Welcome to Solid Software:

News:

Sep 1, 2009: Solid Software entry in Google's Android Developers Challenge II:

Yesterday 31st August 2009 at 11.59.59, US Pacific Time, ADC II (Android Developers Challenge) accepted the final submissions. Solid Software got an Android version of OctaDial uploaded just 12 hours before the deadline - but with the feature-set complete and tested on several languages including: English, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German and some French and Italian. As you can see in the image of the 'game in motion' below, it is largely devoid of the need to support different languages, particularly on 'Touch' screen- empowered Android phones such as the HTC Magic.

However, the menus, options and instructions do have several paragraphs worth of natural language. The Android SDK (software developers kit) makes it relatively easy to include different languages and country Locales - much easier than other development systems we have used to date. The image below shows the OctaDial menu buttons in Traditional Chinese (with the phone in landscape mode) :

and the physical 'menu' button pop-ups such as the following screen on a Japanese phone:

Such menu button labels are relatively brief, however, other text-oriented windows such as the About screen and the player's Mission screen have more text, which requires more concise and accurate translation. The following images show the Mission screen in the following languages:

The Mission screen in French:

The Mission screen in Korean:

The Mission screen in German:

The Mission screen in Simplified Chinese:

The Mission screen in English:

The Mission screen in Traditional Chinese:

The About screen in English:

Google is providing about 2 million dollars (US) in prize money for ADC II (Android Developers Challenge), similar to last years amount, but their judging process is quite different and the there are 10 different categories of software. During September 2009 sometime, they are making all of the submissions freely available to 'community judges' to download and rate against a given set of criteria. Of course to become a community judge you will need an Android-powered phone, such as the HTC Magic or the HTC Hero phones, to access the downloads and do your judging. Details of the Android Developers Challenge are here: click here

Image 11: OctaDial in landscape mode on a HTC-Magic Android-power phone.

Until this Android smart phone version of OctaDial overviewed above, we hadn't done a version of OctaDial since it was invented here at Solid Software Pty Ltd by Steve Goschnick for MS-DOS computers back in the early 1990s. Its really been waiting for something like the current generation of Smart phones to come along, with the right combination of a decent sized screen and a good pixel resolution. More details on the actual concept of OctaDial are here: click here.

The earlier version was written in C++ so we did a conversion to Java and then extensive customization for the Android programming environment and interface (e.g. it has a touch-screen interface when the phone has one; handles phone rotation from portrait to landscape mode and vice versa; uses the built-in SQLite database system to store game state; plays music while you play, if you want). There is a blog entry about it over on www.DigitalFriend.org which talks about the development process, here: click here.

Mar 19, 2007, Melbourne: Solid Software publishes draft version of DigitalFriend website:

Solid Software finally publishes the first version of the website for the DigitalFriend software application. The site is located at www.DigitalFriend.org click here to link to the site. There is also a Blog there, with a general theme of a user-oriented view of agent oriented software.

Aug 05, 2005, Melbourne: Solid Software releases 2D board-game engine:

Solid Software puts its 2D board-game engine - SG_Board - into the Open Source arena. Its written in Java. Click here for a fuller description and a download link.

Photo 0: Three board games and the demo application, all produced using SG_Board.

March 26, 2003, Melbourne: Solid Software CEO graduates ADI Business Ready Program:

Steve Goschnick completes an Executive Development program developed and run by Australian Distributed Incubator in conjunction with Ernst & Young.

Photo 1: The Victorian Treasurer and the Minister for Innovation, the Hon. John Brumby MP, presented Steve Goschnick with his graduation certificate.

(Note: The Digital Self Project in the background. See our 'Activity' link for further information and photos.)

Intelligent Software Agents:

Software Agents are a recent breakthrough in the way people design, build and use software, largely inspired (even necessitated) by the interconnectedness of computers on the Internet. Software Agents mean different things or hold different emphasises to different people:

• Internet people may come across them first as mobile agents - bits of software that can act as semi-autonomous servants, moving out about the web with a particular agenda.
• To Software Engineers, they are 'Objects with attitude' (BDI agents - Beliefs, Desires and Intentions) - autonomous software entities that hold and update their own world-view of the environment they continuously operate within, as they go about achieving their goals, either reactively or deliberatively as necessary.
• To Computer Human Interface people, they are most often seen as Interface Agents, Believable Agents, Personal Assistant agents or even psychological agents.
• To us, they encompass all of the above and more: we see a role for them as persuasive software - software that you use in your daily life and work, that not only helps you achieve the things you want to, but also has inbuilt capability to improve your own performance, self-knowledge and attitudes, as you do so.

For an overview of the types of software agents: click here.

Our motto is: Entertain, Educate, Inform, Empower.

• We make things you can use: mainly software, including Intelligent Software Agents.
• We write things you could read: articles, papers, books.
• We teach things you may wish to learn: Java, C, C++; Mandarin.
• We have tools and techniques that help empower people in proactive and positive ways.
• We use the latest techniques and tools in software development: Agent-oriented analysis and design; object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD); data analysis and normalisation; Java; XML;
• We consult to others who share similar principles and objectives, with similar visions.

Brief Site Overview:

Solid Software is a "concept-to-product" company, inventing, specifying, developing, publishing and dispersing innovative techniques and tools. We are also consultants in several specialised fields. Prior to the Internet, we published several software packages and games, which you can see something of on this site.

The following is a discription of the eight coloured site-navigation buttons you'll find at the top of the main pages on this site:

1. For Services including Consultancy: click here, or at any time via the Services navigation button (Purple).
2. Profiles of our Consultants, others and other details: click here, or at any time via the People navigation button (Orange).
3. What's New on this site and What's Happening recently at Solid Software: click here, or at any time via the Activity button (Red).
4. Information as News, articles, papers, readings, news about Taiwan: click here or via the Info button (Black).
5. Products we sell and the ones we give away for free: click here, or via the Products button (Blue).
6. Techniques and Tools: click here, or via the Tools button (Yellow).
7. Guidance around the site (Site Map and Search), plus education and training: click here, or via the Guidance button (White).
8. Home: this page you're now reading can be accessed from elsewhere on this site via the Home button (Green).

Objectives and Policy of Solid Software: click here.

Whitepapers: click here.

History of Solid Software: click here.

Purchasing from Solid Software: click here.

Contact/Feedback:

Solid Software Pty Ltd

ABN: 60 084 786 498
Postal Address: P.O. Box 218, Belgrave, Victoria 3160, Australia
Phone: +61 040 7544 260
Email: gosh 'at' solidsoftware 'dot' com 'dot' au

This page last updated: 7th September 2009.

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