your unofficial guide to the google android
Posts tagged program
Keep Your Droid Running Clean
Feb 27th
More and more people are switching to smart phones everyday. The iPhone, BlackBerry and Droid are all taking over the world. Chances are, if you are reading a tech blog, you probably have one too. I currently have a Droid so I will probably be giving tips about them every once and a while.
Today I have found a nice, neat little program for everyone with a Droid to keep it running at it’s quickest.
Advanced Task Killer by ReChild helps you manage all of your open and multi-tasking apps. If you have ever used a Mac or seen someone who has never used a Mac you will see this all the time. The person will close the program but not exit it. If you hit the ‘X’ in the corner, it closes the window but the program is still running. This is how your Droid works.
When you hit the home button or the back button to get out of a program, it has essentially just minimized itself, making it quicker to reopen if you want to use it later. This though, can take up a lot of the small amount of memory that your phone has. Advanced Task Killer can help you with that.
When you launch Advanced Task Killer, it is quick and easy. It lists all of the programs that are running on your phone. You check the ones that you want to be ‘killed’ and then hit the ‘KILL’ button. It’s as simple as that. Run this app every couple of days to keep your phone running in tip top shape.
Y
ou can find this app by scanning this bar code -
You can also keep up-to-date on my personal blog at DevonSchreiner.com
Android App Must Haves
Jan 24th
I’ve been playing around on my phone (a Motorola Cliq powered by Google) a lot lately trying to find apps that I love and various new things to try out. Thus, I’ve decided to post some of my app findings. The following are some apps that I love and think no Android user should go without: (the best part is that they are all free!)
Mobile Defense:
This app is an absolute must have for anyone with an android phone. It works similar to lowjack for cars, but its for your phone! Once you download the app you will need to register on the phone, then finish the registration process online. This program will link your phone to the website allowing you to find your phone no matter where it is. If you leave GPS on constantly you can locate your phone within a 3ft range, if not the program will use local cell towers to triangulate your signal and give you a good idea of where the phone might be. The website also allows you to turn your phone off or lock the phone completely. This helps to keep all that secret information on your phone out of prying eyes. Best of all, the app does not show up on your phone (in your menu) so no one will know you’re protected or be able to deactivate the service from the phone itself. If you’re the type that loses your phone regularly or are deathly afraid of people getting a hold of your secret formula for the next big thing, then this is the app for you.
Aloqa:
I’ve tried a lot of the “find places around you” applications and have never really used any of them because they didn’t have the functionality that I was looking for. Now I’ve finally found one that I like. Aloqa has channels that allow you to look up exactly what you want. There are preset channels that you can choose to show such as food, theatre, nightlife, movies, ATMs, gas stations, hospitals and much more. On top of choosing from the various presets, you can create your own channels of items you want to search for, or simply search the surrounding area for what you want. The application will continually update information based on a 15-20 mile radius around you. You can set the app to update in the background, buzz the phone when something new appears, or ring for new items. These settings can be changed for each individual channel so if you can have the movies ring your phone, the gas stations buzz you, and the nightlife simply update in the background. Whatever your tastes are, this application has something for you.
Astrid:
One thing I dislike about google is the lack of a good task manager. Astrid helps with this problem. Astrid allows you to enter tasks, set deadlines, track how much time a task takes, set alarms and reminders, and do just about anything you need in order to make sure you to do list gets done. The thing I like most about this application is that Astrid gives you a nice little widget that can be displayed on your home screen allowing you to constantly have a visual reminder of those upcoming tasks you need to deal with. Now if only I could get Astrid to do the dishes and send the bills too.
Task Panel:
I love that Android allows you to run multiple apps at once. This features makes it easy to switch back and forth between im’s, text messages, calendar viewings, and back again. However, having all of those apps running at once can be a real strain on your battery. That’s where task panel comes in handy. Task Panel will give you a comprehensive view of all the applications running on your phone at any given time. You can stop an application by clicking on it or kill all applications by hitting one simple button. There are two features that made me choose task panel over other similar apps. First off, you can create an ignore list so that every time you hit that kill all button programs on your ignore list will stay going. No more accidentally turning off important features you want running. Second, task panel has an auto kill feature. You can create a list of programs that you want the application to automatically kill as soon as your phone goes into sleep mode. This allows you to spare more battery life without having to consciously go in and kill everything every time. Task panel also gives you a choice of two separate widgets for your home screen: there is a single button that kills all apps when you press it as well as a 4X1 box that updates you with the amount of memory you have free on your phone at any given moment.
Quick Uninstaller:
This program is a god send. I’ve noticed that deleting apps using the marketplace doesn’t always uninstall them completely and you have to jump through so many hoops (well…menus) in order to get to the uninstall screen. This application makes the process so much easier. You simply open the app, sort the programs by alphabet, size, or date, and then select the program you want to uninstall. The menu looks similar to the normal google menu using the same icons for the programs. The program also gives you a nice little notice if you are trying to delete a program that came with your phone so that you won’t be getting rid of those important core apps that you can’t really get back.
Shazam:
If you’re like me and have a really hard time identifying songs and artists, then this app is really going to help out. All you have to do is let the app listen to the song, process the information, and it will spit out the artist, song title, album, and other information about the song in question. No longer will you have to rack your brain to find out the song that’s playing at the restaurant or figure out what all those unlabeled tracks in your itunes are. Just use Shazam!
Other fun apps that aren’t crucial, but fun anyways:
Snake Extreme
Zombie, Run
FarmFrenzy
Bebbled
FourSquare
Backgrounds
Movies (by Flixter)
Phoneflix (Netflix)
ShopSavvy
My Coupons
Google Nexus One
Dec 27th
There has been a lot of rumor as of late regarding the Google Phone aka Google Nexus One. The Nexus one looks a lot like the HTC Eric / Hero. This supposedly is Google’s answer to the iPhone.
Google allegedly will be giving the phones out for free. Yes you heard me correctly. Free!
You might ask, how can they do this? The Google Nexus One will be an unlocked phone that can run on several different networks. You will still need to pay for a monthly service plan for voice and data services, but the device itself will be free. Google plans on keeping a small advertising bar on the bottom and or top of the device that will constantly feed you small, unnoticeable, advertisements. Much like gMail and other Google services. They are hoping (planning/praying) that enough people click on the advertisements to offset the fact that they are giving the device away for free. It’s an interesting concept.
Cnet is reporting that beta invites for the program might go out as soon as January 5. Who will be selected for the program is a completely different story, unknown to anyone but Google. I’m praying that I have the opportunity to test this device. If I do, I’ll be sure to give you guys a full write up/video sergment.
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My vim for android devlopement environment
Nov 22nd
I haven’t blogged for a long time, and I would have liked to be able to blog about my Gnome soc project, but unfortunately, I have other priorities. As part of my studies, I had to do some development for the android platform, and since the last summer, I can’t use other development environment than Vim, I decided to find a way of using it for my android project.
So here is the description of my Vim environment for android applications development. I use vim 7.2, the version distributed with Ubuntu 9.10, the Vjde plugin, terminator as a terminal (which by the way is a great terminal emulator!!) and then last android JDK in order to develop application for android2.0 (eclaire).
First I installed the SDK (there are a few bugs on the emulator installation due to this bug and an this ssl problem. I fallowed this guide to set the sdk. Then, I installed the Vjde plug-in which is a Vim plug-in to get a Java development environment in Vi, this plugin permit to add intelligent completion for methods calls as well as for imports (You only need to unzip this in you ~/.vim directory). Afterward, you create your your android project (this page explains well how to do it). And then you need to create an vjde project, in vim:
:Vjdeas filename.prj
This is actually a text file which permit to save variables to you project. Then I set it Vjde to look at android class, methods and package, in vim:
:let g:vjde_lib_path='/path/to/android/sdk/platforms/android-2.0/android.jar:build.classes'
And save it
:Vjdesave
Thanks to it, I can have functions/imports completion available with the CTRL-X+CTRL-U key combination (I need to load the project(:Vjdeload filename.prj) every time I want to work on it, I think there must be a way of doing it automatically but didn’t figure it out yet). It would also be possible to get the documentation integration thanks to the Vjde plugin, but I am used to have it in another window.
Then to try the program on the android emulator, I lunch the emulator, and in a terminal:
ant debug && adb install -r bin/yourAppName-debug.apk
You can then launch it in the android emulator menu (I looked for a way of lunching the program directly from the command line, but didn’t find 
). To debug the app, you can launch the ddms tool which is part of the android sdk.
I hope this could be useful for some people who want to develop for the android platform and don’t want to use eclipse or netbeans IDE.
My vim for android devlopement environment
Nov 22nd
I haven’t blogged for a long time, and I would have liked to be able to blog about my Gnome soc project, but unfortunately, I have other priorities. As part of my studies, I had to do some development for the android platform, and since the last summer, I can’t use other development environment than Vim, I decided to find a way of using it for my android project.
So here is the description of my Vim environment for android applications development. I use vim 7.2, the version distributed with Ubuntu 9.10, the Vjde plugin, terminator as a terminal (which by the way is a great terminal emulator!!) and then last android JDK in order to develop application for android2.0 (eclaire).
First I installed the SDK (there are a few bugs on the emulator installation due to this bug and an this ssl problem. I fallowed this guide to set the sdk. Then, I installed the Vjde plug-in which is a Vim plug-in to get a Java development environment in Vi, this plugin permit to add intelligent completion for methods calls as well as for imports (You only need to unzip this in you ~/.vim directory). Afterward, you create your your android project (this page explains well how to do it). And then you need to create an vjde project, in vim:
:Vjdeas filename.prj
This is actually a text file which permit to save variables to you project. Then I set it Vjde to look at android class, methods and package, in vim:
:let g:vjde_lib_path='/path/to/android/sdk/platforms/android-2.0/android.jar:build.classes'
And save it
:Vjdesave
Thanks to it, I can have functions/imports completion available with the CTRL-X+CTRL-U key combination (I need to load the project(:Vjdeload filename.prj) every time I want to work on it, I think there must be a way of doing it automatically but didn’t figure it out yet). It would also be possible to get the documentation integration thanks to the Vjde plugin, but I am used to have it in another window.
Then to try the program on the android emulator, I lunch the emulator, and in a terminal:
ant debug && adb install -r bin/yourAppName-debug.apk
You can then launch it in the android emulator menu (I looked for a way of lunching the program directly from the command line, but didn’t find ). To debug the app, you can launch the ddms tool which is part of the android sdk.
I hope this could be useful for some people who want to develop for the android platform and don’t want to use eclipse or netbeans IDE.