xargol's weblog

I’ve got a Sony Ericsson Z800i mobile phone, and I’m always on the look for new nifty Java applications to try on it. Here’re my favourite Java applications this far:

Opera Mini
http://mini.opera.com/
Free, closed-source

This is a mini-edition of Opera’s popular web browser. What’s different about this compared to other Java web browsers, is that Opera Mini downloads every page through a proxy server. This proxy server reorganizes the content to make it fit on the small screen, resizes and compresses any images and sends the prepared page back back to the phone in a special binary format.

This means that you’ll get much lower bandwidth costs, as well as an easier reading experience. I really like this application, and I use it for all my web browsing on the phone (except for when I have to download stuff, because Opera Mini doesn’t support that yet).

Virca
http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/virca/
Free, GPL

This is an IRC client, a very good one actually. You can be in multiple channels at a time (tabs run along the top of the screen), and you can do all the usual IRC stuff, like changing topics, oping or voicing people, kicking people etc.

You can’t be on several IRC networks at a time though. What also sucks is that - on my phone at least - you can’t minizime the application, so you’ll have to keep it open all the time while connected.

MidpSSH
http://www.xk72.com/midpssh/
Free, GPL

This is, at the name says, a SSH client. It works great, but inputting text is “a bit” more tiresome than with a real keyboard on a computer. I actually did manage to install Midnight Commander on my Linux box with it though, but it’s not something I would attempt often.

Pretty cute just for fun though.

Google Local for mobile
http://google.com/glm/
Free, closed-source

This is Google Maps/Google Local for mobile phones. It features map/satellite views, driving directions, etc., just like the “real” variant of it. It can be a bit slow though, unless you’ve got a pretty high-speed internet connection like 3G/UMTS. Also, Google doesn’t have any road maps/driving directions data for Norway yet (shame on them! ).

Jamtris
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jamos/
Free, GPL

Finally, to wrap this up, one of the best games ever; Tetris! This really hooking game can be great to shoot some time with while waiting for the bus etc.

It doesn’t have any levels/”missions” though, you always start with an empty board. It’s got some bugs as well; for example, the high score resets from time to time, and the board clears if I close the phone (it’s a clamshell) and open it up again. Still, it’s a great game.

Sorry about the quality of the screen shots, but I had to use my digital camera to get them.