Tuesday 24 January 2012

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Not really Android related, but I just upgraded to ubuntu 11.10 and had the re-install gnome (I hate Unity). All was pretty good but I just couldn't figure out how to get gnome-panel settings to show. Every report I found on the web says it was <alt>+<right click> but for me it is

<winkey>+<alt>+<right click>.

Anyways, just though I'd add that, as I said, everywhere else says its <alt>+<right click>. Possibly the key binding was in use and it selected another.


On an Android note, if you are on Ubuntu 11.04  and having issues with eclipse (mouse not working!!) then do an upgrade to 11.10. All is good here.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Notes from planet of the apps ...

The planet of the apps conference was a nice event, quite small but a good line-up of speaker (including yours truly). Though the speakers were a bit iPhone centric mostly, most of them seem to worried about 'fragmentation'. I still think there is a lot of misunderstanding about Android out there ...

Some highlights for me were:

Mobile apps dragons den (day1): Nerad Marovac (DN Capital) and Frederic Court Advent Ventures) represent angel investors and helped explain their investment strategies. It was interesting to see their perspective. Some like to go for early stage startups ( when they have have input on the product) and others go for growth stage (where the product is proven and the company needs to expand)

Magic solver: is a market platform that has had quite a lot of experience in building app downloads. The model involves giving free apps out and up selling. People sure do love free ...

App longevity: This was a panel discussion on factors surrounding an apps lifetime. There was a lot of concensus that utility apps would be longer lived, but probably wont attract the sales levels in a short that games do. As well as strategies for keeping people interested (e.g. regular updates, the need for UX).

And of course: Re-enabling the cloud: My Presentation about considerations when choosing a cloud provider. Mainly:
  • Make a decision early on the data you want to keep as storing it forever just leads to increasing costs.
  • Be careful of lockin to a cloud API. Platform as a service (PAAS) providers (e.g. Azure, App-engine) generally have customised APIs, that will likely require significant recoding of you want to move. Though this is likely a function of their limited age and more are building support for standard APIs
  • Here are the slides PPT, ODP


Here are some notes I made in Vectoroid for anyone interested (they are a bit unstructured): Day 1
Day 2&3

Sunday 2 October 2011

Planet Of the Apps Presentation. R-enabling the cloud ...

I will be presenting at the "Planet of the Apps" Confrence (website) on 6th October. The topic is "R-enabling the cloud, continuing the natural migration from PC application to mobile app" (programme).

The conference has a great line-up speakers, and no doubt will be very informative. Hope to see you there. Bit of a shame about the overlap with DroidCon, but hey its mobile week (http://londonmobileweek.com/), so there bound to be some crossover with other events. Perhaps it should have been "mobile month".

DroidCon UK, 6-7 October 2011

Looking forward to the upcoming DroidCon UK (6-7 October 2011) (http://uk.droidcon.com). It promises to be a must see for Android developers with loads of presentations from Google, HTC, SONY Erricson, and loads of community members. Hope to see you there:

Droidcon London Oct 6-7