Betavine, Vodafone’s mobile developer community, is offering weekly prizes to mobile developers throughout July and August in its Summer of Widgets competition.

Each week during the competition, three prize packages of a Samsung NC 20 Netbook bundled with a Nokia N96 handset will be awarded to the three best new widgets uploaded to the Vodafone Widgets Developer Platform – which also allows developers to distribute their widgets to Vodafone customers in some of the company’s major markets.

Running from 6th July to the 30th August, the Summer of Widgets competition will offer three prizes every week to the developers who have submitted the best widgets based on the following criteria:

- Ease of use – how easy is it for a non-technical user to understand and benefit from?
- Creativity – how does the entry demonstrate new and exciting uses for widgets?
- Value to the potential user – how much easier does it make the user’s life and what does the widget enable them to do?

Developers will need to create English-language widgets for the S60 platform to be eligible for the competition, the full terms and conditions of which are available here.

Entrants will be able to submit widgets from 00.01 (BST) every Monday until Midnight (BST) the following Sunday during the competition. Entries will be judged on Mondays and the winners announced at midday each Tuesday on the Betavine site.

Developers will retain all IPR relating to their widgets when entering the competition. In addition, by submitting their widgets they will be able to distribute their latest creations to Vodafone customers in multiple countries though the Vodafone Apps Shop.

A series of developer camps will be run in some of Vodafone’s major European operating companies throughout July and August to offer further support to developers on creating widgets. For detailed guides on creating widgets, including information on user experience, tutorials and to see examples of the other developers’ widgets, visit the Betavine Widget Zone.

Version 1.2 changed the url for the backend as the hosting centre I was using became very unstable over last two days and was inaccessible for some time. Hopefully new hosting centre will be more reliable.

Hi Nicholas,

I have entered the following command (without the dongle attached) and obtained the following response. Hope this helps.

Command:-
vodafone-mobile-connect-card-driver-for-linux-debug

Response:-
_______________________________________________________
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/upgrade-vmc-plugins", line 23, in <module>
from vmc.common import plugin
ImportError: No module named vmc.common
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/python/usage.py", line 373, in <lambda>
fn = lambda name, value, m=method: m(value)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 566, in opt_reactor
installReactor(shortName)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/reactors.py", line 79, in installReactor
for installer in getReactorTypes():
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/plugin.py", line 200, in getPlugins
allDropins = getCache(package)
--- <exception caught here> ---
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/plugin.py", line 179, in getCache
dropinPath.setContent(pickle.dumps(dropinDotCache))
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/python/filepath.py", line 623, in setContent
f = sib.open('w')
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/python/filepath.py", line 433, in open
return open(self.path, mode+'b')
exceptions.IOError: Permission denied: '/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/plugins/dropin.cache.new'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 694, in run
runApp(config)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/scripts/twistd.py", line 23, in runApp
_SomeApplicationRunner(config).run()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 411, in run
self.application = self.createOrGetApplication()
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 494, in createOrGetApplication
application = getApplication(self.config, passphrase)
--- <exception caught here> ---
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/app.py", line 505, in getApplication
application = service.loadApplication(filename, style, passphrase)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/application/service.py", line 390, in loadApplication
application = sob.loadValueFromFile(filename, 'application', passphrase)
File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/twisted/persisted/sob.py", line 215, in loadValueFromFile
exec fileObj in d, d
File "/usr/share/vodafone-mobile-connect/gtk-tap.py", line 34, in <module>
from vmc.common.startup import create_skeleton_and_do_initial_setup
exceptions.ImportError: No module named vmc.common.startup

Failed to load application: No module named vmc.common.startup
________________________________________________________

Many thanks once again... I hope this helps.

From being an amateur VB6 programmer I'm starting to learn Python so that I can play in linux but still on the bottom rung of the ladder as yet so it doesn't mean much to me at this stage :-(

Kind regards,

Keith

Hi Keith,

there is some other problem of why the app is not launching. Can you open a terminal window and start the app in debug mode, then post the output onto a forum post:

Hello together,
once more thanks for a real good application and your
honorable work. I've been using VMC with Kubuntu 8.xx
and 9.xx since last year's summer without any great
problems.

As a little thank-you I would like to help with translations to german of system messages, documentation etc. around Vodafone Mobile Connect.

I'd seen some minor mistranslations and want to improve that at least.

How can I do this?
Where can I read some docs around that?

Rexxy

Betavine, Vodafone’s mobile developer community, is offering weekly prizes to mobile developers throughout July and August in its Summer of Widgets competition.

Each week during the competition, three prize packages of a Samsung NC 20 Netbook bundled with a Nokia N96 handset will be awarded to the three best new widgets uploaded to the Vodafone Widgets Developer Platform – which also allows developers to distribute their widgets to Vodafone customers in some of the company’s major markets.

Running from 6th July to the 30th August, the Summer of Widgets competition will offer three prizes every week to the developers who have submitted the best widgets based on the following criteria:

- Ease of use – how easy is it for a non-technical user to understand and benefit from?
- Creativity – how does the entry demonstrate new and exciting uses for widgets?
- Value to the potential user – how much easier does it make the user’s life and what does the widget enable them to do?

Developers will need to create English-language widgets for the S60 platform to be eligible for the competition, the full terms and conditions of which are available here.

Entrants will be able to submit widgets from 00.01 (BST) every Monday until Midnight (BST) the following Sunday during the competition. Entries will be judged on Mondays and the winners announced at midday each Tuesday on the Betavine site.

Developers will retain all IPR relating to their widgets when entering the competition. In addition, by submitting their widgets they will be able to distribute their latest creations to Vodafone customers in multiple countries though the Vodafone Apps Shop.

A series of developer camps will be run in some of Vodafone’s major European operating companies throughout July and August to offer further support to developers on creating widgets. For detailed guides on creating widgets, including information on user experience, tutorials and to see examples of the other developers’ widgets, visit the Betavine Widget Zone.

EcoMo09 will now start at 6pm on the 11th and run through to the 12th of September, at BASH Studios.

To find out more and register for the event then visit:
http://ecomo09.eventbrite.com



Vodafone in conjunction with Betavine, is sponsoring EcoMo09, a 24-hour dev camp coding competition, that will let developers put their "green" coding skills to the test in creating prototype mobile software tools designed to help people reduce their impact on the environment.

There will be food, drinks and relaxation breaks throughout the event, and we'll be awarding prizes in several categories.

Read more about EcoMo09 and the project on the Betavine Sustainability Community.

Event postponed

Code your way to a greener future at EcoMo09 Dev Camp

Vodafone in conjunction with Betavine, is sponsoring EcoMo09, a 24-hour dev camp coding competition, that will let developers put their "green" coding skills to the test in creating prototype mobile software tools designed to help people reduce their impact on the environment.

There will be food, drinks and relaxation breaks throughout the event, and we'll be awarding prizes in several categories.

There is a £10 fee for all competition participants (to offset food and drink costs).

Event starts 10 July 2009 at 6:00pm and runs for 24 hours.

Participants should register for EcoMo09 individually but please indicate on your form if you are part of a team (upto five members).

To find out more and register for the event then visit:
http://ecomo09.eventbrite.com

Read more about EcoMo09 and the project on the Betavine Sustainability Community.

We are happy to announce the winners of the Vodafone Netherlands Mobile Widget contest.

The entries which the jury liked the most were:-

1 - Lazy SMS - Ernst Jansen

Ernst has overwhelmed the jury with no less than 5 apps, which all included very rich functionality and great animations. Especially the Lazy SMS App, that really demonstrates great animation as well as great implementation with a core functionality of the phone, sms. Ernst Congratulations!

2 - Flizzle - Anne Jan Roeleveld

Anne Jan has built an App which takes any photo on flickr and turns it into a simple game. It is a good example of using existing personalised web technology and making a mash up on a phone which works just great.

3 - De Beslisvis - Marc Fonteijn

De Beslisvis from Marc already created the necessary laughs on the mobile widget camp. Marc has won , not because the jury thinks its a great app with a very broad potential but simply because the jury asked the beslisvis whether it deserved a price and the beslisvis answered yes...

All Apps can be downloaded from http://widget.vodafone.com/dev, congratulations to all winners.