The paucity of the development tools for the BlackBerry platform let it down compared to its competitors. the improved tools for BB10 might be too late

You know how sometimes you can cut the head off a chicken and it keeps running around the farmyard seemingly oblivious to the fact for years before it dies? the BB10 announcement at BlackBerry World this week reminds me of that situation. that chicken just won’t die.

Toolsets

Most developers are familiar with Steve Ballmer’s fantabulous “Developers, developers, developers!” outburst from an internal Microsoft event in 2000. It seems that RIM’s management missed that memo, because if they want any hope at all of avoiding having to fund themselves using Kickstarter then developers, developers, and more developers are what they need. People who don’t make money from developing software laughed at Ballmer. Windows developers, and Microsoft (which focussed with such intensity on getting developers on the platform), laughed all the way to the bank.

Say you want to write software for iOS. You buy yourself a Mac, pop over to the Mac App Store, download the Xcode IDE for free, install, and off you go. You’ll need a developer account to do anything proper with it so you’ll need to find £60 down the back of the sofa.

Or Windows Phone? Simple – download the SDK. comes with a free copy of Visual Studio 2010 Express, the free version of the best developer IDE in the world. You’ll need £60 and an App Hub account.

Android? Download the SDK, download Eclipse, apply quite a lot of faff and off you go. likewise, get yourself a Google Play developer account, but you’ll only need £16.

The common thread running through all of those is that they all come with IDEs. For RIM engineers that are reading this: let me tell you what an IDE is, because your toolset doesn’t come with one. “IDE” means “integrated development environment”. the category was invented in the late 1980s. IDEs come with things like source control integration, advanced editors, breakpoints, watch windows, and logging. some even come with exciting application lifecycle management (ALM) features. What they’re designed to do is help developers – who you like, remember? – to write software in a way that doesn’t feel like having their skin sanded off.

If you want to write software for BlackBerry, you take your own text editor, some “ant” scripts they give you, and add in an infinite supply of patience.

Developing for BlackBerry

The reason why I introduced the idea of RIM behaving like a terminally over-treppaned chicken at the top of this article is that it highlights its utter lack of defined and consistent strategy for developers. the takeaway is that it has actually managed to make the story worse over the past couple of years.

Two years ago I wrote a book on developing software for BlackBerry. at the time the recommended way of doing it was to write applications in native Java (albeit a horribly limited version of Java called J2ME, aka Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition). Funny thing about that was that you did it by running your apps in Eclipse and using an Eclipse plug-in to drive the device or the emulator. Those of you who’ve seen Android development will recognise that as exactly what you do with Android development – you run Eclipse and drive and Android device and simulator through a plug-in.

But that’s OK, because as soon as RIM worked out they need to dump their crappy home-grown browser and replace it with a WebKit-based one, they decided that they weren’t going to do any native apps any more and that developers needed to use BlackBerry WebWorks. This works by letting developers build an HTML5 website and run it in a self-contained application on the device. Those of you who remember the heady days of webOS may recognise this model. Those of you still actively developing in PhoneGap/Apache Cordova may more keenly recognise it.

But that wasn’t finished, which is why there are no tools, and why it’s worse than it was in 2010. RIM expect developers to create these web apps from scratch, basically using a text editor, and offering no debugging or logging support whatsoever.

The emulator won’t work on a Mac, only on a PC. (Apple and Microsoft are equally guilty of this, to be strictly fair, on Xcode andVisual Studio.) But what kills is that deploying the app to a device takes at least five minutes, and then when the app doesn’t work there are absolutely no debugging tools whatsoever. I know this from bitter experience. plus – and this is just ridiculous – when you sign an app to put it on your locally attached device, you have to fire off a request to RIM’s servers: one request per file. A small PhoneGap can easily run into 50-100 files. You get send one email per file. On a good afternoon you can easily get a thousand emails back. But that’s not annoying – what’s annoying is that those servers often go down. (About 3pm in the UK for some reason.)

When that happens, you can’t develop. You just have to wait..

A while back, RIM bought an emulator called Ripple from a company called Tiny Hippos. (You can download it here.) Ripple was a good proof of concept. however having RIM take it and present it to the world as in any way finished, or useful, or working, or practical, or good, or helpful is insulting to my intelligence.

The long and short of it is that there is absolutely no way that building software for BlackBerry is appreciably easier today than developing bank software was in the 1960s on punched cards.

BB10

So let’s look at BB10, which was announced this week at BlackBerry World.

At some point in the summer of 2010, RIM’s headless chicken-led management managed to end up at the door of QNX, which they promptly bought. QNX is a real-time operating system that RIM decided would be a good replacement for its ageing BB7 type operating systems. Its first use was in the PlayBook OS – specifically the PlayBook OS is QNX-based. This is why the PlayBook was such a disaster in terms of actually having an email client, or playing nicely with BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). (Why any software company that builds an operating system would scrap its own in-house OS and import a new, untried, and untested one is beyond me, but anyway.)

QNX is also the OS that underpins BB10. that means that existing BB7 apps won’t run on BB10.

They have said that HTML5 is their future. I would presume then that they are expecting developers to cross-compile the WebWorks app over to BB10. You can also target QNX with C++ if you want high-performance/game software.

What we’re not hearing from RIM at this point is that it’s going to come up with the type of world-class toolset that its competitors have. RIM’s toolset needs to be so amazingly, awesomely good, that – well, at this point to catch-up it would have to come out with something as good as Visual Studio.

I’m sure that just as RIM’s shareholders were watching the BB10 announcement with bated breath, ready to cheer if only something wonderful would happen, that developers like myself were keen to hear some good news from the company. Personally, what I got was no good news. What I inferred form the announcements was more of the same – a rushed, lacklustre implementation with bits missing, and a lack of understanding and support of what developers need. I saw no guarantees that RIM’s developer story would improve from where it is today, and I saw no indicators that suggest that’s even on their radar.

Other bits

Other bits while I’m here…

There was talk at BlackBerry World about BB10 being an operating system that could be used in retail automotive solutions. That’s stupid. Just focus on one thing. Every manufacturer has tried to do something in the automotive market; they usually fail because the risk of having to recall the cars at the cost of a bazillion dollars per mistake is too high. Stuff that runs in cars is simple for that reason.

Heins announced a revenue guarantee on App World, which at first blush seems interesting. If you can sell at least $1k worth of apps, RIM will guarantee that the cheque you receive will be at least $10k. (So sell $9,999, you’ll get a dollar extra. Sell $10,001, you’ll get nothing extra. Perverse incentive?) It’s a cute idea, but with a faint tang of desperation. to be clear, $10k will buy you between three and four weeks of developer time – and that’s the way to look at it. however much time you put in to a project, they’ll pay for one man-month if the revenues turn out not to be very good. It looks good on paper, but is clearly aimed at the cottage industry developer. Is it enough to divert one of them off of a less risky platform? I doubt it.

Conclusion

RIM’s developer story over the past two years has darted around like a headless chicken. “You use J2ME!”, “Now use HTML5!”, “Now you can use Android!”, “Now you can’t use Android as we said you could before!”, “Now use Flash!”, “Now we’ve got a new OS, so cross-compile everything!”, “Now we haven’t finished that OS but here’s a device that’s basically it but not quite because we haven’t decided!”

Being in a state and running around like a chicken with your head cut of isn’t a problem in itself. Microsoft, Apple, and Google are hard to track in this market, but at least you know where they are. Being a developer and dealing with RIM is like having a duel with someone in the middle of a raging battle.

BB10 might be interesting – but it, and RIM, don’t have a chance unless they start treating their developers better.

Note: the headline and standfirst beneath it have been changed from the original version. the headline said “If RI wants developers on BB10 it needs better tools” but further details have since come to light.

• Matthew Baxter-Reynolds is an independent software development consultant, trainer and author based in the UK. his favourite way to communicate with like-minded technical people is Twitter: @mbrit.

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• RIM (Research in Motion)
• BlackBerry
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Can RIM afford to make developers wait for BB10?

Investor Ron Tutor told analysts and journalists today on an earnings call for his multi-billion-dollar construction businesses that he was looking to unload at least some of his share of movie business assets within the next 10 days. Tutor is one of a group of investors who purchased Miramax from Disney for $663 million in 2010. in response to a question near the end of the call, Tutor said if for any reason the plan to shed movie assets falls through, he likely will execute a stock sale in July. some of the assets are tied up in bankruptcy or other litigation, but onetime Tutor investment associate David Bergstein has agreed to drop his litigation concerning his dealings with Colony Capital in exchange for “a small amount of money” for his efforts to achieve the Miramax purchase.Related:It’s Official: Disney Seals Miramax SaleDavid Bergstein Reaches Miramax Deal, Drops His own Lawsuit

Ron Tutor Hopes To Shed Entertainment Assets Within 10 Days

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Apple's current MacBook Pro model.

(Credit:Apple)

Apple is expected to bestow speedier Intel chips on its notebooks just about any day now. but according to three years’ worth of pricing data, you’re likely to save some cash for waiting just a few days after said models are released.

Yes, you read that right. Waiting to buy technology will result in saving some money. Bear with us though, this is kinda neat.

Following up on an identical study it did this past July, discount tracker Dealnews has once again put together three years’ worth of Apple product pricing data to illustrate when discounts can be had on Apple’s Macs and iOS devices.

The preliminary finding for Apple’s notebooks is that waiting just a day or two can save you anywhere from $45 to $49 on the price tag if you’re buying a 15-inch MacBook Pro or 11-inch MacBook Air respectively.

Deeper cuts can be had on both machines if you’re willing to wait a bit longer. Dealnews found buyers of those same machines saving $299 for waiting three months on the MacBook Pro machine, and $149 for waiting four months on the Air.

“Never buy an Apple product on the day of its launch,” the site touted in its study last year. “Our deal archives show that most Apple products receive a discount within eight days of their launch (excluding theiPad andiPhone).”

That remains true, and has actually improved more recently, Dealnews’ Louis Ramirez writes. “We’ve noticed that deals on Apple products are happening more quickly and are getting more aggressive,” he said. in fact, the longest waits for any price drop whatsoever on the iPad and iPhone came 2 months and 11 days after release, respectively. The rest took just a few days.

Ramirez also reiterated the site’s stance on purchasing products from third-parties instead of Apple if you were looking to save on retail price.

“The first and most important thing you can do to save money on new Apple products is not purchase them from Apple; otherwise, you’ll never see significant deals,” Ramirez said. “Rather, we recommend hitting the authorized resellers for discounts and promotions.”

Apple was rumored to update its MacBook line sometime in April, a deadline that’s just about to pass. The company’s last refresh to its MacBook Pro was in October, with a speedier processor, more storage, and upgraded graphics capabilities. It’s been a bit longer for the MacBook Airs, which were refreshed in late July to coincide with the release of Apple’s Lion OS X software update.

Not to be left out is the iMac, Apple’s all-in-one desktop machine, which is due for some sprucing up. Dealnews says buyers saved $94 on the 21.5-inch iMac by waiting a week after it came out, with buyers saving $144 by waiting seven months.

Below is Dealnews’ full infographic for its findings:

Delay that Apple gratification and save bucks, data shows

She said she has business ventures in the works to make money, including an online "Octomom TV" project and the release of a horror movie she starred in, "Millenium." "I'm working as hard as I possibly can to support them," she said.

Plus, Octomom's in danger of losing her kids — partially because she chose to pay her hair stylist $520, instead of paying a plumber to fix her toilet! We'll show you Octo's 11th hour attempt to make it all better. also, Kris Jenner's cooked up a new

Just hours after TMZ posted pictures of the horrifying living conditions in Octomom's house — a 4-person clean-up crew showed up in full force with enough cleaning supplies to shine the entire neighborhood. As we previously reported,

The 36-year-old Suleman became known as Octomom after she gave birth to eight babies in January 2009. they are the world's longest-living octuplets. Keep your comments civil – MyFOXPhoenix.com reserves the right to remove comments that are obscene,

Plus, Octomom's in danger of losing her kids — partially because she chose to pay her hair stylist $520, instead of paying a plumber to fix her toilet! We'll show you Octo's 11th hour attempt to make it all better. also, Kris Jenner's cooked up a new

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Octomom under investigation for child neglect

Is the social network just after another chunk of the world’s visual memory, asks Guardian head of photography Roger Tooth

In my job I guess it’s unsurprising that I keep hearing things about photography. “Facts” like half of all pictures ever taken were taken in the past 12 months. Could that be true? It might be if some people are taking pictures of every meal they eat. A colleague talking to a fellow guest at a wedding, who was sporting the brand new Canon 5Dmk3 costing £3,000 — was he a pro photographer? Oh no, he just wanted the best for his photographs. $1bn for Instagram.

Yes – $1bn for a smartphone app that makes your snaps look like retro Polaroids and sends them to your friends. It probably does a lot more than that, but to misquote mark Knopfler that sounds a whole lot of money, if not exactly for nothing, really not that much.

Now I know I shouldn’t admit this, but I do like some of these toning apps. Some of the effects are quite beautiful and the results can encourage the budding photographer. They’re harmless and probably have quite a short shelf life.

In the end it really is the actual image under the electronic processing that counts. most of the time the filters are covering the shortcomings of the original photograph and the person behind it. They will soon become a visual cliche and need continual updating to stay fresh.

The $1bn is buying Facebook another chunk of the world’s visual memory. Facebook is making sure all those images don’t end up on Flickr or in some other storage cloud.

But why the boom in making still images? Why are people still taking pictures and not shooting video?

Well have you tried video? It looks easy enough until you try editing it. if it’s bad it’s not just a bit of a joke it’s a boring joke. With a still photograph processed through a toning app one can produce a finished and pleasing piece of work. and don’t underestimate the growth of photography as a note-taking medium, not just for documenting family life, but as a useful tool for all sorts of professionals from doctors to plumbers to record and communicate. all those 1,000 words taken care of by the click of a shutter.

• Roger Tooth is head of photography for the Guardian

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Roger Toothguardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. all rights reserved. | use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Instagram: what is Facebook getting for $1bn?

In this article I will try to show you why you should prepare for filling out a job application form at job interview.

Here is an embarrassing scenario that can happen to you if you don’t prepare for filling out a job application form on the spot.

You have overcome all the difficulties along the interview, piece of cake. The last interviewer asks you to fill out an application form. You take this as the company interest for you, you have the job in your pocket and you hurry completing the job application form.

But when you start filling out the form, you realize that the resumes you brought with you don’t include your previous employer address and phone numbers, information that normal resumes don’t include. until now, you didn’t have to recall the number of the street where you lived 5 years ago. You can remember the names of the persons that can recommend you, but you can’t remember their phone numbers. You become anxious and start to forget things you have been so proud 10 minutes ago. so, you timidly ask, like a 10 years boy that didn’t do his homework, if you can take the application form and finish it home.

Employers are often in a hurry, because the longer it takes the more money it costs. if they are interested in hiring you, they want everything to end as quickly as possible, information verification and document completion.

Employers prefer that the future candidate fills this form from the first interview, because they want to start verification immediately. worst thing would be to return the job application form incomplete or to ask for a few days to finish it.

Don’t forget that when you apply for a job and you are called to an interview, you have to be prepared for anything.

Prepare For Filling Out a Job Application Form

How you can get VERY rich during times of economic turmoil, even if you don’t have a lot of money to invest…Watch the Video

The iPhone 5 is soon to be Apple’s latest breakthrough in the world of technology.the public is anticipating its rumored release to be on October this year. but there is more installed for iPhone 5 users, and this is the alleged nano-SIM technology.

Users already know that the recent gadgets by Apple(the iPAD and the iPhone 4s) house a 15×12 mm micro-SIM, which is smaller compared to the regular SIM card that most cellphones are equipped with. however, this does not seem to mark the end of Apple’s innovative ideas for they plan to create an even smaller version of the SIM with a size of 8.8 x 12.3 mm.

This reduction in size is to reserve some room for new and more important features of the iPhone. this could also confirm iMore.com’s report that the size of the new unit would be smaller. the company’s efforts in trying to save as much space as they can in the iPhone could also indicate their intensions of creating a thinner version of the iPhone that is at par with other Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Droid Razr.

But Apple’s not the only one that is trying to shrink the SIM. other rival companies like Nokia, Motorola and RIM’s Blackberry are also coming up with designs that require a smaller SIM card in their phones. in fact, the latest gadget by Nokia, the Lumia phones also have the micro-SIM installed.

Currently, Apple’s trying all sorts of methods to convince operators from Europe to accept their proposal of the nano-SIM tech, since reports have been going around that the 6th generation of the iPhone will be out soon. Furthermore, Apple is also ready to grant a royalty-free license to other mobile companies so that they too can utilize their technology.

However, Nokia disapproves of Apple’s proposal and also pushes through its own design, which meets the European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s prior requirements. but the ETSI is yet to decide on which design to prioritize.

iPhone 5 to Utilize Nano Sim

With the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (the “JOBS Act”) awaiting President Obama’s signature tomorrow, the pundits are out in full force debating whether the new law will hurt investors.

As a personal finance writer whose job it is to help consumers steer clear of pitfalls, I find this appalling. But here comes the full disclosure: Careerwise I will benefit from the JOBS Act. with this law on the books, I will never be at a loss for cautionary tales about investors who got burned. so I figure that the JOBS Act has created jobs (no acronym here) for journalists.

The President hasn’t even signed the darned thing yet and already there’s been some terrific analysis. Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times was spot on when he wrote that the new law, “intended to help start-ups raise capital and go public, but may also lead to many more money-losing, Groupon-like I.P.O.’s.” Since going public five months ago, Groupon has lost more than 40% of its share value, while the Nasdaq rose about 16%.

Red flags, which would have warned investors of Groupon’s questionable accounting gimmicks “might have been less evident” with the JOBS bill on the books, Sorkin writes. “the legislation, in the name of creating jobs, dismantles some of the most basic protections for the most susceptible investors apt to be drawn into get-rich-quick scams and too-good-to-be-true investment ‘opportunities.’”

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the SEC is investigating Groupon.

For individual investors, the most troublesome part of the law is a section that allows what’s called “crowdfunding.” this refers to the fact that entrepreneurs can raise up to $1 million online from ordinary folks without telling them very much.

The Internet is already a hotbed for investment fraud. for example, in a recent case I covered here, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that hedge fund managers used social media sites like LinkedIn to solicit customers, representing that they could deliver pre-IPO shares of Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, Bloom Energy, Fisker, and Groupon. Turns out they didn’t have any such thing to offer.

So how did the JOBS Act–which is meant to reduce bureaucracy and make it easier for small businesses to find investors early–get by both houses of Congress? Steven M. Davidoff, a former corporate lawyer, draws upon the old analogy of the sausage factory. for example, he notes in an article for the New York Times, with a last-minute Senate amendment to the crowdfunding provision, meant to enhance fraud protection, “Congress made the provisions hard to use.”

“Crowdfunding companies will have to raise money through Internet platforms in small individual amounts, less than $2,000 for most Americans. If a company raises more than $500,000 it will have to prepare audited financials,” Davidoff writes. “this is a huge expense that will discourage most companies from resorting to crowdfunding for significant amounts of capital.”

Instead of creating a pilot program and giving the SEC the power to adapt crowdfunding rules to market conditions, legislators railroaded the law through “to give the illusion Congress was creating jobs,” Davidoff observes.

Henry Blodget, who favors the law, wrote on Business Insider that it’s not up to the SEC to save investors from their own bad decisions–just police fraud after they’ve been burned. Those SEC cases have been a great source of story ideas for me in the past. But I may just be getting warmed up.

JOBS Act Gives Full Employment To Journalists

How you can get VERY rich during times of economic turmoil, even if you don’t have a lot of money to invest…Watch the Video

In the previous months, iPhone5latest.com was one of the first to talk about the plan of Apple to integrate the NFC feature to the iPhone 5. during that time, an interview conducted with a high official from a Mastercard company hinted that they are planning to partner with a big firm. Even if no mention was made about Apple, it seems that the official referred to the Cupertino-based company.

At present, it seems that the integration of the NFC to the iPhone5 is becoming a huge possibility as stories say that Apple has granted a patent for iWallet to payments via NFC and diagrams passed from Apple to the Patent & Trademark Office in the US shows an iPhone which may possibly be the iPhone 5.

NFC or Near Field Communications has been the center of several discussion in the past years as many devices have emerged to use the amazing technology. Since Apple is known to be a competitive company, it does make sense that they desire to grab hold of NFC’s smartphone market by storm. in fact, this is what they are actually doing with their iWallet project.

A portion of the patent project requires Apple to provide plenty of documentation to the Patent & Trademark Office in the US. the documentation comprised of several diagrams that are highly detailed and can give an explanation to the nature and function of the iWallet. PatentlyApple.com leaked an image showing iTunes and possibly the iPhone 5 which both seem to utilize the NFC technology.

The image also points to the location of the NFC sensor in the iPhone 5 which appears like it’s in the front of the device on the left side of the ear piece. the location is interesting because some may want the sensor to be somewhere else on the handset such as on its bottom or side part.

The iWallet is able to manage financial transactions. the transactions will happen between accounts like a bank account or credit card which can be configured by the financial institution or the user. the preferences of the users can be updated and stored.

The idea of the iWallet is to let individuals buy things by merely using their iPhone 5 or any other device of Apple. This means that the user does not need to bring a credit card to a store with NFC support.

Those who are concerned about the security of this mode of payment can request for limited transactions to prevent problems. Users of the iPhone 5 may be able to automatically refuse transactions or request transactions they made before making an approval. For example, the NFC transactions of the iPhone 5 can be restricted to a specific amount and in case the transaction goes beyond that amount, it will be immediately declined.

NFC Technology a Huge Possibility for iPhone 5