Upon entering and thinking long and hard about what to choose from the menu (I was tempted to break from the norm and try the chicken), I opted for a Wicked Zinger Meal, accompanied by the only side order worth having (gravy) and a Pepsi.

I was summoned to the counter of dreams by the employee who used the traditional greeting of

“Can I take your order?”

This is where it all went downhill. At first, I was half tempted to reply with:

“No you bloody well can’t! It’s mine!”

and the other half of me was tempted to reply with:

“I should hope so or there’d not be much point in you standing behind that counter and I might as well serve my own food!”

Eventually, I settled for a simple, conventional:

“Yes, thanks”

and walked towards the magical chicken desk.

“I’d like a Wicked Zinger meal please”

“I’m Sorry?”

I am met with a blank, glassy eyed stare and a look of desperation. Sorta like the look you’d expect to get from a goldfish out of water. I repeated just in case he hadn’t heard:

“I’d like a Wicked Zinger meal please”

“You can’t apply here, you need to go online”

This was my turn for a look of confusion and I did my best impression of a goldfish. Truly a work of art it was. What on God’s green earth was going on here.

“Go to Google and type in….”

I cut him off at this point, politely, I might add. I was not entirely sure whether he was infact inferring that I should get apply for a job there and serve my own god damn food instead of hassling him, trying to teach me how to use the internet or just plain could not understand what I was saying.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and repeated, slightly louder and slower in a hugely stereotypical manner

“Can… I… Get… A… Wick…ed…Zing… er…meal…please…?”

“OHHH! DERP HERP DERP LOL”

And he proceeded to take the rest of my order. By this time, of course, I had celebrated 6 birthdays, gotten married, moved house 3 times and bought a timeshare apartment on a beach in Spain.

I keyed in the PIN to pay for my ‘fast’ food, every button press filled with pure disgruntlement, took my food and thanked the minion for doing his job before going on my way.

All would have been well if it hadn’t been for the fact that

HE GAVE ME CRAPPY BASTARD BEANS

WHEN I ASKED FOR SOME AWESOME

GOD

DAMN

GRAVY!

I stumbled across this nifty utility:

Android ScreenCast

It allows you to view and record your screen and explore your Android device on your computer. Rooted devices can also accept input controls (keyboard and mouse). The tool is java based so is cross platform.

Installation

The instructions on the link above are very simple and should be sufficient for a basic installation. Try that first. If you have any trouble, this guide will go into more detail and provide alternative methods of getting you up and running. Since my main OS is Windows, this guide will focus on the Windows based components of the SDK but very similar methods apply if you are running Linux or OSX.

- Download and install the latest Java Runtime Environment here
- Download the Android SDK here: here
- Run the SDK by launching SDK Setup.exe and install the latest version of “Android Platform Tools” via the updater.

If you are unable to download the components via the SDK interface (for example, if you are behind a proxy that requires authentication), then you can download the latest version via your browser using the following method.

 

Standalone SDK Component Download

You only need to do this if the updater in the SDK does not work.

View this XML file http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/repository.xml containing the latest SDK file names. Locate the Android Platform Tools for your OS.

<sdk:archive os=”windows” arch=”any”>
<sdk:size>10075800</sdk:size>
<sdk:checksum type=”sha1″>ee7f70ed0c15286d6dbca85b57eb3d1950cc8ec4</sdk:checksum>
<sdk:url>platform-tools_r04-windows.zip</sdk:url>
</sdk:archive>

The archive file name is the information we are after; platform-tools_r04-windows.zip

The address to put in your browser is therefore

http://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/platform-tools_r04-windows.zip

The file should be downloaded, unpacked and the root folder placed in the platforms directory within the SDK to give a path similar to

android-sdk-windows\platforms\platform-tools_r04-windows

Connecting to your phone

Connect your phone by USB and make sure USB debugging is enabled.
Settings->Applications->Development->USB Debugging (Debug mode when USB is connected)

Check that it is detected as an ADB device. If you are unsure about this, you can check whether it is connected correctly using the command

adb devices

adb.exe can be found in the Platform Tools directory or the Tools directory of the SDK. If your phone is connected correctly, the command will return it’s specific ID will be displayed as a connected device.

In this case the device ID is 0123456789ABCDEF

You can now launch androidscreencast.jnlp which should successfully connect to your phone.

Running in Offline Mode

Since this is essentially a web based java application launcher, every time you run it, it connects to a webserver to download the appropriate (and latest) java runtime files. There are instances where this may be undesirable and this section explains how to run AndroidScreenCast in “Offline Mode”

Files required

androidscreencast.jnlp download
androidscreencast.jar download
ddmlib.jar download (note that this .jar file is different to the file of the same name found in the Platform Tools directory)

You must have the Android SDK and Platform Tools installed as described previously.

Place all three files in the same directory (in this guide I will use the directory C:\AndroidScreenCast)

Since all the application files are now local, the launcher (.jnlp file) needs to be edited to reference the local copies rather than the web based ones.

Codebase

<jnlp spec=”0.2 1.0″
codebase=”http://androidscreencast.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/AndroidScreencast/dist/” href=”androidscreencast.jnlp”>

<jnlp spec=”0.2 1.0″
codebase=”file://localhost/C:/AndroidScreenCast/” href=”androidscreencast.jnlp”>

Resources

<resources>
<j2se version=”1.5+” href=”http://java.sun.com/products/autodl/j2se”/>
<j2se version=”1.5+”/>
<jar href=”androidscreencast.jar” main=”true” download=”eager”/>
<jar href=”ddmlib.jar” main=”false” download=”eager”/>
</resources>

<resources>
<jar href=”androidscreencast.jar” main=”true” />
<jar href=”ddmlib.jar” main=”false” />
</resources>

Save the changes, ensure your device is connected and run the androidscreencast.jnlp

The application will now run without downloading the runtime files every time. The main disadvantage to doing this is that if there are any updates, you need to change the files manually. Otherwise, functionality is identical.

Any comments/questions/problems, post below

Have fun!

Note:

To stop the screen turning off when in use, enable the following

Settings->Applications->Development->Stay Awake (Screen will never sleep while charging)

The first major thing to mention is that compatibility with the demon that is IE6 has hopefully been fixed (read about how much I hate this browser here). As a result, however, I have had to use some invalid code to ‘fix’ this ‘problem’ resulting in a no longer standards compliant CSS. Still validates XHTML though, so all is not lost!

Oh, and if anyone knows a better way to implement “word-wrap: break-word” that validates, it would be appreciated!

Other major changes include the trial of a different format forum that integrates a bit better with the whole theme of this site. The old one still exists here but won’t be linked directly from the home page any longer.

The new forum, accessible from the link to your right, is tightly integrated with the whole layout of this site and is still quite simple to use. The addition of the new forum has brought about some changes in the way of registering and user accounts by tying it to the main site.

You do not need to officially register an account to post comments on topics etc within the blog, but if you register to use the forum, you can use the same login details to comment on posts (does that make sense?!) You can log in/view your profile page/logout/register using the links towards the bottom of the menu —>

The smaller changes that I’ve made: inclusion of a post view counter, just for pretty stats really. Shows which posts are popular, and which posts are not so… Also, recently added a “Who’s Online?” feature so you can see how many users are currently browsing the site. Again, see the menu link at the bottom.

And last but not least, the site is now listed in the Technorati database and thanks to me remembering to create search engine friendly page titles (I’m such a jackass), it’s beginning to list quite high in various Google searches.

Thats all for now, move along people, nothing to see here….