Category: android

Child Car Seat Tester Android App

Posted on by John McLear

I came to the conclusion that an App solution for my Child Car Seat problem would be the path of least resistance with the most immediate impact. This app is free, super simple to use and supports different age ranges.

I only spent an hour or so in total developing the app so please forgive me when you encounter bugs. When you do encounter bugs feel free to report & fix them yourself as I uploaded all of the source code and released the project under the Apache 2 license (open source).

Grab the Child Car Seat Angle Tester App on the Play store


Child Seat Angle Tester Download

44 Tech sites to contact when launching your product

Posted on by John McLear

This is my contact list for an NFC piece of tech I’m working on.  I thought it might be useful for other tech startups launching new products especially for those in the mobile / android / NFC space.

When you submit a news tip to these websites you might not receive a response and/or you may be waiting up to 4 weeks before they get around to writing publishing.  Don’t worry if this is the case, they are very busy and sometimes your products just doesn’t fit in with what their audience might be interested in.

You should use the Chicago manual of style when drafting any newsworthy articles.  The likelihood of your tip being picked up on depends on the quality of your press pack and it’s relevance according to the editors audience.  I would suggest spending at least a week working on your press pack and if possible get it proof read by an expert.  Creating a press pack is a skill, this contact list is only 1% of the problem solved.

When contacting for a review you wont need to be so formal however you may want to provide them with a press release style statement so they can quote you.

Each website will have a different audience so you should tweak how you contact them to emphasize how your new product will affect their audience.

  1. xda-developers  – http://www.xda-developers.com/suggest-content/
  2. YCombinator – http://news.ycombinator.com/submit
  3. Reddit – http://reddit.com
  4. slashdot – http://slashdot.org/
  5. Wired – http://www.wired.com/about/feedback/
  6. engadget – http://www.engadget.com/about/tips/
  7. Gizmodo – tipbox@gizmodo.com
  8. theregister.co.uk – news@theregister.co.uk
  9. gadgetsin – https://twitter.com/gadgetsin
  10. The huffington post – scoop@huffingtonpost.com
  11. Mashable – http://mashable.com/submit/
  12. Techcrunch – tips@techcrunch.com
  13. Before it’s news – http://beforeitsnews.com/editorial/
  14. gizmag – editor@gizmag.com
  15. guyism – http://live.guyism.com/submit
  16. sellcell.com – http://www.sellcell.com/help-and-support/
  17. sellmymobile.com – http://www.sellmymobile.com/help-and-support/
  18. the next web – http://thenextweb.com/contact/
  19. geek.com – http://www.geek.com/about/
  20. the gadgeteer – http://the-gadgeteer.com/well-review-it/
  21. ewallstreeter – http://ewallstreeter.com/page/contact.php
  22. gear diary – http://www.geardiary.com/how-to-submit-your-product-for-review/
  23. android spin – http://androidspin.com/contact-us/
  24. gizbot – https://twitter.com/gizbotcom
  25. rfid journal – mroberti@rfidjournal.com
  26. gentlemint – http://gentlemint.com/
  27. pymnts.com – http://pymnts.com/regulations/submit-content/
  28. dailyme – http://dailyme.com/mynews/addcontent
  29. lazy tech guys – http://lazytechguys.com/contact-us/
  30. techchee.com – tips@techchee.com
  31. nfc world – http://www.nfcworld.com/tip-off/
  32. tech wench – http://www.techwench.com/contact/
  33. damn geeky – damngeeky@gmail.com
  34. runaroundtech – http://www.runaroundtech.com/product-submission/
  35. golem.de – news@golem.de
  36. betakit – tips@betakit.com
  37. android rundown – http://www.androidrundown.com/about/submit-app-hardware-review/
  38. Android Banks – http://www.androidbands.com/
  39. mobile developer tips – http://mobiledevelopertips.com/submit-tip
  40. nfcnews – http://www.nfcworld.com/contacts/
  41. TG Daily – http://www.tgdaily.com/contact
  42. Electronista – http://www.electronista.com/contact/newstips/1
  43. GigaOM – http://gigaom.com/tips/
  44. Forbes – readers@forbes.com

Do you think your website should be included?  Leave me a comment and I will check it out.

Also this

BdRuAmIpN 4 days of craziness

Posted on by primaryt

I have been none stop since Thursday and I figure, what with it now being technically Tuesday I should give myself an opportunity to brain dump.  So in the last 4 days..

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.

Could an Android update be the reason you replace your next TV?

Posted on by primaryt

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.

A week in the life..

Posted on by John McLear

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.