I earned a BrainPOP badge, yay thanks for that

I’m Impressed by Egil, Joes and Michael’s ability to sit in complete science with the odd groan for prolonged periods of time.

It sucked that Aaron Iba the original developer of Etherpad couldn’t make it talk to us, he was ill, I hope he gets better and gets a chance to have a chat with us soon!

I’m not a proper programmer, you might think I am because I can fix problems by programming.  But programmers are awesome.  Scala has changed and Etherpad can’t compile on the latest version so I went into #scala on freenode, explained my problem and some guy fixed it and committed to Github.

One of the work vehicles got broken into.  We will not be claiming on the car insurance and probably wont report it to the police.  Tools were left in the van.  It’s just one of those things that comes with the territory of living in Bradford.

Firebug is awesome.

I now have a load of kudos on Reddit, how the hell did that happen whilst I was away from my computer?

As a general rule of thumb, caretakers should avoid touching ICT in schools, in hindsight I’m sure they create more problems than they solve.

Primary Blogger has had some updates (I can only assume by Adam) and it looks much nicer.

We had a bunch of hackers from Olin university join us for the hackathon and while I appreciate their efforts I was slightly disappointed with their output.

Everyone from the Etherpad foundation shares the same views about how the foundation and software should be maintained and supported.

The Amazon Kindle doesn’t really fit into my busy life schedule.  Most tech rarely does.  I didn’t get time for books before the kindle so who was I kidding thinking I would when I bought it?  It is a great device though, I wish I had more time to play with it.

Here is a picture of Etherpad running on it.

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Ever owned an android phone that has been late to receive an Android update crippling some functionality? It is pretty frustrating. Your TV may have same issue. In the future when a new great game is released and the only way you will be able to play it is by getting an entire new TV. Google apologize because an update for your TV is not available due to Android hardware restrictions. Sony point at Google. Sony win because you buy another TV.

Sony’s new TV potential poses this exact problem, it runs Google Android and it is speculated that it has the same processor as the Motorola Droid. I’m a big fan of Smart TV as a whole, I just hope that Google / Sony were smart enough to allow modular upgrades of the Android device.

It would be awesome if the big TV players could develop an open standard so other operating systems, not just Android could leverage the warm glowing screen in our living rooms. It will also be interesting to see if any camera functionality is build in for video conferencing and for Kinect like control.

Sony you are in charge here, make it open and the community will do the rest. Note: Please no comments about Android being O/S. I know it is, but that doesn’t mean there is choice if the TV platform is closed.

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I haven’t been very vocal lately, because I have been busy…

Satpin

I have been working on Ian Addisons new project now called Satpin (something to do with phonics according to Miss Pitkethly).  My Javascript skills have improved massively doing this project which I have enjoyed thoroughly.  Javascript is awesome.  I need a decent tutor though, I am cobbling my way through stuff using “John” logic which isn’t good enough.  Once the project is complete/stable I will be releasing it open source (it will require a LAMP stack).  I am spending masses of attention to detail on this project, more than I have ever done.  I’m focusing 99% of my efforts on UI.  I decided to make it writeable by anyone which will upset some people but oh well..

Wind power

I have been finishing the electrics on my wind turbine, which is now up and running (hopefully okay).  It’s been a while since I did any component level work and Sparky helped me which was good.

Apache load balancing

We spent a few hours working on how to improve load balancing on our main apache cluster.  We are considering casandra if we grow any quicker than our current projections.

Shib constipation

Mid week I struggled and I’m still struggling massively with a Shib SP deployment.  I’m running the same config as another deployment but I am getting errors.  Think this is a job for team john and tom to get sorted properly.  We are doing it so we can work with the Swedish equivalent of JISC for their Etherpad deployment.

Classdroid

We got classdroid working properly, well, sort of.  Turns out Android isn’t as cool as I first thought.  Well, android is..  Turns out motorola/lg etc. are idiots and install custom software including custom camera intents that breaks a lot of the phones functionality.  Thankfully google will fix this with any v2+ updates.  The LG Optimus is due V2.1 this month so I am willing to wait a few weeks instead of trying to squash a documented/fixed bug.

PHP

I helped Challenge CLC with a touch of PHP this week, super easy stuff.  It is always good to collaborate with people, especially when I am so comfortable helping out in PHP.

Etherpad

I did a few more edu installs of Etherpad, nothing exciting here.  Wrote a new way to integrate with the scribblar API.  Stefan has the code if anyone wants it.   Important thing to note, why the Hell are so many Americans and now Africans getting me in to do Etherpad deployments yet there are so few EU deployments going on?  Is their something about Europeans and our lack of encouraging collaboration in the work/edu place?

Finally.  Happy Pirates day!  Now gimme your loot.

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It is complex so I wanted to write a specific blog post.

Firstly, I don’t like the iPhone. I don’t like how its marketed, how it’s sold, how it’s app store works, how the community support is supposed to work, how the licensing model works and what impact it has on the tech industry as a whole. “We need substance, not glitter” is probably the best way to put it.

Now you know how much I dislike the iPhone it will be of no surprise that I love Android, but this isn’t about love/like/dislike. It’s about economics. I would need to charge $5 per device or so and sell 400 copies of Classdroid on the Appstore and still wouldn’t break even.

Classdroid must remain free and open source to encourage others to use it, if you don’t know about crowd sourcing and how that develops applications then here is a quick example of why open source is good…

Before Classdroid got to market someone had made language support for traditional/simplified Chinese. That would of taken me hours to do, but it’s now done just by some guy I don’t even know. Classdroid includes parts of the WordPress open source App so we were able to make it, test it and publish it quickly without writing too much code.

Stop ranting and tell us when it’s coming to the iphone!

It’s coming to the iphone as soon as:

a) Apple allow iphone apps to be developed on something other than Apple devices.
b) Apple reduce/drop the ridiculous 100$ annual SDK fee.

OR

c) Someone who does done apple/ios development reads our source code and makes an apple version then publishes it under their name (that is fine with me). The code must remain open source, that is the only prerequisite.

So that’s it, Basically I would need about $1100 just to start coding.. It’s not worth it for a handset that is losing market share month after month.

If you really still want Classdroid for your iPhone then ask about, see if someone you know, knows an iPhone developer who will be happy to help out. If so then get in touch or point them at the source code.

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Here is the Classdroid apk for public beta. We only have support for primaryblogger and xparena(not a live service) available right now. We are waiting on Moodle V2 to bring moodle support in.

1. Get the Classdroid.apk
2. Read this guide for how to install an .apk
3. Make sure you have a Primaryblogger account & Blog
4. Have fun

Note:  We still have a lot of GUI tweeking to do but most of the functionality now exists. We will be releasing the source code once beta testing is complete.

Thanks to this guy for the great custom artwork/logo/icon!

Go here for info on classdroid

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So if you are out on a school trip and have GPS or location enabled on your device then you upload an image to an e-portfolio or blog anyone will be able to see the latitude and longitude of where you took the picture.

I discovered this when working on Classdroid and Kudos to Hak5 for the useful link.  Safe to say all images uploaded from Classdroid will set the location as: “The moon”.

This is especially a concern if you out doing school trips and updating your blog on the fly.

How to turn off location tagging. On Android, Click Settings then Locations then un-tick My Location.

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Before we start make sure you have the android device driver installed, if not you can download it here.

1.  Plug the phone in to your PC with a USB Cable.  When prompted DO NOT mount USB.

2.  On the phone goto Settings –> Applications then click the Unknown sources tick box.

3.  On your PC Download the Android SDK

4.  Extract the Android SDK to c:\androidsdk

5.  Copy the .apk file you were given to c:\androidsdk\tools

6.  Click Start –> Run then type in:

c:\androidsdk\tools\adb install -r c:\androidsdk\tools\whatever.apk

Make sure you replace whatever.apk with the name of the file you copied.

7. Your application should now be installed.  Visit the application menu on the Android device and look for your icon.

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Eclipse: Control Alt Down duplicates line
Emulator: Rotate screen – Control F11

As I moved closer to Droidville the air began to fill with hope, thousands of hopeful children and teachers poored into the streets, so I quickly hid and jumped into Bar Youtube (Part of the Starbucks chain) and watched another video to further my understanding of the power of Android, another good one this time by Ye old O’Reilly

Building my team to fight the forces of evil

I got in touch with a developer through rent-a-coder called Kumar Bibek who has 3 years experience fighting the forces of evil (developing Android apps). We had a conversation that went something line:  ”I can make the bow, can ye make the arrow?”  We agree’d on 100$ for the array (final bits of the work that were out of my skill set).

Overview of the bits I’m doing:
Making Classdroid look fit for a princess (Layout design/User interfaces)
Making Classdroid easy to use  (Application flow)
Making Classdroid link together (Intent assignments)
Designing how Classdroid will save our princesses minions (Database design)

Overview of the bits he’s doing:
Not shooting the messenger (Code to read/write preferences/settings to/from SQLite)
Carrier Pigeon nurturing (Control method for post to WordPress)
Controlling the Eye of  Gondor (Camera SDK modifications)

In the Sage’s library I found a piece of parchment with some notes scribbled on it:
Resource = text,pictures, sound objects, layout….
Intent = change the page
View = new page layout/display
\n = newline when using text elements

Very cryptic clues, maybe I will need them to enter the great hall of Droidville?

It’s been a long day…..

As the day drew to a close and the Sun nestled the hills of Azrowilsden I discovered WordPress have an android application that does 80% of what I want to do from a control point of view so I’m going to hack into that to save me needing to write the function that posts the RPC over XML to WordPress.  This is why the world should embrace more open source, it empowers us all instead of dumbing us down like iLem users who are too scared to google how to create an android application (or don’t see it being a valuable use of their time).

As the iLem users fall off their platform I am gently warmed inside by the knowledge that we are creating a better, more open world without any corporate borders.  One application at a time.

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Today I started on my journey towards Droidville, past the gargoyles of SDKs and into the realm of eclipse. I began my journey equiping myself with the finest weapons possible in the form of eclipse and android sdk including all the power ups and runes. I stopped for lunch at bar youtube where I indulged in an excellent documentary and began my developing whilst following the gentle, slightly distant voice of the presenter. “Whisper control shift oh! to the sage and ye be blessed with organized imports” I heard him mutter under his breath..

Hours went by and the youtube video was stopped, rewound and replayed various times, as the sun set I had my Hello world working and some UIs designed, unfortunatly my Hello World app is called com.golf.. The icon is set. If this is groundhog day let it end…

Flute playing and shots of rolling hills come into screen..

Will tomorrow bring safer travels for our hero?

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Basically turn-by-turn is that lovely lady who tells you to “turn left in 20 meters”.  We all knew it was coming to the UK but companies such as Jarmin & Tomtom have been trying to stop it.  That is because they have made absolute packets of money by selling their app to iPhone fanbois and girls alike.

This may be the final blow android needed to really knock the Apple iPhone OS off it’s #1 mantel.  How does this affect education you may be asking?  Simple, a consumer based demand of Android handsets is inevitable now that your phone now replaces your usual Sat Nav product, and lets face it.  Google will do some crazy cool stuff with turn-by-turn based navigation, already boasting an incredibly smart caching system that caches your trip so if you lose Internet connectivity you don’t lose your map or location.

As android becomes more popular and more schools grow sto adopt the platform it means less iPhone applications will be developed and more Android developers will pop up.  Is this a good thing?  Surely iPhone apps are better than Android apps?  Yes it is a good thing.  Android promotes open source and a large majority of the applications available in the market place are completely free.

So today’s  announcement might not have a direct impact on Android in Education but the knock on effect should be huge and the future certainly looks bright the little green operating system and it’s place in the UK market.

As a side note its worth mentioning that most of the popular netbooks/tablets will soon run Android (including devices such as the Asus EEE)

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