A few weeks back I was thinking about getting a BlackJack. Well, I did, and I’ve been slowly getting up to speed on its features.
One immediate annoyance was the way Cingular/Samsung have configured the JBlend Java Virtual Machine on the phone. That had to go, or the phone was going back to the store.
First, the background.
On a vanilla BlackJack from Cingular, when you install java mobile applications like Opera Mini, Google Maps, or Gmail, they have to ask for user permission every single time they need to make a network request.
The options you’re given when the application asks are:
- Allow and ask me next time
- Don’t allow this time
- Don’t allow for this session
The missing option, of course, is: Allow for this session. (Or even, allow and don’t ever ask me again for this app – which I’d be happy with).
Second, the solution.
Thanks to IBM, this thread on Google Groups, this thread at HowardForums and this post at MS Mobiles, there is a way around.
In essence, this involves installing IBM’s WebSphere Everyplace Microenvironment, an alternative JVM capable of running J2ME applications conforming to the MIDP 2.0 spec.
The easiest way is to use one of the J9.cab files, from the Howard Forums thread or here.
In addition, you need to copy the tahoma.ttf and tahomabd.ttf fonts from a Windows machine into the \Windows\Fonts directory on your BlackJack. I found that Opera Mini didn’t work otherwise.
Using one of the .cab files rather than IBM’s default mechanism for installing includes adjustments to font paths, as described in the Google Groups thread, and has the added benefit of making the association between .jad and .jar files and J9, so from now on you can install Java apps just as you would with the default JBlend JVM. Finally, it installs an icon for the J9 as an application in the menu, rather than having to dig down into File Explorer to get to the new JVM.