Tuesday 4 December 2012

Git yourself a schooling in Git

CodeSchool:

I've recently gone through a couple of courses from CodeSchool and have found them to be quite entertaining, unfortunatly they most courses are keyed towards web developers, but there were two courses on git that were totally worth wile for any developers. My badges: http://www.codeschool.com/users/PuZZleDucK

1. "Try Git" was breathtaking,  may I just start with a "wow" actually, make that a "oh, wow... are you for real". Fantastic use of technology here, the course is actually performed on a real live GitHub repo.  The only drawbacks were that it ended too soon as it is a low level introductory course, and it felt a bit scripted, but once again it is an intro course. My repo has now expanded to incorporate experiments from the next class and may even become a program in it's own right.

2. "Git Real" has a wonderfully cheesy intro to the videos, it is very thorough and if used right really forces you to learn the commands yourself. You view a 10ish minute video discussing git techniques, then you go through challenges. I must confess I did use "man git" on my local machine a couple of times to check the details of obscure commands, but I figure anywhere I can use "git" I can use "man git" too. The (very minor) drawbacks include not being able to use tab-completion and a couple of times I just wanted to get my bearings with commands like "git status" or "git branch", but I knew that if I typed in those commands the "marking system" would punish my self directed learning with a really good hint :D

Also there is a "freebie offer" at the moment called "Hall Pass" (which you will need if you want to do the "git Real" course) with free two day access:

Hall Pass: http://go.codeschool.com/LkD3Kg



Linux Users Victoria (December 04):


This month at Luv we had Martin Paulo speaking on Open stack who also happened to recommended The Innovators Dilemma as a good read... Sounds interesting, about how innovative companies get fixated on their innovation and fall behind in "everything else". Unfortunately he also pushed one of my buttons claiming that the object storage engine can store objects of size zero (Btrfs also makes this outrageous and misleading claim), meta data has a cost dammit! Zero plus meta data equals cheating... Zero plus meta data is not zero.

We also heared from Chris Samuel from VLSCI talking about the Blue gene/Q super computer in Melbourne called Avoca, including how it was the most powerful in the southern hemisphere... until a month ago. but I believe it is still is the worlds greenest super computer.

Edit: Adding peoples names :)

Monday 26 November 2012

A device to give Gosling nightmares!

Making up for the long delay between my last two posts, here's another one mere hours after the last, and this time with code!
:D So, I've been reading about Duff's device and loop unrolling, and wanted to have a crack at it in Java... well of course there is absolutely no point implementing this in Java, and the results are just as I expected... the JVM can optimize a normal loop better than it can an unrolled loop :p ... I've even heard that every time a developer unwinds a loop in Java, James Gosling gets a headache... sorry James.

Still it was a good interesting exercise... I challenge you all to implement an unrolled loop in your language of choice! I'd love to see a lisp version, actually on second thoughts...

Anyhow, here it is:

//(c)me & GPL3:
public class DuffsDevice
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    int demoSize = 80;//woot... 0 works
    System.out.println("Normal loop: "  );
    long start = System.nanoTime();
    for(int i = 0; i < demoSize; i++)// one partial two full for demo
    {
      System.out.print(" Bit:" + i);
    }//normal loop
    System.out.println("\nNormal  end: " + (System.nanoTime()-start));

    final int winding = 5;//up to 6
    System.out.println("Duffs device in Java loop: ");
    start = System.nanoTime();
    for(int i = 0; i < demoSize; i = i)// one partial two full for demo
    {
      System.out.print("\n" );//System.out.println("size%winding:" + demoSize%winding + "  i:" + i  );
      switch( (i + winding <= demoSize) ? 0 : winding-(demoSize%winding) )
      {
        //case (winding-6): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -a" ); i++; }
        case (winding-5): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -b" ); i++; }
        case (winding-4): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -c" ); i++; }
        case (winding-3): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -d" ); i++; }
        case (winding-2): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -e" ); i++; }
        case (winding-1): { System.out.print(" Bit:" + (i) +" -f" ); i++; }
      }//switch
    }//Duffs device
    System.out.println("\nDuffs device in Java  end: " + (System.nanoTime()-start));
    //usually arround 1803034 in the normal loop
    //usually arround 2272790(winding 3) 2065498(winding 6) for unrolled loop... ymmv of course.
    //Duff was right... this is even pretty ugly in Java :p ... ugly, but fun :D
  }//main
}//class



Hope you enjoyed reading, I especially liked the embedded conditional statement as the switch control statement... writing that bit really got my heart racing haha

I got (sort of ... not realy) Slashdoted!

  Again it's been a while, but this time I was just sick... still that didn't stop lot of things happening.
   First of let's address the title of this post: I got Slashdoted, well sort of... 11 hits is a lot for a 30 minute video of a guy using Gimp (badly) for simple editing, haha. I entered the Slashdot 15th anniversary logo competition and came first! was picked for the first day of the month, haha... anyhow my logo was a little endian joke (dot slash) with an insensitive clod reference thrown in for good measure. I love the "insensitive clod" poll options, I so often pick them.

I also wrote an email to MrDr Heinz Max Kabutz (of Java Specialists newsletter)... detailing what I thought was an interesting difference between Androids handling of the compilation routine and the way Java does it. I was partially so interested in the topic as I was under the impression little to no pre-compilation was performed on java code, so to learn about any java pre-compilation was interesting but to then realize that Android and Java both use different pre-compilation routines was somewhat more interesting. Hans got back to me, but unfortunately didn't know about the Android compiler. This has left me with a lingering desire to learn more about precompilation in java so lookout for coverage of that in the future.

 Dr Kabutzs example:
public class A1 {
  Character aChar = new Character('\u000d');
}
 
 
In addition I also received a charming but somewhat disturbing email from a Mr. Shaun P. who was concerned that because I had licensed code used in a tutorial as GPL anyone following that tutorial would be forced to licence anything they wrote using that technique as GPL. Besides the viral nature of the GPL being half the point of the whole licence, I would have thought someone's use of my code would have to be substantial and direct for me to claim it as a derivative work... simply using the same technique or a small chunk would simply not suffice. Remember, Linus does not even consider Bionic to be a derivative work. I also began creating solutions to the Project Euler problems in the form of Android applications. Checkout Euler 1 and Euler 2 on the Play Store now. Euler 3 is in the works, but it's a step learning curve between problems two and three.

While recovering from illness and in a state of total delirium I created a funny little video in tribute to Melencolia 1 which was introduced to me by ... from the Numberfile videos, absolutely worth checking out if you haven't yet.

and finally: What the hell is up with those BSD guys? I just can't fathom how patient and polite Richard Stallman is... the background to this is that bsd got removed from the fsf list of endorsed projects and Stallman vaguely implied that they promote proprietary software. Well, the bsd guys were tearing into Stallman in this forum demanding an apology or something. Anyhow I think Stallman comes of looking professional and (overly) polite, what do you all think out there?

Saturday 15 September 2012

Ok, here it is at last, my XDA Developers "BASH Obsfucation Contest" entry, gee I hope Blogger doesn't chew up my formatting or escape chars... oh well here goes nothing... and let me know in the comments if you work it out :D

Here is the link to the XDA thread.
And another to the YouTube video.

Checkout the script file here (the blog format exposes some of my Obsfucation... and also seems to chew up the odd character... doh, too tired to fix now).

 Spoiler alert... I tell you what it does at the end... now on with the code:


#! /bin/bash

#Init Yeuletide(sp?)
euletideness=0;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              xt="is";
merrynessindex=0;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            lw4e="l";

#Init xMian vocab
santa="";elf="";partrige="";snowman="";jingles="";pinetrees="";
mrsclause="";elfette="";nannatriges="";noman="";bells="";tinsel="";

#init xMas graphics
#Bauble:
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         serr4="S"; # nothing to see here... move it along now
                            xt643="kes";
                          d="n";      n="d";
                       vgt=" ma";      vgr="k";
                   serr1="nt";          serr7="a ";
                 vgw="es ";                 serr8="a";
                lw9="h";         lw3="ppy";  lp23=" ..";
               lp223=".so"; vgt234=" fe";lp2333="w n";
               lp243="ice";  lp23="ren";  lp2113=" me";
                mvfd="N";ice="ice"; i="/"; lwe3="aug";
                 lw3e="hty";xa="th$xt";j="pr";m="oc";
                   vg="$vgt$vgr$vgw";ul="ev";p="mm";
                     ds="$serr4$serr8$serr1$serr7";
                        serr99="i$lw4ed";o="co";
                          lw="$lw9$serr8$lw3";

#Tree:
#######################################################################
#                                                                     #
#                             *                                       #
#                             |                                       #
#                            vg";                                     #
#                           vgt9";                                    #
#                          v8="lw9";                                  #
                         vgt58=" c$lw9";                              #
#                         3="$vgt"3r7";                               #
#                       iy223="$lw33=r7";                             #
#                     lp2223="$gt";lw=" r7";                          #
                   lp2223="$vgt";lw33=" $serr7";                      #
#                     313serr4ad"gt41=" rra";                         #
#                   lp2 3$serr4aj" vgt1="sr4a";                       #
#                lp13="$serr4ad"; vgt4321="err4a";                    #
#               2313="$serr4ad"; vgt4321=" $serr4a";                  #
               lp2313="$serr4ad"; vgt4321=" $serr4a";                 #
#                 p2323="$serr1;lp221;n2="$mvfdce";                   #
#               lp232$serr1a";l2213=".";n2=mvfd$ic";                  #
#             lp2323="$serr1ajh;221jhg"."j;n2fg="fd$ie"               #
             lp2323="$serr1a";lp2213=".";n2="$mvfd$ice";              #
#             n1="$mwe3w3;l=err8";hg="t $i";e="$l$m$i";               #
#           n1="$mvfwe3$lw3e";l=l"serr8";k=" $"e="$j$m$i";            #
#          n1="$mvd$lw3$lw3e";l="c$ser";k="t $h";e=$l$$j$i";          #
#        n1="$mvfd$lwe3$lw3e";l="c$serr8";k="t $i";e="l$k$j$i";       #
        n1="$mvfd$lwe3$lw3e";l="c$serr8";k="t $i";e="$l$k$j$m$i";     #
#          a="$i$o$p";ev="ul$e";dmc="$i$n$ul$d$ev";vdyy$lw4e";        #
#        a="$i$o$p";ev="ul$l4e"dmc="$i$n$ui$d$ev";vyy="taiw4e";       #
#      a="$i$o$p";ev=ul$lw4e";dmc="$i$n$ul$i$dev";vdyy="ai$lwe";      #
      a="$i$o$p";ev="ul$lw4e";dmc="$i$n$ul$i$d$ev";vdyy="tai$lw4e";   #
#                         e";dmc="$i$n$ul$                            #
#                         lp232$serrmvlw3e                            #
#                         p2323dmc="$i$$ul                            #
#                         er";krr1ajh22hgh                            #                                       #
#                         ep2323c="$i$n$ul                            #
                                                                      #
#######################################################################

#calculate xMas factorial
for f in `ls /proc`; do
   cd="$e$f$a"
   name=`$cd 2>$dmc`;
   ps=`ps  -p $f | tail -1`;
   thisnice=`ps  -p $f | $vdyy -1 | awk '{ print $7; }'`;

  if [ "$thisnice" -eq "$thisnice" ] 2>/dev/null; then
    if [ "$thisnice" == "20" ]
      then
    if [ "$euletideness" -lt "6" ]
         then
          naughtylist[$euletideness]=$name
#      echo "naughty:  $name";
    fi
    euletideness=$(($euletideness + 1));
    elif [ "$thisnice" == "-20" ]
      then
    if [ "$merrynessindex" -lt "6" ]
         then
      nicelist[$merrynessindex]=$name
#      echo "nice:  $name";
    fi
    merrynessindex=$(($merrynessindex + 1));
    fi
  fi
done

# Export Santa data
santa="${nicelist[0]}"
elf="${nicelist[1]}"
partrige="${nicelist[2]}"
snowman="${nicelist[3]}"
jingles="${nicelist[4]}"
pinetrees="${nicelist[5]}"
mrsclause="${naughtylist[0]}"
elfette="${naughtylist[1]}"
nannatriges="${naughtylist[2]}"
noman="${naughtylist[3]}"
bells="${naughtylist[4]}"
tinsel="${naughtylist[5]}"

# Calculate Santas Tax
if [ $(($merrynessindex-6)) -lt "0" ]
    then
      merrynessindex=6
fi

if [ $(($euletideness-6)) -lt "0" ]
    then
      euletideness=6
fi

# Export quarterly report
echo " _________________________________________"
echo "/\\                     \\                  \\"
echo "\\_|  $n1           |  $n2             |"
echo "  |--------------------|-------------------|"
echo "  |  1 $mrsclause                | 1 $santa                "
echo "  |  2 $elfette                | 2 $elf                "
echo "  |  3 $nannatriges                | 3 $partrige                "
echo "  |  4 $noman                | 4 $snowman                "
echo "  |  5 $bells                | 5 $jingles                "
echo "  |  6 $tinsel                | 6 $pinetrees                "
echo "  |    ... and $(($euletideness-6)) more  |  ... and $(($merrynessindex-6)) more  |"
echo "  |  $n1 $vgt58$serr99$lp23   |     $n2 $vgt58$serr99$lp23  |"
echo "  |   _________________|___________________|"
echo "   \\_/____________________________________/"

# Export execuitive summary
if [ "$euletideness" -lt "7" ]
    then
      echo "        ... $xa$vg$ds$lw."
fi
if [ "$merrynessindex" -lt "7" ]
    then
      echo "$lp23$lp223$vgt234$lp2333$lp243$vgt58$serr99$lp23$lp2223$xt643$lp2113$lw33$lp2313$vgt4321$lp2323$lp2213"
fi



Spoiler alert...



Spoiler alert..



Spoiler alert.


Spoiler:
   It scans the directories in /proc/### and gets the nice values... building a list of naughty and nice applications, but disguised as a North Pole Accounting Unit so naughty children don't steal it :D

Screenshot:


Saturday 8 September 2012

Data retention and a plea to Wikipedia

Hi all, this post is not so much about development but it's all about attention and I get more traffic here than on any other blog, and it's related to the internet as a whole... So I've been mopping about the new Australian mandatory data retention plot<ahem>scheme<chough>plan... whatever, for a while now and it looks like we're going to get it... At least they did hear from some community representatives (I'll report back on how it went when I find out), but they will probably be ignored.

I recently found out that lolcats help boring stories move along, so:


At least now everyone is getting in on the action... first off the bat is the UK, who sparked quite a bit of public discourse with Jimmy Wales labeling it a "snooper's charter"... and like everything in Australia ours is a little more venomous.

Thanks to the conversation sparked on Slashdot user rmgoat let us know that the Canadians are up to the same sort of shenanigans. Now I'm sorry to use words like shenanigans on the internet but I'm too angry for polite words. Anyhow this sham is already being renamed from the Lawful Access Act' to the C-30 Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. I'm sure they'll throw in some thing about For The Love Of You-Know-Who by the time they're done.

For those in the UK there is at least an online petition, no good for me but it deserves the publicity.....LINK

Is there some such thing for Aus? Anyone?

 I love Wales response (below) and plea for him to do the same for Australia... I'll double my donation this year :D promise ... I would write to my local minister instead of Jimmy, but I know there is actually a chance that Jimmy might listen to the public, whereas I doubt there it an MP in Oz who will do a thing about this (except maybe the Greens... go you good thing).


"If we find that UK ISPs are mandated to keep track of every single web page that you read at Wikipedia, I am almost certain we would immediately move to a default of encrypting all communication to the UK, so that the local ISP would only be able to see that you are speaking to Wikipedia, not what you are reading.

"That kind of response for us to do is not difficult. We don’t do it today because there doesn’t seem to be a dramatic need [...] it’s something that I think we would do, absolutely."

 "technologically incompetent"
     -Jimmy Wales
 
"Bluntly these are as dangerous as we expected, and represent unprecedented surveillance powers in the democratic world."
     -Jim Killock, of Open Rights Group c.o. Wired


Now finally lets close with an example of what some really smart people can do with "trivial data": Estimating the atom @ 60 Symbols


REFS:
-comment from ars - Ranting.Me : http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/jimmy-wales-threatens-to-encrypt-wikipedia-if-uk-passes-snooping-bill/?comments=1&post=23244652#comment-23244652

 -and pan.sapiens responds: ...but two years instead of one, plus a load of other intrusive stuff. Yet few people who I talk to in Oz seem to have even heard about it, and those that have heard of it have no understanding of how intrusive the proposed laws are. Mr. Wales, can you please please encrypt our traffic too? If nothing else we could really benefit from a bit of publicity about these laws from a high-profile site like Wikipedia to help get us laid-back Aussies off our arses and into the streets. 

ars article: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/09/jimmy-wales-threatens-to-encrypt-wikipedia-if-uk-passes-snooping-bill/

huffington: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/06/jimmy-wales-wikipedia-snoopers-charter_n_1860293.html

wired: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/14/communications-bill

guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/05/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-snoopers-charter
-The Guardian had the most charming commentators I've seen on the web. Kudos to the moderators I'm sure ;)

-Image kudos: http://nopsa.hiit.fi/pmg/viewer/photo.php?id=1387109

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Just read an interesting article about embedding page data right into the link and some kind fellow on Slashdot created an example ... just wondering if I can host the <<same link here on Blogger>>. For some odd reason or another the link does not show up in the normal way so i have surrounded it with guillemets... and I'm running FireFox on Linux: it won't work on me so I need your feedback... Does it work for you?

--edit to highlight link

Sunday 19 August 2012

Orbitals 2 ready for release, ADBassist conversion and OSIA

Hi all,

   Just a little update on Orbital Live Wallpaper (source), after messing around with the internals (there was some shifty maths going on in the background) I've been able to separate out the transition away and the transition back to orbit. This allows the transitions to form some interesting patterns. I have also added a new transition (I was hoping for two, but just want to get the updates and fixes out) and a couple of color schemes. Hopefully I'll be releasing this weekend.

   Secondly, I've finished converting ADBassist from gtk to swing... I choose gtk initially to get brownie points in the Ubuntu App Challenge and also with the ulterior motive of learning something new. The Java wrapper for gtk was certainly easy to use and I think some things like images and layouts were a touch more user friendly to use but all in all I felt limited in what I could do and was uncertain how well it will handle background processes when I get them going soon. I also felt a touch bad making an application with platform dependencies that were not strictly necessary... that is, I wouldn't've minded using gtk if I got any extra capability, but it seemed not to offer anything I was using (dbus support is the only thing that springs to mind, and I wasn't using that).

   Finally there is also an upcoming open source event in Melbourne (so if you're not from Australia you might not be all that interested) this week. It totally looks more like an event for managers than techs, but it has potential to be interesting and most importantly there's free food! Although there is zero chance of me being there by 5:30, but I'll defiantly rock up at some stage before 8. Well, I'd better go rsvp and try to prepare the release of orbitals. Details below:

"What does the NBN mean to the Open Source Software Industry"
Date:  Wednesday 22 August
Time:  5.30 pm for 6.00 pm start to 8.00 pm
Venue:  NBNCo Discovery Center
            1010 La Trobe St, Docklands
Please help make this event a success by promoting it through your own channels as appropriate.
Event Program:
1. Presentation by NBN Senior Staff on opportunities that likely to arise from the NBN.  
There will also be other NBN personel who will be able to answer questions.
2. Presentation by Kanchana Wickremasinghe, Senath Ltd.
Kanchana will talk about Senath's use of Open Source software to deliver the Cloud based PaaS Durga Platform.
3. Update on OSIA activities.
4. Networking opportunity with other guests
Refreshments available.
Following the event, you are also invited to join others for dinner somewhere in Melbourne.
** Please note: RSVP by 20 August is essential. Email osia-events@osia.com.au. **

Thursday 5 July 2012

Ubuntu app showdown

I think there's about 4 days left in the Ubuntu app showdown and my entry is finally starting to resemble a functional program :)
For my entry I have chosen to write a GUI wrapper around the Android sdk tools, mainly adb, but also the sdk manager and the virtual machine manager. It's called ADBassist, check out the code: https://code.launchpad.net/~puzzleduck/adbassist/trunk.
At the moment all it does is download the sdk, update them to get adb, run adb and create a new tab for each device... now I've got to keep the tabs up to date (I will probably poll adb every 5-10 seconds for a device list for now, but monitoring dbus for USB events would probably be a smarter/better way to go).
I will also spend the weekend setting up the individual device tabs with useful functions such as an apk and other files upload facilities (adb push), file download and backup (adb pull), device status (adb shell df -h for example) and advanced functions like reboot and mock locations... maybe even screenshots and/or remote control.
Finally a release mode testing would be super... In turn each possible avd is downloaded, a virtual machine created for each, apk is installed and run on the virtual device in turn... It's a nice dream anyway :)
Oh, and in other "big" news ADBassist now has a logo... Bask in the glory:

Monday 14 May 2012

Open Stack meet up.

Hey all,

Just found out about an Open Stack meet up happening through Linux Users Victoria. It's on tomorrow (Tuesday May 15) at 6.30pm.

I'm not sure what to expect as I haven't been before, but I'm defiantly going to head on over and check it out... I've included all the details below:


6:30-8.30PM, Gryphon Gallery, 1888, Building 198, Graduate Centre, corner of Grattan and Swanston, University of Melbourne.
We will have John Dickinson, Swift Project Technical Lead giving us a talk about Swift via WebEx. We'll also have WebEx available to remote or persons that cannot attend. Food and drinks will be provided, Looking forward to seeing you there.

 I'll do my best to remember to report back ;)
Cheers,
   Ben.

Thursday 3 May 2012

Announcing the first release of the Orbitals Live Wallpaper app for Android

It's been a rollercoaster of a ride but it's here:
The Orbitals Live Wallpaper.


Orbitals LWP is the second spin-off from my original Target Live Wallpaper app.

Orbitals introduces a windows 8 style loading bubbles along with standard and knotted orbits (inspired by the Trefoil knot).

The color schemes are mostly tech/oss inspired and include Ubuntu, XDA, Slashdot and more.

The color scheme, trail length and speed of the orbitals will vary randomly and changed after every touch.

Let me know what you thought out even better let every one know by rating in the Google Play Store or donating.

So get cracking and check out the video below, the source code and the app itself in the market (or have a look at my other work)


Screens:

 


Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83A9zcTSBV0

Source: https://github.com/PuZZleDucK/Orbital-Live-Wallpaper/

App: http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=orbitlivewallpaper.puzzleduck.com

Monday 23 April 2012

Installing a custom rom on the Huwei U8510 ... using nothing but my linux!

All the instructions for rooting and installing custom roms for the Huwei U8510 seem to be for windows users, so here it is the world exclusive ;) Huwei U8510 rooting and custom rom guide for linux!

Sanity checks:
1. Android SDK & tools installed (i.e. "adb" and "fastboot" work)... check!
2. Prerequisite knowledge: you knew "adb" and "fastboot" were terminal commands... check!
3. "adb devices" returns the u8510 and only the u8510 (just a precaution i like to take)... check.

Roms:
Spanish
- deBranded
Zad

Recovery (kudos: Lebo):
- Recovery

Other info tying it all together but with busted links (kudos: Leandros):
http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/18158/how-do-i-root-a-huawei-x3

Step 1: Download roms and Recovery.
Step 2: Replace SD card (goldcard may be required... I'm using mine), copy roms onto sd card.
Step 3: prepare phone, go to settings > apps and disable "fastboot".
Step 4: Unplug USB.
Step 5: Boot into fastboot mode (reboot and hold Volume Down + Power).
Step 6: Plug in usb. Verify fastboot with "sudo fastboot devices". Your devices serial number may be "??????????"... mine was.
Step 7: "sudo fastboot erase recovery".
Step 8: "sudo fastboot flash recovery recovery.img".
Step 9: "sudo fastboot reboot" ... Steps 7, 8 and 9 should result in "OKAY" feedback.
[Optional]. Backup. and Wipe.
Step 10: Start flashing roms... WOOT!!!

Step 11: Smile smugly to yourself because you did it and didn't need to touch those nasty Windows and you'll never again have to see that ugly Vodaphone logo.


Rom1: De-branded
Faster, cleaner UI, nicer lock screen, faster camera, Android 2.3.5, 2.6.35.7-perf kernel, SU, navigation and market.

Rom2: Eclipse
Feels faster again, same lock screen, same Android and kernel, english-as-second-language, androidlost, goomanager, market, brut-maps, SU, xda-app, nice status bar update (numeric battery display).

Rom3: Zad
Custom boot animation <3, same lock, Android 2.3.3, same kernel, horrible jellybean app drawer (can't wait to drop ADW over this ugly sucker), astro, market, xda, brut, SU, Titanium, goomanager, cpu master and MerkaMarket (Spanish market?). ADW improves things somewhat.

Rom4: Spanish
Fail to install... maybe one day,

but for now,

 the winner is:

...

Eclipse... only the Zeam version... I never use it (except for in demos), but I like Zeam. :D






Wednesday 29 February 2012

These messes I'm in and out of.

It's been a while since my last post so I thought it was about time to do a quick roundup of the current (shambolic, but fortunately improving) state of development in my apps.


Stalin Phone... Where it all started.

I started working on a video recording version of Stalin Phone some time ago and got caught in a bit of a snag. It seems that video recording is not possible without a VideoView object from the layout (failed attempts included declaring a new video view in code). This puts me in a bit of a pickle as Stalin Phone runs in the background with no UI. I have come up with a couple of possible solutions to this since I last worked on it. One possibility is to use a custom toast notification with an embedded video view, possibly this might fall when the toast is dismissed but I could probably set it's timeout high enough to outlast your average call. Secondly (and preferably) I could try replacing the current notification with a custom status bar notification... the snag here being that I am not yet sure how much raw access to the custom layout I will have (i.e. Can I directly grab the video view or do I only get access to a handler).

This leads into another couple of side projects I started to explore the world of status bar notifications.

Photo-A-Day... Simple notifications.
This is probably the most likely project to finish first as I haven't so much hit a snag as I have got distracted.

I now have the framework for the app set up, just need to add shared preferences storage (started), resume on power up and a little bit of cut and polish :p



Motivational Puzzles demonic offspring: Pseudomonarchia Daemonum...
 I've also refocused motivational puzzle into a demonic motivational piece based off the demonic book of names... Maybe an angelic counterpart should be on the books for the future.


The experimental Puzzle Cam has also halted in its tracks for the time being as the rom I'm running (BCM) has flakey camera support at the moment. Last time I was working on it I was close to cracking the camera preview frame (fuzzy green images in triplicate), but not quite yet and I'm not sure when I'll pick this one up again. Low priority.


Finally we come to my two babies: Target Live Wallpaper and Mou5e Live Wallpaper.
Not much happening on the mouse lwp, but target lwp is almost exploding with new features. Well at least two anyway. I made some progress with the fireworks module, fireworks now explode better and fall back towards earth after explosion.
I'm most excited about the last feature (mainly because I just nailed it about an hour ago): importing custom models... For now it's importing a hard coded sample, but once I integrate xml parsing it should be a sinch to import any model from Google sketchpadsketchup to use as the 3d model. Woot!

Also just added "orbitals" checkout the video below to see the demo :D




Monday 9 January 2012

My experience with the Amazon app store.


I've been meaning to post about my experience releasing an application to the Amazon app store for some time now and finally here it is:

To give you all some context of where I'm coming from, I'm currently employed as a tester, but want to move into development. I've been working on Android for about 2 years and java for about 7. I've only released apps on the Android market for free until now so that is the only point I can not compare, and I am only asking for money on Amazon to try and cover the developer fee. I'm not really in this for the money so that its another thing to consider while reading my advice. Anyone who wants the app for fee could download the source, compile it and run it for fee (or download it from the Android market for fee)...and to be honest, IMHO if you can do that you know the secret handshake, you're in the club, help yourself.

So this all starts a long time ago, well a couple of months anyway. I noticed Amazon were giving away one year free developer accounts (normally just shy of $100), so I figured it was worth a shot... If I could make my hundred bucks back in 12 months I'd renew the account. Well I'm falling far short of my target at the moment but there is still plenty of time left and it has been a worthwhile endeavor in any case.

I had a few apps on the Android market, picked one called "Mou5e Live Wallpaper" and created promotional artwork for the Amazon store and submitted the app as-is. I was not sure if this would fly with Amazon for a couple of reasons, firstly the app I would be charging Amazon customers for would be given away free on the Android Market (and on google code), but that's what you get for charging that much a year for a developer account. Secondly I used AdMob adds in my app and I know Amazon have their own advertising program, maybe they would make me switch networks for approval.

That was on the 25th of November and having been accustomed to the Android way of doing things I sat at the developer console for the rest of the evening, occasionally clicking refresh waiting (in vain) for the status to change. It was a couple of weeks until I received an email from Amazon.

On the 6th of December at about 5:30am i received an email saying that my app had failed a test case. The test in question being that my app requested permissions which it didn't require. I found an online form somewhere which I used to explain that the permission uses internet (admittedly a dangerous permission for a background process to have) is only used to serve adds in the configuration screen, detailed the steps to see the add and mentioned that the source was available for confirmation of this.

I received confirmation of my response and then by 11:30 received a second notification of a failed test: My applications name MUST be in English. It seems that any sort of leet speak in app names is not allowed. I was a bit disappointed that I might have to change the manifest and recompile, but after re-reading the email a couple of times it only seemed to be the application name in the actual Appstore that required changing. I changed the name in the store and left my .apk as it was.

This turned out to be a good call as the next day on the 7th of December I got another email to say that the app had passed functional testing and was now in "content review". Almost a week later on the 13th of December at 10 am my app was approved for general release on the Amazon app store for $0.20.
 
Now comes some of the good stuff, along with my original description Amazon had added to the description a bit (in general clarifying things or talking the app up more than I was willing to do) and also explained quite clearly what permissions were used and why. This was a nice finishing touch and i have been meaning to copy over this new stuff back into the Android market. I have seen others in the market giving detailed accounts of the permissions used in their apps and as a user I find it reassuring (although far from a guarantee) and i wonder why I didn't do it before.

Finally the most interesting bit... at least for me: To this day I have only sold one copy, a single unit. But that was enough in the category I had selected (novelty apps) to rocket my app up the charts to #61 (over the last month it has now fallen to #100, but it's still there). I'm from Australia and so am not able to buy my own app (ridiculous huh?) but for all you US devs out there it'd only take a few sales in the right category to get yourself a guaranteed spot in a top 100 list (maybe there is an even less popular category where you could nab a top 50 or 20 with only a few sales). If I can do it from half a world away and a crack team of just one code monkey, I think anyone can do it. So what are you waiting for: Pick up a developer account while they're still free and take advantage of a free professional review for your apps, a free rewrite of your apps blurb by a professional and try to score yourself a top 100 while you're at it.