The past weekend I had the pleasure of attending Web Afternoon Augusta. It was a great experience, featuring speakers from all facets of the web experience, ranging from developers to designers, teachers to practitioners, and authors of the web to consumers of the web.

The event

Web Afternoon is a series of mini-conferences centered on the web and making it the best it can be. Held in various cities across the country, the event characterizes itself as “TED, but for the Web.” Just like TED, each event features dynamic presentations by some of the most charismatic and forward-thinking members of their field. This edition of Web Afternoon took place in Augusta, Georgia. Other events are held in areas like Charlotte, Boston, Atlanta, and Charleston.

On the Road to Augusta

The Speakers

Deke Copenhaver, Mayor – Augusta, GA

Web afternoon festivities were kicked off by Deke Copenhaver, mayor of Augusta. He applauded the event, noting it as part a trend of continued tech engagement in Augusta. He also noted another trend in the area, a “Rise of the creative class”, something he supports greatly.

Dr. Leslie Jensen-Inman, Unicorn, Author and Self-Proclaimed Generalist

Dr. Jensen-Inman spoke of the importance of being a generalist, a theme reiterated throughout Web Afternoon. Being a ‘jack of all trades’ is becoming necessary due to the changing corporate landscape, where companies are afraid to hire specialists; they instead want someone proficient on many fronts. Compartmentalism is a “career limiting move”, preventing many from achieving their potential.

Another motif of the talk was the rift between academia and industry. The landscape has been likened to two bodies of water that are close, but not touching, much to the chagrin of graduating students in search of employment. To combat this problem, students are encouraged to broaden their skills, especially into those traditionally known as ‘soft-skills’. It is these skills that are part of the picture in setting prospective employees apart and helps foster a positive experience once employed.

Alex Sok, Co-Founder – Elluva

Alex gave a talk on start-up culture, more specifically how to generate and nurture your start-up culture. He laid several ground rules about this effort:

• “It’s not the guy with the most resources who wins, it’s the guy who is more resourceful”: Start-ups usually have limited resources. It’s in this scarcity that ingenuity shines through.
  
• “Start where others leave off”: Many times, people abandon an idea or pursuit right before it blossoms into fruition. Don’t be afraid to take a partially explored idea, build upon it, and make it your own. This is how some of the greatest success stories were formed.
  
• “Show, Don’t Tell”: Don’t just talk about your great idea; get up and do it. The ‘doing’ step is the step where many get caught up; many great ideas are never executed. Or as was repeated throughout Web Afternoon: “Shut up and Code/ Get to Work” #sugtw
  
• Core Values: Make your values an extension of your core values. Core values aren’t something that’s created as part of marketing campaign; its who you are and what you are really passionate about. What you do is important, but who you are is even more important.
  

Bowe Strickland, Curriculum Manager – Red Hat

Bowe Strickland gave us an interactive presentation on the state of Open Source movement. Some highlights from his talk include:

• We are entering an era of cloud to mobile computing
  
• The web is built on open technologies
  
• There are two software models: the Cathedral and the Bazaar. More and more we are seeing the Bazaar prove itself to be agile and effective into today’s quickly evolving world of software.
• Luther’s 95 Thesis was influential because it didn’t stay nailed to the door. It was redistributed and circulated much like many influential pieces of literature, thanks to the printing press. The open source model of software is proving to be just as big of a revolution as the printing press.
• We are entering an era where we don’t need many copies of things. We find many services / objects that we had to duplicate are being replaces by 4 or 5 competing services that can be mass consumed. I.e. instead of buying and keeping maps, we’re using Google Maps or one of its competitors.
• Media is beginning to be owned by the culture, not an individual. Business models are shifting from offering individual selections of media (i.e. a movie or a song). Instead they are offering access to a library of media on a monthly subscription model.
• Solutions can now be published and shared instantly. Problem solutions (i.e. softare) can be published / pushed immediate out to communities of individuals. Examples include github and linux package managers (apt-get, yum, and the like)

Jared Spool, CEO and Founder – User Interface Engineering

Jared Spool shared the secrets to creating an epic portfolio.

Tips:

• Design is the rendering of intent. Therefore your portfolio needs to answer, what was the intent of your work and how did you make this happen?
• Great design comes from how you work. An epic portfolio needs great work.
• The end of the journey (your finished product) is often the least interesting part. You have to show the journey you used to arrive at a product. What was your thinking / what were the challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them?
• Many think the cornerstone of a skilled individual is talent. Its more about experience and taking the time to learn and hone your skills. Jared estimates that 80% of creativity is learned. Don’t be afraid to show what you’ve learned i.e., tools, techniques, knowledge of users, and knowledge of business and domain.
• Think about your accomplishments versus your completions.
• You need to show what you are good at that’s rare and valuable while showing what you are excellent at that’s common and expected.

What makes a portfolio epic?

• It tells the hiring manager exactly how you can tackle their challenges
• it shows your intentions and how you’ve rendered designs to match them
• it focusses on the journey, not the end product
• It focusses on all your skills, not just visual design. This includes your team skills.

Dr. Anthony Robinson, Professor – Georgia Regents University

Dr. Robinson shared some thoughts about effectual entrepreneurship.

• Innovation is the essence of entrepreneurship.
• For every dollar you spend on technology, you spend 3 on marketing.
• A business plan breaks down how you spend money to make money.
• When starting a business find out what people want. Business intelligence is critical. Conduct focus groups.
• Focus groups come in all shapes forms and sizes. It can be you surveying your local area; or something a lot larger leveraging the Internet to reach a far wider audience. The key is to capture information and make that info work for you.
• Communication is key – form connections, collaborate, share your ideas.
• “You dont have to be great at everything, you just have to be great something”
• The internet and growth of the global economy has created an environment where anyone can compete. No longer do companies have to focusing on the creation of infrastructure. Take advantage of existing structure to compete on a global scale.
• Be an agent of change.

Bryan Veloso, Designer – Github

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/bryan/hybrids-rule-everything-around-me

Bryan gave a talk entitled “Hybrids Rule Everything Around Me”. He continued the theme that specialization is dead. He proposes that instead, this is the age of the hybrid and tells the story of one successful hybrid, himself.

No longer can any web professional get by in today’s ecosystem without diversifying. A true engineer can understand design and development, the technical and the creative and thrives at the intersection of both.

You can build everything from the ground up, you just need a little push. Let’s use the ecosystem to your advantage. Exchange knowledge with those around you and as an example, invest your time in open source.

Bryan had some extremely relevant nuggets of wisdom that developers should live by:

• The first step is the hardest. Get out there and BUILD something. Even if you don’t ‘ship’, you will still have learned a lot.
  
• You learn by scratching your own itches. This echoes the sentiment that programmers are hackers; we solve problems. A nice addition to this is that we learn by solving those problems.
• When designers know how to code, it eliminates the void between design & development.
  

Jenn Downs, Design Researcher – Mail Chimp

Jenn shared with us some of her research and insight into the world of automated advertisement, especially the pitfalls many large companies encounter in their automated marketing efforts. Through all of the failures some patterns (and tips) emerge:

• When you send an email have the mindset that you are interrupting someone. With the ubiquity of mobile devices which are always connected and connected to our email events, people are instantly bombarded and interrupted with email.
  
• When everyone else is trying to automate everything, using a little human intervention can be a competitive advantage.
  
• Empathy cannot be automated
  

Bermon Painter, Designer / Developer

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/bermonpainter/digital-manufacturing-7-lessons-learned-on-the-assembly-line

Bermon Painter discussed some lessons to be learned from the assembly line, a topic that may be considered anachronistic for a web conference, but still provides several valuable lessons for any company / group looking to produce a product service.

• Pay enough so that money is no longer a motivation
• Have the flexibility to recover quickly when things go wrong
• Agile Processes provide fluidity to deal with problems as they occur.
• Give employees autonomy to improve processes
• Regarding Waterfall / Agile / Lean / other methodologies: We try too much to shoehorn in process to fit methodology. Instead we should figure out what to build, then make a process to efficiently make that thing
• A constant backlog is good; it provides continual work and is part of the process
• Creation is a shared activity. You must be able to count on your team
• Practice generalized specialization. Over time learn the whole process of developing something. Then strive to attain mastery.

Carl Smith – nGen Works

Web Afternoon was capped off by a talk by Carl Smith all about learning from our mistakes and moving on in spite of them.  As he noted, “When things go wrong, it’s an opportunity to do something amazing”.  Indeed Carl.  I hope everyone who was at Web Afternoon found some inspiration to do amazing!

Photos

For more images, check out the event summary at Epilogger

A New Look

Over the years, Droidweb has gone through quite a few redesigns (at the rate of about one or two a year). On each iteration, we’ve tried to improve the site usability in various ways. This update focusses on a few areas:

• Responsive: Droidweb.com is now fully responsive. Whether you’re on your phone, tablet, desktop, or laptop, it shouldn’t matter. And now at Droidweb, it doesn’t. All content should be accessible from any screen. There are a still a few rough edges being ironed out (mostly in the area of third party included on the site), but we’re making progress every day.
• Coming soon – Content Accessibility: There’s a lot of stuff that’s been shared on Droidweb.com over the years. App reviews, website and tool recommendations, tutorials, op-eds, and much more. In the coming weeks, all of this content will be combed through and organized under a few categories so as to make the content a lot more accessible.
• Holo is Beautiful: It’s no secret: the Holo theme and design guidelines for Android applications is pretty awesome. It really makes app designs beautiful, usable, and more accessible for the less strictly design-minded among us. The new Droidweb redesign attempts to bring some of that awesome to this blog. As you can see, the page takes advantage of elements of the Holo design including color scheme and some page elements.

A New Mission

Generally Droidweb has focused on Android developments. It has transitioned from being more of a general Android news source to trying to be more of a developer’s resource. Many times there has been content that should be shared, but has been glossed over because it didn’t strictly apply to Android. However, the landscape of the increasingly mobile web has changed since Droidweb was first started. Android has grown considerably since the days of m5-rc14 and has established itself as a force to be reckoned with. Responsive web design has grown from being a industry underground buzzword to being a design imperative. And HTML5 is gaining adoption by the day (including being supported on IE).

While Android will remain a core topic of discussion here at Droidweb, the scope of topics will be broadened a little to include the web at large. In today’s state of technology, web development (whether it be a web app, a responsive page, or something else) is just as important as native development and the two are being inextricably intertwined. As such Droidweb is going to include more information about web tech at a higher level, including how it affects us inside the Android ecosystem.

Thanks

As always I’d like to take a second and thank you, the reader. Whether a Droidweb regular, or a new visitor, you’re a vital portion of the site; without you there would be no Droidweb. Keep on being awesome, and don’t be afraid to engage with the content on Droidweb. Feel free to tweet, share, and comment what you see here. And if you’d like to see a particular topic covered, feel free to let us know that. Droidweb is interested in what you’re interested in!

What are some of your favorite Android memories?

Image courtesy of Android Guys via Kinvey.com

So the wait is over.  We finally know what the ‘new home on Facebook’ really is.   More or less Facebook has developed a new Home Launcher for Android and they’re touting it as a large disruptor in the mobile space.  According to Zuck, this new development will make the mobile experience more people-centric as opposed to app-centric.  Here are my two cents about the new device.

Nice design

From what I’ve seen, I do like elements of the design.  The use-case of “Don’t interrupt whatever I’m doing just to answer an incoming message” is a very real use-case (one of the ones that led me to developing Voice++).  To have something to deal with this is useful.  However I do feel Facebook shouldn’t need to infuse my entire android experience with my news feed (and ads) to achieve this.

No tablet support yet?

What is going on with this app that’s so screen-size dependent that tablets aren’t supported yet (and won’t be for a few months?  I’ve always been a big proponent of screen agnostic design (whether it be responsive, fluid or otherwise well thought out).  I’m scratching my head at the moment trying to figure out what can’t scale up to the tablet.  Maybe the news feed isn’t ready to support pictures with that level of quality yet?

How about services that happen to not be Facebook?

I use Facebook messaging very sparingly and I don’t use standard SMS (why would I with Google Voice?).  Therefore why would I use Facebook Home?  There better be some hook that allows developers to integrate other services with this tool.  Another philosophy of mine is that, whenever releasing a product for wide consumption, you should not only provide the platform, but the means by which the platform can be utilized beyond the original intent (a la APIs are a beautiful thing).

HTC First: Where are the specs

I’m sure there were some initial oohs and ahhs at the thought of a $99 phone (is this the subsidized price or full price?), but I’m a little concerned regarding specs.  The Facebook app itself has yet to shed its well-deserved initial reputation as a notorious resource hog, and I have little cause to believe that this ‘Home’ product won’t be the same.  Will the hardware be able to keep up with the software?

Note: The rumor mill has provided some specs on the HTC First (formerly codenamed Myst).  Its reportedly packing

• 4.3-inch 720p HD display
• Dual-core Snapdragon 400 processor
• 4G LTE support
• Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
• And a host of FB applications

Some of these questions will take time to answer; it will be interesting to see how this product develops over time.  Anybody out there really interested in getting a hold of the HTC First or Facebook Home launcher?  Why?

Introducing Android Niceties

Android Niceties is a Tumblr blog “collection of screenshots encompassing some of the most beautiful looking Android apps.”  If you’re ever looking for some design inspiration or just want to see some cool apps, check this page out

Where else do you seek out good Android design?  Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter (@droidweb)

As promised, I’d like to share a project I’ve been working on recently with the Android community.  As you might have seen from some of my past posts, I am a huge Google Voice user.  One day while using the product it hit me; “Wouldn’t it be cool if my texts popped up on my screen and I could quickly reply without leaving whatever I happened to be doing at that point?”  Thus Voice++ was born.  Still in its early stages, V++ provides quick reply functionality to your existing Google Voice application.

Usage

To use Voice++, install from the .apk below (after reading the warnings and notes).  Log into your Google Voice account (it needs to be the same as the account you’re using for the standard Google Voice application).  Enjoy!

Screens

Login:

Successful Login!:

A typical message popup:

Notes

By downloading the link below and installing Voice Plus Plus on your device, you agree to the following:

Voice Plus Plus is provided with the understanding that the project is in its early (read: Pre-Alpha Stages).  Things are broken.  Voice Plus Plus comes with no warranty and is released on an AS-IS basis.  I am not responsible if this application breaks, causes you to miss that really important sext, fires ze missiles, or otherwise inconveniences you.  If something does go wrong, drop me a comment below, or a tweet @droidweb and I will assist you how I can.  Remember: This app is not replacing Google Voice (yet); its extending Google Voice.  Also by downloading you promise to leave some sort of CONSTRUCTIVE feedback.  That means more than ‘this sucks’ and more ‘I couldn’t access my texts in situation X’ or ‘I would like to see Y’.

Ok now that we got that out of the way, here are some other notes:

Known Issues

• I haven’t fully gotten to text whether the text receiving works immediately after phone reboot.  So if you happen to get a text right as you restart your phone, you will either miss the first text, or the notification will appear late.  Not sure if this is an actual bug, or just a quirk in my tests so far.
• When you receive a text initially, you will get both a notification from Google Voice, and the popup.  Disable Google Voice text notifications if this annoys you.

Questions

• The icon sucks bro!: I know.  I am not an artist.  I will work on improving the icon sometime in the future.  If, in the meantime, someone wants to donate an icon for the project, I would be eternally grateful.
• Erm… what does this app do? Right now it looks like the app doesn’t do much, but after logging in with the same Google Voice account you’re using on your device, Voice Plus Plus will intercept incoming text messages and place a convenient popup on your screen, allowing you to quickly respond.
• Where’s the source?  I’m getting on that.  Expect a github link posting later this week.

Download

Enough talk already!  Here’s the download!

GoogleVoiceExtender.apk

JavaCSV is a library born out of the .Net DataStreams framework.  It promises good performance, low resource usage, and near unparalleled scalability (I have yet to test them out on the last claim, but so far I’ve gotten good mileage from the library).  Usage is quite simple:  just grab the .jar from SourceForge, import it into your project as described in Adding an External .jar to your Project, and read your file via the CsvReader class.  Here’s a snippet where I’m reading a file from the /assets folder within an AsyncTask:

protected Integer doInBackground(Void...voids){
// load the .csv file from assets
try {

CsvReader fileReader = new CsvReader(getAssets().open("file.csv"), Charset.defaultCharset());
fileReader.readHeaders();
while(
fileReader.readRecord()){
String unitName = units.get("")

}
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Handle Failure to get file
}
return numUnits;
}

Got any libraries you’ve found really useful in your Android development?  Let us know in the comments or over at twitter @droidweb!

Android snippets are a new section of Droidweb which detail a simple process in Android Development. However, in spite of their size, don’t dismiss these mini-tutorials

Occasionally you’re going to need to reference other people’s code (OPC) in your Android projects.  Usually this is done in one of two methods: either you import the other project as a library project (if you’ve ever used ActionBarSherlock, you’ve done this), or you include the project as a .jar file.  In today’s Android snippet we’re going to focus on the later.  The process is really simple (a drag n’ drop and a right click is all you need to do), but not doing this properly can lead to headaches at run time.

Things you’ll need:

• .jar file of the library you intend to import.  Usually this is a downloadable from the site of whatever project you’re making use of

Steps

1. Copy the jar to your Android project’s /libs folder
2. Right click the jar and choose “Build Path > Add to Build Path’”
3. You’re done.  Happy Coding!

Thanks to Vinayak.B over at stackoverflow for this quick tip.  See original post.

Android toolbox is a new section on Droidweb where we feature a helpful Android tool once a week.  If you’ve got a nomination for a tool of the week, either comment below or tweet your entry @droidweb.  We look forward to checking out some of your suggestions in the future!

Ever since the introduction of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), there has been much focus on UI polish.  The developer site introduced a section overviewing good Android design principles, complete with thoughtful insights on how to design for this new generation of Android.  The OS itself gained many visual tweaks aimed at providing a more consistent and aesthetically pleasing experience.  Matias Duarte and his teams effort didn’t go unnoticed; not only did ICS mark a turning point of good feedback regarding Android’s overall look and feel, but the OS as won a few UX awards throughout the industry.

What does this have to do with us as developers?  Simply put, an implicit expectation has been placed (and for good reason) on applications that they follow Google’s lead in UI design.  Applications are supposed to play nicely with Android’s new design cues and leverage them to create a branded, but distinctly Android experience.  To assist in this effort, many tools have been developed with the purpose of exposing developers to Android UI paradigms and educating them on how to use them.

One such tool is AndroidViews.net.  This site, similar to the previously covered Androidpatterns.com, lists popular Android Design paradigms.  However, unlike some other design patterns sites, these entries are libraries which help the developer implement the UI pattern.  This means the source code (source code makes developers happy) is right at the developers fingertips.  Most pages link to their respective library’s Github page, where more details may be found.

Definite props to this site for maintaining a clean, informative form factor which emulates the Android 4.0+ look and feel itself.  Hopefully you’ll find some helpful bits here and be able to incorporate them into your application.

Happy development!

You’re going to be crazy for this one…

… or not.

Every now and then there comes along a game so far out there, so weird and tantalizingly ostentatious that you’ve got to love it. If Robot Unicorn Attack was redone by a group of lolcats while they were banging seven gram rocks you’d have Techno Kitten Adventure.

Premise

“Navigate a kitten by jetpack, fueled by hopes and dreams, through a fantastical world of techno music.”

Yep. That about sums it up. You control a kitten with a jetpack on his back through a world of narwhals, rainbows, shapes, and colors which all move, flash, and shimmer across the screen in a number choreographed to the beat of a hardcore trance song.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Techno Kitten Adventure is really simple. Just press the screen to ascend and release to drop. Your goal is to avoid obstacles throughout the level and, to a lesser extent, enjoy the psychedelic atmosphere elements of the game. Check the video below for examples of gameplay:

Comments

Great premise for game, though the execution is shaky on a few levels. Its hard to tell what elements on the screen are just there for atmosphere and which elements are actually a part of the gameplay. For example its hard to tell what things you really need to avoid to avoid dying until you’ve died to that object a few times. I also don’t like how they’ve done the free version. This version only allows you to get up to 30,000 points, (maybe 45 seconds of gameplay without dying) at which it prompts you to either replay the level or buy the game. If you’re going to do a demo, you’ve got to provide a bit more gameplay to draw the player into the game, making him / her willing to spend that $0.99 for an upgrade / unlockable.

android

Techno Kitten Adventure
21st Street Games
Free
100,000 - 500,000
Link Android Market