25 January 2010

Burns’ tips and Dwynwen’s advice

Posted by: Paul Cockerton

Tonight’s the night when Burns suppers are held around the world, in memory of Scotland’s greatest poet Robert Burns, who was born on this day in 1759. Less well known is that it’s also Dydd Santes Dwynwen (Day of St Dwynwen), the Welsh equivalent to Valentines day.

63336, the UK’s most popular text Q&A service, is celebrating both and has compiled a list of its favourite questions and answers to fill you with knowledge, if not love and haggis, throughout the day.

Got a last minute question about Burns Night or St Dwynwen’s? Download the 63336 app by texting APP to 63336 (£1) and we’ll answer your first 3 questions for free.

Day of St Dwynwen

Welsh patron saint of lovers

Welsh patron saint of lovers

Who is St Dwynwen?
St Dwynwen is patron saint of lovers & celebrates her feast day in Wales on 25 Jan. She founded a convent off Anglesey, the remains of which still stand.

How do you say ‘I love you’ in welsh?
“Dwi’n dy garu di”, pronounced dween duh gary dee, is I love you in Welsh. “Diolch” is thank you, and “sgen ti sws i mi” is have you got a kiss for me.

What traditionally should you give on St Dwynwen’s Day?
On St Dwynwen’s Day, give your lover a Welsh lovespoon. Carve it yourself, though: even a crude lovespoon made by you means more than a shop-bought one.

Where is St Dwynwen’s church?
St Dwynwen’s church is on Ynys Llanddwyn, off the coast of Anglesey. Llanddwyn means church of St Dwynwen & parts of a 16th-century church still remain.

What romantic things can I do on 25 Jan?
Take a walk in Dwynwen’s footsteps from Newborough to Llanddwyn Island where she established her church or visit a romantic castle & declare your love.

Why is St Dwynwen the patron saint of lovers?
Dwynwen was unable to marry her true love. After praying to forget him, she was granted 3 wishes; one was that the hopes & dreams of true lovers be met.

How do you make a St Dwynwen’s day card?
Fold card & decorate with hearts. Write dwi’n dy garu di (I love you), or dymuniadau gorau ar gyfer dydd Santes Dwynwen (best wishes for St Dwynwen’s Day).

How many people speak welsh in the UK?
690,000 people in the UK speak Welsh. 110,000 of these live in England. 65% of Welsh residents can’t speak Welsh. 15% of the Welsh population is fluent.

How many people celebrate St Dwynwen’s day?
At least 300,000 people will celebrate St Dwynwen’s Day. It’s become more popular since 2003 when the Welsh Language Board & Tesco gave free cards out.

Does visiting St Dwynwen’s church bring good luck?
Traditionally, lovers visited the well at St Dwynwen’s church to find out if they had a future together. It’s nonsense, of course, but romantic nonsense.

What’s a suitable gift on St Dwynwen’s Day?
You can’t go wrong with flowers on St Dwynwen’s Day. For a lasting gift, give a Welsh love spoon engraved with your name entwined with your true love’s.

What’s the history of St Dwynwen?
St Dwynwen loved Maelon. Her dad arranged for her to marry another so Maelon raped her. St Dwynwen asked God to help her forget him & look after lovers.

What have fish got to do with St Dwynwen?
A sacred fish (or eel) lived in St Dwynwen’s well. Its behaviour was used to predict the future for young lovers & to tell if husbands had been faithful.

What could we do on the day?
Aberglasney Gardens will be handing out free hand-crafted, wooden love spoons to all the couples who visit on 24 & 25 January. They are also doing meals.

Is St Dwynwen the patron saint of anything else?
Yes, St Dwynwen is also the patron saint of sick animals. Water from a spring (Ffynnon Dwynwen) at the convent she founded was said to cure sick animals.

Which came first, St Dwynwen or St Valentine?
St Dwynwen was around in the 5th century, whereas St Valentine had died 200 years previously. 14 Feb was already a lovers’ feast day, pre-Valentine.

I’m English, but my boyfriend’s Welsh; what should I do?
Have twice the romance. On St Dwynwen’s day, go out for a candlelit dinner (avoiding the Valentine crowds); then, on 14 Feb, have a cosy night at home.

Burns Night

Robert Burns

Scotland's most famous poet

Who was Robert Burns?
Robert Burns (1759-1796) was Scotland’s greatest poet, but he had humble origins; he started out as a farm labourer and was dubbed the Ploughman Poet.

What was Robert Burns life like?
Burns led a hard early life, having been born the son of a peasant farmer. He fathered 12 children with 4 women. He became famous, but made little money.

When is Burns Night held?
Burns Night is held on 25 Jan, the birthday of poet, Robert Burns. Originally the celebration was held on 21 July, the anniversary of his death.

How long have people been celebrating Burns Night for?
Burns Night has been celebrated for over 200 years. The 1st Burns Supper was held in Alloway in 1801, when some of his friends met to remember his life.

Why is Burns Night celebrated?
Burns Night celebrates the life & work of Robert Burns, a Scottish icon. It takes place on his birthday, 25 Jan, & began as a tribute by close friends.

Which other countries celebrate Burns Night?
Scotland is the only country to widely celebrate Burns Night, but ex-pats the world over will try to join in. Haggises have been flown to Pisa specially.

Why do people eat haggis, neeps and tatties on Burns Night?
When Burns’s friends celebrated Burns Night, they ate haggis because of his “Ode to a Haggis”, & neeps & tatties to compliment the haggis’s spiciness.

What is the ‘Selkirk Grace’?
The Selkirk Grace: Some hae meat and canna eat, and some wad eat that want it, but we hae meat, and we can eat, sae let the Lord be thankit.

What is ‘Address to a Haggis’?
Address to a Haggis is recited at Burns suppers when the haggis is served: Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!

What is the ‘Loyal Toast’?
The Loyal Toast honours the Head of State, & can be just “The Queen” in the UK. The host of a formal event proposes it (when tables are clear at a meal).

What is ‘Immortal Memory’?
‘Immortal Memory’ is a short, lively speech about Robert Burns, featuring tributes to his life and works. It ends with a toast to his immortal memory.

Does anyone know the words auld lang syne?
Here’s the 1st verse: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne!

Did Burns write auld lang syne?
Burns claimed to have rewritten an old folk song, and made it his own. Its origins date back to C15th, in 1724 there was a version called Auld Lang Syne.

30 November 2009

Clearing the path for the apps goldrush

Posted by: Colly Myers

Network operators don’t really want you to run apps.

Apple has created a market for mobile apps that is the envy of the major players in the mobile marketplace. The result is that apps and app stores have become something of a modern day gold rush. Anyone looking at this frantic activity could be forgiven for imagining that mobile apps were a brand new phenomenon. Yet this is not the case -  Java ME apps have been around since April 2001, when Motorola launched the i80s and i50sx models.

Java ME (Micro Edition)

Java technology is in not one but several things: a programming language, an execution environment (the Java Virtual Machine or VM) and many, many code libraries including GUI interfaces. Java ME is the combination of the CLDC (Connected Limited Device Configuration) Java VM plus the MIDP mobile device GUI and a number of APIs (application programming interfaces). Together these allow programs written in the Java programming language to run Java ME applications, called Midlets, on a very wide range of mobile phones. The history of Java ME’s evolution is as below:

MIDP 1.0 specification was completed on 1st September 2000.

MIDP 2.0 specification was completed on 27th September 2002.

MIDP 2.1 specification was completed on 26th May 2006.

So the technology has been around for quite some time. It is pretty difficult to get reliable numbers on how many mobile phones in the UK are running MIDP 2.x but it would be surprising if it were not in excess of 50 million phones. In the world market, the figure is in billions.

What went wrong ?

With the mature Java technology, and a substantial market, why did nothing happen until Apple arrived on the scene? Part of the answer lies in the way Java ME apps were marketed – or rather, not marketed, as covered in “Only one App Store can compete with Apple”. More interestingly, though, was the fact that the network operators did not really want to have apps run on their phones.

Network operators considered that apps would pose risks in three major areas:

1. Security – apps could prevent the phone working properly, or access sensitive user data. Worse still, being able to communicate easily meant that virus programs could spread quickly, potentially leading to phones, or even networks, being compromised.

2. Commercial – apps could use the communications facilities of the phone without authorisation, leading to unauthorised costs for users.

3. Support – apps would lead to a flood of support calls that would have to be dealt with by the network operators’ already-costly customer support organisations.

While the security and commercial concerns were and still are very valid, the network operators were overly concerned over the support issues. So much so that they put the cart before the horse and ended up seriously crippling the Java ME platform. There are several dimensions to this crippling of Java ME:

1. From the phone the customer has no idea how to download an application. There is no app store on phones to solve this problem, nor a single market for all Java ME applications across all networks.

2. If a download link is sent via SMS to the phone, there is often no obvious way for the user to know how to open the link and download the program. Often phones don’t have the internet enabled by default, so it could not be downloaded in any case.

3. If the user does manage to download the app, it is then hidden deep in the phone’s menu structure -  i.e. it seems just to disappear.

4. If the user does manage to download and run the program, the very first thing the user is confronted with is a series of questions asking for permission for the program to access the internet, with options like “Allow once” and “Allow for this session”. And this happens every time the program is run. Permission needs only really to be asked once.

5. Application signing – this made matters worse, since every operator, handset manufacturer and software platform had their own master certificates, so that the chance of actually running a signed program on a wide range of phones was virtually nil, leaving developers no choice except to ship their applications unsigned which gives the charming message to the user “You are about to install an unsecure application. Continue?” Not likely.

All of which creates a tremendous barrier to adoption of the Java ME technology. These are all small issues that could have been easily resolved. That they have not been resolved in the three and half years since MIDP 2.1 was released is a terrible wasted opportunity.

Where is MIDP 3.0, the next Java ME release?

The MIDP 3.0 specification was started on 25th March 2005, four and half years ago, and is only due to be completed today – 30th November 2009. What has taken so long for the MIDP 3.0 specification to be completed? Clearly, making Java ME applications work properly on mobile phones has not been a priority for the industry. And it remains to be seen whether it will actually fix the problems

Is it now too late for Java ME? I hope not, because Java technology has a very important part to play in the mobile industry. Java technology is more than just a language; while the Java language is effective, it is not the star of the show. The real star is the Java VM and the code libraries.

The Java VM is a technology that allows software programs to run on a huge number of hardware/operating system combinations by providing a Virtual Machine environment. It is a “virtual” machine because it does not exist but is synthesised by the software using resources available to it through the various hardware/operating system combinations that it executes on. The same Java VM is powering the majority of the server applications on the internet. This is important because the Java VM provides a heterogeneous environment across servers and clients for software and data. As the internet grows and mobiles phones get more powerful, software becomes more and more interconnected, and so the advantage provided by the Java VM grows.

There are new and exciting languages such as Scala and Closure that offer the promise of easing the burden of software development in massively distributed and concurrent environments such as the mobile phone marketplace that will lead to new and interesting applications. But none of this will happen if a fragmented and dysfunctional marketplace is allowed to continue to exist in its current state.

Work together

Many of the issues holding back Java ME are easy to fix but it depends on the will of the mobile industry leaders to work together to solve these problems. This has happened in the past to the great benefit of everyone involved in the mobile phone marketplace. Chief amongst these are the roaming agreements hammered out in the early days of GSM to allow handsets to roam from one network to another.

Mobile apps can be the next gold rush, but only if the industry leaders, working together, deal with the few remaining problems of the Java ME platform. If they do so then they will create a mobile marketplace that is as significant as the internet itself.