Scottyab's blog

when your hot you’re on Fire

scottyab — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:19:07 +0000

Finally the new Kindle ‘Fire’ was announced yesterday with much promise for content and mass market pricing. As a consumer I’m really excited about an android tablet at that price with the potential to sell millions.

As a Android developer I’m still stoked , true it’s a highly customised version of Android (which i’m coining the phrase ”Amzoid”) and which api level or specific system features are still unconfirmed (based on 2.1 I hear rumoured). An app approval process to boot!

So my life just got more complicated but I see it as an challenge. The same as I see the current fragmentation issues; it being a developer challenge rather than an issue for customer and businesses.

My biggest questions to Amazon are

a) When can we get the great cloud based music and video player’s in the UK?!

b) When can UK devs get hold of one?

I got together with Sarah at Mubaloo and wrote a few articles and they got published, yay! check them out:

http://mobile-device.biz/content/item.php?item=31987 [be prepared for the big head shot :S ]

http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/content/mubaloo-blows-hot-and-cold-kindle-fire

http://www.telecomtv.com [extra points for those who spot the misspelling of Bown ;)]

Gambling and Android

scottyab — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:56:56 +0000

Just encase anyone else was curious as me about gambling on Android marketplace or the alternatives.

Gambling is not permitted on the Android marketplace. Quote from the t&c‘s “Gambling: We don’t allow content or services that facilitate online gambling, including but not limited to, online casinos, sports betting and lotteries.” -

Alternative app stores:

Vodafone and Orange have their own Android app stores, however Vodafone note that can’t be “Gambling-related”, confident Orange will be the same.

Andappstore.com also mention no gambling

Amazon app store is US only

So it looks as if getjar is the only viable app store at the moment that allows gambling apps in addition to distributing directly (which you can do with Android). For example client could have the application .apk downloadable from their website.

Hope this saves someone time when looking it up.

Android Magazine issue 3

scottyab — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:25:54 +0000

Managed to make it in to Android Magazine issue 3 with an interview I did about Sony/Amazon Android tablets. Check out page 7, here’s a PDF scan of the article that someone else scanned in [honest].

If you haven’t read the magazine yet it’s well worth checking out, it’s not just for geeks like me

Updated with correct cover image and link to info

I Heart App Design

scottyab — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 14:01:47 +0000

Started a tumblr blog to highlight some of my fav and superbly designed Android apps. http://iheartappdesign.tumblr.com/

Hoping to add to it regularly and tag them so other devs and app designs can see good examples of sign on page or dashboard. Looking for a better tumblr theme – watch this space.

Android Malware Issues Rise : The Implications

scottyab — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:21:31 +0000

Good article on Malware and Android, I particularly like the comment…. ”In the case of Android though, a lot of the malware issues do not actually stem from the openness of the platform. The issues are more related to the lack of approval process on the Marketplace.
Read more: http://www.itproportal.com/2011/08/30/android-malware-issues-rise-implications/“

Run ADB from terminal on Ubuntu

scottyab — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 11:25:02 +0000

Developing Android on Ubuntu? here’s how to define your JAVA HOME and PATH:

What you’ll need:

Path to your Java installation
Path to your Android SDK installation
admin password

On windows you’d edit your environment variables, on linux you edit the .bashrc file.

Run this command:
sudo gedit $HOME/.bashrc

prompted for admin password.

Add the following lines to your .bashrc. Please ensure where you installed the Java libraries and your android sdk. The below reflects default installation directories.

export JAVA_HOME=”/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.24;”
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME”/android-sdk-linux_86/platform-tools”

Save file.

Run this command to reload your .bashrc:
source ~/.bashrc

Test by typing adb version
You should get something like
Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.26

ActivityNotFoundException after refactor? watch for the missing dot! [update fixed in ADK r11]

scottyab — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:58:27 +0000

Upodate: this is now fixed in ADT r11. Kudos to ADT team.

After refactoring Activity name from MyContactDetailsPage to ContactDetailsPage I spend a age trying to figure out why I suddenly started getting ActivityNotFoundExceptions.

Manifest before:

android:label=”@string/app_name”

android:configChanges=”locale” />

Manifest after:

android:label=”@string/app_name”

android:configChanges=”locale” />

Looks the same right? or at least the activity name has renamed, yay, but however Eclispe refactor has missed the dot prefix, so Android couldn’t find the activity, hence the exception. This drove me crazy for a good half an hour, I didn’t notice the missing dot. I guess its a good reason to use fully qualified package names when defining activities.+

04-28 11:39:19.623: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(28696): FATAL EXCEPTION: main

04-28 11:39:19.623: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(28696): android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find explicit activity class {com.scottyab.android.proj/com.scottyab.android.proj.contacts.ContactDetailsPage}; have you declared this activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?

04-28 11:39:19.623: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(28696): at android.app.Instrumentation.checkStartActivityResult(Instrumentation.java:1404)

04-28 11:39:19.623: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(28696): at android.app.Instrumentation.execStartActivity(Instrumentation.java:1378)

04-28 11:39:19.623: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(28696): at android.app.Activity.startActivityForResult(Activity.java:2817)

Eclipse Crashing on Ubuntu 10.10 randomly

scottyab — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:44:54 +0000

Encase anyone else is also having issues with eclipse or STS crashing or randomly closing on ubuntu? try running the latest official Sun JDK (instead of openJDK) is in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Official Partner Repository Thanks to the guys at webup8 for how to enable. There’s also a good stackoverflow question here.

The error i was getting…

# A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:

# SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0xb53d1635, pid=3933, tid=1804258160

# JRE version: 6.0_20-b20

# Java VM: OpenJDK Server VM (19.0-b09 mixed mode linux-x86 )

# Derivative: IcedTea6 1.9.7

# Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10, package 6b20-1.9.7-0ubuntu1

# Problematic frame:

# J com.android.dx.rop.code.Rops.ropFor(ILcom/android/dx/rop/type/TypeBearer;Lcom/android/dx/rop/type/TypeList;Lcom/android/dx/rop/cst/Constant;)Lcom/android/dx/rop/code/Rop;

# If you would like to submit a bug report, please include

# instructions how to reproduce the bug and visit:

# https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk-6/

## A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment:## SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0xb53d1635, pid=3933, tid=1804258160## JRE version: 6.0_20-b20# Java VM: OpenJDK Server VM (19.0-b09 mixed mode linux-x86 )# Derivative: IcedTea6 1.9.7# Distribution: Ubuntu 10.10, package 6b20-1.9.7-0ubuntu1# Problematic frame:# J com.android.dx.rop.code.Rops.ropFor(ILcom/android/dx/rop/type/TypeBearer;Lcom/android/dx/rop/type/TypeList;Lcom/android/dx/rop/cst/Constant;)Lcom/android/dx/rop/code/Rop;## If you would like to submit a bug report, please include# instructions how to reproduce the bug and visit:# https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk-6/#

Bath Half 2011

scottyab — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 18:18:08 +0000

I’m supporting St Peters Hospice by running the Bath half marathon with a team of people from work.

St Peter’s Hospice is Bristol’s only adult hospice caring for local people with incurable illnesses. Our commitment is to improve the quality of life of patients while extending care and support to their families and loved ones. Last year we cared for over 2,000 patients and supported over 6,000 family members, including children. 85% of this care was provided in patients homes.

All of our care is provided free of charge – the NHS contributes just 25% of our annual running costs. For the rest we are totally reliant on the generosity of the public who support us through many different ways.

Please go to http://www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/DASboot to see my fundraising page and sponsor me online. Many Thanks

Update: managed to beat my P.B by 3 mins, 1h48m15s, well chuffed and with the cake sale and offline donation we have raised +£1300. Thanks to great crowd support, Bath is defo one of my fav halfs.

findr version 0.1 released

scottyab — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:17:46 +0000

Finally got around to creating the additional marketplace images and application signing to publish my first android app findr.

It’s still a beta so expect a few issues.

I’m working on:

better storage to cache downloaded data
allow saving to SD card
better compression when setting as wallpaper
Live wallpaper

Why not give this a whirl and resist the 1 star ratings (if you can) and instead post some feedback or feature requests below or tweet me.

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across computers. 2GB account is free! http://db.tt/Tk9RpcD (Shameless referral alert)