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Ugnichenko Dmitriy Alexandrovich

Master of DonNTU Ugnichenko Dmitriy Alexandrovich
Faculty: Computer Science
Speciality: System Programming
Theme of Diploma:

Methods planning for mobile platforms
software developing


Scientific adviser:

associate professor of CS dep., Malcheva Raisa Viktorovna
Curriculum Vitae Abstract

Abstract

«Methods planning for mobile platforms software developing»

1. Introduction. Ground of actuality of theme

Fast growth of Internet technologies and GSM networks (in the whole world and particularly in CIS) made hardware developers and move their point of attention to the area of mobile devices. It became necessary to use a bit more complex devices while communicating, while before a simple mobile phone was quite enough for that. Those old style phones were not productive enough and laptops with GSM and other networking support were heavy and not convenient. For satisfaction of these needs a new class of devices have been developed, which were named Tablet PC. The first corporation, which produced thise kind of device was Nokia Inc., and the product name was Nokia n81xx series. After that this idea has been used by other companies, such as HTC, Apple, BenQ and other.

Nokia's Tablet PC N810 will be used for studying and working with, while writing this masters work, even though at the moment of writing this work a brand new model of Nokia Tablet PC's was announced - Nokia 9-th series.

Such kinds of devices are new for market and there is a lack of software for them. But there is also lack of methods of developing for these devices. Using such kind of methods would dramatically increase process of software development and would also make them more reliable. The goal of this master's work is to develop such kind of methods.

The purposes and tasks of job

A brief review of existing mobile platforms developed by different companies is going to be made in this master's work. After which the principles which should be followed for successful build process will also be noticed. Security principles would also be reviewed.

Prospective scientific novelty and practical value

The novelty of this work lies in methods creation of software developing for mobile platforms. Also problems and difficulties, which developer can meet while making such kind of software will be discussed.

As a result, developed methods would be used for creating sample application for which level of security and other parameters will be measured

A review of existing research and development on the topic

4.1 Local review

4.2 National review

4.3 World review

5. Main content

For a couple of last years a tendency for using wireless way of connecting to Internet using wifi, 3G and other technologies became quite popular. So according to it different devices started to be produced, which provided simple and easy way of dealing with these networks. Plus that all this devices became compact and not as heavy as their ancestors used to be. The last feature is extremely important, because user now can easily check up for email during lunch time or read latest news while taking a public transport ride.

There many different types of mobile devices, which can be found at the market now. It's possible to separate out of them such kinds of devices:

  • Pocket PC's
  • Mobile Tablet PC's
  • Macintosh (iPhones)

From this list Mobile Tablet PC's have been chosen, because this device can be used as a usual phone and as device for connecting to Wi-fi and other kind of networks.

Let's make a brief review of all this products, comparing them according to following criteria:

  • Functionality
  • Operating System
  • Price

Almost all of the products have approximately same functionality. They all have a GSM module — embedded(iPhone, HPC), or plugged as an external modem(Nokia n8xx). Iphone and HPC products usually have a touch screen, that allows user not to use stylus, but make different operations simply by touching the screen with the finger. Nokia phone does not provide this feature in 8xx series, but the most recent model (Nokia 9-series) will do this. HPC Touch is driven by Microsoft Windows Mobile 2007 operating system, which is a ported version of Microsoft Windows OS for desktop PC and has the same weaknesses. One of them — is a low level protection policy, the whole architecture does not provide reliable methods to build a secure system. There is also a lack of software, and sometimes it's not impossible to find an appropriate one.

Macintosh Iphone is driven by Macintosh OS, which is base on Unix *BSD kernel, that is known for it's high level of protection and good stability level. But the license of this OS is propriety, which completely removes all advantages. (BSD kernel is free for usage and has opened sources, but it's license allows to close products, that have been developed upon it).

And, at last, Nokia n8xx series. At the very beginning Nokia corporation used their own operating system to work with their devices, which not a long time ago became open source. But, Nokia n8xx Tablet PC are using OS, based upon GNU/Linux kernel. This gives wide opportunities of porting applications from x86, x86_64 platforms to mobile ones.

For writing software with GUIs different frameworks can be used. They are TCL/TK products, GTK+ libraries and others. But Qt4 framework can be used for developing for this platform, because among all of them it's the framework, using which it's easy not only to develop new products but also to debug them on the devices.

Aspect of security is also important for developed software. Usually, there are such stages in the process of software developing:

  • 1.Requirements stage.
  • 2.Analysis stage.
  • 3.Design stage.
  • 4.Implementation stage.
At the end of each stage we can perform audits to verify that the institution policies are being followed.

6. Conclusions

For conclusions it can be summarized, that if the plan for master's work will be followed and completed, then created methods will be used for developing a test sample piece of software, which will be tested for security using different policies and existing testing methods.

7. Literature


Important
 The abstract of the Master's work is not complete yet . The final completion is 1st December 2009. Full text of the work and materials on the topic can be obtained from the author or his head after that date.

Copyright © 2009 Ugnichenko D.A.
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