Flex Camp

Currently attending live flex barcamp at Adobe, SFO. Hardly can keep up with the excitement flowing through all the participants. Makes a real intresting place for networking.

There is great pizza's being served for all those who are hungry or want to energize with a beer. The first 2 presenters were basically about startup companies who have built their product entirely using flex -
1. www. makebooks.com
All about creating an online book. The experience of using the application was fabulous.
2. www.sliderocket.com

Ever wondered if you could create an online presentation , well sliderocket does just that with style.
Next presenter is from Adobe Products section giving a cool demo on how different products like illustrator,fireworks or flash can be easily integarted with flex.

A simple illustration about using Skins and changing the look and feel of the buttons and other containers can be done with ease.

Blogged with Flock

Waiting for the next BarCamp ! Are we there yet ?

Waiting for the next BarCamp ! Are we there yet ?  Originally uploaded by dangerous_minds

Web 2.0 and PHP

Amit started by invoking everyone to reflect on
what do we mean by Web 2.0 ?

What are the tools needed to develop Web2.0 app ?
html,js,server tools(PHP/Perl/Python/Java/etc).

Why are people using PHP ?
Amazon and Yahoo are the biggest consumer of PHP, why !

Lower h/w req which helps scale faster.
Faster to learn - which makes it easy to write bad code aswell.

A lot of reflection so far
And a lot more debate on this aswell

Trying to understand how to use PHP at enterprise level development.
Zend Framework has been released thats Good News .

PHP Frameworks for Web 2.0
- code igniter
- joomla
- cakephp
- symfony
- zend framework

Howto Design Firefox Addon

Vinod has a filler session on Firefox addons development which
began 2 weeks back as a developers itch.

xulplanet.com has the required information about firefox addon
development. Java script is the core language for designing the plugin.

Plugin extension has the format as .xpi
We require to unzip the file after download to view the code.

Typical extension layout -
install.rdf - installation and setup instructions.
chrome.manifest - defines the content to be installed.
chrome manager - where all chromes are registered.

Actual code is written in .js (java script) files.
If you have an idea about java script , coding plugins would be
pretty straightforward.

For debugging purposes use Firebug to test and fix bugs in the
plugin. Show Chrome errors option needs to be turned on to
catch faults in the code.

Once you are ready use the standard steps mentioned to package
the plugin as a .xpi file. Would require to include certain installer
javascript file which is needed to install the code on firefox.

Piggy Bank Architecture helps integrate java applications as browser
plugins aswell. So enjoy pugin development.

Sharing Digitized Content for Learning

Current Software Development Culture -
Demand of latest tecnology skills which are not taught in any
institutes. The large gap between the skills available and the lack
of those skills is training. People are not ready to take time to teach
the new talent the required technologies or skills.

Digital Study Hall - http://dsh.cs.washington.edu/
Skilled teachers in rural areas. DSH rural schools, hiring highly
educated teachers for their work. Digitising education content which
is produced by hubs. Video content is used to stimulate the class
with the help of a facilitator to teach the rural classes at elementary level
onwards.

We have a call to create technical content , we as in professionals who
have come to understand technologies or software. It would help some one
new to the technology if knowledge is shared in the form of tutorials-as-videos.
Community Courseware editing system - curriki.org - is being used here.

Interesting stuff happening in the community - eg. - javablackbelt.com
Now your online contribution and profile is your portfolio or resume to
further your career.

Freeman has a skillscamp@googlegroups.com where he plans to collaborate with
potential contributors .

Face Book and Ruby on Rails

Abhijit introducing Facebook application development platform.

Actually making API's / Applications open, which belongs to the user who
creates it. Applications developers create applications and host it on facebook.
Users can add urls to use these registered applications.

Applications are required to be tested standalone before its uploaded
online. If you have created an interesting application you may become
famous or infamous for it. Popular applications could lead to more revenue
for Facebook. Whats in it for the app-developer is the question.

Rfacebook is a Ruby on Rails library used for facebook development

Open Source for Entrepreneurs

Listening to a Open Source development model open source s/w in retail , sme etc.
for experienced or freshers interested in being enterpreuners.

The model followed uses teams having people interseted in working for themselves.

Technologies : erp, openlazlo etc.
Standard Billing rates : 40-60$ per/hr.
Clients : SMEs
Incubation period : Defined for each open source project team.

Salary packages offered are on par with industry. In addition revenue
upto 20 % of the billing gets shared with employees.
Minimum salary or Revenue Sharing which ever is higher.

Clients : Companies who require to implement projects without having to bother about
setup and maintenance cost for infrastructure etc.

They are planning on introducing the idea of opensource
coorperative for software development in the retail segment.

Paritosh Pungaliya & Ajay Sanghni have presented an idea that most entrepeuners
would love to hear .

2D / 3D Game Development

Rakesh (codewalla.com) introduced the idea of Casual games using
a flash which works everywhere ie. desktop,web etc.

He gave a demo of a hidden objects game - Beach Spy -
which they plan on porting to flash 9 due to release of some
new features eg. JIT compiler & scene graphs.

They are also combining games with 'Video Ads' which
appear when a hidden object is found.

The easter egg of the meeting was a 3D framework called Torque Engine (http://www.garagegames.com).

Game development with Torque is quite simple , without much coding.
They require to work on customization and layout related stuff.
Any changes to the logic is usually done using Torque scripting.

The games could be made to run with Xbox aswell.
All the components/tools for the landscape, charaters, theme etc.
are provided just like lego blocks . The gaming developer has to
work on challenges and concepts for the game using the tools.

He gave a demo of a simple Aztec era game. Where the goal was
to shoot down the approaching figures with a cross bow.
Although the arrows kept missing the target we probably understood
the whole point of the demo.

Torque Game Engine has the required components which can be reused
with simple changes. Also the software is cost effective compared to other
commercial tools. There is a full commercial version for about $100 available
with source code. A 30 day trial version is also available.

A good question was about game development in the mobile market.
Currently Flash has almost 90 % of the market in this area. A large market
to penetrate for other gaming tools.

Eclipse All coding environments

Listening to an eclipse IDE framework by Ketan . We are looking at the plugin architecture and development. Probably every coding environment is supported through eclipse. I know for sure cause I've seen good developers using eclipse for Python,PHP and even Flex - in addition to Java.

Companies like Nasa and IBM have used the framework for development. A short and precise capture of the technology. Cant see much questions being asked though.

Image of Bar Camp !

Image of Bar Camp !
Originally uploaded by dangerous_minds

Would have loved to see something Puneri on the logo.

If we were to add an outline (eg.shaniwar wada fort)
it would have added some local flavour.

Thats just my thoughts , although the logo does look clean with 2 colors and a neat umbrella.

Bar Camp Pune 3

Hope to re organize and have some good coverage of Barcamp Pune 3.

Here's to Live Blogging versus Reflective Blogging.

Would definitely try to avoid quick scribling of one liners.