Thursday, December 17, 2015

Android, Web, Cloud and Backend and Entrepreneurship Courses

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Google and Udacity offer you 31 courses that will make your mouth water and your mind dance. Savor one or several of our 31 self-paced online training courses to indulge your curiosity, expand your knowledge, and hone new skills. Choose from Android, Web, Entrepreneurship, or Cloud and Backend tracks. Are you ready?


androidcodegeeks.com

Google and Udacity offer you 31 courses



 


Android


More and more people around the world are embracing mobile at an increasing pace, whether on their phones, in their cars, at home, and around their wrists. Learn to build apps for them!


 


Web


Refine your web development skills for mobile. Create fast, fluid user experiences. Deploy for all desktop and mobile devices. Streamline checkout and payment. Learn how to build beautiful, performant, responsive applications for the world’s largest platform.


 


Cloud and Backend


Does your app need to support more users? (Congratulations!) Do you want to move data handling for an existing app from the device to the cloud? Learn how to take advantage of public cloud infrastructure to support millions of users and terabytes of data.


 


Entrepreneurship


Start the year with a new start up. That says it all. Take these courses to learn how to do it successfully.


And that’s it. 31 courses that will catapult your skills and make 2016 your best year yet! Happy Holidays!



Android, Web, Cloud and Backend and Entrepreneurship Courses
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Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Android Studio 1.5 Preview 1 Available

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We’ve just released 1.5 Preview 1 to the canary channel!


The memory profiler has a new “analysis” feature where it can analyze a heap dump to look for known problems, such as leaked activities. To use this feature, open a heap dump and look for the Analyzer Tasks window on the right:



AndroidStudio Analyzer Tasks window

Analyzer Tasks window





Android Studio 1.5 Preview 1 Available
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Thursday, October 8, 2015

Android app architectures Standard Android MVP and MVVM

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Archi


This repository showcases and compares different architectural patterns that can be used to build Android apps. The exact same sample app is built three times using the following approaches:


Standard Android: traditional approach with layouts, Activities/Fragments and Model.

MVP: Model View Presenter.

MVVM: Model View ViewModel with data binding.


The App


The sample app displays a list of GitHub public repositories for a given username. Tapping on one of them will open a repository details screen, where more information about the repo can be found. This screen also shows information about the owner of the repository.


MVP: Model View Presenter


 


Libraries used


  • AppCompat, CardView and RecyclerView

  • Data Binding (only MVVM)

  • RxJava & RxAndroid

  • Retrofit 2

  • Picasso

  • Mockito

  • Robolectric

Standard Android


The /app directoy contains the implementation that follows the traditional standard Android approach. This is a couple of layout files, two Activities and the model. The model is exactly the same for the three implementations and it contains: Repository, User and a retrofit service (GithubService).


With this approach, Activities are in charge of calling the GithubService, processing the data and updating the views. They act kind of like a controller in MVC but with some extra responsibilities that should be part of the view. The problem with this standard architecture is that Activities and Fragments can become quite large and very difficult to tests. Hence why I didn’t write any unit test for this case.


MVP – Model View Presenter


In /app-mvp you will find the sample app implemented following this pattern. When using mvp, Activities and Fragments become part of the view layer and they delegate most of the work to presenters. Each Activity has a matching presenter that handles accessing the model via theGithubService. They also notify the Activities when the data is ready to display. Unit testing presenters becomes very easy by mocking the view layer (Activities).


MVVM – Model View ViewModel


This pattern has recently started to gain popularity due to the release of the data binding library. You will find the implementation in /app-mvvm. In this case, ViewModels retrieve data from the model when requested from the view via data binding. With this pattern, Activities and Fragments become very lightweight. Moreover, writting unit tests becomes easier because the ViewModels are decoupled form the view.


Fork the repository



Android app architectures Standard Android MVP and MVVM
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Monday, October 5, 2015

Convert Java String to Binary

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Convert Java String to Binary


public class CodeSnippets 

public static StringBuilder getBinary(String value)
byte[] bytes = value.getBytes();
StringBuilder binary = new StringBuilder();
for (byte b : bytes)
int val = b;
for (int i = 0; i < 8; i++)
binary.append((val & 128) == 0 ? 0 : 1);
val <<= 1;


return binary;




Convert Java String to Binary
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Friday, October 2, 2015

Android Studio 1.4

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Today we are releasing the 1.4 update to the Android Studio stable release channel. Most of the work and enhancements for Android Studio 1.4 are under the hood. However we have a handful of new features that we hope you enjoy and integrate into your workflow.




Android Studio 1.4
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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X and Pixel C Everything you need to know

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Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X and Pixel C  Everything you need to know



Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X and Pixel C Everything you need to know
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How to create anything in Android

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Course Summary



Here is one important question Android developers ask while making apps: “How can I do ________ in Android?”


The following are versions of this question that we came across recently:


  • How can I add radio buttons to my app?

  • How can I play a sound?

  • How can I navigate between multiple screens?

This course is a collection of such questions and their answers.


By the end of this course you will have mastered the ability to implement new Android features by reading a blog or article — this is a critical skill possessed by professional Android developers. As a result, you will also be able to use several User Interface components — like Toggle Buttons, Menus, Grid View and many more — that are central to making functional and delightful Android apps.



Start Free Course “How to create in Android”



How to create anything in Android
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Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Google Play APK size limit increased to 100MB from 50MB

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To support the growing number of developers who are building richer apps and games on Google Play, we are increasing theAPK file size limit to 100MB from 50MB. This means developers can publish APKs up to 100MB in size, and users will see a warning only when the app exceeds the 100MB quota and makes use of Expansion Files. The default update setting for users will continue to be to auto-updating apps over Wi-Fi only, enabling users to access higher quality apps and games while conserving their data usage.


Even though you can make your app bigger, it doesn’t always mean you should. Remember to keep in mind the following factors:


  • Mobile data connectivity: Users around the world have varying mobile data connectivity speeds. Particularly in developing countries, many people are coming online with connections slower than those of users in countries like the U.S. and Japan. Users on a slow connection are less likely to install an app or game that is going to take a long time to download.

  • Mobile data caps: Many mobile networks around the world give users a limited number of MB that they can download each month without incurring additional charges. Users are often wary of downloading large files for fear of exceeding their limits.

  • App performance: Mobile devices have limited RAM and storage space. The larger your app or game, the slower it may run, particularly on older devices.

  • Install time: People want to start using your app or game as quickly as possible after tapping the install button. Longer wait times increase the risk they’ll give up.


Google Play APK size limit increased to 100MB from 50MB
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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Working with Android image library Picasso

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In this quick tip, we take a brief look at the popular Android image library, Picasso. It’s a simple and practical library created and maintained by Square. It is great for working with images in your Android projects.


Working with Picasso - AndroidCodeGeeks.com

Working with Android image library Picasso – AndroidCodeGeeks.com




Picasso is an image library for Android. It’s created and maintained by Square, and caters to image loading and processing. It simplifies the process of displaying images from external locations. In many cases only a few lines of code is required to implement this neat library.


Picasso shines for displaying remote images. The library handles every stage of the process, from the initial HTTP request to the caching of the image. This can be quite verbose when writing code to perform these actions yourself. In this quick tip, we look at a few common use cases.



Start by downloading the JAR file from Picasso’s website. Installing is done the usual manner. If you need help with this step, then take a look at this tutorial by Shane Condor and Lauren Darcey.


If you’re using Android Studio, then you can add


compile 'com.squareup.picasso:picasso:2.3.3'

to the build.gradle file in the dependency section.




Create a new project in your IDE of choice. Make sure to select a blank Activity if you’re using Android Studio.



Open the layout file for the main Activity. We need to add an ImageView to the layout. It doesn’t need to be fancy. The following code snippet shows you what I mean.


<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/imageView"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />


Navigate to the main Activity file. Add the following code block to the onCreate method.


ImageView imageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView);
Picasso.with(this)
.load("https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg")
.into(imageView);

In the first line, we get a reference to the ImageView instance in the layout file. We then load an image into the image view using the Picasso library. We first specify the context by calling with and passing in the context. We then call the load method and supply it with the location of the image, a URL in this case. Finally, we tell Picasso where it should display the image when it’s fetched by calling into and pass in the imageView object.


Your IDE will ask you to import the Picasso library. However, to do this manually add the following import statement at the top of the Activity class.


import com.squareup.picasso.Picasso;


For Picasso to do its work, make sure to add <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" /> to your project’s manifest.



That’s pretty much it. If you build and run the application, you should see the image load on the screen.



Picasso has much more tricks up its sleeve. In the following example, we use Picasso to fetch a remote image and resize it before displaying it in an image view.


Picasso.with(this)
.load(https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg)
.resize(100, 100)
.into(imageView)

Picasso also supports transformations, such as rotation. In the next code snippet, we fetch a remote image and rotate it 180 degrees before displaying it in an image view.


Picasso.with(this)
.load("https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg")
.rotate(180)
.into(imageView);

If your application relies on remote assets, then it’s important to add a fallback in the form of a placeholder image. The placeholder image is shown immediately and replaced by the remote image when Picasso has finished fetching it.


Picasso.with(this)
.load(https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg)
.placeholder(R.drawable.image_name)
.into(imageView);

Picasso supports two types of placeholder images. We already saw how theplaceholder method works, but there’s also an error method that accepts a placeholder image. Picasso will try to download the remote image three times and display the error placeholder image if it was unable to fetch the remote asset.


Picasso.with(this)
.load(https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg)
.error(R.drawable.image_name)
.into(imageView);

Note that you can combine the placeholder and error methods as shown in the following code block.


Picasso.with(this)
.load(https://cms-assets.tutsplus.com/uploads/users/21/posts/19431/featured_image/CodeFeature.jpg)
.placeholder(R.drawable.image_name_default)
.error(R.drawable.image_name_error)
.into(imageView);


With Picasso being so simple to use, it’s definitely worth thirty minutes of your time. If you’re creating an app that frequently loads images, then Picasso could well make your life that little bit simpler.


Source 



Working with Android image library Picasso
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Sunday, September 20, 2015

Google Maps Android API Lite Mode Example

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Lite Mode


The Google Maps Android API can serve a static image as a ‘lite mode’ map.


Overview of lite mode


A lite mode map is a bitmap image of a map at a specified location and zoom level. Lite mode supports all of the map types (normal, hybrid, satellite, terrain) and a subset of the functionality supplied by the full API. Lite mode is useful when you want to provide a number of maps in a stream, or a map that is too small to support meaningful interaction.


Users viewing the map cannot zoom or pan the map. Icons on the map give users access to viewing the map in the Google Maps mobile app and requesting directions.


 



Find Google Maps Android API Lite Mode Example on GitHub


Google Maps API

Google Maps API “Lite Mode”



 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 



Google Maps Android API Lite Mode Example
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Friday, September 18, 2015

Material Design Snackbar using the design support library

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A Snackbar is a lightweight material design method for providing feedback to a user, while optionally providing an action to the user. They are displayed on the screen until a specified interval has passed, the user swipes to dismiss them, or when the user interacts with another part of the screen. Think of it as a modern take on the Android Toast.

This week at Google I/O 2015 the Android Design Support Library was released including a Snackbar implementation. Before now implementing and following the material guidelines for a Snackbar was left to the developer. A few third party libraries were released to make developers lives easier, but now official support for Snackbar has been introduced to make it easier than ever to add a Snackbar to your Android app.

Source: Material Design Snackbar using the design support library 


Material Design Snackbar using the design support library
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Thursday, July 16, 2015

AndroidCodeGeeks | The Android Knowledge Base

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Android Code Geeks is knowledge base which maintain categorize android tutorials which will help android developers to find the best articles,videos and examples.

Website : AndroidCodeGeeks.com
Twitter : @AndroidCodeGeek
FB : AndroidCodeGeeks on Facebook
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Thursday, January 29, 2015

Android-Libs.com for Android Developers

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Android developers gain a lot of advantages from working on a platform with a wide variety of libraries, open source projects, and other resources to help get their work to the finish line. Unfortunately, if a problem can’t be solved by checking out the SDK samples or reading a few dozen StackOverflow questions, it can be pretty hard to find good alternatives when they are most needed. Before giving up on the tricky problems, or possibly before attempting them, check out Android-Libs.com – a registry of open source code, libraries, handy websites, utilities, and other tools that may be useful to Android developers of all types.
Most entries link back to Github project pages with embedded counters for the number of open issues, forks, watchers, and stars. Beyond these statistics, most resources also include a short description, minimum API level (if relevant), a screenshot, a Gradle compile line to include libraries, and a few other details. Finally, everything has been sorted into a pretty lengthy list of categories for easy browsing, and there is a search box that queries project titles and descriptions.
If you’re looking for a library or shortcut to get a certain feature working right out of the gate, or trying to find a good solution after spending hours running into a wall, take a look at Android-Libs. It’s always great to see another helpful resource for the Android development community. The site is even open source on Github, in case there is something useful to learn from checking out the code.
The registry is updated regularly, but most of the activity is also published to an RSS feed and a custom PushBullet channel, so it's easy to see when new additions make it to the list. It's definitely worth checking out Android-Libs.com and bookmarking it for the future.
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