I love my Android phone, and so far, I hate Eclipse (ok, hate is such a strong word. But I DO dislike it  ). When one is used to Visual Studio, Eclipse is very very different, and difficult to work with. In addition I have a lot of trouble with the Java namespaces and etc. etc.

I have big plans for applikations for Android, not that I expect to make them generally available, but mostly because it is really a toy and a tool for me.

So far, mostly due to time constraints, Eclipse and Java have managed to stop me dead in my tracks while I struggle to relearn Java. The syntax as such is not a problem, I usually code in C#, and the syntactical differences are really minor. The main difference is the strict programming model I have to follow, lack of easy documentation (and more importantly, the RIGHT real-world code examples).

Oh, and the Java namespaces….

So, imagine my exhilaration when I discovered this.

Now, I am just waiting anxiously for this to be released ;)

Well, I have been looking, briefly so far, at development for the Android. Man, when you're used to Visual Studio and C#, Eclipse and Java is a pain.

Strange error messages, weird project structures and so on. I just don't get it. The worst part, I think is to actually getting Eclipse and the Android SDK to play nicely together. Visual Studio just works.

Well, I'll persevere, but it sure ain't easy. I had Eclipse set up a while ago, and due to other stuff I had to let the learning lay for a while. Now I fire the IDE, and nothing works.

A couple of months ago, I got my first real smart phone, a HTC Tattoo. It is not quite in league with the big ones, like Hero or Droid. Not to mention Nexus One or HTC Legend.

It is however a nice little phone, and although the screen is relatively small (2.8" and QVGA) it suits my needs quite nicely.

Now, I am a software developer and as such a phone which is programmable is really a toy for someone like me, as well as a tool. So I have plans, oh I have plans.

My normal development environment is Visual Studio and .NET (C#), so Eclipse and java is quite far away from what I usually use. Although the syntax in C# and Java is very like each other, the SDK is very very different.

Even a simple Hello World applikation is a struggle. But I will get there, I have no doubt. It is what I want, all I need is the time for it.

So, my plans for Android development?

1. Develop something simple, but useful. I have decided to write an Android application for retrieving the server status for City of Heroes, which is available from the site. This will be accomplished through several steps with the first being very very simple.

2. Develop something more complicated, like maybe an application for blogging from the phone to e.g. a BlogEngine.NET blog.

There are blog applications for Android, but those I have found sofar is for Wordpress, no one seems to implement the meta weblog API.

That is the plan, now for the time to follow it…

I have often had the need for insert GUIDs in my code, but the existing guid generation tool that comes with Visual Studio is quite the drag to use (in my opinion). I mean it works and everything, but this is the steps necessary to generate and insert a guid in the code:

1. Open the "Tools" menu
2. Click on "Create GUID" and wait for it to start
3. (optional) Select the GUID format
4. Click on "Copy"
5. Click on "Exit"
6. Ctrl+V to insert in the code.

At least it generates a new guid every time it opens. Granted I could let the tool remain open, and just click "New GUID" but I don't need GUIDs THAT often. So, all in all, quite the drag in my opinion. Enter macros.

I realized that I could accomplish all of the above in a single hotkey combination by writing a macro that does this exact thing.Says alot about me, that I used VS for 4 years before this occured to me...

See here:

   1: Public Sub InsertGUID()

   2:     Dim guid As System.Guid = System.Guid.NewGuid()

   3:     Dim ts As TextSelection = DTE.ActiveWindow.Selection

   4:     ts.Insert(guid.ToString().ToUpper())

   5: End Sub

Then I create a hotkey for it in Options –> Environment –> Keyboard. And voila! Every time I press Ctrl+Shift+G I now generate a new GUID and insert it into the code at the exact position the cursor is at.

I discovered BE.NET some 3 or 4 months ago. It looked very nice, and I have successfully deployed it in 3 blogs as of this writing.

Once I had gotten the hang of it, I wrote my first widget. I have a craving, you might say, for random quotes. But I can't make do with a single new quote every day. I want one whenever I refresh. So I wrote one myself.

It was ok, but the quotes supplier I had found didn't really have a lot of quotes, so it cycled fairly quickly through them.

Then I discovered http://quotes4all.net/. And it even supplies a xml feed. So a few hours of coding and testing, and voila: Random Quotes v2 for BE.NET. I fully intend make it configurable, as quotes4all allow a great deal of customization.

Right now, it has no configuration, so it just conforms to my basic wishes.

RandomQuote.zip (1.96 kb)