What's going on?

Android API

2010-02-26T16:01:00.003+03:00

I've found one more black hole in Android platform code.

It is java.net.Socket.

Unfortunately, current implementation doesn't fully support a proxy.
Class has the next constructor public Socket(Proxy proxy).
There are tree types of proxy: DIRECT, SOCKS, HTTP.

At present HTTP isn't supported.
See code:

120 public Socket(Proxy proxy) {
121     if (null == proxy || Proxy.Type.HTTP == proxy.type()) {
122         // KA023=Proxy is null or invalid type
123         throw new IllegalArgumentException(Msg.getString("KA023")); //$NON-NLS-1$
124     }
... 
140 }

Android proxy on Nexus One

2010-02-19T23:11:00.005+03:00

I've got Nexus One for testing purposes.

That is a fantastic device.

The main thing is that device successfully uses APN proxy settings for outgoing Browser requests.

It has firmware 2.1-update1. May be "update1" is a key factor, but may be only emulators have the proxy problem, but real devices not?

Android PDK

2010-02-09T17:57:00.000+03:00

Today I've hit on the interesting link http://pdk.android.com

This resource provides the information about Android Platform Development Kit.
M-m-m..

That is a fucking awesome

2010-02-05T14:09:00.005+03:00

No comments, look at that.

Apple iPad minuses

2010-01-29T10:45:00.003+03:00

Apple has announced new iPad gadget.
It have to be revolutionary, but actually new Apple gadget has a lot of drawbacks.

iPad doesn't support multitasking. Only one application can be launched at the same time.
Flash technology is missed.
Doesn't have USB ports at all.
It is not able to recognize a hand-written text.
The remote administration is missed.
Push E-mail and Microsoft Exchange are also missed.
iPad has archaic screen 4:3 format.
Low screen resolution.
Camera is missed.

I would carefully think before purchasing this gadget.

Android 2.1 APN continuation...

2010-01-28T09:50:00.001+03:00

I've tried to use TelephonyProvider.apk from Android 1.6 on Android 2.x in order to get using the proxy by browser.

Result is failed.

See the previous experiments:
http://uhanov.blogspot.com/2010/01/android-21-apn-continuation.html

http://uhanov.blogspot.com/2010/01/android-21-apn.html

http://uhanov.blogspot.com/2009/12/android-20.html

I will try again.

Google Chrome 4.0

2010-01-25T19:28:00.000+03:00

Google has updated Chrome Browser under Windows to version 4.0.249.78 (36714).

It has extensions and synchronization of bookmarks.

Java amazing things

2010-01-15T11:05:00.003+03:00

I've come across with the very interesting thing in Java language.
Example below illustrates that.



public class PublicClass {

    private int mPrivateValue;

    public void privateMethod() {
        InnerClass inner = new InnerClass();
        // access to the private field of inner class
        inner.mPrivateValue = 7;
    }

    private class InnerClass {

        private int mPrivateValue;

        private void privateMethod() {
            // access to the private field of parent class
            PublicClass.this.mPrivateValue = 5;
        }
    }
}

In few words about the amazing thing:
1. Parent class have access to the private fields on inner class.
2. Inner class have access to the private fields of parent class.

Because parent and inner classes have implicit links to each other.

Android 2.1 APN continuation...

2010-01-14T18:25:00.000+03:00

Today I tested the next case.
Android Emulator 2.1 + Browser 1.6.

I've got the predictable result.
The old version of Android Browser also doesn't work with proxy on platform 2.1.

That is interesting, but ...

I suppose that the problem is in the telephony provider which can be used by Browser.

Android 2.1 APN

2010-01-12T15:31:00.000+03:00

Android 2.1 release also has the same issue as previously reported at http://uhanov.blogspot.com/2009/12/android-20.html

See also the Android bugtracker issue.

We do not have the official Google comments yet.

Android 2.1

2010-01-12T12:47:00.003+03:00

Again and again...

Google made us happy once again.

New version of Google Android 2.1 platform is now available at http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.1.html.

API difference report you can see at http://developer.android.com/sdk/api_diff/7/changes.html.

Belorussia vs Acer

2009-12-25T10:42:00.003+03:00

One of Belorussian distributorship proposes Acer desktop monitors as their own named INTEGRAL.

The full version of this news in Russian you can find on http://cnews.ru

Android 3-rd party source code

2009-12-17T15:48:00.004+03:00

I think you know that Android has 3-rd party Java API.
For example it is Apache API in part of HttpClient 4.x.
That is good code.
But today I found out that Google didn't port HttpMime project from Apache.
Such API allows to send 'multipart/form-data' body content to the target server by HTTP POST request, for example.
Of course HttpMime project has a few external dependencies like mime4j.
But if I understand correctly all these dependencies concerned to Apache projects.

I would rather do it in the next platform releases.

Android 2.0 APN

2009-12-11T18:58:00.001+03:00

The two last versions of Android emulator - 2.0 and 2.0.1 ignore a proxy settings for APNs.

I'm really upset.

Android application MIME type

2009-12-11T11:57:00.001+03:00

Useful facts about Android:

The MIME type of typical Android application (apk file) is application/vnd.android.package-archive.

Android Web Browser

2009-12-10T13:12:00.004+03:00

Today I was surprised by the next news: Android web browser doesn't support queries by ftp protocol.

Instead of that Browser interprets a typed address as query string and send it to Google.

Android Benchmark

2009-12-09T15:42:00.000+03:00

A Softweg Studio has announced that Android Benchmark was updated on Android Market.

New version has function for uploading a Benchmark results to the web site and compare it with others.

Make your laptop a hotspot

2009-12-08T19:05:00.004+03:00

This movie is showing how to share your laptop Internet connection with a colleagues on Windows Vista, Windows XP and Mac OS X.

It was got from cnet tv.

Google goggles

2009-12-08T12:59:00.003+03:00

New visual search service from Google.

Android platform issues 2

2009-12-07T15:58:00.004+03:00

Earlier I've written about NPE in Android platform HttpClient 4.x.

Today I've investigated the problem deeply.

The class DefaultRequestDirector has the code problem inside execute() function.

If the connection is made to the proxy (proxy chain) but not directly to the target server and such connection is lost we will get NPE in line 445, because of response = null:



response.setParams(params);

The main problem is happened in code lines 413 - 440. If IOException occures and we don't have a direct connection to the host than the value retrying = false and response = null.

Android secrets: 1

2009-12-04T14:51:00.005+03:00

- Which type of resource file do you use to avoid hardcoding of strings?
- res/strings.xml
- Which one for the integers?
- Hm...

Google supports res/config.xml to specify integer constants.
Example of code config.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <integer name="proxy_port">4000</integer>
</resources>

In Java code you could get it like below:

int port = 
        getResources().getInteger(R.integer.proxy_port);

Google Android 2.0.1

2009-12-04T10:48:00.004+03:00

December 4 Google released Android platform 2.0.1.
This release has only minor changes and bug fixes. But I like such progress.

Android Platform issues 1

2009-12-03T23:43:00.005+03:00

As you already know Android contains a 3-rd party Java API.
One of such open source projects is Apache HttpClient.

At present all available platform versions, including 2.0 have HttpClient 4.x.

Practically, today I've found NPE in function HttpClient.execute(HttpUriRequest request) for simple GET request.

I've got for
GET http://uhanov.blogspot.com/search/label/Android HTTP/1.1 the next trace:



E/ProxyConnection( 2025): Unpredictable java.lang.NullPointerException

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:445)

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:555)

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:487)

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:465)

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at com.muhanov.test.ProxyConnection.sendClientRequest(ProxyConnection.java:250)

E/ProxyConnection( 2025):       at com.muhanov.test.ProxyConnection.run(ProxyConnection.java:67)

QT4

2009-12-03T00:38:00.002+03:00

December 1 Nokia has released QT4.6.

Apache 2.2 mime_magic_module and PHP scripts

2009-12-01T19:13:00.010+03:00

The task: force Apache to handle PHP scripts without any file extensions.
Apache is able to determine MIME of file in two ways:

Using mime_module by extension
Using mime_magic_module by the first several bytes of file

I have investigated the second way.

In order to switch on this module you need:

Have the installed module mod_mime_magic.so into modules
Add LoadModule mime_magic_module modules/mod_mime_magic.so into httpd.conf
Specify its config file MimeMagicFile conf/magic info httpd.conf
Add necessary types to the magic file

I have tried to add the next line:
0 string \<?php application/x-httpd-php

as well as:

0 string \<?xml text/xml

But unfortunately I should note, that my variant doesn't work, although the variant concerning XML also doesn't work.

I'm searching a mistake...