Author: Jason

IT Professional that loves adventure.

LEGO CAD Programs

LEGO Building / Design / CAD Software

October 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I’ve loved LEGO all my life and I recently found out that a bunch of cool LEGO building/design/CAD programs existed. So, I set out on a quest to find the best one for me. Not knowing anything about these, or much about the LEGO community online, it was a little difficult to find out what was available. I figured I’d share my quest so others might benefit.

Not knowing what these programs had to offer, I had a pretty short list of evaluation criteria:

  • Try to build the same model in each program and see how easy it is to build (my primary objective)
  • Must be compatible with Windows 10 (OS I’m running on my main PC)
  • See how easy it is to build without reading the documentation first (not that consulting it was out of the question)
  • Settle on a program that appears to be somewhat current and maintained

My primary objective was to find something that I could use to build LEGO models.… Read more...

MenuInflater NullPointerException (NPE)

July 3, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I just recently published my first app on Google Play, and after I had published it I was playing with it on my Galaxy S3 and it crashed when I tried to delete a page. I know I had this working correctly on my Nexus 7 prior to publishing it, but I didn’t test it on my phone (shame on me :(). So, I went to work trying to figure out what the problem was, and here’s part of the stack trace:

FATAL EXCEPTION: main
java.lang.NullPointerException
	at com.actionbarsherlock.view.MenuInflater.inflate(MenuInflater.java:109)
	at com.test.app.SomeFragment.onCreateOptionsMenu(SomeFragment.java:1921)
	at android.support.v4.app.Watson.onCreatePanelMenu(Watson.java:55)
	at com.actionbarsherlock.ActionBarSherlock.callbackCreateOptionsMenu(ActionBarSherlock.java:559)
	at com.actionbarsherlock.internal.ActionBarSherlockNative.dispatchCreateOptionsMenu(ActionBarSherlockNative.java:65)
	at com.actionbarsherlock.app.SherlockFragmentActivity.onCreatePanelMenu(SherlockFragmentActivity.java:165)
	at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.preparePanel(PhoneWindow.java:446)
	at com.android.internal.policy.impl.PhoneWindow.invalidatePanelMenu(PhoneWindow.java:820)
… Read more...

Android Tutorial: Implementing a Drag and Sort ListView with a Database

March 18, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I’m working on an app and got to the point where I wanted to implement a drag and drop ListView that allows re-ordering, adding and deleting of list items using a database. I didn’t think that it would be all that difficult. However, with my limited experience with Android, it turned out to be a bit of a pain to get working. But, now that I have it working I figured I’d post some example code so that others can take advantage of what I learned and hopefully have an easier time getting this implemented.

My initial searches had me stumble upon DragSortListView (DSLV) by Carl A.… Read more...

Android Tutorial: Implement A Shake Listener

January 30, 2013 / / 0 Comments

So I’ve been playing around with Android and have a little app that I wanted the user to be able to shake the phone and have something happen. I did some digging and the following is a tutorial on how to setup a shake listener to capture a shake and then do whatever you want.

This is by no means something that I’ve created, I just used examples that I found on stackoverflow.com. Also, this uses G-force to calculate the shake threshold. Many thanks to Peterdk and Akos Cz for their input and answer for this solution. Peterdk recommended using the G-Force app by Blake La Pierre on Google Play Store if you want to get the actual G-force value on your phone and tweak it in the code below.… Read more...

vmware: where do I start?

February 5, 2011 / / 0 Comments

My first real work experience with vmware was a project that I was assigned to virtualize a remote data center and move it to our main data center. I was tasked to design and build the infrastructure at our main location and to help those at the remote location P2V the servers there and get them to the main data center. I was really excited because I had always wanted to learn more about vmware. So, now I know what I need to do but where do I start? What do I do? Where can I find what I need?

This post is a quick reference for those that are getting started.… Read more...

Froyo for the HTC Droid Incredible

How to Root and Install Android 2.2 (Froyo) and Flash 10.1 on the HTC Droid Incredible

August 21, 2010 / / 0 Comments

****** If you brick your phone it’s not my fault and I can’t help you!!!
…just needs to be said. 🙂 ******


Special thanks to all the people who’s sites I used to get this put together!

All I have to say is, “WOW! Android 2.2 (Froyo) with Flash 10.1 on the HTC Droid Incredible is now truly INCREDIBLE!” I could go on, but I’ll just let you get started and you’ll find out all the cool stuff about it soon enough!

Final setup consists of the following:

  • Sky Raider 2.5.2 with Flash 10.1 and HTC’s Sense UI
  • Titanium Backup with BusyBox

So August 18th came and went and I, just like thousands of others, was disappointed that there was no Android 2.2 (Froyo) love for the HTC Droid Incredible!… Read more...

Hacking the Arras Theme

August 6, 2010 / / 0 Comments

First off, I have to say that I love the Arras Theme and think it’s the coolest one out there. The other day I was adding some content to my site and I hadn’t upgraded to WordPress 3.0 yet so I decided to do the upgrade. I usually like to upgrade all the plugins and themes that have upgrades available before I upgrade WordPress just to make sure things are compatible. However, after upgrading WordPress and the Arras Theme I found that things didn’t quite look the way they did before the upgrades. Some of my issues were because I didn’t bother to check theme settings or save theme files that I had modified before I updated the theme.… Read more...

FUEL CMS

FUEL CMS

August 4, 2010 / / 0 Comments

My brother Dave is working on some cool stuff to help him and his clients manage the websites he designs. It’s called FUEL CMS. Here’s what he says about it:

“At it’s core, FUEL is a modular based, CodeIgniter development platform for creating web applications. You can create your models, views and controllers like normal and only use the CMS part when and if you need it. It’s a hybrid of a framework and a CMS.”

Check out my brother’s blog post about FUEL CMS to get a better idea about what he’s doing and why. Currently it’s in private development but you can visit the FUEL CMS site and sign up for notifications (he’s “looking into opening it up for developers to play with and contribute to”).… Read more...

WordPress Upgrade Woes

May 25, 2010 / / 0 Comments

It seems that every time I try to upgrade my WordPress site or any of the plugins, sometimes it hangs at downloading the file. I just tried to upgrade one plugin now and it didn’t work. I did a quick search and then remembered what I had done in the past (thanks to this post).

To fix the problem with the plugins, DISABLE ALL PLUGINS and then ONLY ENABLE the PLUGIN you are UPGRADING. This has worked for me every time…knock on wood. 🙂

Now, for the upgrade of the site. I thought it was cool that WordPress finally built in an autoupgrade feature, but I haven’t been able to get that to work most of the time.… Read more...

HTC “Droid” Incredible Review

May 24, 2010 / / 0 Comments

My First Impressions

I’ve got my first Android phone and, long story short: I’m loving it.

Why make the switch to Android now? Read on…

I’ve owned WinMo phones forever because I wasn’t willing to switch to another carrier and Verizon hasn’t had a compelling phone to offer until now. Yes, the Moto Droid was a contender but I think it’s ugly and after demoing it in the store a couple times I just didn’t like it. I was waiting for the Nexus One, but the Incredible came out first, has a better camera and a better screen (no multi-touch issues like the N1).… Read more...