It's been a while

It's been a while since I've posted on this thing, and lots of stuff has happened.  I've been meaning to start writing again, but just haven't found the time.  So, I've decided to make the time.

I've always had trouble finding a good direction for blogging, since I tend to move in so  many directions.  However, over the last year, I've found myself very focused on startups in education and on specific pieces of technology.  This blog will, from this point forward, be a chronicle of my own work in startups and technology - lessons learned, neat techniques, project progress updates, and etc.

My goal is to write at least one post every day for the next year giving you some interesting updates.

I'd also like this to be an open forum on technology, software, and education, so please comment if you find something interesting or see something I did wrong.  I am pretty awesome, but even I make mistakes (well, not really, but I digress).

Oh - you'll also notice the ads are gone.  They've been a distraction since day 1 and have made me almost no money at all.  What a waste of space.  ZAP!  Gone.

The new 2nd amendment

In the wake of some very high profile Internet revolts in 2011 and earlier this year, one can't help but wonder what other changes are in the wind.

This reminded me of something interesting: The 2nd amendment. Far from its current incarnation as a rallying cry for the patriotic conservative and card-carrying NRA member, the 2nd amendment was originally devised as a method of deterring an undemocratic government. I've argued for a while now that the original intention of the 2nd amendment is now pointless with regards to its original intention -- there's no way a private citizen (or citizens) could possible compete with tanks and nukes.

Yet the effective trouncing of SOPA and PIPA in recent months has brought to light a new type of defense against an undemocratic government: The Internet. I'll even take that one step further, and say that it's not JUST the Internet, but in particular Facebook.

At the time of this writing, Facebook sports over 800 million users, 50% of which log on every single day. That's more than the entire population of the United States. That's a lot of reach, and provides a very effective medium for ideas to go "viral". Ideas such as "stop sopa", which gained support from websites such as Google and Wikipedia.

The effectiveness of this campaign can destroy a bill's support base and increase it's opposition in a single day begs a new question: Are we in a new era of government?

Now that the people have a powerful voice to speak with, what will new legislation look like?

Baby Giggles

If you're having a bad day, there are few things more helpful than a good laugh. Our new Android app, Baby Giggles, is designed to brighten your mood by doing just that. The recordings of infections baby giggles are guaranteed to make you smile and laugh.

Download it for free from the Android market by searching for "Baby Giggles". The package name is com.radsoftwaresys.babygiggles.

We hope you like it, and stay tuned for more interesting and fun apps.

Tips for Getting Android Apps Fixed

If you're an Android user, you've no doubt encountered the famous "force close" screen. For those that aren't familiar with this, it's caused by an unhandled exception in an Android program, causing it to "crash". This pops up a dialog with one option: Force Close.

Unfortunately, "Force Close"'s on the Android platform are inevitable.

From a developer's perspective, there's nothing more annoying than a 1-start rating, with the comment "Force close". It tells us nothing about what happened, and only serves to lower our credibility as developers rather than helping us build better apps.

So, to help us out, here are a few tips for getting your app fixed.

1) Send us an email

Make sure to include the following information: Phone Model (ie:Motorola Droid), Version Number (if applicable), and a brief description of what happened when the program force closed. This can go a long way in helping us figure out what happened.

2) Use the Log Collector app to send us a copy of the stack trace

The "Log Collector" is an open source program available through the Android market, and running this after a crash is probably the most helpful thing you can do. By sending us a copy of the stack trace, you're sending us a snapshot of the events that lead up to the crash, as well as detailed data about the crash itself.

To use the Log Collector effectively, make sure you run our app first, then run the log collector immediately after the "force close". This ensures that we get the data for our app, and not someone else's. Then, just fill in our email address, and that's it.

3) Download and run the Advanced Task Manager (ATM) application

The ability to run multiple processes at once is both a blessing and a curse in Android. To make sure that the problem really is with our app and not another backgrounded one, download and run the Advanced Task Manager (ATM)

ATM is available through the Android market for free, and allows you to close multiple tasks. I recommend killing only the tasks that you personally opened, just to make sure you don't kill off anything important. Kill all unnecessary apps except for the one you want to debug. Then, run the app again to make sure it still force closes. If it does, see number 2.

Thanks to everyone for all of your support. We look forward to improving our own apps, and hope that by promoting these steps we can improve the entire Android market experience.

Andi Wear

I'd like to introduce you all to Andi. Andi is officially the logo for the Android platform, but more importantly, is our little buddy. Andi is our name for the character, and we're trying to get it to catch on.

We like it because it appeals to all in a gender-neutral way. While an Android is specifically a male robot, Andi is androgynous. You'll hear us refer to him/her with either sex, totally randomly.

Check out the cafepress store (http://www.cafepress.com/AndiWear) to support Andi's cause.