Android, Eclipse, Memory Analyzer Tool (MAT)

Been a little while since I last needed to analyze memory leaks on an Android application written in Java and compiled through Eclipse.

Things have changed in both Eclipse and MAT, so I am listing my current steps here for all to enjoy.

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1. Fire up Eclipse Indigo with Java 6 +

2. In Eclipse, Select [Help] | [Install new Software]

3. Add http://download.eclipse.org/mat/1.2/update-site/.

4. Select All []IDE and []Stand Alone

5. In Eclipse top menu bar, select [Window] | [Preferences] | [Android] | [DDMS]

a. HPROF Action: "open in Eclipse"

6. In Eclipse top menu bar, select [Window] | [Preferences] | [Plug-in Development] | [Target Platform]

7. Highlight Active Platform, then press [Edit].

8. Click [Arguments] tab: Type -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError in VM Arguments,[Finish]

9. A heap dump is written on the first Out Of Memory Error.

10. Run project with emulator as the process must be on the local machine.

11. In Eclipse top menu bar, select [Window] | [Open Perspective] | [Other] | [Memory Analysis]

12. From inside the Memory Analysis perspective select [File] | [Acquire Heap Dump]

13. [Configure] | Select HPROF -jmap dump | -jdkhome = C:\Java\jdk1.7.0

14. [Next] | Select HPROF -jmap dump | [Finish]

15. Follow remaining prompts in Eclipse.

Compare and augment the previous steps with BonitaSoft.org

Also, try to perform these steps on a machine greater than an Acer Aspire netbook with 1GB of RAM. Otherwise, the process could take days.

Android - Declaring Static Variables

Because the Eclipse debugger occassionally suggests declaring a variable static to fix a Lint error, I decided to post this link on Java Memory Leaks.

SpiderOnFire is Catching

SpiderOnFire a.k.a. W.A.R. for Widespread Augmented Reality.

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Never mind typing in text searches and scrolling through results, then clicking the desired result or what you think is the desired result only to repeat the process all over again many times.
See how cumbersome that last sentence was?
How about just pointing your camera in the direction that you want to go and seeing what is beyond your line of sight? That's it. That's a spider on fire.

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Spideronfire, the website

W.A.R., the Android app

Metaio's Jaw Dropping Augmented Reality Technology

Culled from Augmented Reality Daily.

W.A.R. - Widespread Augmented Reality

Imagine leaving your images, comments and content hovering at or above real physical locations. Imagine others nearby interacting with your marks through their cameras. In fact, imagine scanning the horizon or your surroundings with your own mobile camera to reveal the floating marks left by others. Well stop imagining and do it with this app. The possibilities are endless with the sky as the limit. The Android app is in beta at the website SpiderOnFire. One can use the website to place markers at locations without having to be there. The Android app's camera view reveals content beyond your line of site. After testing and adding more features, the app will be published to Google Play with mad props out to MixARE for providing the augmented reality engine.

ChromeOS - Vanilla

As luck would have it, a buddy just finished a legal briefing that took most of the day, forgot to e-mail himself a copy, and now sees a blank screen when he turns on his laptop. The bad luck part of this has to do with me reformatting my ChromeOS bootable USB drive just yesterday, so now we are both staring at a blank screen and the restaurant is too noisy to listen to the hardrive and speakers.

It's now time to revisit Hexxeh and donate to Builds by Hexxeh so I can boot the laptop into Chrome and hopefully find the document.

But of course it could just be that the screen is out, which would require more than a bootable USB.

Content Management Systems

I answered an ad requesting help with PHP and MySQL. Upon accepting the task, I learned that Wordpress is a black box with a bunch of pretty wrapping paper pasted on top.

Problem: A carousel element was disappearing when clicked on.

Resolution: After synchronizing the staging and the production sites, the problem disappeared.

Phew... Apparently the shop knew enough about Wordpress to know that its guts are MySQL and PHP, but good luck trying to change any of that. An on-line magazine should not use an off the shelf CMS like Wordpress and be concerned with modifying PHP scripts and MySQL tables. Focus on content and just pay for a Wordpress plugin professional.

Unrelated perhaps, but here is a very good blog article on Drupal injection.