Almond Mendoza

After a month of planning to make a builder for Android apps, the progress has been super slow due to a lot of reason like work, bricking my wii, and games. So the original plan had changed from python(app engine) to Php5 due to app engine limitation on number of files that could be uploaded and the time to develop for me should be shorter. And since the progress has been so slow, i cant show anything as this moment, i believe before July this year i could release an alpha version, ahha.

Here are the list of features that had been implemented and will be implemented.
Templates from database – Initial phase started using PHP and MySql
Internationalization – Basic internationalization done, still need to improve
Saving Project – Just started
Export to an app – Just started
Plans to use it besides for Android

Besides this, the biggest update is i’ll be doing mobile programming starting April, yes i had said goodbye to my current job at Razorfish to focus more on Mobile and Frontend web, sort of a dream job, i could say. On which company, its huge here in HK and its a young company plus more of a software house (compare to Razorfish which is more on online advertising) so i’m excited to join their staff. So I’m seeing that there will be more post in the 2nd half of the year here regarding programing especially mobile based and ofcourse Android. Besides bricking my wii, the first month of this year is amazing.

Happy Tiger Year, Happy Chinese New Year.

Some of you might be wondering why there isn’t any post recently regarding Android or why have i not answer any of the question on the blog, i have been doing something unique for the Android community which i believe no one has ever done or atleast i haven’t seen it. So what is it?

Basically i’m applying (finally) the knowledge I gather from doing/maintaining my current company’s flash framework, our company flash generator that is based on ExtJS that would export JSFL files that could then build a working flash prototype, with fla and AS3 sources (ExtJS to PHP to JSFL to flash fla/AS3). What does this have to do with Android?

If you work with me, you will know how lazy I am that i want everything to be automate or atleast i’ll do it once and automate the next time or the development time should not be that long. But automation does came with a price, usually the price is learning a lot of technologies, like the example above i have to learn ExtJS, PHP5, JSFL and AS3. And for this project i have to learn ExtJS(more advance stuff), HTML5(will remove IE from the equation), Python using App Engine and Android (need to step up the learning). The purpose of this project is to cut down the time for you to build an app, and possibly cutting down the time for anyone to build an android app.

When can i see it?
The whole concept came to me at Dec 31 while waiting for the new year to come, and since i have a full day work therefore the whole project is still at its baby stage. Here is a screencap of the current development

Update Jan 11, 2009
The ExtJS part is going strong

Update Jan 11, 2009

Why am i doing this?
This year, my resolution is to start a new life, a new life that would mean i have to go out to the world and give back what i have gain from it. And to do that I have to be in an English speaking country, tried to apply to US, Canada, Australia and a lot more but no one came back to me, so i have to build something that would showcase my talent and at the same time give back to the community. My resume is at http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AeO-OZiPmCOqZGM2anQ4bV8xMzZmNXc1MjZkNA&hl=en LOL.

The end production’s sources would be opened to the world, the builder under GPL, the python under GPLv3 or apache, then android sources under Apache sources. I would try to give update every month if possible or more frequently.

I would like to get feedback from you guys, any suggestions or any comments?

Let’s fire up the android development!!!

Happy new year to everyone reading this blog and thanks a lot to all who contributed to my blog and to my apps.

This year has been a great year, especially having the chance to be interviewed by Google (and i failed so bad, ahha), being promoted as the Senior web developer at Razorfish, having my birthday in an airplane and a lot more so both technical and non-technical, its just a great year.

Previous year, i made some prediction, http://almondmendoza.com/2009/01/01/happy-new-year-from-almondmendozacom/. Now recap which we prediction did came true.

1) Android did really got big this year, but fake phone from china didnt help it became big.
2) Google globally increase by 1-2 percent, in japan 10+ percent, down in china due to the government favoring baidu? (from http://gs.statcounter.com), google cracked GPS market in US, browser market, smartphone market.
3) Apple release snow leopard in August 28, 2009
4) MS did release win7 (i taught they wont) but i got the lesser version part
5) This one is mysterious, there are source that said it cracked 2 percent (http://digg.com/linux_unix/Linux_Market_Share_Passes_2) and other said its 1 percent.
6) Adobe announce flash 11 but still no linux support but fla will be xml based (therefore it might be easier to create a clone on linux)
7) Not really in financial trouble companies but Google did acquire good companies this year with Admob, reCaptcha and On2.
FB connect is hot this year.
9) Don’t know about this one but this year conficker virus made it to the media.
10) I hate MS for not killing IE.

Now for my prediction in 2010
1) Hardware will be huge next year with usb3, 3d tv with internet, motion controller for ps3 and xbox, mac netbook?, more android phones, bluray with 3d (ps3), e-readers.

2) Adobe will be the source of the viruses and not MS, right now MS is doing a better job on security but Adobe isn’t, so in 2010 Adobe will be the target (same prediction as virus vendors)

3) Android would appear in more hardware like TV, PMP, Media box and a lot more and these might roll out to consumers

4) Googlewave would not take off if its not integrated into other services by Google coz by itself its way too complicated

5) Chrome will eat some of IE/Firefox market share especially in linux where firefox sucks big time. With the Canonical and Google Chrome OS deal, Ubuntu will having the ballot box to choice which browser you want by default, Firefox or Chrome. Or Chrome will be included by default.

6) Microsoft Bing will have a better market share but MS Office, IE, Xbox and Windows will suffer

7) Mac currently has 90%+ of 1000USD+ computers, Mac will take over the 800USD+ as well.

Vivendi would buy another big Game Publisher (Ubisoft/Take-two/THQ) but might not merge it with Activision Blizzard like Sierra is right now.

9) Frontend web technologies would be huge with web3d, O3d, JS2, HTML5 and it will be called web 3.0, ahahh

10) Win7 will be big (but Mac would still be the winner next year) and IE6 will finally die!!! Die IE6 and IE7!!!

These are my predictions, whats yours?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone.

Someone send me an ecard that looks like its build in html3 and the encoding are wrong, hhaha

Updated http://butiwanttowatchit.com/ with new interface using blueprint css framework & jquery for the frontend, cakePHP with zend framework on the backend. Head over
http://butiwanttowatchit.com/

Acer A1 is the 5th android phone here in Hong Kong, with HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Samsung Galaxy and HTC sense. The first network carrier is CSL and the promotion page is http://1010.hkcsl.com/jsp/whats_hot/news_and_promotions/acer_liquid.jsp?language=eng.

Here in HK HTC Hero is making some noise, but network carriers has a huge problem of not updating their customer to the latest OS and i bet they don’t care. I know someone who happen to learn how to update the OS by themself coz their network won’t do that. Now i want to see how CSL would live up to their android customers.

Since HK has laws that phone can’t be locked to a network unlike most country, phones by default are more expensive in the end even if you subscribe to a network. Acer A1 is requires you to have 18 months contact with $218+15 (around 30US) and you have to pay 1500HKD for the device plus the fact that the internet is not unlimited, while this might not sound that much to some, my G1 (dev phone) is under China Mobile using Edge/GPRS but i’m paying 110HKD (15USD) per month. And i download podcasts on my G1 therefore i use gigabytes of data and imagine how much my bill will be if switch to use A1 on CSL. Now since HK has no locked carrier, i’ll try to see if how much will the phone be without the promo (not the listing price).

Following my post on http://monmonja.com/blog/2008/07/transaction-on-cakephp-12/ where i use CakePHP and MySQL to do transaction, now i’m using oracle and $this->Model->begin() is not working and the fix for that is

$this->Model->begin();

$returnQuery = $this->Model->getDataSource()->query($query);

if($returnQuery !== false){

	$this->Model->getDataSource()->commit();

}else{

	$this->Model->getDataSource()->rollback();

}

Hope this helps