I had some ringtones purchased from iTunes that I wanted to put onto my new HTC One. Googling for instructions found many hits, but many of those pages were a few years old, so the instructions didn't work anymore, or they didn't work with the HTC One, or were six-minute-long …
Solving "Symbol not found: _Perl_Gthr_key_ptr" When Running git-svn on Certain Unnamed Operating System Beta Versions
Let's say that you are using a beta version of a new operating system that you can't name because it is covered by a non-disclosure agreement, and you have also installed the newest version of its development tools, which are also covered by NDA, and when you try to run …
Customizing Android Action Bar for Edit Mode
I spent a long time trying to get a contextual action bar (CAB) working for an editing mode in an Android app I'm developing. My goal was to have a CAB appear whenever the user started changing field values on a screen, and the user would tap the Done button …
Removing a Broken Lightning Connector Plug from an iPad or iPhone
Newer models of the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch use the Lightning connector instead of the old 30-pin dock connectors. The Lightning connector is smaller and you don't have to worry about inserting it upside-down, so on the whole this is a good change. However, the connector plug is not …
Android SDK Tools 22.0.1 Considered Harmful
After finishing up some work on an iOS app today, it was time to go make equivalent changes to the Android port of that app. "I'll just update my Android SDK before I get to work," I said (to myself). I opened the Android SDK Manager and let it update …
UIColor Category for Specifying Packed RGB Values
iOS's UIColor class makes it pretty easy to specify a color using red, green, blue (RGB) and alpha components:
// set pale yellow color label.textColor = [UIColor colorWithRed:1.0 green:1.0 blue:0.5 alpha:1.0];However, as with many Cocoa API's, it's pretty verbose. Web developers would …
Death, Numbers, and Risk
Here are some numbers that many people don't know, or don't want to think about:
There are approximately 6.9 billion people in the world. On average,
- about 55 million people die each year,
- about 1.05 million people die each week,
- about 151,000 people die each day,
- about …
Home Depot Two-Year Replacement Plan Doesn't
When I bought a Yard Machines lawn mower from Home Depot last year, I paid for a 2-year repair/replacement plan. I'm pretty sure the plan was presented to me with language like "If it stops working, you just bring it back and we'll replace it." I've had some bad …
Finding the Answers
Episode #45 of the Stack Exchange podcast featured Eric Lippert, who got some great advice from his first manager at Microsoft:
I want you to be a recognized industry expert on something. ... But don't pick something that's too big. ... Find a source of questions, answer every question that you know …
iOS and Android Icon Sizes
Every once in a while, I have to tell a graphic designer all the sizes needed for iOS and Android icons. So I'm putting together a summary here for easy reference.
iOS
For more details on requirements and guidelines for iOS app icons, see iOS Human Interface Guidelines: Icons and …