Because of the half life of mobile application users, app developers are constantly updating their mobile apps. It depends on the number of apps you have on your phone, but if I don’t get the latest apps in a weeks period I would have 15 app updates waiting for me. I update one day and the next day there is another app ready to update. Because apps are updated so often, and they require the users permission to do so, mobile app users have are developing app update fatigue.

Code and Design

• Remove Multiple Null Values From a List in Java
• Launch Default Web Browser and Email Client in Java
• How to Print the Alphabet in Java
• Java String Conversion Puzzlers
• Find the Current Working Directory in Java
• Can You Spot the Infinite Loop
• Run-on Code Statement
• Common Causes for Out of Memory Exceptions
• Fix Common Java Errors
• Access Drives From Remote Windows Computers
• Create SQL Server Database and Database Tables From a File
• Copy Records From One Database to Another
• Copy Data Between Two Databases Tables

Reviews and Rants

• Avoid Overloading Meaning to Existing Database Columns
• Worst Software Bug
• Never Underestimate Your Users
• jQuery Mobile and PhoneGap
• Chipotle Online Order System
• Save on Merchant Fees
• Email Share
• Missing Feature: The Mobile Device Self Destruct Button
• Reclaim Disk Space with Spacie
• The Google Chrome Notebook
• Android Lacks Polish
• Microsoft Bizspark
• Does Lenovo Use Thinkvantage Toolbox to Spam Users?
• HP Printer Driver Wants to Phone Home
• Apple Ruined My Neighbors Christmas
• Google Starts Towards the Path of Evil
• Has Google Jumped the Shark?

Retweet 2011

• Retweet December 2011
• Retweet November 2011
• Retweet October 2011
• Retweet September 2011
• Retweet August 2011
• Retweet July 2011
• Retweet June 2011
• Retweet April 2011
• Retweet March 2011
• Retweet February 2011

Year in Review

• Year In Review 2009
• Year In Review 2008
• Year In Review 2007
• Year In Review 2006
• Year In Review 2005

Software Development

• Being into computers today is not the same as it was in my day when you had to solder chips into boards, now it means you are on Facebook.
• I don’t know why you would fake such a thing but there are a lot of fake self described geeks.
• This holiday season remember to backup if don’t already have a backup system in place.

Thought Leadership

• Life has a funny way to keep you humble.
• Focus on simplicity, complexity is overrated.
• Whether I see the glass half full or half empty largely depends on what is in the glass to begin with.
• To much of a good thing is a bad thing. Not enough of a good thing is also a bad thing.
• No brain, no gain.
• There is no such thing as cheap thrills, only cheap tricks.

Product Placement

• I just realized that I have five phone numbers connected to my iPhone.
• Not feeling the new Twitter app. It feels like it requires too many clicks to do anything.
• Every parking lot should be covered with an array of solar panels. Some parking lots take more area than the base of the building.
• I hate when sites and apps require Facebook Connect to sign up. #pinterest
• I bet that Taco Bell taco shells are made in China.
• Like a true politician, Go Daddy flip flopped on the issue and now claims it does not support SOPA. #WhoDroppedTheSOPA
• Google Grinch: No Ice Cream Sandwich for Galaxy S, first Galaxy Tab, or original Nexus.
• The one feature that had been overlooked in Android is the ability to take a screenshot of your Android device.

Quote

• I’m putting you on the do not kill list. – Bender Bending RodrÌguez
• The truth is often stupid. – Bender Bending RodrÌguez
• Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what’s good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers. – jwz
• Let’s go and invent tomorrow. – Steve Jobs

Question

• Who moved my cheese and then cut said cheese?
• Who is doing some last minute shopping?
• How many domains do you own?
• Church’s or Popeyes?
• Ancient Aliens or Modern Morons?
• If you could go back in time and would be stuck in prehistoric time, what skill would you need most to survive?
• If Mr Grinch is so mean what do you think Mrs Grinch is like?
• If the world is flat why aren’t international phone rates flat themselves?
• A touch device is a complicated device with many components, what are the chances that the Galaxy Tab would look identical to the iPad?

Randumb

• Looking forward to the future!
• Old Internet memes don’t die, they go remixed, go viral, and trend.
• It’s rumored that the same maker that built a weight scale with a built it twitter client that tweets your weight is working on a toilet.
• Money can’t buy you love but it can sure buy some lap dances.
• When it comes to teenage love, forever doesn’t last long.
• The surprise is the prize.
• Empty space is the enemy of clutter.
• You are the chaos/cause of you.
• You are the cause of you because you.
• It is what it will be and it will be what has been.
• Happy whatever the fuck you celebrate tonight.
• The Internet was invented for the sharing of funny cat videos and pictures.
• Make a right at the 3rd dimension and you are here.
• The best part of nothing is everything.
• Negative ideas manifest into real feelings
• Gift wrapping ain’t going so merry.
• If there is a way to hurt yourself with a tape dispenser I’ve done it… Why is my lip bleeding!?
• I think that The Terminator is the beginning of a long war against the machines that culminates with The Matrix.

Overheard

• OH: Annoying people are really annoying.
• OH: I would love to enjoy my own depression if I only I didn’t have to deal with other people’s depression.
• OH: I wish my life was an 80′s movie.
• OH: To be honest, I’m not being honest.

Software Development

• Making good UI means making ugly choices.
• There was a time when having a computer made you a nerd. Today, people being “good on Facebook” does not make you a nerd.
• Love working with jQuery Mobile.

Thought Leadership

• Everyone has a vision, the difference is the scope, lens, and filter around the vision.
• Tomorrow is a fresh opportunity to be amazing and amazed.
• You ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers.
• I’m not on StackOverflow, so when people ask for my SO reputation I instead give them the the monthly referrals I get from SO.

Product Placement

• Sweet. Amazon just sent me a $5 credit because of a “technical issue on the Amazon.com website” that I am not even aware I encountered.
• Found my first handheld device… An HP iPaq RX3715 running Pocket PC 2003 Pro w/ Outlook 2002. It’s still in great condition!
• David Pogue wrote his review of the Kindle Fire, sounds like he wrote it from his iPad.

Overheard

• OH: Don’t they have Cliff Notes for the DMV driving manual?
• OH: Your brain cells are sexy!
• OH: Sometimes when you put things in the closet it doesn’t mean you have a clean house.
• OH: don’t do it but it you gonna do it make sure you get paid for doing it.

Thanksgiving

• I’m turkeyed-out. I had all major food groups and at least four different meat groups.
• McDonalds should have a McTurkey with McStuffing.
• Thanksgiving is the time to eat food you don’t like, I mean why do you only have it only for Thanksgiving?
• The holidays forces families to come together because everyone else is with their families.
• I dislike food holidays. Especially when everything is so good.
• Instead of counting sheep, I’ll be counting turkeys tonight.
• Gobble gobble gone.

Software Development

• To checkin or not to checkin a large changelist five minutes before you go home, that is the question?
• A test like a good movie, has three parts: the setup, the car chase, and the test of the results.
• Testing is like a tax, you have to pay 5-10% to have a good running infrastructure or system.
• Testing takes time, make sure you make the time, because it will save you time in the long run.
• All programmers have a black belt in hubris.
• One bytecode to rule them all.

Thought Leadership

• Your miles may vary, but it often depends on your attitude.
• Passion + Perseverance = Possibilities
• Sometimes you can’t afford to lose a client, but there are other times you can’t afford keep your client.
• Just like there should be no hard coded strings there should be no unwritten rules, or assumptions, or specifications.
• The dumbest people I’ve ever encountered are those that think that the rest of the 99.99% of people are a bunch of idiots.
• If you are unique no one can compete with you.
• Team meetings should not feel like an AA meeting, “Hi, I’m bob and I work here.”

Product Placement

• I’ve used the iPhone apps for Google Voice and G+ and I have to say, Google does not know how to make a good iOS app.
• I’m not liking the new Google Reader look. I would not be surprised if the next version of Google design has ribbons.
• Leave no smart phone behind. Google won’t upgrade the Nexus One to Android 4.0.
• Google is set to update its motto to “Do no evil if you ain’t getting paid for such evil.”
• Android is to Google what Internet Explorer was to Microsoft in the Browser Wars. MS gave IE for free just to take out Netscape.
• Siri is to Apple what Kinect is to XBox what Facebook Connect is to Facebook what Circles are to Google Plus…
• Every time I upgrade a MS product an angel loses his wings.
• Is Amazon also adopting social networking features? I just noticed that Amazon has a like button on its product pages.
• Facebook should update its mission “to trick people to over share and make the world more open, connected, and trackable.”
• Google should update its mission “to organize the world’s information about our users and make it accessible and useful to our advertisers.”
• @att has two options in terms of text messages. Pay as you use for $0.20 or unlimited for $20. What about a third option, disable texting altogether?
• Why does it cost half of the price of a stamp to send or receive a text? It’s endemic of an industry that has no competition or innovation.
• The Kindle Fire tablet is a modern day physical shopping cart for Amazon’s virtual online store.
• History is being made every day, yet @historychannel airs reruns of Ancient Alien.

Quotes

• OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW. – Steve Jobs’ Last Words
• I’m so embarrassed. I wish everybody else was dead. – Bender Bending Rodriguez
• Goodbye monobrains – Bender Bending Rodriguez
• There is no recession for great companies… – Jason Calacanis
• Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free. – Linus Torvalds
• Coming together is the beginning; keeping together is a process; working together is success. – Henry Ford
• When all men think alike, no one thinks very much. – Walter Lippmann

Randumb

• On Monday mornings we are all zombies.
• Why am I listening to old school British punk rock? #GodSpankTheQueen
• The truth is that truth is absolutely relative.
• And then God said, “Let there be bacon,” and there was bacon. God saw that the bacon was delicious.
• You’re so vain, you probably think this tweet is about you.
• Fist pump for peace.
• Anybody that gets lost in a corn maze is an absolute moron.
• I hate Lifetime movies!
• Business is legitimate thievery.
• Some of the most common elements on earth idiotum and dumbtonium.
• meta-disrupt: Disrupt those disrupting disruption.
• I am, therefore I meme.

Thought Equations

• Meaning > money
• problem = opportunity
• means != ends
• Success > Perfection
• Experience != Information
• Thinking > Knowing
• Do > try
• Platform > product
• Creation > criticism
• Passion + Perseverance = Possibilities

Million Dollar Ideas

• Million Dollar Idea: Online Speed Dating Site
• Million dollar idea: a news channel with nothing but news tickers…
• Million Dollar Idea: self cleaning floors.

With jQuery Mobile, you develop your mobile application with HTML5 and JavaScript/jQuery. With jQuery Mobile, all of your UI is written in pure HTML5 tags with the correct CSS classes and attributes. jQuery Mobile is built on top of jQuery so many web developers can immediately start being productive with jQuery Mobile.

Everybody has an idea for the next great iPhone application. The top reasons I’ve heard from people, including from developers, as an excuse for not getting started is that they don’t have a Apple computer, they don’t want to learn another programming language, they don’t have time, etc. jQuery Mobile invalidates all of these excuses. You can use Firefox or Chrome to test your jQuery Mobile application, you develop using plain HTML5 and JavaScript, and most it’s easy to pick up.

Because a jQuery Mobile application is just a HTML5-based web application, if your an run it on your iPhone or other mobile device using the native web browser. On the iPhone, when you run a jQuery Mobile application the browser will take up a small portion on the screen for the navigation buttons, bookmarks, and other controls of the browser. One way to claim all of the screen real-estate is to create a native application, that is where PhoneGap comes in. PhoneGap is a native shell around a web application, such as those developed in jQuery Mobile. With PhoneGap, you can turn your jQuery Mobile application into a full fledged native application.

Software Development

• Code. Money. Respect.
• Software bugs don’t take anything personally.
• Code more, sleep less.
• DONT THREAD ON ME

Thought Leadership

• Just having a goal is often times more important than the goal itself.
• Word programming, i.e. writing TPS reports.
• Code Complete = Tests + Implementation.

Product Placement

• Google is the casino, or better yet the Goldman Sachs, of online identity, ads, and search. You don’t bet against the house.
• What is cloud-accelerated web browser? Learning about Amazon Silk, the web browser in Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
• The project code name for the iPhone’s auto correct is auto cucumber.
• Spike TV should rename itself to Star Wars TV and the History Channel to Ancient Aliens Channel.

Money Angels

• Dr Evil is starting a venture fund.
• If Dr. Evil would have taken his Evil Corp. Public he would have made $1 billion on an IPO. And maybe Google would have bought his company.

Question

• How many uses can you think of for a paper clip?
• Where in the food pyramid is candy corn?
• Is Meg Whitman the new Carol Bartz?
• Are you changing the world or is the world changing you?
• What is the person equivalent to having your car lifted up in the air and balancing its tires?

Randumb

• The Internet made me do it.
• It’s easy to earn money while you sleep, if you sleep on the job.
• You are more likely to die due to medical error than a car accident. So if you are in a car accident, don’t go to the hospital, just walk it off.
• If I could get a nickel every time someone gives me their two cents I would arbitrage people’s opinions.
• Living the Internet lifestyle.
• If you don’t want your naked picture hacked from your phone don’t take naked picture of yourself on your phone.
• There are proposed bills that will make activities such as posting a lip sync video on YouTube a federal crime punishable with jail time.
• Forget the war on drugs, in the future there will be a war on content.
• History is not made, it is written, edited, scripted, and appropriated by Hollywood as a blockbuster movie about mutant super heroes.
• I predict the past.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, behold yourself.
• This is not Sparta!
• Love me, hate me, but you thinking of me.
• Love it or hate it, take it or leave it.
• I love love and hate hate.

Overheard

• OH: When you frown you look like a Klingon.
• OH: Is everyone in the call on mute?
• OH: My dress code is to try not to show my butt cheeks.

In Da Future

• In the future, everyone will be a product guy.
• In the future, Facebook will be your permanent record.
• In the future, the revolution will start with a single tweet.
• In the future, when people say they are going outside the grid, they will mean they aren’t logged into Facebook.
• In the future, Android developers will need to program using the Android SDK and the phone maker’s proprietary SDK, and the carriers’s SDK.

Million Idea

• Million Dollar Idea: A treadmill with a weight scale.
• Million Dollar idea: there is so much artificial flavoring, color, and seasoning in food. Patent dinosaur meat flavoring.
• Million Dollar Idea: Car alarm system that steams video of the surroundings of your car and scans for perps faces.
• Million Dollar idea: wasabi guacamole
• Million Dollar Idea: Carfax for people, including driving record, background check, work history, etc.
• Million Dollar idea: pepperoni pizza flavored breath mints.

Shift + O Short Cut – I once worked on a software application where one of the engineers developed a screen search functionality that would find the UI screen by name or feature. Needless to say the modal pop-up dialog for this search feature popped up when the user hit the Shift + O keys. This feature was developed by the engineer on his own initiative, so you can imagine everyone’s surprised when we couldn’t even type a capital o without this thing popping up.

Exposing Regular Expressions – In another project we developed micro expression language which was used and exposed at the application level to users. In one situation, a user reported a error when he wanted to replace a variable place holder with a dollar amount. It seems that when he called the expression language replaceall(“AMOUNT_VALUE”, “$0.00″) the got back the value of AMOUNT_VALUE.00. This problem was caused because we used Java Regular Expressions feature of the String class and $0 expression is a special value in the Java RegEx. This was like a Regular Expression Injection bug.

Localization and Internationalization – In the same project we had a problem with displaying the correct currency symbol used in a financial account statement. There is a big difference between $100 and €100. Account holders are not happy to know that their €100 are now worth $100.

Cut/Copy/Paste Does Not Work – I have seen way too many Java/Swing application where some component does not have proper support for cut, copy, or paste. When you cut from a Java application and paste to say Notepad you get a stringified Java object.

Textarea Size Limit – When filling online forms, the one bug that just kills me is where a textarea has a size limit not shown and you spend time typing a long response which will be either truncated, lost, or rejected on submit.

InvalidClassVersion – I’ve seen this exception often when working in a client-server environment. This exception is throw when you have two version of the same class in an environment. For example, maybe you made a large change and recompiled a particular class but only updated the server, the client still has a copy of an much older copy of the class. If objects of this class are serialized and shared between the client and the server you’ll an InvalidClassVersion exception. If a server sends a instance of a class to the client, the client who has an older copy of the class, will throw an InvalidClassVersion error because it’s version of the class may not have the newer methods, method signatures, fields, etc. The client version of the class is simply not compatible with the one in the server. To fix this, make sure that same version of any class is always used.

UnsupportedClassVersionError (Unsupported major.minor version 49.0) – This can happen when you compile an application in a higher version of Java then the version of the Java Virtual Machine in which you run the application. For example, if you compile your application for Java 6 but run the application using Java 1.4.2 you will get an UnsupportedClassVersionError.

NoSuchFieldException – A friend from school just sent me a message as to how to fix a NoSuchFieldException. I thought, just double check the library version, that JavaDocs, the source code, and anything else you can to verify that the field does exist in the class. This exception is thrown because he might be using reflection or some dynamic scripting language such as Groovy or JRuby and has misspelled the name of the field he is trying to invoke. The fix is to double check the API.

NoSuchMethodException – This exception is similar to NoSuchFieldException. You’ll see this exception when working with a dynamic language or when using reflection. When you use Java in a dynamic fashion, such as with Groovy or Java reflection, you don’t get the benefits of static compiled language features. You’ll get errors like NoSuchMethodException at run time instead of catching the error at compile time. It is often caused because you mistyped the name of a function that you want to use.

ClassNotFoundException – This exception can happen because you trying to run a class that references another class that is not in the classpath. Check the classpath and make sure that you have the classes and jars you need for you application to run. ClassNotFoundException often happens when you use third party libraries than themselves require other libraries or jars that you are unaware of.

NullPointerException – A typical Java NullPointerExeption is generally easy to fix with a stack trace of the exception. There is only one case where it is difficult to spot the source of a NullPointerException. The only NullPointerException that will have you baffled is those caused by auto-boxing, such as when you auto-box an Integer object to a primitive int variable. If the Integer object is null and you auto-box it to a primitive int when passing the object to a method whose parameter is an int, you’ll get NullPointerException. But if you look at the line where the exception is thrown, you’ll see that it takes an int and int primitives don’t throw exceptions, so you’ll be scratching your head in confusion until you realize that the calling method used an null value Integer object.

A common source of memory leaks is global static singleton god object that collects or manages a lot of data, maybe a system cache, object lookup table, service locator, etc. This type of singleton pattern will require other objects to register with it, add themselves to the global pool of objects, but if they are not properly removed, unregistered, when they are no longer needed you will see your memory usage increase over time. I’ve seen this issue when using the callback or listener pattern and the listener object itself holds a lot of other data. This sort of problem is usually relatively easy to identify with a profiler, it will usually be one of the largest objects in your system.

The other, more difficult memory leak to identify, is when you have hundreds of thousands of objects each taking up a reasonable amount of memory. In this case, a single object instance will not take a lot of memory but collectedly the hundreds of thousands of objects can eat up a lot of memory. Here are a few things you can think about when dealing with a small class that spawns thousand of objects…

If you have int types, see if you can change them to short or byte types. Try subclassing if you have any number of properties that most often than not set or are null. Think about lazy loading arrays, lists, and other objects references. If there are many object instances of this class, and any portion of these instances are logically equivalent, think of using the flyweight pattern.