http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/11/garageband-for-iphone-8-track-studio-in-your-pocket.ars

Garageband on iPad and iPhone really is a magnificient piece of software. Usually, portable version of computer software are only a subset of the original version. Yet, here Apple managed to make an entire new user experience that makes even more sense than the original version, with all these instruments, the ability to record voice...you really can turn a mobile device into an recording studio !
That's even more impressive on the iPhone, Apple really masters ergonomy on mobile device like no one.

I'd like to have an equivalent on Android...or create one myself !

http://www.installubuntulinux.com/2011/09/howto-change-system-font-sizes-in.html

The font size is so big in Ubuntu 11.10 that it feels like Ubuntu is now targeting old people. And apparantly, the only way to change this "elite" parameter is to download a tweak tool...wow ! Thank you mainstream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7yaYE-owg&feature=fvwrel
First 7 inches tablet from RIM is a highly desirable piece of hardware. Compact and solid feel, gorgeous screen. Even this brand new operating system that derivate from QNX seems incredibly responsive.

Alas, it is only meant to be paired with a BlackBerry phone, as this is the only way to access mail and calendar, which is great....for BlackBerry users.
Starting one again with a new OS mean that once again a new application eco-system has to emerge from the void. But RIM is no Apple, why would any developper spend time on a platform that has such a small user-base ?

As announced on the Ubuntu Developper Summit, Ubuntu is going for the tablets market. Although not driven by commercial interest, Canonical has well perceived that market is leaning towards mobile device and that there is share of market to gain in this new territory.
Still, I don't know clearly how the home computer experience will fit on small sized device. The main interest of Ubuntu is it compatibility to the whole Linux applications eco-system but these are not made of mobility. I wouldn't want to use Eclipse or OpenOffice on a small mobile device, and if it was only for web browsing and multimedia, Android is mile ahead...
This is not the first raw port of Linux into the mobile world there was/is other attempt : Meego, OpenMoko. The QT widget API (used in KDE) has some in-built touch compatibility.
But I think overall, Apple and Google got it right by getting rid of desktop standard for their mobile OS.

I finally bought myself a tablet after hours of intense reflexion, I've come to a conclusion : there was no escape, I had to have one. A tablet.

How should I choose it ? It has to run Android because I'm committed on developping for it. Having one real life device is useful. It has to run flash because no having this on a full grown internet device is unacceptable. Battery life is important, I sometime travel between Paris and Miami, having a device able to stand the 10 hours flight is nice.
5, 7 or 10 Inches, choice is a matter of finding the right compromise.
I decided to go for the bigger because I already own a 4" Galaxy S and I really wanted to go for the tablet feel.
IPS screen is also a must to get good viewing angles as tablets are moved everywhere and not expected to be seen from right in front.
Tegra 2 is a must as the most powerful 3d gpu available at the time.

Screen is not stellar though with greyish black, lot of reflection on dark picture (putting reflective coating on a tablet is insane), vision angles are ok but not .
One big drawback though : it's heavy ! 700g is too much for long run, I just happened to figure out :'( My dream tablet : would be 10", 500g, OLED screen, 10h battery life, I don't care about sdcard slot/hdmi output/keyboard. In a few years maybe.

At first I would thought that tablet where useless gadget, but like often, offer creates need.
Tablet can be ecologic because although their production has a great cost for environment, they can be use as books, saving tons of paper.
It's a great way to access thousands of books, subscribe and read newspapers that never would have read otherwise because of the lack of time.
Music sheet and cookings recipe are now easily available, and takes no room to store.
Gaming and video experience are also totally different on a bigger screen. I ve never been really interested in them on my smart phone, but it makes much more sense here.
Web browsing is now almost as comfortable as on a regular computer.

Some words about Android Honeycomb, it I has nicely evolved, splitting for iPad/iPhone with its 3d-like interface.

Beyond touch as a mean to remove buttons and save space for the screen on smartphones, I can now understand touch as human-to-machine interface and it's metaphore : Remove all layer between the human body and data (what's one screen). It's nowhere near as effecient as mouse and keyboard but it brings another new experience.

Maybe computers are really going to disappear !

Anyway this tablet has lot of potential but beyond the wow effect, I'm curious to see whether it will find a regular usage as an everyday tool.

The announce of Google buying Motorola break a havoc.
How come a pure software company step in the hardware world ! Off course there's the argument of acquiring Motorola's patents as shell for the long end war against Apple. But come on, buying such a huge telecom player in the telecom industry and risking to deceive other partners, Samsung, Sony, has to fill another goal that only legal concerns and is to be seen as a strategic shift.

Is Google trying to become Apple ? One can argue that Android greater strength rely in the fact that it present is so many different brand, different shape of phone, high end or entry market, professional or casual. Virtually, Android target every single segment of the mobile device industry.
Then why would Google abandon this ubiquitous policy that as proven so successful.

Google, although an almighty company remain weak in certain aspects. Google relies heavily on ads income, that mainly come from one source : Google search engine. Google success lie in the fact that it is the de-facto gateway to internet.
Many see the Android initiative as a way to secure Google's search engine dominant position on mobile device, just as Google Chrome is for the desktop. It has to face hostile opponents, Microsoft who is pushing its own search engine(Bing) and Apple who was not seen as very friendly, even before Android project was made public.

So Google needs Android to be successful to secure its position and income.
Android success rely on phone manufacturers goodwill to release Android powered phones. To phone manufacturers are not totally commited to Android, as phone running custom Linux and Windows Mobile. In this concern, having Motorola as a faithful partner would help Google. It might even be the good time as Android's apps eco-system is now strong enough commercially, so that other phone manufacturer(Sony, HTC) can't get rid of it so easily, risking their market share, despite obvious conflict of interest in using an OS that belongs to a major contender. That's still a risky gamble.

A and B are 2 high availability servers, that need to be upgraded. To maintain a high security, a 3rd server will be built so that when A is upgraded, B and G are online, and then when B is upgraded, A and G are online.G can only be backup by taking one of the other server's IP address.

Upgrade will be made as follow:

G is upgraded
A is main while B is backup
A is main while G impersonate B, B impersonate G(and is upgraded)
A is backup G is main, B impersonate G
G is validated as main
A is main, B is backup
A is backup, B is validated as main
G impersonate A, B is main, A impersonate G(and is upgraded)
A is backup, B is main
A is validated as main
A is main, B is backup

So many operations means more chance that something goes wrong, and lengthen the window of operation ( 3weeks), impersonating IP address is confusing for the maintenance team and can lead to mistakes despite my guidances. G has to be reconfigured many times to handle A and B impersonation.
There are also replication link between A and B that needs to be taken up or down while testing and upgrading

By removing the luxury of a 3rd server, we'll have:
A is main, B is upgraded
B is validated as main
A is backup, B is main
A is upgraded, B is main
A is validated as main
A is main, B is backup
Duration (2 weeks)

Over-engineering safety is sometime not the way to go.

Currently, available tablets sales are running ok for Apple and not as expected for other vendors, but most of all they are seen as a geek device, mainly designed for early adopters.

Following Apple's iPad, internet tablets are becoming a growing market. But has it the potential to be the main internet device for consumers ?
Embedded OS (iOS and Android) are well fit to embrace the consumer market, they are:
- Secure, thanks to the fact that are bound to their own market store.
- Easy to use with their touch only interface and little configuration available.
- Highly connected to internet.

What they lack:
- Legacy software support : Word/Excel, games.

One can say also that iOS lacks complete internet experience support due to Apple policy not to support flash.
Over Smarthpone, tablets biggest advantage that everyone would have noticed is that their big screen make them so much more comfortable to use. In fact, internet on smartphone is possible when nothing else is available but will never be the prefered browsing solution.
Still I don't believe that except geeks, consumers would want to buy a full grown computer, a smartphone, a camera, and a tablet device. I believe in the "one device to rule them all" paradigm. (For instance, iPhone became to most used camera on Flickr) That is to say that tablets will only be accepted by the mass market if they are able to fulfill most of the duties that were done by other digital devices.
People that need a computer for serious gaming or work will still by one, in the same manner, tablets will never be as portable as smartphone, so people that need to carry a smaller device will still by a smartphone, just like today, people that are more keen on photo quality will still buy a real digital camera.
This is an important point since as tablet are very expensive, people expect them to match most of their need.

Concerning the size:
~7" : as the Kindle fire, good for portability (small form factor), good for reading ebooks (can be hold in one hand), a bit small for internet use still.
~10" : as Apple's iPad, good at home : bigger screen, good for photo viewing, better internet experience but heavier and has to be hold with two hand.

As I'm more a laptop person while on serious journey, I'm leaning toward the 7 inches tablets for an all around use (e-books, videos, internet on the move). But for home casual use, would I have gone for 10". (the best 10" Android tablet available now is the Galaxy Tab).

Continuing my exploration of Android programming, I'm currently interested in the possibility to port Lincity-NG to the Android platform.

Although challenging as I don't know the original code source, there's nothing that really hold the game from being ported. The game rely on the SDL library and OpenGL, both exists on the Android platform.
As the game is written in C++, I will have to use Android NDK which is basically a port of the C standard library for Android. This should allow me to rebuid most of Lincity-NG sourcecode mostly untouched.

Other than technical, but interesting, another aspect that should be taken in consideration is the rework of the user interface for mouse to touchscreen.

Status :
SDL : Native support from latest 1.3 snapshot version. ( Platform version must be at least 5 in order to be able to compile SDL).
http://www.libsdl.org/hg.php

STL : STLport is now bundled with Android NDK since r5 version. Create Application.mk with the line :

zlib : ?

Here is the new the version of my website. (A screenshot of my own website in my website that's what I call "mettre en abîme")

Thanks to brand new CSS 3.0 properties:
box-shadow
border-radius
It now looks much more neat and professionnal only by adding some shade and rounded corners.

But...only on Chrome, IE7 does not support these new properties, and elements are misaligned on FF3.6.

I also added syntax highlighting through the Geshi library that looks very nice.