March 22, 2012

Einstein on the Thames

Spending five days in London from May 10th through the 14th (more like three days) centered around tickets to a production of Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach at the Barbican Centre on Silk Street. There was short internal debate on cost, then Lisa & I decided it was too ideal to pass up and impulse-bought the opera tickets the same night I found out about the show. Grooveshark playlists:

  1. Disk 1
  2. Disk 2
  3. Disk 3

It will be an intimidating work to attend. Although it's only five hours long--reasonable for an opera--it has such a discursive nature that I'm not sure how the absence of narrative will affect us. The music is at times beautiful and others, numbing. Listening to the opening now with chills. It's grouped with Satyagraha (which we saw as a Met HD theater broadcast back in November) and Akhnaten as the Portrait Trilogy. I have yet to warm up to Akhnaten, but Satyagraha is solidified for now as my favorite opera of any composer.

We've had several friends who've traveled once or more to London, so advice will be more than three days can bear. My first trip there!

posted by sstrader at 7:01 PM in Music , Personal | tagged Philip Glass, year of music | permalink

March 7, 2012

Phonebot Plus

My Phonebot Plus app is now available on the Android Market/Google Play. Phonebot is an application that allows you to create applications directly from your phone. It includes features such as a script language and interpreter, visual screen layout, and database management. For Phonebot Plus, I've added some useful development tools in addition to what you get with standard Phonebot, along with more display formatting properties. New stuff:

  • Step debugger - Pause and step over each line of script as it executes
  • Script browser - Quickly access and update any script in an application
  • Database browser - Create and manage database schemas and data
  • Log browser - Access application-specific logs
  • User-defined methods - Create reuseable scripts that can be called from any event
  • Display properties - Configure background color, padding, and font properties

Be forewarned: All of this wonder will cost you nearly One US Dollar. Gasp!

Check out the Developer's reference for full details on what you can create. The main Phonebot page also lists several of its competitors and semi-competitors that are out there. I also posted about it on Reddit and Hacker News.

I had this field cornered when I first started but it's gotten pretty active recently, with several full-fledged Java IDEs available now. The benefit that I think Phonebot offers is with its high-level script language, script generators, and visual layout editor. These are all features that eliminate typing and let you create applications quickly.

posted by sstrader at 10:35 PM in Phonebot | tagged android, mobile development | permalink