Category: Featured

Featured articles that show up on the sites home page.

MenuInflater NullPointerException (NPE)

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

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

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?

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...

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

****** 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...

FUEL CMS

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

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

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...

Fun with VMware vSphere

So lately at work I’ve been tasked with implementing our new VMware vSphere virtualization infrastructure. We’ve been looking forward to getting into the virtualization space for some time now and we were really happy that the decision was made to go with VMware. Not only did we get the software, but I got the hardware that I thought would be necessary to get us started. We ended up purchasing 3 IBM x3650 M2 servers with dual Xeon 5560 procs and 32GB of RAM. Although, I think I short changed the server when it comes to RAM so future servers will have at least 64GB of RAM.… Read more...

Avatar’s in WordPress

So a couple weeks ago I was trying to figure out how to add a picture to my profile so it would show up next to my comments. Well, I didn’t try very hard to figure it out and thought I’d look into it another today. Today is that day. I did a little digging and found that it was super easy. WordPress is now integrated with Gravitar and it’s super easy to create a Globally Registered avatar.

To creat one, head over to http://en.gravatar.com/ and sign up for an account. All you need is your email address and a picture.… Read more...