I use Eclipse for all sorts of stuff including Zend PDT, Android SDK and C++. I like to keep my desktop looking well organized and looking professional. I never liked the default Eclipse icon that came with the Linux installs, so I made my own for Eclipse and Zend PDT icons with transparency that look snazzy with blending in GNOME panels or Avant Window Manager.

I just finished getting the Android SDK installed and running (with emulator) for the open source Google Phone dubbed Android. The SDK comes with a nice plugin for the open source Java IDE, Eclipse. After battling a little with the my installed Java SDKs, I was able to get the emulator and compiler working beautifully. The GUI in the emulator is already outdated and will be replaced by a different one in the actual release.

It is quite nice to have all this running on my Ubuntu laptop, using an open source OS, with an open source language, with an open source IDE, for an open source phone. Google is hosting a competition for new applications developed with this SDK. I will of course be taking a whack at it, hopefully getting somewhere. Keep an eye out for updates on my wins and losses with this adventure.