WebOS application catalog now world wide!

Yes, it has finally happened. Everybody, not only phones with the approved operators, can now access free applications in the application catalog. Even if it is only a small step and a very late step I actually felt happy to notice it. No need to use other tools to insert the free applications to the phone.

I guess readers here have already noticed that there is a Palm Pré 2. It is available at two operators. One in Canada and one in France. And, at least in the US of A you can buy it unlocked from the HP store. The Palm Pré 2 already have WebOS 2.0. But we with older phones are still on 1.4.5. Bummer. And the information from HP Palm is  still, "in the coming months". I have not checked the developer download of WebOS 2.0 if there is better support for other characters then latin. Thai is not there in 1.4.5, and I have not managed to get it working, even when following the steps of the forum at PreCentral.net. I guess I should try some more fonts. And I really hope that old phones will experience better performance not worse with WebOS 2.0.


Now everybody is waiting for CES to see if there are some other phones on the way from HP Palm. What seem to have been leaked so far is a WebOS based pad. I hope there will be some phone with a lot better hardware then the Palm Pré 2. But I really do not want to have a bigger phone then the Palm Pre.

Official features in webOS 2.0

OK, I know, I am not fast. This was new one week ago. But now I write about it. Palm has announced that webOS 2.0 is on its way. Palm has the feature list here. There might be more, this is what is in the beta.

Just Type looks interesting. But it might get flooded with to many hits when you type. And the Quick Actions part might be more fitting the pixi then the pre. Do you really want to pull out the keyboard all the time.

And Synergy needs to get better. So this is welcome. Support for more IMs would be nice. So far I have not really used the phone for IM. But it could happen if support for 'my' IMs get in there. Maybe I could leave SMS for good. Actually this on Precentral shows a lot of more IMs in the list. And it would be nice if Synergy could be used to sync contact between different services. Not only collect them. More pictures here.

PDK plugin, JavaScript Services and better HTML5 support is great for me as a developer. But I guess that JavaScript Services can be a real battery drainer. Actually some of the Just Type and Synergy features might also be big battery drainers.

PDK plugins I hope will give us applications like a port of keepass. I actually have an application on the way that will be a lot better if using PDK plugin. So I really looking forward for the release. I have not applied for the early access program yet. I have to much to do anyway.

Most likely there will be a virtual keyboard. I like the virtual keyboard in the iPhone. You can change between different keyboards very easy. And also I would like for world wide support for the app catalog and fonts for more regions than available right now. And where the phone is, or is registered, does not have to decide what you want to use the phone for. This is a global world. People come from all around the world to different places but want to use tools from home.

So, what everybody is waiting for now is an announcement for a new device. OK, HP has been talking a lot about a tablet. But I just want a new pre with better hardware.

Update: More pictures and a video.

AR System 7.6.03 documentation released

Now it's here for the public. Version 7.6.03 of BMC Remedy AR System. And as expected the "What's New" document start of with Mid-Tier changes, actually new things about installation came first. They seem to have spent everything on making Mid-Tier faster. So I guess this is the next step towards leaving the native windows client behind.

The next thing is new UI things you can do. It is nothing really big. But it is a lot of small changes to existing object. And they are good changes. The thing is slowly moving into a more 'modern' looking UI. That is good. The comments about 'stone age looking UI' might go away. But that will not stop people from screwing the user experience when they develop there applications.

Developer Studio also have some nice new things. First the analyzer and search features have been improved. And then there is a new feature to get graphical view of events and workflow execution. Hope it is better then the one that where in, I do not remember the name. You can now also print/export "documentation" of your application from Developer Studio. It exports to PDF/RTF/HTML. And finally they have added entry points to the Remedy Eclipse-plugins that is Developer Studio. This makes it possible for 3rd party to extend Developer Studio to help the developers.

• What’s New: BMC Remedy Action Request System 7.6.03 PDF

webOS 1.4.5 is now in all regions

I'm not 100% sure it is really for all operators. But as 10 of August Sprint has had it in the US. And O2 Germany did get it already in 1st of July. And if I understand correct, everyone is getting 1.4.5. There was said that there was a bug in 1.4.5 that some operators said they where waiting for 1.4.5.1.

Anyway, now the big buzz is about new hardware and webOS 2.0. Yesterday HP answered a question about webOS-based tablet with saying it coming early 2011. I am not so interested in that. I more would like a slightly bigger screen Pre with maybe 2GB internal memory and maybe a dual core CPU. And a lot better battery. And most of all, I want the application catalog to be available world wide with no restrictions.

Now 7.5 patch 6 and 7.1 patch 11 is available for download

Now they have fixed the bug that was the reason for the revocation of 7.5 patch 5 and 7.1 patch 10. So time to download. I will install 7.5 patch 6 as soon as I can get it downloaded.

In 7.5 patch 6 there is some fixes to web services. So I guess any system using web services a lot would like to upgrade. Also there are some fixes to queries in general, and specifically currency fields in queries. They actually hang the server. There is also some fixes for memory leaks. Always good to remove those.

Developer studio, user and Mid-tier had some fixes that may have been a problem for you. But I did not see anything that generally needed an upgrade.

Serious problem with AR System

Both 7.5 patch 5 and 7.1 patch 10 contains a bug fix that is not working as expected. The server will use more memory then it should and sometimes causing freezing server. So these two patches has been withdrawn. The text from BMC say this,

A licensing and audit issue was fixed in AR System 7.5.00 patch 005 (SW00369044) and 7.1.00 patch 010 (SW00369045). The fix for this issue causes a higher than expected memory usage, which could result in the AR System server not responding. Until the issue is resolved, BMC is withdrawing the aforementioned patches and customers are instructed not to load them. BMC will send further communication when this problem is fixed.

And I was just about to upgrade my 7.5 server to patch 5 before starting testing of some now functions in an application. But I guess I stay with patch 3 for a while. Hope they release new patches soon, cause these patches had what looked like some well needed fixes.

A little conspiracy theory, these two patches does not check licenses at all. That is why they withdraw them. They fixed some bugs wrong, making the system 'free'. :)

Palm now part of HP

So, now it is finalized. Palm is now part of HP. But for now it looks like Palm as a brand will continue. And Palm will be the center of webOS. HP will be there for the resources and the muscle.

I really hope this will make webOS and the application catalog available world wide. Not only for US and a very tiny part of the rest of the world. I also hope there will be better support for language and regional settings for the whole world. Full UNICODE fonts would be very nice.

I am guessing Palm already had some new hardware on the way before HP came along. But the HP contacts might give Palm/webOS a wider smartphone hardware base to run in. The small farm factor of the Palm Pré is great, for a phone. No problem at all to use it one handed. And for most use as a smartphone it is big enough. But sometimes I just wish the screen was a tiny bit larger. Mostly in number of pixels, but also in physical size. Then as usual, bigger memory and faster CPU is alway welcome. And better battery. Smartphones really need great battery.

webOS 1.4.5 is supposed to be about. And especially O2 Germany users have reported downloads the last 48 hours. But I am still without 1.4.5. And I actually have an O2 Germany phone, but not an O2 Germany SIM. webOS 1.4.5 is only a very small update. Not really any of the things I am waiting for. OK, better PDK is great. But PDK suck anyway when you can not download the applications.

WWRUG 2010

ARSlist is doing WWRUG 2010. It is in Las Vegas as last year. And what I hear that was a great event. I where supposed to bee there, but it did not happen. But this year it is going to happen. Everything is booked and ready. It is the biggest BMC Remedy event of the year. Bee there or ...

Doug Mueller is going to bee there this year too, but not as a key note speaker.

Patch 5 for AR System 7.5 released

Update: read this too.

A couple of days ago patch 5 of AR System 7.5 was released. I guess on schedule in BMCs "1 patch release every 3 month" plan. The list of fixes is long. Still with some workflow bugs being fixed. And also some web service fix that I hope will reduce the produced size of a web service call. And also support more "functionality" in web service. It is good they are fixing things. But I still feel, how can it be possible they have so many 'critical' errors in there application 1,5 year after release.

Anyway, finaly customers start talking about upgrading to 7.5. And finally there will be some action in developing for 7.5. I myself have been waiting long time. And now I actually feel I really have to start setting up environments for building something new and fun in AR System 7.5. And to really get a good feel of the new development environment.

As a side note. Patch 9 for AR System 7.1 was release 2 months ago. And I have not talked about that. Not so many fixes as the 7.5 release. But not the least one memory leak related to web services and one stack overflow when to many filters trigger was what I noted directly. And both the 7.5 and 7.1 release seem to have more then one fix related to currency fields. Mostly in converting to other to/from other field types.

Problem with BMC Remedy Service Desk

A customer complained about the server where crashing. Nobody could explain why. But I noticed that in the console output it complained about the libIMFilterPlugin.so. After searching around a little I found a Technical Bulletin from BMC saying that there is a problem running BMC Remedy Service Desk integration together with BMC Remedy Service Level Management (SLM), on linux and AIX platforms. What?? On the other supported platforms it is working, but not on linux and AIX. The bulletin is from October 2007.

OK, this seem to be the case with version 7.1.00, 3.0.02 and 3.0.00 of the Integration for BMC Remedy Service Desk (IBRSD). The bulletin is actually about not being able to start IBRSD together with SLM. But I guess that this is part of why the server is crashing. And it might actually be part of some inconsistencies at the customer. I wonder if this is fixed in some patch. The bulletin say change OS or disable one of the components as workaround.

More confusion from Palm.

First one application many GSM Palm Pre users has been waiting for, Classic the Palm Pilot emulator, re-appeared in the App Catalog. And for some of the O2 countries there where 20+ applications in the same night bringing it to over 200. But for us with a unlocked German GSM Palm Pre not registered with an O2 sim card lost all applications but the Classic application.

And this came after WebOS 1.3.5 was released for the Sprint network in USA, but not for the GSM Palm Pre users in Europe. When is there going to bee a world wide release. And when will the base WebOS with the base applications and the third party applications going to bee world wide if not specified differently, like the network specific from the networks. Stupid to only bring one network in on the game.

OK, so some of the updates in WebOS 1.3.5 looks promising for the future. First of all the possibility to run really demanding games, with good 3D graphics. And things like higher sampling rate for the gyro. I wonder what else they are going to present on the