Beginning J2ME Platform: From Novice to Professional Review

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Beginning J2ME Platform: From Novice to Professional ReviewJ2ME is a jungle of configurations, profiles, and APIs. A beginner's book might soar over the jungle like an exotic bird, pretty but insubstantial. Such a book would see everything from a 20,000 foot view. You'd see the lay of the land, but wouldn't get your feet wet.
Another approach would be for the authors to grab their machetes and start hacking their way in, following a particular path. You'd get all dirty and sweaty and get a lot of experience, but not necessarily understand exactly how you got there.
This book decidedly takes this latter path. After a brief introductory chapter, it concentrates on the core APIs and the most commonly implemented configuration and device profile. Although there's plenty of practical information on tools and lots of code examples, as a reader unfamiliar with J2ME, and someone who doesn't own a Java-enabled phone, I felt disoriented. As an introduction to J2ME programming, I felt the book was lacking in background and motivations.
Striking a balance between the two approaches I described might be a fool's errand. Therefore you would probably need one book from each category to really get involved in J2ME development.Beginning J2ME Platform: From Novice to Professional OverviewJ2ME is a platform for wireless and mobile Java application development. Beginning J2ME makes this and all the fun you can have with it accessible to the first time wireless Java developer as well as useful to the experienced. This book includes coverage such as sound HTTPS support, lots of user interface API enhancements, a Game API, sound/music API, 3D graphics, Bluetooth, and much more. It's easy to read with lots of practical hands-on and able to use code examples.

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Core J2ME Technology Review

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Core J2ME Technology ReviewI bought this book about two months ago when my company was starting a J2ME project. I read the first 6 chapters page for page as an introduction and then used the rest of the book as a reference. I now consider myself a proficient J2ME programmer.
I've used the book mostly as a reference and I have found that the way the chapters are laid out makes it very easy to find whatever information I'm looking for. The chapters on Record Stores are particularly useful.
One reviewer said to just read the online docs. CDLC and MIDP are not very difficult technologies to become proficient at but the documentation online will make it much harder on you. If you don't mind wasting hours of time to save [money] on this book thats fine. But if your time is valuable like mine break down and make the investment. This book and the JavaDocs will be all you need to start professional apps in J2ME.Core J2ME Technology OverviewWith Nokia alone announcing deployment of 150 million phones running Sun's J2ME and Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP), developer interest in these technologies is enormous. Now, there's an authoritative, example-rich technical resource that will enable every Java developer to build robust applications for any J2ME mobile device -- fast. Written by one of the world's most experienced Java developers and trainers, this hands-on book teaches J2ME and MIDP using more than 50 well-designed examples -- all of them clearly commented, thoroughly explained, and available for download on the Web. Core J2ME Technology covers everything a developer needs to get results. John Muchow begins with an overview of the J2ME, including configurations and profiles; then walks you through creating your complete J2ME development environment -- from downloading J2ME to troubleshooting. The book then provides exhaustive coverage of the MIDP programming interface: the basics of the MIDlet application lifecycle; event handling; low-level components; persistent storage; networking (including communication with servlets and session management); and more.The book also contains comprehensive references to both key elements of J2ME: MIDP and the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC) specification. For all experienced Java developers who want to create mobile applications with J2ME.

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Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications Review

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Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications ReviewI go to Java Users Groups (yes, I'm struggling to get in touch with my inner geek) once every two or three months. Sometimes there's an engaging speaker, but most of the time the fellow up front looks like he's just swallowed a hot pepper, speaks like he has a permanent stutter, and answers questions like I'm speaking Greek. (I'm not making fun; I had a hard time when I was in front of a JUG too.) Regardless of the quality of the speaker, I gain something just by watching the presentation--he points out interesting technologies and usually has a list of resources at the end that I can use for further research.
I think Michael Yuan would be a great speaker at a JUG, as he seems to have a masterful understanding of Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2ME). However, the true value of his book, Enterprise J2ME, was in its introduction of new ideas and concepts, and the extensive resource listings. This book is a survey of the current state of the art in mobile java technology. Whatever your topic is, except for gaming development, you'll find some coverage here. Securing information on the device or network, XML parsing strategies, messaging architectures, and data synchronization issues are all some of the topics that Yuan covers.
My favorite chapter was Chapter 7, 'End to End Best Practices.' Here, Yuan covers some of the things he's learned in developing his own enterprise applications, and offers some solutions to five issues that differ between the J2ME world and the worlds familiar to most Java developers: J2EE and J2SE. He offers capsule solutions to the issues of "limited device hardware, slow unreliable networks, pervasive devices, ubiquitous integration [and] the impatient user." Later in the book, he explores various architectures to expand on some of these capsules.
However, the strength of this book, exposing the reader to a number of different mobile technologies, is also its weakness. JUG speakers very rarely dive into a technology to the point that I feel comfortable using it without additional research; I usually have to go home, download whatever package was presented, and play with it a bit to get a real feel for its usefulness. This book was much the same. Some of the chapters, like chapters 12 and 13, where issues with databases on mobile devices (CDC devices, not CLDC devices) weren't applicable to my kind of development, but you can hardly fault Yuan for that. Some of the later chapters felt like a series of 'hello world' applications for various vendors. This is especially true of chapter 12, and also of chapter 20, which is a collection of recipes for encryption on the device.
Additionally, I feel like some of the points he raised in Chapter 7 are never fully dealt with. An example of this is section 7.3.3, "Optimize for many devices." The project I'm on is struggling with this right now, but I had trouble finding any further advice on this important topic beyond this one paragraph section. However, these small issues don't take away from the overall usefulness of the book--if you are developing enterprise software, you'll learn enough from this book to make its purchase worthwhile.
However, I wouldn't buy the book if you're trying to learn J2ME. Yuan gives a small tutorial on basic J2ME development in Appendix A, but you really need an entire book to learn the various packages, processes and UI concerns of J2ME, whether or not you have previously programmed in Java. Additionally, if you're trying to program a standalone game, this book isn't going to have a lot to offer you, since Yuan doesn't spend a lot of time focused on UI concerns and phone compatibility issues. Some of the best practices about limited hardware may be worth reading, and if it's a networked game, however, you may gain from his discussions in Chapter 6, "Advanced HTTP Techniques." In general though, I'm not sure there's enough to make it worth a game developer's while.
I bought this book because I'm working on a networked J2ME application, and it stands alone in its discussion of the complex architectural issues that such applications face. It covers more than that, and isn't perfect, but it is well worth the money, should you be facing the kind of problems I am. Indeed, I wish I had had this book months ago, as I'm sure it would have improved the my current application.Enterprise J2ME: Developing Mobile Java Applications OverviewMobile enterprise information systems will soon be one of the major applications of wireless technology. Java 2 Micro Edition is poised to be an important platform for developing wireless enterprise applications. Enterprise wireless applications allow workers to access crucial business information from any place at any time. This book covers the design, architecture, tools and development methodology for the Web Services that will be the killer app for this very promising platform. The author explains the value of mobile commerce and discusses architecture and system design considerations. This book explains not only API usages but also the designs behind the APIs so that you can learn how to extend those technologies for your custom requirements!

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Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications Review

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Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications ReviewI really hate Netbeans, but in spite of that fact, and the fact that this book makes heavy use of the technology, I dug into the book. I have a real interest in learning about the development of Java programs on cell phones past the writing of small local applications and games, and this book seemed to fit the bill. I'm the happy owner of many of the author's past books, and this one didn't disappoint me either. At first glance parts of the book look rather sparse. That is because, for one, Knudsen doesn't see the point in just regurgitating the standard. The second reason is that much of the source code is on the book's accompanying website. If you are interested in writing mobile applications with Java, I highly recommend this book. I discuss the book's contents chapter by chapter as follows:
Section: I Getting Started
Chapter 1. Overview - explains why MIDP is such a good fit for mobile devices and describes how MIDP and the rest of the band fit together to form a powerful platform for mobile applications.
Chapter 2. Tools - Building MIDP applications is surprisingly easy. This chapter describes several development alternatives and explains some of the magic that these tools provide. Also justifies Netbeans, which I dislike, but it's a fair trade-off to play with such cool stuff.
Chapter 3. Quick Start -Describes a few simple parts of MIDP so that you can get something running right away. You'll also have a basic scaffolding upon which to build your later knowledge.
Chapter 4. Core APIs - Don't assume that you know all this stuff, even if you're experienced with Java technology on the desktop or in a server environment. The constraints of small devices dictate that these APIs are more compact and less rich than their desktop counterparts.
Section: II The Lives of MIDlets
Chapter 5. The MIDlet Habitat - learn the details of how MIDlets live and die and how devices prevent bad MIDlets from performing bad deeds.
Chapter 6. Starting MIDlets Automatically - Incoming network connections can start a MIDlet. For example, a Short Message Service (SMS) message arriving on a certain port or an incoming socket connection could launch a MIDlet. MIDlets can request to be started at a specific time. MIDlets can respond to specific types of content. For example, an audio player MIDlet can be set to handle one or more audio file types. Other applications can ask the device to launch a MIDlet to handle a certain type of content.
Section: III User Interface
Chapter 7. Basic User Interface - This chapter and Chapter 8 discuss the screens that LCDUI, the user interface, supplies and their supporting baggage.
Chapter 8. More User Interface
Section: IV Graphics
Chapter 9. Creating Custom Screens - If the plain old LCDUI screens are not sufficiently jazzy or flexible for your application, you can create your own screen using a canvas. It's more work, but it's more fun. You can control almost all of the drawing on the display and you get fine-grained event information as well.
Chapter 10. Custom Items - A middle ground lies between the easy path of canned LCDUI screens and the raw bravado of using Canvas. Custom items are your own items that can be placed into standard forms. A custom item is very similar to a canvas, but it has some additional equipment to allow it to be part of a form.
Chapter 11. Using the Game API - One popular category of Java ME applications is games. Even when faster data networks make other types of applications more popular, games will always be an important part of the Java ME ecosystem. MIDP has a Game API designed to help you create 2D action or board games. It has a souped-up canvas and supports building a screen using multiple layers. The entire API consists of five classes that are discussed in this chapter.
Chapter 12. Scalable Vector Graphics - The shortcomings of images on small devices are addressed by JSR 226, the Scalable 2D Vector Graphics API for J2ME. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a kind of XML for describing pictures. Because it is essentially a programming language, SVG can also describe animations and user interactions. JSR 226 is a standard API for displaying and manipulating SVG documents.
Chapter 13. 3D Graphics - The Mobile 3D Graphics (M3G) API, gives MIDlets the ability to show 3D content. It is a scaled-down version of the desktop Java platform 3D API. The M3G API is a scene graph API, which means it knows how to render scenes that are described as a hierarchy of groups and objects. How to use the API is discussed here.
Section: V Storage and Resources
Chapter 14. Record Stores - MSA devices provide three ways to work with persistent storage. The first way is with record stores, which are tiny databases that contain records. The official name for this API is the Record Management System (RMS), which is covered in this chapter.
Chapter 15. Reading and Writing Files - MIDP devices often have some kind of hierarchical file system. The PDA Optional Packages define a FileConnection API that provides access to a device's file system. It is a mandatory part of MSA and MSA subset. The FileConnection API is the subject of this chapter.
Chapter 16. Contacts and Calendars - The Personal Information Management (PIM) API provides access to contact lists, calendars, and to-do lists on mobile devices. The API is the subject of this chapter.
Chapter 17. Mobile Internationalization - A fancy phrase that means making your application run in different languages. Internationalization is handled by Mobile Internationalization API, the subject of this chapter.
Section: VI Networking
Chapter 18. The Generic Connection Framework - All network access in MIDP devices works through the Generic Connection Framework (GCF). The fundamental idea of GCF is very simple. Your application supplies a connection string, and GCF hands back the corresponding input and output streams.
Chapter 19. Text and Multimedia Messaging - This chapter covers the Wireless Messaging API (WMA) which extends this capability of transmitting and receiving text messages to MIDlets.
Chapter 20. Bluetooth and OBEX - teaches you the fundamentals of Bluetooth communication but does not attempt to cover the Bluetooth and OBEX (Object Exchange) APIs in meticulous detail.
Chapter 21. XML and Web Services - describes how to use the XML parsing API, how to call Web services using the JAX-RPC API, and how to work with RESTful Web services. Examples will show how to parse a Rich Site Summary (RSS) feed and how to write a RESTful client for the Flickr photo-sharing service.
Chapter 22. Session Initiation Protocol - Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a standard way to set up a call, videoconference, or other session between two network endpoints. This chapter is a broad overview.
Section: VII Multimedia
Chapter 23. Playing and Recording Sound and Video - Discusses the Mobile Media API (MMAPI) for working with images, audio, and video. There are some good detailed examples here.
Chapter 24. Advanced Multimedia - expands on the promise of MMAPI with 3D audio, image processing and encoding, camera and radio control. The basics are in the book, the online software has more detailed examples.
Section: VIII Security and Transactions
Chapter 25. Smart Cards and Cryptography - an introduction to the Security and Trust Services APIs (SATSA). SATSA actually contains four separate APIs. Two of these are for communicating with smart cards, while the other two relate to cryptography. Only the basics are covered.
Chapter 26. Mobile Payments - discusses The Payment API, which provides MIDlets with a simple API for making payments.
Chapter 27. Know Where You Are - discusses the Location API for using GPS to determine where you are or where you want to go.
Chapter 28. Application Architecture - a good capstone chapter presents ideas to help you with your application design. This chapter gets you in the right frame of mind to design your own application effectively and imaginatively.Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA: Creating Great Mobile Applications Overview
The release of MIDP 2.0 and the introduction of the new Mobile Service Architecture (MSA) are generating momentum for the Java ME platform. As more and more Java-enabled mobile devices become available and more service providers become open to third-party development, the demand for customized applications will grow dramatically. Now, there's a practical, realistic guide to building MIDP 2.0/MSA applications that are robust, responsive, maintainable, and fun.

Long-time Java ME author Jonathan Knudsen offers real solutions for the complex challenges of coding efficiency, application design, and usability in constrained mobile environments. Experienced Java developers will master MIDP 2.0 and MSA programming through clear, carefully designed examples. Downloadable code is available for both NetBeans Mobility Pack and the Sun Java Wireless Toolkit. Kicking Butt with MIDP and MSA's wide-ranging content covers:

Pushing MIDP's limits, and exploiting MSA's full power
Using MIDlets, Forms, commands, core classes, and invocation
Building effective mobile user interfaces
Designing graphics with the Canvas, the Game API, SVG, and 3D
Providing storage and resources: record stores, FileConnection, and PDA PIM
Internationalizing mobile applications
Networking via WMA, Bluetooth, Web services, and SIP
Parsing XML documents
Implementing audio and advanced multimedia
Securing mobile applications with SATSA and the Payment API
Building advanced location-based applications
Designing applications for multiple devices
Creating end-to-end mobile application architectures


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