Dear Meg Whitman

You now a have a tough task ahead. No doubt you know that when you agreed to take the CEO job. But you also have a opportunity to set HP back on the path to greatness. Like many others I have some suggestions for you on where to go next.

First and foremost spend some time rereading histories, both internal and external, of HP to understand why HP became such an institution. Make it required reading for the board and every VP and up. I would absolutely read or reread Jim Collins’ “Built to Last” and “Good to Great” books to help you focus on the most important things to do. Then Read the HP Way again.

Second, decide very very quickly to either keep the PSG or spin it off as an independent company fast. End the uncertainly or it will kill the PC business. If you want make it a fully owned subsidiarity next week (but let it keep the HP name), you can always reintegrate it later or decide to sell it off via share sales on the open market later. Don’t kill the cash cow. (While you are at it make some one fix the online ordering interface. One word: Inscrutable!)

Third, Restart webOS hardware now and fast. The previous management threw in the towel way too early, but if you want to be in the space at all you must move very fast and be ready to commit 5 billion dollars (or more) over the next few years to get back into the game. I would start production of the TP 3g/4g and even sell them at a slight loss. Get the 7″ version on the streets quick at a great price. Other might disagree but your priority should be killer tablets first then killer phones.

Get ready for the hard work. Here it comes.

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What’s the Tip 1.0 Released!

What’s the Tip 1.0 is in the app catalog! You can get it here! Regular price $1.49 but only $0.75 till July 23rd during Palm’s 50% off sale.

Your feedback and support is appreciated!

Stan

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What’s the Tip updated 0.9.1

Minor update to prepare for the final release of “What’s the Tip?”!!!

Stan

Posted in Apps, What's The tip | 2 Comments

WebOS SDK – Making buttons

From a post I made in the Palm developer forums (hope it is helpful to someone):

Here is my summary of making a button (from lots of trial)

In the scene HTML declare this

<div x-mojo-element="Button" id="RefreshBtn" class="myButton"> </div>

Notice that this is a div not an input element like traditional html. The x-mojo-element=”Button” is what what links the div to the mojo framework that does all the button drawing stuff.

The id is important and should be unique in the app. Good practice is to put something like “Btn” or “Button” in the name just to remind yourself when you are in your javascript what you are working with. The class declaration is only needed if you are changing the appearance some way in your own CSS.

Next in the scene assistant you need three things. Setup, control, and cleanup.

Setup:
In the Scene Assistant setup function – usually something like FirstAssistant.prototype.setup = function () {}; there are 4 substeps

1 Attributes :
Technically these are all optional (if you just need a regular button) but I feel it is good practice to declare at least the button type like thus:

// a local object for button attributes
this.RefreshBtnAttributes = {
type : "Mojo.Widget.defaultButton"
};

again just to remind myself this is a regular button rather than an Mojo.Widget.activityButton (unless you want one and then you must declare it)

2 Model :

// a local object for button model
this.RefreshBtnModel = {
label : "Refresh",
buttonClass : "primary",
disabled : false
};

Again all are technically optional for the defaults, except the label needs to appear in either the attribute or the model. Legal values for button class are “primary”, “secondary”, “affirmative”, and “negative”.

3: setup the button

// set up the button
this.controller.setupWidget("RefreshBtn", this.RefreshBtnAttributes,
              this.RefreshBtnModel);

Straight forward. this is where your ID links in from the HTML.

4. Bind the button

// bind the button to its handler
this.RefreshBtnBind = this.refreshButtonPress.bind(this);
this.controller.listen(this.controller.get("RefreshBtn"), Mojo.Event.tap,
               this.RefreshBtnBind);

refreshButtonPress will be the name of the handler to be declared. Again notice the link to the ID from the HTML.

Control :
The “simplest” part – define what to do when the button is pressed (“tapped”) like thus :

FirstAssistant.prototype.refreshButtonPress = function(event){

// do something here

};

Cleanup:

Finally make sure you clean up something like this :

FirstAssistant.prototype.cleanup = function(event) {
this.controller.stopListening("RefreshBtn", Mojo.Event.tap,
               this.RefreshBtnBind);
};

Add the stopListening counterparts to the listen binds of any other widgets you declare for the scene as well.

Posted in WebOS Dev | 2 Comments

What’s the Tip updated 0.9.0

LAST Beta:

What’s the Tip is almost done! Look for the 1.0 release soon!

New:
Visual tweak;
Added the ability to round the tip up and down to the nearest $0.50, $1.00, $5.00 or $10.00.

As usual get it here! Your feedback is appreciated!

Stan

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GamersAid updated 0.7.0

Major update!
Changes:
New visual style with changeable color dice.
Added 100 sided option.
More Dice/More Sides now also totals the dice.
Added automatic check for new version.
Drastically smaller application.

As usual you can get GamersAid – Beta here. And as always your feedback is appreciated!

Stan

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What’s the Tip updated 0.8.0

Changes:

I think I have eliminated the NaN’s (Not a Number’s) than could pop up. Also the main cost input box is more usable and stable. (no forever disappearing input box!)

If you have 0.7.0 you can just launch the program to be notified about the update (Thanks Palm (webOS) Update Check framework!!). Otherwise you can get What’s the Tip – Beta here. And as always your feedback is appreciated!

Stan

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What’s the Tip updated 0.7.0

I just uploaded 0.7.0 of Whats the Tip – Beta. Some big changes:

Spanish Localization: If you use the US Spanish locale you should see the app in (probably poor) Spanish. If you can suggest better phrasing for any of the pages let me know.

I have incorporated Jeremy Forsythe’s great puchk (Palm (webOS) Update Check framework) so when I push the next version testers will get a pop up notice.

I have also incorporated Palm’s own code from github to let you know when the beta expires. A lot of work went into localizing that code.

Plus, I now have a tell-a-friend framework launching from the help screen. It could be a lot more elegant, but I am happy with version 1. Right now you can e-mail or text a message. (I just saw the code to be able to post status updates to Facebook from WebOS apps.. oooooo v 1.5 here it comes)

As usual you can get What’s the Tip – Beta here. And as always your feedback is appreciated!

Stan

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What’s The Tip Updated 0.6.0

This update mainly has cosmetic changes, but lays the foundation for adding a couple more features.

Stan

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GamersAid updated 0.5.5

You can now shake your phone to roll the dice on the main screen or on MoreDice/More Sides.

More features Coming!

Stan

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