This is a full DNS server that appears to do … everything.
One option was to install a Windows Server virtual machine and configure a DNS server through Active Directory… er, no, thanks.Īnother option was to install a natty bit of open source software I found called Unbound. My theory was that I could then point the DNS client on the Ubuntu box to point to my Windows host.
The VMware Workstation virtual machine can be configured to use a virtual network shared with the host, so I had a scout around to see if I could configure a DNS server on the PC that would supply the missing network names.
In hindsight this seems crazy - why run an emulator on an emulator? - but the Android ecosystem is much better supported on Linux than Windows and the tooling felt, well, right when run on a Linux host.īetter, I now had a degree of redirection that I could use to crack the DNS issue. This time, one thing I do that’s different is to install the emulator on an Ubuntu virtual machine. So I take the plunge and give myself a free morning to sort the situation out. So I gave up and carried on using Chrome on the PC to test the site, which was reasonably close.Ī few weeks later and I’m further on the project but don’t yet have a real device to test the JQuery Mobile modifications I’ve made. OK, I grant you that given that each boot-up cycle took ten minutes (!) I didn’t try too hard, but it was still frustrating. Whatever it was I did, I clearly didn’t invoke the right deity, as no matter what I tried the darned thing wouldn’t resolve my host. But other sites suggested that the Android hosts file is really very sensitive to line endings, tabs, the current phase of the moon and other random variables. Rather, it uses the DNS subsystem on the phone itself.Īt its heart Android is really a Linux distro under the hood, so in theory we should find something useful in or around /etc/hosts and, yes, sure enough there is.Ī quick Google brought up a couple of sites that suggested that hacking that hosts file is quite feasible and should work. However, the emulator is its own host, which (from what I can tell) doesn’t use the DNS name resolver on the PC. Locally, the Windows DNS system checks this file for the “development” versions of the hosts first, and so all is well. The same goes for local development boxes, so to allow local IIS to work as it should we have a dozen or so entries in our local hosts file. This project uses host headers to allow multiple ASP.NET sites to run on a single IIS server. I can (eventually) get to the mobile browser and enter some sites, which work fine - at least, they work as well as they ever do on a mobile browser.īut there’s a snag: hacking the local hosts file. Slower than a real device, which is quite remarkable, and probably explains why Android apps are quite fast: developers get used to the poor performance of the emulator. Oh, and it’s slower than molasses on a January day in Gloucestershire. Don’t get me wrong, it works, but it’s just … not quite right. Only to find that – well, it’s really not that brilliant on Windows. My wife has an HTC Desire HD which is really rather cool, so off to Google we go to get the Android emulator. Which is fairly reasonable given that I’m using a three-year-old laptop.
So it’s off to the Microsoft site to download their emulator… which promptly told me that my video drivers were Just Not Up To Scratch. I’ve had my fingers burned (a bit) with previous Windows Mobile devices, but lots of people I know and respect reckon that Windows Phone 7 is really pretty good. I was so tempted to nip down to the local Apple Store and get a Mac Mini, but, given that once this job had finished it’d really just be a toy… I vetoed that one. Unfortunately another quick check confirmed that the budget wouldn’t stretch to anything capable of running an iPhone development kit. While I was on that project I reckoned it might be a good idea to use an emulator so I could test what my mobile Web site might look like in real life.Ī nice idea, but in practice it seems the mobile toolchain is… rather more full of good intentions than actual capability.Ī quick check with my product owner confirmed that based on anecdotal research on the use of mobile devices by doctors in the NHS, iOS was the primary target, with Android a distant second. Previously I ranted about JQuery Mobile and the immature state of mobile development tools.