PART II: How to implement GCM PhP Push Server for android

In PART I: How to implement GCM PhP Push Server for android, I have concluded with a function to send a push notification to a single device.
This part only describes the function that may be used to send to multiple devices the same push message.

UI Trick: Sliding content

Here is a small trick that I use sometimes to show a related content in an activity. In the back of my mind, my intention might be to mimic the iphone's presentModalViewController. This would specifically be useful when you have a list of items which users might repeatedly click items to view an Expanded view of them. I prefer to use this instead of a new Activity.

How to send status Notification android

Here is a small function you can use to send a notification in android using the new Api which recommends using Notification.Builder. It still works on older 2.2+ devices.

The main components of the Notification are the ticker, title, content, and intent:

How to create a Splash Activity - best practices

In this small tutorial, I will explain how to add 2 types of splash activities in Android:

1. Splash that shows a simple layout
2. Splash that plays a movie

While working on different projects, I discovered that splash activities are really simple to create. You just create some xml layout for your activity, create the activity, and set a timer after a couple of seconds with a Runnable that starts another activity.

PART I: How to implement GCM PhP Push Server for android

In my previous post, GCM replaces C2DM, I was just expressing my happiness of what I think is the best of the new Google Cloud Messaging.

Now this is a small guide for those who would like to add push notifications to their applications:
This part will explain how to prepare your server to send push messages. In another post, preparing the android app will be discussed.

GCM replaces C2DM

Finally! good news from the android team! The old c2dm is deprecated and the new GCM is here:
Same concept but much better features.

I need to say that the best news is that we can finally get push messages as fast as an iphone does. Put simply, we can now send to multiple devices the same push message in one request!!!!

How to play a video from resources

As am getting lots of good feedback on my answer on SO for the question How to play a video from the raw or assets folder, I thought of writing this small tutorial on playing a video in your activity.