Android Development with Visual Studio
Posted by Mike | Filed under Programming
Me, being the programmer that I am, decided to play around with some Android development. Well, at first I wasn’t too happy with a lot of things. First, Android uses Java as it’s main language – something that I really detest. Second, it requires Cygwin for development (sorta). Third, no Visual Studio integration.
Java isn’t absolutely necessary to create Android Apps, however it is akin to ObjectiveC on iOS. It has to be used for some stuff, but for the most part you don’t really have to use it if you don’t want to. Also, you don’t absolutely need Cygwin for development (more info on that in a bit).
In regards to the problem with Visual Studio integration: After some quick google searches it was easy to find some stuff that allows you to use Visual Studio to develop Android apps. There is this great addin for Visual Studio called vs-android, and it allows you to build directly from Visual Studio (including generating the apk and signing it). The next great thing about it is that you don’t need cygwin to build your apps.
vs-android Google Code Project
Then comes the problem of debugging in Visual Studio, and I found a “solution” to that. Its called WinGDB and it seems like it will provide all of the necessary stuff to debug Android programs in Visual Studio.
Android Debugging, Visual Studio style!
However, after playing around with it for a few hours I wasn’t able to get it working… at all. Worse yet, it seems that the product will no longer be free in a bit. Although, debugging isn’t available from Visual Studio, maybe you can still continue to work with something like Eclipse for your C++ debugging too – no idea if it will work though.
And again, me being the programmer that I am, since WinGDB doesn’t work I decided to write my own program to do what it does inside Visual Studio. It seems that the ndk-gdb that is included in the Android NDK SDK will provide all the necessary debugging, and all it really needs is a wrapper to work with Visual Studio. Alas, I have started writing a plugin in for Visual Studio to allow debugging C++ code for Android. You can check out the project below:
vs-android-debugger Google Code Project
Tags: Addin, Android, c++, Debugging, Extension, IDE, Integration, NDK, visual studio, Visual Studio Addin
Android vs iOS
Posted by Mike | Filed under Computers
So, another one of those Android vs iOS rants. I personally have never liked Apple products, so take that for whatever it is worth. When you consider the positive points of Android against iOS there are a few things in favour for Apple products. First, there are a lot of applications and music available. Second, they have a larger install base which means that more companies are willing to target iOS devices for apps.
However, the biggest problem is that iOS is very much a smaller version of Mac OS X and Android is much more like Linux/Windows. It really comes down to the question, do you want to be restricted by your device or do you want the freedom to do what you want? Mac doesn’t let you do anything you want, at least not easily and iOS is no exception. Linux on the other hand lets you do anything you want, and Android is the little brother that tries to makes his parents proud. Now if you take a look at iOS for iPad vs Android for tablets you continue to see the same problems, iOS restricts and doesn’t let you do anything while Android is open and welcoming.
On iOS you have icons, and … well thats about it. On Android you have icons, widgets, live icons, live wallpapers, etc. Android tablets have a true tablet OS where iPads have the same OS that iPhones and iPod touches do, not really adapted to take full use of the larger screen. Android has true multi-tasking, while iOS sorta fakes it.
Now, with the announcement for the Amazon Kindle Fire at $199 I think Android is about to get a huge boost. Not to mention that the Motorola Xoom has a family edition coming out soon for $379. All the while the iPad will continue to be sold at $500.
Does Android have its problems? Sure it does, but so does iOS. Is one absolutely better than the other? No, because it would be insane to say so. However, my personal preference is to have a device that actually works with the web, instead of require that the web adapt to it. While I may not be the biggest fan of flash, it still is an important part of the internet.
Tags: Amazon, Android, Google, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Kindle Fire, Motorola, Xoom, Xoom Family
WPtouch
Posted by Mike | Filed under Uncategorized
For the first time today I used the mobile version of the site. I gotta say, quite awesome. I’d never been able to check it out before today, but I’m glad that it’s been available all this time. I guess you never really appreciate what your desktop can do until you use something else.
Evidently there is both a free and pro version (which you have to pay for). I’m not going to run down the different options available, but I encourage you to check it out (if you have a Wordpress blog)
Tags: Mobile, wordpress, WPtouch
Limbo
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
Well yesterday Limbo came out on XBLA. This game is definitely different, and interesting for sure. However, this game is not without it’s problems. First, the stylization is great… maybe a little too dark overall, but still a great concept and they pulled it off. The sound effects fix perfectly. However, there are no instructions, or music. There also seems to be absolutely no story, which I was a little disappointed by. One thing that you definitely need is patience for this game. There is a lot of trail and error, due to the lack of explanation. One great thing is the fact that there is almost no punishment for failing. When you die, you are almost right back where you were. I’ve been able to get through half the game in probably ~3 hours (including all my trail and error). This game really reminds me of Braid, for a few reasons; 1 this is an indie game, 2 new style/innovation in the gameplay, 3 worth your money. I don’t really think that this game will have any lasting replay value, but it doesn’t matter to me. If you want something to entertain you for a while, check out Limbo – available now on XBLA
Tags: Indie Games, Limbo, Stylized, XBLA
Digital Identity
Posted by Mike | Filed under Random
In today’s day digital age, your online identity is increasingly becoming as important as your physical identity. If you don’t realize how true this statement is, take a moment and think about how many places online you enter a username and password, rather than your given name. Because of the power of Google, there is going to be a very extensive history of everything you’ve done online, with respects to places that you have signed up for an account and places where you have posted your.
Now, proceed with caution… you may not like the results. If you really want to see an extensive history on your online activities, simply head to your nearest search engine (Google) and type in your username, and hit search. Now, you can see quite a vast history. And if you have posted comments in the past, then take a read over them… they may be amusing. I did a simple Google search on my given name, and it yielded quite a number of results (not all of them actually applied to me, but there were still quite a few). Then I did a Google search of my online username that I use everywhere, and the difference between the two was staggering.
I recently enlightened a colleague to this fact, and the reaction on his face when he saw his online history was quite amusing. What does your history look like?
Tags: Google, identity, IRL, online, online identity
ImgBurn
Posted by Mike | Filed under Projects
Have you ever had a disc image that you needed to burn. Do you not need all the fancy bells and whistles that commercial products have. Do you want something simple, effective, and free? Well if thats the case then you need to use ImgBurn. Simply head on over to the ImgBurn Website and download this awesome piece of software. It is just so great, I don’t think I’ll need another image to disc writing software again!
Tags: Disc Creation, free, ImgBurn, Open Source, software
Alien Swarm
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
This past week, Steam released Alien Swarm, a 100% free game for everyone to download and play. This game was made by a group of Valve developers in their spare time, and Valve released it to the community. This is just another reason why Valve is the savior of PC gaming.
I took the time to play with some friends today, and it was a great game. I really enjoyed it, it is quite balanced and has a bunch of great small mechanics.
This game is definitely one of the best games I’ve played on the PC in a while. And its not one of those free-to-play games with micro transactions, it is 100% free – which is the best part.
Freddie W
Posted by Mike | Filed under Uncategorized
Hey everyone. Recently I have begun to discover more and more of YouTube. It only took 5 years for me to actually get around to it… yea procrastinating! Anyways, I came across this really awesome channel. This guy does a bunch of action and VFX stuff. So if you like action stuff, definitely head on over to freddie wong’s YouTube. For now, here is one of his uploads…
Knowing Movie
Posted by Mike | Filed under Movies
I got a chance to watch the movie Knowing with Nicholas Cage. The thing I was thinking throughout the entire movie was that it wasn’t a bad movie, but it wasn’t the greatest. Not to mention the fact that they really don’t explain very much. It was clearly written by someone who never has had children, because of the reactions of the characters. It was until about 20 minutes left in the film until it finally hit me how dumb this movie was.
SPOILER ALERT
When the movie has finally gotten to the point where Nicolas Cage’s character has arrived at the coordinates that he was supposed to, you find out that aliens were involved. Its as if they are this automatic goto when you don’t know how to end a movie and you’re a horrible writer. If you ever have a chance to hire the guy who wrote this, don’t… or better yet, do and then fire him a few hours later for being a horrible writer.
Its very rare that I don’t enjoy a film, so this film definitely deserves a 4/10 score (and I’m trying to be generous).
Tags: Bad Movies, Knowing, Nicolas Cage, review
Online Training – Lynda.com
Posted by Mike | Filed under Random
There are so many different pieces of software out there that its hard to keep track. I wanted to get into After Effects to do some neat little tricks, and try my hand at it. I found some great (FREE) tutorials at VideoCopilot.net and they were great! The only problem was, the tutorials were using an older version of After Effects than the one that I have, which is CS5 (latest and greatest, always!). Now, I’m sure that I could’ve gotten my hands on an older copy of After Effects to follow along more easily, but I didn’t really want to do that. I searched a bit online, and I found Lynda.com. These guys have some great tutorials, and they even have some free samples. There are many different tutorials available on how to use After Effects, but not just After Effects there are tutorials for all the different CS5 Applications (Photoshop, Premiere, Flash, etc) so that was awesome. Then there are some on Microsoft Office, 3DS Max, and more. The great thing is, it really doesn’t cost that much. There are plans starting at $25 USD/month ($37.50 USD/month for the reference material, which I think is a little bit of a rip off). They also have a great service department. I tried signing up on Saturday and there was a problem with the Paypal, so I called the 1-800 number and talked to someone almost instantly. The customer service representative tried to help, but admitted that he didn’t know. So he asked me to call back during the week, which I was a little upset with. But before hanging up, he told me that he would give me a free 2 day pass so that I wasn’t waiting for someone. That was awesome. So if you need some training on how to use a specific CS5 application, head on over to lynda.com.
And before anyone says anything, I know that this sounds like a paid advertisement, but I promise you that I’m not getting paid – I was really just that impressed with everything and had to give them a plug.
Tags: Adobe Certified Training, Adobe Training, After Effects, After Effects CS5, CS5, Lynda.com, online training, training, tutorials
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