Using the Android-x86 Port as your Emulator
a faster alternative to the Android SDK emulator
Just a few notes on how to use the android-x86 port and Virtual Box to run a faster performing emulator. Although the current stable release is for 2.2, work is already underway for 2.3. I'll also show how to set the display size of the VM / emulator so that you can test screens in familiar phone sized screens and not just tablet sizes.
And looking ahead, by using VirtualBox (also open source) there's a potential of additional benefits such as more hardware virtualization options (from camera to opengl) to the ability of using RDP for remote access (yes, cloud testing) and the ability to move running VMs from one machine to another ("teleporting").
Securing Your Android App
Why LVL (Licensing Verification Library) isn't enough
I recently gave a talk at both the NYC-GTUG (Google Technology User Group) and the AndroidNYC Meetup about the piracy issue with Android applications, how to use LVL and it's shortcomings. Here are the slides and some additional notes.
Building Android Development Tools (ADT) Eclipse Plugin - UPDATED
Building the Android Development Tools
Since the appearance of the tools_r8 branch on the AOSP repo (with merges into the master branch) I haven't noticed anyone else discuss the new Eclipse plugin features yet so I figured I'd preview them in a blog here even though they are soon to be released as part of the upcoming Android SDK update. I'll also review how I built the Eclipse plugin from source and propose some ideas on how the community can improve the plugin and tools.
Update: Since 2.3, 3.0 SDKs are now available I've updated build instructions - snapshots are now also available for upcoming ADT versions at the revamped http://tools.android.com