Fellow Z2 hacker and blogger RK is having a Christmas quiz over at his blog. Sounds like there will be some interesting prizes, so if you think you’ve got the knowledge you should head over and test your mettle.
Dec 042011
Hi All,
I thought I’d share an anecdote. After open sourcing Easy Inventory a couple of weeks ago, I figured ad views would slowly die out as more folks downloaded the code, forked the project, made improvements etc etc. On the contrary, AdMob impressions for Easy Inventory have more than doubled in the past two weeks. I’ve always been one to share code as much as possible, but I never would have thought that releasing the code to a project would increase the viewership for the ad-supported version. Will this trend continue long term? Should I open source all my projects? Should I move from SourceForge to Github? Would folks be interested in the source to any of the games I released?
These are interested questions I’ll be wrestling with.
Ok, so I know that body hacking and personal hygiene are not my usual topics of choice, but hear me out. My entire life I’ve had dandruff, up till a few months ago. That’s almost 30 years of dandruff shampoo, medicated shampoo, frequent showers, you name it. Up till a few months ago.
You see, that’s when I got into no-poo (wiki link). It’s not a constipation product, it’s a movement of folks who have stopped using commercial shampoo. So for the past few months, I have washed my hair daily with warm water only. No shampoo, no dandruff shampoo, no conditioner, no medicated shampoo. By all accounts there has been no noticeable change in the appearance or texture of my hair.
Well that’s not fully true. I lost the dandruff. Completely. First time in my life I’ve felt really comfortable wearing black shirts. I don’t want to come straight out and say shampoo is a corporate scam designed to keep people purchasing an unnecessary product for the duration of their lives, but if the shoe fits….
Yep that’s right. I’ve had a few requests to open source Easy Inventory (the first Android app I ever wrote) since I released it back at the beginning of June. As I’ve been insanely busy at my new job (converting iPad apps to Android apps), I’ve not had much time for feature improvements or bug fixes. Seeing how Easy Inventory is currently making me about 3 bucks a month in Adsense revenue, I see no financial harm in converting it to an open source project. It also jives rather well with my socialist tendencies. Plus it’s been a while since I threw a project up on SourceForge, and I’d like to see what folks can come up with.
You can download or checkout the source for the project from https://sourceforge.net/p/easyinventory
If you’d like source code write access to the project (please do contribute 
), just request it and it shall be granted by a project administrator (currently only me but hopefully more in the future)
Aug 182011
Almost all of my programs have hidden “easter eggs” in them. From screensavers to morse code generators I’ve put some weird ones in. Well now my website has a few! One is pretty easy to find, but the rest… quite a challenge I’m sure. Happy Hunting!
Aug 132011
Chris Irwin alerted me in a previous article about MPD, the music playing daemon. While I was planning on installing this as both a client and a server on the dockstar stereo, It turns out there’s a MPD frontend for the Wii. I hadn’t been giving my Wii very much love lately, being so active in the PS3 scene. On a whim I picked up a little tv to use as a monitor for the Dockstar stereo, and I hooked the Wii up to it to see how things were going in the Wii homebrew community. I was BLOWN away. Not only has the wii media center grown tremendously, (it streams from samba shares), all the emulators have been updated (ps1 games from samba shares!), and there’s a tremendously dynamic game modification community (check out smashmods for some of the coolest in-ram game modification you will EVER see). The wii VNC client works quite well as a head unit for the dockstar stereo, but it’s got a native MPD frontend that I thought would be fun to get running. Read on for the setup of MPD on the Dockstar Stereo (or any embedded arm linux).
While it will be a bit before my next full update in the”Using the Dockstar as a full Home Theater Replacement” series (conveniently shortened to Dockstar Stereo), I’m always tweaking and installing things. While these may not warrant a full update, they’re usually fun little additions or tweaks that come in handy. While I mentioned in the last Dockstar Stereo article that you could run a video or Window Maker session over VNC, I never went into any details on the fun things you can do with VNC sessions. Read on for a couple of fun VNC tricks and tips that you may not have heard before. I assume you to be using a Linux installation. I’m running all examples on the ‘Dockstar Stereo’, an integrated arm board with limited memory.
As you’re probably already aware if you are reading this, I’ve got a thing for embedded systems. I guess we all do now, what with Android and iPhone tearing up the sales numbers. That said, I’ve never before had the guts to try and replace my aging Sony Dream Theater stereo system that’s hooked up to my beloved record player. Although the sound quality coming off the head unit is quite good (I replaced the speakers long ago with some good ones), it only has two extra inputs and no support for internet streaming or mp3 playback etc. I’d also like to be able to use standard remote controls (Sony HATES standards), Bluetooth devices, cell phones, network control, etc. Although I’m using the Dockstar, this tutorial would generically apply to any Debian (arm or otherwise) system. Read on for the first part in my new walkthrough series entitled “Using the Dockstar as a full Home Theater Replacement”:
I never quite got into Twitter. The value proposition just wasn’t there for me and it always seemed like a passing thing. Google+ on the other hand has already given me infinite photo storage, I can put animated gifs in my stream (oh the opportunity for last-frame gif bombs!), and I can choose exactly what messages go out to which subscribers based on circles. So I’m on Google+, and that’s where I post a good chunk of my smaller hacks and tidbits of life. Want to know what I’ve been up to between posts? Curious to see my hacks in action? Want to get a sneak peek at my hacks before they’re available to the public? Then you’d better start following me on Google+ hadn’t you? Just head over to profiles.google.com/huntergdavis and add me to a circle today! Need an invite to Google+? Just ask!
The Grind Expansion Pack 2 – Easy Mode is live! This will be automatically updated through the Android Market. It implements some of the most often requested player features since Expansion Pack 1 (auto-saving, a player context menu, more elements, more items, more screen space for the game). All user interface elements are now in context menus or within the interface. This means 10-20% more screen real estate on ALL DEVICES!! This update rolls up all game fixes and balances to date.
Screenshots from Expansion Pack 2
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You can view more about The Grind on the permalink page here, or download it from the Android Market here.
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