Google have released a beta version of App Inventor, this allows anyone to build Apps for the Android OS without knowledge of how to program.

Apps are created with drag and drop of visual tools onto a window, like a beginners version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio, however the code logic and maths functions that drive the app are also built with simple drag and drop actions.

Some people might say that this will result in some very inefficient code, but it really doesn’t matter at the level of APPs this is aimed at.

The fact is this seriously gives app development to the people; and it’s going to be interesting if they respond to it.

I have signed up to it. So hope to get more info soon.

Google have been working behind the scenes on this for a year now so the product looks really good (from the videos anyway) for a beta.

You can sign up at APP Inventor

Cheers
Dave

Ok, so I finally did it. I’ve commited to building some iPhone apps. The mac has been ordered, a mac mini with 4gb memory and 360hd.

The developer community has been joined and now we wait.

No idea where this is going to go. it’s exciting but nervous at the same time.

I’ve got some ideas for some free apps that I want to introduce and will put some of the tech details here. But beyond that I do not know, hoping for some inspiration.

Any suggestions or ideas for new iPhone apps to develop will be gladly received.

I guess I will start with a simple text based app, it’s hard to think of something useful and (hopefully) interesting.

At this point it’s more about learning the basic app structure and the development language objective c. Later I will research the competition of which there are many and they have very talented teams.

A bit daunting for a newcomer believe me.

Ok, look at the banner above, this is the story of how it came about:

Don’t think I’ve been planning this,there was no months of preparation.

I was up late doing a coding session and fancied a lamb and rosemary sandwich. but while cutting the lamb I noticed how easy it was to use the lamb as a method of communication.

Your name in meat? Is this the new way?

What next? Lamb-verts? Sponsored meat? Ad-beef? Pork-words? The possibilities are endless…

If you want to sponsor my next sandwich, then please leave a comment.

Ok, I’ve got Windows 7 now, do I need to organise a launch party? Well why not? any excuse for a party is good especially in these grim times…

But aren’t these people a little too geeky even for my tastes?

So far I think Windows 7 is cool, appart from some problems with Firefox it’s been a dream to install and the new features are mostly benificial. But I don’t want to get carried away. A lot of the new features should have been addressed a long time ago and this won’t halt the migration from the desktop to more flexible mobile devices for the masses (iPhone, netbooks et al). Keep trying Microsoft the wars not over yet (ever).

Oh and if anyone thinks this isn’t real, very sorry to say visit: http://uk.houseparty.com/windows7uk I know I will

Google mail is a great way to run multiple domain addresses as it can reply from the address it was sent too, try that in Outlook!

One annoying problem for me is sometimes it “has difficulty” sending the email from your domain, maybe a timeout on the server or some other network issue. When this occurs Google will “kindly” forward your email using your gmail account instead. Now this sounds reasonable but it’s annoying if you have your own business and you are effectively replying to customers with a free gmail account, that looks so unprofessional.

gmail sometimes sends my domains mail from it's own address

This is a little suspicious as Google doesn’t have an equivalent of the old hotmail footer advertising that this person uses free email and you can get yours here link; but effectively this is a gmail advert through the backdoor. People will see you are using gmail and therefore endorse it. But worse than that it is confusing for the recipients as it wouldn’t be the same email they sent to originally.

It happened to me so many times in July that I was about to start using my own webmail service and drop gmail then while changing the settings on one of my accounts I spotted a new setting, goto “settings” (top right of menu on gmail page) then click on “Accounts and Import” then in the “Send mail as:” section “edit info” on your domain click next and you will see something like:

you can now use your own SMTP server

Once you put in your SMTP servers settings gmail will only send through this and you shouldn’t see the dreaded free email address again. Since changing this I haven’t had the problem, if you do have any issues with it let me know.

Cheers

Dave