How to make JavaME .jar files downloadable from Apache Web Server

Mobile application developers may have realize that one of the best (and recommended) way to distribute their JavaME/J2ME application is by hosting it on a website. This makes it easier for potential users to navigate and download the .jad or .jar files from their phone browsers and to execute it directly.

However, some web servers are not configured to handle .jar / .jad file requests, eventually leading to failed install response received by the mobile users.

To remedy this, .jad / .jar files need to be associated with the correct MIME type. In Apache, you can do this by creating ‘.htaccess’ file in your web directory, and inserting these lines :

# JavaME
AddType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor .jad
AddType application/java-archive .jar

Afterwards, safe the file. The web server should behave accordingly when requests are made to either of these files. For other web servers, please refer to their respective manual or online-help on how to change document MIME type.

DateDiff – A simple JavaME mobile app to calculate the day differences between two dates

There are times where I am required to calculate the day/month/year differences between two dates, which I found a little bit troublesome to do repeatedly even if it is just a simple estimate. So in turn, I created this mobile app to do the job, which greatly increase my productivity! Here i’m releasing the source code to DateDiff, which is coded and compatible with all JavaME phone:

DateDiff mypapit

DateDiff.jar – binary (MIDP 2.0)
datediff_src.zip (source code)

DateDiff is copyrighted by me, and is licensed under a BSD-like license, you can read the terms of use from the ‘About’ menu or from the source code.