Smart Disorganized

Tag: android

  • 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…

  • Why is my phone so useless?

    Why is my phone so useless? I mean I’m a programmer. I can make it do what I want, can’t I? And yet, actually, I’m as bad as anyone. Allowing my phone and its apps. to define my activities. I still depend on the laptop for all the things that are for me. My phone…

  • The Storage Situation

    I’m back working on Android apps. And one thing that’s a pain is understanding storage on Android. But I’ve found a fantastic series of blogposts that explain the situation more clearly than anything else I’ve read. Start with Internal Storage and then follow the links at the bottom of the article.

  • 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.…

  • Issue 38282 – Android MTP support does not show recent files until the device is rebooted (continued)

    Mysteriously, this Android bug (which I talked about here) got made “obsolete” today. Without explanation. Who knows if that means it’s fixed in Android 5? (And does Android 5 actually work yet?)

  • 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…

  • OWL Screenshots

    How is OWL looking these days? Here are a couple of screenshots : OWLdroid Note that I’ve moved the navbar of OWL into the space which Bootstrap usually uses for the main menu. This is a big win in terms of space, and the fact that it’s now always visible, even when scrolling down long…