What are Eclipse’s working sets and why you should use them
As you develop more and more with Eclipse you start more and more projects. This is especially true if you work with Android apps where you might have several demo / proof of concept projects, test projects, server back end projects and so on for just one product. Eclipse's workspace, which seems smart at first starts creating problems when the projects you work with happen to be at separate ends of the workspace. Much scrolling and visual scanning is not productive. Worksets to the rescue!
Tools to improve your (Java) code
Good code is a result of a large number of factors and attention to details. Things from architecture to your knowledge as a programmer all contribute to the quality of your code. One thing that can help raise the quality of your code is the tools you are using. Recently I had a great experience with a couple of small, simple, tools that had a large quality impact upon my code.
The problem with quality apps on Google Play
I've heard people say it many times: the quality of apps in the Apple AppStore for iOS devices is better than that in the Google Play app store for Android. I normally hear lots of explanations for this, explanations that include fragmentation, youth of the Android platform, lack of an application review process, etc. I recently considered a new reason.
[en] AdMob now serves AdSense
I was checking my AdMob account this morning and I noticed a new option: Enable AdSense.
This option allows AdMob users to not just publish ads from the AdMob network, but also from Google's AdSense network. After a bit of searching the web for a bit I found that this feature has been announced a while ago on Google Mobile Ads Blog. The feature was supposed to be rolled out gradually.
[en]Android fragmentation
There has been a lot of talk lately in the Android community about the fragmentation of the ecosystem, what people should and shouldn't do, who is to blame. And many people have come quite quickly to point at this and that trying to convince everyone they've found the real cause for device fragmentation. In this post I will try to argue that the biggest cause for Android's ecosystem fragmentation is Android itself through its huge market share capture in so little time and that no one has done anything wrong, it was inevitable and can be dealt with.
[en] Thoughts on fragility
I am no longer a child but I am still in a constant state of awe. There are so many things in this universe that are just plain bigger than me, and I realize that every day. The thing that surprised me these days is how much work people have put throughout the ages into achieving the current state of progress and how much they keep putting in pushing the boundaries of what's possible.
I am amazed at how much work goes into things which seem small and simple such as organizing a conference or running a bar and then I totally speechless when I think of the amount of work and thought that goes into building and managing a big company or developing amazing technologies such as android or .NET.
And then I think of how I am supposed to build on the shoulders of the people before me and face up to the challenge of rising to at leas their level. But then, the entire development of humanity is incremental. We, as a specie, could not have evolved in any way past what we were thousands of years ago without tools, or, more precisely, tools to store, transmit or share knowledge. I remember in of those bad, cyberpunk movies from the Escape from LA and Escape from New York, they had some system that blasted some kind of EMP pulse over the entire world and destroyed every single type of electronic machinery. Basically, it sent people back to the prehistory.
And I'm thinking how fragile the entire progress of the humanity is, how small we all are and how little we need to disappear as a civilization. It's going to be a miracle if it all sticks together until the 24th century...
[en] Stop that man!
If you've read my blog, and especially the posts about my travels you know that I'm no stranger to extra security checks as my vibrant personality seems to always activate the alarms. Well, this time it was in the Bilka supermarket just outside Århus.