A quick guide outlining how to create an icon for your App Inventor App.

1. Head over to “http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/”
   
2. Log-in if you haven’t already done so.
3. You may have to select my projects from the top left menu.
   
4. Now you should see a list of your projects. For this example select the “Hello Purr” app.
   
5. Look to the right hand of the screen and you will see a “Properties” panel.
   
6. Click inside the “Icon” box and you will be able to select from pre-loaded images or add a new image.
   

Good luck!

-Scott Krieder

We here at STG Labs received a Logitech Revue to review and we both took some time alone with the device to get 2 different unbiased reviews of the Revue. Google TV mixes all of the streaming services that you love (Netflix, Pandora, Napster) as well as online content like Youtube and mashes them with content from the web.

You can be watching the newest episode of “Family Guy” in the PIP (picture in picture) while reading the “Times Online”. There are a few applications that have already arrived on the platform notably Netflix, Pandora, and Napster with more promised in the future. With the advent of the Google Chrome Store I think we will see more and more apps show up in the future. Now onto the hands on.

Scott:

The first thing that I noticed was the touch pad. I enjoyed the ability to two finger scroll but then I tried to double tap with the pad and wasn’t able to. No big deal, there is a click bar right below. to my dismay the click bar did not work in some applications. Sometimes you had to use the “ok” button located on the keyboard rather than the click. This alone not a big deal but it would be nice to see overall likeness with navigation on the device.

Continuing on, the first thing I did was Navigate to to Hulu, this is the perfect stage for Hulu content, to my dismay, there was a message stating “Viewing from the Google TV is not available at this time” the message did hint that they were working towards an agreement for the Hulu Plus users but it was un-availble at the time of the review.

Then I checked out the Netflix app. I logged into my account no problem, but went to play a movie and it didn’t work. I tried a different movie didn’t load. Tried a different account, nothing…

*Note this was tested by all 3 users and we were unable to play Netflix movies with any of our accounts.

I’m not an active user of Twitter, but I did notice there is a Twitter application available.

I performed a couple of quick google searches and they seemed to work alright.

The keyboard made for a great way to interact with the TV. Logitech makes good products and they also stand by there products. Being such a new device there are some bugs that need worked out but they can easily be fixed with a firmware update.

Final thoughts: This device would be a great addition to any system if the cost was a little bit cheaper but at $300 I don’t feel that it is worth it at this time.

TJ:

Bringing together web and media makes for a very rich experience. I have found that the Google TV like the i-Pad is a great content “consumption” device.

User interface: The user interface is a little on the confusing side, There is a place for applications such as chrome and Netflix and then there is a “Channels” section that is links to websites such as Amazon on demand, it is hard to distinguish where you would find certain things. Youtube has a new “mode” on the Google TV, leanback mode which takes the movie and puts it into full screen like you were watching a movie from netflix. One thing that was a little bit annoying was the screensaver coming on in the middle of a movie that was purchased from Amazon on demand, again not a big deal just a minor inconvienence. The search functionality is great, it searches youtube and the web but unfortunately not Netflix or USB attached devices. I would like to be able to click search and find the media I am looking for whether it is a song from my library or a video from Netflix. I do have a HP Media Smart Server (Twonky) in the house and it serves up DLNA content over the network. The built in Logitech Media Player was able to find the content and display it without any issue. As of right now the following standards are supported:

Audio

• MP3 – MPEG-1 Layer 3
• MP4 – AAC
• M4A – AAC
• OGG – Vorbis (Only when a USB device is connected to Revue)

Video (Currently in Beta)

• MKV – H.264/AVC
• FLV – H.264/AVC, H.263
• MTS/MT2S/TS – H.264/AVC
• AVI – H.264/AVC, DivX MPEG4, XVid MPEG4

Images

• JPEG
• PNG
• GIF
• BMP

(Source)

Keyboard: I found that I did have to look down at the keyboard when ever I was going to click in fear of hitting the back button which is very close to the left click button on the mouse. I do like the two finger scrolling it feels very natural to scroll in this way. I did not have a problem with not being able to click on the touchpad, I just adapted and used the buttons. The keyboard is very lightweight and it is a good fit for the product. The extra keys are mapped out well and I do like the one click search button located near the bottom of the keyboard. Another great addition to the Google TV is the Harmony remote application for Android. This is a free application on the Android market and it works great with little to no lag controlling the TV as well as the Google TV.

Final thoughts: I would purchase this device. The way I look at it is it can only get better from here. I have already retired my Apple TV in favor of the Logitech Revue. The device is a little bit pricey but it is cheaper than building a HTPC (Home Theatre PC) and it has an operating system that is very quick and very responsive. I only hope that Google TV does not become the next Google Wave.

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 <head> tag in your html should look like this:

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

<link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”./apple-touch-icon.png”/>
<link rel=”apple-touch-icon-precomposed” href=”/apple-touch-icon.png”/>

*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 <head> tag is where you are going to enter the link code to tell the browsers where your images are located.

<link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”./apple-touch-icon.png”/>
<link rel=”apple-touch-icon-precomposed” href=”/apple-touch-icon.png”/>

*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”

TJ

I can’t wait anymore. I had to do it. I have finally updated my droid to the newest update. It was the easiest firmware update that I have had to do. Lets jump in.

First thing you need to do is download the firmware. (Download)

Rename the file to “update.zip” and copy it to the root of your SD card.

Now we need to get your droid into recovery mode.

1. Power down your droid.

2. Now when you power your Droid back on hold down the “X” key on your keyboard.

3. You will now see a triangle and an ! point

4. After you see the recovery screen hold down the “Volume +” key as well as the camera key

5. You will see a menu appear towards the top, use the D pad to navigate to the update option.

6. Sit back and let the droid update.

7. Enjoy