Small Town Geeks » Development

Getting Started with the Android Application Inventor

Skrieder — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:07:41 +0000

Getting started with the app inventor is pretty straight forward. But if you lose your way follow the steps below to get started.

Navigate to http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/
Click “Get Started ”
Follow the directions for ensuring that Java is configured correctly on your system
Follow the directions for the app inventor setup software on your system.
Set-up either your phone or the emulator.
1. Android Phone: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/learn/setup/phone.html
Build the HelloPurr application.
1. http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/learn/setup/hellopurr/hellopurrphonepart1.html
Have Fun!

If you have any questions feel free to email me at Scott {at} Smalltowngeeks {dot} net!

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Create a mobile Icon for your website or blog

TJ — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 00:22:00 +0000

When you try to save a bookmark on mobile devices it takes a screen capture of the website and adds it to your screen. Today we are going to teach you how to force the device to find your icon and use it as the bookmark icon. This will make your site look more professional and give your site a cleaner look. Lets take a look.

You can see here, the difference between the two ways to display a bookmark on IOS devices:

As you can see the icon on the right looks cleaner and you can actually tell what the icon is suppose to be. Lets look at how to do this step by step.

First create a 57 x 57 px image (png) in photoshop. To make it easier, name it apple-touch-icon.png.

After you are done upload it to your site (ftp or file manager)

*Note the location of where you uploaded the icon to

If you have a static site, go to step A. If you have a WordPress Blog go to step A1

A: Find the tag in your html should look like this:

After the tag is where you are going to enter the link code to tell the browsers where your images are located.

*note ./apple-touch-icon.png is the location and name of your image.

Now when the browsers are looking to your website to create the image, this will override the screenshot that it normally grabs.

A1:

For WordPress we are going to do similar to the above but the file that we are going to modify is the header.php. To access your header.php via the control panel navigate to the apearance tab and select editor.

Find header.php:

After the tag is where you are going to enter the link code to tell the browsers where your images are located.

*note ./apple-touch-icon.png is the location and name of your image.

I have noticed that this works for Android devices as well as Apple IOS devices. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Until Next Time
“Carpe Noctum”

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Github Source Control Management

gilsal — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 03:10:16 +0000

Github Social Coding

(Source Control Management)

Github can be summarized as the software developers Dropbox. Added bonuses that only groups of software developers can appreciate differentiate it from the rest. Simply, Github provides multiple developers the ability to work on the same project without causing an interference with another developer. This means that any developer can continue to code as if it were their own program and essentially have their own version of the same project. Ultimately all collaborators will share and compile code to complete the project. To learn more of the intricate details of Github, the developers have a well written documentation of functions at http://help.github.com/

Personally I am a fairly regular user for work and therefore I am not an expert but I shall divulge common functions I uses on a regular basis.

I am a Mac user and therefore this will initially work only for fellow Apple users. I intend this article to be followed by a Windows solution. Globally for all platforms, Github uses a terminal interface I would casually describe as Linux-esque. Most commands will be performed through the terminal interface.

Registration

The registration is quite simple. It is when initiating the terminal interface for different platforms does it become tricky (ie. Windows). New users need to register through the web interface of Github. It is easily described as common as signing up for a new email account on gmail. Once the accounts username, password, and email address has been registered the new user will need to set up the account credentials on their terminal. You’ll first need to install the file on your machine which can be easily accomplished in various ways.

Mac users can install through pre-compiled installers, Homebrew, MacPorts, and manual configuration all of which can be researched at http://help.github.com/mac-git-installation/
Linux users can install through Synaptic Package Manager installing git-core, git-gui, and git-doc or use the command $ sudo apt-get install git-core git-gui git-doc. Information on these installs can be found at http://help.github.com/linux-git-installation/ Note that example uses Ubuntu Linux though I am fairly certain that Fedora, Red Hat, and all other distributions have their respective installation process.
Windows users can use msysgit as their installer for git. It is straight forward but is advised by both the help github site as well as my self that if prompted for the option of using PuTTY against openSSH that users always choose openSSH. Github only supports openSSH as their security socket/protocol.

Terminal Account Setup

The next step into Github is establishing your account in the terminal. This step is fairly simple. The user will need the same credentials as the registration process. The task for this setup is the global configuration of git on the users local machine as well as generating ones ssh keys for authentication. The first task that should be completed is retrieving ones ssh keys. Since all platforms, at this point, are using similar instances of terminal client the command for all machines will be as follows.

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa -C “email@address.com”

Once the key is generated a file named id_rsa.pub should be in the directory the keygen command was called. Open that file in a text editor and copy that contents as is and paste into SSH Public keys of the web interface of Github.

Next is to configure the global user account. The following commands will setup the user account on the users terminal client.

Once this procedure has been completed, the user will have a secure means of sending new revision to and from their web account.

Creating a repository

You’ll achieve this feature by going through the web interface.

You’ll want to create a new repository. The next screen will prompt you for a few details. Project name, Description, and Homepage URL if you decide to include.

Once the repository is created you can then sync a project from your local machine. The next set of steps is written on the next screen after the repository is created.

In the terminal while inside of the directory you’ll want to execute the following commands.

Git init will initialize the repository on your local machine.

Touch Readme is actually trivial and is often skipped by other developers. It is used to force the directory to experience an addition or modification.

Git commit is another common command uses will use. This function will essentially add your changes to your local repository and can be pushed online.

The command git remote add origin git@github.com:gilsal/SmallTownGeeks.git is the command the user will use to bridge their local repository to their online one. This command is only need once during the initialization process.

Git push origin master is how to merge changes between the local repo and the online.

Once the repository has been initialized both online and on the local machine the the most common commands one will use is the “git commit” and “git push.” Other common commands will be “git reset –hard”, “git checkout”, and “git pull”. “Git reset –hard” and “git checkout” both reset changes that ones made on the local machine. “Git reset –hard” reset working branches where as “git checkout” resets a single file. “Git pull” allows a user to copy another users repository on their local machine. This is useful for when collaborating with other developers on projects.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment and we can give you a hand!

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Pro’s and Con’s of the new “App Store”

TJ — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:19:34 +0000

Today Apple announced the new “app” store for OSX. The app store is the same as what we currently see on the IOS devices, a one stop shop for applications.

What does this mean for developers? Lets take a look at the pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s:

Easier to monitor application downloads

Easy avenue to push out updates

Easily manage product keys and keep your work protected

Free advertisement

Reach more users

Con’s:

Apple approval process

Apple cutting in to profits (ie IOS store 30/70 split)

Not as much control over what you can publish

Lots of paperwork to get your profits

There are a lot of questions still un-answered in regards to the Apple App store, they plan on opening within 90 days so we will see if this move helps or hurts us. This is still an opt in platform so not “All” applications will have to go through the store but it may help the new developers get noticed and help you keep track of your intellectual property.

Until next time:

CARPE DIUM

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Sending spam e-mail using a simple PHP method.

Skrieder — Thu, 20 May 2010 06:12:25 +0000

A quick post on how to send spam e-mail using a PHP method. Also, don’t use this form as a normal contact form as it has no security built in.

NOTE: First in some cases the client will receive an e-mail that looks spoofed. In this case you can make an e-mail look like it has been sent from someone other than you. Second, in some cases the client will receive an e-mail from your server. In either case DO NOT USE THIS MALICIOUSLY because….it’s very easy to be caught. If someone were to examine the details of the e-mail in either case it would show your server and you would be traceable.



Note:  All of this code should be placed on a single page.  If you look below you will see that the form will post to itself, after the post if the email field is set then it will send the email.  If not then it will display the form.
—>

if (isset($_REQUEST['email']))

//if “email” is filled out, send email

{

//send email

$to = “email to send to”;

$from = “email you want the email to appear to be sent from”;

$name = $_REQUEST['name'] ;

$email = $_REQUEST['email'] ;

$subject = $_REQUEST['subject'] ;

$message = $_REQUEST['message'] ;

$headers = “From: $from”;

$body = “$message $name”;

mail($to,$subject,$body,$headers);

echo “Thank you $name for using the spam form.”;

}

else

//if “email” is not filled out, display the form

{

echo “


Name: 




Email: 




Subject: 




Message:




 






”;

}

?>

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Screen Shots on Your Blackberry

TJ — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:11:00 +0000

As a blogger and avid Blackberry user, I have found a need to do screenshots for new product reviews as well as demonstration for How to’s.

The old way of screen capturing involved connecting your BlackBerry to your PC and using a program like JL_Cmder and take a Screenshot.

I will tell you, this was a pain. Since then I have found a few apps that do a much better job at creating screenshots to share with others. The app that works the best, is a free program called “Capture It” from “The Tech Mogul”.

Description from the website:
A simple screen capture utility for Blackberry devices with 4.3 or higher. You simple assign the the application to a Blackberry convenience key, and press the key on the screen of your choice. The device capture will be saved to the first available storage medium (Storage Card or Device Memory)

This has made Screenshotting much easier to do. I definitely recommend using this app if you find yourself needing to showcase an app or a theme on your blackberry.

Developers Website:

http://www.thetechmogul.com/

Over the air Download:

http://www.thetechmogul.com/CaptureIt/CaptureIt.jad

Good Luck

T.J.

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Microsoft DreamSpark

TJ — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:26:00 +0000

It was announced today that Microsoft is giving students a package of developer tools that is rival to none. The first thing you do is go over to Channel 8 and sign in using your live ID. After giving your ID you are asked to validate your school, which is very similar to the regular MSDN that you may be accustomed to. If your school is on there… Enjoy the free software. If you are still reading this then your schools name was not on the list. Its ok there is hope for you yet. If you scroll down you will see a message that states,
“If you have selected your Country, but your University is not listed in the above ListBox, here are some options to get a new Student ID.”
Just follow the steps to validate that you are a student. After you do, feel free to enjoy the free software that Microsoft has bestowed upon you.

Things available for download:
SQL Server 2005
XNA Game Studio 2.0
Visual Studio 2005 professional Edition
Visual C# 2005
Visual Basic 2005
Visual Studio 2008
Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Expression Studio
Xna Creators Club Online
Visual C++ 2005
SQL Server 2005 Express
Visual J# 2005
And Virtual PC 2007

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