Today I released an Android application.
DEX for Android is a Romanian explanatory dictionary for the Android platform that stores the dictionary on the phones SD card.
I am regular user of the http://dexonline.ro so I decided to make an offline Android client for it.
I hope you will enjoy the client as much as I am and will take advantage of this really useful tool.
The DEX for Android home page is http://dex.adrianvintu.com

Azi am publicat o aplicatie Android.
DEX pentru Android este un dictionar explicativ roman pentru platforma Android care stocheaza dictionarul pe cardul SD al telefonului.
Sunt un utilizator regulat al http://dexonline.ro si am decis  sa fac un client offline pt Android.
Sper ca va veti bucura de asta unealta si veti profita de ea cu success.
Pagina proiectului DEX pentru Android este http://dex.adrianvintu.com

EDIT: If you are an Android programmer, you must check this link out http://adrianvintu.com/blogengine/post/Colored-Logcat-Script-for-Windows.aspx

Screen shots

CodeProject

A few days ago I found another rare BlackBerry bug. I was playing with some list elements and everything was working fine until I ran the code on a BlackBerry Curve 8300.

I was suddenly presented with this popup.



I have never seen this error so I googled for it. Unfortunately there was no reasonable explanation. So I decided to investigate it.
First thing I did was to take a peek at the event log. I did it by pressing ALT+L+G+L+G and I got this.



Taking a look at the exception trace showed this.



I needed to see the full log for details, so I used

javaloader -u eventlog

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I found a nice script from Jeff Sharkey that formats nicely and in color the adb logcat.
Unfortunately Jeffs script works only on *ix so I decided to make a port to Windows.

Here is a screenshot of the adb logcat without color

And here a screenshot of the the adb logcat with color

As you can see, the colored adb logcat is a huge improvement.

To easily use the code, copy the files color_console.py, coloredlogcat.py and logcat.bat to your Android SDK/Tools path like c:\android-sdk-windows-1.5_r3\tools\logcat.bat. Now, instead of running "adb logcat" just run "logcat".

Please be gentile with the code as I am not a Python programmer :)

You can download the files here colored_logcat.zip (3 KB)

Thanks go to
Jeff Sharkey
André Burgaud
ActiveState for ActivePython

CodeProject

Some time ago I found an interesting “feature” on the BlackBerry emulator.
It seems under special conditions we get some funny messages.

Luckily I was able to reproduce the behavior and here are the steps, the screens and the funny messages.

1. Run clean.bat in C:\eclipse_g_341_jde7\plugins\net.rim.eide.componentpack4.6.0_4.6.0.16\components\simulator\
or skip this but make sure the Contacts list is empty.

2. Copy my application to the simulator folder.

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While playing around with the Nokia 6212 NFC I found a very annoying issue.
A dialog appears every time I start the emulator telling me “This SDK has been tested with Microsoft Windows XP SP2 only, and may or may not function properly on this computer.”

The problem is, checking the “Do not show me this warning again.” does not work.

I assumed there would be some entry in the registry or some ini file that sets this flag. Unfortunately, I could not find it easily.

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Edit 2009-11-10: if you are a developer make sure to check my colored logcat tool

I have seen that it can be a pain the ass to install the Android usb drivers used for debugging, so I put here the steps I made and successfuly got the Android to debug correctly.

1. install Samsung PC Studio 3  v3.2.3 IE2 (or later) to get the normal usb drivers. My link was http://lfiles3.brothersoft.com/internet/mobile/Samsung_PC_Studio_321_GJ9.exe

2. connect the Samsung Galaxy Android device(at this time USB debugging is turned off - see #6). Mass storage has to be turned off as well - see #5. Let Windows install the new hardware - the Samsung drivers.

You can now access the SD card on your device. You will see a USB symbol in the notification bar of the phone at the top. Pull it down and you will see "USB connected. Select to copy files/from your computer". Enable it and you will have access to the SD card.

Next steps are for development only!

This works for both Android 1.5 and Android 1.6 Samsung Galaxy firmwares

3. Download the Android SDK from http://developer.android.com/intl/de/sdk/index.html and unpack it to c:\. Run SDK Setup.exe and make sure to install the 'Usb driver package'. Follow the 4 steps that are provided on that page.

4. modify c:\android-sdk-windows\android_winusb.inf

under the [Google.NTx86] and under [Google.NTamd64] entry add
; Samsung galaxy
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_6640&MI_00
%SingleBootLoaderInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_04E8&PID_6640&MI_04

Some people have reported the MI_04 combination above is not working; you may want to try MI_1 to MI_4 to be sure.

5. go to the phone -> Settings -> About Phone -> Additional Settings -> disable Mass storage only

6. go to the phone -> Settings -> Applications -> Development -> enable USB debugging

7. plug your phone to your computer - Windows will ask for a new driver - the driver that is used for debugging. Point the driver search to c:\android-sdk-windows\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf

You should now be able to use debugging on the Samsung Galaxy Android.


Tips on debugging Samsung Galaxy Android:

1. to check if you can debug on the Android, use “c:\android-sdk-windows\tools\adb.exe devices”
I have
C:\>adb devices
List of devices attached
I7500wJLU2AuEy0 device
This entry is for my Samsung Galaxy I7500 Android phone.

2. use “c:\android-sdk-windows\tools\adb.exe logcat” to see the live and past Android logs. This is probably the most used command. Also see following article for an enhanced colored logcat

3. check out the documentation to see how to install and remove applications from the Android phone: http://developer.android.com/intl/de/guide/developing/tools/adb.html

 

Good luck and have fun!

 

CodeProject

I have tried for the last few hours to install the Vodafone UMTS USB stick only to get in very deep problems. I have downloaded about 300 megs of software just to make a crappy internet connection.

One of the error messages I got was a very spooky "Get profile failed" in a popup dialog. After going through other kits, I was given another exception, this time with more information and something that could actually be googled "WAN-SDK-Fehler Get profile failed."

Unfortunately the google results were not too helpful, but I suddenly remembered something: being a tidy :p CS I disabled all unused services… including RAS!

So it seems after all that it was partially my fault why the crappy software was not working. It is still crappy and that's why I decided to go using the Mobile Partner small and free app.

The Mobile Partner threw me an instant "Connection terminated" error when the RAS was disabled. I should have thought that the RAS was disabled because it could not have instantly thrown me an error message - should have taken a few seconds, IMO.

Here are the right settings to configure your Vodafone account with Mobile Partner if you are in Germany.

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