Unca Don Foundation

Why
On Friday June 26th, one of the greatest men I have ever known passed away, Don Newman. He was survived by his wife Brenda and 15 year old son Spencer. I don't know what to say, scream, shout and cry. So I am creating a scholarship fund in his name. The scholarship fund will assist students interested in bettering the world in the study of marine biology and oceanography. It will be available for students of the Las Vegas high school he taught at and to attend University of Southern California.

My Plan
The site uncadon.org will be the home base for my operations. There will be a page for donations, one for a mailing list plus information on the status of the scholarship fund. Because it takes money to make money I will be taking non-tax deductible donations until I receive enough to launch the scholarship fund. The money will be used for lawyers and accountant fees and any other money donated will be used as basis in the scholarship fund. I am expecting the model of the scholarship fund to support itself by opening a bank account and using the interest generated by the principal to fund the scholarship.

Thank You
What ever you can do to help will be appreciated. You will be able to contact me through the website or by the address and phone number below. I assure you I will maintain and use donations with care and honor. This is something I feel strongly about because I want it to be a reflection of the love he gave me. I was lucky to know him. Most people never know someone as kind, gentle, funny and smart as him. I am blessed to have had so many great times with him. He was special to me and everyone around him. He was my hero, my uncle Don.

Brent Adkisson

I have also been working on some J2ME things. If you are using the Sun Wireless tool kit, Eclipse has a great plugin for it. To get it in eclipse go to Help>Software Updates>Find and Install>Search for new features to install>New Remote Site... and place this url in the dialog http://eclipseme.org/updates.

I have only noticed one issue once in a while it will give an error (failed to get library information). If this happens edit the properties of the project click on J2ME and click Manage Devices This will refresh the link to the libraries and get you moving on your way.

Well I have been busy... I guess... it seems like it anyway. Let me catch up on a couple of things.

I gave a presentation at the ever Rockin Omaha Dynamic Languages User Group run by Blaine Buxton. Thanks Blaine for letting me speak again! Below is the outline from the presentation power point.


Open Handset Development
What is it
Linux based development platform
Desktop Emulator
Eclipse Plugin
Debug Console

Architecture
Applications
Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language.
Application Framework
Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, including:
A rich and extensible set of Views
Content Providers
A Resource Manager
A Notification Manager
An Activity Manager

Libraries
System C library
Media Libraries
Surface Manager
LibWebCore
SGL
3D libraries
FreeType
SQLite

Runtime
Android includes a set of core libraries
Every Android application runs in its own process, with its own instance of the Dalvik virtual machine.
The Dalvik VM relies on the Linux kernel for underlying functionality such as threading and low-level memory management.
Linux Kernel
Linux version 2.6 for core system services
Security
Memory management
Process management
Network stack
Driver model
What is the Purpose
Build A better Phone for customers
Innovating in the open
Making the vision a reality
Who is involved
Android
Open
All Applications are created Equal
Breaking down application boundaries
Fast and easy application development
Developers
Android SDK is free
Actual hardware not readily available
Very good emulator and tools provided
Android Developers Challenge $10 Million Dollars to developers who build apps on the platform
Groups
Anddev.org
Google Android user group
Droiddraw.org

Testing with Android Positron

Enough Talk
Lets get into the tools and code!
Anatomy of an App
There are four building blocks to an Android application:
Activity
Intent Receiver
Service
Content Provider