HTC Hero delayed, again...

I've used Windows Mobile for a couple of years and wanted to try something different. Not that WinMo is that bad, but I just want to find if there is something with a better user interface and still give me the flexibility I want. So I found the Palm Pre and saw some finger licking video's of it, I like! What a beatiful device! But it's only to arrive in the Netherlands at around christmas time. Since I'm not the kind of guy with a six pack of patience I started to explore Android. For what I've seen from it, it's very promising. I wanted to give it a try so last week I pre-ordered the HTC Hero.

When I pre-ordered I already knew there were some troubles with the delivery of the phone. It was already delayed by two weeks I believe. But then a webshop showed 'delivery within 1 day', this together with rumors that it really was going to happen! I could not resist...

Unfortunately it's delayed again! Rumors say it might have something to do with a conflict between HTC and Google, others say HTC is busy with a last minute firmware update. HTC however says nothing. In my mind that's a very stupid thing to do. If you want to make your customers happy, then be honest! What's there to hide? Could it be a marketing action, I mean a very bad marketing action? If HTC is creating a hype around this phone, why not hyping with some positive news then?

On the other hand, negative attention is still attention, hmmkay!

Visual Studio 2010 Beta - Mobile

Just spend one and a half (!!!) hour to install Visual Studi0 2010 beta with the main goal to make some test applications for my mobile devices. When I could finally run the IDE I went to 'File->new->Project' only to find out there is NO option to start a mobile project.

As google is everybody's friend these days I started to search on this issue. First hit, Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 does NOT support Mobile projects! It WILL be included in the final release, but for some reason it's not in the Beta. Come on! So many developers for the WinMO platform, make them happy!

Hmmkay, downloading a trial of an earlier version now.

Java regex and String literals

I was just practicing for the SCJP exam and ran into some regex issues. Regex and Java String literals both use "\" as an escape character. In a non-regex Java String literal, every literal "\" must be doubled. In a regex every literal "\" must be doubled. Ok, now lets look at some examples.

When you want to write a pattern to check for a digit followed by a whitespace you need to create the following pattern:

Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\d\\s"); // here you might expect to use ("\d\s").
Matcher m = p.matcher("12 this should be enough");

Now lets say you want to check for the literal "\" in a String:

String text = "hello in comes the backslash \\ ..."; // mark the double \\ to escape
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("\\\\");
Matcher m = p.matcher(text);

Ofcourse, normally the compiler or IDE helps you with this, by showing something like 'illegal escape character'. But for the exam you really need to 'know' it. 

To touch or not to touch

Telephones with touchscreens, hype, or useful? I've used a touch enabled smartphone for about a year now. I must say, there are definitely good features of it, like browsing, watching photos etc. The biggest problem for me however is to use that gdamn 'virtual keyboard', and virtual it is! For me it's not anywhere near the experience of a physical keyboard...

Ever since my HTC Touch Pro broke down I had to go back to my good old HTC S710. No touchscreen, small resolution. What a drawback you must think. What a relief, that's what I think! Allthough I miss my high-speed internet connection and a bigger screen would not be too much luxuriance. It still fulfills most of my needs, with a lot less frustration!

Sometimes I wonder, will there ever be a perfect(smart)phone on the market. One that has everything and still has a good interface. Maybe I found one, just maybe... Lately my eye fell on the Palm Pre, hardware keyboard, OS looks very nice. Hopefully this will be a big step closer to the 'perfect' phone! Can't wait for it to arrive in Europe (and hopefully not a single operator deal...).