1. The use of <fdt.loadProjectProperties /> throws an error.
   Solution: use loadProjectProperties with the projectname parameter; <fdt.loadProjectProperties projectname=”Name of the project” />. Note: This worked for me and my team members. I have however seen comments online where did not do the trick.
2. Ant throws an error: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.eclipse.core.resources.IPathVariableManager.getURIValue(Ljava/lang/String;)Ljava/net/URI;
   Solution: The minimum required Eclipse version to run FDT is Helios (3.6). If you are getting this error, please make sure you have the latest version of FDT and Eclipse. Updating to only the latest version of FDT should fix this problem.

Not so much a problem I ran into but still something I want to share; Iterating in Ant.

1. You can’t use ‘for’ or ‘foreach’ to iterate over an collection, property or values in a text file in the standard Ant 1.8 build.
   Solution: Use ant-contrib for this. Documentation can be found here for ‘for‘ and for the ‘foreach‘.
2. When using the for task from ant-contrib i did not found a way to get the ‘step’ of ‘iteration’ value.
   Solution: I created my own. See snippet here. Note: If someone has a better way of doing this, i’d love to hear because to be quite honest; this feels like a hack…

Hope this helped you solve your problems

If you haven’t read it, I have some discount codes to give away. If you order via the O’Reilly online store you get 40% off the print version and 50%off the digital version! Its my gift to you.

While you do the checkout use the code ‘AUTHD‘ to get your discount. Go get it!

If you read it, no matter what you think, please consider posting a review on the online store.

Enjoy

So here are the lessons I have learned the hard way, I organized them for you per topic:

Coding:

• If you can; try to write all the code that will be in the book first and get this bug free. Then write your book about it. I wrote most of my code while writing, not a good idea. This takes away a lot of extra time. So before you plan on writing a book, get your code done. For me this will be the way to go next time i’ll write a book.
• If you get stuck with code, don’t keep pounding at it, let go and move on. You can come back to it later.

Focus:

• During the writing I still had a full time job to do. Writing during the week after normal working hours is killing and drained my energy levels. Weekends are better in so many ways. You can get a decent rest, don’t sleep in and start early, you can set your own pace while still keeping yourself to your projected amount of pages to write.
• Once I was over half of the pages, the pace began picking up. Rapidly. I think this is a mental thing. Kind of like running 10k, once you hit the 5k mark, the last 5k are more easy because ‘you are almost there’.

Writing itself:

• Discipline basically consists of one ingredient; doing what you need to do. And stick to it. Practice makes perfect. Pull the plug from your router and disable your wireless connection if that helps you.
• Making a sysnopsys / outline per chapter makes you stay focused on what you want to write.
• If you get stuck with writing, move on to the next section. And insert some sort of code that makes it easy for you to get back to that section and make revisions. I used [[[NEEDS WORK]]]. The three brackets makes it able to find it easily throughout your document.
• The big secret to writing is…. write. Quite surprisingly Just get started. For me this was the hard part because sometimes i had to get the discipline from my toes… Just sit and focus on getting started. Let all your other thoughts and urges pass. Notice how your mind will try to justify the distractions. Don’t give in, those urges are like waves and will disappear. (Thanks for Leo Babuta for the focusing tips)

Erik van Nieuwburg

I will contact you via email so I can send you a copy of ‘Automating ActionScript Projects with Eclipse and Ant‘!
Enjoy the read!

The script I used to randomly draw a name from the list of participants is:

private function drawWinner() : void {
	var entries : Array = new Array( /* loads of entries */ );
	var randomNumber : int = random( 0, entries.length );
	trace( "Entry number " + randomNumber + " with email: " + entries[randomNumber] );
}

public function random( ...args ) : Number {
	var argLength : uint = args.length;
	switch(argLength) {
		case 0:
		// perform the standard Math.random
			return Math.random();
			break;
		case 2:
		// returns a random float between args[0] and args[1];
		case 3:
		// returns a random int between args[0] and args[1] if args[2] is set
		var returnValue : Number = (Math.random() * (Number( args[1] ) - Number( args[0] ))) + Number( args[0] );
		return (args[2] != undefined && Boolean( args[2] )) ? Math.round( returnValue ) : returnValue;
			break;
		default:
			throw new IllegalOperationError( "MathUtils.random takes either 0, 2 or 3 arguments" );
			return undefined;
			break;
	}
}

While my friends were sitting in the sun drinking beers, went on boat trips, to clubs and dinner parties, I had to cancel it all. I was writing my first book.

So without further ado: The Book.
You can order the book in the online store at O’Reilly or on Amazon.com. If you are based in the Netherlands you can go to BOL.COM and at Computer Collectief.

If you read it, tell me what you think, all comments are welcome!

Happy coding

PS. I will announce the winners of the survey coming week on this blog! And I will contact the winner via email.

Enjoy

This presentation can also be downloaded as a PDF. AdMob also has a good blog with lots of reports and interesting facts and figures.

I’ve also found that Google added some stats to the developer panel on the Android developer site. (Finally!) Here you can see the metrics for device, platform, language and country for your app. Here is the preview

Another company that has some really in depth reports about mobile metrics is Destimo, a dutch startup. Their latest report talks about the following:

This publication covers the Apple App Store for iPad, Apple App Store for iPhone, Apple Mac App Store, BlackBerry App World (worldwide store), GetJar, Google Android Market, Nokia Ovi Store, Palm App Catalog, and Windows Phone 7 Marketplace in the United States. The major findings are:

• The Google Android Market eclipsed the Apple App Store for iPhone in terms of free applications and now has 134,342 free applications, while the Apple App Store iPhone has 121,845 free applications.
• If all application stores maintain their current growth pace, approximately five months from now Google Android Market will be the largest store in terms of number of applications followed by the Apple App Store for iPhone and iPad, Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, BlackBerry App World and Nokia Ovi Store. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace will also be larger than the Nokia Ovi Store and BlackBerry App World prior to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace being available for even a full year.
• One year after launching the iPad, Apple will be confronted with its first serious competition as both BlackBerry and Google enter the emerging tablet market. Apple has already seized momentum and grown the App Store for iPad in the first year to 75,755 applications developed by 21,975 publishers. Daily downloads in the Top 100 Overall paid and free applications for iPad combined exceed 500,000, while the daily revenue in the Top 100 paid is approximately $400,000 excluding in-app purchases.
• Many of the top publishers on the iPad already publish cross-platform. Fifty-eight percent of the 50 most popular publishers have already developed applications for non-Apple platforms.

Enjoy the read

I’ve always wanted to write a book, think of it a developers/bloggers wet dream.
This news also means I wont be posting that frequently, and I’m sorry for that. On the other hand this is a wonderful opportunity and I get to write about the stuff I love! Of course i’ll post to let you know when its done and when you can expect a preview release.

Any more details I can’t give yet, but i will keep you posted about further developments.

Here is how you instantiate the Class:

var sensor:Shake2Update = new Shake2Update( true );
sensor.callBack( updateFromShake );
sensor.shakeSensitivity = 1.6;
sensor.minimumShakeInterval = 1000;
sensor.updateSensorInterval = 100;

// Start the actual detection
sensor.startShakeDetection();

function updateFromShake() : void {
	trace("Shake it baby!");
}

And here you can find the actual Class for doing this.
Enjoy and let me know in the comments what you use this for, very interested to know what you come up with!