Get Google Latitude on UK T-Mobile G1

I don't know why, but despite the regular firmware/OS updates for Android and the G1, Google has not yet released its Latitude feature for Google maps on the UK version of the device.

Thankfully, it's dead easy to get, without requiring root access to the hardware or replacing the T-Mobile shipped OS.

To get it, all you need to do is download the "Google Maps" app from Google Market; this will replace your current Maps app with a new version, which includes Latitude.

Editing Umbraco in canvas mode gives error

I hit a slight quirk with Umbraco today. One of the features of Umbraco is its ability to edit a page in "Canvas mode". This means your page opens in a new window and is rendered as if it was a website, but with a content editor for you to edit your content in; much nicer than using that small white editor.

Today I fired up the canvas editor for one of the pages in a new site I'm working on, only to be met with:

The Controls collection cannot be modified because the control contains code blocks (i.e. <% ... %>).

Hmmf. It's because in the footer of the website I'm doing:

<%=DateTime.Now.Year%>

To output the current year. Umbraco is attempting to modify the controls collection of the page to create the editor, which is not allowed when using inline code blocks.

The workaround is a bit sneaky, but simple. All you need to do is change to the databinding syntax for echoing, like this:

<%# DateTime.Now.Year %>

Now all is well, the control collection can be modified and you can bask in the glory of the Umbraco canvas editor.

MIDI Playback in Android Cupcake

If, like me, you've been wondering why the audio support in Android was so poor, you'll be pleased to hear that Android 1.5 (Cupcake) addresses some of the issues.

I'll write a more in-depth post once I've gone through some real world examples, but one thing which I'm currently reading up on is the in-built MIDI support.

Rather than just stick a bog-standard MIDI engine in Android, the Google engineers have chosen to include a JET playback engine, which allows musical synchronisation of clips and seamless playback. It's mainly tailored towards game playing as it allows you to script the clips about to played back to tie in with the gameplay, but I'm already thinking up some cool musical ideas for it.

Have a read of the documentation on Android.com, at http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/media/jet/jetcreator_manual.html

New Tub Thumper Version

Today we released a minor update of our Google Android application Tub Thumper.

Tub Thumper is a touch screen drum machine for the Google Android platform and has proved immensely popular since its release last November.

This version is a minor release with a new hip-hop style drum kit, to wet people's apetites for our upcoming major release.

We've been hard at work developing Tub Thumper Pro, which will feature many new cool things. Notable assignable drum pads and the ability to sequence beats, similar to using a Roland TR-909 drum machine.

As it's not yet ready I'm not saying much more, but here's a sneak preview of assigning some drum sounds:



We're aiming this release for the Cupcake build of Android, which will have hit everyone's phones by the time we release it.

At SASS, we spend most of our time working on client projects; developing web and mobile applications for clients. It's nice to get a break from this to work on some of our own projects such as Tub Thumper and it gives us a great opportunity to try out new development ideas and increase our knowledge as developers. There does not seem to be a huge amount of Android developers around Manchester and Cheshire so it often feels like we're out on our own, but we'll continue to experiment and release new Android apps to showcase our ideas.

You can grab Tub Thumper from the Android Market. Just search, or check out the most popular Multimedia apps.

SASS are seeking developers

SASS Digital, the agency based near Manchester in Cheshire where I work, are on the hunt for graduate / junior web developers. A bit of experience in one or more of the following would come in handy:

• .NET Framework / ASP.NET


• SQL Server


• XHTML / CSS


• iPhone development / Android development

The most important thing though is a keenness to learn and a good eye for detail. It's a great opportunity to get into the web and mobile development world.

Here's a little shot of our working environment to give you an idea of life at SASS



We work in a nice Haybarn smack in the middle of the Cheshire countryside, but within a 20 minute drive of Manchester city centre.

If you're interested, or know anyone who is. drop me a line. Oh, and recruitment agencies need not apply. Don't even bother ringing me for a chat, I will not respond well!

Changing the color of the iPhone navcontroller bar

You may have noticed some apps on the iPhone have different colored navigation bars. I didn't have any reason to play with this, but being an inquisitive iPhone developer I wanted to know how it's done. I hadn't even noticed that you could customise this in Interface Builder, but it turns out it's really simple.

Just open up your root view controller (MainWindow.xib) in interface builder. Now click on the NavController icon:



Now open up your inspector panel and look at the Top Bar drop down. You can select the color of the Nav Controller bar there, set it as either Normal (blue grey), Black or Translucent.



Now you can have a cool black nav controller too!

UK G1 Owners - Get Android Cupcake early!

The rumour mill has been in full swing with regards to the early push out of Android 1.5 "Cupcake" to UK T-Mobile G1 users. Whether or not they really have started the push remains to be seen (I've not had it) but the folks over at Andblogs.net have posted how you can get it early.

First things first, grab the update: UK 1.5 Cupcake Update (CRB17) (5)

Save it to the sd card, named “update.zip”. (If you use windows, be sure you aren’t naming it something like “update.zip.zip”.) Reboot your phone in recovery mode (hold down ‘home’ while booting until you see the diamond warning.)

Now time to update! Press Alt-L. (This will turn on logging, so you can see what is going on.) Then Alt-S will apply the update.zip from the sd card. When it finishes, it’ll reboot.

I'm just trying, fingers crossed!

Oh, and don't blame me if you brick your phone, like I said - I've not tried it yet! Don't know if this works for countries other than the UK either, I'd suspect not but feel free to comment if you know otherwise.

Update!

My phone exploded in a huge fireball! Just kidding, after a nerve wracking few reboots with some cryptic logos I finally got a shiny new animating silver Android logo and I'm now smothered in delicious Cupcake.

Here are a couple of money shots:

The much-talked about touchscreen keyboard.


New homescreen icons (and check out my sweet (get it?) NIN Downward Spiral wallpaper, in your face iPhone!):


In the inimitable words of fake James Hetfield, sprinkles GOOD!