How to make an Android app? Install the Development Environment

I had the idea I want to make an app, a quiz app. I like playing on quiz apps on my phone as I feel it improve my memory and knowledge.

I wonder how you go about it? I thought I need to make sure that the idea I have isn't already available but not necessarily. I am just curious how to do it, so maybe I need to search for that and see if it is possible to teach myself, in incremental steps. I want to see if it is possible with some technical competence, but no previous experience to teach myself how to do it.

So Google "How to make an android app" and top of the list is https://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/index.html

I had to download Android Studio. Installing instructions are here:
https://developer.android.com/sdk/installing/index.html?pkg=studio

Terms I don't know:
IDE = Integrated Development Environment
SDK tools = Software Development Kit tools
Android APIs = Application Programming Interface "a set of functions and procedures that allow the creation of applications which access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service."

"open a terminal" = in Windows this means open Command Prompt - I have Windows 8 - I googled "how to open a terminal in Windows 8"
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows-8/a/command-prompt-windows-8.htm
But that is not what it meant? As the Windows terminal doesn't recognise the suggested syntax to test the version of JDK installed. Probably relates to Linux?

This bit didn't make any sense to me:
"Before you set up Android Studio, be sure you have installed JDK 6 or higher (the JRE alone is not sufficient)—JDK 7 is required when developing for Android 5.0 and higher. To check if you have JDK installed (and which version), open a terminal and type javac -version. If the JDK is not available or the version is lower than 6, go download JDK"

JDK = Java Development Kit "a program development environment for writing Java applets and applications".

When I came to install it said that could not detect JDK. Message box has a link to install it. It took ages where it appeared that nothing was happening before this message came up.

Downloaded http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html

There was a note on the Java download page that said "The April 2015 CPU release will be the last Oracle JDK 7 publicly available update." So what will happen after that? Don't get diverted...

Installed JDK7 then clicked back on Android Studio set up.

On my computer I have 2 Program Files folders - one has (x86). I downloaded the JDK 68 version, did I need the 86?

Example folder C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_21. My folder C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_75
I put it in manually into the Android Studio install and it didn't seem to work. Cancelled the install.
Ran the install exe again and it worked OK without needing to put in the path, so the install found the right place itself.

Took 2 hours to get to this point.

Time for change

Education isn't about earning potential, it's about freedom - freedom of thought, freedom of action.

Now is a time for the educated classes to take charge. Rather than simply stepping into the shoes of old 'masters' and doing things the same way, now is the time to use the collected power of free thought and inventiveness to come up with new ways of doing things.

Religions are on the decline because we do not have the need for controlling dogma and simplistic lessons by fear any more. Yet the values that are woven within all religious still hold true:

• Respect for others.
• Caring for others.
• Not doing harm to others.
• Not doing harm to self.
• Accepting things we cannot change.
• Striving for good over evil.
• Forming bonds of family and community and honouring these bonds.
• Understanding our insignificance in the big picture and yet seeing that the chain linking the past to the future is connected by single links that can hold or break.

Human beings have multi skills and I believe where we go wrong is too much specialisation and wedging ourselves into labelled boxes, the most significant being that of what we 'do' for a living. Instead in my world of greater balance, I think everyone should have 2 'works'. Half of time doing paid work which makes a contribution to society, the economy, etc, and the other half doing their creative vocation. The first half concept is easier to understand much the same as now with some tweaks, but the second half I need to expand on. I see it as each person has their 'work' as described by this.

It could be expanding one's mind, or developing ones skills. It could be gardening, making, creating. Things we think of as hobbies. Things we think of as Arts. Things we think of as craft, but also building, making cars, furniture, decorating, or research, science or anything.

Coincidences and energies

I've been sorting some boxes. I found a notebook with the title book reviews, in which I'd written four reviews from December 1998 and January 1999. Of the 4 books, I only have any memory of reading one of them. "The Celestine Prophecy - An Adventure" by James Redfield (1993) Warner Books www.celestinevision.com. The following is what I wrote in 1999.

Story a bit silly, but some interesting concepts. Like the idea of a quest for knowledge.

1. Everyone and everything has an energy field.
2. We can gain energy from our surroundings or other people, or lose it to them.
3. Many interactions between people are power struggles fighting for dominance over the other person's energy.
4. Relationships between men and women that are attracted to each other start out as both freely giving and then can develop into a battle of taking.
5. We are the product of 2 parents and can only evolve if we can go back and understand what was going on with our parents and what we are supposed to learn from it.
6. Things don't happen by chance. If we have a coincidental encounter with someone we should be aware of why that encounter happened. Particularly if you meet someone who reminds you of someone you already know or who seems familiar to you.

UK Departmental spending in 2012: Visualisation of Open Data

From https://openspending.org/ukgov-25k-spending/views/spending-by-department

Tattoos are a triumph of optimism over foresight

Imagine if we all had the same hair style when we're 30 or 40 or 50 as we had when we were 20.  Imagine that we all had the same bodies at those ages and wore the same clothes. OK a rare few do, but the nature of fashion is that it changes and it dates. And yet now there is a fashion of permanently marking your body.

It seems very unwise to me. As we grow older, our lives, our responsibilities, our choices, our interests and our tastes all change.  Why would anyone want to permanently limit themselves in this way with a body decoration? Would you want to wear the same jewellery/watch/make-up/nail polish day in day out? We wear different clothes for different occasions and accessorize to match.  Doesn't having a huge skin adornment limit your choices for self expression rather than represent it?

Aside from that, the people who tattoo themselves are doing the police a favour in many ways. It makes it very easy to identify you if you have committed a minor or major crime and/or if your body turns up after some misdemeanour.  All of these optimistic young people assume within their lifetime that they will never be stuck in a totalitarian state where they want to slip under the radar or not be picked out in a crowd. Or even in a more open state where they want to protest and make a political stand without standing out for special 'treatment'. There are only a few people still alive who have the tattoos that they didn't choose themselves, but surely that is a time and a lesson we should not forget:

If that isn't enough, then there's the risk of infection:

But of course if you change your mind you can always have laser treatment and a bit of scarring, or can you...? (see: http://regrettingink.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/how-it-all-started/)

 

So if you really want to express yourself on your skin, be more creative about it and change it frequently using temporary decal tattoos - paper for inkjet and laser printers available from decalpaper.com and craftycomputerpaper.co.uk

Planning laws and the way planners interpret them need to be reconsidered

I believe there should be planning control to protect the land from being over developed and turned into one mass of concrete.  This is to protect us all. Too large a proportion of hard surfaces that do not absorb water causes problems with climate and flooding.  So planning control is good.  Also to protect the country from becoming one homogenous mass of the same steel framed boxes and indistinct shells.

Meanwhile there are many people facing poverty, caught in traps unable to afford a home of their own, ending up in over crowded soulless spaces.  I believe that any dwelling created by the person who then lives in it from locally sourced materials, unique and individual, should not be judged on the same criteria as a developer coming in to make profit and leave.

If this story is correct, that as of the 1st August 2013 Pembrokeshire County Council's enforcement say the property must be demolished within 2 months because,

"benefits of the development did not outweigh the harm to the character and appearance of the countryside".  The planners have gone mad.  To destroy this beautiful property would be a travesty and the planners involved should be ashamed. It should be considered a temporary structure and be given a length of time that it can be there.  I would suggest 25 years.  That is time for the family who live there to grow up and leave to make homes of their own and then the elements that last that long can be reclaimed for another structure.

Microwave Raspberry Sponge in a Plastic Pan

I've never made a cake in the microwave before, but I foresee I will be making more. I made this from ingredients I had in to use them up and it turned out so well I am recording the recipe since I heavily adapted it from a number that I found.  These are the amounts I used:

Ingredients

2.6 oz butter (all that was left of a packet - out of date)
2.6 oz caster sugar (ie same as butter)
2.6 oz SR flour - wholemeal best before March 2013
1.5 oz ground almonds - use by last week - was aiming for 1.3 oz but slipped
0.5 tsp baking powder (just in case SR flour had no R left)
1 med egg
Bit of milk
6.2 oz raspberries (picked last night, washed and left in fridge) with teaspoon of sugar

Method

1 Put raspberries in plastic microwave pan and mashed down a bit with potato masher and sprinkled in sugar and stirred that in a bit.

2 Softened butter by cutting up and putting in warm water then draining off warm water. Added sugar. Beat with electric whisk.

3 Mixed together flour, almonds and baking powder. 

4 Beat egg in a cup. 

5 Added egg and flour mix into bowl with butter/sugar and mixed more with electric whisk.  Added a bit more milk to get to right consistency (soft dropping).

6 Spooned mix onto fruit in the pan.

7 Cooked in microwave on high for 5 mins (= 3+1+1 as wasn't really sure how long - that seemed to be ready, solid sponge come away from the sides a bit).  Put lid of pan on to start but then sponge rose and lifted it so took it off mid way through the cooking.

If I was doing it again.

I'd probably use a bit less fruit and not add any sugar to it.  Should work with other berries.
Would perhaps go for 2.5 oz of each thing that's at 2.6 oz, so slightly less sponge mix for that size pan (felt a bit scary when rising as might go over top of pan)
Maybe add cinamon to the dry ingredients or vanilla?
Maybe not need baking powder if SR flour within date, could of course use white instead of wholemeal.

Worth trying with jams and syrup but maybe syrup would explode?

Verdict

Taste 5 stars
Ease of make 5 stars

Cancer is a nasty piece of work

I've just stumbled upon a news item, which was dated 3 April, that Iain Banks had announced he had terminal cancer, and was unlikely to live for more than a year.  I thought reading it that they'll have told him he may have up to a year, but really it will be 2-3 months. So I searched "Iain Banks health news" and sure enough he died on Sunday 9 June. 59 is too young to die.

I was watching an episode of Frankie the other night and a patient who knew she had terminal cancer and thought she had a couple of years and was planning to live them to the full was informed that it was worse than she thought and she only had a few months. So that upset her, but she was stoic about it and thought she'd better get on with living to the max.

People seem to imagine, and film/TV perpetuate this myth, that when you're told you have a couple of months to live then you're the same degree of well and then suddenly you drop dead.  Er, news flash: you generally discover you have a disease like this after having lots of ill health and misdiagnosis and pain and misery. You die, because between the point of getting the diagnosis and the end, you just get more and more ill/frail/sick until your body packs in its basic functioning all together.

My message to myself and anyone reading is DO NOT put off living your life to the max and doing what you want to do until you are told you are on a count down. We're all on the bloody count down.  You need to be doing it now as later you won't have the energy.

Book 'Outside Looking In' Issuu Experiment

Open publication - Free publishing - More bernard young

How to layout poetry in Wordpress the way you want

This is the div trick I used to left indent poetry and group verses (better than tables for accessibility).  An annoying thing with both Blogger and Wordpress is that they like to correct things for you, thinking they know best what you wanted.  If you know HTML then better to go into the HTML or TEXT option and edit there.  But beware, don't flick between the two or all of your changes will be undone with auto correcting.

The code in the image box below, gives the formatted text that follows it. If you want to see the code more clearly, click on the image to enlarge it. I know this is not accessible for people with screen readers but only way I could get the code to show and not be acted upon and really this is a note for myself but sharing in case useful to anyone else.

After I’d biked around the loch ten times
and run up and down a couple of mountains
I sat down here to catch my breath.
I whipped out my camera
to capture this wondrous moment.
This is how the world looked tonight
in this glorious natural light.
I can’t tell you how disappointed I was, though,
that the view didn’t transform itself
into a more serious and highly processed black and white.

And the full thing with image can be seen here:
http://bernardgrownup.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/a-photograph/

SEO Resources

Just doing a bit of research on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), so thought I would list some useful links here.

My favourite bits from 55 Quick SEO Tips: 

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:
(1) Log out of Google
(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

My favourite bits from 21 Essential SEO Tips and Techniques: 

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

A bit at a time

Yesterday I went to talk to Phil and Bill at a community arts project in my local area, Gortonia, about possibly volunteering.  Phil is the artist and creative force behind the project and Bill is on the management committee and both are also involved in the Community Interest Company (CIC) that they have set up to make some money to fund the project.

There are lots of things I could do to work with and help this project. And it ticks lots of my boxes. Now I find the issue is how to focus on the best thing to do to help and be most effective.

What I am interested in is marketing and promotion online. I read a great blog post the other day, which I picked up from twitter: "Living Self-Employed Online: The Manual They Forgot to Give You." Naturally I retweeted and was pleased so see a recently picked up follower favourited my tweet.

I particularly like the "Just Get Started" idea which really applies to anything daunting and that you put off.  I made it the subject of my photo today... my approach to gardening.

The "View anything Public as Marketing" section is also making me think a lot.  This is the new online world, marketing a bit at a time in lots of places.  But it also made me think about how one manages one's online presence and identity, since this can have a negative as well as positive impact.  It is the well discussed problem of how much you reveal and what that says about you.  Does it give the world an impression that you don't want to give?

As I sent links to Phil and Bill of my myriad of online projects and activity spaces, I did have a little twinge of doubt.  Do I really want them to see all this stuff about me?  But whilst I believe that we do show different aspects of ourselves to different people, and there are things to keep in private, I think if I am putting it out there online and people think badly of me, fuck 'em! I'm too long in the tooth now to pretend to be something I'm not.

Daily activity

I was looking at other things and found these blogs that I thought would be useful and have made me think about daily routines and their value. I already do a daily photo and it includes a write up generally, at http://www.blipfoto.com/

This is the second thing I looked at and was directed to it from the first, but it is what made me think about this. It's really a reason for writing everyday in a blog, even if you think you have 'nothing to say', because it improves your writing skills and also your observational skills of having opinions about things. No-one gets talkers block: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/09/talkers-block.html

This one gives daily suggestions of topics to write about if you cannot think of something yourself: http://dailypost.wordpress.com/ and can be followed on twitter by following the hashtag #POSTADAY2011.

It is a similar idea to another site that gives out daily assignments for photo a day projects http://dailyshoot.com/

I believe a daily routine of a particular discipline is the best way to actually do something. If you just say that you will do it as and when, then it will always be put off until tomorrow, case in point this blog!

My favourite social media - blipfoto

And I have a little spot in this video ;-)

Watch live streaming video from smw_glasgow2 at livestream.com

Some of my favourite free iPad apps

Educational/reference

3D brain http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/3d-brain/id331399332?mt=8

Periodic table of the elements http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/periodic-table-elements/id364894399?mt=8

Molecules http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/molecules/id284943090?mt=8

Exoplanet http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/exoplanet/id327702034?mt=8


Drawing/making pictures

Drawing box http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drawing-box-free/id417861734?mt=8

Granimator http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wallpaper-creator-granimator/id363510990?mt=8


General Must Haves

Google Earth http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-earth/id293622097?mt=8


Others worth a look at

Memeo Connect http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/memeo-connect-reader/id363616159?mt=8

Dragon Dictation http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragon-dictation/id341446764?mt=8

You gotta smile

Experiment

If you would like to participate in my experiment add your name to this list: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AY6E5HHr5M_5ZGdkYmZqejZfOGRja25uOGhz&hl=en_GB

Why would I want to tell people what I had for breakfast?

I am thinking of running a workshop for non-academic colleagues on how to blog and Twitter and why it might be something that would be useful for their professional work (to explain that it is not just about telling people what you had for breakfast… but you can if you like…). These are my initial notes.

‘Personal’ professional
http://olnetpm.blogspot.com/ - This is my ‘personal’ blog as project manager for OLnet – I set this up using ‘Blogger’ because it is easy to use and to make something look a bit different and individual and I have used it for other blogs. It is made/hosted by Blogger (https://www.blogger.com/start ), which is a free Google service and you need a Google Account to access it (but not necessarily a gmail email address).

If you don’t already have a Google account, it is worth setting one up for all the other services that Google offers (eg Google Analytics, Reader, docs) and I would recommend setting it up with your OU email address (as the ‘current email’ ‘username’: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount)

I am using this blog to record things that relate to my own experiences and things that I find out that are relevant to OLnet that I might want to look back on and also might want to tell other people about. I don’t imagine that anyone is necessarily going to read it. It is just a way of recording some content in an easy way to sign-post to, so I am sort of using it as an easy content management website. (I can also easily monitor who is looking at it by adding some code and monitoring it with Google Analytics). (There are lot of variations of 'easy' in this paragraph which is because for me it is).

‘Organisation/Team’ professional blog
http://ouarts-funding.blogspot.com/ - I previously set up this blog in my old job, which all team members had ‘author rights' on so could add posts. This again was about recording useful things that could be sign-posted to or looked back on. It was also a way of sharing information between team members and acted as an archive of information about funding sources and successes.
http://dartmoor-nationaltrust.blogspot.com/ - this is a blog a friend of mine set up for their work to promote activities and events. All their team can add stories to it. The stories are archived by category labels (tags) and month.

Linking to Twitter
Most people have a vague idea that Twitter messages are short – limited to 140 characters. Whilst messages are ‘out there’ possibly forever and searchable for, for me it is primarily a temporary, of the ‘now this moment’ kind of thing. I see it like a newspaper seller shouting out the headlines for today’s paper or the headlines on the news. Or other analogy might be the stock market ticker tape string of things coming through. In simple terms, I use it to find things out and to promote ideas/events/information that I want others who share my interests to know about.

In the first instance you need a Twitter account, which you set up at http://twitter.com/. After that there are many applications that you can use to watch the other Twitter accounts that you choose to follow and to send out messages. All of the things I use are free.
I use Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/) on my macbook
Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com/) for sending out messages to a schedule (eg linked to event dates)
I used to use Tweetlater for this which is now called SocialOomph (http://www.socialoomph.com/)
I also use a Tweetdeck App (http://www.tweetdeck.com/iphone/) on my iPod Touch and have tried out a few other Twitter iPhone apps.
Liam Green-Hughes (http://www.greenhughes.com/) uses JournoTwit (http://journotwit.com/).

I would tend to put a story on my blog and then send out several messages on Twitter with a link to that story. The Twitter messages need to give a strong hint about the content of the blog post. If the story is about an event then the Twitter message might have the title and date and the blog story would have more information like venue, cost, programme, target audience.

I might also build up a following by sending out messages relating to subjects that are of interest to the audience I am trying to attract - usually with useful/interesting links.

‘Personal’ academic
There are many academics now blogging (in the arena of digital scholarship) with a great blurring of boundaries between the professional scholar and the personal. A few examples:
Martin Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/
Doug Clow: http://dougclow.wordpress.com/

OU hosted blogs
The blogs that I have referred to above are all hosted externally to the Open University and are open to the whole world to view (although there are ways you can set up to just use to communicate in a closed group of invited members).

The OU hosts blogs and there is a link at the top of the intranet page to see the list of currently hosted blogs that takes you here: http://intranet.open.ac.uk/oulife-home/blogs.aspx (only visible if you have access to the intranet). The system uses a platform called WordPress, they can be set up for internal or public audience and you have to apply to have an account http://www.open.ac.uk/forms/blog-request/ I did have an account but I found at the time that the set up was not as flexible or easy to use as the Blogger account that I was already familiar with.

Drupal and olnet.org Blog
Olnet.org is a website built using Drupal (which is an Open Source content management system) and one or the modules we have installed allows people who are ‘registered’ to add ‘content’ to the site in the form of blog posts.

Developing tools to record and annotate research presentations and workshops

CREW (Collaborative Research Events on the Web) aims to improve access to research event content by capturing and publishing the scholarly communication that occurs at events like conferences and workshops. The project is developing tools to enable presentations and similar sessions to be recorded and annotated and enable powerful searches across distributed conference and related research data. Searches will yield results within written documents such as abstracts and papers and also in rich audio-visual content, such as clips from presentations, questions asked at a talk or Twitter messages during presentations.

The project is a collaboration between the Universities of Manchester, Bristol and Wales, Bangor and is funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) through the second phase of the Virtual Research Environments (VRE) programme. The project builds upon the success of Iugo and Memetic by developing and integrating these technologies and embedding them in a variety of authentic research settings, including Intute, a national JISC service to provide access to web resources for research to UK universities, the Institute of Health Sciences, which promotes health sciences research in Manchester and scientific visualization research groups.

Project website: http://www.crew-vre.net/
Intro video (5mins - good overview): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceFaFA4WUJc

Some write-ups and reflections on the OpenEd09 conference

"How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education" by Anya Kamenetz http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html

"Open Ed 09 – My debutants ball" by Dave Cormier http://davecormier.com/edblog/2009/08/15/open-ed-09-–-my-debutants-ball/

"OpenEd 2009 Recap" by Cole Camplese http://www.colecamplese.com/2009/08/opened-2009-recap/

"On the open education experience" by D'Arcy Norman http://www.darcynorman.net/2009/08/20/on-the-open-education-experience/

Not quite sure what to make of Alan Lavine's "Amazing Stories of Openness" - lots of links to other blogs http://cogdogblog.com/stuff/opened09/

"Open Education - crossing the chasm?" by Chris Clarke of Talis http://blogs.talis.com/education/2009/08/14/open-ed-crossing-chasm/

"Reflections on OpenEd09" by Lisa Harris Marketing http://www.lisaharrismarketing.com/events/reflections-on-opened09/

"Thoughts from Open Education 2009" by Mary Burgess http://rruoer.wordpress.com/2009/08/16/thoughts-from-open-ed-2009/

"Reflections on OpenEd09" by Kyle Mathews http://kyle.mathews2000.com/blog/2009/08/25/reflections-opened09

Not a write up but a great video (16 mins) from ccLearn http://blip.tv/file/2512680 (even though I'm not on it)

(I'll add to this as I find them)