From Source to Release

Just read a fascinating piece by the guys at Sony Ericsson about how they take the latest Android source code release through development and testing to deployment to consumers. Most end users should read this to appreciate the time and effort required to get it working on recently released handsets. Some might start to realise that it isn't a case of "Next, next, next, finish". Lots of time and effort is required for what is quite a complex process... And it's free!

http://developer.sonyericsson.com/wp/2011/12/07/ice-cream-sandwich-from-source-code-release-to-software-upgrade/

Xperia PLAY Review

A month or so ago I decided that I would take advantage of the recent price drop of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play Android mobile phone. They had been dropping price quite substantially from the £349 RRP to a recent low of £129.99. I picked mine up direct from O2 for £149.99 knowing that I would be using my new favourite network GiffGaff (powered by O2).

Mailto: 500 chars limit?

After a short period of testing this, I've found that a mailto: link only seems to accept a character limit of 500. I've Google it and found a number of 2000 should be more the case? One work around would be to put some of the addresses into the 'CC' field I suppose, but not as elegant as I would like.

So where is the limit? The browser? The e-mail client? Or is it an RFC agreed limit? Anyone got any hard facts on this one?

Why is it the simplest things...

... stop clearly good code from working?!

Whilst trying to write a VBA piece to export a chart from Excel as a PNG with a colleague today, we spent AGES trying to get a very simple section to work (specify the file name and open the 'Save As' dialogue). After what felt like an eternity we discovered that taking the .extension off from the file name string solved the problem! Now I thought that was pretty dumb, everyone else agree?!

GiffGaff, my new favourite network

After months of trouble with Vodafone (http://tonyyeb.blogspot.com/2011/07/giffgaff-too-good-to-be-true.html) I have made the permanent switch to the O2 powered network, GiffGaff. I have to say that performance has been excellent on both mobile internet and voice/SMS. In my experience they have easily put some of the bigger networks to shame, providing great value for money and service to boot. I'll continue to report my findings in the coming months.

One year on...

Last week saw the one year anniversary of my blog! Woop! Firstly it highlighted my lack of recent posts. Sorry but working in education you find that September and October are the busiest months. Secondly I've really enjoyed posting my little nuggets of information. And thirdly thanks for clicking the Google ads. The small amount they bring has been greatly received.

I'm hoping to be back to posting more frequently. So either follow my on Twitter, RSS or keep checking back!

Thanks for reading :)

DHCP Checker v2.4 released

After a day of testing by auth1299 (thanks once again) I am happy to release DHCP Checker v2.4. Hit the download link for your copy: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16702040/dhcpcheckerv2.4.zip

Please pass on any comments, suggestions, donations and bugs to the email address in the file or in the comments of this post.

DHCP Checker v2.4 in testing

Thanks to auth1299 who kindly offered to test and help iron out bugs in v2.3 we should soon be able to release DHCP Checker v2.4. It is now only compatible with Windows Server 2008. Future versions may include IPv6 support. Anyone using that internally yet? Is there any need? If you do please get in touch and maybe we could do some testing in the future.

PhoneGap 1.0 released

A few days ago the multiple mobile OS development environment PhoneGap finally reached version 1.0. Here are a few of the technical improvements you'll find in PhoneGap 1.0:

• Overall API stability and “pluggable” architecture
• W3C DAP API compatibility
• Contacts API
• Remote debugging tools

I hope to install and test very soon. Feel free to post any findings in the comments.

Developing Mobile only websites

While working on a mobile only website, I wanted to make the site just for mobile devices (a bit like m.youtube.com or m.facebook.com) and no matter what I did the page was always bigger than the screen of the target device. Anyway thanks to Google the answer was in their Android Developer help: http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/targeting.html


<head>
    <title>Example</title>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, user-scalable=no" />
</head>


Simple when you see it!

And people wonder why some devs just give up

http://adrynalyne.blogspot.com/2011/07/long-time-no-rant.html

This is quite simply unacceptable. XDA is going down the pan... if it hasn't already hit rock bottom.

giffgaff... too good to be true?

After MANY issues with Vodafone UK (dropped calls, calls going to answer machine, poor internet speed etc...) I've decided to evaluate some alternatives until my contract expires in 9 months or so. After checking Quidco for offers I found giffgaff which uses the O2 network. I had already looked into O2 to find their coverage was much better where I work and live. So here's the deal:

Top up £10 a month and get:

• 250 minutes to any network any time
• Unlimited text messages
• Unlimited internet use

Plus for each person I refer that joins I get £5 credit and so do they! After checking the speed out (Vodafone ~0.2Mbps, giffgaff/O2 >2.5Mbps) I'm seriously thinking about asking for my PAC number from Vodafone. Just a real shame that Vodafone won't let me leave without the rather large (>£300) termination fee. They have given me one month free which was a show of good will while they investigated the problem. It turns out the network is congested at the cell that covers my work post code and it maybe sometime before an upgrade can be actioned. So if you want a free giffgaff SIM with £5 free credit then click the link on the right of my blog.

Stupid to think that Amazon App Store would be great for devs....

Forgive the long subject title of this blog post but I've just read an interesting blog post by a small indie developer, talking about the troubles they have had using the Amazon App Store. Worth a read for any Android devs thinking of going that way: Bithack Blog

Phonegap, iFrame, Credentials...

Using an iFrame in Phonegap... but the page I'm 'iFraming' is on a server that requires authentication... It doesn't prompt for credentials though... Bummer! That is that plan out of the window! Any ideas guys?!

Got to love jQuery

jQuery never fails to amaze me. Even a run of the mill developer like me can create some stunning effects inside a web page. Recently I've been using the overlay function in the jQuery tools.

Next I plan on looking at jQuery mobile in conjunction with phonegap for some Android development... although I doubt that a recent idea I shared with @PaulOBrien will work with phonegap out of the box (due its lack of interaction ability with the notification bar). However I have discovered that there is a plugin that may help with that.