A lot less Sauce

Android – Development 5 – Finished Basics

moarsauce — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:41:27 +0000

It’s been another 2 weeks, and I havn’t stopped working on my Android project in that time. Infact, it’s actually rather enjoyable and addictive these days because I actually know what I’m doing, as opposed to guess working everything (though a lot of it is still trial and error/guessing ).

The most important thing to note, is that my application now works without a hitch. The user types a name, selects from the drop down (also works without error on a QVGA/smaller screen now), types their message, selects a Date and Time with the 2 buttons provided (with adequate feedback to let them know of their decisions) and then lets them Set the message. The message get’s sent to the recipient, along with a signature at the end to let them know when the text was sent (to avoid waking the sender up), and even provides a little notification for the sender. The messaging can hold up to any number of messages I believe thanks to the unique time identifier stamp for each Alarm.

Now, all of this may sound well and dandy, but below are the list of current limitations:

Does not allow the user to delete/manage messages
Does not save messages, so that upon reboot the messages are re-collected and set
Notification does not allow the user to click into it and be sent to the application/message
For some reason, the sent messages no longer sync in with the native messaging application
Does not support multiple/long SMS message

It shouldn’t be too difficult to fix these problems and I estimate that it will take me a week (due to a lot of other project work that needs to be done) for it to be achieving all the features I set out to implement (and more).

So far I am very happy with the application, because there has been so much more complexity and difficulty than I could have imagined, yet I have still managed to achieve my outcome goals. In my development, I have also provided additional implementations that give better feedback/affordance.

Android – Development 4 – Fixes

moarsauce — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:53:38 +0000

Well, it’s been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged and in that time I have done so much on my project. Firstly, I attended the DMP session with my tutors. This helped me to create the following outline:

Must:
1) Let the user send an SMS with ‘Number’ and ‘Message’ values
2) Provide time setting functionality
3) Save SMS into Database for Alarm to send at any time
4) Retrieve Contact list
5) Provide an Android Menu to show ‘Manage Alarms’ button
6) Allow user to manage alarms (delete)

Should:
1) Start up the application after reboot – Cannot start the application when the platform is switched off
2) Apply a Signature to the end of the Message
3) Provide adequate feedback on what selecting the time for the SMS/Alarm
4) Look the same across all platforms (screen sizes, versions)

Could:
1) Provide a ‘Settings’ button in the Android Menu
2) Allow user to edit the Signature
3) Provide a Calendar
4) Support Reoccurrence
5) Allow user to manage alarms (edit)
6) Provide a more pleasing design

There are actually so many small parts to the application, that I could probably do a ‘Must, Should, Could’ outline for each component. However, this is the basic outline and has helped me because before I was trying to do too much.

I also had a few problems since my last prototype. Firstly, it wouldn’t send an SMS because it was working with the literal string of the user, their name. I solved this by making the Autocomplete SQL query return the users’ phone number instead. This also provides a good bit of feedback to the user. I did not sort out the placement of the Contact list on smaller screens. This is beyond the scope right now and I just want to get it working on a single platform first.

With my Application, I have now successfully implemented some good feedback for time selection (letting the user know when it will be sent) and most importantly, my application now has a Broadcast Receiver to successfully set and work with the provided alarm feature.

The next step will be to save the values of Message and Number to my own Database. Then when the Alarm kicks off, get it to retrieve that information and send it as an SMS. I will most likely encounter a problem with not being able to set 2 messages to be sent, and since my knowledge is limited with the in-built SQLite and Alarm feature, it will probably take me some time to successfully get the correct message saved, recieved and sent

Some interesting applications

moarsauce — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 02:32:14 +0000

So, last night I was playing around with my Android, and ended up on a little escapade where I came across some interesting applications of technology. All of which were common sense really, but it was nice to see it actually being done

Android:
Well, I was going down the list of all my applications because I knew that I skimmed some of them when I installed them.

The first application that peaked my interest was ‘Qik’. This application allows the user to stream a live feed out of their camera to the website http://qik.com/ and then saves it once the recording has finished. I knew this had been done with web cams etc plenty of times, but to be able to do it straight out of a phone really is something. I shall of course be attempting to stream my sky diving trip with this little application. Whether they let me is another matter

The next application was Skype… well, to my amazement, they haven’t actually done this yet. However, I managed to get a hold of an application called ‘SIPdroid’ which allows a user to register a VoIP account and then make phone calls to Skype users. It is a very backwards way of carrying out the task making-phone-calls-over-the-internet, but at least somebody got round to providing this service

Skype:
Well, I haven’t had Skype for very long, and I still don’t think I’ve missed out on anything after using it for a while. However, it does provide an interesting feature to ‘share screen’, so that the recipient can see the callers Computer screen. I assumed there would be a way to stream the computers’ Core Audio, so perhaps a long distance couple could watch a movie together, I know this certainly would’ve been used a lot when I had a long distance relationship. To my surprise though, it doesn’t. In fact, after scouring the internet to find a piece of software that does, I couldn’t find a single one.

This is quite a little niche that a developer could get into, especially with all the long distance relationships going on at the moment. But no doubt Skype will get it covered soon enough

VLC:
I did find out though, that VLC allows you to put video files up for streaming. I didn’t explore it very much, because it doesn’t seem like something I would use. Essentially though, you turn you’re own computer into a little video streaming site. This could be used to watch a video with a loved one, as mentioned with Skype, but not to a very effective degree as it’s not really real-time.

Conclusion:
Qik = Fun but Gimmicky due to how much bandwidth it uses
Skype = Annoying, since it doesn’t provide any Android application or Core Audio sharing atm
SIPdroid = Good temporary replacement for Skype
VLC = Most awesome Video player in the world, but it doesn’t support sharing a movie in real-time

Web Hacking – Part 2

moarsauce — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:19:27 +0000

Another late night due to sleeping problems. I decided to be productive and do some Web Hacking again with http://www.hackthissite.org/. I managed to complete a couple of Realistic Missions but only with the help of guides. I start off really well but always end up hitting some kind of wall, quite disappointing that I know so little about web flaws and cryptography, but it’s to be expected.

I at least know the idea behind most of it, I just have no idea what tools I’m supposed to be using; like now for instance, I needed to use a guide which told me to download a Rainbow Cracker to build myself some Rainbow Tables… o.0 I have no idea what these Rainbow Tables are, perhaps they’ll show lots of images of Skittles? Hm, I want some Skittles now, tasty e numbers. But yeah, right now, I’m having to wait for this programme to build me 5 Rainbow Tables with 8 million entries in order to de-code a password hash. It won’t complete for a good 8 hours or so I think

Sadly, with this whole Web Hacking expedition, I think it’s all going slightly off-track :/ It’s teaching me stuff which I doubt I will ever have to defend against, because if a determined hacker really wants to hack my website, he will unless I’m protecting personal information, it would be difficult to justify covering every single crack since there are so many! >.< I think I'm just going to finish off this last realistic mission and leave the rest for some other time. For now, I'll work on improving my SQL and JS Injection knowledge along with how XQL documents can be exploited, since all I really need to do is put up that family of Smurf's in my tutors teaching slides.

Manga Project / Content Scraper – Extended

moarsauce — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:49:14 +0000

http://justcarl.co.uk/manga/

The other day I was bored and frustrated about getting no where with my Android project, so I decided to take a break. I played some games, Divinity II, what an addictive game! But yeah, eventually I got on to doing the finishing touches with my Manga Project.

Below is a list of additions to my site:

Clicking double pages twice is no longer needed
Special edition Chapters and Pages are now displayed
View All feature implemented
At the end of each chapter, the next chapter is automatically searched for

There are also a few minor tweaks I implemented in order to make my website work a lot faster with content scraping.

I am happy with my web application because it is now bug free, as far as I’m aware. However, I still need to add a simple Login feature so that users can ‘Bookmark’ their manga’s to their account. This perhaps makes my website too complicated and isn’t really neccessary, but if I get bored at any point then it will help me to brush up on my Session skills, even if it means getting rid of the feature after knowing it’s not needed

Web Hacking – Part 1

moarsauce — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:27:23 +0000

So, I was in my ‘Internet Applications Development’ lesson today, we were learning about naive mistakes people sometimes make in the development of applications and we also talked about the book ‘Getting Real’ by 37 Signals. It was a good lesson, but the content of the lesson isn’t what this blog is about. However, at the end of the lesson, my lecturer (Chris Wallace) mentioned how many holes in security there are with his application and how anybody could quite easily inject SQL… this got me thinking, this would be quite a bit of fun, if I could put in a family of smurfs somewhere, it would definately be a laugh

So, I began my hunt. I quickly got up an SQL injection tutorial, learnt the basics and got a good grasp on the topic. However, I could not for the life of me, find anywhere to use my new found knowledge. I tried everywhere I could find, but all I came accross was variable queries, not SQL queries and thus no where for me to try out SQL injection

I informed Chris of what I was trying to do, and by the time I eventually find somewhere on his list of apps to try out my knowledge, he is most likely going to seal everything off. This means no family of smurfs :/ so… I have begun going through hacking exercises at http://www.hackthissite.org/. Although this is just for fun right now, I haven’t really done any practical work to make a website secure, so this stuff will help me in the future when it comes to making a secure application/service.

Android – Development 3 – Contacts

moarsauce — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 03:31:49 +0000

In the past 3 weeks, I have been reading the e-book I mentioned. It has helped me to understand a lot of the Android fundamentals so far, but there is still so much more I need to learn.

I attempted to implement the Contact list with my new found knowledge. Since Android is still a maze to me, I had to follow a few tutorials yet again to get it working. My knowledge at least provided me with a good starting point and helped me to understand what was actually going on so I could attempt de-bugging.

Below is the list of implementations for this part of the application:
Must display qwerty keyboard…
Need to show ghost text ‘To:’…
Create a new activity/view to display a small drop down box… must state name, moble/email and finally number
Must display name being typed as first entry, with number output e.g. sa (72)

Below are the resources I used to create this part of the application:
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/src/com/example/android/apis/view/AutoComplete4.html
http://thinkandroid.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/retrieving-contact-information-name-number-and-profile-picture/
http://www.higherpass.com/Android/Tutorials/Working-With-Android-Contacts/2/
http://osdir.com/ml/Android-Developers/2009-11/msg03825.html

I also used page 217 in my e-book which spoke about Data storage and retrieval.

Although I have completed my implementation, I have now encountered 2 problems. The first is that the drop-down box is displaced in smaller devices, and the most important problem, it can no longer send an SMS message. The SMS problem shouldn’t be too difficult to fix, as I think it is only a matter of passing the Contact Number from the cursor to the sendSMS function. However, I don’t even know where to begin with the displacement of the drop-down box.

With this project, I have realised that I set my deadlines very in-accurately. I did not take into account that I would have to learn the language first before making any implementations, and as of right now I am barely up to date.

Android – Development 2 – Application Outline

moarsauce — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:01:09 +0000

Trying to follow tutorials, but still don’t understand entirely what they’re creating and how so I have decided to start reading the e-book I got a hold of http://android.radioactiveyak.com/Home. Also, with this project, although I have previously mentioned what my application is going to do, I didn’t think about how it would all fit together in Android development. In order to help me picture this, I wrote out the draft Android implementations below:

SMS Message Page = Activity/View {

Contact Field {

Contact List = Activity/View

}

Text Field

Date Field {

Date = Activity/View? Pop up roller time

}

Time Field {

Time = Activity/View? Pop up roller time

}

Enable Sig

Set SMS {

Apply Alarm Service

}

}

Menu {

Manage Alarms/SMS msgs = Activity/View {

Deleting an SMS = Intent?

}

}

Settings {

Generic SMS Settings?

Edit Sig

}

Android SFK – Development 1

moarsauce — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:06:57 +0000

After finishing with some refreshing, I was curious as to how I am going to implement a timing feature into my SMS Application. This is the most important part of the project, because it’s what my application will be made to do. I have no idea how to do this, so I did some google searching and reading.

I came accross an eBook http://android.radioactiveyak.com/Home. This has a section on using the in-built Alarm feature. I could use this feature to fire off my intents (sending a message to a user) at certain times. There seems to be a few kinks, such as over-writing previous Intents, and cancelling alarms when the phone is rebooted. This is the closest thing I have found to what I want so I am continuing to look into this feature with this tutorial http://www.androidcompetencycenter.com/2009/02/android-basics-alarm-service/.

Android SDK – More Learning

moarsauce — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:24:52 +0000

For my Digital Media Project (Uni module, 1 single project for the entire year), I have been working with Android in order to create a text messaging application which allows the user to set when it gets sent. For example, the next day.

Since I’m not doing anything today (and I haven’t been using Android SDK much), I have decided to do a little refreshing on how Android SDK works and then hopefully go on to progress my project. The next step in progression of my project is to apply Contacts to my already functioning SMS Application. After this, I will attempt to apply a time feature.

The site I am using is http://developerlife.com/tutorials/?p=300

Below is one of the videos: