Talking About TIER... disconnected

Divya Ramachandran (divya/cs), Melissa Ho (mho/ischool)

Using a modified version of WordPy and NetAPI, we have enable mobile and disconnected blogging to Wordpress blogs to Nokia n8xx devices running maemo. Through this experience we have demonstrated that traditional networked applications (i.e. based on sockets) can be converted to use netapi, a more message-based networking layer, thereby hiding the sometimes complicated and unpredictable network environment from the application.

Powerpoint File

This diagram shows the control flows for WordPy applications posting blogs to WordPress servers using traditional networking (on the left) and a NetAPI proxy (on the right).

1. Porting NetAPI to maemo:
   • NetAPI handles networking for applications, transparently dealing with intermittent connectivity
   • Using NetAPI, we can turn existing applications into delay tolerant ones.
   • M. Demmer, K. Fall, T. Koponen, and S. Shenker. Towards a Modern Communications API. Hotnets’07.
2. Maemo-WordPy over NetAPI
   • Maemo-WordPy is a mobile blogging tool that enables users to post to Wordpress blogs from maemo devices.
   • Using NetAPI, we turned WordPy into a delay tolerant application.
3. Disconnected Blogging
   • Now Maemo-WordPy works in both disconnected and connected environments.
   • Now maemo developers can use NetAPI to make other applications delay tolerant.