Ncell launches Wi-Fi Router based on Ncell 3G internet connectivity!

Hi friends,

Here is one awesome news for those people who love to enjoy high speed internet anytime anywhere in reasonable price. The internet in Nepal has never been cheap and easy to use service. But now with Ncell's different data plan packages and its fast technology service, we are now capable of using high speed internet on demand.

And when it comes to great reliable service on wireless technology, I recommend Ncell Connect over other ISP.

Ncell has recently  launched Wi-Fi router that allows up to eight users to access Internet through its 3G network. The best thing I loved about this router is that, it can be used anywhere since everything would be done wirelessly.

Launching the device amidst a press briefing in the capital on Wednesday, Ncell CEO Pasi Koistinen said, “We feel very proud to enjoy market leadership and introduce this product to our customers.” He said the router could be used in home, office and anywhere the customers want on the move. 

As we all know Ncell offers Internet at up to 3.6 Mbps speed through Ncell Connect. The service, which was launched about a year ago, has more than 30,000 subscribers, and I guess if Ncell provide further schemes with lower price plans it would definitely increase great numbers of subscribers. Since, today's technology is all moving towards wireless (smartphones, 3G), there is great success for Ncell to overcome ntc and other ISP providers who claim to provide better quality service but doesn't seem much reliable  (specially NTC in telephony and wireless technology) and updating its technology.

The device priced at Rs 6,999 (exclusive of taxes) is available in Ncell Centres of Kathmandu and Pokhara. The device works with any Connect SIM with existing tariff plan.

“This is similar to a fixed line Wi-Fi router, but accesses the Internet through Ncell´s 3G network,” Koistinen added.

The device is small, light and can easily fit in a pocket. It can be used by Wi-Fi enabled devices like laptops, tablets, smart phones and can also be used in desktop through USB cable.

Internet speed might slow a bit due to sharing, but it won´t make much impact as Ncell is offering Internet with the fastest speed, Koistinen added.

Ncell´s Wi-Fi router also comes with four hours of battery life enabling subscribers to use Internet during power cuts too. The router sends signal up to the distance of 30 meters. One more reason I loved about Ncell router is that it is specially designed for the customer of Nepal where there is problem of loadshedding since we need internet all the time. 

I believe Ncell cares for providing better quality and new services in the field of telephony and 3G service. If NTC wants to make pace with Ncell and don't want to lose its subscriber, it better think about upgrading NTC network service and GPRS, 3G etc.

Ncell becomes largest ISP

A few months after becoming the largest GSM operator in the country, Ncell has become the number one Internet service provider (ISP) in the country in terms of subscriber base.

According to the latest statistics of Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA), Ncell has around 1.9 million users, followed by NT, which offers Internet through ADSL, GPRS and CDMA technology, with 1.13 million users.

I believe in Ncell's quality services. If you compare the Ncell 3G vs Ntc 3G, ncell is clear winner. :) I shall write post on Ncell vs NTC 3G for wireless internet users in next post. Happy sharing I need you people's feedback. Please leave comments.

Source: MobileNepal.net, Republica

How iPhones and Android Phones changed the way of living our life!

Hi, 

Being Mobile developer, I always think about different mobile technology which is emerging in such a way that is changing each individuals way of living. Today I am writing about the future of technology including mobile technology and How it has changed our lives.

Mobile phones

Past five years from now, there has been lot of smart phones invented by Nokia, Motorola, samsung etc. And these phones were only meant for communicating voice calls. The way of using smartphone devices changed when the first iPhone was unveiled by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007. After it was released it became the big hit in the apple store and sold more than a million of copies of iPhone.

Why iPhone Took the over Market?

1. And iPhone is really a smart phone to carry due to its great touch design.
2. An iPhone can function as a video camera (video recording was not a standard feature until the iPhone 3GS was released) and as a camera phone, 
3. It can also be used as a portable media player as iPod touch. 
4. It has rich Internet client with email and web browsing capabilities. 
5. Being a phone one can send texts and receive visual voicemail, and has both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
6. The user interface is built around the device's multi-touch screen which was awesome feature at time time, including a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one. 
7. Various third-party as well as Apple application software is available from the App Store, which launched in mid-2008 and now has over 500,000 and more "apps" approved by Apple. These apps have diverse functions, including games, reference, GPS navigation, social networking, security and advertising for television shows, films, and celebrities.
8. The most demanding apps for iPhone in iTune Store are Games.

Other Smartphones on their way

After the huge success of apple many mobile cell manufacturers tried to release different mobile device to compete with the iPhone but none of any smartphones where evolved who can compete with iPhone. Windows Phone had failed many times due to its poor software abilities and Nokia was only the cheap smartphone who could give best model to the smartphone users. But touch mobile for average users was still dream as iPhone was not affordable by the average users of developing countries. 

Android Smartphones to Lead

Android is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google.  After Google acquired Android Inc. in August 2005, it made the android OS and open source and can be used by different companies for manufacturing smartphones following certain rules and regulation.

After android OS was made open source many Companies started manufacturing the smartphones with Android OS including HTC, LG, Toshiba, Samsung etc which led to the production of cheap Smartphones with different capabilities like Touch Screen, Internet Browsing, Access for android Apps in Android Market etc. 

Now, you can buy android smartphones with different capabilities according to your price plan from Cheap to Expensive one. These phone has taken so much market share and is only the top competitor with the iPhone.  These Android devices are growing in all developing countries too.

Consumers of iPhone Vs Android Smartphones

The iphone targets the users from developed nations like, US, Canada, UK and different EU nations. Since, iPhone is pretty expensive, a developing nations like ours can hardly offer these devices in mass unit. But the android smartphones audiences are wide. Since these devices are cheaper than iPhone and  provides not same but fairly good touch interface like iPhone, developing nations would be the targeted consumers for these devices. 

Since we have these highly rich smartphones in our hand, we can now perform all the web based interactions like net surfing, checking your emails etc can be done via Mobile Web. And whole world is shifting to the mobile version of web and internet which we call it "Mobile Web". Me too use most of time mobile for surfing, checking emails and facebooking in my Nokia E63 smart phones. You can use your mobile anytime / anywhere regardless of your place, any time because you use you cell wherever you go and it will always be with you.

Conclusion

So, don't think that today's smartphone is only of voice call and sending text sms. It can used for various purposes. What you do in computers for surfing internet can also be done in these smartphones. If you are not developer then you might not need computers anymore, coz everything can be and will be possible to done via Smartphones. Think about those possibilities and just imagine what can you do with your mobile phones. Good luck to all with smartphones.


Check this news link. Samsung Overtakes Apple in Smartphone Sales

What are the Online Jobs that can be done in Nepal?

Hi all,

After a certain long gap, I am here to present you an article which will give you light on "Online Jobs" that can be done in Nepal and of course getting paid and also obstacles on getting paid. I have been doing a lot of researches lately and trying to get some opportunities for all people of developing country like ours,  who wants to do something and make earnings. But besides having a lot of talented people here, our country still suffers from unemployment problem and various other issues. I am very sad to say that though we have potential, we don't have opportunity and show our potential to the world.

Today I am writing about the Online Jobs that can be done in Nepal and its difficulties which is of course in  getting paid. And yes also some light on Crowd Sourcing (Next big wave to come).

Many people have heard about the online jobs. Some people says we can't get money doing online jobs, they are only rumors. And some don't believe that one can make earning doing online jobs. When I was on college also, I tried to do many online jobs and get paid. I will share about it too. But the bottom line is, there are lot of "Online Tasks" (better to say this way), when you do it you will get paid. And Yes there is possibilities of doing online tasks and making money from it. Let's discuss these things in brief so that we all understand it quiet easily.

What are Online Jobs?

The tasks that are done online via internet are online jobs / tasks. The online task could be anything from data entry jobs, digitizing the texts from image, advertising google ads to any small tasks that needs human interaction and involvement. There are tones of work that are produced in offices and it is being unmanageable to hire a lot of employee for these jobs. So they just make their jobs / tasks online and allow different users from different location to participate and do these works and are paid according to their work.

So, for the question if there are online jobs or not, the answer is definitely YES. There are online tasks / jobs and there are people who make living with these earnings.

Online Job in Nepal

There are some sites, which promise to give a online job including affilate programs, advertising, data entry jobs etc. I have seen few of them after searching in google but I am not sure whether they are truly doing their job of providing online jobs to uplift the people's income or not. If any of you have ever been through these jobs, please post me on comments regarding your experience or mail me to thamelstreet@gmail.com. 

The most followed program for online earning in Nepal is Adsense program. Please visit this site to know more about Adsense program. It is always easy to do any online job that are available in the internet. But the actual problem comes when you try to get paid for your work. Go through different guides for getting payment stuffs and cycles in Nepal. The bottom line is you will get paid from google. They provide you a check when you account balance reaches $100. To cash that check you need to remit your check through your local bank which has remittance facility.

Similarly, there is new term "Cloud Computing" which is growing rapidly these days. In upcoming years or two, all the developing nations would be targeted as the worker for doing micro tasks. The Developed countries companies are shifting their technology to follow a Cloud Computing or Crowd Sourcing.

It means that the big task that are generated in developed countries are broken in smaller pieces and are sent to group of crowd for accomplishment. After each task is accomplished, they are reunited together and solution for a problem is generated though the use of crowd. There is so huge opportunity for Nepali people or say most people from developing countries to work as a part of crowd worker.

Learn from India, How they are growing?

India our neighborhood country is developing so fast. They are using modern technologies for providing employment to all people and uplift their daily life. I guess you guys have heard about Mechanical Turk. If not it a platform created by Amazon.com which gives work to all micro workers. Check out it's website. You can log into it as Worker if you want to work or Log as Requester if you want your work to be done. Work on different hits and you will earn as you work. The Mechanical Turk has huge number of workers who work from world wide and 1/3 rd part of these workers are from India. Mturk has also facilitate to the workers of Indian to pay their balance directly in Indian Rupees.

Mechanical Turk in Nepal?

Yes of course you can work in mturk and earn dollar. But problem in Nepal is that, Amazon has no rules or any sort of flexibility for providing payment system in Nepal. May be they don't knw that there are huge  worker force potential from Nepal or I guess We are not drawing enough attention to Mturk. If we succeeded on drawing attention, it would be easier for us to work and get paid as in India. But don't worry,  for our country, there is something really good going for us. Time will tell us what good thing is.

Conclusion

What I want to say from this article is that, we need to know what is Crowd Sourcing and How can our country be developed through this technology. There is huge work coming to developing countries like ours and most african countries. So, be prepared for this new exciting events. Sooner, we shall be uplifting ourselves as a whole country. I know there are huge talent Nepali fellows all over the world living only their own luxury life but they lack patriotism which is causing this beautiful Country (NEPAL) to be underdeveloped though we have diversity in nature, cultural heritage, and many more.

Future of Internet: Is Mobile Web better than Mobile Apps?

As we all know, mobile is gaining so much popularity now a days. People are relying in mobile phones for their almost all kind of works. I guess I don't need to explain how mobile phones has changed our way of living and doing work. Most recent research shows that billions of users use mobile phone to access the internet.

So most technology innovators and predictors predicts that the age for "Mobile Web" is on the way. So, both developers as well as product launcher should not forget these mobile phone platform to target it as their future consumers.

In this post I am going to write about what is Mobile web and its comparison with the existing mobile apps and their store paradigm.

What is Mobile Web?

Mobile Web is simply a mobile version of a website. People usually open their computer and go through a website to perform their transactions, check emails and facebook status messages etc. But now everything we do in a computer can be done through a mobile devices too. (Yes though we have small screen sizes) The technologies has grown up and taking up its speed so fast that now a days these small hand held devices called "Mobile Smart Phones" are capable of connecting to the internet and get facilitate with websites and its services. 

When you open a google.com or facebook.com in your mobile browser, you see the mobile version of that website which is specially designed for your mobile phone browsers. These great giants has already ported their famous product in mobile web. So, if you have your own product or website which has 1000 of users then you should probably go on building your mobile version of your site too because "it is lot easier to get updated on a site through mobile phone browsers than in a computer if you are not in a office whole day". If you travel a lot, mobile phones would be very great choice of yours to get connected and know your products status and services.

What about Mobile apps?

There is a trend going on creating a mobile apps for your products. Most companies targets the iPhone and Android platform first to create their product App so that they can communicate with their servers. There are thousands of successful mobile apps in each Apples Store and Android Marketplace. And these are the most successful approach for creating your product. Most people are investing in this sector and are profited too. And these store will continue to dominate over some years or less until Mobile Web comes to rise.

Mobile Web Vs Mobile Apps:

Both mobile web  and mobile apps has their own areas where they predominate. In some aspect the mobile web would definitely win whereas in some aspect, mobile apps are the clear winner. Let's have a brief discussion on these two separately.

The mobile web can take over mobile apps due to following reasons.

1. Creating each apps for different platform is costly and headache to maintain. Whereas if you create one mobile web compatible site, then these would be compatible with all the mobile phones, as all mobile phones has their own mobile browsers.
2. Mobile Web would cost less development cost, maintenance costs and update cost than corresponding mobile apps for different platforms. (i.e. submitting in store, getting approved takes time).

Whereas if you are creating app which uses the hardware capabilities such as games, then mobile web can't do it. Native mobile apps is the clear winner for these kinds of product.

Conclusion:

So we can conclude that, if you are creating a simply web related stuffs which has URL calls, then it is better to create a mobile web version of your site rather than creating individual apps for different platform. However you are creating apps which uses the devices store facility, camera apis, hardware acceleration such as in games, then creating Native apps is your only efficient way and maximize your product performance.

If any of guys want to know more about "Mobile Web", how to program it like stuffs, please feel free to post comments. I would like to post articles as per you guys want to read (However being so busy lately) :) Happy Sharing and get going with new technologies.

Why Should NTC Bring iPhone 4 To Nepal? - Business Growth Nepal

Hi friends,

I am very glad to hear that most of people are very interested to have iPhone 4 in Nepal in cheap rate via NTC. In this post I am going to write about why should NTC bring iPhone 4 to Nepal and how all Nepali would be benefited with it. So go on reading!

As we all know mobile development is developing and taking its space so fast in technical world that one can't avoid its existence. Without mobile devices we can't survive now a days. There are other mobile platforms also but Apple has been the most successful mobile platform in the world for past 5 years, its not a joke. Why people people prefer iPhone over android or Nokia? 

It's all due to the quality product that Apple has created with satisfied customers. And the "Quality Apps" that iphone users can buy in the iTune Stores. 

Nepal Not in iTune Stores

Update: From Thusday 21 June, 2012 Apple added iTunes Store for our Country Nepal and 32 other different countries. For more view my post here. 

We always want most out of our mobile devices. Mobile devices used to be for calls only past 5 yrs ago but now almost every technical works can be done in mobile and we want more and more to get out of it. The iphone iTunes Store is a app store where users can buy the apps for their apple products like iPhone, iPod, iPad. The apps are of very great quality and we can do great things with these apps. In other word, these app makes your iphone more alive than just for phone call. 

But I was very upset when I found that our country "Nepal" is not listed in the country list of iTunes Store. So, we are not allowed to buy/sell apps in iTunes store which is like we are deprived of using its full services and participate in the business plan with apple to Sell apps. (Trust me selling these apps you will definitely make lot of money). It is even though possible but the process sucks. We can't easily do our work in our country and for doing these work we have to rely on other countries.... that is now very sad.

So, what I want is to recognize Nepal in iTunes Store and use their services in affordable rate. This can not be done by individuals, only NTC can do and I heartily request NTC administrators to consider this opportunity as serious issue so that 

1. Our country "Nepal" is recognized in world wide via iTune Stores.
2. We can use better and smart services from these technologies.

You know friends, what is differences between people who live in Nepal (developing) and USA (developed)? They both are talented. But in developing country like ours there are less opportunities and in abroad there are lot of opportunities. So, we always lay low in competition with them but that doesn't mean we are not capable. We are of course capable or may be much more capable.

Why NTC should bring iPhone in Nepal?

1. Register our Country "Nepal" to iTunes Store which will recognize our country globally.
2. Grow the development opportunities in Nepal (iPhone development).
3. Economic upgrade of our country by the use of these opportunities.

These are summary points which is only screen cast. But the whole picture is much more enthusiastic and overwhelming. I can bet that mobile development will definitely generate higher revenues for government and development of Nepal. And the time of Mobile Evolution is coming so be prepared guys.

And finally, I have created a group in facebook "Nepal Telecom Should Bring Apple to Nepal". Please join the group. We will have our ideas shared and discussed in this group. Feel free to spread the information about the group.

Thanks for reading. Happy sharing, any thoughts please feel free to post it in comments below.

Qwiki, Information Consumption is easier now than from Google or Wikipedia!.

Hi friends,

In this post, I am going to write about the "Qwiki" which is the most awesome source of Information Consumption that we have ever dreamed of. Technology is always changing and evolving day by day and new things are coming all the time. In the same series "Qwiki" is the most awaited innovation that human has been waiting for consuming the information. Well, lets go first on what is Qwiki.

Qwiki

A “Qwiki” is a short, interactive story: a drastically improved information experience provided via interactive video. Unlike traditional rich media content, all Qwikis are created on the fly from web sources (without any human intervention). And This is amazing. (I am just wondering of which algorithm and how much AIs has been used within.)

Qwiki was created by Doug Imbruce and Louis Monier. The latter you may know as the founder of one of the original web search engines, AltaVista.

In my college time, when I was doing engineering, I took Multimedia Subject on elective. And I used to study that how interactive multimedia system can make your life easy to consume information. When I heard about Qwiki and used it, I just knew that this is what we used discuss that in Future, the information consumption would be much more easier than we use google or wikipedia to acquire information.

Today, Qwiki produces 3MM+ interactive, narrated Qwikis describing all the topics on Wikipedia - complete with relevant images, video, and structured data imported from linked sources. These Qwikis are embeddable anywhere on the web and compatible with all iOS devices. (iPhone, iPad)

Qwiki was launched in alpha testing mode on January 24, 2011 after it won the TechCrunch Disrupt Award in 2010. To know about brief history and partners of Qwiki, please visit this wikipedia link. It also raised $1.5 million dollar on TechCrunch from Groupon co-founders. Visit here for full news. This post also give nice views on Qwiki.

It has also released different MarkUp Languages and APIs through which, its different partners produced beautiful interactive experiences at scale.

What Qwiki Does?

1. Whatever topic you type in its search box, it will explain about your topic in audio and visual output in video format.
2. Now you don't have to read all lines to acquire information. Just give rest to eye a bit and hear voices. The voices are also of great quality.
3. Qwiki talks to you, telling you all you need to know about what you searched for, while also showing you key things about the subject or person.
4. And the data isn’t just from Wikipedia. Say you do a search for a person, Qwiki can look at their social connections and tell you about their LinkedIn profile, for example. But this feature is not available for all users now (like u and me). Hope in next release it would be great.

Benefits 

There are loads of benefits of Qwiki. Some of the vital are as follows:

1. Your eye strain will be definitely low coz you don't have to read all lines in the web pages. It's very great that our eyes will have less strain and ears would also assists you to acquire all informations.
2. Students who needs to find quick understanding and knowledge from internet would be very benefited from this site. It's lot easier to acquire information with this Product.
3. Fast way to consume any information would lead in acquire knowledge faster which is great.

If you guys have any known benefits please do leave comments below. I will add it to this list definitely. Let's have your say. Thanks and happy sharing.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia - Qwiki
2. Disrupt Winner Raises Like $1 million from Groupon Cofounders
3. CrunchBase: Qwiki

NTC planning to launch Apple iphone 4 (8GB) @ Rs 15,000 Only!!

Hi friends, you guys must have heard that Nepal Telecom is bringing iPhone 4 (8GB) to Nepal on contract. It seems to me interesting since I am an iphone developer and most of my friends are also excited about having iphones with cheap affordable price.

NTC and Apple Agreement

Once, NTC has tried to bring Blackberry Mobile to Nepal with it BES server integrated with ntc Carrier. But it failed due to lack of our carrier security and probably poor quality of signal strength of Nepal Telecom at that time.

After the failed attempt to bring Blackberry Mobile, largest telecommunication company of Nepal, NTC (Nepal Telecom Authority) is planning to introduce iPhone 4 (8GB) for Rs15000 (200$). According to the source, Apple and NTC have already signed the agreement for this process and it may be available within this year if everything goes fine.

Since we know that 16GB and 32GB iPhone are at high price, iPhone 4 with 8GB memory will be introduced by NTC for its customers. Some weeks ago Apple have announced that they will be introducing iPhone with less memory for promoting developing countries like Nepal to increase its market share. 

According to NTC Plan, to get an iPhone , subscriber have to sign a 2 year contract with NTC and pay Rs15000 to get iPhone. NTC will be selling this iPhone after locking the "NTC" carrier within the device. This scheme is most popular on different countries like in USA, where AT&T, Verizon sells carrier locked iphones on 2 year contract basis to  their customers.

Currently the price of iPhone 4 16GB is Rs55000+ in Nepali market, Rs 15000 for iPhone its not only cool but awesome.  I am looking forward for development of Apple product and iOS in Nepal.

Since Apple iphone is pretty cool gadgets for youngsters and business people it will definitely take great market share. I will be the first one to have it as soon as it arrives.

Challenges for NTC

The iphone is very sophisticated smart phone which uses high speed internet and great carrier services. In short, to maintain the quality standard with smart phone, the carrier service and other services like 3G, GPRS, etc also should be great and meet the standard. Following might be challenges for NTC:

1. Enhance the Carrier strength even in the time of LoadShedding. (I hate "Error In Connection" Message by the way and Ah.. "No Channels are Available" )
2. Provide high speed internet service, 3G and GPRS all over the country (not only inside Ring Road area). ( At Least must be competitive with NCell customers in terms of both data plan and service plan).

These are some basic feedback for NTC to enhance its service. If you guys have any feel free to add one in comment. I will add them in list.

Please go through my Post Why should NTC bring iPhone 4 to Nepal to know in detail about how life of Nepali people can upgrade with opportunities when we have iPhone 4 provided by Apple via NTC.

Thanks for reading and happy sharing. Hope within a year,  all interested iPhone fans would be using iPhone for entertainment and calls.

Setup Android Development Environment in Mac !!

Hi friends, when I did a quick search on above topic, I found answer on blogs, but they were not organized or were not easier to understand and start. So, here is a quick and short installation guide for setting up Android development environment using Eclipse. Eclipse is best IDE for Android development so, I suggest using eclipse and get started rather than wandering if there are other dev environments to choose.

Step 1: Android SDK setup

Android SDK is the package which contains all the libraries and API's needed for developing android applications.

1. In this step simply download the Android SDK from this site for Mac OS X.
2. After downloading SDK, unzip it. It is good to go through a Readme.txt file of that folder.
3. Open the terminal and execute the command "tools/android".
4. You will see an "Android SDK and AVD Manager".
5. Browse through Available Package, select only needed version of SDK such as 2.2 or above and some samples and documentation and then Click on Install selected Item. 
6. Accept and Click install. Then program will download selected item and install. 

NOTE: You don't need to install all packages to start android programming. Be selective, only install those which you might need. Later on you can download and install other packages too. 

Step 2: Installing Eclipse

In this step download Latest Eclipse from here for your Mac OS X. I have used the Eclipse - Indigo Version which also works great. I suggest eclipse version 3.6 or above.

Step 3: Install Android ADT Plugin in Eclipse.

Eclipse is based on a plug-in architecture that is used to extend its capabilities by third-party plug-ins. The ADT plug-in marries the tools found in the Android SDK with the powers of Eclipse. 

Installing plug-ins for Eclipse can be done either manually, by dropping the contents of a plug-in ZIP file into the plug-ins folder of Eclipse, or via the Eclipse plug-in manager integrated with Eclipse. Here we’ll choose the second route.

1. To install a new plug-in, go to Help > Install New Software..., which will open the installation dialog. In this dialog you can choose from which source to install what plug-in. First, you have to add the plug-in repository from which the ADT plug-in is fetched. 

2. In the first text field, you can enter the name of the repository something like “ADT repository” will do. The second text field specifies the URL of the repository. For the ADT plug-in, this field should be https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. Note that this URL might be different for newer versions, so check the ADT plug-in site for an up-to-date link.

3. After you’ve confirmed the dialog, you’ll be brought back to the installation dialog, which should now be fetching the list of available plug-ins in the repository. Check the Developer Tools check box and click the Next button.

4. Eclipse will now calculate all the necessary dependencies, and then present you a new dialog that lists all the plug-ins and dependencies that are going to be installed. Confirm that dialog with a click on the Next button.

5. Yet another dialog will pop up, prompting you to accept the licenses of each plug-in to be installed. You should of course accept those licenses, and finally initiate the installation with a click on the Finish button.

6. Finally, Eclipse will ask you whether it should restart to apply the changes. You can opt for a full restart or for applying the changes without a restart. To play it safe, choose Restart Now, which will restart Eclipse as expected.

Step 4: Setting Android SDK Path to Eclipse

As one last step in finishing the installation of the ADT plug-in, you have to tell the plugin where the Android SDK is located.

1. Open Window > Preferences, and select Android in the tree view in the upcoming dialog.

2. On the right side, click the Browse button to chose the root directory of your Android SDK installation.

3. Click the OK button to close the dialog, and you’ll finally able to create your first Android application.

Now you can go to Eclipse and Use Android SDK and AVD Manager to add / remove SDK, create Virtual Emulators etc.

Conclusion:

I hope this quick and short steps will help you through installation of Android Development Environment in No Time. Thanks and Happy Sharing.

How to Setup Android Development Environment? Part 2 (Windows)

CONTINUE OF PART 1.

Step 3: Installing Eclipse

Eclipse comes in a couple of different flavors. For Android developers, I suggest using Eclipse for Java Developers version 3.6, Like the Android SDK, Eclipse comes in the form of a ZIP or tar gzip package. Simply extract it to a folder of your choice. Once it’s uncompressed, you can create a nice little shortcut on your desktop to the eclipse executable in the root directory of your Eclipse installation. The first time you start Eclipse, you will be prompted to specify a workspace directory. 

Figure 2. Choosing a workspace

A workspace is Eclipse’s notion of a folder containing a set of projects. Whether you use a single workspace for all your projects or multiple workspaces that group just a few projects is completely up to you. The sample projects accompanying this book are all organized in a single workspace, which you could specify in this dialog. For now, we’ll simply create an empty workspace somewhere.

Eclipse will then greet us with a welcome screen, which we can safely ignore and close. This will leave us with the default Eclipse Java perspective. We’ll get to know Eclipse a little better in a later section. For now it suffices to have it running.

Step 4: Installing the ADT Eclipse Plug-In

The last piece in our setup puzzle is installing the ADT Eclipse plug-in. Eclipse is based on a plug-in architecture that is used to extend its capabilities by third-party plug-ins. The ADT plug-in marries the tools found in the Android SDK with the powers of Eclipse. Given this combination, we can completely forget about invoking all the command-line

Android SDK tools; the ADT plug-in integrates them transparently into our Eclipse workflow.

Installing plug-ins for Eclipse can be done either manually, by dropping the contents of a plug-in ZIP file into the plug-ins folder of Eclipse, or via the Eclipse plug-in manager integrated with Eclipse. Here we’ll choose the second route.

1. To install a new plug-in, go to Help > Install New Software..., which will open the installation dialog. In this dialog you can choose from which source to install what plug-in. First, you have to add the plug-in repository from which the ADT plug-in is fetched. Click the Add button, and you will be presented with the dialog depicted in Figure 3.

2. In the first text field, you can enter the name of the repository; something like “ADT repository” will do. The second text field specifies the URL of the repository. For the ADT plug-in, this field should be https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/. Note that this URL might be different for newer versions, so check the ADT plug-in site for an up-to-date link.

Figure 3. Adding a repository

3. After you’ve confirmed the dialog, you’ll be brought back to the installation dialog, which should now be fetching the list of available plug-ins in the repository. Check the Developer Tools check box and click the Next button.

4. Eclipse will now calculate all the necessary dependencies, and then present you a new dialog that lists all the plug-ins and dependencies that are going to be installed. Confirm that dialog with a click on the Next button.

5. Yet another dialog will pop up, prompting you to accept the licenses of each plug-in to be installed. You should of course accept those licenses, and finally initiate the installation with a click on the Finish button.

6. Finally, Eclipse will ask you whether it should restart to apply the changes. You can opt for a full restart or for applying the changes without a restart. To play it safe, choose Restart Now, which will restart Eclipse as expected.

After all this dialog madness, you’ll be presented with the same Eclipse window as before. The toolbar features a couple of new buttons specific to Android, which allow you to start the SDK and AVD manager directly from within Eclipse, as well as create new Android projects. Figure 4 shows these new shiny toolbar buttons.

Figure 4. ADT toolbar buttons

The first button on the left allows you to open the AVD and SDK Manager. The next button is a shortcut to creating a new Android project. The other two buttons will create a new unit test project or Android manifest file (functionality we won’t use in this book). As one last step in finishing the installation of the ADT plug-in, you have to tell the plugin where the Android SDK is located.

1. Open Window > Preferences, and select Android in the tree view in the upcoming dialog.

2. On the right side, click the Browse button to chose the root directory of your Android SDK installation.

3. Click the OK button to close the dialog, and you’ll finally able to create your first Android application.

Conclusion

This is how you set up development environment for Android Development. You can take a quick tour of Eclipse from this post for getting started with your development environment. Happy Sharing :)

How to Setup Android Development Environment? Part 1 (Windows)

Android Smartphone is one of the most competitive mobile platforms which come after the Apple’s iOS in mobile market share. So, it would be very good choice to develop for Android platform. If you want to know what is about Android, please see this post by me. In this post I am going to write about setting up the Android Development Environment in your Computer.

The Android SDK is pretty flexible and integrates well with a couple of development environments. Some might choose to go all hard-core with command-line tools. But I want things to be a little bit more comfortable, though, so I’ll go for the simpler, more visual route using an IDE (integrated development environment). Here’s the grocery list of software that needs to downloaded and installed in the given order:

1. The Java Development Kit (JDK), version 5 or 6. Going for 6 is preferred.
2. The Android Software Development Kit (Android SDK).
3. Eclipse for Java Developers, version 3.4 or 3.5.
4. The Android Development Tools (ADT) plug-in for Eclipse.

Let’s go through steps required to set everything up properly.

Step 1: Setting Up the JDK

Download the JDK with one of the specified versions for your operating system. On most systems it comes in the form of an installer or package, so there shouldn’t be any hurdles. Once the JDK is installed, it is advisable to add a new environment variable called JDK_HOME pointing to the root directory of the JDK installation. Additionally, it is better to add the $JDK_HOME/bin (%JDK_HOME%\bin on Windows) directory to your PATH environment variable.

Step 2: Setting Up the Android SDK

The Android SDK is also available for the three mainstream desktop operating systems. Choose the one fitting for your platform and download it. The SDK comes in the form of a ZIP or tar gzip file. Just uncompress it to a convenient folder (e.g., c:\android-sdk on Windows or /opt/android-sdk on Linux). The SDK comes with a couple of command-line utilities located in the tools/ folder. Create an environment variable called ANDROID_HOME pointing to the root directory of the SDK installation and add $ANDROID_HOME/tools (%ANDROID_HOME%\tools on Windows) to your PATH environment variable. This way you can easily invoke the command-line tools from a shell later on if the need arises.

After performing the preceding steps, you’ll have bare-bones installation that consists of the basic command-line tools needed to create, compile, and deploy Android projects, as well as the SDK and AVD manager, a tool for installing SDK components and creating virtual devices used by the emulator. These tools alone are not sufficient to start developing, so you need to install additional components. That’s where the SDK and AVD manager comes in. The manager is a package manager, much like the package management tools you find on Linux. The manager allows you to install the following types of components:

Android platforms: For every official Android release there’s a platform component for the SDK that includes the runtime libraries, a system image used by the emulator, and any version-specific tools. SDK add-ons: Add-ons are usually external libraries and tools that are not specific to a platform. Some examples of these are the Google APIs that allows you to integrate Google maps in your application.

USB driver for Windows: These are necessary for running and debugging your application on a physical device on Windows. On Mac OS X and Linux you don’t need a special driver.

Samples: For each platform there’s also a set of platform-specific samples. These are great resources for seeing how to achieve specific goals with the Android runtime library.

Documentation: This is a local copy of the documentation for the latest Android framework API. Being the greedy developers we are, we want to install all of these components to have the full set of functionality at our disposal. For this, we first have to start the SDK and AVD manager. On Windows there’s an executable called SDK manager.exe in the root directory of the SDK. On Linux and Mac OS X you simply start the script android in the tools directory of the SDK.

Upon first startup, the SDK and AVD manager will connect to the package server and fetch a list of available packages. It will then present you with the dialog in Figure 1, which allows you to install individual packages. Simply check Accept All, click the Install button, and make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee. The manager will take a while to install all the packages.

Figure 1: First contact with the SDK and AVD manager

You can use the SDK and AVD manager at any time to update components or install new ones. The manager is also used to create new AVDs, which will be necessary later on when we start running and debugging our applications on the emulator. Once the installation process is finished, we can move on to the next step in setting up our development environment.

For next step please go through How to Setup Android Development Environment? Part 2 . Thanks and Happy Sharing!