What great times we've been living here at 7syntax!! Oh boy! We have awesome news for you, and don't even know where to start with!

For these past weeks, since our public opening, that we've been working hard on one of our goals; to have your handivi content pushed to your favorite social network. That was one of the most requested feature by you, and we've made it happen. For now you only have integration with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, but we're working on others, so bear with us and suggest your favorite network to hello@handivi.com.

For the premium users, you can see on the address book backup web service which friends already are on handivi and for those who aren't, you can invite them directly or add someone that you didn't knew that has using handivi, as you too.

That's not all, we have a bunch more features to share with you; friendly profile urls, RSS for your public timeline and phone configuration to help you setting your phone for correct network use of internet. We'll detail each one of these features on the handivi blog (that's new too!), where it will be the place to have all service updates, news, features or failures (we do screw up sometimes, you know); check it out here http://blog.handivi.com

You might've notice that with this upgrade you'll have two handivi installations. That's because we changed to lowercase all "handivi" product name, so, your system has the current "Handivi" application and another new "handivi" version 0.10(26). The lowercase handivi is the new version and you should delete all other versions.

Last Friday, I gave a Workshop about Sinatra and Capistrano. These are two beautiful technologies that I learned recently, and since I love both of them, decided to spread the word to more people.

The slides used on the presentation can be downloaded here.

The code written during the workshop can be found on Github.

What a journey this has been for us!!! Uff!
We've launched handivi into alpha on 29 August 2008. After almost 6 months of hard work and serious development, with bumps along the way, handivi is finally ready to public use.

This is a major milestone for us internally, since we're now going to expand handivi supported platforms and open the service to others (think API, think integration, think widgets), but for you, "handividual", it's a full stable service now. handivi is still free for most common usage, but between these versions we've pushed some nice features and packed them as a premium service; like an address book backup and restore, unlimited space for photos or friends and credits to send external messages (think messages to friends that are not on handivi yet).

For those who got thru the alpha versions without no problems ;-), congratulations! you're now premium users. It's our way of showing our huge gratitude for your help by testing handivi. Thank you!

So, jump in, learn more and meet us on handivi: Vitor Domingos, Celso Pinto, Ruben Fonseca, Nuno Loureiro and Hugo Reis. You can register on the website to get the application or if you have access to GetJar appstore, find us there.

Press release available here for download: http://7syntax.com/blog/media/7s-h-pr001.pdf

I was shocked when I read this article on Engadget. I actually had to read it twice after realizing that the words came out from the mouth of RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie:

Now, instead of pleading for mercy at the feet of disgruntled consumers, RIM co-CEO, Jim Balsillie, calls the post-launch scramble part of the “new reality” of making complex cellphones in large volumes.

Let me get this straight: it’s not just RIM’s Blackberries who suffer from this problem. I still remember iPhone’s 2.0 firmware problems, and at my work at 7syntax, I fight every single day with obscure and undocumented bugs on the J2ME platforms.

Is it becoming a standard? I really hope not.. And before I start to rant, let me just say that I still dream that the current trend of opening the mobile platforms could help us a little.. (android: hint hint)

Ladies and gentlemen the set list is out! Although I'm not a big fan of, oh, Metallica's last 7 albums I can spot many personal favorites in there that I'm dying to try out. But I keep wondering: is Cliff Burton a hidden character that we'll be able to unlock and use in Expert mode? This would hit a very sweet spot with us, older fans.

Anyhow, my personal set list is:

• Battery
• Disposable heroes
• Fight fire with fire
• Master of puppets
• Orion
• Seek and destroy
• Whiplash

The songs from the other bands seem adequate enough, but no Danzig?! Come on...

I have to admit it: I can’t do any kind of development without my trustworthy pencil and a good amount of paper.

It’s not just to have something to scratch while I think how to solve the problem at hands. I find it very difficult to write some code without first drawing the idea and the pseudo-algorithm behind it.

To do that I use my own sub-set of the UML: boxes, polygons, arrows and labels. This allows me to quickly specify the exact behavior of the solution before writing any actual code.

Other method I often use after drawing the algorithm, is to define the set of tasks I need to finish the implementation. It is often required to refactor or change some other code or structure, so I write a set of labels with an empty checkbox at the front. As I write the code, I start checking the boxes, and that gives me a warm feeling that I’m getting the job done.

So, which methods do you use to be more efficient while writing code ?

Torch Mobile Iris Browser is based on WebKit rendering engine for Window Mobile devices, like my old i-Mate Kjam, a HTC Wizard clone. I've doing some tests and it's a damn small, mean and interesting implementation of webkit. It renders all those web 2.0 goodies nicely, like ajax, javascript et al. I couldn't help getting some memory alerts - one problem of having only 10mb available - but overall it's a nice browser, replacing all other existing options; Internet Explorer and Opera. handivi obviously runs on Iris quite fluid and with all javascript support. Here's some pictures from the "blurry camera man" :)
   

Last week Apple announced their AppStore had reached the number of 500 million application downloads. This is a really impressive accomplishment, even more because Apple launched this service at a time when most people were claiming that web applications were the only way to go on mobile, something I can't simply agree with because it depends a lot on what you are developing.

Following Apple's footsteps, Google launched the Android App Market - which appears to be evolving a bit slower than expected - and there have been lots of rumors about others creating similar services for Windows Mobile, etc.

What I'd like to see though is providers enabling m-payments through their AppStores. Like for example being able to pay for an Evernote subscription through my Apple iTunes account without needing to provide any credit card information to Evernote Corp.

The flow I see is my downloading Evernote and the application asking me if I'd like to subscribe to a premium account. By acknowledging it, an iPhoneOS billing wizard should popup, allowing me to authorize the service to charge my iTunes account for a yearly subscription of the service. This flow should also apply to Android or any other mobile devices that provide access to such services.

With this, 3rd party developers should be able to avoid splitting revenue with mobile operators who, on average, keep 50% of the charged value: say you charge $1 USD for a virtual gift on your customer's phone bill. In this case the operator will keep $0.5 USD and you'll get the remaining 50c.

Knowing that Apple, Google, etc. all have activation processes in place that require use of a credit card I think it should be relatively easy to experiment with this concept, what do you think?

Since I started to use Twitter I feel some insatisfaction with the available desktop clients. The balance of pros an cons of each desktop client always tended towards the negative side, which made me continue to use the web interface... until yesterday. Yesterday I met Gwibber.

Gwibber is powered by python and webkit, so far supports brightkite, digg, facebook, flickr, identica, jaiku, laconica, pingfm, pownce, rss and twitter.

Take a look at the default theme:

I like to hack and customize things to work the way I like most. The simplicity of Gwibber's internals are like 'hack me, please'. Gwibber delegates all the boring tasks to webkit+html+css+js, so there is no complex and boring python code to render messages and support themes. If an user wants to create a new theme, he just needs to edit html+css, couldnt be easier. Creating a new plugin to support a new microblogging site/service is also trivial.

Try it yourself: http://launchpad.net/gwibber

Hi @all! My name is Rúben Fonseca and I’m the handivi mobile lead developer. Today I’m talking about some improvements on the handivi client for Blackberry.

We certainly feel your pain mind_booster. The more I dig into Blackberry, the more I realize that it’s a solid device with a stable OS, with a great potential for developers. Since OS version 4, Blackberries support a subset of the MIDP 2.0. Soon we realized that our J2ME application could be easily adapted to the Blackberry.

Unfortunately that was easier said than done. The first try to hack a Blackberry
version resulted in a huge fail - the gap between the Blackberry MIDP 2.0 subset and the official profile was too deep.

However, we felt upbeat to try different approaches. I spent more time studying the Blackberry Java platform and found that the missing parts of MIDP 2.0 are implemented using a custom Blackberry API. Last Tuesday was the Blackberry day and I think we made a huge step forward.

Handivi now runs fine on the Blackberry emulators, and we hope to try it on real devices soon. Stay tuned for further mobile developments!

We're now affiliated with the European Startups initiative, which is a portal and a tool targeting entrepreneurs interested and/or engaged into European Web start up scene, from Ivan Trajkovic.

For now we're the only one on our country category index, but for sure that more portuguese startups will be there also - at least we expect so.

Check out our page there and the blog aggregator from all startups.

It's time again to upgrade your handivi. We've got a great bundle for you this time! Here's what happened since last version:

• we're heavily punishing ourselves, since you shouldn't read this email to do the upgrade. Honestly, we hope that this will be the last update screwup. So, uninstall handivi, go to this link and download the new application: http://get.handivi.mobi/

• you can now invite your friends to join you on handivi. That's right, we're giving you 10 invites to use among your close friends. Just go to "Friend List", "Add Friend" and insert his number or pick from your phone address book. If he's not already on handivi, your friend receives a SMS to register, if he's registered, then he's added to your friend list.

• navigate in fullscreen mode; by viewing a photo and then use the left and right phone keys to navigate.

• resend your content items to other friends; don't left anyone out.

• lots and lots of bugs and usability fixes.

As always, you can feedback us by replying to this email or just go to: http://getsatisfaction.com/handivi
PS: Don't forget to uninstall handivi before download the new one.

Today didn't start very well. I got a call early in the morning from Vitor letting me know handivi.com was broken. I remember mumbling something and him asking me what the hell was I trying to say. I guess when my brain is booting it is unable to translate thoughts into words.

This new release is very important for us because now all your photos are safely stored on Amazon S3 (mind you, we do backup regularly but there was a very small chance of loosing a photo and we don't like to take even small chances on bad things) but to make that happen we had to make some changes. As Murphy would say: if anything wrong can happen it will and it did. Fortunately, it was just a matter of applying a patch to Perlbal and as soon as it was fixed all services became available.

At about the same time, someone sent me a rocking youtube video link, the sun became brighter and warmer and you guys started to give positive feedback on this new release. I couldn't help but feel energized by this combination of events and it set me on a great mood for the rest of the day.

So that's the funny story about this release, what goodies do we have in the bag for you? Lots of them:

• Ruben worked hard at further optimizing the mobile application and it's snappier. Not only that, but our content adaptation engine now optimizes photos so that they transfer faster to your mobile and this results in faster browsing of your friend updates;

• still on the mobile camp you're now able to browse albums and friend updates without having to return to the lists, what we call fullscreen browsing. Just press the left and right buttons on your mobile;

• if you're at the computer, you should notice that your friend updates and the public timeline are refreshed automatically too so you can just sit back and check what's happening anywhere in the world in real time;

• speaking of website: we really, really, love the feedback and deeply appreciate the time you guys are taking to help us iron out the kinks. With that in mind, we've established a presence at Get Satisfaction, a leading website for user feedback. Not only you'll be able to share your ideas and problems with us, but also with the rest of the community;

• for those who are curious and haven't registered yet, you can get a glimpse of how handivi looks like on our tour guide.

• finally, there are some other tweaks like improved profiles and many changes under the hood that overall should improve your experience with the service.

More things are coming for the next release, if you would like to see something built into handivi get in touch!

If you're already an handivi user, you might've notice that there's a new version for your phone. It's more slick, fast and with lots of bugs reported in the previous versions squashed!

But that's not all, we've open our site also, go check it out: http://handivi.com


There you can see your shared photos, the public timeline, read messages and manage your buddies or your profile.
Our team awaits your feedback at hello@handivi.com

This year's SHiFT edition is right around the corner and judging by the speaker list it's going to be a great conference to attend. All five of us at 7syntax will be there and this means we get an extra ticket for the conference but, since we don't have a 6th person, we'd like to bring someone else with us. This is where you come in :-)

If you'd like to attend and want that extra, free, ticket all you have to do is drop us a message letting us know why you should be the one to have it. Simple isn't it? You can use Handivi (text us or, better yet, express yourself with a nice photo - and sure, we love kitties too so if that's all you have, that's ok) or send an email to hello@handivi.com. We'll get in touch with the lucky winner this Friday.

Rudy De Waele, dotopenfounder and Mobile 2.0 Europe organizer, talks about digital storytelling, which "is an emerging term, that arises from a grassroots movement that uses new digital tools to help ordinary people tell their own 'true stories' in a compelling and emotionally engaging form. These stories usually take the form of a relatively short story (less than 8 minutes) and can involve interactivity." - slides here.

I consider Rudy one of the true "watchman" of the mobile trends, so it was great to know that he gets handivi as one example of mobile storytelling, which in fact is true, we propose people to share their experiences with others, by telling their own story as it happens. handivi is just a tool to come along a larger broader device, that's always at hand and ready to interact - your phone.

To support it and looking at his presentation graphs, we can find that mobile users usually (and this is not new) send sms, took photos, send mms and play games. Actually, the boring part of the experience is that along with those actions, people also transfer photos or videos to PC and then upload to some kind of social software. Sure there are now software that streams from your phone to the internet, but it's a half broken experience, they only do that and forget that the mobile phone is also interaction between people.




Taking the flickr "tell a story in 5 pictures" example, handivi allows everyone, with a regular, low-end mobile phone to tell a story as it happens, whenever it happens and for how long it takes.
It's not only allowing people telling stories, but rather engaging people to share experiences.

I really dig Android. I like it's promise of delivering an open platform, the solid SDK and how easy it is to get familiar with it's framework and libraries. The day the SDK came out I put together a little utility application for Codebits that answered a question I had overheard while walking in the venue "where's the nearest ATM?". Taking advantage of location, maps and SAPO's GIS it took me just a few hours to get into it and, with 0 experience, create an application that allowed you to search in the real world and narrow down the results to what's closest to you.

Anyway, a few days later while discussing Android I remember saying that the first device shouldn't be out before this year's 4th quarter and, almost like clockwork, the first Android phone is out: the HTC Dream.

So at 15:30 (local time) I plugged in the headphones and watched the video coverage of the device's launch made available at T-Mobile's website. Unfortunately, I couldn't help but feel underwhelmed.

The good stuff is that pricing is really competitive. They're (all of them: Google, HTC and T-Mobile) pitching it as a consumer product and it's great to see a price tag that reinforces that pitch: $179 USD. I'm really curious to see how it'll be sold here in Europe and at what price range. And that's really just about it, in my opinion it's all downhill from here.

The device marks, if memory serves, the entrance of HTC on the consumer market. HTC is a well know manufacturer of enterprise smartphones and it shows. To be honest, I don't really believe HTC will continue to churn out consumer devices but I've been proven wrong before. Anyway, the fact that the first device comes from an enterprise vendor really shows although it's missing some critical enterprise features, e.g. compatibility with Microsoft's Exchange and Office file formats. But I guess it's all part of the Google-plan, on which they want to challenge the dominant enterprise player, just not in an obvious heads-on way but instead borrowing a page from guerrilla warfare.

From the video presentations all I saw was a mobile phone that, just like a PC, has everything and the kitchen sink and, just like the PC, is confusing as hell. They even imported the desktop concept, complete with workspaces, desktop shortcuts and clock widgets. Now I don't know about you but I don't want that. I don't want a mobile phone that's just like a PC, only smaller. What I want is a mobile phone that's almost like a PC only simpler. And this comes as a surprise because the SDK's UI is actually pretty good at being simple.

The other thing I didn't like to see was brand confusion. To HTC it's the HTC Dream, to T-Mobile it's the "T-Mobile G1 with Google" (not kidding, that's what they kept calling it), to the vast majority of people out there it was the Google phone but under what name will I, a Vodafone Portugal customer, know it? Maybe the bells are tolling for "smaller" manufacturer brands?

This state of confusion kept getting stronger as speakers took turns at pushing their agendas but never telling me, in a clear way, why I should consider buying (into) the Dream. The only guy I actually enjoyed listening to was Sergey Brin, who showed up in rollerblades and said that after getting the device he created a non-sense application to measure the time between you throwing up the phone and grabbing it (or it hitting the ground). I can see how it would be useful to measure the time between users throwing the phone against the wall and the time of impact, in acts of frustration.

In conclusion, I believe the best surprises will come from Samsung and LG who are also part of the Open Handset Alliance and have a bit more experience in designing consumer market devices. There are no official launch dates for them so I'll have to wait and see but one thing is true: I won't go out of my way to get an HTC Dream when it becomes available in Europe.

And how about you, what's your opinion on the first Android mobile phone?

Today we've released handivi 0.4.17 version, which address the following problems, kindly reported so far: a) it doesn't run on my ZYX phone, b) is slow, c) the public timeline/friend updates isn't correctly refreshed, d) crashes, and finally e) it has bugs.

You've might notice some pattern there, and you're right, this new version is only bug squashing.
from offthemark.com

As you can see, some could not yet be squashed and more just "cut the line", but we're working on it, bear with us and report your problem, or just say hello@handivi.com

handivi is getting better everyday, we're making magic as we speak, meanwhile we leave you a small presentation of this great application, with some screenshots for everybody get to know a little bit more handivi.

A special thanks to "zone41" ( http://zone41.info ) for the photos.

We will keep you update of new stuff here, so see you soon.