Episode 37 Webview

Richard, Chet, Ben, and not Tor in the spacious London studio

In this Tor-less episode, Chet talks with Ben Murdoch and Richard Coles from the Android WebView team. We talk about WebViews ability to update outside of platform releases, the transition from the original WebView to the new Chromium WebView widget, about some of the new features and APIs in recent releases, and about cute kitten bitmaps.

Tor didnt have much to say, about kittens or anything else.

Subscribe to the podcast feed or download the audio file directly.

Relevant Links

Beta Channel for Android WebView
Google+ Beta Channel Community
Bug Tracker
Chrome Dev Tools
WebView API


Ben Murdoch: google.com/+BenMurdoch, @ksasq
Richard Coles: google.com/+RichardColesGoogle
Tor: google.com/+TorNorbye, @tornorbye
Chet: google.com/+ChetHaase, @chethaase

Also, thanks to continued support by Bryan Gordon, our audio engineer who puts this stuff together every time.

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Because its gotta be super easy to share files

Posted by Alex Vogenthaler, Group Product Manager, Google Drive

(Cross-posted on the Google Drive Blog.)

When you store your important files somewhere, you want to have peace of mind that theyll be safe and easy-to-access later. Thats why everything in Drive is always encrypted. And why we encourage all of our users to complete a simple Security Checkup every now and then. Of course, this should include file sharing as well -- it should be super easy to control who sees what.

With this in mind, were making a number of improvements to Drive today, so you can store your photos and documents safely and get them where they need to go.

Get sharing notifications
You may have noticed recently that it’s easier to select and share multiple files and folders on iOS and Android — but checking your email may not be the fastest way to find out when something’s been shared with you. So starting today, you’ll receive mobile notifications to alert you immediately when files or folders are shared with you and a single tap can take you right to them.

Request and grant file access
Drive lets you quickly grab a link to files and folders so you can share them using other apps, but if you share a link before you’ve granted access, the person you’re sending it to won’t be able to open it. Now, the Drive for Android app lets recipients request access with a single tap. And on Android and iOS, file owners will be notified of the request instantly so they can quickly grant access.

Preview files without a Google Account on Android
Until now, you needed a Google Account to view shared files on your Android device. Now, you can do this without a Google Account just like on the web.

Some of the features mentioned are already available. Look for the rest to roll out in the coming week or so.

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Parsing XML wit SAX parser

Android provides org.xml.sax package that has that provides the event-driven SAX parser.
to parse the previous response with SAX parser, we have to create a class extending DefaultHandler and override the following methods:

1. startDocument(): invoked when the xml document is open, there we can initialize any member variables.
2. startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName, Attributes attributes): invoked when the parser encounters a xml node, here we can initialize specific instances of our person object.
3. endElement(String uri, String localName, String Name): invoked when the parser reaches the closing of a xml tag. here the element value would have been completely read.
4. characters(char[] ch, int start, int length): this method is called when the parser reads characters of a node value.

we want to parse this xml response:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<person>
 <firstname>Jack</firstname>
 <lastname>smith</lastname>
 <age>28</age>
</person>

so our parsing class will be like this:

/**
 * SAX parser to parse persons response
 */
 public class PersonParser extends DefaultHandler
 {

 // arraylist to store person objects
 ArrayList persons;
 // temporary person object
 Person tempPerson;
 // string builder acts as a buffer
 StringBuilder builder;

 /**
 * Initialize the arraylist
 * @throws SAXException
 */
 @Override
 public void startDocument() throws SAXException {
 pesons=new ArrayList();

 }

 /**
 * Initialize the temp person object which will hold the parsed in//fo
 * and the string builder that will store the read characters
 * @param uri
 * @param localName
 * @param qName
 * @param attributes
 * @throws SAXException
 */
 @Override
 public void startElement(String uri, String localName, String qName,
 Attributes attributes) throws SAXException {

 if(localName.equalsIgnoreCase.equals("person")){
 tempPerson=new Person();
 builder=new StringBuilder();
 }

 }
 /**
 * Finished reading the person tag, add it to arraylist
 * @param uri
 * @param localName
 * @param qName
 * @throws SAXException
 */
 @Override
 public void endElement(String uri, String localName, String qName)
 throws SAXException {
 // finished reading a person, add it to the arraylist
 if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("person"))
 {
 this.persons.add(tempPerson);
 }
 // finished reading "firstname" tag assign it to the temp person
 else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("firstname")){
 tempPerson.firstName=builder.toString();
 }
 // finished reading "lastname" tag assign it to the temp person
 else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("lastname")){
 tempPerson.lastName=builder.toString();
 }
 // finished reading "age" tag assign it to the temp person
 else if(localName.toLowerCase().equals("age")){
 tempPerson.age=Integer.parseInt(builder.toString());
 }
 }

 /**
 * Read the value of each tag
 * @param ch
 * @param start
 * @param length
 * @throws SAXException
 */
 @Override
 public void characters(char[] ch, int start, int length)
 throws SAXException {
 // read the characters and append them to the buffer
 String tempString=new String(ch, start, length);
 builder.append(tempString);
 }
 }

the code is pretty easy, the parser iterates over each node, you check the current node name and take an action.

then we call the parser like this:

public ArrayList getPersons(final String response) throws ParserConfigurationException, SAXException, IOException
 {
 BufferedReader br=new BufferedReader(new StringReader(response));
 InputSource is=new InputSource(br);
 PersonParser parser=new PersonParser();
 SAXParserFactory factory=SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
 SAXParser sp=factory.newSAXParser();
 XMLReader reader=sp.getXMLReader();
 reader.setContentHandler(parser);
 reader.parse(is);
 ArrayList persons=parser.persons;

 return persons;

 }

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Pixels and Pixellation

How many pixels do you need? This is a question many, many people ask and to be honest I think its the wrong one. Let me give you a few numbers!

First of all, its widely accepted that a monitor with more than 100 "dots per inch" or "pixels per inch" placed 18-24 inches from your face looks pretty good - with outstanding monitors at that distance having 130-170ppi. Im also going to assume that the average monitor resolution is 1080p - thats 1920x1080 pixels in a 16:9 rectangle. This is actually quite generous but Ive done that deliberately. Now when youre printing images on paper, its generally accepted that 200ppi is "reasonably good" quality, and 300ppi is "excellent".

Full image - 2688x1520 (4 million pixels) displayed at 600 x 339

So - with a 4 million pixel image in a 16:9 arrangement, your image dimensions are going to be close to 2688x1520. If we divide that by 300ppi for printing we get a print size of 8.96" x 5.07". Call it 9" x 5" for round numbers and youre looking at an "Excellent" quality image bigger than most commercially bought prints which would be 6" x 4" or 7" x 5". Start blowing up from 9" x 5" and youre slowly going to start losing image quality. Pixellation will likely begin to occur at about 13" across. For displaying on a screen its a completely different story: 1920 x 1080 pixels is about 2 million pixels altogether; and at the very best quality Ive ever seen for myself (130ppi) thats a monitor size of 14.76" x 8.31" (about a 17" 16:9 monitor). So - if you display a 4 million pixel image on this monitor youre zoomed out so that half of the pixels in the image are never displayed. If you zoom in so that every pixel is displayed you can only see half of the images area: but still at 130ppi you cant see individual pixels and the image quality is absolutely perfect. On my monitor at work, which is 22" 1680 x 1050 (90ppi) I begin to be able to resolve individual pixels with the naked eye when zoomed in to around 350% - where each image pixel is represented by 3.5 screen pixels on average.

So - lets use these as our ballpark figures; zoom in to 350% or print larger than 13" for individual pixels to appear on a 4 million pixel image.

The original image, cropped to 600 x 339 pixels and displayed at full size. Note the complete lack of pixellation - although there is a certain fuzziness to the detail.

Now, lets look at how the vast majority of mobile phone users use the photos they take. Please dont think of yourself or your friends here; think of the millions of people buying smartphones and how THEY use their pics. Look at Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr, Twitter, etc. Thats right - MOST people - the vast majority - use the photos the way they come out. They dont edit, they dont crop, they dont zoom, they dont do any more than perhaps a bit of red-eye removal. And how are those images distributed in the main? They are very rarely displayed at their full size (in fact Facebook almost never even holds the pictures at full size but "processes" them in a way which removes massive amounts of detail and image quality to save storage space). Most places (Facebook included) allow you to choose a range of sizes to upload at, to optimise data traffic and storage space use.

The original image, cropped down to 198 x 146 pixels, and displayed at 600 x 339 to keep the playing field level with the other images. Note the fuzziness; and you can start to see individual pixels. This is now less than 9% of the original image, AND its blown up to four times actual size.

So - the image you see on the screen is usually displayed to you at 600-1000 pixels across - far less than the original photo. At this resolution, a photo taken at 13 million pixels and a photo taken at 2 million pixels will look EXACTLY THE SAME. There is simply no way to see the original detail because making the picture that size has destroyed it - and if both are now the same width with the same scene depicted the remaining detail in the picture is also the same.

Now - there are a minority of smartphone camera users who shout "but I crop, zoom, edit my images - 4 million pixels is not enough!". I dont want to make fun of those people but - if you take a photograph so poorly that the image you want from the original picture is 30% or less of what you photographed, youre doing it wrongly. Take the photograph you want in the first place rather than taking a wider scene and then cropping it down to a postage stamp. Move closer to the subject and frame it properly. If you cant move close enough that the subject is easily visible in the frame, then a smartphone camera is the wrong tool for that image. Use a camera with a nice big lens, optical zoom and a nice big sensor. Smartphone cameras were (and are) intended for quick opportunist snaps; although a skilled photographer can capture some outstanding images with even a 4 million pixel smartphone camera because theyre a skilled photographer. For examples of what I mean, look up Colby Brown who uses smartphone cameras to take many of his unbeatable images. All are displayed on his site at 1140 pixels across and yet they look absolutely fantastic regardless of the camera he used. Another up-and-coming digital photographer is Craig Fish who also uses a 4MP smartphone camera for many of his shots.

To prove my point, here are links to one image which has been progressively halved in size until the smallest one is HALF A MILLION PIXELS. I challenge you to see the loss of quality without zooming in... until you get below the resolution of your monitor.

Original image: 4 million pixels

Half Size – 2 million pixels

Quarter size: 1 million pixels

One eighth size: half a million pixels

This article is also to be found on its author personal blog.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use the media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) under this post!

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Lean ops for startups 4 leaders share their secrets

Posted by Ori Weinroth, Google Cloud Platform Marketing

As a CTO, VP R&D, or CIO at a technology startup you typically need to maneuver and make the most out of limited budgets. Chances are, you’ve never had your CEO walk in and tell you, “We’ve just closed our Series A round. You now have unlimited funding to launch version 1.5.”

So how do you extract real value from what you’re given to work with? We’re gathering four start technology leaders for a free webinar discussion around exactly that: their strategies and tactics for operating lean. They will cover key challenges and share tips and tricks for:

• Reducing burn rate by making smart tech choices
• Getting the most out of a critical but finite resource - your dev team
• Avoiding vendor lock-in so as to maximize cost efficiencies

We’ve invited the following technology leaders from some of today’s most dynamic startups:

• Yorick Phoenix, CTO, Issio Solutions
• Erich Ess, CTO, Simple Relevance
• Greg Roodt, CTO, AirHelp
• Raphael Ouzan, CTO, BillGuard

Sign up for our Lean Ops Webinar in your timezone to hear their take:

Americas
Wednesday, 13 August 2015
11:00 AM PT
[Click here to register]

Europe, Middle East and Africa
Wednesday, 13 August 2015
10:00 AM (UK), 11:00 AM (France), 12:00 PM (Israel)
[Click here to register]

Asia Pacific
Wednesday, 13 August 2015
10:30AM (India), 1:00 PM (Singapore/Hong Kong), 3:00PM (Sydney, AEDT)
[Click here to register]

Our moderator will be Amir Shevat, senior program manager at Google Developer Relations. We look forward to an insightful and open discussion and hope you can attend.

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For Technical Leads and Senior Developers

Thanks for the wonderful response for the below post ... The Positions are closed now :)

Hi,

Technical Leads Needed in Bangalore Tesco
I work for Tesco and we are looking for Leads/Architects who are hands-on and understand design principles well enough to apply them for Android development. Any one with above 7 years of experience in software development with atleast 2-3 years in Android, please get in touch with me by replying to this post with a way to contact you.

We are using some cutting edge architecture at Tesco with principles of reuse across device sizes (tablets, phones, kiosks, TVs, wall screens, digital signages) across countries (12 of them) and across platforms (iOS, Android and Windows) and still keeping the apps completely native. Sounds interesting? Please feel free to get in touch with me for joining this cutting edge team :)

Senior Developers Needed in Bangalore Tesco
Also senior Android developers with 5+ years of experience with 3 years on Android can get in touch with me for the same team.

NOTE: Please do not send me resumes or get in touch if your experience is below 5 years.

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Introducing gRPC a new open source HTTP 2 RPC Framework

Today, we are open sourcing gRPC, a brand new framework for handling remote procedure calls. It’s BSD licensed, based on the recently finalized HTTP/2 standard, and enables easy creation of highly performant, scalable APIs and microservices in many popular programming languages and platforms. Internally at Google, we are starting to use gRPC to expose most of our public services through gRPC endpoints as part of our long term commitment to HTTP/2.

Over the years, Google has developed underlying systems and technologies to support the largest ecosystem of micro-services in the world; our servers make tens of billions of calls per second within our global datacenters. At this scale, nanoseconds matter. Efficiency, scalability and reliability are at the core of building Google’s APIs.

gRPC is based on many years of experience in building distributed systems. With the new framework, we want to bring to the developer community a modern, bandwidth and CPU efficient, low latency way to create massively distributed systems that span data centers, as well as power mobile apps, real-time communications, IoT devices and APIs.

Building on HTTP/2 standards brings many capabilities such as bidirectional streaming, flow control, header compression, multiplexing requests over a single TCP connection and more. These features save battery life and data usage on mobile while speeding up services and web applications running in the cloud.

Developers can write more responsive real-time applications, which scale more easily and make the web more efficient. Read more about the features and benefits in the FAQ.

Alongside gRPC, we are releasing a new version of Protocol Buffers, a high performance, open source binary serialization protocol that allows easy definition of services and automatic generation of client libraries. Proto 3 adds new features, is easier to use compared to previous versions, adds support for more languages and provides canonical mapping of Proto to JSON.

The project has support for C, C++, Java, Go, Node.js, Python, and Ruby. Libraries for Objective-C, PHP and C# are in development. To start contributing, please fork the Github repositories and start submitting pull requests. Also, be sure to check out the documentation, join us on the mailing list, visit the IRC #grpc channel on Freenode and tag StackOverflow questions with the “grpc” tag.

Google has been working closely with Square and other organizations on the gRPC project. We’re all excited for the potential of this technology to improve the web and look forward to further developing the project in the open with the help, direction and contributions of the community.

Post by Mugur Marculescu, Product Manager

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IT makes a difference in improving patient care at Wyoming Medical Center

Posted by Rob Pettigrew, Information Technology Director, Wyoming Medical Center

Editors note: Today’s guest author is Rob Pettigrew, Information Technology Director at Wyoming Medical Center — the first hospital in the United States to go Google. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.


As the IT team at a medical facility, we’re here to help caregivers keep people healthy. Google Apps for Work provides superb reliability and security so we can empower our 1,219 staff members and 233 partner physicians to provide exceptional care. The IT team can now focus on maintaining and improving nearly 200 clinical applications that support services such as cardiology and neurological specialties, instead of worrying about email maintenance.

This is especially important in a rural setting like ours. The state has only about 600,000 people spread over 100 square miles, and we serve as a hub of medical expertise. Even with only 217 beds, we can offer the same services as many larger hospitals by working efficiently. In 2014, we saw 9,000 patients, conducted 5,000 surgeries and welcomed 1,200 new babies into the world.

We previously used Novell GroupWise for calendaring and email, but it was expensive, difficult to support and suffered frequent outages. My crew often spent many late hours trying to get GroupWise working after a server outage. We considered other alternatives. Microsoft SharePoint was too expensive, as were dedicated applications for telemedicine and video conferencing. Microsoft’s cloud offering was a possible contender for email, but it was much more expensive and a less mature product than we would have liked. We made up our minds that Google was the way to go. We trusted their exceptional security and privacy procedures and signed on.

Switching to Google Apps has resulted in six figure savings year after year, including decommissioning multiple physical servers. The flexibility of Google Apps helps us collaborate in ways we never could before. Google Hangouts has helped us advance the quality and reach of care. Now clinicians in remote areas can get advice from specialists, such as our neurosurgeons and cardiologists, helping us spread the wealth of expertise across the state, We also use Google Hangouts to streamline the recruiting and hiring process. Candidates submit resumes by Gmail, and HR staff interviews potential hires via Hangouts.

Nurses also use Google Apps to communicate instantly. With Google Drive and Google Docs they discuss and share data on topics such as medication delivery, credentials, blood-borne pathogens, education and so on. With Google Groups, the medical center uses SMS email addresses to communicate directly to users’ cell phones for staffing requests, trauma calls and other communications that require instant responses.

Much has changed since I joined Wyoming Medical Center in 2006. When I started in 2006, reporting and spotting trends was difficult because data was trapped in rigid enterprise systems such as our electronic medical records (EMR) and human resources (HR) software. Today, we can surface and report on large blocks of data from our electronic medical records and HR databases by using Google Sheets. This agility is a big win for strategic activities like spotting population health trends. It’s clear that Google Apps has been among the most positive shifts in helping our IT team make greater contributions that further the health and well-being of people across Wyoming.

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Education on Air

Posted by Tia Lendo, Head of North America Marketing, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

What do a student in Florida, a special advisor to the Ministry of Education in Finland, a filmmaker, a veteran teacher, and a researcher for the Economist Intelligence Unit have in common? They’re all speakers — just a handful of the 130 — who shared their ideas during Education on Air.

We wanted to tackle the question of how to help students become digital leaders, and it turns out we weren’t the only ones. More than 53,000 people registered for Education on Air, the free online conference we held last week on May 8 and 9. Educators, parents, students, business people and citizens from 201 countries showed their passion for improving education. The posts on Google+ and the comments on Twitter showed that the messages of the speakers really hit home. For example they often quoted Michael Fullan’s "stop boring students" and Lisa Bodells "change is a choice." Today we wanted to provide some highlights of the event.

You might imagine it would be difficult to recap the highlights from more than 60 hours of programming, but we noticed a handful of common themes. Speakers and participants seemed to broadly agree about the challenges we face in our education systems, the changes we want to see and the steps we need to take to get there. It feels as if people around the world are joining forces to tackle big issues and achieve their goals together.

Check out the highlight reel that includes the most prominent themes from the conference:

• The skills and mindset that will prepare students for the future 
• The need to let students and teachers learn from failure 
• The importance of giving students choice and voice 
• The power of technology to open doors 

If you missed Education on Air, don’t worry. All the sessions are available on demand, so you can check out any of the keynotes, panel discussions and workshops that you missed. Just like the live conference, you can tune in from anywhere.

Stay tuned to this blog to get more news from Education on Air, including the “Skills of the Future” research you heard highlighted by Zoe Tabary of the Economist Intelligence Unit. We also want to hear from you. Let us know what you’d like to hear about at our next event. Add your voice in the comments under this tweet and this Google+ post.

Go ahead, get involved. Anyone can do it — even Gus.

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New in Classroom saving time while grading

Posted by Anibal Chehayeb, Google Classroom Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

We built Classroom to save teachers time, and we know that grading is one of those tasks that can involve a lot of little time wasters. In fact, students have turned in more than 200 million assignments via Classroom to date, which adds up to a lot of grading hours. Today, we’re launching new features to help make grading a little faster and easier.

• Export Grades to Google Sheets: In addition to .csv files, you can now export your grades directly to Google Sheets. The Sheets template includes a class average and an average per student. If you have ideas about how we can make this export to Sheets even more useful, please leave us feedback by clicking the question mark at the bottom left of the Classroom page, then choosing “send feedback.” 
• Easier to update grade point scale: We know not all assignments are out of 100 points. Youve always been able to change the point value, but a lot of teachers had trouble finding this feature. So we’ve made it easier to change the grading scale to any number you need it to be. 
• Keyboard navigation for entering grades: When you’re entering lots of grades, you need a fast way to navigate from student to student. We’ve added the ability to use the up and down arrows to move directly from the grade entry area for one student to another. 
• Sort by name on grading page: In addition to sorting students by completion status (done, not done), you can now sort by first or last name. 
• And in case you missed it last month, you can now add a private comment for a student when you’re returning their work. 

In addition to these grading improvements, we’ve been hard at work on other updates. We’ve polished the look and feel of Classroom on the web with icons to help differentiate items in the stream and added a cleaner look for comments and replies. We’ve also recently updated our Android and iOS mobile apps, so they’ll now load even faster. You can post questions for students on the go, and Android teachers can reuse previous posts. Finally, you can now post a question from the Classroom Share Button, which you can find on some of your favorite educational websites.

We hope you’ll find these updates helpful, and you’ll get a chance to relax and refresh over the winter break (or summer, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere). Look for more Classroom updates next semester.

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Introducing the new Calendar Resource API

Originally Posted on Google Apps Developers blog

Posted by Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google Apps

Over the years, we’ve been updating our APIs with new versions across Drive and Calendar, as well as those used for managing Google Apps for Work domains. These new services offer developers improvements over previous functionality and introduces new features that help Apps administrators better manage their domains.

To deliver even more granular control, today we are announcing the new Calendar Resource API as part of the Admin SDK’s Directory API that enables Google for Work customers to manage their physical resources, like conference rooms, printers, nap pods, tennis courts, walkstations, etc. These physical resources can be added to meetings by end users as needed. The API released today replaces the GDATA Calendar Resource API, so we encourage developers to begin moving their applications and tools to the new API. Please note that we will begin deprecation in January 2016 and sunset the existing API in January 2017. Stay tuned for a formal deprecation announcement with details.

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RapidFire

APPLICATION: RapidFire.
DEVELOPER: Peapple Ltd
CATEGORY: Social
PRICE: Free.
REQUIRES ANDROID: 2.2 and up
CONTENT RATING: Low Maturity

With RapidFire share your messages and upload multiple photos to multiple social networks including:

Facebook	Twitter	LinkedIn	WordPress	last.fm	My Space	Tumblr

now with RapidFire share your thoughts with the whole world with the whole world with a single click:

share thoughts in one click

just write what you want and Fire...
you can send more than 140 characters to all networks including Twitter.


Sign in with your account to 11 social networks:

RapidFire social networks

RapidFire supports the following networks and blogs:

1. Facebook.
2. Twitter.
3. LinkedIn.
4. Tumblr.
5. My Space.
6. Google Buzz.
7. WordPress.
8. last. fm.
9. Foursquare.
10. Friendfeed.
11. idetni.ca.

Take photos and include them with your message instantly:

RapidFire supports the following image services:

1. YFrog.
2. Mobypicture.

Say what you want even from your home screen:

share your thoughts even from your phones home screen.


Upgrade to the Pro version and enjoy more features:

Geo-tagging: link your posts with your locations:

Ad-free:

And a last word for developers:
RapidFire is an excellent example of the application that can wrap many different APIs and provide an easy way to access them seamlessly. in such a case that you have multiple social networks APIs, its important to isolate the user from the complications of each one through such an abstraction.

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Ubuntu 13 10 for Galaxy Nexus first look

I have to say I was very excited to install freshly released Ubuntu 13.10 for Nexus devices. I couldnt resist so I took my old Galaxy Nexus (maguro) and I started the installation procedure. Its very simple to do it all manually. Screenshots below!

I didnt have much time to play with this OS on my device, but so far I have mixed feelings. I am aware its the first public release and it MUST have bugs. Of course all fundamental features are working fine (GPS, modem, camera, Bluetooth, touch panel etc.) and on the project site its clearly stated that:

"It is an experimental development snapshot that can potentially brick your device. It does not provide all of the features and services of a retail phone and cannot replace your current handset. This preview is the first release of a very new and unfinished version of Ubuntu and it will evolve quickly."

So far I had few issues like not responding touch screen, system hangs from time to time or it slows down, so that you cant basically do anything except from reboot. However, in most cases its very snappy. Navigating through the system is completely different than on Android. There are no back or home keys, you need to swipe left/right/down/up and swiping effect is different if you swipe from the centre of the screen or from the edge.

I have a feeling that the whole UI is sort of "too large". Massive icons are taking a lot of space and working with this interface is far from being intuitive. I think that this OS would be much more suitable for tablets instead, where the average screen size is 10".

In current stage this OS is surely not suitable for daily use, but the developers are working very hard to fix all submitted issues and to preview all commits. Here are the screenshots:

Home Screen with 3 additional desktops: Music, Applications and Videos

Lock-screen (swipe left to unlock)

System Settings, About the phone and Battery

Phone, Messages and Contacts

Calendar and Album

Sort of "Quick Settings" available from the notification menu

Installed applications screen and a "must have" app ;)

Weather, Gmail and Notes

Navigation panel (available on every screen, even lock-screen), File Manager and Camera

That would be all for now. I think the first preview of the Ubuntu OS for phones looks very promising, however its officially available only for 3 devices for now and it cant be used as a daily driver just yet.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) below this post!

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Removable battery do we really need it

With every release of a new smartphone the same question is asked - will it have removable battery? If you believe that removable batteries are a "must have" nowadays, please keep reading. I hope youll change your mind!

First of all - there is a solution. Battery banks seems to be a great alternative for removable batteries. You can check my review of HTC Battery Bank here. It works with every device equipped with micro-USB port. Now lets compare both solutions.

Capacity

Samsung Galaxy S3 has a removable battery with capacity of 2100mAh. Typical battery bank has a capacity of 6000mAh. This means, that Galaxy S3 can be charged almost 3 times with such battery bank! If you are going to use your smartphone heavily the whole day, only one backup battery might be not enough for you. With battery bank you can start your day with more then 8000mAh on board (battery inside device + battery bank).

Conclusion: 2300mAh vs. 6000mAh

Winner: battery bank

Size

Typical smartphone battery dimensions are around 6,3 x 5,0 x 0,5. Battery bank I was tested is of course bigger - 9,7 x 4,2 x 2,2. Is it really a disadvantage? I dont think so. Its small enough to be inserted into a pocket of your jeans or jacket. I think there are even smaller battery banks available on the market, so the size shouldnt be a problem here. Also, removable batteries are indeed smaller, but keep in mind their capacity is twice/triply lower.

Conclusion: 6,3 x 5,0 x 0,5 vs 9,7 x 4,2 x 2,2

Winner: removable battery

Charging

Battery bank can be charged regardless of device battery. It has its own USB cable and charging port, so you can charge both devices -  smartphone and battery bank at the same time. What about removable batteries? Well, if you dont have a removable battery charger (which costs extra money of course!) you will have to charge battery inside your device first, then switch batteries and charge the backup battery. The risk of braking battery cover latches is quite big, especially when it comes to plastic, which has its own lifetime and bending abilities. It seems that battery bank in this case is much more convenient and comfortable.

Conclusion: charging inside the device vs. independent charging

Winner: battery bank

Price

Original backup battery price is about $30. Yes, I know you can find non-original replacements for $10 as well, but lets compare only original parts. Typical battery bank costs is around $40 - $80 ($75 for HTC Battery Bank). However these prices vary from place to place and may be slightly different in your country, keep that in mind. Comparing 1:1 its easy to see that external batteries are indeed cheaper. But to make the comparison fair, we need to establish the price/capacity relationship. 1mAh from 2300mAh backup battery ($30) is a cost of about $0,0130, while 1mAh from 6000mAh battery bank ($75) costs about $0,0125.

Conclusion: $0,0130 vs. $0,0125

Winner: battery bank

Design

When speaking about the design I mostly think about device design. However, battery banks looks definitely better and more aesthetic than regular removable batteries. Having a removable battery back cover doesnt allow uni-body construction, like HTC One has. Design is a matter of taste, but personally I prefer uni-body construction over having a plastic back cover. But again - its a matter of taste, so no winner here.

Conclusion: plastic back cover vs. uni-body construction

Winner: draw

Usability

Practical approach is also important. Driving a car or sitting in a crowded bus might be a situation when your device is out of power. Now imagine you need to: 1) take out your battery backup, 2) turn off the device, 3) remove the back cover, 4) replace the battery, 5) close the back cover, 6) turn on the device, 7) hide your primary battery. So... 7 steps including the inevitability of turning off the device. With battery bank you just need to take it out and plug into the device. Thats it. No need to turn on/off or disassemble your device. Keep in mind that battery bank doesnt work only as external battery, it is mainly a battery charger, so after some time you can hide it back.

Conclusion: 7 steps to change battery vs. take out and plug in

Winner: battery bank

Compatibility

External batteries are not compatible between devices. You cant use Samsung Galaxy Note II battery in Samsung Galaxy S3. You cant use HTC Sensation battery in HTC One S. If you buy backup battery for your particular device, youll probably sell it together with the device or give it as free bonus one day. Battery bank is compatible with every device equipped with micro-USB port and can be your life-companion for years. However, you should be aware that battery bank might not be able to charge your tablet.

Conclusion: lack of compatibility with other devices vs. compatibility with all micro-USB smartphones

Winner: battery bank

Device lifetime (added 23-03-2013)
Due to many comments under this article I decided to agree with one point that was very often mentioned by users preferring removable battery. However, I think it needs some bigger explanation. It is a fact, that having non removable battery results in lack of possibility to exchange it for new one, once the old battery cant give your device enough power anymore. But is it really a problem? I took the warranty statements from my HTC One X+ and I found nothing about limited warranty for battery (like Samsung have - only 6 months). This means, that once battery is non removable, it doesnt have shorter warranty. So in my case battery is under 24-months warranty service. I think that is a positive aspect for the consumer, right? In some cases it might be also 12-months, but it depends on particular law regulations in each country.

Conclusion: removable battery with 6-months warranty vs. non-removable battery with 12/24-months warranty - both solutions have some advantages
Winner: draw

Possibility to reset the device (added 25-03-2013)
One more category added. Very often I hear that possibility to remove the battery is the only way to reset the device once its not reacting anymore and system just hanged. This is not true. Every device have ability to reset the system using hardware keys. In most cases its a combination of 3 buttons: power + volume up + volume down. You need to hold these buttons for about 5-20 seconds, depends on the device. Even if your device has a removable battery, it is better to use above combination to avoid breaking the plastic back cover latches.

Conclusion: you can reset your device no matter if it has removable battery or not

Winner: draw

So whats the score? Battery bank won in 5 comparisons, external battery in 1 comparison and there were also 3 draws. For me, personally, battery banks are better replacement for external batteries. It gives you bigger capacity for the same prize, extended usability and it looks better.

Do you have a different point of view or some experience with one of the approaches presented above? Please leave a comment below! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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Windows 10 Power User Menu

Power User Menu of  Windows 10 (and Windows 8) is a pop-up menu with shortcuts tosome usedful "Power User" Windows tools. You can easy access the "Old Control Panel" here.

To Open Power User Menu,

• Right click the Start button, or 
• WIN+X: Pressing the WIN (Windows) key and the X key together.

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Implement checkable items in OptionsMenu of Toolbar

Example to implement checkable items in OptionsMenu of Toolbar, modify from last example"Set image on Toolbar".

Modify menu/menu_main.xml, to add checkable items:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu 
 >
 <item
 android_id="@+id/item_checkable1"
 android_orderInCategory="100"
 android_title="Checkable opt 1"
 android_checkable="true"
 android_checked="true"/>
 <item
 android_id="@+id/item_checkable2"
 android_orderInCategory="100"
 android_title="Checkable opt 2"
 android_checkable="true"
 android_checked="false"/>
 <item
 android_id="@+id/item_normal"
 android_orderInCategory="100"
 android_title="Normal item"/>

</menu>

Modify MainActivity.java, modify onOptionsItemSelected() to handle the item click.

package com.blogspot.android_er.androidtoolbar;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
 setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
 Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar)findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
 setSupportActionBar(toolbar);

 getSupportActionBar().setTitle("Toolbar example");
 toolbar.setSubtitle("Android-er.blogspot.com");
 toolbar.setLogo(android.R.drawable.ic_menu_info_details);
 }

 @Override
 public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
 getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
 return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
 }

 @Override
 public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

 Toast.makeText(this, item.getTitle(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

 int item_id = item.getItemId();
 switch(item_id){
 case R.id.item_checkable1:
 if(item.isChecked()){
 item.setChecked(false);
 }else{
 item.setChecked(true);
 }
 break;
 case R.id.item_checkable2:
 if(item.isChecked()){
 item.setChecked(false);
 }else{
 item.setChecked(true);
 }
 break;
 }

 return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
 }
}

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From scratching vinyl to starting up Q A with Mitch Hills of AroundAbout

Posted by Flora Wong, Head of Maps for Work Marketing Asia Pacific

Today we speak with the founder of AroundAbout. An activity generating app that started in Brisbane, Australia. Mitch Hills got his first taste for business when he started POGO Entertainment, an event production company, at age 17. He ran the business for more than two years while professionally DJing in Brisbane, Australia, then started his first technology venture at age 20. AroundAbout is a new activity-generating app powered by Google Maps APIs that helps people find interesting things to eat, drink and explore, whenever they want and wherever they are. I sat down with Mitch to learn more about the app, his creative process and how he likes to work.

Tell us more about how the app came about.

I’ve always been interested in entertainment and focused on the idea of “Tinder for activities” — the same simple interface, that gives you a way to find things to do, as well as places to eat and drink, just by swiping left or right. I love hospitality and wanted to create a curated place where people could find cool places and activities, with recommendations they could trust. Once I had the idea, I partnered with developers to make it a reality. Mapping is central to AroundAbout because the app visualises places for users to explore near them. We use the Google Maps iOS and Android APIs for our mobile apps. We chose Google because we wanted really accurate directions and a visually pleasing interface.

How would you describe the transition from DJing to starting your own tech company?

The transition wasn’t difficult, per se, but business itself is difficult. Last year I read 22 books about entrepreneurship, finance and self-development, but reading can only prepare you so much. My background in entertainment was actually incredibly useful, both for building my network and for relating to people who use the app. As I see it, entertainment is about presentation and perception, and that’s useful in any industry.

What do you think it takes to build a successful app for younger people?

Social media plays a huge role in this business, so we invest much of our energy in reaching out to people through social and PR. Young people are also more spontaneous, and we built the app to help feed that spontaneity. Young people also have lots of energy and can be interested in a lot of different things at once, so their tastes and needs can evolve quickly. You have to be constantly listening to what they want, where they’re looking for content and how they’re connecting with each other.

How do you come up with new ideas?

I get inspired by reading about or listening to experts, even if they arent discussing something directly relevant to me. It gets my brain ticking and my creative juices flowing. I’m always thinking about ideas and come up with something new almost every day. I give it some thought and write it down — some are terrible, but others definitely have potential. I find that the best way to evolve an idea is to talk to people and see what they think.

It’s not easy coming up with ideas that resonate with consumers, particularly in a competitive, fast-moving industry like entertainment. Mitch has an interesting problem: too many ideas and not enough time. For now he’s focusing on AroundAbout and bringing its service to more people by expanding beyond Australia. As for whether Mitch still DJs, he says, “Music will always play a large role in my life, but as much as I like the hospitality industry, I love creating businesses more.”

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