Brian ConradSoftware Development and More2021-10-20T20:28:50.705Zhttps://brianconrad.com/Brian ConradHexoNo Commenthttps://brianconrad.com/2021/10/20/no-comment/2021-10-20T19:43:38.000Z2021-10-20T20:28:50.705Z
<p>As mentioned previously comments kinda got messed up here. Some were from my sofware apps blog. Unfortunately the way Disqus works it couldn’t be fixed. So I’ve dropped comments at least for the time being. Use the Contact Form instead. There actually were not a lot of comments and seems more used the form.</p>
<p>I’ll try to add more articles from now on. I’ve been trying Google’s Flutter to compare it with Xamarin which I’ve been using for awhile. Flutter seems to need a lot more memory than Xamarin. However I’ve also been trying to get the latest Maui, which replaces Xamarin, to work. Months ago version 2 worked but the new version 9 has problems. Maui release has also been pushed out 6 months.</p>
Fun and Games in Software Developmenthttps://brianconrad.com/2021/04/28/fungames/2021-04-28T19:23:44.000Z2021-04-28T19:45:50.034Z
<p>Back again with another exciting post about this fun and ever changing field of software development. As I have mentioned before I moved this blog a while back from the Hugo to the Hexo static site generator. One thing I did notice though regardless of either is that a static site might not be the best way to do a blog. When you add a post and then update it the way it works in both generators is every page and a few other files need to be uploaded again. Why? Look on the right. There is a sidebar with indexed list of posts. Every page needs to updated that has that sidebar.</p>
<p>Years ago my main product site was served using PHP. Now that seems like that might be a good idea again though actually a static site for app products should work just fine, just do away with the sidebar. My current temporary site just as a few HTML files and very little will change. A bigger site with all the “bells and whistles” is a little more complicated.</p>
How to Waste Time - Part 2https://brianconrad.com/2021/02/12/wastetime2/2021-02-13T01:28:43.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>So about 3 months ago I wrote a post about how our development tools often waste a lot of our often delaying productivity. Twenty years ago this would have been unacceptable. But these days with “free” tools and budget cuts for them we can often spend more time with our tools getting them to work than we should.</p>
<p>When I left off I was waiting for Xcode 12.1 to install. Well it installed and I tested the matter at hand and didn’t quite see the problem the user was reporting. So closed up things and here I am today trying to do a release version of the app with some additional fixes that Android and Windows also got. So then Xamarin tells me that Visual Studio 2019 won’t work with Xcode 11.5. Hmm, I swear I installed 12.1. Apparently not but it was running so Xamarin used it three months ago. </p>
How To Waste Timehttps://brianconrad.com/2020/11/10/how-to-waste-time/2020-11-11T02:55:44.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>So this afternoon I sat down to update an iOS app using Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 and and Xamarin. Connecting too my MacBook Air I was informed that I needed too update the Xamarin iOS library and Xamarin could do it if I wanted. So I let it. And then it sits there after having downloaded the library install file to the Mac and says something went wrong and it couldn’t be installed. Great.</p>
<p>I look up the problem. Seems that there might have been a problem with the download. Looking on the Internet this seems to be a common problem and some solved it by using a link and going their PC and downloading the library, putting it on a USB drive and sneaker netting it to the Mac. But another suggestion was to update Visual Studio on the Mac which I have installed because I found just having Xamarin for remote builds didn’t work as advertised. </p>
Tips for Working at Homehttps://brianconrad.com/2020/03/12/workathome/2020-03-12T20:25:59.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>Most all of my programming work over the years has been at home. The only office work I did was in the 1990s and there I was managing projects and programming teams. But when I was hired to work in-house for the company I had done contract work I was hired as a technical director and not as a programmer. One of my first tasks turn out to be bringing some programmers who worked at home in-house. They were having problems doing remote work and one was remarked how happy he was to be brought into the office.</p>
<p>Working at home isn’t easy for some. It takes certain discipline. But there are a few tricks for it. When I worked at home I always took care of any errands, exercise, etc at the start of the day. This way none of these things like grocery shopping or going for my walk didn’t hang over my head as a distraction while I tried to work.</p>
Padlockedhttps://brianconrad.com/2020/01/24/Padlocked/2020-01-24T22:42:59.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>The 3 people who are probably reading this site may have noticed that there is now a “padlock” showing (depending on browser) along with the site address (URL). Yes I finally got around to making this a “secure” site not that it needed it because here is no login or much of anything else that needed it. But I figured as long as “Let’s Encrypt” SSL certificates are free I might as well do it. Why pay my hosting service to run a script to do that? Of course their certificates are good for a year and the free ones only 90 days but the certificate provider I used will email you in advance of the expiration of the certificate so it may be updated for another 90 days.</p>
<p>About the only thing that needed fixing here was the URL reference in the config file change to HTTPS and once that was done and the site generated all pages with the old URL reference were updated.</p>
Update or Not...https://brianconrad.com/2019/08/16/updatenot/2019-08-16T18:54:19.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>That is the question. My first main Xamarin <a href="https://brianconrad.com/2017/12/18/crossdev/">project</a> was done using their PCL “Portable” system. It was fairly easy to set up though I spent probably just as many hours dealing with Xamarin workarounds as I did my own code. The advantage was one codebase for three platforms and being able to use C#.</p>
<p>Since then Xamarin has been pushing using .NET Standard builds instead of PCL. In fact PCL is no longer available creating a new project. So I decided to try updating my app to .NET. The process is somewhat simple and I used this <a href="https://montemagno.com/how-to-convert-a-pcl-library-to-net-standard-and-keep-git-history/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">article</a> as a guide. Actually I had done this before on a smaller project.</p>
Buzzwords: Reacthttps://brianconrad.com/2019/07/11/buzzwords-react/2019-07-11T19:13:05.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>As many of us know the software industry is always filled with buzzwords and the latest trends. I often like to check out what is new and see if there is any opportunity for fun, learning and maybe some extra income. </p>
<p>I’ve mentioned that I like Xamarin for cross platform development. But there are other solutions looking to compete in that market too. One is React which uses JavaScript to do things from websites to native mobile apps. Chances are if you’re a software developer reading this you already may know more about React than I do or am going to present so bear with me.</p>
That was quickhttps://brianconrad.com/2019/06/28/quick/2019-06-28T23:40:34.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>So last week I launched an update and fix of this website. Now I needed to update my app blog website too and didn’t think that Gatsby was going to be the solution. So I looked at other static site generators. I found Hexo which is fast and also has … themes. Gatsby is just now experimenting with themes and trying modify an existing Gatsby starter design was not that much fun.</p>
<p>It actually took one afternoon to change my old product blog to the new Hexo site. And the conversion to this site which is also done with Hexo has gone really fast. All I had to do was put the old Markdown files in the _posts folder and build the site. There were a few changes to the config file and the banner graphic. And here it is. Looks a bit like the older blog because it now has the picture of the Carquinez Strait at the top.</p>
Sheet Music Displayshttps://brianconrad.com/2019/06/20/sheetmusic/2019-06-21T00:00:00.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>I recently had an inquiry about creating an app to transpose and then display a MusicXML file on a mobile. The client was interested in it using the Open Sheet Music Display library which is a JavaScript library created using TypeScript.<br><a href="http://opensheetmusicdisplay.org" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://opensheetmusicdisplay.org</a></p>
<p>Since I have a background in music composition and arranging the music part was trivial. I found MusicXML fairly straightforward too so the transposition part was easy.</p>
Updating Part Twohttps://brianconrad.com/2019/06/13/updatingpart2/2019-06-13T19:27:34.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>If you were able to read last year’s post about updating this blog then you were lucky. I mentioned before that this site was unreachable for awhile do to a DNS mixup. Seems it happened again. So this time I decided to drop the old static site generator, Hugo, and am trying Gatsby. For one thing Hugo use Go as a language and I was not that familiar with it. Gatsby uses Javascript which I am familiar with. So here is the site in Gatsby.</p>
<p>Cross Platform Update: I finally did get a MacBook Air a little over a year ago and have been publishing iOS apps. Also planned is a Mac app too since there are very few in that app genre. This will also be the basis of another cross platform app with a different layout. The current Xamarin project has two sets of code: one for portrait (phones) and one for tablets and desktop in landscape. </p>
Fun Updating the Sitehttps://brianconrad.com/2018/07/08/updating/2018-07-09T00:39:03.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>My previous posts were done with a much older version version of Hugo the static site generator. In fact the version was 0.14. Hugo is now at version 0.42.2. The problem I learned was Hugo does not really maintain a Wiki with migration instructions. Turns out there wasn’t a lot to fix but those fixes weren’t that well documented.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, Hugo is a fine tool for creating websites. A lot of hard work and fine effort has been put into it. But when I read the comments in the forum there are often unresolved problems. Currently over on the right in the sidebar you should be seeing a list of recent posts. But due to a change they aren’t there. It’s not exactly clear why they aren’t. And one thing we really don’t want to be doing is going back and editing old posts to make them work with a newer version of Hugo.</p>
Cross Development Funhttps://brianconrad.com/2017/12/18/crossdev/2017-12-18T22:14:23.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>In the last post I mentioned development using Visual Studio 2017 for developing a new app for Android, Windows and iOS. The Android app was released in late October and the Windows 10 version a week ago. For now the iOS version is on hold until next year. I still have to buy a Mac. The game using SDL2 is also on hold until funding is forthcoming.</p>
<p>This was my first experience with the Windows Store. I found it a much more mature experience than Google Play which has some things missing. For one, I was able to offer the Windows 10 app, which runs on both desktop and mobile with a 7 day free trial which currently is not possible on Google Play. Microsoft has 1, 7, 15 and 30 day free trial options. So unlike Android where I created some minimally functioning demo versions the trial version suffices.</p>
Going Universalhttps://brianconrad.com/2017/06/12/goinguniversal/2017-06-12T17:51:26.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>Continuing on the Universal Windows Platform track, last fall I started working with Xamarin Forms in Microsoft’s Visual Studio. I had done several apps using .NET and Microsoft Forms but Xamarin offered a way to create one app using the UWP (Universal Windows Platform) to create an app for Android, Windows and iOS.</p>
<p>I’ve had a number of requests for iOS apps over the years but I shied away from doing them because 1) I didn’t own a Mac and 2) nor did I want to invest time in learning Objective C which has little use outside of Apple products. UWP offered a way to do this.</p>
Over the Top Programming Exampleshttps://brianconrad.com/2016/12/04/overthetop/2016-12-05T00:09:15.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>One of the problems I run into developing for a new platform, SDK or toolset is finding examples that are not “over the top”. Seems that some of the SDK developers feel the need to write a kitchen sink example that you have to wade through to just figure out how something works. It’s like their kitchen sink (or Swiss army knife) is intended to be a resume for their next job instead of helping developers get up and running quickly.</p>
<p>I’ve been attempting to do some cross development with Visual Studio 2015 and Xamarin. I’ve written apps on Xamarin for Android only and have developed some apps for Windows using C#. Next up was trying out the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) to make one app that could run on Windows, Android, iPhone and Windows Phone. That is the goal of UWP but it’s really not quite there yet.</p>
Finding Thishttps://brianconrad.com/2016/08/02/findthis/2016-08-02T21:45:01.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>Since I own my name as a domain and have had a blog for years I was a little puzzled when folks I used to work with had trouble locating me on the Internet. I don’t have a Facebook page but have had a LinkedIn account for years which is how some old friends found me.</p>
<p>It used to be that a search on my name would list the blog on the first page. The free blog that came with the web host went away so I needed to implement my own. Hence this site. Thing is that apparently Hugo with I use to author with has some quirks and that caused a 301 error with some browsers (particularly Firefox). </p>
I guess I'm not a bloggerhttps://brianconrad.com/2015/12/16/bloggin/2015-12-17T03:05:56.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>It’s been months since I’ve written anything here. I’ve been busy with some projects that have taken a lot of time. Usual excuse, huh?</p>
<p>What I’m confronting now are two upgrades of development machines. The machine I’m writing this on is a 4 year old Linux box running Ubuntu Studio. It’s plenty fast except for one thing: it can’t run Android emulators very fast at all.</p>
FCC Rules Publishedhttps://brianconrad.com/2015/03/13/fccpub/2015-03-13T19:45:20.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>The FCC rules for Net Neutrality have been <a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> in PDF format, so you can peruse the 320 pages and 80 pages of dissent and comments. So far I’ve made it through 12 pages which is probably more pages read than read by visitors on this site.</p>
<p><a href="https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-24A1.pdf</a></p>
Net Neutrality:Where's the Rules?https://brianconrad.com/2015/03/04/netneu2/2015-03-04T23:03:22.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>It’s been about a week alread after the FCC voted on the Net Neutrality rules. As yet we’ve been unable to see them so much of what has been written has been speculation. I suspect that the delay of making the rules available to the public is that they must be released in print from the Government Printing Office as they are released in PDF form online. I believe this has happened before.</p>
<p>Of course the telecoms aren’t happy. They don’t want to be regulated but be free to soak you for as much as they can get away with. And if they pass on the cost of regulation perhaps we should support attempts for your local community to build it’s own municipal system. The Internet should be in the commons anyway since it is a “highway.”</p>
I like Mark Cuban's movies but...https://brianconrad.com/2015/02/20/netneu/2015-02-20T22:41:30.000Z2021-03-08T22:31:14.000Z
<p>I seem to watch a lot of movies that Mark Cuban’s Magnolia Films<br>and Magnet distribute. His company is a venue for movies that<br>would be playing art houses if they hadn’t disappeared from the<br>landscape. However I feel his is a little off in his concern about<br>the proposed <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/mark-cuban-fcc-net-neutrality-plan-f-everything-210235489.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FCC rules regardling Net Neutrality.</a></p>
<p>Wealth apparently has it’s priviledges as he apparently has been able<br>to review the 332 pages of rules the FCC wants to pass. Yeah, the ones<br>we the public aren’t allowed to see. Go to <a href="http://www.fcc.gov" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.fcc.gov</a><br>and see if you can find those rules.</p>