BluXone

It gives me great pleasure to announce the release of BluXone 0.4.40. This release extends the support of BluXone to Seroes 60 3rd Edition mobile phones, in addition to a number of enhancements over the previous releases. However, this release for 3rd Edition phones comes with a pinch of salt, as the 3rd edition users might need to pair up their phones to make BluXone work seemlessly. I have been working to fix this up, but seems like it would take some time to break this.

With this release, BluXone is now available on a wide variety of Symbian/Nokia mobile phones. I have been receiving some requests for porting it for Communicator Series, and some other handsets. But to be honest, at the moment there are no plans for that primarily due to lack of resources. However, I am very eager to receive enhancement requests (and bug reports ofcourse) on the current releases so that I can make it better.

If you are a software developer and are interested in working on BluXone to take it forward, feel free to contact me.

Check out this great review-cum-detaileddescription of BluXone at
http://bicellphone.com/phone/cellphone-diy/fun-free-file-sharing-using-bluxone

So here we are again. This time bringing you a release of BluXone which works for you much better in more ways than one. You said it was not fun to share the media files as you could not even see which files you are about to share because the sharing method was not graphical enough. So thats taken care of, now you have a look at the thumbnail of the images before you share them.
You also said that why is BluXone not finding my friends sometimes. So we have banged our heads to figure out the issues, and offer you a release which will never disappoint you. And did you also complain about the profile not loading as quick?? Did ya?? Dont you worry, even thats enhanced to bring you an experience you would never forget.
So what you waiting for?? Go ahead and update to BluXone 0.3.38

And thanks to everyone for writing all your inputs and appreciation. Keep that coming as thats what keeps us going.

Go Blue!!!!!!!!!

Owing to an immensely enthusiastic response from our users, BluXone has witnessed over a thousand downloads in the last one week.
A lot of Bluxoners have written to us telling what they like about it, and what can be done better. We are extremely thankful to all of you for giving us your quality feedback. We are hoping to receive more and more feedback from all of you in order to make BluXone function better for your needs.
Thanks everyone!!

I have been getting queries from people regarding the problems they are facing while porting their apps on 3rd edition. So I thought it would be better to put all those questions and responses down at one place.

Whats a UID?
Each Symbian C++ application is identified by some unique identiers, also known as UIDs. You already meet UID in the .mmp file:

UID 0×100039CE 0X10008ACE

You really have 3 different types of UIDs, named: UID1, UID2 and UID3. UID1 identifies the application type. The UID1 is set implicitly by the entry TARGETTYPE app in the .mmp file. UID1 allow to distinguish between the various type of symbian executables, for example .exe (system executable that are NOT GUI but, usually, servers), .app (these really are DLL, and are required for GUI application), and others (like .tsy, device drivers for telephony). The UID2 distinguish between objects having the same UID1. In practice, for the very common case of a .app GUI application you use the value 0×100039CE, that identifies a “polimorphic dll”, the special type of library used in this case.

Most important and variabie is the UID3, that distinguish between objects having the same UID1 and UID2. This is very important, since it allows you to distinguish between the various GUI application in the phone menu.

You have to obtain an UID for your application asking for them to Symbian. This is a very simple process: just send an email to uid@symbiandevnet.com.

However for development you do not have to require an UID to Symbian.
For Series 60 2nd Edition and Before:
Each UID3 in the range 0×01000000 to 0×0fffffff is available for development.
For Series 60 3rd Edition:
If you use self-signed certificate, make sure that your application uses unprotected UID, i.e. 0xA0000000 - 0xAFFFFFFF.
Just do not redistribuite any application using these UIDs.

Source: http://www.symbiantutorial.org/en/space/Symbian+Tutorial/GUI+Application/UID

Signing Problems
Here is a good article describing various problems that you might face while installing the application on the phone due to signing problems. Click here to read it.
Here is another useful article on the signing process.

Is there something more you would like to know on this topic drop me a comment here, and I will try to get the answer for you.

Other Errors

Hey!!
Wondering whats currently happening on BluXone?
A lot of stuff is going on. I am communicating a lot with the users to find out how do they like it, and what more would they like to see in it. A couple of demands which have been very frequently asked are:

Check out this nice review cum description of BluXone at Tech[dot]Blog. It seems people do find it hard to remember how BluXone spells :).

Do read Harshdeep’s post on BluXone as a precursor to this post. He has written a great description of the application. Read It

At the core of BluXone lies an application level protocol which enables the devices to communicate seamlessly over Bluetooth. The motivation to create such a protocol came from the fact that Bluetooth puts a lot of restrictions on the number of simultaneous connections a device can have, and in the manner they can communicate with each other (Master/Slave). This protocol acts as a time sliced multiplexer between the Master and the Slave functionality, and emulates multiple live connections by regulating the network traffic in small data chunks.

This protocol enabled BluXone to provide a TCP/IP sort of seamless connectivity over Bluetooth. However to test BluXone for all such network scenarios was a big challenge. Neither I had the devices, nor the manpower required to test all the scenarios. Plus I was not even sure how much the users are going to care about this feature of multiple active connections simultaneously.

Because of all these reasons, I made BluXone restrict this multiple connection behavior from a top level, atleast in the first release. So what that essentially means is if you are currently downloading a file from another phone, and you want to download another one simultaneously it will ask you to wait till the download is complete.
However, if the users really want that kind of networking support, I would definitely work towards maturing it, and make it available in the later releases.

Just attended the MoMo Delhi meet a couple of days back. It was a good experience all in all. It was energising to see the enthusiasm in the atmosphere. But I think it can do better with a little more structure and direction. The delhi chapter of this group is quite new and I am sure it will grow manifolds in the times to come.

One of the things that caught my attention (not necessarily in a good way :)) was a talk over Proximity Advertising by a company called ValueFirst. They have developed a piece of hardware which can keep on sending advertisements over Bluetooth (as OBEX messages) to devices in the range. What I liked was the effort and enthusiasm with which they presented their stuff, but could not stop wondering if that really made sense. I did some googling to find out if there are others who are doing it, and found to my amazement that a lot of people are doing it.

Advertising works and makes sense when it comes along and on top of great value. When you watch ads on the TV, you get annoyed but you still watch them because you are getting to see great content within which these ads come. When you watch ads on the internet, you dont mind them because they come when you are visiting an interesting website, and the ad is sitting is flashing on the bottom right corner. Tell me how would you feel if a pop up comes up on your screen time and again, and (lets get fancy) you are not even using the internet. Thats what these guys are trying to achieve.

Bluetooth is a great technology which has not yet been harnessed even to a fraction. But come on guys, lets be a little creative. Lets create value for the users first. If I can create value for my users, if i can create something which people love to engage with, I dont think I require an Einstein to tell me how to make money from it.

Apart from this, there were a lot of other interesting presentations. Will come back to write about them as well.

BluXone opens up today for Limited Beta Release.
Its a cool Bluetooth networking software for Series 60 2nd Edition Mobile Phones.

Quoting the website,

BluXone (Blu-Zone) is a bluetooth application for your Series 60 based Mobile Phones. With BluXone, you may now use your mobile phone to:

• Share favourite songs, videos, pictures and ring tones with others
• Creat personal profiles for others to view- share your likes, dislikes, thoughts, actions, emotions
• View profiles of others around you and chat with them
• Make announcements - all users in your range will get to know what you have to say
• Free to download and free to use!!

Try it out on your phones, and let the team know how do you like it. Your inputs would help the BluXone team shape the product better, and reach the public beta soon.