Posts Tagged 'Android'

Riptide GP: An Android Game Postmortem

Published September 27, 2011 Android , Games , Software Engineering , Technology Leave a Comment
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The website Gamasutra frequently publishes articles where game creators talk about the development process of a game. These papers are called Postmortem because they are written once the game’s been finished/released and that’s precisely what it makes them so so valuable. They are no just about “how brilliant we are”, on the contrary, Postmortems usually focus on mistakes and lessons learned.

Although most of them may be considered a must-read, I’ve found particularly interesting the one about Riptide GP where the guys of Vector Unit describe the process of porting a 360 xBox game (Hydro Thunder Hurricane) to the Tegra 2 platform. Hot topics such as funding, monetization and piracy are also addressed in the write-up . Definitely a good read!

Postmortem: Vector Unit’s Riptide GP

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Android: Finding Memory Leaks

Published August 31, 2011 Android , Archer Master , Business , Java , Quoders , Technology Leave a Comment
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Recently while I was working on the next version of Archer Master, I’ve had to roll up my sleeves and find a memory leak. By and large, a memory leak in one’s application is frequently a synonym for having painful time, no matter which language you’re coding in. I have experience in finding leaks in the non-managed languages such as C/C++ but this was my very first time with a managed language (Java). In my case, the leak was caused by a lost strong-reference to a LinearLayout used to hold advertising, so each time a level was played, the entire activity remained in memory and wasn’t collected. As a result, after playing several levels (the number depended upon the particular device), a OOM exception raised and the game crashed.

It’d have been virtually impossible to find the leak without a tool like MAT. Moreover, a good understanding of the different types of references (strong, weak, soft…) and the concept of Dominator Tree  also help.

When I’ve got a little more time I’ll write about the whole process I went thru (if anyone is really interested please let me know)… but meanwhile, this is an invaluable resource if you find yourself in a similar situation and don’t know how to start:

Good luck with your leaks! ;)

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Archer Master weekly report – Week #2

Published July 22, 2011 Android , Archer Master , Business , Quoders , Technology Leave a Comment
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I’ve published  the weekly Archer Master report on Quoders website. The following chart shows downloads per day:

More?  Here.

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Quoders and Archer Master

Published July 17, 2011 Android , Archer Master , Business , Quoders , Technology Leave a Comment
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It’s been a long time since my last post and this time there’s a good reason for it ;-) I’ve been working hard to release the first version of Archer Master, an archery game for Android. Archer Master is free, so give it a try!

Moreover, I’ve co-founded a new development studio named Quoders.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of something great…

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My New Nexus

Published May 11, 2010 Android , Technology Leave a Comment
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It’s been six weeks waiting for the Nexus One and finally it’s here.  The N1 runs smoothly and fast a Cyanogen ROM. Even though I’m using the same 3G connection (vodafone ES), now browsing the web is a delightful experience compared with HTC Magic. The battery lasts almost a couple of days with a normal use (email, web, rss, etc).

The parcel didn’t include any sort of manual except a couple of sheets with tips and tricks.

Here you can see more pictures.

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It’s been six weeks waiting for the Nexus One and finally it’s here.  The phone runs smooth and fast even using the same 3G connection (vodafone ES), now browsing the web is a delightful experience compared with HTC Magic. The battery lasts almost a couple of days running a Cyanogen ROM.

The parcel didn’t include any manual except a couple of sheets explaining tips and tricks. Here you can see some pictures.

Developing Android Apps with Java Part 2

Published April 20, 2010 Android , Technology , Training Leave a Comment
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It’s been announced the second part of the course “Developing Android Apps with Java” by O’Reilly. It will start in May 18th and it’s going to consist of six sessions in which a Twitter client app for Android will be developed. Interested? You can register for free at the course home page.  No excuses to learn Android Programming ;)

I wrote a review of the first part of the course in this post.

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Hello, Android

Published April 12, 2010 Android , Books , Technology Leave a Comment
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Hello, Android

By Ed Burnette

Regarding books, one of the things I appreciate the most is an honest relationship between title and contents. Unfortunately it’s quite common to find books out there promising things they don’t fullfill.

“Hello, Android” meets perfectly the commitment of its title. Don’t buy it expecting a reference manual of Android because it’ just an introduction to this platform, and I must admit that it does the work gracefully. It’s quick and brief so it tells you the essential and gives you resources for further research such as the sample projects that can be free downloaded from the book website.  A nice aspect to highlight is the hands-on approach, throughout the book concepts are illustrated with lots of code. Furthermore a Sudoku game is parcially developed during a couple of chapters.

So I basically recommend this book for beginners mainly for two reasons:

  1. Starts from the Scratch: Nothing is assumed so it’s a good point to start out as Android developer.
  2. Brevity: I don’t have time for an eight-hundred-pages book to start to develop. I’ll deal with the ins and outs as I go, not before.

Of course, like any book about Android, Java (or C++, C#, etc) basic understanding is recommended.

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Developing Android Applications with Java: Review

Published March 19, 2010 Android , Training 14 Comments
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The course “Developing Android Applications with Java” I was attending, has finished. It’s been six session (12 hours) of Android developing. One of the things I like was the hands-on approach of the trainning, actually 80% of sessions duration was developing time which helps me a lot with the environment Eclipse (I was used to Visual Studio).The level of this course was Beginner so the first sessions was basically dedicated to prepare the environment. After that, the next sessions (five) focused on explaining the foremost aspects of Android Programming while a Task Manager application was developed. The covered areas included:

  • Activities.
  • Basic Interface
  • Database (SQLite)
  • Location and Google Maps API.

You could take a look at the contents table in the course page. By the way, the course was given by Tony Hillerson. You can check out his profile here.

In a nutshell:

Pros:

  • Completely free.
  • Hands-on approach. Most of the time developing the “Task Manager” sample project let the audience get down to the nitty-gritty.
  • Publishing the source code of each session in advance. It helps to focus on Tony’s lessons.
  • Really good organization. And it wasn’t easy: live audience in Seattle, instructor in Denver and a number of online attendees. Actually, it was possible to ask questions to Tony (thanks to Ruth and Beth).In short, O’Reilly and CreativeTechs did a great work.
  • A forum was set up for posting homework, technical questions and all that stuff.

Cons:

  • A tiny thing. I missed one hour of the last session because the Daylight Saving Time in US starts two weeks before Europe. Course Organizers could have warned online attendees about it.

In Short:

I’d do it again so I recommend it. Five out of Five.

Update (03/20/2010)

Good news! I’ve received an email from O’Reilly with a couple of great announcements:

  1. It’s gonna be a second part of the course this Spring.
  2. They are giving free phones (Motorola DROID or Nexus One phone) to attendees who meet some conditions (take a look at the terms of the registration page for further information).

Update (03/23/2010)

Another email from O’Reilly telling that I’ll receive a free phone (hopefully a Nexus One) from Google for attending this Android Course. I just can say: THANK YOU SO MUCH!! :D

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Mobile Market View

Published March 5, 2010 Android , Mobile , Technology Leave a Comment
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Great presentation about the current Mobile Market.

It’s quite surprising the huge difference between Apple Store and the rest of competitors.

Source: Android-Spa

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Android Clipboard: Copy&Paste

Published February 28, 2010 Android 5 Comments
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I know it’s pretty straightforward but I haven’t found any example out there of using the clipboard from Android Applications. So for beginners like me, here is an example of how to copy and paste some text using ClipboardManager object.

This is the Copy button code:

// Copy EditCopy text to the ClipBoard
private void copyToClipBoard()
{
ClipboardManager ClipMan = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
ClipMan.setText(editCopy.getText());
}

and the Paste button source:

// Paste ClipBoard Text to EditPaste
private void pasteFromClipBoard()
{
ClipboardManager ClipMan = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
editPaste.setText(ClipMan.getText());
}

Simple, right? ;) By the way, editPaste and editCopy are both EditText class objects. In case you need it, the whole project can be downloaded from my GitHub repository.

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Víctor Caveda

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