The absolute best for consumers is AVG in my humble opinion and limited experience, but for developers with root access to your phone it causes too many flags to be thrown.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.antivirus&feature=search_result

For most users they will find Lookout Mobile Security easier to use with less configuration

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.lookout&feature=search_result

Found the drivers for my Sanyo Zio - SCP-8600 enabling me to use the debug configuration to deploy to my phone in a very hypothetical sense.

http://www.kyocera-wireless.com/support/phone_drivers.htm

Here’s the kicker, a completely unsigned driver that gets a bunch of security prompts when installing on Windows 7…simply unprofessional IMO.  Anyways, if you want to deploy to the phone you’re going to need the drivers!

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 11 Review Notes

There’s always a few built-in dialogs to any platform and Android Development is no different.  I’ll be working with the DatePickerDialog and exploring others (reading about) and then learn to build my own custom dialog.  This looks like a fairly short chapter, so I’ll track how long it takes to complete.

Below is the generic implementation of the DatePickerDialog with the current date set as the default.

Time dateOfBirth = new Time();
dateOfBirth.set(dayOfMonth, monthOfYear, year);

Completion time for this chapter/hour:  ~50 minutes

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 10 Review Notes

Collecting data with forms!!  In this hour the following controls are introduced:  EditText, Button and Spinner.  The saving of the form data will be with SharedPreferences!!

First new thing was the Arrays.xml as a values resource.  Didn’t know this was possible, and the syntax looks like this in the file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <string-array
        name="genders">
        <item>@string/gender_neutral</item>
        <item>@string/gender_male</item>
        <item>@string/gender_female</item>
    </string-array>
</resources>

The setting screen is complete, and yes, that is a little bit of a different emulator than previous screen shots.  I’m learning to view in other AVDs, though I haven’t been able to connect via USB and deploy to my Zio… http://www.ebay.com/itm/120822080982?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Watch a video on Developing Android Applications!!

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 9 Part B Review Notes

Took a forced break (issues at work side tracked all my home and family time as well as learning time) and now I have finally caught up and able to do a couple things I would like to do on the weekend.

This hour focuses on the TabHost control including the layout and population of controls on each tabs.

There was some wire up type code for each of the tabs that was a bit confusing but manageable.  Surprised that the default tab had to be *configured*.

In most of my web applications XML objects are among some of the lightest weight options for loading date, while database objects are weightier.  In Android programming a 10k XML doc creates some screen flicker! 

This completes Hour 9’s review notes!!

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 8 Review Notes

This hour is all about main menu that users will see after the splash screen.

The layout was a bit tricker on this screen and the book, just didn’t give it you, there was some work involved.

The screen looks cheesy but I sure learned a lot about how to place controls and the ListView control.  I still need to research that one as I’m unclear about most of its nuances.

Hour 8 is complete!!!

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 7 Review Notes

Splash screen up next

There was even a bit of code to do simple animations, like the Been There fades in.

All the animations presented in this hour/chapter are programmatic in nature with no GUI designer.

I would like to have explored the Tweening animations

Overall a quick intro but I left the hour lacking the ability to do anything real… the other Hours I didn’t feel that way.  Overall I’ll explore this more on my own.

Examples were a little harder to follow as the Hours progress in difficulty this would be what I expect.

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 6 Review Notes

Promising hour (or chapter depending on how you view the book) going to create an Android Trivia Game, but first a moment from my sponsor – LUNCH!!  brb

I’m up to page 117 and got the prototype built consisting of screens, not much on them but the framework of an application is there based on the game of ‘Been There, Done That!’

Wrote some *real* code for the final exercise.

DateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy/MM/dd HH:mm:ss");
        Date date = new Date();
        String currentDate = dateFormat.format(date);
       
        SharedPreferences settings = getSharedPreferences(GAME_PREFERENCES, MODE_PRIVATE);       
        Log.i(TAG,"Last Launched QuizSplashActivity: " + settings.getString("lastLaunch", currentDate) );         
        SharedPreferences.Editor prefEditor = settings.edit();
        prefEditor.putString("lastLaunch", currentDate);
        prefEditor.commit();

Here’s the skivvy on the review. Since, I made the commitment to read this Droid book, I’m going to provide review notes for each hour of the book immediately after I complete that section of the book. In theory you’ll see 24 separate posts over the next few days containing my personal notes on my experience with the book.

Hour 5 Review Notes

Hour 5 is “Configuring the Android Manifest File”  Does programming euphoria start in this hour?

If the ADT plug-in creates most of the important configuration settings, why would you ever use anything else??

Not euphoria, but configuration memorization begins in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

Setting the min version of SDK <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="10" />

And you have to set the Debuggable attribute to true, but don’t forget to set to false when going to production!

Got bogged down on the first example… had two activities in the Application Nodes of the manifest file.

Made it past the permissions issues… http://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission.html

Hour 5 done, but it took about 1 hour 25 min… mostly my own misdirections… including a @shanselman conversation on twitter.