NFC and Android

With NFC tags being so cheap, been having a play.

This is a reminder of what needs to be on an NFC  tag to make  Connectbot  open an ssh connection to a server.

It mainly comes down to remembering that you launch applictions in android via intents.

Examples of intents connectbot (an ssh client) understands are shown here

In short it looks like this:-

<intent-filter>
  <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
  <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
  <category android:name="android.intent.category.BROWSABLE" />
  <data android:scheme="ssh" />
  <data android:scheme="telnet" />
  <data android:scheme="local" />
  <!-- format:  ssh://user@host:port/#nickname  -->
  <!-- format:  telnet://host:port/#nickname  -->
  <!-- format:  local://  -->
</intent-filter>

ssh://username@server.somedomain.com:portnumber/#nickname

Then use something like NFC task launcher to attach and open URL action to your tag.

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NineKeys

This is an application for helping to learn to read music.

There are quite a lot of sight reading practice applications for Android but none of them provided the features I wanted. NineKeys was initially written to satisfy my requirements. I wanted a better way to identify which areas of my sight reading were weakest and for the program to adapt to help correct those weaknesses.

A major part of learning is the feedback process and being shown in which areas your knowledge is lacking. This was a major influence in the design of the statistics display.

The statistics page overlays the staff with bar showing your percentage score for each note and  shows clearly which notes are giving you the most problems.

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The application operates in various modes and you can select which stave and note variations (sharps or flats) are included. The system uses an adaptive question algorithm to assist your progress (a hangover from my research work on Computer Aided Assessment)

Downloadable from the play store here

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PH_Lyrics Android Widget

As mentioned previously I have been using a database of Peter Hammill and Van Der Graaf Generator songlines as test data for various projects.  Whilst doing some Android related things I  put together a “widget”.

So as an extension to the PH Lyrics project (www.ninelocks.com/ph_lyrics) and twitter.com/ph_lyrics here is an Android widget.

The widget updates from the web every hour while the device is awake. The widget can also be tapped on to force a refresh. Its only available in the one size at the moment and sometimes it looks a bit empty when the chosen songline is a short one.

Download from here

qrcode_ph_lyrics_widget

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Neko

The first version of Neko I was aware of was on the Apple Macintosh as a desktop accessory,but since then the code has been modified and re-written by various people so that Neko can play on a variety of different machines.

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I use Neko as a way of trying out dev tools an new platforms. So here is a variation on Neko for Android. Download here

qrcode_neko_ninelocksDownload Neko from Ninelocks.com


The history of Neko (as far as I am aware is)
neko DA (Macintosh version) © 1989 by Kenji Gotoh
xneko (X11 version) ©1990 by Masayuki Koba
Pilot version ©1997 by Hoshi Takanori
(If I have missed someone out, please let me know.)

This is an update of the version (with multiple cats) that I wrote for PalmOS and later Windows Mobile devices.

web_hi_res_512

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ByteSplorer- A fun way to explore Binary numbers…

One thing the Android world is not short of is binary calculators but I required one with very specific functionality and behaviour. Hence ByteSplorer, available from Google Play or a direct download here.

ByteSplorer shows how the byte may be interpreted as an unsigned or signed number and its hexadecimal representation.

There are a limited number of functions as well that allow shifting (to demonstrate its effect on the value) and invert all and add 1 keys to allow experimentation with converting numbers to their to complement negative version.

ByteSplorer is at GooglePlay

device-480_320

qrcode_bytesplorer_googleGoogle Play

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Quick Way to serve files to devices such as tablets

Fighting with a few mobile devices that I want to easily share content with…. I suspect I am not alone. Manufacturers provide handy transfer software for Windows and Mac users, not so much for Linux.
A quick way to serve up files via a web server is using the built in python one.

Just go to the folder you want to server up and python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8888 & (or whatever port number you want to use)

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