Category Archives: Android

Google Android OS

Android, Electronics, ESP32, RAD Delphi

First time with electronics! Yey!

Leave a comment

I started playing a little with electronics, for the first time in my life. I keep on being amazed with the wide options it all open for me, breaking the PC to small parts unleash worlds of possibilities. I got into several personal projects — when I immediately saw when these options were revealed.
A good friend of mine introduced me to Autodesk Eagle  — software to draw circuits. In addition you can download and insall Adafruit & Sparkfun electronics huge parts catalog in your Eagle for you to use.
I bought a ESP32 WROOM DevKitC  from Expressif — but couldn’t find the proper Eagle schematics for the ESP32 unit on the web (even after looking for it for a half a day).  There were a lot of links that presented the information in .pdf files. Cause it is very early stage of me playing with Eagle, I couldn’t find a proper way importing the .pdf to Eagle.
So I used the following resources:

And assembled a My Eagle schematics of ESP unit – Download ESP32 DevKitC Eagle Library  Schematics.
Due to the fact it is the first day I am playing with Eagle, there may be issues in the Schematics I assembled, which will be corrected if required.

More information about the different kind of ESP units can be found here.

My DoorBell Project:

My doorBell project is easy to explain,. basically some one rings the bell and a whole process it inititiated:

  • BellRing event is launched (On the ESP unit)
  • Windows Server logs activity (Using Delphi Datasnap WebBroker Technology)
  • Windows Server notify Android end units and a RPiZW unit to play the audio ring (Android units written with Delphi FMX, and RPiZ is a python based script)

An Eagle schematics I made of the ESP32. The big chip in the middle is the ESP32 v4 I am using:

I added in, the Eagle footprint image of the chip as noted:

This is a sample of the unit in action (on a test breadboard — note it is wired differently — it is the first test I made), with all sides modifications — it still requires some modifications and changes:

 

This is are two images of the circuit soldered on a standard prototype board:

Android, General Thoughts, iOS, Mobile OS Market, RAD Delphi, windows8

The new RAD Delphi XE6 was released

Leave a comment

Note, this blog states the obvious.

Again I find myself in the process of waiting/reinstalling the new versions of the miscellaneous components — the I’ve bought. Each company got its own pace of releasing their updated set of components to their subscribers.

Some of them, got a hand of the beta testing of the RAD Delphi, and start to modify their components code, even before the official release of the development environment.

On other cases such as the Delphi Jedi Component Set — The  process seems to be a work in progress all the time. Due to the fact that it is defined as an opensource project. So many bugs, and improvements are being fixed, and added/modified almost everyday.

Yet, nowadays, that there is the Web, and all the social networks such as twitter/linkedin/facebook and so on — It seems that the wealth and variety of the set of libraries I come to find each and everyday, are much  more than what I thought there would be.

So It is good to get updated with many new tools, and utilities. You can call me a compulsive sourcecode collector. And due to the fact that I like the most the OOP with Pascal — I find everyday, new ways of coding in the same language that I happen to grow up with.

—

I didn’t had the chance yet, to cover all the different modifications that were added to the RAD Delphi XE6 —  itself… Though, I ran a couple of sample demo codes. I’ll be at this in the coming days.

Android, google, iOS, Microsoft, windows8

GeoMaping software Mobile & Desktop

Leave a comment

A short post about geomapping software; that I’ve encountered (on one way or another). The list is partial, and not the fullest current list of products of that sort, that you might find.

A list of Comparison of geographic information systems software on wikipedia.

Earth mapping:

Earth mapping software, that is being used mostly with GPS component to navigate:

  • Waze – Social mapping app, Mobile app (iOS/Android/Win8)
  • MapQuest – Mobile app
  • iGo NAVNGO – Can be found as a Mobile app for cellular devices (using iOS/Android/Win Mobile). Or as installed using a proprietary device.

Star systems and galaxy mapping / astronomy apps:

As a programmer I managed to play a little with the abilities of KML (Keyhole markup lanaguage) — I first encountered it when I had a list of locations which needed to be marked upon GeoLocations… I used it with the GoogleEarth engine.

Basically KML enables you to add layer of information, which can be presented in various ways upon the GeoPresentaion of an area. You can add markers/pictures/geometric objects/path to mark roads — etc’.

Due to the fact that KML is a very well defined structure, I ported the KML I created to a iGO NAVNGO system — that could read the KML file as well..

Android, Apple, iOS, RAD Delphi, samsung

Podcasts RSS: Aggregating Video/Audio/Podcasts

Leave a comment

I thought for a couple of days what to write about, due to the fact that nothing much kept me busy… Though, I came to a conclusion that I’ll write about what did keep me going on all these days.

For the past dozen years, I’ve been hearing many different daily Podcasts…

So what is a Podcast?

A Podcast, is basically a media file (can be audio or video) which is being attached to a RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The RSS with the combination of the media file, makes it a very power full technology. That because different Feeds are being updated daily or weekly.

The programs that manage the different feeds (Podcasts Apps; such as Apple Podcasts app [on iOS] or Samsung KiesCast app [on android]), you listen to — know 🙂 but their definition whether it is a new item, or an old one… Thus notify you for the new ones.

History of RSS…

The RSS first was invented for Text news… News Feeds, were common, yet, attaching a video/audio file to it was a latter invention.

More about Audio Podcasts:

There are some more features which were added to the Feed,. and can be supply attached to the RSS Feed it self, or to the media file which attached to it.

Meta Tags:

Take for example the Meta Tags.

When adding an item for a feed, it includes a text which describe the current item (of course these additions should be supplied in such a way that the miscellaneous Podcasts apps aggregators would know where to look for that data).  Due to the fact the the RSS was derived from XML (Extensible Markup Language) files — which is a structured text file, with different variables with in it — It can contain many different Meta Tags.

In addition misc meta tags can be attached to the media file itself. For example a .mp3/.m4a audio files contain a structure that define the file meta tags. And their meta tags can include many different known, or user defined tags. Such as; Track Name, Year Published, Author, Lyrics, Picture Thumbnail — Icon of the track, and so on.

Different Sources of RSS Podcasts:

Today any news organization which respect itself got a team that compile a hourly/daily/weekly podcast. After all, all you need to create a podcast — it the knowledge how to construct the basic feed, and some hardware such as microphone and a recording application… And of course some content to talk about whether it’ll be global news/ Tech news/ Expert news/ Art news/ or any area which interest you.

My personal daily news:

I’ve been listening, as I mentioned, for the past dozen years to news via different podcasts apps, and being fed news from different sources. This of course is a routine change from the past — instead of  gazing on a TV screen — I am now free, to hear news — what ever — when even — and where ever — I like.

What Ever; Pick from the billion of podcasts sources online.

Where ever; I can hear news while doing the daily arrangements around the house — when doing the dishes, or any other tasks.

When Ever; Feeds by different sources are usually kept at least for a week and on many cases for years back on different sources. So even if I missed something, or if I would like to listen to new content to me — I can search it years back on the source WebSite.

Or for short the podcasts WWW 🙂

Android, google, Mobile OS Market, samsung

Samsung Android basic techie managment

Leave a comment

I started, as probably many techies, to learn some information about the samsung android mobile basic procedures. I won’t get into the eternal mambo-jumbo about what is better iOS or Android…. Yet, I will write some details about what was my learning curve in the android EcoSystem.

How deep can it goes?

Well, although I am a programmer, and rad some code on both iOS/Android. These systems are composed of many seperate parts — which each got its own purpose. The type of handling I am doing is better linked with system administrators, when talking about linux systems. Yet, programmers, that program for this environment probably know all the twiks and issues with the environment as well.

My android crashing bug:

It seems that although I bought my device from a store after updating my device via samsung KIES. It caused the device too boot, load the samsung logo, and get stuck on it.

When this took place on the first time, I just sent it to the store and they fixed it: Yet, I wasn’t about to do that after the second time it appeared… Again same symptom. I decided that this time, I will fix the problem by my own, no matter what! It would save time and effort * connecting the mobile distributor for fixing it, and * I would learn some tech geeky thingies on the way.

I do not know whether all mobile phones got the same bootloader, yet, Samsung, in their phones, introduced the following (mostly) text based menus:

  1. An Android Recovery mode In this mode, you can run some
            • wipes of the user data & Cache directories [Although I did run this, it didn’t make any of the matter better, it just got stuck again as I described]
            • run an OTA (On The Air) update [which didn’t work for me].
            • load an image from external/internal SD Card.
  2. A Download mode this mode, was made to load images using ODIN (a loader application that runs both on the mobile, and on the computer it is connected to)

ROM/Firmware:

So Initially there is a way to load a new image. Now I need to learn about the ROM/Firmware images.The android devices are virtually an open based linux system. And a ROM/Firmware is the basic files required to run properly an android OS.

The rom includes stuff like:

  • Kernel
  • GUI
  • Core functions
  • etc

Described in details on the following URL.

There are sites that explain what composes a ROM name (things like the date it was built, the CSC – the country code that it is assigned to, and more), yet, no matter what search I made, I didn’t find the proper ROM/Firmware.

There are basically two types of ROM/Firmware:

  1. A stock ROM – the ROM as it was released from the mobile manufacture, without any modifications to it.
  2. A custom ROM – The name sais it all, a custom made ROM. It can be that the kernel functions got modified or more visually details were modified — as launch Icons, Widgets, etc.

I found a proper Stock ROM of Android Jelly Bean version for my device. The only problem is that it wasn’t the same CSC, which means that I wouldn’t be able to be updated from the Local Samsung Services / or using KIES Firmware Update, with new versions of the Firmware (this is as far as I’ve gathered).

Android, iOS, Mobile OS Market, RAD Delphi, windows8

Delphi XE5 beta6 testing for Windows/Android/iOS/MacOSX

Leave a comment

I started checking the new XE5 beta 6. It is, as being a beta, a little unstable, yet from first testing I would highlight the following:

  1. Very good – Integration with the iOS & android SDK/NDK
  2. Very good and ease of deploying applications (to the android at least – that’s what I first checked).
  3. Ran bunch of demo applications which were under …/FiremonkeyMobile path. About 10 demos, 2 worked perfectly… yet all the other halted the compilation/deployment – due to reasons that I didn’t check deep enough… After tweeking some of the none working on the android platform, I managed to run most of them.
  4. I ran all through, all the availables Firemonkey sample demos, that are supplied when installing the XE — and modified them for use on mobile devices. Seems that about 30% could run without a problem – on mobile — yet the rest required a more enhanced modification of the code.
  5. In addition, I’ve modified a code that was originally was written using XE4, for compilation to iOS devices. It made use of the datasnap and the binding of data to a TListView. Slight modification of it made it useable on the android platform as well… here is a sample tast
  6. On my ToDo.list are:
    • Create a demo app that uses SQLite on android…. With a big DB about 1mil records 1gb sized.
    • Checking the ability of local Mobile DB, such as the SQLite on iOS, and the deployment process of SQLite DB on android.
    • See how a deployment of DataSnap on the android works, (done that, seems that all that was required is to set in the android uses/options ‘the internet connection’ to on the app security switches)
    • Reintroduction of the ability to display a 3d object such as .3ds file. With proper setting of the meshes on it.