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.

XBMC

Not a software development post this but more an admiration of my fellow developers, in particular the guys who work on developing XBMC, the free, open source media center software for Windows, Linux, OSX, iOS etc.

It is often difficult to believe that such a fantastic, feature packed, slick and polished product is free! Anyone wanting to know more info should click here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=XBMC_Online_Manual or http://xbmc.org/

Well worth a donation to support those guys I think! http://xbmc.org/contribute/donate/

Resize a form in VB .Net and keep items centered

Funny, I would have thought this would have bee done lots of times before my Google search. But either my Google search skills failed me or it hasn't been done lots of times before. Thankfully one search result yielded the answer (John Robbins http://searchwindevelopment.techtarget.com/answer/How-do-you-center-controls-on-a-form-in-VBNET). For those who don't have a login for the searchxxxxx.com network this is how it works:

Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

CenterButton()
End Sub

Private Sub CenterButton()
    buttonMain.Top = (Me.ClientSize.Height/2) - (buttonMain.Height / 2)
    buttonMain.Left = (Me.ClientSize.Width/2) - (buttonMain.Width / 2)
    End Sub

Private Sub Form1_Resize(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Resize
    CenterButton()
End Sub

It simply takes the form width and height, divides by two, then minus half the width of the object (to ensure an accurate center) and shazam! The example above also has a nice handle for resizing so it repositions the objects as you resize the window. Cool! You learn something every day...

I've sold my soul to the devil!

Well not quite. But some Android fanboys might think I have, or even worse. Cut a long-ish story short, I caught my Advent Vega Android tablet with my foot this morning and cracked the screen. One of the reasons I bought it was so that I would have internet access while on trips away. I have a trip to Canada coming up and so a replacement is needed... and I decided on an iPad. Not an iPad2. The only thing that has appealed to me about the iPad2 is the nice £100 price drop it meant for the original iPad. I rarely buy like for like with gadgets when they expire and I'm not a fanboy. I just try to buy the best product in my price range. I feel the iPad is now that product.

So does it mean I'll be developing apps for IOS? Maybe. Oh and for those interested in how my Vega now looks:

It along with it's official Vega case will be listed here shortly: http://www.amibay.com

Oh Google Maps! Why don't you love me anymore?!

To be honest I know full well why Google Maps has stopped loving me. Whilst trying to find the travelling distance between one fixed postcode and 1500 others (programatically of course!), Google Maps blocked me after the 338th request within a 6 minute period! Thankfully today the block has reset. Obviously I need to add a delay between requests. Google's FAQ says 2,500 requests per day can be made but if you make too many requests in a certain period they block you. How many in what period is not mentioned! Grrrrr!

DHCP Checker v2.3 released

As promised here is an updated version of my DHCP Checker script, complete with more comments and a tad tidier code!

DHCP Checker v2.3

Not Android related

I was starting to forget that my blog wasn't just about Android development! Anyway after a request out of the blue to help a stranger (hi Matt!) use my DHCP Alert script I've decided to spend a bit of time modifying it. For those who don't know the script checks a Windows DHCP server log and when it finds a new lease has been issued it checks to see if the computer exists in Active Directory... and if it doesn't it sends an email to the specified email account.

I plan on making a few changes that Matt has requested like checking renewals and the option of turning off Active Directory checking. The script also badly needs some comments as I found whilst trying to help Matt with implementing the script. More on that to follow soon...

Sorry...

Sorry to anyone who is awaiting my next blog post. Sorry that this one won't be what you were waiting for! I'll be honest, my PlayStation 3 has taken over my spare time... to be more specific Gran Turismo 5! Also I'm in the process of selling and buying houses, which as anyone who has been through that process will know it is quite a time consumer. I would try to commit more time to the blog, but I'm not making any promises... just keep an eye out... see what happens!

You are going to need Java more than it needs you

Android applications are written in Java. You will need to know Java. I knew this before I started but knew very little Java. So whilst learning to develop Android applications I knew really I would be learning Java. I had hoped that the various Android development books would also be a nice introduction to Java along the way... but no.

I have been doing my Java learning in the background, using a book (see left) and a great set of video tutorials. The videos are even more suited to the aspiring Android developer because whilst learning Java you are also learning how to get the best out the Eclipse IDE which most Android development books/tutorials recommend. The only downside of the videos is that they are in SWF format. I spent a little bit of time converting them into something I could watch on my Advent Vega tablet.

The book (Beginning Programming with Java) is about to get a revision so it might be worth while you holding out for it. To be honest the video tutorials are in my opinion a better introduction to Java. Plus they are FREE!

Two months? Really!?

Blimey, has it really been two months since my last blog post? My apologies. A few things have gotten in the way of Android development. A new toy (Advent Vega Android 2.2 based Tablet), Christmas, New Year, Holiday planning, HTC Desire ROM testing... all excuses, I know!

But Santa did bring me:

So I plan on starting that in the next few days so watch out for a quick review of the first few chapters. A quick flick through has shown that early chapters talk more about the bits I didn't understand from the previous book. I hope also to be able to develop apps for both phone and tablet forms, coupled with that my phone now runs Gingerbread (Android 2.3) I am prepared for most areas of Android development that the current platform presents.

Phonegapping

After a problem where I could not scroll the application up and down with the touch screen, I soon saw the quality of the Phonegap CSS in all it's glory on my phone:

Phonegap example app running on my HTC Desire

The scrolling issue needed a slight code adjustment:

function init(){

document.addEventListener("touchmove", false);

document.addEventListener("deviceready", deviceInfo, true);

}

The first line of the function did read: document.addEventListener("touchmove", preventBehavior, false);

I will now continue to play with Phonegap but I'm starting to see it's limitations. I can see it not being very responsive and obviously games are out of the question. When I say games I mean anything with any movement, puzzle and strategy etc should be ok. In fact it maybe worth looking at some existing Javascript stuff and maybe porting it to Phonegap.

Is phonegap cheating?

Chapter 3 of the book has gone waaaaayyy over my head. It seems to have gone up a few notches very quickly. There are no comparisons to existing languages to ease you in. So as a result I've put the book down for a bit and decided to look at phonegap. It still uses Eclipse for the IDE but everything else is HTML, Javascript and CSS.

I've built the sample in no time and I am already changing it to get an idea of how it will look. Firstly the sample CSS makes everything look like a native app, very slick. But you would think it would not have the capability of a native app... you would be wrong. You can make the phone vibrate, beep, take readings from the accelerometer, geolocation, bring up the dialler etc... Pretty much everything the average developer would want. Also it is multi platform compatible so with a bit of work it can run on iPhone, Blackberry, Symbian and Palm as well as Android. I'm not too fussed by that but you never know, a killer app multiplied by 5 outlets is more than just one. Next I'm going to see what the sample app looks like on my HTC Desire.

Slow going

Just a quick post to say I'm still working my way through the book. Had a read of chapter 3 which talks about dialogues, intents and activities. I think it will take a couple of read-throughs to get this cemented in my brain. Plus it might be worth while me doing some simple Java tutorials in the meantime as the book has already used some examples with code in, of which I have zero clue about!