Playing with Html5
by Fredrik on Mar.30, 2012, under Uncategorized
I’ve recently taken a break from my normal spare time activities in front of the computer (android coding and gaming) to try and learn some new html, javascript and css in the form of doing some html5 projects.
So far I haven’t actually finished any of those projects but the one being closest to completion is a html localstorage based replacement for Opera Mobile speedial. So far the actual usage of localstorage habe been great, though I initially had some issues with reading back tbe image data as an array insted of key:value pairs. This was probably more due to my lack of experience with javascript than anything else.
This little project allowed me to basically generate the content in javascript and just bare layout in html and then styling in css. Quite satisfied with that tbh.
Now the latest hurdle is to get my buttons in the jquery mobile simpledialog2 to actually work. So far any attempts related to normal jquery and jqm demos have not worked 
It can not be that hard to create a lightbox like dialog and working buttons that read an input field in the dialog.
Now back to work.
ICS Importer 1.0 beta ready
by Fredrik on Dec.18, 2011, under Uncategorized
Finally after having very little time to focus ICS Importer the last month I have finally managed to do an overhaul and added features I had planned to add.
There is now a Settings page, still not that many settings yet, to handle a user specified path to list the files in and also the option to list the files without file extensions, will be turned off by default.
In the file listing the user can now select from a few predefined system location (tested to see if the exist before the user can select them) and the user specified path, which is default if set.
The main page has also gotten an overhaul to improve usability a bit. The buttons are larger and have icons + text to help with usage. If the user launches just the app and not via an intent they wil have the Open File button instead of the Add to calendar button to help them find files to import.
Quite happy with the progress despite the lack of time to focus on it right now.
And as always, if you would like to try the beta, you can find it
ICS Importer passes another milestone
by Fredrik on Nov.04, 2011, under Android, Generel
Today ICS Importer has been downloaded over 1000 times on the Android market. It is also available in the amazon app store, Applib app store and on GetJar.
ICS Importer 0.45 released
by Fredrik on Oct.19, 2011, under Android, Generel, Programming
The last day or so I’ve been looking at localizing the text in ICS Importer to make it more available to more users.
IT meant moving from my “temporary” inline hard coded text strings to using hte Android strings resource system, which in all honestly I should have done from the start.
So far I’ve managed to get translations to German, Swedish, Italian and Turkish. Looking to get a hold of more languages as I go along, will probably add Danish and Norwegian shortly as that should probe quite easy for me to do. I’m waiting to get the French translations but that might take some time.
I also discovered, actually Samsung discovered it, that I had a flaw in the parses that did not follow the RFC spec. This was in no small part due to me just basing it of test data from Wikipedia and their description of the spec. I will now continue refining the parser with help of the RFC and any user submitted files.
As always some bug fixing is less fun than others.
For the immediate future I will implement possibility to use select from a selection of predefined locations in the file browser.
ICS Importer hits a milestone (500 downloads)
by Fredrik on Oct.14, 2011, under Android, Generel, Uncategorized
Just a few moments ago ICS Importer passed the 500 downloads marker on the Android Market.
ICS Importer 0.4
by Fredrik on Oct.13, 2011, under Android, Generel, Programming
Last few weeks have been quite interesting with regards to development of the ICS Importer app for the Android platform.
Since the 0.2 release there have been crashes to fix that just did not happen in my development area. This have given me a feel for that it is a truly global market. Reports on phones not sold in EU, meaning even if I had the funds I could not get hold of these phones to test my app on them.
On to the new stuff. Because of this nature I decided to add a built in bug/feature reporting functionality where the user can write down a quick description of the issue and also attach an ics file that causes problems.
bug report dialog
The other new feature is that the user can now set an alarm for the added event. Currently only to some predefined values but will change this for the next major version.
ICS Importer ver 0.2
by Fredrik on Sep.29, 2011, under Android, Generel, Programming
I have spent the last few days improving upon the ical importer I released couple of days ago.
New features:
*Open file from system default Download directory
*Fixed the intents and activities so more applications should recognize it
plus some general code fixing and tweaking.
Here is a screen shot of the file loading view.
You can find ICS Importer at Market
or here
And now back to thinking of more features to add…….
ICS Importer Android
by Fredrik on Sep.26, 2011, under Android, Programming
Recently I’ve been getting quite a few calendar invites in the form of ics files (ICal format) and since I do most of my planning via my phone (an Android phone) which does not support this file format I decided I would make a simple program to import the event into my calendar while on the go.
Developing this little program had its own set of challenges, surprisingly not that many in the areas I would have expected. Rather they where in areas like converting the time in the Date object to local time zone of the device.
It is still a very early version, possibly even only considered as a beta but it does work for me so far. I have some bugs on my todo list for it but I’m sure that when people start using it they will find more. Its my hope at least some these users report good bugs (so I can fix them).
Here is a screen shot of the importing 
So far this little program have given me some bits of Android development I have never touched before and that feels good.
The latest version of ICS Importer can be found here
Or on the Android Market
If you decide to try it or find some bugs please leave a comment.
Skething some logos
by Fredrik on Aug.09, 2011, under Generel, Graphics, Restaurant
I was playing around with some concepts for logos for the sushi (Sushi House @ sagene) place where my girlfriend works.
It felt like a good time to play around with Illustrator a bit more and see what I could come up with.
There is already an existing logo and in the end that is more or less what they would like to go with but this did not stop me from playing around with some ideas and concepts.
Given I’m not really a graphical artist but I do find it interesting at times to play around with these things, if nothing else just to get a better knowledge of the tools.
So the first one is more or less a rehash of the existing one
For me it a nice challange trying to remake some things in Illustrator to create it as a vector graphic instead.
This logo was interesting to recreate the top “roof” in a nice way. It proved a bit problematic for some reason to get the paths to connect and let me fill the enclosed area with a color.
The second one is where I had total freedom and I was looking to make something that looked a bit sketched and not so computer drawn. I was also using Illustrator this time. The general idea is to show a Asian looking style of house presented without walls and then add the text. During the process I decided to add a bit of percieved depth to it and I feel it worked a lot better thatn just the flat front part of it.
I added some shading via a dropshadow to enchance the feel of pencil sketched and smudged to create the feel.
Lunch at Signalen in Nesuddtangen
by Fredrik on Aug.06, 2011, under Generel, Restaurant
This really warm day in Oslo I was out and about with some friends. When the heat and the desire for a cold pint got too strong we ended up at the only place there that served both food and beers.
I ordered.a chicken burger with “boat potatoes” which essentially is pieces of potato deep fried.
Considering the heat the food was still very nice to eat. The biggest surprise was probably the lack of a top burger bun on the burger. All in all it was a nice place, though they could invest in an AC system. The view is fantastic and the prices are a bit on the higher end of the scale. Considering this I still feel its a nice place to go if you want to eat something nice and leave Oslo, it takes only 30 minutes with the boat from Oslo.
