ChatGPT teaches me Android

I’m the kind of idiot who spends six months writing my own framework in Java on Android, because I’m too stupid / lazy / impatient to read and grok the documentation and learn what’s already there. ChatGPT (3.5!) taught me more in a 15 minute chat last night than I’d been able to figure out …

Android : Extended SurfaceView's onDraw() method never called

This has just resolved something I’ve been beating my head against the wall over for the last several days. Source: android – Extended SurfaceView’s onDraw() method never called – Stack Overflow WHY? Android? Why are you so convoluted and perverse? So … yeah … subclass the SurfaceView class … and you’d expect to be able …

Travel Report

So as noted previously, I went travelling without a notebook, but with a Xaomi tablet, a portable keyboard, and a copy of UserLand Linux. How did that go? Surprisingly well. Actually I ended up using another keyboard, a cheap “cover” with keyboard built in, no Bluetooth but micro-USB. And I had to get an adaptor …

The Android Studio / Gradle Experience

Im sure my answer / comment on What is Gradle in Android Studio? will get downvoted into oblivion with short-shrift fairly soon. (Maybe deservedly). But I’ll make it here : [quote] At the risk of being discursive I think behind this is the question of why the Android Studio / Gradle experience is so bad. …

Is Google breaking the Android file-system?

Over at the comments on Use Dropbox in place of iTunes I pointed out that, far from Android working straightforwardly, the problems I posted about here suggest that Google is actually breaking the “just working” file-system model that Android used to have. Maybe this is in the name of security. Or efficiency. Or following Apple …

Issue 38282 : Android MTP support does not show recent files until the device is rebooted

Just found that this bug in Android is causing problems for my OWL / OWLdroid syncing. Issue 38282 – Android MTP support does not show recent files until the device is rebooted. Basically, when OWLdroid creates a new page, it writes a new OPML file to the Android’s local storage. But because Android now has …