Jason’s Random Thoughts

The first release of Embink is fast approaching, as I’m working out just a few more minor bugs that have popped up while testing compatibility on Windows Mobile 5 machines, and I can’t wait to see what feedback I get from the online community. Although I haven’t been able to work on the project quite as much as I wanted to, I do have many of the basic features written in preliminary form and they’ve worked pretty well on my development and test websites. Before too long, I’ll be using Embink exclusively to post articles online.

Once this happens, it should be no problem to keep up with a daily release schedule
That said, I’ll need to ensure the image management is done a whole lot better than it is now.

Here’s a list of functions that exist in the alpha release:

• writing and editing of both pages and posts
• spell check (using any dictionary found on system)
• auto-save every X minutes
• support for FireStats
• support for All-in-One SEO Plugin (version 1.3.x — I’ll start discussing the future of this with the new developer in the next few months)
• support for comments (edit, approve, decline, mark as spam)
• local copy of posts and pages (user editable — last 10, last X days, all)
• VGA and QVGA support
• support for Windows Mobile 5, 6 and 2002
• requires less than 300 KB of storage for the application (my install has a copy of all 607 posts and 20 pages found on this site, which means the internal database is sitting at 4 MB — including thumbnailed images)
• and, naturally, the ability to post to WordPress blogs running version 2.1 or higher (may work with lower versions, though)

It’s not a very long list, and I wish it could be long for the alpha release … but this should give me a pretty good indication of both what does and does not work out there, as well as whether people are happy with the interface. So far, I know there will be at least five people testing the alpha, but I’ll welcome anyone who wants to try it.

One of my next challenges will be to create a sexy logo for this program. Perhaps I’ll find a cute animal and make that part of the logo….

What functions or features do you want to see in a mobile blogging application?

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Summer is just around the corner, and the staggering heat of the Japanese sun will soon bake us into exhaustion with its ceaseless presence. Last year the mercury reached 43.2 Celcius in some parts of Gifu prefecture, and this past April we were treated to termeratures in the low 30’s. Aside from a few weeks in February, both the weather and the temperature have been quite enjoyable. So, with the beautiful climate and temperate weather, why the heck is my PDA freezing so much?

Naturally, I’m not so daft as to think the regional temperature has anything to do with my iPaq’s tendency to hit some silent and fatal exception, forcing it to become unresponsive to every request, bargain or plea I might utter. Heck, I’ve only had it for three weeks! But considering how the unit it replaced would only freeze if I was running some memory-monster or processor hog, I’m left scratching my head over how this technologically superior device could be prone to such creativity-inhibiting behaviour. Is it a problem with Windows Mobile 6? Is it a fault with some application running in the background? Did I fsck something up while configuring the system? Do I have just too much data stored inside?

Your guess is as good as mine, since I’ve tried quite a few things in an unsuccessful effort to determine the culprit.

A Reset A Day Keeps The Freezing At Bay

One interesting thing I’ve discovered is that the system is usualy less prone to failure if it receives a soft-boot in the morning. This tends to clear out whatever gunk it might have clogging up the system and enables me to accomplish quite a bit of writing a day. Heck, so long as I don’t write more than 3,000 words with the Block Recognizer, I can often go the whole day without any signs of trouble.

That said, when the system does decide to fail, it usually occurs when I have 500+ unsaved words written to a Word document. I @$#%ing hate it when I lose a really good blog post or several pages of my upcoming novel due to some unknown system error. Considering how I write each article by hand on a PDA rather than using a keyboard, this is like writing two pages of text on an A4 sheet (8.5″x11″), and then torching them with a lighter. Sure, you can write the article again, but what a waste of time!

Looking At Alternatives

Because of the freezing, I’ve actually been looking at the possibility of getting my hands on a wireless keyboard. “But if your PDA is freezing at 3,000 words and you can type at 170 words per minute, doesn’t that mean that you’ll need to reset your iPaq every 20 minutes?”

I hope not.

The idea behind the keyboard is to get a device that would allow me to write much more in a day, and I’ll just keep my writing schedules. Sure, there is the potential to lose quite a bit of text if I’m not careful, but I have an idea for that, too.

Say Hello to Embink!

Within hours of aquiring a new portable computer, I had started (mentally) working on a new piece of software that would allow me to write a post on a Windows Mobile device, then upload it directly to my sites. I had discussed the possibility of creating this software before and, despite there being several applications out there that will allow me to accomplish most of my goals, none of them do it the way I’d like to see it done. So, with this in mind, it’s time to unveil Embink!

As of this writing, there isn’t any software ready for public consumption. However, there will be some code released in th the coming weeks as this project gets off the ground and I start working out the bugs while commuting to work. If I’m using this software daily, and it’s not living up to my exacting standards for software, I’ll be sure to get it corrected right away.

If you have any feature requests for this application, or would like to know what you’ll need in order to take part in the software testing, just let me know.

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