Updates have been released to the pyamsoft scripts on GitHub.
This release brings pstate-frequency to version 3.5.1 which brings support for custom power plans that can be housed in /etc/pstate-frequency.d/ and make it easier to override the actions of the default power plans. Also brings documentation fixes.
steam-wrapper has also been updated to 0.6.0 which fixes a dbus related crash on ArchLinux and allows steam to launch in a 32-bit namespace when running under 64-bit Linux.
update-hosts has been updated to 2.1.3 which brings it up to date with the uBlock0 unbreak list in version 1.9.4
Android work has been underway on Power Manager, PadLock and SoftGlow and I look to have updates to those in about 2 weeks or so.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Monday, September 19, 2016
Last Announcement for a while
I feel as though I've lost my way.
When I started developing for Android, my goal was to create applications that, first and foremost, helped me through my day to day. I wanted to make an application that I wanted to use, in the hopes that others would want to use it to.
When I went to open one of my applications during development and saw it crash from a Firebase error and then leak memory from the black box that is mobile Advertising, I knew that this kind of experience was not what I set out originally to create.
I had thrown away my principles and my values all for the small chance that I would make a couple insignificant pennies.
I have a love/hate relationship with mobile applications and the growing trend to devour all permissions and do everything at once. I dislike strongly that I need to ask Internet for something as simple as Home Button, but I like that I get built in crash reporting for free. When I attempted to handle crash reports by user-submitted methods, I received zero reports and went on for months without even knowing certain bugs existed.
With crash reporting, I fixed around ten long standing bugs in the span of a single day, just because I knew they existed.
I will be keeping the Internet permission to allow for crash reporting in all of the pyamsoft applications as I truly think it improves the user experience at the end of the day.
I have completely and permanently disabled Firebase's Analytics because I have no want or need for them. While I'm sure it is nice to see how long people use my applications for, I do not care. I don't care if nobody else in the world is using my applications. What I care about is making a good product, and a good user experience.
As such, here is the future:
I will update all of the current pyamsoft applications by the end of today (September 19 PST).
Advertisements will be removed, and it will return instead to a simple image based photo banner at the bottom of the application showing the user about other pyamsoft applications. It will be freely disabled by going to the Settings page of the application.
Analytics will be disabled, because I could not care less.
Effective immediately as of this post, advertisements will no longer appear in Android applications or on this blog.
As such, this means that there are no more Pro applications. For those who did purchase one in the past, thank you. Please think of your purchase as a good natured donation towards my efforts. But because there are no more advertisements, there is also no longer a need for Pro applications. They will be removed from the Store immediately.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
When I started developing for Android, my goal was to create applications that, first and foremost, helped me through my day to day. I wanted to make an application that I wanted to use, in the hopes that others would want to use it to.
When I went to open one of my applications during development and saw it crash from a Firebase error and then leak memory from the black box that is mobile Advertising, I knew that this kind of experience was not what I set out originally to create.
I had thrown away my principles and my values all for the small chance that I would make a couple insignificant pennies.
I have a love/hate relationship with mobile applications and the growing trend to devour all permissions and do everything at once. I dislike strongly that I need to ask Internet for something as simple as Home Button, but I like that I get built in crash reporting for free. When I attempted to handle crash reports by user-submitted methods, I received zero reports and went on for months without even knowing certain bugs existed.
With crash reporting, I fixed around ten long standing bugs in the span of a single day, just because I knew they existed.
I will be keeping the Internet permission to allow for crash reporting in all of the pyamsoft applications as I truly think it improves the user experience at the end of the day.
I have completely and permanently disabled Firebase's Analytics because I have no want or need for them. While I'm sure it is nice to see how long people use my applications for, I do not care. I don't care if nobody else in the world is using my applications. What I care about is making a good product, and a good user experience.
As such, here is the future:
I will update all of the current pyamsoft applications by the end of today (September 19 PST).
Advertisements will be removed, and it will return instead to a simple image based photo banner at the bottom of the application showing the user about other pyamsoft applications. It will be freely disabled by going to the Settings page of the application.
Analytics will be disabled, because I could not care less.
Effective immediately as of this post, advertisements will no longer appear in Android applications or on this blog.
As such, this means that there are no more Pro applications. For those who did purchase one in the past, thank you. Please think of your purchase as a good natured donation towards my efforts. But because there are no more advertisements, there is also no longer a need for Pro applications. They will be removed from the Store immediately.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
More updates, again, part 2, return of the update
More stuff:
PadLock
Fixed a crash caused when attempting to open the information of a package that has a large number of activities. This is not an actual crash, but the Package Manager will stop working which causes some problems to occur such as the list not being displayed, or in some cases, the
ErrorDialog being shown asking you to restart the application.
The current fix is just a band-aid workaround, but it prevents the application from effectively halting whenever it meets a binder transaction error in the package manager.
This has so far only been observed when attempting to view Google Play Services, so user be warned.
pstate-frequency (dev):
Version bump to 3.5.0
Adds support for custom power plans via configuration files. Config files can either specify:
PLAN_AUTO_AC and PLAN_AUTO_BAT meaning this is a shim plan that calls through to actual power plans based on whether the machine is on AC power or battery.
PLAN_CPU_* which means this is an actual plan which defines values to set the CPU to.
Currently these config files are simply sourced by the shell process, meaning that can technically execute arbitrary code. The plans shipped with pstate-frequency are safe, and you should not notice any change from older versions like 3.4.0, but please be careful when adding in custom plans as any complex logic you may have in the plan file will be executed potentially as root.
Currently pstate-frequency ships with 5 plans which are set to mimic the old functionality when power plans were hardcoded into the script. Hopefully by using custom plans, users will be able to better configure pstate-frequency to suit their individual needs (such as my own like setting a CPU max of 85 for balanced plans) without having to do so many command line overrides.
steam-wrapper (dev):
Version bump to 0.6.0
Adds support for running in a 32-bit namespace using linux32 which may potentially fix issues with games that run a 64-bit client for 64-bit hosts and cause performance issues (looking at you, CS: GO). The default value of this option is 0 (off) but it can be overridden in the conf file or on the comand line using the -b option.
Fixes a dbus-crash on exit which was observed on ArchLinux systems.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
PadLock
Fixed a crash caused when attempting to open the information of a package that has a large number of activities. This is not an actual crash, but the Package Manager will stop working which causes some problems to occur such as the list not being displayed, or in some cases, the
ErrorDialog being shown asking you to restart the application.
The current fix is just a band-aid workaround, but it prevents the application from effectively halting whenever it meets a binder transaction error in the package manager.
This has so far only been observed when attempting to view Google Play Services, so user be warned.
pstate-frequency (dev):
Version bump to 3.5.0
Adds support for custom power plans via configuration files. Config files can either specify:
PLAN_AUTO_AC and PLAN_AUTO_BAT meaning this is a shim plan that calls through to actual power plans based on whether the machine is on AC power or battery.
PLAN_CPU_* which means this is an actual plan which defines values to set the CPU to.
Currently these config files are simply sourced by the shell process, meaning that can technically execute arbitrary code. The plans shipped with pstate-frequency are safe, and you should not notice any change from older versions like 3.4.0, but please be careful when adding in custom plans as any complex logic you may have in the plan file will be executed potentially as root.
Currently pstate-frequency ships with 5 plans which are set to mimic the old functionality when power plans were hardcoded into the script. Hopefully by using custom plans, users will be able to better configure pstate-frequency to suit their individual needs (such as my own like setting a CPU max of 85 for balanced plans) without having to do so many command line overrides.
steam-wrapper (dev):
Version bump to 0.6.0
Adds support for running in a 32-bit namespace using linux32 which may potentially fix issues with games that run a 64-bit client for 64-bit hosts and cause performance issues (looking at you, CS: GO). The default value of this option is 0 (off) but it can be overridden in the conf file or on the comand line using the -b option.
Fixes a dbus-crash on exit which was observed on ArchLinux systems.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Sunday, September 18, 2016
New iterations of old products have successfully been released to a wider audience
Stable updates.
PadLock
Fixes a crash and a potential memory leak. Also fixes issue on Android N devices which have a large number of applications installed that could not see the lock list.
Power Manager
Better stability, some power trigger fixes. Less battery consumption, more power saving.
Home Button
Still takes you home, now just does it with more stability.
ZapTorch
Fixes a bug on older devices using the "old" Camera API.
Pasterino
Fixes a bug which prevented the notification from showing, making the application not able to actually paste anything -_-
WordWiz
Some stability improvements and fixed a small memory issue.
SoftGlow has once again (I promise) entered active development. I hope to have updates for you once it has settled on a stable code base, but for now it tints the screen a pleasant red based on either: the position of the sun relative to your location, when you manually specify it to, or based on the amount of available light in your current area. Neato. API 19.
More later, as always.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
PadLock
Fixes a crash and a potential memory leak. Also fixes issue on Android N devices which have a large number of applications installed that could not see the lock list.
Power Manager
Better stability, some power trigger fixes. Less battery consumption, more power saving.
Home Button
Still takes you home, now just does it with more stability.
ZapTorch
Fixes a bug on older devices using the "old" Camera API.
Pasterino
Fixes a bug which prevented the notification from showing, making the application not able to actually paste anything -_-
WordWiz
Some stability improvements and fixed a small memory issue.
SoftGlow has once again (I promise) entered active development. I hope to have updates for you once it has settled on a stable code base, but for now it tints the screen a pleasant red based on either: the position of the sun relative to your location, when you manually specify it to, or based on the amount of available light in your current area. Neato. API 19.
More later, as always.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Saturday, September 17, 2016
The future
So unfortunately, we can't all have nice things.
Currently there are ads in the applications, and ads suck.
Currently there is an easy way for users to disable ads by simply clicking a button, awesome.
Unfortunately, this model is unfair to the number of users who purchased a pro version of an application in the past with the intent of removing Advertisements. Because of the lack of need for a special unlocked version, the users have essentially just wasted money (or gave a donation depending on how you look at things). As such, I've made the unfortunate decision to once again lock down the applications via advertisement supported Free versions, and Ad-Free pro versions.
Purchasing a pro version of an application will allow you to toggle advertisements on and off.
In the future I may remove ads again if another business model proves sustainable, but for now, this is the unfortunate state of things.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Currently there are ads in the applications, and ads suck.
Currently there is an easy way for users to disable ads by simply clicking a button, awesome.
Unfortunately, this model is unfair to the number of users who purchased a pro version of an application in the past with the intent of removing Advertisements. Because of the lack of need for a special unlocked version, the users have essentially just wasted money (or gave a donation depending on how you look at things). As such, I've made the unfortunate decision to once again lock down the applications via advertisement supported Free versions, and Ad-Free pro versions.
Purchasing a pro version of an application will allow you to toggle advertisements on and off.
In the future I may remove ads again if another business model proves sustainable, but for now, this is the unfortunate state of things.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
SoftGlow and QuickSwitch
Both SoftGlow and QuickSwitch have been unpublished from the Play Store due to stagnation in development time. SoftGlow and QuickSwitch both have not been looked at for quite some time, and there are currently more appropriate alternatives on the store for both applications.
SoftGlow will be looked at in the future and hopefully be re-released with a more robust application.
Current users of both applications will still be able to see the store pages for the respective application.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
SoftGlow will be looked at in the future and hopefully be re-released with a more robust application.
Current users of both applications will still be able to see the store pages for the respective application.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Here's where things stand
Just some updates on the going on in versions that are yet to be released
PadLock:
- Fixed an NPE that would cause the lock screen to crash, causing it to not launch in response to a new application being opened. This is a very rare crash and it was never reported :( but I was able to reproduce it and at least establish a fix. Note that the current fix will set option values for ignore time and exclusion to defaults of 0 and False respectively. However, if I predict correctly, the crash would never occur when a user is actually attempting to use those entries, and so this shouldn't cause much trouble.
Power Manager
- Fixed some UI jank in the Notification and on the various device Manage pages when selecting the toggles to turn things on and off.
- Fixed a crash resulting when a custom time was too large to be handled
- Fixed a crash which caused the custom time to not be saved when the screen was still loading (happens rarely but has happened)
All of these bugs were only recently addressed because I recently became aware of them. They occurred multiple times but they were never reported by any users.
Please report bugs and crashes or else I will spend months not knowing that said problems exist. When an application crashes, please send a bug report so that I can at least know that your problem exists.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
PadLock:
- Fixed an NPE that would cause the lock screen to crash, causing it to not launch in response to a new application being opened. This is a very rare crash and it was never reported :( but I was able to reproduce it and at least establish a fix. Note that the current fix will set option values for ignore time and exclusion to defaults of 0 and False respectively. However, if I predict correctly, the crash would never occur when a user is actually attempting to use those entries, and so this shouldn't cause much trouble.
Power Manager
- Fixed some UI jank in the Notification and on the various device Manage pages when selecting the toggles to turn things on and off.
- Fixed a crash resulting when a custom time was too large to be handled
- Fixed a crash which caused the custom time to not be saved when the screen was still loading (happens rarely but has happened)
All of these bugs were only recently addressed because I recently became aware of them. They occurred multiple times but they were never reported by any users.
Please report bugs and crashes or else I will spend months not knowing that said problems exist. When an application crashes, please send a bug report so that I can at least know that your problem exists.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Monday, September 12, 2016
Updates released
PadLock and Power Manager have been updated with some bug fixes and better battery life.
Power Manager fixes a particular bug which would sometimes cause radios to not be managed, and in some cases would not toggle Data successfully on API levels below Lollipop. Unfortunately, the auto toggle of mobile data is still inconsistent and has not yet been re-enabled for Lollipop and upwards. :( Some typos were also fixed, as well as a crash that would be possible in the manage configuration pages.
PadLock gets battery life improvements and some small bug fixes to improve memory management.
Both updates will be live later on, please update when you next find the time.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Power Manager fixes a particular bug which would sometimes cause radios to not be managed, and in some cases would not toggle Data successfully on API levels below Lollipop. Unfortunately, the auto toggle of mobile data is still inconsistent and has not yet been re-enabled for Lollipop and upwards. :( Some typos were also fixed, as well as a crash that would be possible in the manage configuration pages.
PadLock gets battery life improvements and some small bug fixes to improve memory management.
Both updates will be live later on, please update when you next find the time.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Friday, September 9, 2016
PadLock advances
Some improvements have been made to the current development version of PadLock which should reduce its battery consumption by about 30%.
PadLock is naturally a more battery hungry application. Because it uses an AccessibilityService, which always runs and receives window notifications, it will naturally consume more battery than other applications. By reducing the amount of open accesses to the database PadLock uses to store its entries, the battery and memory usage has been significantly reduced.
Hopefully I will roll the update out in the coming weeks.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
PadLock is naturally a more battery hungry application. Because it uses an AccessibilityService, which always runs and receives window notifications, it will naturally consume more battery than other applications. By reducing the amount of open accesses to the database PadLock uses to store its entries, the battery and memory usage has been significantly reduced.
Hopefully I will roll the update out in the coming weeks.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Wednesday, September 7, 2016
Quick PadLock bugfix
If you are using versions of PadLock between 1.6.1 and 1.6.4, please update as soon as possible.
A bug was discovered which would cause entry white-listing to fail, resulting in the Lock Screen failing to launch on the rest of a given application, unless entries were specifically selected to be locked.
The recent update, to version 1.6.5 should fix this issue.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
A bug was discovered which would cause entry white-listing to fail, resulting in the Lock Screen failing to launch on the rest of a given application, unless entries were specifically selected to be locked.
The recent update, to version 1.6.5 should fix this issue.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Another round of updates
Another round of updates today, small bugfix release for all!
Power Manager, Home Button, PadLock, ZapTorch, Pasterino, and WordWiz have all received small updates which bring the following improvements:
- Memory management improvements (through PYDroid)
- Shows the various open source libraries used in the projects. For smaller applications, many libraries appear included because they are a requirement of the PYDroid common library which is used in pyamsoft applications.
- Adds a background version checker. The version check will show a small dialog to you when starting the application letting you know there is a new version available. If you do not wish to update, you can safely ignore the dialog.
While this update is small, it is very important as it will make it easier for me to deliver future improvements to you.
Plz update.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Power Manager, Home Button, PadLock, ZapTorch, Pasterino, and WordWiz have all received small updates which bring the following improvements:
- Memory management improvements (through PYDroid)
- Shows the various open source libraries used in the projects. For smaller applications, many libraries appear included because they are a requirement of the PYDroid common library which is used in pyamsoft applications.
- Adds a background version checker. The version check will show a small dialog to you when starting the application letting you know there is a new version available. If you do not wish to update, you can safely ignore the dialog.
While this update is small, it is very important as it will make it easier for me to deliver future improvements to you.
Plz update.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Please update
Yesterday I updated a large amount of applications on the Play Store but there were some issues in the updates which affected the application stability.
Please update to the latest version of all pyamsoft applications as soon as possible.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Please update to the latest version of all pyamsoft applications as soon as possible.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Friday, September 2, 2016
Firebase
Guy's gotta eat.
Soon, new updates will be rolling out which add Firebase AdView's at the bottom of pyamsoft applications. If you view the ad, I make some money.
I know that in the past I said no ads, but unfortunately, a guy's gotta eat.
Fret not, if you don't like ads, they can be disabled from the settings menu in all pyamsoft applications (Home Button will get an update too to allow this). Also, rest assured that all applications will stay open source except for the private bits of information (like developer keys and advertisement IDs). All of the actual code that runs in the applications will still be visible online on my GitHub: https://github.com/pyamsoft.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Soon, new updates will be rolling out which add Firebase AdView's at the bottom of pyamsoft applications. If you view the ad, I make some money.
I know that in the past I said no ads, but unfortunately, a guy's gotta eat.
Fret not, if you don't like ads, they can be disabled from the settings menu in all pyamsoft applications (Home Button will get an update too to allow this). Also, rest assured that all applications will stay open source except for the private bits of information (like developer keys and advertisement IDs). All of the actual code that runs in the applications will still be visible online on my GitHub: https://github.com/pyamsoft.
========================
Follow pyamsoft around the Web for updates and announcements about the newest applications!
Like what I do?
Send me an email at: pyam.soft@gmail.com
Or find me online at: https://pyamsoft.blogspot.com
Follow my FaceBook Page
Follow my Google+ Page
=========================
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)