Ever do something new and then hear the voice of Sir Alec Guinness in your head? You know, Star Wars, Obi Wan Kenobi… “That’s Good! You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.” We really do live in magical times. The power of technology is not something to be underestimated. I have a dream of creating my own applications for the Google Android operating system, and then selling those programs for lots and lots of money.
HA, but I have to start at the beginning. The first step is to install the Google Android SDK.
The process wasn’t too painful, but I did have a problem. I downloaded the Windows version of the SDK. It didn’t work for me. When I went into the command prompt, and entered the “emulator” command, I would get the following error…
Cannot create data directory: C:\Documents and Settings\Photics\Local Settings\Application Data\Android\SDK-1.0
Please specify a writable directory with -datadir.
It took me a while to figure out what was going wrong. I’m not used to setting preferences in text mode. I like pretty check boxes and an adorable graphic user interface. But hey, I’m somewhat of a developer now… like Luke Skywalker with the Blast Shield covering his face, I had to “stretch out” with my feelings. I stretched out with greed and determination. I can’t start selling programs if I don’t figure out this this problem. I started typing in commands at random until something good happened. That was when the pretty options list appeared. With actual instructions, I was able to figure out the correct command.
C:\Documents and Settings\Photics>emulator -datadir C:\android\SDK-1.0
That’s enough for now. It’s not a lot, but it’s a good start.
