RolTekk Blog

Announcing a new CalcRT theme, PCB (because the most important part of calculating a tip, is how you look doing it!)

2013-03-18T19:54:00.001-04:00

Now that's one giant calculator.

The new theme was fun to try to create with only the basic shapes available in the Android framework and gave me even more insight into styles/theming. As well, I have abstracted out dimensions for different sized screens for things like font size and curve radii. Even though it may not look exactly right on every device's dpi and physical screen size, it was a step in the right direction and ultimately adds another skill into my arsenal.

I also added in a couple of fonts for the display in the PCB and the TraceOn themes, which effectively doubled the applications size to a whopping 110K.

The update has been approved on Google Play, but it seems that RIM (oh, I mean BlackBerry) is not updating quickly these days. The last CalcRT update for 1.5 is still pending since Jan 27th 2013. I'm sure they are busy with BB10 and such, but hopefully they get around to my little app.

CalcRT on Google Play

CalcRT on BlackBerry App World

CalcRT, the little calculator that wouldn't die.

2013-01-03T20:59:00.000-05:00

A long time ago on a 4 year old laptop operated by a noob of an Android programmer, CalcRT was born.

It was my first experience programming on Android and it even still bears the compatibility to good old Android SDK 3 (aka 1.5, aka Cupcake). Today, as I wanted to gear back up from the holidays to return to my Android programming position (yes they pay me for this now), I thought I'd try to add some themes to the old calculator as it was something I always wanted to implement. A task not quite as easy I had thought as there were a few hurdles because I am creating all of the UI buttons with shapes instead of the more fanciful PNG9s. Although it took me a days worth of work, it was worth it to discover yet another bit of framework massaging that I have come accustomed to while working on the Android platform.

The 1.4 release includes 4 preset themes for the user to choose from. Some day I may get back into the source and create a user customizable theme structure, but in the meantime I am hoping that people will contact me if they would like to see a theme created of their own and I will include it in the next release as a preset.

The new release is still pending approval at these locations:

CalcRT on Google Play

CalcRT on BlackBerry App World

Make It or Break It minor update

2012-11-04T16:41:00.003-05:00

It seems that the LED time-out was not working on Android SDK 4.0.x devices, so this update includes a fix for that.

As well, the database upgrade for the last release has shown failures on a very small number of Android devices (EVO, Desire HD). The reason being was because the OS variant on these devices apparently have databases stored in a different location than normal. This release attempts to fix that as well, although it is only an issue when a user updates the application from versions previous to 1.8.7.

Make It or Break It on Google Play

Make It or Break It on BlackBerry App World

Please let us know of any feedback you may have to help us to improve our products.

Make It or Break It 1.8.7 released into the wild.

2012-10-21T03:07:00.000-04:00

The latest feature introduced into "Make It or Break It" is the ability to create custom alarm types that are related to time blocks. Alarm types include the ability to have an intrusive or discreet alarm, different time-outs for both, as well as configuration of colour and flash rate of LED notifications. Each alarm type that you create can be related to any number of time blocks. For example:

Say you create an alarm type for general daytime use in your habit. One that is forceful by waking up your device with an audible alarm, vibrating and letting you know if you missed an alarm by flashing the notification LED in red at a quick rate. We will name this alarm type "Do It Now!". Now let's also imagine that you have created another alarm type for the evening when you don't wish to have an alarm that is so obtrusive. This alarm would consist of a quiet notification that displays only when you wake up your phone or tablet, and perhaps flashes the LED blue, but very slowly and will stop flashing after a minute to minimize battery drain. A good name for this alarm type may be "It can wait".

If you had created a breaking habit in the system for quitting smoking, you may have a number of time blocks timed as such; 7:00am-8:00am, 12:00pm-1:00pm and 5:00pm-10:00pm. For this habit you may want to be very strict in your schedule and activate the "Do It Now!" for all 3 time blocks. Alternatively, you may decide to activate the "It can wait" alarm type for the last time block in the evening so as to alert you in a more relaxed manner.

As well, you may have entered in another habit into the system that could also use either of these alarm types for any of its time blocks, or you may create one or more new alarm types with completely different configurations. In addition, because time blocks can be set for different days of the week, you can even have different alarm types activated for weekends or maybe just for Mondays if you choose.

The possibilities are completely up to you.

This new feature began originally as a result of a customer suggestion when they were first concerned about the 5 minute default alarm time-out that was initially part of the system. While working with them, we were able to refine what the alarm type customization should include, and I believe that people will find it a very useful addition to Make It or Break It.

To get Make It or Break It for Android devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook, follows these links:

Make It or Break It on Google Play
Make It or Break It on BlackBerry App World

Check out other products produced by RolTekk at the website:

RolTekk website

New RolTekk website.

2012-10-13T18:55:00.000-04:00

Today the new website went up at roltekk.com. I am not much of a web designer, but I was able to set-up a basic layout and include the necessary information. Now that it is published, updates with new features can come as they are deemed appropriate.