Category Archives: My Publications

My First Android App: Stash-It!

After a couple of months of busy early morning and late night programming, my first Android app has finally been released. Please meet Stash-It!

Stash-It! responds to an odd side-effect of the difference between the iOS and Android security models. On the iPad, there are a large number of applications which offer an “all in one” approach to managing a group of related content. These are a bit frustrating if you want to share files transparently and seamlessly between applications, but there are times when you want to manage a group of files securely, and then the iOS approach is great.

Android is the original way around. The more open file system and component model encourages the use of specialist applications which do one job well, but it can be a challenge to keep related files of different types together, and hide them if you don’t want private client files or the like turning up un-announced in your gallery of family photos!

Stash-It! tries to plug this gap, by providing an “all in one” private file manager, tabbed browser and downloader for Android. You can get all these functions independently in other apps, but Stash-It! is the only one which brings them together in one place. It’s the ideal place to keep content you want safe from prying eyes: financial and banking records, health research, client documents. I suspect a few will even use it for a porn stash, but that’s not its only use! 🙂

There are built in viewers for most common image and movie formats, plus PDF and web files, so you don’t have to move these outside the application to view them. However when you do need to use an external application Stash-It! has a full suite of import and export functions to move your files or open them with other applications.

It took a while to design the security model. Stash-It! encrypts the names of files so that they can’t be read, and won’t be visible to the tablet’s gallery and similar applications, but the content of your files is untouched, so there’s little risk of losing data. Hopefully this strikes a sensible balance between privacy and risk.

Even if you’re not too worried about privacy Stash-It! is a great place to collect material related to as particular project, with all your different file types and web research in one place. You can bookmark web links, but also positions in video files or PDF documents. Web pages can be saved intact for reference or offline reading. Again you can do a lot of these things in separate apps, but I believe Stash-It! is the first one to bring all these functions together where you might want them.

I’ve got a lot of ideas in the pipeline to improve it further, but its now time to test the market and see whether I’ve spotted a gap which needed plugging or not.

Take a look and let me know what you think!

 

Here’s the Google Play Page. You can also read the helpfile.

Posted in Agile & Architecture, Android, Apps, Code & Development, My Publications, Thoughts on the World | Leave a comment

Practical Enterprise Integration

I’m speaking at the IRM Enterprise Architecture Conference 2011, in London next week. My topic is “Practical Enterprise Integration: Realising the Benefits of a Strong Canonical Architecture”. In the paper I discuss the evolution of an EAI environment at National Continue reading

Thursday, June 2, 2011 in Agile & Architecture, My Publications

Some Good News

I’ve just had a bit of excellent news – my submission for the 2011 Enterprise Architecture Conference in London has been accepted. The provisional title is “Practical Enterprise Integration – Realising the Benefits of a Strong Canonical Architecture” and I’m Continue reading

Tuesday, January 18, 2011 in Agile & Architecture, My Publications, Thoughts on the World

First Bibble Plugin Published

I’ve just published my first plugin for the popular image processing suite, Bibble. CAQuest manages chromatic aberration correction, so if you find yourself always having to apply correction for “purple fringes”, this is the tool you need. To find out Continue reading

Saturday, December 11, 2010 in Code & Development, My Publications, Photography

Integrating External Content with WordPress

I’ve been developing andrewj.com for about 15 years, and although I’m not that prolific I’ve built up quite a lot of content. I recently converted my blog from an old bespoke (= “custom”, for my American friends) solution to one Continue reading

Thursday, August 12, 2010 in Code & Development, My Publications, Website & Blog

Lots of News

Quite a lot of news… Migration of our web sites and email to the new hosting server is almost complete. See previous article/rant for some of my findings. After some initial frustration with my hosting provider (WebFusion) when I discovered Continue reading

Wednesday, June 16, 2010 in My Publications, Personal News, Photography, Thoughts on the World, Website & Blog

My Grand Circle Tour

My “Grand Circle” tour of Southwestern USA: what worked, what didn’t, and how to avoid sleep deprivation and scurvy! Continue reading

Wednesday, January 2, 2008 in My Publications, Personal News, Photography

Enterprise Architecture Conference 2006 – My Paper

A paper on Agile Architecture which brings together many of my ideas for the first time Continue reading

Tuesday, June 20, 2006 in Agile & Architecture, My Publications, Thoughts on the World

A Fast Diff Algorithm

An implementation of a Diff algorithm in VB.NET, with various techniques to improve performance Continue reading

Monday, February 21, 2005 in Code & Development, My Publications, Thoughts on the World

Modelling an Enterprise Data Architecture

A new approach, based on UML, for modelling the real complexity of Enterprise Data Architecture Continue reading

Saturday, December 6, 2003 in Agile & Architecture, My Publications, Thoughts on the World

Strategies for Flexibility

My 2001 paper on how to design systems for flexibility Continue reading

Tuesday, September 4, 2001 in Agile & Architecture, My Publications, Thoughts on the World