its a cat.... doing the can-can

Done much mobile phone development?
Me neither.

In an attempt to fix that I put a day aside to write an Android app with the theme decided by my imaginative housemate.  Can-can cat was born.

It turns out than in a day you can;

• Install eclipse and the relevant Android Develeopment Tools (ADT) plugin.
• Learn the basics (Activities, the various xml Android files and resources) to get started
• Write a simple Android mobile app with animation and music
• Upload it to the Android Market

There are very useful resources on how to get started.  So instead here are some of the good parts of the experience;

• Its Java.  Its obvious but for me this makes the barrier for entry so minimal you can be productive as soon as your IDE is configured.
• The documentation is great and there are loads of familiar resources like stackoverflow out there if you get stuck at any point.
• The Android Market is open, in minutes you can upload an app and it be available.  Great for a developer… less so as an Android user (there are too many helloworld and stupid apps like mine on there)

Here are some of the gotchas that slowed me down;

• The built in Mediaplayer seems flaky, or at least overly complex with error and status handlers all over the place.  I kept it simple and created/destroyed rather than reusing players.
• If you get an eclipse error complaining about http://schemas.android.com not being available…. try selecting your Activity class when running.
  That slightly unintuitive error means you have one of the many xml files selected and its trying to run a transform instead of your app…
• Its not required for a valid android manifest but make sure you include a minimum SDK or you can’t upload to the Android Market :
  <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion=”7″ />
• The Android Market is not web browsable, you need to be using an Android mobile to access it… why?

Other than that its all quite painless.  What to make to check out the next platform?  Disco Dog?  Polka Pig?

This combined serendipitously with stumbling upon a list of free techie ebooks so now I’m going to be spending each spare 10 minute slot investing in me.

I’ve looked around for other free or decent pay-for techie books via iTunes seem thin on the ground.  Amazon seems the best bet.

Anyone got any recommendations or suggestions (nothing obscene) on how to fill those idle 10 minutes of me time with geekery?

I'm not sure what we were doing but it was fun.

Last night I was lucky enough to see the Japanese punk band Secret 7 Line at one of the few live music venues in Shanghai, YuYinTang.

They were super special.

Seriously.

It could have just been that I was quite drunk but I doubt it.  Secret 7 Line rocked.  Their songs were all in English and they did a couple of excellent punk covers.  Tubthumping was good but I loved their cover of ‘Had a bad day’ by Gavin Degraw.  The guys in the band were friendly and their English was much better than my Japanese so my advice is check them out.

As for Yu Yin Tang as a venue I liked it.  It was small, dark and drinks were cheap (for Shanghai bar prices).  There were quite a few foreigners there but I guess Chinese people just don’t like this music very much (someone let me know if I’m way off) ?  The Chinese that were there were really into the music and I discovered that moshing and mosh pits seem to transcend language barriers (I have a couple of odd bruises today that back that up).

So, in short, I’m definitely going back sometime soon…

Anyone that knows me knows my family has had pet dogs since I was born (the latest new canine Shove is Daisy).

Anyone that knows me well will know I’m a fan of our primate friends.

Anyone that knows me very well will know I regularly read Monkeys In The News to keep up to date (seriously, there is primate research/news often publicized there that sheds light or perhaps familiar shadows on the human condition. Oh, and there are funny monkey pictures too).

But never did I expect these interests to collide on youtube under the title ‘Dog Vs Monkey.

I’m not sure why I think its interesting or funny. Is it the way the monkeys toy with the dogs as though they know they’re in charge? Is it the way the dogs seem to play with the monkeys the same way they would play with humans? Is it just nice to see two species managing to get along well?

Is it big or funny? or am I just a wrong’un?  you decide.

Last Friday night I was lucky enough to get a free ticket and my name on the guest list (thanks Tony!) to see The Mars Volta. It was a good night, I got to see parts of the Brixton Academy new to me even though I’ve been there a fair number of times in the last decade. However, the gig itself was decidedly odd…I should confess up front that I’d never listened to any of Mars Volta’s music before so its probably my own fault. They were loud, which is fine. They were loud and had a guy playing brass and often switched instruments with often 3 people playing percussion. However they were loud and they just wouldn’t stop.

Honestly they wouldn’t which was the strange thing. There was no support act, the tracks meandered on longer than any other band I’ve seen, often one bleeding into the next and at no point did they stop to speak to or even acknowledge the audience. If no audience had been there at all I fully expect they’d have got on stage and performed their 3 hour set (yes Three!) with the same energy and enthusiasm.

Maybe that counts as cool… but that accompanied with the vocals being less audible than the guy playing the maraccas makes me think it isn’t.

If any Mars Volta fans (Pete?) stumble upon this post please let me know what it is about them that I wasn’t getting and I’ll try and look out for it next time….

Films (movies to any Americans reading) in which nothing dramatic or world changing happens but this nothing happens in a hilarious and often believably poignant and awkward way are increasing in popularity.Napolean Dynamite, Superbad and most recently (for me) Eagle versus Shark for example. I just finished watching the later and its probably my favourite. With painfully funny dry humour typical of antipdeans and excellent acting it beats the american-pieish Superbad and trounces Napoleon Dynamite as it is more consistently funny. But please, don’t take my word for it, watch it and let me know what you think.ok, I told myself I wouldn’t…. but just one more quote;Man on phone: D’you want to leave a message?Jarrod: Tell him that justice is waiting for him.Man on phone: OK Justin. Thank you. Bye bye.[hangs up]Jarrod: No, justice. Justice.

I recently heard of the yellow bird project , a nice simple idea which allows the people running the company to make money for charity whilst interacting with and supporting the musicians they like.

T-shirts designed by Wolfmother, Clap your hands say yeah and The Shins are available along with many more.

If you, like me, like quasi-unique T-shirts, music and doing your bit for charity I’d recommend you check them out.

I’ll be purchasing Wolfmother’s design to help release gnomes from the shackles of human opression (and make some money for the Teenage Cancer Trust on the side)

I need to finally come out. I’m a big fan of Stephen Fry’s work.

Mostly this is due to watching epiode after episode of QI and it making me feel as though it makes me cleverer.

However I recently stumbled upon his blog here and found he too is a big fat geek. If you like words, technology or just, you know, fun I’d recommend reading it.

A recent post which stood out to me though is this one. Its a little rambly (no bad thing) but its central point is Heated debate is good. We need not take it personally, and someone might just learn something.

As an argumentative short person with a napoleon complex I agree but don’t want to sound too much like a Daily Mail Reader (sorry Daily Mail readers, I’m sure the sports coverage is great but you know the stereotype) and be-moan the state of the country today, the education system and how policemen are looking younger these days.

Reasoned debate is good. Listening to and hearing other peoples’ side of the argument is great and learning from someone who knows more on a subject than you is like finding gold.

No, this isn’t an article advocating a more protectionaist policy regarding imports of goods from the PRC…

A friend pointed me to this article recently which gives a good explanation of one of the more infamous Chinese mistranslations.

(Spoiler : it boils down to the chinese symbol for ‘dry’ also meaning ‘fuck’ in certain contexts. contexts not well understood by translation software…)

The article is a nice crossroads between my interests of the Chinese language, profanity and technology. The content is a bit dry but some of the other translations might raise a smile.