mavispuford

I have a lot of saved posts on Reddit. The problem with that is...

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 12:14:36 -0600

I have a lot of saved posts on Reddit. The problem with that is that there are SO many posts that I don’t want to even go through them to find that one post that I saved for later a month ago. Not only that, there’s also a limit to how many saved posts you can have per account (I think 1000). A lot of the posts I had saved a year+ ago are now gone.

So I wrote a tool that will pull all of your saved posts, and let you either copy them to another account or export them to a file (html/csv). It also lets you export them based on which subreddit they are in, which domain they link to, etc. Just select the row that you want to filter, check “Match selected rows,” and you’re set. NOW I can save all of my r/food posts to my Evernote, for example (export to HTML, save that file as a note). I don’t have to worry about losing my precious posts again. :)

This was a lot of fun for me because I’ve never worked with the Reddit API (or ANY API other than my own, really), so I learned a lot in that area. It was mostly a personal project, but I took some time to clean it up and comment the code the best I could so somebody else might benefit from it.

I have it hosted here on github. The actual binary files are in the downloads section. There’s also an example HTML file that has some exported posts.

I’m taking a software engineering class, and for our group...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 18:39:00 -0600

I’m taking a software engineering class, and for our group project we had to come up with a piece of software and then design it over the semester. My biggest problem with the class was that it doesn’t actually get into any programming; It just covers the processes behind software creation (Agile Software Development, the Waterfall Method, Use Case diagrams, etc). That’s fun and all (and important), but I like doing the actual dirty work instead of talking about doing the dirty work.

So, here’s Tippa. We decided on a really basic program so our diagrams and such wouldn’t be overly complicated throughout the semester. I thought it’d be pretty a pretty easy app for Android, so I threw it together in a little over a day. It wasn’t that bad, but there were still some things that slowed my progress down.

Anyway, Tippa helps you calculate tips based off of different percentages. You can then split the check between different people and it will tell you the total. It also has a tip suggestion screen that gives you general guidelines for tipping different people (Delivery, taxi, bar, etc). That’s about it. Yeah, I know, there are millions of tip calculators out there, but it was fun and easy and it gave me a chance to use ViewPagers and some other things I’ve never used before. So get it NOW!!!!!

Google Play (or Market or whatever it is) Link Here!

Songwriters On Process Interview

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:03:00 -0600

A great look at the creative process in music from one of my favorite singers/songwriters/multi-instrumentalists, Matt Embree.

matthewembree:

Matthew Embree, RX Bandits, Love You Moon

The RX Bandits sound fuses elements of rock, reggae, ska, and jazz. Their multi-dimensional approach should come as no surprise, though, once you understand the creative process of songwriter Matt Embree. He writes all the time, and not just songs: Embree is an avid poet. And like any good poet, he finds inspiration everywhere. He doesn’t necessarily seek out inspiration, but he puts himself in situations where it comes easily: he’s gone on a 2,000 mile motorcycle ride, and he’s hitchhiked all throughout Central America. When you engage with your environment as much as Embree does - whether it’s the physical environment of the wilderness or the people in a small village in Costa Rica - inspiration is easy to come by. And the songs that are the product of that creative process are rich in their influences.

RX Bandits are now on their farewell summer tour, though according to band member Steve Choi, they aren’t breaking up. Rather, they are just doing their last tour. So have no fear, RX Bandits fans, they will not disappear. Read my interview with Matt Embree after the video.

What other creative outlets do you have besides songwriting?

Read More

SARGENT HOUSE: RX Bandits Announce Summer Tour will be the Last.

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:26:57 -0600

SARGENT HOUSE: RX Bandits Announce Summer Tour will be the Last.:

sargenthouse:

It is with an incredible sadness that I relay this news. The band that started it all for me and who were so instrumental in the creation of what has now become Sargent House. The one, the only, the great loves of my musical life, RX Bandits have decided that this Summer’s US tour will…

Oh, man. This is such a bummer. These guys put on the best shows I’ve ever seen. I don’t think I know of any bands that can fill the void that they will leave behind. :(

There’s no way I’m going to miss their last show in SLC.

So I finally figured out how to get Grim Fandango to work on my...

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:17:00 -0700

So I finally figured out how to get Grim Fandango to work on my Windows 7 64-bit machine. It took a bit of work, but it’s worth it. Here’s what I did (You need a windows xp disc/ISO and the Grim Fandango CDs):

1 - Install Virtualbox

2 - Set up a Windows XP guest with sound (I just gave mine 10 GB of space). If you haven’t used Virtualbox before, don’t worry. It’s pretty straight forward. Just click “New” and follow the instructions. Any extra stuff like sound is in the “Settings” area.

3 - (This one is optional but very helpful) With the Guest Windows XP machine running, click on Devices -> “Install Guest Additions” so you have better mouse integration etc.

4 - After windows is installed, do any windows updates you might need on it.

5 - I have a USB Xbox 360 controller, so I had to enable usb (I enabled usb 2.0 which requires the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack) in the Virtualbox settings and add a filter for the device. Mine showed up as “Controller” in the list. Also, I had some issues at first but I think restarting the virtual machine/virtualbox fixed them.

6 - Use Grim Fandango Setup to install the game

7 - With the Guest Windows XP machine running, go to Machine -> Switch to Scale Mode

8 - Double click the Grim Fandango shortcut. Make sure “Run Grim From Hard Drive” is checked in the options before you launch the game.

9 - Maximize the window or go to full screen.

10 - Run Grim Fandango in full screen mode (On my computer, if I resize the virtualbox window it makes everything go black, so make sure you’re happy with the screen size when you start the game).

The reason I went through all this trouble was because Grim Fandango freezes Windows 7 64-bit completely (I had to turn off my pc - pretty frustrating). It also has some weird sound issues that were extremely annoying. This method seems to fix all that, and when it’s all set up it runs really nice.

Enjoy playing this amazing game!

Abby

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:05:00 -0600

Made this for my wife. Description on deviantART:

For my wife.

This is our cat Abby. She absolutely loves this weird rubber ball we got her. Nine times out of ten, if we can’t find it anywhere, it’s under the couch. When we fish the ball out from under there, Abby FLIPS out in excitement. Seriously, I’ve never seen a cat do this. It’s like when a dog starts barking in excitement when you are going to take it for a walk, except replace those barks with meows, and you’ve got Abby. On top of that, she actually plays fetch with the thing. You throw it, and she brings it right back and drops it by your feet. This further proves our theory that Abby is actually a dog in disguise.

Created with an Inkscape .48 prerelease build.

(Click the thumbnail to see a bigger version)

Sweet! A new DSI: Miami release (a big one, too)! I spent...

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 19:22:00 -0600

Sweet! A new DSI: Miami release (a big one, too)! I spent some time on this one… So what’s new in 1.5? Well, as you can see in the screenshots, there is an online database now. Any user can submit their own quotes, and the community will vote on them. Try it out!

Honestly, I don’t know why I’m spending so much time on what is essentially a useless app. :P More than anything, I’m doing this for educational reasons. Also, I have made it my goal to polish each of my creations as much as possible. No matter what my apps do, I at least want them to feel solid.

Send any feedback to mavispufordapps at gmail dot com. I’d love to hear from you.

As always, search for “dsi” in the Android Market or scan this QR code:

Android Widget Orientation Changes

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:27:00 -0600

I just thought I would talk a bit about how I solved an annoying problem with my DSI: Miami widget since I had a really hard time finding a solution online. The problem would show up every time the home screen would change orientations (from portrait to landscape and vice versa). If there was an orientation change, the widget would freeze and the button/text box wouldn’t respond anymore. This drove me nuts! I finally solve the stupid problem today. This is what was happening:

-I have an IntentService class called UpdateService which basically throws a PendingIntent out there to listen for the button press. Here’s the code that is in it’s buildUpdate method:

        private RemoteViews buildUpdate(Context context) {
            RemoteViews updateViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget_message);

            Intent i = new Intent(this, DSIMiamiWidget.class);
            i.setAction(REFRESH_QUOTE);
            PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
            updateViews.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.WidgetButton, pi);

            return (updateViews);
        }

-This code was fine, actually. It worked great when the home screen stayed in the orientation in which the widget was born.

-The problem was when the button was pressed, it called a changeText() method which updated the text box, requiring me to do a new RemoteViews update. Here’s the gist of the code:

     public void changeText(Context context)
     {
        RemoteViews updateViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget_message);
//         int textSize;

         if (!randomQuotes.isEmpty())
             updateViews.setTextViewText(R.id.WidgetTextView, randomQuotes.get(0));
         else
         {
             if (quotes == null)
                 this.quotes = context.getResources().getStringArray(R.array.quotes);
             convertArrayToList();
             randomizeQuotes();
             updateViews.setTextViewText(R.id.WidgetTextView, randomQuotes.get(0));
         }

         randomQuotes.remove(0);

        ComponentName thisWidget = new ComponentName(context, DSIMiamiWidget.class);
        AppWidgetManager manager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context);
        manager.updateAppWidget(thisWidget, updateViews);
     }

-Well, I didn’t realize that I had to REDO all the PendingIntent stuff after doing that, too. So, I threw this in right before “ComponentName thisWidget = new ComponentName…” at the bottom:

        Intent i = new Intent(context, this.getClass());
        i.setAction(REFRESH_QUOTE);
        PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
        updateViews.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.WidgetButton, pi);

TADAAAAAAAAAA. That was a pain…

This is totally soccer.

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:05:57 -0600

DSI: Miami is now at version 1.3! I updated the graphics a bit,...

Fri, 28 May 2010 15:24:00 -0600

DSI: Miami is now at version 1.3! I updated the graphics a bit, changed the icon, and added widgets by request. I’m surprised by all the positive feedback I’m getting. Thanks for all the support everyone!

Search for “dsi” in the Android Market or scan this QR code:

3D Dot Game Heroes Designer

Sat, 01 May 2010 12:30:46 -0600

3D Dot Game Heroes Designer:

I totally love this. I’m converting my favorite 2d game characters to 3d. Sa-weet.

Here’s some vector stuff that I’ve been working on...

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:30:34 -0600

Here’s some vector stuff that I’ve been working on lately:

Vectopus Shirt - T-Shirt design I made for a deviantART contest.

Recharging - Robot wallpaper for my wife.

Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:29:00 -0700

Japan: It's Not Funny Anymore:

Wow, this is a VERY long kotaku post, but it’s actually a very good read in my opinion. It caught my attention because I’ve always wanted to visit Japan, and it’s interesting to read about how life is for someone (Tim Rogers) who has been living there for years now. If you have 30 minutes to an hour, read through it. There are a lot of things in there that I didn’t know about Japan and it’s culture.

Excerpt:

What I’ve realized, recently, is that the skeleton of rules of the “game” of “life” is just too visible here in Japan, where multiple perfunctory sentences are required to start any conversation, where you can use a certain positive verb to soften the preconceived impact of a negative verb form, where you can prove mathematically that you are a good person by drinking alongside everyone else, by being the last to go home every day, by ritualistically screaming in the middle of the street after a company party. Oh no! You messed up today! The company lost money. BONUS ROUND: At least you get the opportunity to apologize to the boss. People who can apologize well are respected! Be sure to apologize every time you pick up the phone! Miss one, and you’ll lose points! Your score in this game is represented by the balance of your bank account. When you reach the goal, you have earned the right to play a game with much simpler rules.

I still wanna go though!

New video from Fang Island. Their cd that just came out is...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:05:00 -0700

New video from Fang Island. Their cd that just came out is great. Mostly instrumental with somerandom singing scattered about. It reminds me of Sonic the Hedgehog (which is a good thing).

You can listen to (and purchase) the entire cd on their bandcamp website. Apparently their new van just got stolen last week so they are in need of some cash.

Great dog costumes. :)

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 13:02:22 -0700

Hero of Time.

Cowabunga!

Great dog costumes. :)

This is Axe Cop. My friend just introduced me to the comic, and...

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:57:00 -0700

This is Axe Cop. My friend just introduced me to the comic, and I totally love it! If you look at the top right of the episodes, you’ll see that it was created and written by a five year old (and illustrated by his older brother, I’m assuming). The story is so deliciously random (they fight dinosaurs, eat candy canes, and so much more).

So true.

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:53:00 -0700

So true.

Here’s a sort of newly discovered NES game called Mr....

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 13:39:27 -0700

Here’s a sort of newly discovered NES game called Mr. Gimmick that never had a chance to shine (It was only released in Japan and Scandinavia I believe). It was WAY advanced for it’s time (certain graphics were only used once, there was a fully functional physics system with mass/velocity/etc)!

Be sure to watch all four parts of the play through.

The Youtube playlist is here.

Okay, this is just awesome. THIS is the kind of collision...

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:37:00 -0700

Okay, this is just awesome. THIS is the kind of collision detection I want to put in my game engine. I’m hoping that I can get something even remotely similar to it (Actually, it’s “we” now. My brother offered to work on the engine too. We’re pretty pumped about it).

This example was created by Metanet Software Inc. and is hosted on their website metanetsoftware.com. They are the creators of the amazing flash/ds/psp/XBLA game N. It’s the perfect example of physics done right in a game.

They also offer some great information on collision detection here. ALSO here’s a more complex demonstration of the physics.

These guys (Chris Tsagakis and Matt Embree) are great...

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:27:00 -0700

These guys (Chris Tsagakis and Matt Embree) are great musicians. They have been a part of various projects, their most well-known being Rx Bandits.

This is a video of them playing a version of The Heraldic Beak of the Manufacturer’s Medallion by The Sound of Animals Fighting (another project of theirs).