Internet outage got you down when using Chrome?

Yeah, I know, when you are trying to work, surf, or whatever and the internet is down, it's quite a bummer.  I found this Easter egg that Chrome put in, when you are on the "There is no Internet Connection" screen, press the space bar and enjoy a simple browser game to pass your time.  Maybe after a few games you'll have service again....maybe.

Google Star Ratings Rant

First of all, thanks to all of those supporting Slot Madness.  Due a growing number of users on my Slot Madness game it was holding a 4.65 star avg on 45 downloads and I was ecstatic.  I am approaching 200 hrs of art, sfx, and coding on it alone.  The app has been played over 170 hours this weekend!  This trumps any of my other apps for sure and only has reported 4 errors total since release and 0 on the current version.  My issue started yesterday until now, I have received 4-1 star ratings, 3-2 star, and 2-3 star ratings.  My beef is that only 1 of these actually left a comment.  I think Google should force you to leave a comment or else the whole review would be null and void.  For app mills that churn out apps with dozens of people working, it probably doesn't phase them, but those of us trying to do it on our own, it just sucks.  I comment on all of my reviews, good or bad because that's what we as developers need to gauge the experience and make it better.  In a world where everything is immediate, it's sad that someone can't take the 30 seconds to leave a written comment for a review of a free app.  It also makes me wonder if since it moved me way up in the search ranks if the bigger companies' don't just have people trash other apps, who knows...

What is a 1 star anyway, in my book if I open the app and it crashes or is unusable, that's probably 1 star.  If I open the game and suck at because I think I should already be in the top ten, that doesn't warrant a 1 star.  Sorry about the rant, just needed to blow some steam off.

Help me move up!

Well, if you were ever curious what 132 hours of art, coding, and audio look like in Android, check out v1.1 of Slot Madness.  It's FREE, fun, and features a leader board of the top 50 grossing players.  All the front end and back end was set up by me and everything I learned was from grinding out tutorials and years of watching mybringback and thenewboston.  Please check it out and rate/give any suggestions you want so I can make it the best out there, or at least try.  Thanks, Kenneth.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a54.studio.slotmadness

Math Class Free

I recently released an app called Math Class that I developed to help coax my daughters into studying their math.  One of my main objectives was to have it work verbally, visually, or both to help quiz them.  Without delay I wrote the program up and everything went without a hitch, until after I released it.  That's when my nephew said that he tried it and it doesn't talk.  This can't be, I tried it on a multitude of devices from every OS version and they all worked..  Hmm, after not much digging I found out that TTS wasn't included on every device below 4.1.  The bummer is that now I am having to spend time adding the ability for users to download TTS if needed.  It is always something isn't it.  Any way, I am working on a making the icon a little more revealing and an update for those that don't have TTS installed.   At any rate, enjoy the app and download Math Class for your Android/Amazon device.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a54.mathclass&hl=en


http://www.amazon.com/a54studio-Math-Class-Free/dp/B00ED2UCLS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376323368&sr=8-1&keywords=math+class+a54studio

Android Malware Attack

Recently I updated Chrome for my Windows 7 home PC that I develop on and got a little surprise with it.  I can only conclude that downloaded with it was a sneaky little booger called Mobile App Sync.  This appeared cause a malicious app called AppCaster to download to your Android device, which in return opened a portal for all kinds of nasty.  Every time I would plug my phone in and go to sleep, apps would download on their own.  No wonder why it is so hard to get traction faster in the market for small developers when some advertisers are using malware installers to boost their numbers.

So if you see this, delete it with authority unless you enjoy backdoor access to your phone!


Then find this on your PC and delete it.  Just as a side note though, this did not have an uninstall option on it and had to be uninstalled through the windows uninstaller.  Imagine that!

Dialog/orientation change memory leaks...

Well, today I kept battling a memory leak in my opening screen for Perspective when rotating the phone.  A quick search yielded plenty of references to orientation changes when rotating.  There were quite a few work arounds, but I found a simple one that really made it simple for me so I figured I'd share.

To fix the problem in my PopDialog class that extends a Dialog, I added a

static PopDialog pd=null;  

Then I added this just after the onCreate

  pd=PopDialog.this;
  MainActivity.opened=true;

and finally I added this method

 public void dismissing(){
if(pd.isShowing()){pd.dismiss();}

}

OK, that's the hard part.  Now in my main activity, I referenced it like this

 PopDialog popdialog;
 private static boolean opened=false;

after onCreate in that activity

popdialog=new PopDialog(this);

and finally in the onPause

@Override
protected void onPause() {
super.onPause();
if(opened){ popdialog.dismissing();}


}
I forgot, add this to the button you call the Dialog from because sometimes it doesn't call onCreate.

opened=true;  

This way when rotating, it always has the proper reference to the active dialog and calls to dismiss it destroying it.  I had to update it a bit by adding the opened in there.  This is won't let it call dismiss before the dialog is created.

Search, settings, and power....

I needed some icons for Perspective and these are what I came up with in Fireworks cs6.  The below links are saved so that they should pull up with all layers attached for easy editing or whatever you want to do with them.  If you use them, feel free to download some a54studio apps:)  Added a more holofied version those that want them.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1I8VfqhLQvBZXI0ZU9DMmxsUVk/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1I8VfqhLQvBb1FHTGozLVkyX2c/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1I8VfqhLQvBYXlMTWZZeW9jMVU/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1I8VfqhLQvBLUV0RGxhUW5DeGM/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1I8VfqhLQvBWVh6X1dqek1nSnM/edit?usp=sharing