Tag Archives: Android

California Dreaming

Posted on by

Good morning all!

Maybe there are better things to do than to update your blog, right before you start work.  And looking at my e-mails and my to-do lists make me feel like this will be a long day.  But considering my recent silence I thought an update on me is in order.  Plus if blogging doesn’t get my creative energies flowing… I’m not sure what will.

As I sit at the table of my hotel room, I can not but be amazed.  For a little over a month, I started a new job and showed up at my client’s office.  My client being located in the south San Francisco Bay area.  The first week I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of travelling, working on a serious project for a serious client and living on my own.  While the initial shock wore off, I am still overwhelmed both in the good and bad sense.

A month later I still love the travelling aspect.  Visiting San Francisco and Los Angeles all were worthwhile.  Flying never gets old, but I could do without the insane travel “security” at the airports.  Everyday I still can not believe that I am in California, right smack in the middle of Silicon Valley.  The fact that my client wanted to fly me in from Toronto to Silicon Valley is amazing.  A huge ego boost.  This is me making it in my career.  Sort of like an actor ending up in Hollywood or performer on Broadway.  Plus I get to work on Android development and build a tablet system from the ground up.  All of this overwhelms me in a good way.

Living on my own in a new city, without a car overwhelms me in a bad way.  Living out here, away from the inner-city makes everything so far and inconvenient.  Groceries, getting places, and all that jazz is tricky and time-consuming.  Taxies take too long, and the only real viable option is biking.  Unfortunately I bought a bike that just broke down on me the same day.  Plus since I will not be living here for longer, it doesn’t make sense to plan too long term.  Being away from friends and family also takes its toll.  Originally I assumed I would at least be able to catch up on my long overdue work.  That is partially true, but I still struggle with that.

Still as with anything in life, there are pros and cons.  Overall I’ve learned a lot, and have a greater appreciation of life’s small things.  I do miss Toronto, but I love also living here.  Flying solo does have its advantages.  And I’ve never been able to take the initiative and be more spontaneous like I can now.  I have learned to be truly independent in work and in life.  And I have started to make friends here too.  Now if only the weather here started being more like stereotypical Californian, as in warm and sunny.  Even the Sun has been shy recently.  But other than that–and if the overwhelming amount of catch-up work would just go away–I am happily dreaming big dreams and living it up down here in California.

justCheckers for Android is On the Move

Posted on by

I’m pleased to announce that I have gotten back to developing justCheckers.  I missed coding on my own projects.  And I am glad that I motivated myself to get back on it.  This time around I went the Android route, since the Android framework makes development of multimedia, threaded applications really easy in Java.  And it gets around the nasty distribution problems involved with desktop applications.

I also decided against working with a team this time around.  I came to this decision after realizing how much more productive I am coding by myself.  And how much solo coding I do at my day job.  Also I spent more time organizing teams and tasks then actually getting them done.  So I quietly disbanded the potential dev teams and closed down the mailing list.  At least for now.  I might look to building a team after I scale up.

At the moment I finished building a decent looking first draft user interface.  Now I am trying to hook the UI to the existing game engine/controller.  Once that works, I’ll get back to fixing the game engine to make it generic enough to handle the different rules for the different variants of checkers.  Hopefully I’ll be able to release something soon.

Do Android Devs Dream of Electric Sheep?

Posted on by

I can’t speak for all the other Android developers in the world, but I know that I don’t. But I can’t pass up a good opportunity for a terrible pun at the late Phillip Dick’s expense.

However I am enjoying living in the Android ecosystem both as a developer and as a user. Just right now I am trying out a blogging application for Android. And even without the slide-out keyboard, using the Swype input app and using an unfamiliar app, I feel more at home on the Samsung Galaxy S than on my Nokia N900…

As a developer I really enjoy working with the APIs. And I appreciate using a widely used platform. No it is not a perfect platform. But it is a joy to work with compared to some mobile platforms and much better than plain old Java development. I guess the saying that the Android development is where old Java developers feel young again is true.

Now if only Google keeps on doing and good job, the manufacturers keep on churning out good handsets, and the fine legal team at Oracle lays off then we’ll all be well off.

In the Beginning of November…

Posted on by

A new month begins and a new twist to life. This is the first day at a new office in downtown Toronto. Not that I’ve changed positions, I’m still working as a mobile developer for Web Impact. For my coworkers, this is nothing new since they all worked at the Toronto office before moving out to Mississauga. Unfortunately the Mississauga location did not provide what we needed and so we are moving back for now.

This morning everything is a little different. Figuring out new schedules, new routes and a new location. Should be fun. Other than that I’ll still get to enjoy working on mobile coding, with all its unique challenges.

One challenge I worked on this past while is writing. Not a lot of progress on the novel. But I did manage to submit two short stories for publishing. One to the Fall issue of the Alexandrian, which should come out soon. And one to 365 Tomorrows, which will hopefully get accepted too.

Other than that I still have load of catching up on work. I still feel a bit behind. Anyways, this next stop is mine. Catch you later.

Gliders, Italy and Androids

Posted on by

What an incredible summer and it is funny how it all started.  I found myself without a job at the end of April.  A week or two later I started a crazy schedule of fencing, archery and hiking amongst the usual day-to-days at home.  I even got to try out some serious tree climbing and zip-lining.  And I met new friends at a retreat and a number of parties too.  I even got to hang out with and host Anna and Behnaz, two friends from Montreal for over a week.

At the beginning of July, after months of preparation my brother, Martin went for the Air Cadet’s gliding summer camp.  After over 6 weeks of intensive work, training and practise, my brother can now legally fly a glider by himself.  I am incredibly proud of him and we now have a real pilot in the family.  Wow.

The past month and a half I had the honour and pleasure of hosting one of my very good friends from Italy, Laura.  Laura came to visit us, see Canada and learn English.  We did that and a whole lot of hiking, sightseeing and partying in Toronto, Niagara, Tobermory and Hamilton.  And her English became a lot better too.  I am so thankful that you came Laura and I hope you enjoyed being with us as much as we having you over.  Thanks!

After a full summer, I’ve come full circle.  About three weeks ago, I interviewed and got hired as a mobile developer for Web Impact.  I get to work on building Android mobile applications in a great environment with awesome coworkers.  I have always wanted to get into mobile programming.  But I never imagined that I would be doing what I get to work on.  Unfortunately I can not disclose the details of what I am working on and the technology behind it.  However I can say that the technology and the way we apply it is how I envision the future of mobile, web and desktop computing will look like.

This year has been an amazing ride so far.  And from what I can tell there is even more awesomeness in store.

News Flash – Linux Desktop Suck, Android is Not Linux and the Nokia N900s Dropping Out of Orbit

Posted on by

2

These past few days have seen Dorian scrambling to catchup and not blogging.  Dorian still feels the need to fight his e-mails, update his “other” sites and organize his cluttered life, rather than update his readers on exciting developments he has worked on.  Instead Dorian will continue writing in the third person, and highlight the latest and niftiest in Linux tech news… and hopefully he will get his act together soon.  So lets look at whats buzzing in the blogsphere.

The Linux Desktop Sucks

First the Linux hater, and now some developers and power users state what they REALLY feel about Linux on the desktop.  vanRijn experienced the beauty of sweet candy land that is the Mac OSX world and laments why we can’t see the same in Linux-o-landia.  dkite proofs more an optimist, saying yes its broken and but will get better… someday.  Also some finger-pointing to the manufacturers for not getting their act together, and states some heroic community coding is needed.  Funny how Dell engineers are helping to make Dell machines running Linux able to recover themselves, just like under the most common desktop OS.

Dorian’s thoughts: The Linux desktop worked for me, on a laptop in 2002, so stop your bitching guys.  I’ll agree the legendary saga that is fixing X and sound, etc. is reaching epic proportions.  And yes devs from vendors are leading the way in many cases.  But in some cases it seems easier to start from scratch as with Wayfarer or Moblin or PulseAudio.  Still building a solid and expandable underlying architecture is hard, so everyone does so in a piecemeal fashion.  And in traditional UNIX fashion, we argue and argue over what we want to build and how to do it.  Instead of wringing hands, help fix the problem.

Android is Not Linux

Sounds like another bad recursive hacker pun, no?  Looks like the guys at Google, took a Linux, through out the parts that worked-yes, shocking some parts of Linux actually work quite well thank you very much-and replaced them with their own jerry-rigged replacements.

Dorian’s thoughts: Why guys, why?  Just learn to use the tools, and I’m sure the standard Linux stuff works pretty darn well on a mobile device.  At least one real handset maker seems able to use the existing Linux stack, and run with it.  Sure the UI needed a replacement and some optimizations are required, but rip and replace with crappier renditions?  Not cool guys.  Google needs to learn to work with the FOSS community, and not around it.

Nokia N900s Dropping Out of Orbit

So the N900 already launched… but Nokia started pumping out, shipping out their amazing N900s and stocking retailers with these pieces of mobile computing paradise.  And unlike Google, Nokia knows how to build on top of existing Linux stacks and without stomping on existing FOSS communities.  Not like a giant robot ravaging a city… Google.

Dorian’s thoughts: Remember about us Canadians!  We’re that country above the US, and we’d like some N900s too, pretty please.

In Other News:

OK, Dorian must end his newcast here and scurry back to his other work.