Who is Steve Roome and why would you read his blog?

My name is Stephen Roome, and I am a Senior Managing Consultant at IBM Global Services in the UK where I specialise in complex system integration projects.

I have been in the IT industry for over 30 years. I first learnt to program in Fortran writing characters onto squared paper and translating the results onto punched cards that were then fed into a mainframe. Over the years I have learnt and used other languages including BCPL, PL/M, C and C++.

As I got more senior in the IT industry I lost the opportunity to write code and instead led the work of others. At IBM I have been an advocate for Linux and open source software. I have promoted the advantages of open source software both internally and to numerous customers. The projects I have led over the last few years have tended to be written in Java using Eclipse and run on Linux. However until recently I had never used Java, Eclipse or even logged onto a Linux system.

As I entered my mid fifty's I decided that I needed to get back in contact with state of the art technology. Thinking about a cool project to do in my spare time I wanted to combine my interests in DSP and Linux. I also believe that the future is going to be a world of applications on devices rather than on PCs. So I started thinking of applications that I could develop on Android.

Over the last 6 weeks I have downloaded and installed eclipse and the ADT plugin. I have learnt Java, carried out the hello world and three Notepad tutiorials on http://developer.android.com/guide/tutorials/. I have gone on to write two enhanced versions of Notepad and used the android tools to debug them.

Along the way I have recorded what I learnt and the hints and tips that helped me - and I hope they will help you. If you are also learning about android then maybe this blog is for you.

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