Google

Basically if you've just started using "incognito" mode with the Google Chrome web-browser, this article is just how to switch the quick launch shortcut (next to your start button).  All the articles I googled were windows vista so I thought I'd share one for windows 7 here.  I'm actually only saving you a click as you can just right-click on the google chrome icon and select "New Incognito Window".  This is just how to set it by default (useful if you do online banking, shopping, etc).

Basic Android App using Google Maps and Current Location

Applies to:
  • Android Studio (Beta) 0.8.6
  • Google Android Maps API

What?
I am writing an app for a tablet running Android and wanted to include a Google Map. The following exercise focuses solely on creating an app which opens Google Maps at your current location.

How?
I couldn't find any instructions using the tools I had (Android Studio) which is why I've written this article.

Applies to:
  • Android Studio (Beta) 0.8.9
  • Android Google Maps v2

What?
A sequel to my article "Basic Android App using Google Maps and Current Location", this article suggests how to add Map as a sub activity. Note that this article is based on a new blank project which does not include code from the previous example but you can still build this over the previous example (as I did).

Why?
The previous article meant that the Google map was your main activity and any other activity would be a sub-activity; returning to the map activity would restart the app as a menu item, it would need to launch a new intent... I wanted to change my previous example so that the homepage of the app (the starting page) will simply display a button to the map (in case of offline mode or incompatibility with the device).

How?
In this example, I'm going to add the map as a fragment. This is the most rudimentary example (display map, move camera and display marker) and can be run from any other activity:

Applies To:
  • Microsoft Windows 7 Pro
  • Android Studio v0.8.6 beta
  • Java Development Kit v1.8.0_20

What?
The article below serves as a checklist to ensure I don't release an app that only displays maps to myself (again).

Why?
This took me a while to figure out so hopefully this will help others.

How?
The gist is that I was using the Test SHA1 when adding allowed Android Keys to the Google APIs console (there's so many) when I should be using the App SHA1 (I have now added both to the console).

What?
A quick article on how to remove the first two entries from a RSS feed produced by a bunch of java files collectively known as "SimpleRssReader.

Why?
The original file reads of a feed from PCWorld.com. I adapted this to read a google news rss feed and the first two entries are "<query> - Google News", everytime. This article documents what I did to fix it.

How?
Basic to some but I'm new to the game. I'm trying to remove the first two entries from a news feed from a Google News feed.

What?
A quick article on how to display a OK/Cancel popup which I use as a message to the user for debug purposes.

Why?
It's similar to javascript's message box or confirm box, only Android let's you redesign the dialog. For my purposes I have used an XML as the layout.

How?
This displays a standard Ok/cancel message popup which you attach to some event

What?
A reference to what size an image background should be set to for various screen sizes.

Why?
A background image I was using was unedited at 1600x2133 (364kb) and was not displaying on smaller devices. Configuring drawables for each layout seemed to be the only solution.

res/drawable-ldpi      240x320
res/drawable-mdpi      320x480
res/drawable-hdpi      480x800
res/drawable-xhdpi     640x960
res/drawable-xxhdpi    960x1440
res/drawable-xxxhdpi   // for launcher only 640dpi
res/drawable-tvdpi     1.33*mdpi // not needed as mdpi or hdpi is used

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Kind Regards,

Joel Lipman
www.joellipman.com

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Please publish modules in offcanvas position.