Android on Opgenorth.NET

Embed GPS in a JPEG

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 00:00:00 +0000

One of the handy things about the JPEG format is the ability to store meta-data inside the image using EXIF. There are a few libraries out there for the various programming languages that can help you out with this, and Android actually has something built in to the SDK - the class ExifInterface.

Google’s documentation on writing latitude and longitude to a JPEG are a bit light on details - they loosely hint at the format that latitude or longitude should have. (See the documentation for ExifInterface.TAG_GPS_LATITUDE). The API itself is pretty straight forward, but what Google doesn’t tell you is HOW the GPS coordinates should encoded.

Using AutoCompleteTextView and SimpleCursorAdapter

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I have a simple little pet project (for Android), and one of the things I wanted to do was to to have a text field that would show me previous values as I typed in the text box (see screenshot below). Of course, this control is already a part of the Android SDK - it’s our good friend the AutoCompleteTextView.

To populate the drop-down, I have an SQLite table called vehicle_descriptions, which looks something like the screenshot below. What I want is for a given vehicle (a value derived from another control on my Activity) to show me the value of the description column in the table.

WIND Mobile and my Nexus One

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Just recently I switch my mobile carrier from Rogers to WIND Mobile. Their Holiday Miracle plan was just to good to pass up - even paying the penalty to break my Rogers contract I will still save money in the long run. Anyway, once the number got transferred over, I didn’t have a 3G connection, even after selecting the WIND Home APN. After a bit of google, it seems that what I had to do is to setup an APN. In case I can’t find it later, here are the APN settings:

Using IntelliJ for Android Development â the Sequel

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A while ago, I posted a blog article about using IntelliJ for Android development. Given that was a year ago, and one version of IntelliJ later, I thought I would do a follow up post. Long story short (and to sound like a TV commercial): I liked IntelliJ IDEA 9 so much, I bought a license.

Since I blogged last year, the Android plug-in for IntelliJ has really matured. I guess the only draw back to it is that you only get the Android plug-in when you buy the Unlimited Edition of IntelliJ – it’s not in the Community Edition. Here are some general comments/thoughts/observations of mine:

Getting Starting with my ADP1

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After a bit of tinkering, I managed to provision my ADP1 setup without a SIM card. A bit of google, and here is what I did

Download the Android SDK. In my case, I unzipped it to C:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1.
Connection the phone via the USB cable to my computer. When the phone asks for a device.
You’ll get the new hardware dialog, when prompted for the drivers, you’ll need to specify the location. The Android SDK has the drivers, in my case they were at C:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1\usb_driver\x86.
Once you have the drivers installed cd to c:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1\tools.
Type adb devices. This should list all the Android devices that you have connected. If you don’t see any devices listed, then you have a problem.
Type adb shell. This will direct your commands to your ADP1
Now while at the adb shell, su to root, then :
cd /data/data/com.android/providers.settings/databases/
sqlite3 settings.db
INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES (‘device_provisioned’, 1);
.quit
Reboot the phone
adb shell
am start –a android.intent.action.MAIN –n com.android.settings/.Settings

Once all that is done, you should be enable to use your ADP1 as if you had a SIM card in it (we’ll except for the phoning part).

Using IntelliJ for Android Development

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

(Note: this article is pretty dated, and used IntelliJ 8.

So I have this semi-fancy Google Android Dev Phone 1. Lately I’ve been devoting part of my spare time to learning about programming for Android (the OS of the phone). Google (probably because they didn’t ask for my opinion and/or input) decided to use Java as the lingua franca for Android programming. If you ask me - and I know you will - they should have used C# and Mono (I might be a bit biased here). Luckily, years ago I had done Java programming, so I wasn’t that intimidated by the use of Java on Android.

Getting Started Coding for my Android Dev Phone 1

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Figured I was due to spend some time setting up a Linux VM and learning how to program my Android Dev Phone 1. Eclipse is what is recommended, so I thought I’d give that a try first. So, with the help of Suse Studio, I quick built myself a VM with Java 1.6 (Aside: I love Suse Studio, I can provision a VM in minutes). I figured it would be pretty straight forward. The docs on the Android Developer site for installing ADT plug-in seem pretty straight forward and simple, and I remember Eclipse having a very rich ecosystem of plug-ins that were easy to install (something I wish Visual Studio had – hint, hint Microsoft).

Getting Started with My ADP1

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

After a bit of tinkering, I managed to provision my ADP1 setup without a SIM card. A bit of google, and here is what I did:

Download the Android SDK. In my case, I unzipped it to C:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1.
Connection the phone via the USB cable to my computer. When the phone asks for a device.
You’ll get the new hardware dialog, when prompted for the drivers, you’ll need to specify the location. The Android SDK has the drivers, in my case they were at C:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1\usb_driver\x86.
Once you have the drivers installed cd to c:\android-sdk-windows-1.1_r1\tools.
Type adb devices. This should list all the Android devices that you have connected. If you don’t see any devices listed, then you have a problem.
Type adb shell. This will direct your commands to your ADP1
Now while at the adb shell, su to root, then :
cd /data/data/com.android/providers.settings/databases/
sqlite3 settings.db
INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES (‘device_provisioned’, 1);
.quit
Reboot the phone
adb shell
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings