Tips, Tricks And Hacks

How To Add AdMob Ads to your Buzztouch App For Android

2011-06-19T10:42:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: This guide was wrote with Android 2.3.x in mind. The AdMob sdk has changed quite significantly since. Please only use this guide as a reference.

I have seen a few posts in Buzztouch forums about adding AdMob to the apps for Android created with Buzztouch. I have it mostly figured out and would like to share it with you.

The first thing you want to do is download the Admob sdk from Google. Unzip it and save it in a spot that you will not forget. You will use this library often if you want to put ads in all your apps.

In eclipse, right click on the project name and select Properties.

Select Java Build Path on the left and then make sure the Libraries tab is selected at the top. Then click Add External JARS... on the right side of the window. Navigate to where you saved the unzipped AdMob sdk and select the .jar file.

In order for your app to properly maintain the Android activity stack while displaying rich advertising it must instantiate a com.google.ads.AdActivity in its AndroidManifest.xml file.

You need to add these two lines to you manifest files right before the closing application tag.

<activity android:name="com.google.ads.AdActivity"
android:configChanges="keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation"/>

Use this picture as an example.

All Buzztouch apps need the permissions INTERNET and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE so they should be already enabled. Double check your manifest file to be sure they are.

Here is the tricky part. Since you do not have a main.xml file in your res/layout folder, you need to experiment with the layouts on the individual screens. I am not going to walk you through this part. It really trial and error as to how you make your layout and if it works. I can get it to work on some screens and not on others.

Here is a pic of my act_home.xml file.

Here is a pic of the global_title_dark.xml file.

Make sure you add xmlns:ads="http://schemas.android.com/apk/lib/com.google.ads" to your layout above you ad code as in the top example on this page.

As I said, this is a trial by error method until Buzztouch incorporates ads in their apps.

Here are some screehshots of my app with AdMob ads. I could not get the ads to work with the screens that have the light colored title bar. Most likely an error in the layout on my part. When I get time, I will go back and look at the code to see what I did wrong.

I would have liked the ads to appear at the bottom of the screen but when I tried that, they appeared in the middle of the screen where the list is. Literally on top of the list. That is why I decided to leave them at the top.

How To Get Around Your Cellular Carrier Blocking Android Market Apps

2011-05-02T17:54:00.001-05:00

Have you ever tried to find an app on the Android Market with your phone and not finding it. You think that it may have been pulled from the market? Think again. The reason is that your cellular carrier is blocking the app from showing up on your phone. All you need to do to see the apps on the market is to turn on airplane mode on your phone. The go into settings and turn on wifi only. Connect to a hotspot and browse the market for the app you are looking for. Problem solved. Go ahead. Give it a try.

Add RSS Feeds To Your Kindle 3

2011-04-30T17:32:00.000-05:00

Adding RSS feeds to your Kindle is near impossible without a few external programs and internet apps to help you along the way. This is the way that I am accomplishing adding feeds to my Kindle.

Instapaper

First you need to create an account at Instapaper.com. It is free and only takes a few minutes. You also need to set up Instapaper to email your kindle. Make sure you use your @free.kindle.com email address or you will be charged for delivery if you have the 3G version of the kindle.

You can have Instapaper email you once a day (usually in the mornings) or once a week (Friday morning). It will be formatted in a newspaper like fashion in you subscribe to any newspapers on your Kindle. Instapaper has bookmarklets that you add to a toolbar in your browser when you come across a long article on your nightly trip on the interwebs and you want to read it later.

If you are an Android or an iPhone user, Tweetcaster has the option to save embedded links with Instapaper.

Instascriber

Instascriber is a website that you log into with your instapaper credentials and then you add your RSS feed there. It is not instant delivery to Instapaper but seems to serve its purpose.

You can also use Calibre to aggregate your RSS feeds on a daily basis and then either transfer them to your Kindle over USB or email them using your @free.kindle.com email address. Calibre formats the feeds into a newspaper like book also. I am not going into the setup of capturing the feeds with Calibre until I understand it a bit better.

I also use google reader on my Android phone. If I come across an article that I want to read later with Instapaper, I can email the web address with the send to option in the menu to Instapaper for delivery later. You can also use your "Read Later" bookmarklet in google reader on your computer to save for later reading.

There are a few more ways out there on the internet to add feeds to your Kindle but these are the ways that I do it.