Codecademy Screenshot

Codecademy Javascript Course

If you have ever been interested in learning how to program you need to check out Codecademy.
I just wish it was there when I started uni. It would have made programming so much easier (and fun). With a very Simple UI and well written exercises, I can see Codecademy becoming a great resources centre bring what great tutorial websites such as Lynda.com doesn’t; Interactive exercises. Worth checking out for fun. I just completed the Javascript exercises. If you got stuck on a few exercises I’ve got the answers here. (Make sure you at least try to solve the problem on your own before looking at the solutions)

Kewyn Appadoo

iCal Image icon

Snow Leopard iCal Mobile Me Stop Working After Update to iCloud

If you are like me and your iCal Mobile me Sync has stopped working after you’ve updated to iCloud, as you are still running Snow Leopard 10.6 ….this might be a way to get it back up…

1. Backup your iCal (Just incase)

2. Go to iCal > Preferences > Accounts

3. On the Bottom Left Click on the + symbol

4. Add an Account

Account Type: CalDAV
Username: iCloud Username (remember to put the whole email address example@me.com)
Password: iCloud Password
Server Address: pXX-caldav.icloud.com where the XX represents the server it’s hosted on

Mine was p06-caldav.icloud.com, if you are wondering what’s yours log onto iCloud, create an event and invite yourself. When you get the invite click on it, it should open in a web browser and the pXX should be in the URL

If you never receive your email, try to connect to iCloud on a Lion computer. Go to iCal and go to iCal > Preferences > Accounts from there go to the server settings and you should find the pXX in there.

Post a comment if you got it working, or know of an easier way!

Kewyn Appadoo

New Facebook iPhone App

Facebook iPhone App goes Native

After some clumsy User Interface Design on their website, facebook has decided to redeem itself by publishing an update for their iPhone and iPad application. Facebook apps are now native to iOS. There have been some rumours around facebook trying to bargain the best deal between HP  & Apple.

To start with, the app took some time to load, once it got there it crashed once or twice.

But then, amazing things started happening. Very nice animations during the function / option transitions. I also really like the new menu that they have built, very tasteful, simple and elegant.

Nothing better than an app that’s intuitive to use and just works. If you haven’t already update your phone or ipad.

Some quotes:

With improved search and browsing, the facebook.com features you use most are now just a touch away. It’s a faster, fuller Facebook for iPhone.

- Games & Apps: Play games and access your favorite apps on the go

- Navigation: Send a message or see your notifications from any screen, and swipe to browse Facebook without losing your place in News Feed

- Bookmarks: Your groups, pages and apps are all in your left-hand menu, and the ones you use most are right on top

- Search: Search for anything on Facebook—people, apps, pages and more—without having to click around or switch views

- Security: We’ve added a few updates to make the app more secure

Kewyn Appadoo

Cloud Hosting Cloud Technology iCloud

What is Cloud technology? How can you use Cloud hosting for your business?

Ever wondered what is actually that “cloud” that everyone is talking about? Cloud Hosting or Cloud Technology is hosting or a technology that’s elastic. The capacity grows as required. For the iCloud it basically means that you can keep getting more space for your data and that you can use different devices to access your data that’s stored on the “cloud”.

How can cloud technology help your business?
With Cloud you don’t have to pay for what you are not using! Simple.
Ever wondered…
Why pay $100′s of dollars for bandwidth and hard drive space on a server when you are only using a very small portion of it while building your business?
What would happen if tomorrow your business appear on TV or one of your Viral Campaign kick off and you have several million of users visit your site? Long long will it take for you to upgrade to a new server and move your website across?

This is where cloud technology comes through. As visitors comes it grows “elastically” and allow for more bandwidth use and accommodate for your prospects. Once your campaign dies down, your hosting will go back to it’s normal state! Elastic!

You have got a website where you allow users to contribute,…videos, images, audio files. Why purchase Petabyte and Teraflops when you would probably not require that in months or years…opt for elastic hosting.

In short
Cloud Servers are on demand virtual infrastructure for running web sites, applications, and databases that require scalability and reliability.
Pay as you go
Rapid Scalability
Instant Provisioning
Easy Load Balancing

Where can you get cloud hosting? My favourite provide is GigeNet Cloud. If you are keen let me know and I’ll write a post comparing several cloud providers.

Kewyn Appadoo

iPhone Screenshot Instagram

Instagram iPhone Icon

Every so often I experience something totally unexpected. This is usually the result of someone thinking outside the box, and had the courage to stand out in the crowd. I updated my iPhone today with Instagram latest release. Their new icon is just absolutely magnificent. Compared to the older version it’s so fresh, detailed with so much attention given to the gradient and intensity of the colours.

The tasteful gradient around the bottom edge with the curves allows for a great 3D type look. To whoever designed that icon, well done. It’s a work of art!

Kewyn Appadoo

Art is amoral, it's a matter of individual taste

At some point you must have thought about outsourcing. I’ve been dealing with contractors for the past 5 years. Used private companies (Local, National and Off Shore), website such as getafreelancer.com and even off shore companies that will hire an employee full time for you.

Using Private Companies (Local or National)

They can gather requirements for your project if required
You will usually deal with the project manager who will take care of the whole project for you
No need for you to have much technical knowledge, just a good idea of what you want and how it should work

Using ‘getafreelance.com’ type website

You need to gather the project requirements
Write an SRS (Software Requirement Specification) document – You need to outlines every function of the program that you want to get built

Example of a user function

1.1 User shall be able to add a new product
1.2 User shall be able to edit a product
1.3 User shall be able to delete a product

Setting Milestones for the delivery of certain parts of the Project.

Sort out the payment

Non – Disclosure Agreement

Delivery of source code and structure

Quality Assurance

Using an Offshore Company

You’ll need to know how to Manage Contractors (very different from your office staff)
Some companies offer you the ability to view the contractors computer to monitor their progress

What projects they will be working on?
I usually divide those in 2

Major and Minor Tasks
A major task is the priority project and the minor tasks are “fill-in” tasks that the contractor can work on if there are any issues with the major task that will need someone else attention to it.

How long will the project last?
You can hire Full-Time or Part-Time Staff

What hours will they be working?
Remember that they might be in China, India, Philippines…

What are the public holidays and work legislation in their country?

And the general things to consider

Proven work
Never contract someone that you have not seen their previous work, used or tested it.

Built to Maintain
Make sure that whoever works on your project, the code is commented and clear so that you will be able to send the work to someone else after the contractor is done to maintain the project.

Test
Make sure you test every milestone that you set

What work should you not get contracted offshore?

Because of the culture difference I’ve kept all the design contracting in australia. It’s a culture thing, I have yet to hire a contractor from another country with artwork that am fully happy about. Art is amoral, it’s a matter of taste.

I’ve worked with wonderful offshore staff and their programming style, speed and quality are absolutely exceptional. But you might need to go through a few staff to find the right one that works right with you.

Kewyn Appadoo

UI-Stencil

UI Stencils with Sketch Pad for iPad and iPhone User Interface Design (Mockups)

UI Stencils really do make quality products. I’ve purchased their iPhone Stencil Kit, iPhone Sketch Pad, iPad Stencil Kit and iPad Sketchbook. Absolutely value for money, they will impress and don’t feel cheap. It’s great to be able to have proper sketch pad to be able to give you a good idea of ratio and how it would look.

One this not to under estimate when designing an iPhone / iPad or any type of software is to go through every “page” or scenario possible. This will save you money and product development time. The way I’ve started doing my sketches is by treating it like a story board, making sure that every button and interaction with the software is taken to the very last follow through action possible.

Why use a sketch page for your iPhone or iPad User Interface Design instead of a software? It’s really a matter of preference. If I’ve got an important presentation I would usually take my sketches and ‘digitalise’ them.

Colours are important, make sure you get some quality markers such as Copic Markers. Colours ignite part of my creativity and will definitely impress when I have to showcase my work. Some people would rather see the pen drawn sketches and every scenario of their app rather than one or two sketch that took you hours do put together.

Remember that gathering requirement is crucial, so the storyboard style layout will make it easier to check with your client if this is what he or she actually wanted.

After making your User Interface Design (UI) creating a Software Requirement Document (SRS) will just be so much easier.

I’ll put a Software Requirement Document Template for iPhone / iPad soon. (Just need to release the project first)

All that to say that if you are thinking about getting some UI Stencils, I highly recommend them.

Kewyn Appadoo

Brisbane Semi-Permanent Brochure

Pick 2: Fast.Good.Cheap

At the start of August I went to the Semi-Permanent conference in Brisbane. One of the speakers was Eddie Zammit founder of T-World. During his presentation he mentioned a very interesting idea which I found to be very true. When you get approached to get something done, the request would be along the lines of “I need something Fast, Good and Cheap.” Unfortunately those 3 don’t usually work well together.

So pick 2 out of the 3
Fast and Good: It won’t be Cheap
Fast and Cheap: It won’t be Good
Good and Cheap: It won’t be Fast

That said, this week we’ve completed a project that was meant to take 6 months in 3 weeks, at a third of the allocated budget and it looks outstanding. So I guess you can find Fast, Good, “Under Budget” if you’ve got the right people working for you. Check out the Lifestyle Trader WebApp in my Portfolio

Kewyn Appadoo

The ultimate situation where nothing else matters apart from being able to create change

The best “jobs” in life are those that you love doing. It’s those jobs that you would do for free, that you wake up in the morning excited about the new opportunities and possibilities that it opens up.

At times people find the drive to sacrifice a ‘good life’ for something greater than themselves. The discontentment of a situation, turning their passion (at times their anger)
into something worth sacrificing all they have to make things better.

We are now talking about the ultimate situation where nothing else matters apart from being able to create selfless change. I believe that we find peace within ourselves when we are where we are meant to be, and do what we are meant to be doing.

Kewyn Appadoo

If your brilliant idea doesn't contribute to you reaching your final goal, it may be a distraction. Ditch it!

People come up with brilliant ideas all the time. But very often nothing is done about it, not even the step to research and see if the idea would be worth turning into reality. There are several reasons for this, the most common ones are usually

1. Low complete personality
Entrepreneurs are great thinkers, but it’s hard for them to action. If they do take their idea into action, they start with a burst of energy but then end up giving up on the idea, as they are now running with something else which they will end up not going through as they have come up with something more “brilliant”.

2. Lack of Know-How
Everyday people who just would like to know how to approach their idea, and turn it into reality. They might work at a fast food restaurant, in a accounting firm, as a school teacher. They see how the process fails and they know how to make it better, but they might not have the expertise to make it happen.

3. Too Comfortable
Those are the people who really can’t be bothered. They have a comfortable life and don’t see any reason why they should take into action any of their ideas.

Realising that those factors could be what’s stopping you is the start of you having to deal with them.

For those that push through their ideas and make them happen. Does your idea distract you from your final goal?

4. Your Idea distracts you from your goal
If your brilliant idea doesn’t contribute to you reaching your goal, it’s a distraction. Ditch it!

Kewyn Appadoo