Android Development Basic - Setting up Windows's environment variables

Android Development Basic - Setting up Windows's environment variables

When preparing a new development environment for android development, following environment variables are essential to be setup.

1) JAVA_HOME (e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_24), // this is pointing to the Java JDK directory.
2) ANDROID_HOME (e.g. C:\Android\android-sdk),  // this is pointing to you installed Android SDK directory.
3) PATH (e.g. c:\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools;   // this will be pointing to the common tools that you going to use in command prompt.
              c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_24\bin;
              %ANDROID_HOME%\tools; )

With the above environment variable setup, you can get started easily with android development.

Fixing Visual Studio 2008 SP1 constant crashing.

While undoubtedly Visual Studio 2008 is a great development tools, it has been reported to be constant crashing and cause the IDE to shutdown unexpectedly and this may causes unsaved work losses.

An description from the MSDN KB state the following:
VS2008 SP1: In Visual Studio 2008 SP1, having windows in non-default locations, for example after docking and undocking windows, when switching between debugging and designing or switching to/from full screen, can result in a crash of the Visual Studio IDE.

This Hotfix was updated on May 11, 2009 to address a shortcoming with the original Hotfix (published Mar 12, 2009) whereby XAML Intellisense may cease functioning after applying the Hotfix. If you have applied the original Hotfix, it is not necessary to uninstall it to apply the updated (V2) Hotfix.


The hotfix for the issue can be downloaded from here : http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB960075

Enjoy booting your pc with Soluto

Few weeks back I’ve written a article about a very nice software call What Is My Computer Doing which give you information on what processes is currently running on your pc. While the tools is nice if you need to tweak you pc for software that is actually consuming the resources, but it doesn’t have the ability to control the processes from starting during boot.

Soluto, a Free software which is called the “Anti-Frustration Software” can help you on this. This software main functionality is to help you to tweak your pc booting time without breaking anything. After installation Soluto will startup together with windows and it will analyze all the processes that startup during booting, it will later shows a graphical interface where you have see more information on the exact amount of time each process taken to startup, it also allows you to Pause or Delay it’s startup to boost your pc startup time.

The details of each processes are driven by the community updated wiki, showing you a recommended setting to tweak it’s startup. If you have more information on the processes, you could also share it with others.

And the best of all, its FREE.

Get Soluto from http://www.soluto.com/Download/

Install Windows Automation API 3.0 to make Visual Studio 2010 runs faster.

According to MS Knowledgebase article id 981741, visual studio can run faster if the Windows Automation API 3.0 is installed.

Read more from here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/981741

Observer in .NET 4.0 with IObserver(T)

Observer in .NET 4.0 with IObserver(T): "The IObservable(T) and IOberver(T) interfaces are part of base class library of .NET 4.0. It's great that there is now a out of the box solution to implement the observer pattern. The article shows with a simple example how the two interfaces should be used."

Setting xUnit as External Tools in Visual Studio

To set xUnit as External Tools in Visual Studio:

1. Go to Tools > External Tools
2. In the screen shown, configure as follow.
3. Command field is pointing to xunit.console.exe (xunit.console.clr4.exe if using xUnit 1.6)
4. Arguments fields does the main trick. You should set it as :
   $(BinDir)$(TargetName)$(TargetExt)

• Check the Use Output window as well to user the Visual Studio Output windows, instead of command prompt.
• You can further drag the xUnit External Tool as a button in your toolbar, or set a shortcut key for it.

Easy upload photos from Windows Live Photo Gallery to Facebook.

If you are using Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage your photos on your computer, then you definitely need to install “LiveUpload to Facebook” .

“LiveUpload to Facebook” is a plugin to Windows Live Photo Gallery available for free. After install the plugin you will have an option to upload photo to facebook in your Publish > More Services menu.

Once clicked, you will be prompted to choose an account to login with.

You can download it Here Download LiveUpload to Facebook

Technorati Tags: Facebook,Windows Live Photo Gallery,LiveUpload to Facebook