Version 1.6.4

Features:
- Increase the duration of cache files on the device to 2 hours (it was 30 minutes previously)

Fixes:
- Added additional alerts to graceful display error messages
- Tweaked the connection class for better checking of Internet connectivity
- Fixed the issues where myAccount pages would hang after initial login

You can also head to bugs to report bugs or suggestions on how to improve the application.

Please use Google market first if able, if not then you may download it from this site.

Google Maket

Direct Link

My first step is to point my phone to the android market or my desktop web browser to
http:// market.android.com/. I will use the search term “Black History Trivia”. An initial search yields nothing of note so that looks promising from a competitive stand point. Since this is the research stage, we have to look a little harder to be sure.

My next search terms are “African American History Trivia” which yields the same results as the first search. Just to make sure I cover all bases I use the search term “History Trivia” which returns an abundance of applications, from history, Christmas, and hockey.

My results thus far is that the app I am creating will be a great niche market, which I have to make sure I set a good standard. Now had I found an app identical to what I was trying to do I would review it paying close attention to the comments listed. I would read both positive and negative comments. The goal is to improve upon the competition strengths and remove their weakness.

Obviously this is really simplified you should really spend some time searching out an application similar to the one you wish to create. If you were to see an abundance of application similar to the one you wish to create, I would then take a pause and reevaluate my app. You have to ask yourself the question is my app needed. Do I bring anything new to the table? Is it worth the resources I will put into it?

Up Next:

After you complete the research stage and you still plan to move forward with the application we move into the brainstorm stage.

The goal is to not only share my thought process on how I build applications, but to hopefully learn from others reading my progress. I love to program but I am not really an expert at it, so I welcome the challenge to improve my skills.

Now as I said earlier this app is for Black History month. I plan to finish it by January of next year (2013). I realize that is a lot of time, but I am in no rush and I want to make sure the app is stable and solid.

For this project, I plan to make an app for the Android, and for Windows mobile. I only own a droid phone and I have access to a blackberry phone. However I plan to tackle blackberry at a later date, and I have not interest at this point in making an Iphone app.

My development tools will be Eclipse and Visual Studio 2010. The languages I will be using is Java and C#. I plan to post an updated at least once a month explaining my progress. It is my intention to provide all my source code.

As state earlier the application will be a trivia for Black History and I plan to incorporate social media into the app.

I welcome all questions, comments, complaints, and critiques. It is my hope that this whole process will put me on the path to becoming a better programmer.

I am also on a quest to make the best home theater pc setup. As well as more information about android application and previews of some beta projects.

 That being said I do plan to update the site more and I have taken steps to ensure that spammers stop filling my mailbox with silly comments.

After doing research I notice there were not too many applications to choose from so it looked like it was relatively new ground. I also notice that the community as a whole was concerned about fragmentations and poor performance of applications. Therefore, with that information I set off to make my application.

First thing I did was buy an android programming book (teach yourself android in 24 hours). After doing the first six chapters, I then turned to the Internet to further my training and used the book as reference material.

Ever so slowly, the application took shape and form. Major obstacle for me was trying to figure out how to install my own custom database to hold all the questions. I cannot stress how important it is to research. In most cases someone else has figure it out and you can learn from their hard work. If no one has figured it out and you do, then you owe it to the community to post your findings.

The next step was to make the application look nice. A quick search of Android wallpapers yielded several background screens to choose. It was coming together quite nicely and I was proud of my work.

I decide to sell the application for $1 and see what people thought of it. My thoughts were that $1 is reasonable for all the work I put into it. It was exciting seeing people purchasing the application. I felt proud when out of 200+ people there was only one report of the application crashing.

At some point in the future, I want to revisit the application and add more questions to it. So much to do and it seems like there is so little time.

Application can be view here.