we can safely conclude that I've clearly got skills. No, I didn't get a free N8. So yeah, I was impressed and excited about the whole thing and it actually made me reflect on the apps I wrote in Java ME and the planned features considering all the limitations. Here's the good thing though, Qt is my new friend. So my old applications will be ported, I shall develop and launch new applications, and they will all sell millions of copies. Gotta take care of the revenue disparity first, though.

Speaking of the Ovi Store, a lot has changed (for the better) since my initial Publishing to the Ovi Store post so I intend to post an update detailing the current process. The applications I published are currently not available for purchase due to the code signing certificate expiring and a hiccup I experienced while trying to renew. Thankfully, Nokia signs apps for free now (refer to future post) so I don't have to bother with that anymore.

Back to the GTX 460 goodness I was talking about, Prototype is pretty awesome. You can fly! Yes, I know it's just gliding. BUT YOU CAN FLY! And kick helicopters out of the sky. Any game which allows you to kick helicopters out of the sky is a proper definition of awesome in my book. There's no dispute about that. I've also been playing Borderlands which is quite good and Dragon Age: Origins which I've beaten once. I quite liked the story in Dragon Age, but the sex scenes were pretty lame. I think everyone who decides to put sex in a game should use Fahrenheit as a point of reference from now on.

Lastly, I bought Fallout: New Vegas today, which is funny because I decided I wasn't going to buy any more games this year (after the spending spree on Steam summer discounts), but you know, it's Fallout. It's meant to be great by default. It's gonna take about 4 days(!) to download all 7GB of it on Steam, but I'll manage as usual. I am still in desperate need of a high speed Internet connection. Anyone?

On to Qt and C++

My C++ is absolute rubbish. But that's probably due to the fact that I haven't written any C++ code since 2005. I'm gradually picking it up again though as I'm exploring Qt (pronounced "cute" by the way, which I find amusing) for developing mobile applications. Qt is actually a very neat framework. I particularly like the signals and slots feature. Think about signals as events and slots as event handlers and you'll see what I mean. I've spent a couple of weeks coding an application and I'm rather liking the experience so far.

My C++ is still absolute rubbish. Or just the bit that has to do with pointers and references. I've been thinking of buying C++ Primer for a long time now (~3 to 4 years) and I think it's about time that I actually do that. The other development option is PyQt which uses Python, and I may be wrong, but I believe it requires some additional libraries to be installed on the target device before your applications can run.

I finished up at 15th place in the develompent track of the 2010 TopCoder Open, which means I qualified but since my visa application was refused, I won't be able to attend. The interview official this time around was an even bigger douche than the one I was stuck with last year which I found hilarious. Eventually. In any case, looks like I should be looking forward to next year's experience.

Meanwhile, I have a lot of games to keep me occupied at the moment while I'm still stuck in this country saving up for university. My ultimate departure's getting close. I can feel it. But before that, I have to acquire an HP Envy 14 and a GTX 460 graphics card.

And just to let everyone know I haven't been living under a rock
The greats: Inception, The Expendables (I haven't seen it yet, but it automatically qualifies), current Burn Notice season, N900 PR 1.2 update
The good: Caprica (first episode is quite rubbish, but trust me, it gets better albeit slow), current True Blood season, N97 v22 firmware update
The funnies: iPhone 4 antenna issues (aka Antennagate)
The fails: Apple's Antennagate response, Windows Marketplace doesn't have Nigeria in the list of countries for developer registration

My TCO qualification rush is over so I should be posting more regularly now. Stay tuned!

I’m still alive. FYI.

It's been over 3 months since I made a post on this blog and with good reason. I've been too lazy to make a post.

Actually, I've been mostly occupied with trying to qualify as a finalist for the component development track of the 2010 TopCoder Open. I'm currently placed 20 and they're only taking the top 15. It's not been very easy as I've been on a second-place streak. To put things in perspective, 1st place winners get a significantly greater amount of points. I actually managed to get two first place wins, but I was moved to second place for one of them because my score was tied with a developer who had a higher rating (you're interested in the DR points column). However, I remain the true winner for that component irrespective of what they say. I bet I currently hold the record for the most second places during a qualification period.

I went against my principles and purchased a Blackberry Bold 9700. Blackberry devices are overhyped. However, the unlimited (yes, it's truly unlimited) plan for always-on connectivity (at ~$33 a month) on MTN is actually very useful. Apart from the obvious Blackberry Messenger usage, you also get normal access to the Internet. I'm not sure if this works with tethering as I've never bothered to try it, but the mobile browser is good enough. I haven't tried downloading large files though. I'll see how that goes when I can get around to it. There's another side of the story as to why I got a Blackberry, but I'm not telling you.

Meanwhile, the Steam summer sales which ended yesterday were pretty awesome! I think I bought about 1000 games for ~$200. Okay, so maybe just about 62 games which include Just Cause 2 (which I hear is the funnest game ever), Batman: Arkham Asylum, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Prototype, Dragon Age: Origins, Red Faction: Guerilla and Borderlands. Tell me that's not an awesome deal. All in all, I have a long list of games to play once I have plenty of free time.

Other important notes: The Nokia Qt SDK is pretty rad and vuvuzelas are officially the worst invention, ever. I'm not even going to say anything about Nigeria's performance at the World Cup. Just know this, there's a certain individual who missed a clear cut goal chance, he's the new poster child of epic fail.

Till next time.

Quick N900 Review

Verdict: The N900 is an awesome piece of hardware.

Or if you prefer the long version: I picked up a Nokia N900 about a week ago (after several months of resistance which turned out to be clearly futile) and it has effectively replaced my N97 as my primary mobile device. I'm not going to go into details in this post, so I'll just outline the main points I've observed in this speedy review. Also, I haven't used the camera yet (sorry, folks!) but I probably will when I get out more.

The Good
- Maemo 5 is very fast and responsive and the interface is very nice. I've read a few posts saying that the interface is unintuitive, but I don't see anything unintuitive about this.
- Conversations. This is by far the best feature in my opinion. Particularly useful for SMS messages as they are treated like IMs. Basically, SMS messages from the same sender are grouped in a single view with your replies to that sender. It's also used for IMs which function like, well, IMs.
- Seamless integration with VoIP and IM accounts in the Phone application and Contacts view. Only Google Talk, Skype, Ovi and Jabber are supported but it's nice being able to make a call using any of these options when you open up the Contact View.
- Web browsing experience is superb. But then again, everyone already knows this.
- Desktop widgets and shortcuts. Quick access to anything and everything.
- Media Player plays practically everything. Or at least all the different audio and video file formats I have.

The Bad
- The touchscreen became unresponsive on me once which led to having to reboot the device. I've not experienced this again, though.
- Can't resume firmware updates if the connection breaks, but my slow connection takes most of the blame for this. Resume functionality would be nice, though.
- Email application could use pagination settings. Not being able to set the number of emails to display at once isn't ideal.
- Maps application is limited. It'd be very nice to have the S60 Ovi Maps edition on this with free navigation.
- No Ovi Suite support.

The Ugly
- Phone application doesn't support USSD out-of-the-box. To perform operator requests (those numbers that contain * and #), I have to run a script on the terminal or use a 3rd party desktop widget.
- Can't create playlists with the Media Player.
- Based on some posts I've seen, I'm scared the USB port might come off at any time. But let's hope it doesn't.

Overall, I think it's a well-rounded device that does just about everything. I'm hoping for firmware updates that will fix the feature omissions and USSD issues.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on doing a series of reviews of ISPs in Nigeria. I'm also thinking of setting up a community forum on antinormal. Because I can. And all the cool kids have one.

Ovi Maps free navigation license, for life

In case you haven't heard yet, Nokia announced that the Walk and Drive everywhere navigation license for Ovi Maps is completely free. Who says you can't get good things for free?

This is probably a response to Google's free navigation service available on Android devices, but Ovi Maps is a better option for me considering it's available in my country (Google is only limited to the United States as far as I know) and it doesn't require a data connection since you can preload maps onto your device.

The N97 currently isn't on the list of supported devices, though, which was a bit of a downer. They're delaying it till the 28th but there's a workaround for people like me who are completely incapable of waiting, sometimes. You need to have at least 20MB of free space on C:. I only had 19.7MB free but I coincidentally discovered the Memory Reorganiser update (from the phone's Software Updates application) for my phone which was able to free up about 5MB of space.

When you've got 20MB of free space on C:, you can use this installer to get all the Ovi Maps 3.3 goodness you've ever wanted. They've also improved on the interface which is very nice. And there's the English voice with street names, which in theory is meant to call out the names of streets during navigation. It's going to be hilarious listening to this with Nigerian street names, if it works.

Meanwhile, I picked up an LG 42PQ30 yesterday which happens to be my first HDTV purchase. And in case you're wondering why I picked plasma over LCD, it was cheaper. What can I say? I'm a slow and cheap adopter of new technology.