GetJar AppIt! service to increase your application downloads

GetJar blog entry claims (via a NY Times article) the Photobucket application increased its download rate 2500% using the AppIt! service which enables application developers to associate one easy and short link to their applications whatever the platform be. The link can be used to share applications across the social networks.

It's up to GetJar platfrom recognize the platform coming for the download and serve it with the right package. Soon a button similar the existent "Share on Facebook" or "Retweet on Twitter" will be provided by GetJar: "AppIt on Getjar" to share applicatin across platforms, countries and handsets.

Looking for Mobile developers

A mobile start-up company based in Verona (north of Italy) is looking for developers (both to join the company or freelance)

More information writing to: gerdavax@tiscali.it

Navigate the Blackberry screen stack

You need sometimes to know which screens are in the screens stack of your Blackberry application maybe because you want to remove all the screen below a specific screen because they are not needed anymore.

First of all you can get the active screen using the instruction:

UiApplication.getUiApplication.getActiveScreen();

Once you have the screen object you can call on it the method:

getScreenBelow()

you will get the screen object below. Generally you can move along the stack using also the method

getScreenAbove()

used together with the previous getScreenBelow method.

Problem with HTC Desire and ADB driver? The solution is here.

If you try to connect your HTC Desire to your PC via USB having already installed the ADB driver for Android SDK, you will see that the driver is not working.

To fix the problem you need to install the USB driver coming with the HTC Sync (you can download here).

Thanks to James Giang for the tip.

Generate a tone with Android

It is pretty easy play a simple tone (a beep) using Android. Two lines of code are enough:

ToneGenerator toneGen = new ToneGenerator(AudioManager.STREAM_SYSTEM, 50);
toneGen.startTone(ToneGenerator.TONE_PROP_BEEP);

Android: when the debug certificate expires

Today morning, big surprise! Trying to build my Android application I get this error:

"Debug Certificate expired on....."
What a f..k? And now? What I'm supposed to do?

No worries....going to the default storage location for AVDs which is in 

- ~/.android/avd on OS X and Linux, 
- in C:Documents and Settings\.android on Windows XP, 
- in C:Users\.android on Windows Vista 

you can delete the file debug.keystore and the next build of the projects will generate again a new valid 
debug certificate

Android: Get events when an edit text content changes

This is a problem not very well documented by Google but it is a common task the developers have to do often.

The solution is use a TextWatcher object that will receive event when the text in the EditText changes:

// Watcher to chage char counter when sms text changes
TextWatcher textWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
    @Override
    public void onTextChanged ( CharSequence arg0, int arg1, int arg2, int arg3 ) {
    }

    @Override public void beforeTextChanged ( CharSequence arg0, int arg1, int arg2,  int arg3 ) {
    }

    @Override
    public void afterTextChanged ( Editable arg0 ) {
         updateCharCounter(); }
    };

m_smsTextField.addTextChangedListener(textWatcher);