When you live in a very quiet Italian village even Friday nights are dull. Well, not dull just very, very serene. If local kids got caught drag racing their mopeds down the streets of my village they would be so embarassed…well, you get the idea.
All those quiet hours make for a very active mind. As some of you know I have long obsessed over the ability to Twitter via Thuraya and I think I have found a solution. Now, for those of you not using a Thuraya SG-2520 you are SOL when it comes to this app but I promise you I will keep searching for a workaround for the Hughes and Ascom sets.
Actually, finding the app was quite simple. I Googled “J2ME Twitter client” and up popped jibjib. Jibjib is a free to download open source Twitter client that should run just fine on the SG-2520. When I dropped the JAD file into the very cool MicroEmulator Java Web Start application I was immediately able to start Twittering. Here’s the pic:
You can do all the usual stuff that you would do with other Twitter clients but what is really interesting is that since it is open source one should be able to modify it to work with the Laconica microblogging platform. Wouldn’t it be something if we could figure out how to make that work? Considering that the SG-2520 comes equipped with a built-in GPS unit and the new beta version of jibjib corrects some geocoding issues it seems like we might be pretty close to having a suitable microblogging tool for folks in the field. Here are some other features:
- Small about 30-40 KB
- Minimum requirements are only CLDC 1.0 and MIDP 1.0
- Reply button to add @reply automatically
- Small bandwidth consumption via JSON and birdnest (5-6 KB for 20-entries friends timeline)
- Fast response by multi-threading
- Quick word with prefix
@and#insertion - It’s open source! If you have idea to improve, just do it!
- Simple development, no IDE, just ant.
If you’ve got a Thuraya and want to try it out please do and be sure to let us know. Otherwise, you can try out the app in the emulator and see what you think. Problem solved?
No, wait, there are two drunk women giggling in the plaza. Ok folks, now things are getting out of control out here in my Italian Mayberry.
