kepo-ing Zz85

If you have come across this Mirror application for Palm or this commercial PocketPC version, here’s my software for turning your nokia phone into a “mirror”.

Simple, silly, yet “idea!”, it works by turning all the pixels on the screen black. For my version, it turns off the backlight to reduce reflections glare. Works best under the sun, you might use it to spy on people behind you while look at the reflections on the black screen held in your hand.

Its about 2 years since I wrote a mobile application maybe - 1) disappointment in grades i got for my mobile applications module, 2) really never get to have hands-on using a real phone.
Its now with my Nokia 3120 I got, and a DKU-5 cable, installation of Sun Wireless Toolkit and Nokia Developer Tools I can get started again. Btw Nokia 3120 is really one of the cheapest phone with a “symbian os” - series 40. Programming language is java, (j2me -mobile edition if you care), and the program can be called a midlet too because midp (1.0) is required on handphones to run them.

Download it here for nokia phones, if not here for slightly more compatible version, if not just turn ur phone off to make it work the same way too.

Here’s the source code if you cared

import javax.microedition.lcdui.Canvas;
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Command;
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Display;
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Displayable;
import javax.microedition.lcdui.Graphics;
import javax.microedition.midlet.MIDlet;
import javax.microedition.midlet.MIDletStateChangeException;

import com.nokia.mid.ui.DeviceControl;
import com.nokia.mid.ui.FullCanvas;

/**
* Mirror Application for Nokia Phones - Turns Screen Black
*
* @author Joshua Koo http://zz85.is.dreaming.org zz85@users.sf.net
*
* 28 Jan 2006, Saturday (Chinese New Year’s Eve)
*/
public class MirrorMIDlet extends MIDlet {

private Canvas myCanvas;

public MirrorMIDlet() {
myCanvas = new MyCanvas();
}

public void startApp() throws MIDletStateChangeException {
Display.getDisplay(this).setCurrent(myCanvas);
myCanvas.repaint();
DeviceControl.setLights(0, 0);
// dealing with Backlight http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=64234 http://discussion.forum.nokia.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33194
}

public void pauseApp() {
}

public void destroyApp(boolean arg0) throws MIDletStateChangeException {
}

}

class MyCanvas extends FullCanvas {
public void paint(Graphics g) {
g.setColor(0×000000); // black
g.fillRect(0,0,getWidth(),getHeight());
}
}

Well, some other j2me applications for handphones that kept me interested recently
1) Go Bible - “Go Bible Java applications that can be loaded onto phones. ”
2) ReadManiac - “A Library in the Pocket”
3) vOICe - “seeing-with-sound technology for the totally blind”

Well.. if I free (word being very subjective), I’ll try working on some other ideas I have. If you have any cool ideas, let me know and see if I challenged to implement it. Meanwhile checkout some sites - Wireless Java downloads, Imserba - “The best mobile phones portal and community in the world”

[update:] After running this application, I found it could serve another purpose. To trick people into thinking the handphone is off as the screen is dark and blanked out.