Tag: development

Posted on

Building A Photo Capture App With Apache Cordova and jQuery Mobile

Apache Cordova is a platform for building native mobile applications using common web technologies, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It offers a set of APIs that allow application developers to access objects such as audio, camera, and filesystem on mobile devices using JavaScript. Meanwhile, jQuery Mobile, one of the best mobile web application frameworks, allows developers to create web applications that are mobile-friendly. Here’s how you can use Apache Cordova with jQuery Mobile to create a native Android application that can capture camera photos or get photos from the gallery and save them on a device’s SD card.

via Build an app to capture photos using Apache Cordova and jQuery Mobile.

This looks like a fun weekend project. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Posted on

Tauberer On Creating A Good API

Let’s take the common case where you have a relatively static, large dataset that you want to provide read-only access to. Here are 19 common attributes of good APIs for this situation. Thanks to Alan deLevie, Ben Balter, Eric Mill, Ed Summers, Joe Wicentowski, and Dave Caraway for some of these ideas.

via What makes a good API? Joshua Tauberer’s Blog.

This lengthy article provides an interesting set of points that anyone creating an API for a data set or service should at least consider as they create. I think it’s worth listing the points here, but be sure to go read the article to get all of the details. Then think of these things when you are creating your API.

  • Granular access
  • Deep filtering
  • Typed values
  • Normalize tables, then denormalize
  • Be RESTful , and more
  • Multiple output formats
  • Nice errors
  • Turn intents into URLs
  • Documentation
  • Client libraries
  • Versioning
  • High performance
  • High availability
  • Know your users
  • Know your committed users more
  • Never require registration
  • Interactive documentation
  • Developer community
  • Create virtuous cycles

I think it is also interesting to consider these points when you are developing applications that consumes data or services through an API. If the API you are using is deficient on any of these points consider contacting the API’s developer to see about making the API better.

 

Posted on

Google Chromecast Now Open To All Developers

When Google launched its Chromecast HDMI dongle, it only allowed a small set of developers to create applications for it. The company always promised, though, that it would soon open the platform up to all developers. Today, it is doing just that.

Developers can now download the Google Cast Software Development Kit and build Chromecast support right into their apps and websites. The company says integrating the SDK is “simple.” Developers do have to pay a $5 registration fee, though, which gives them access to the Google Cast SDK Developer Console so they can register their apps and authorize devices for testing.

via Google Opens Chromecast To All Developers | TechCrunch.

This is good news. I can’t wait to see HBO Go and the Xfinity TV apps on Chromecast. It will be interesting to see just what gets developed for this. I wonder if Miracast compatibility will be coming too.

Posted on

Google Harnesses Apache Cordova To Bring Chrome Apps To Android And iOS

Google’s offline Chrome Apps are about to find their way to both Android and iOS. Using Apache’s well-known open-source Cordova platform for turning web apps into native apps, Google today launched a developer preview of a toolchain for building native apps using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.Using these tools, developers can take their existing Chrome Apps, wrap them into a native shell and submit them to Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

via Google Brings Chrome Apps To Android And iOS | TechCrunch.

Seems like an a promising path for developers that are using frameworks like JQuery Mobile to build out websites into native apps. Requires the use of node.js and the Android or iOS SDK.1» I’m certainly looking forward to trying this out.

Of course the iOS SDK requires you work on a Mac. The Android SDK will run just about anywhere.Powered by Hackadelic Sliding Notes 1.6.5
Posted on

Building the latest and greatest PHP on Debian Wheezy

How To Build PHP 5.5 (PHP-FPM & FastCGI) With ionCube Loader, Zend OPcache And APCu For ISPConfig 3 (Debian Wheezy) | HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials – http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-build-php-5.5-php-fpm-and-fastcgi-with-ioncube-loader-zend-opcache-and-apcu-for-ispconfig3-debian-wheezy

This lays out the details for building an advanced instance of PHP. Steps are run on Wheezy but may work elsewhere.

Posted on

Coder: Learn to Code in a Web Browser With This Version of Raspberry Pi

Coder is a free, open source project that turns a Raspberry Pi into a simple platform that educators and parents can use to teach the basics of building for the web. New coders can craft small projects in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, right from the web browser.

via Coder for Raspberry Pi.

Just watching the video below is enough to make you want to get coding. This is yet another example of how the Raspberry Pi can change our relationship with computers.

Posted on

How Twitter Runs And Runs And Runs

Everybody has this idea that Twitter is easy. With a little architectural hand waving we have a scalable Twitter, just that simple. Well, it’s not that simple as Raffi Krikorian, VP of Engineering at Twitter, describes in his superb and very detailed presentation on Timelines at Scale.
If you want to know how Twitter works – then start here.It happened gradually so you may have missed it, but Twitter has grown up. It started as a struggling three-tierish Ruby on Rails website to become a beautifully service driven core that we actually go to now to see if other services are down. Quite a change.

via High Scalability – High Scalability – The Architecture Twitter Uses to Deal with 150M Active Users, 300K QPS, a 22 MB/S Firehose, and Send Tweets in Under 5 Seconds.

Read the article for a good summary of how Twitter runs. As noted, it isn’t all that easy anymore. The entire 38 minute talk is worth listening to, especially for anyone with an interest in designing next generation web apps.

One of the key points in the talk is that Twitter isn’t really a web site, it’s really an API with a web application built on top. The work is in getting the API to run as fast and as effectively as possible. The tech used to accomplish this is interesting because it isn’t just a bunch of database tables, and it is the future of the interactive web.

Posted on

Ars Technica Reviews a New Developer Focused Dell Linux Ultrabook and They Like It

Earlier this year, [Dell] announced a pilot program, “Project Sputnik,” intended to produce a bona fide, developer-focused Linux laptop using their popular XPS-13 Ultrabook as base hardware. The program turned out to be a rousing success, and this morning Dell officially unveiled the results of that pilot project: the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition.
The XPS 13 used in the Developer Edition features a number of upgrades over the pilot Project Sputnik hardware, including an Intel i5 or i7 Ivy Bridge CPU and 8GB of RAM the pilot hardware used Sandy Bridge CPUs and had 4GB of RAM. The Developer Edition also comes with a 256 GB SATA III SSD, and retains the pilot versions 1366×768 display resolution. The launch hardware costs $1,549 and includes one year of Dells “ProSupport.” Additional phone support options arent yet available.
The laptop comes with Ubuntu Linux 12.04 LTS plus a few additions. Dell worked closely with Canonical and the various peripheral manufacturers to ensure that well-written, feature-complete drivers are available for all of the laptops hardware. Out of the box the laptop will just work. They also have their own PPA if you want to pull down the patches separately, either to reload the laptop or to use on a different machine.

via Dell releases powerful, well-supported Linux Ultrabook | Ars Technica.

Important additions to the pre-installed Ubuntu 12.04 include to new Dell sponsored open source projects, Profile Tool and Cloud Launcher, designed to make life easier for developers. Overall this sounds like an excellent machine for serious developers, especially those looking for an alternative to the Apple world.

 

Posted on

Try Netbeans PHP IDE for WordPress Development

http://www.wpmayor.com/articles/best-ide-for-wordpress-development/

For fully-fledged regular WordPress development [try] using Netbeans for PHP. It has features like code completion, easy WordPress function reference, project management, database editing, file comparison, FTP, debugging facilities and much more. It can also be extended through plugins available on the Netbeans website. Having all these features integrated into one IDE makes it easier on the developer as it eliminates the need to switch to other windows to access applications (for example Filezilla, PHPMyAdmin etc.)