android – Zack Matthews

Android: Retrieve JSON from service via DNS SRV lookup

Quick snippet of code for anyone in need of an SRV lookup example. If your apps retrieve data from a service and you’re hard coding a URL, DNS is a great way to make that more dynamic. DNS Java is the library being used here (http://www.dnsjava.org/doc/). private static class ConfigUpdater extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, JsonConfig> { private static final String SRV_RUE_CONFIG_PREFIX = “_rueconfig._tls.”; ConfigListener listener; String request_url; String query_url; String username, password; String errorMsg; public ConfigUpdater(String url, String username, String password, ConfigListener listener) { this.username = username; this.password = password; this.listener = listener; query_url = SRV_RUE_CONFIG_PREFIX + url; errorMsg = “Failed...

June 28, 2017

Accessibility / android / android / Experience / iOS / programming

The iOS accessibility feature that should be dead simple for developers but isn’t

Android just knows what your system font setting is. If you have trouble seeing smaller text, it will automatically scale your TextViews according to what you’ve told it to do in settings. iOS developers need to give their views a little extra love. Short, simple, and to the point here at 1am just for you. No digging or stackoverflow required. Objective-C – How to scale labels according to iOS system settings: UIFont *CELL_FONT = [UIFont systemFontOfSize:[UIFont preferredFontForTextStyle:UIFontTextStyleBody].pointSize]; if (CELL_FONT) { self.labelView.font = CELL_FONT; }

January 31, 2017

android / android / communications / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / SIP / socialmedia / VoIP / WebRTC

PUC – Personal Universal Communicator

Once again, Christmas has come and gone. I’ve been working all year to deliver on the Universal communications app aimed at not just the accessibility community but to everyone. We want the PUC project to be the end all be all for communications. We have so much room to improve (who doesn’t?) but we want to share our work with the world. From being one of the first to implement the new FCC mandated real time text, to high quality video, HD voice, multi-media messaging and more, PUC is the ultimate communications platform. Having been the Sr. Software Engineer for...

December 27, 2016

Algorithms / android / data structures / Data Structures / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / microcontrollers / programming / Projects / raspberrypi

Pi Zero Update and the future of computing

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update on my experience with the Pi Zero so far. I haven’t done any circuitry or wiring, but have been crushing up on my breadboards / circuits. However, I did set up a hole in my firewall to setup SSH, VNC, and a WeMo switch to power my Pi remotely. All in all, this was a really cool experience to learn more about networking, terminal, and how to maximize computations with limited memory / CPU power. Diving a little deeper, I wanted to see if I could whip up a quick IoT app last week. In...

March 28, 2016

android / android / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / socialmedia / tools

Raspberry Pi’s, Photons, and the magical world of Computer Engineering

Very often we can find ourselves in a career rut no matter the industry. We do the same things, learn similar skills to what we know, and are far too frightened to branch out to try something new. As a means of fighting complacency I’ve wanted for a long time to jump into the world of microcontrollers / hardware, but there has always appeared to be such a high barrier to entry. This article is for the Software Engineer who has been unsure of the hardware world but has an interest in giving it a go. My goal though this...

March 4, 2016

Algorithms / android / Data Structures / data structures / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / peekintomymind / people business / programming / Projects / socialmedia / Uncategorized

Press: iD Tech Updated Success Story

So grateful to iD Tech (Programming Academy) for the kind words and update of my story with them. iD Tech has had one of the greatest impacts on my career and I would recommend them to anyone looking to spend a summer learning about or teaching others about Software Engineering. To learn more about iD and read about my experience with them check out the updated story over at iDTech‘s site.

February 27, 2016

Algorithms / android / android / entrepreneur / entrepreneurship / Experience / iOS / networking / programming / Projects / tools

Android Project: Fork of Google “Meter” live wallpaper

Though I’m still working full time I couldn’t help but get my hands dirty with some code over our Christmas break. I wanted to create something I would use on a daily basis as well as have that “cool factor.” Thus spawned the idea of modifying Google’s data centric live wallpaper “meter” for Android. My fork currently adds a settings page that can be configured to do a GET from two URL’s and display that information atop of your Android Desktop. My initial use case for this is to display system status from my office and home Macbooks such as...

December 30, 2015

android / Experience / gradle / maven / networking / programming / Projects / tools / Uncategorized

Android Tools: Simple HTTP RESTful requests using Volley

For as long as I can remember Android leveraged AsyncTask’s and HttpUrlConnection’s to perform network operations. The reason for this being is that any synchronous tasks performed on the UI thread would cause an application to hang until a response was returned. All of this extra code was a complete hassle and simply added unnecessary time to development. Google has made every Android developer’s life easier now by introducing the Volley maven library. Volley completely does away with all of Android’s woes, worries, and frustrations when performing HTTP requests. At a high level, http requests are wrapped in a Request...

August 28, 2015

Category: android