New update to the JSON-RPC jQuery module -- added a per-call exception handling method for async requests.

While I was at it, I cleaned up the site a little bit.  Project Pho is pretty long dead; honestly, Magento is what I was wanting to make anyway.  You can use Magento as a store engine pretty effectively using its API.  I must say, it's overall rather impressive, if kind of documentation light.  Also, my Image Map plugin was missing a link.

There has been a lot of interest lately in my Zend JSON RPC client.  Probably because I got linked from an article here :

http://sourcecodebean.com/archives/creating-a-json-rpc-service-using-zend-json-server/422

Which is quite cool.  I've fixed some of the async shortcomings of the original (which was quite broken, I'll admit, but I had less than no interest in async calls at the time) and made the plugin more robust and featureful.  Also, I am actively maintaining it now as I use it myself in a few projects.

So feel free to throw more requests at me, so far I've accomodated everyone who's passed a request my way and I've no plan on stopping!

It's been awhile since I've posted a blog, so ... I figured I'd post something that's been eating me for awhile.

Specifically, I don't like my Android phone.  I actually miss my PalmOS phone, silly as that may be, as the primary Android alternative (iPhone) is pretty unappealing to me as well.  But that's a different story altogether.

So, what do I not like?  Well, my particular device (Samsung Moment) has some issues, and my provider (Sprint) wants to force me to have a bunch of bloatware on my phone (NASCAR apps, etc. that cannot be uninstalled without root).  But I'll try to keep this specific to "generic Android problems" and leave the device/provider specific stuff out of it.

• The applications are too interdependent.  This actually wasn't a huge problem in 1.6, but when I upgraded to the 2.x series this became an issue.  There are weird dependencies in the applications which force you to run a bunch of extra garbage.  For example, text messaging is dependent on Voicemail.  Which, several weeks ago told me I had a "Manditory Update" waiting for me which the app won't let me install due to a "General Error".  Voicemail is integrated in a weird way that I cannot uninstall, and it would probably break text messaging if I did, so ... I'm stuck with a phone that always has a notification telling me to upgrade Voicemail even though I can't with no recourse.
• There are other weird interconnections too.  Android Market requires gTalk (for authentication purposes).  You can't use the contacts application unless you choose a place to sync to (incidentally, syncing with my gMail is the LAST thing I ever want to do, as by default it pulls down every email address I've ever come in contact with.  Sure, you can turn it off -- but off should be default :P  Or better yet, don't make me sync).
• These interconnections lead to edge cases where some dependent program drains my battery.  My device can sometimes last a whole day, even with average use; other times, it won't last 2 hours.  Using the battery use utility, it will say "99% Android System" when something mysterious is draining the battery.  Unfortunately, Android considers pretty much everything to be "Android System".  Which is really the core of the complaint here; guess what, "system" means things you NEED to keep the system running and stable.  It doesn't include, say, the calendar application -- at least that's my opinion, Android apparently doesn't share it.
• Its missing a lot of configuration options I would consider standard.  You cannot ever turn off the vibration "bump" when unlocking the screen.  My phone makes a really heinous noise when it loses data service; can't turn it off, doesn't count as a notification.  My options are to either mute the phone entirely, or live with it.  Might not sound like a big deal -- but sometimes it makes that noise at 4 in the morning and wakes me up (and I have to have the sound on since I do, on occasion, get woken up in the middle of the night by work emergencies).  Or if I go hiking, it'll make that noise again and again as data service goes in and out.
• The 2.x series seems to have taken configuration options AWAY.  Plus, my phone seems to arbitrarily decide it's going to turn things back on that I don't want.  I turn off the notification sound because it is useless; everything Android considers a "notification" (such as plugging in the USB cable) I'm not interested in hearing about.  About once a month, my Android phone will change my setting of "No Sound" back to the default noise.  My wife loves it when I plug in the phone when she's already asleep and my phone decides to make some stupid notification sound that I have turned off before.
• Android is not Linux.  I wasn't hoping for a full distribution or anything silly like that; but I was hoping for something at least structured in a similar vein, with services I can configure and OPTIONS.  Android is a bloated mockery.
• And finally, too much Google.  There, I said it.  You can strip out a lot of Google features and minimize Google usage, but then you are also pretty much killing the core functionality of your phone.

Anyway ... that's actually the tip of the iceburg, but I don't want to get too ranty.  Still, that's been brewing for awhile.  When I get my next phone ... well, first off, I"m pretty sure it won't be Sprint.  I'm tired of getting calls from Bangalore during my work day asking me in unintelligible pseudo-English if I want to upgrade my service (and being told I can't be removed from their sales list because I'm a Sprint customer -- well, GUESS WHAT!  There's a definite way to solve that!), and I hate how my phone comes pre-installed with garbage.

Probably won't be an iPhone.  I am not wild about Apple's technology practices.  Blackberry -- and I never thought I would say this -- but Blackberry seems to be the front runner at the moment.  We'll see as time goes on!

By request of someone via the contact form, I've added support for Zend Namespaces to my JSON RPC client.

You can now use $server->addClass('classname','namespace'); on the server side, and on the client side it will be like: client.namespace.method()

Feel free to ask me other things!