Fast Company has launched a brand new site, Co.Labs. We couldn’t be more excited about it—in fact, we’ve been celebrating all weekend in Austin!
Just checked out the website. So exciting to see that. Excellent job.
Repacking an existing idea: Line’s Gaming Apps Pass 100M Downloads
I started using LINE under the influence of my wife. Even to date, the only friend I have online are my wife and her mother, but seeing the app evolve in the past year or so has been incredible.
My first impressive to LINE is the Asian version of Whatsapp. It does the same things Whatsapp does, except that LINE shipped with packs of sticker - larger size Emojicon featuring a serious of simple but adorable cartoon character.
LINE has the ability to let users buy more stickers. The stickers are designed to replace daily life scenarios, which sometime can be very handy. A picture says a thousand word. With the help of Siri, there is almost no typing involve for me to express my thoughts.
The sticker really is what makes LINE so sticky. I personally has spend $10 USD buying stickers so that I can keep up with my wife. As a family we spent $30 USD on that app and more to come. A much more profitable business model than of Whatsapp.
LINE gaming really set LINE apart from its competitors. The games are repackaged version of many classic mobile games such as Bejeweled. However you need to earn credit to play the games. You get free credits every day, and of course you can buy more credit to play longer. You see high scores of your friends on the leaderboard, and you know with a small amount of cash, you can just buy one more game to top the board, why wouldn’t anyone do it?
It’s a genius business module, simple and powerful. The idea has been reused so many times, but LINE still finds a way to make it better.
Line’s Gaming Apps Pass 100M Downloads http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/03/13/mobile-messaging-service-lines-games-platform-hits-100-million-app-downloads/
The Bachelor is retarded
Came home tonight. Tried to turn on the TV, but the remote failed on me. It’s finally on after 5 mins of struggle. On TV it was the part of The Bachelor where the dude talked to his parents about which one of the two he should marry after 3 days since they met each other.
As a disclaimer, I have heard jokes about the show but never watched it. If you don’t agree with what I say here, well, you just have to figure that s*** out on your own.
The Mom has got it figured out “If you are not sure which one out of the two you feel strongly about spending your life with, you shouldn’t choose”. Listen to your mom a**h***. That’s the high light of the show, to me, the only logical moment.
After that it was just the two girls talking about how much they love him, and want to be with him. Again, 3 days since they met for the first time, yet they both know he tells the same f**king lies to both of them.
When they were on a date, all she said was “I love this, it’s amazing” regardless the scenario and surrounding. Well of course that’s the only thing she had to say cuz she knew nothing about this jerk in front of her, and they are madly in love while they both know that two seconds later he turns around and makes out with and other woman and tells the exactly same lie.
I am sorry, but how is that ok to put that sh** on the f**king television? Television used to mean something. The show is sending a message about the exact opposite of what a healthy relationship is. That’s exactly why people with logic which is the majority turn to the internet for entertainment. Now that the cable companies are struggling to survive in this economy, crying about revenue decreases and lay off to stay competitive, why don’t they put something that’s more useful on TV? I am sure more people want to know how rockets are made or how chicken are killed and packaged than watching some guy having hormone control problems.
Plus if those were his real parents, well, it only proves that being dump is genetic. Can’t believe they put up with that c**p? I would kick my son in the nuts to help him cool off in that situation.
Sorry for the anger, my TV was trying to stop me from watching it. Should have known.
The easy way to phpunit and selenium on Windows 7
You are at the right place if you have been banging your head trying to get PHPunit and Selenium working together. I won’t go through all the details. Instead I will focus on the part of the process you may get stuck on.
After 48 painful hours I finally get phpuni and selenium working on my Windows 7. Though the combination seem to be widely accepted as handy tools for unit testing, the process of getting them to work together on Windows can be brutal.
I am the kinda developer who want to assemble from the ground up. Getting PHP and Apache working on Windows is straight forward. There are plenty tutorials online. However if you don’t need to run virtual hosts on your workstation, just download WAMP to avoid complication later on.
To install phpunit, you need Pear. The idea you can download, install and upgrade Pear directly from the Pear server sounds awesome, however that’s the most stressful process I have seem.
Alright, let’s cut the crap, if you found this article, you may have been though a lot of frustration like I did. Don’t want to waste you time.
From now on, check the version number of the latest stable release before you download any software. Whether it’s Pear or Phpunit. If you don’t you will run into compatibility issues later on, and you will have to start over again.
Enable crul
The Windows version of PHP 5.3.x and 5.4.x has a known bug with the cURL module. If you use WAMP, you need to make these changes before you move on:
- Download the patched php_curl.dll file from this URL: http://www.anindya.com/php-5-4-3-and-php-5-3-13-x64-64-bit-for-windows/
- Replace the php_curl.dll in your php folder.
- Copy the new php_curl.dll to Windows/Systems32
- Copy libeay32.dll and ssleay32.dll to Windows/System32
- Enable php_curl module.
- Copy the php.ini file in your Apache/bin folder to your php folder. ( try this if PHPUnit throws an error about curl_init() is undefined later although you can see the cURL module is loaded in phpinfo(); . It took me hours to figure this out )
Install Pear
Make sure you can execute php.exe anywhere in command line by adding your php directory to the value of “Path” in “System Environment Setting”. Look for the file called “go-pear.phar”, and run this:
php go-pear.phar
Install PHPUnit
If you have never use PHPUnit before, later you will find out that PHPUnit is nothing buy a bunch of php files. When you install PHPUnit with Pear, the installer registers the modules that make up the PHPUnit system. I gone through the painful lesson of taking a copy of the entire PHPUnit folder from another working station. The code just doesn’t work. The PHPUnit core won’t recognize the modules though the files are physically there. All dependencies are broken. So always start fresh. These commands will help you start clean.
pear uninstall phpunit/PHPUnit
pear channel-discover pear.phpunit.de
pear channel-discover components.ez.no
pear channel-discover pear.symfony-project.com
pear update-channels
pear install —alldeps —force phpunit/PHPUnit
That’s all it takes. If PHPUnit reports any dependency is missing but the files are there, use this command to find out where PHPUnit thinks the files should be.
pear list-files phpunit/<MODULE NAME>
if you are not sure the correct spelling of <MODULE NAME>, run this:
pear remote-list -c phpunit
If you want to figure out if you have the latest version of a module/dependency, run this:
pear remote-info pear.phpunit.de/<MODULE NAME>
So this is it
Good luck because the process really f**k’in sucks.
Inspiring video by some of the most talented people in the world
4 things to keep in mind for entry level web professionals
Image source: Office Space
As a young leader I read pretty much everything that helps sharpen my leadership skills, and I use those techniques in reality to help my team successful.
Over the period of the last 5 years in the web industry, I have spoken to students who want to take a bite of the web industry simply because, well, web developers are the modern time rock stars. Unlike the corporate world, web software development companies often embrace more loosen constitutions. Flexible hours, jeans and T-shirts, themed offices, costume day, all for easing the stress of working in such competitive industry.
We are living in the age where work environment is evolving, which is fascinating, but the way work gets done hasn’t changed much, and it will remain reflected by one formula for a long time. Time + Effort = Quality. Here are the four pieces advises I have for developers in entry level. I want to focus on this group is because that’s what my experience is. In most cases they don’t have a choice to pick what they want to do. Most of the time, the works entry developers do are repetitive, time consuming, and routines, but at the same time, these are the kinds of work that build the solid foundation of a successful web developer. It’s square one of their careers.
1. DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS. DOUBLE CHECK EVERYTHING.
Only because you have done it many times before, doesn’t mean that’s going to work the next time. Others don’t remember when things go right, but they will remember when things go wrong, and one mistake is enough to do the damage to your name, and your name will be associated with that kind of mistake for the rest of your time in that company. Even when time has done its magic to wipe out the details of your mistake, people will still use phrases like “Remember that $yourname disaster?”.
2. MAINTENANCE FIRST, DEVELOPMENT SECOND.
Whatever you are building, chances are you will be the one who will be up keeping it in future, because - well, you build it. So before you build something, think about how to build it in a way that’s easy to maintain and scale in future. Talk to someone who has done it before, learn their pain to prevent yourself from suffering it.
3. 80% PLANING, 20% CODING
Aside from fun, development is also work, which takes time and resources, and resource cost money. As developers will often focus on the technical side of the project and ignore the business side, and we feel ignored when we were told by business people that we had to apply bandage solution for various reasons. Remember the discussion about ” the PMs don’t understand what’s involved in getting this to work properly”? Well, they don’t, because that’s your job as developer and help the PMs understand.
I tend to think of development as vacations, not the all inclusive kind, more like the self-guided backpacking kind of vacations. You don’t just leave to your vacation. Instead you research, plan, create agendas, maps, reservation etc. You do that because good planing make you and those who care about your well being less stressful while you are on the road. If you don’t spend enough time planing before you take off to coding, imagining hitting the road without knowing where you are heading and what it takes to get you there? You are more likely to run in to dead ends, exhaust resource, and depends on how harsh the environment is, you may not be able to get out of there in one piece.
4. UNDER PROMISE, OVER DELIVER.
If you promise something big, your client and your boss expect something much bigger? Remember your friend back in school who promised the biggest and crazies party to get attention and everybody end up disappointed?
In fact, don’t be afraid to make promises. Sometimes promises are motivations that drive us to something much further.
When making promise, focus on the effort you will put in instead of the result you will produce. In other words, instead of saying this to your boss “I am going to get this module done by tomorrow”, say “I will do my best to get this module ready to go by tomorrow”. You are saying the same thing, but the second shift the stress to the other side of the table. He knows you will do your best, there isn’t more he can ask for, and “ready to go” implies that it’s going to be just enough to be ready but there is still room to improve. Now he is going think about what if you can’t finish the module by tomorrow, instead of sitting around to wait for your good news. MAKE YOUR BOSS WORK FOR YOU.
I hope these advises help cover your a** now and days ahead. Feel free to reach me @desmondliang
TouchMe - A jQuery plug in for handling touch events on iPhone, iPod and iPad
You have touched an iPad. Flipping page after page to skim though a digital magazine, zooming images in and out, even rotate them if you like, pretty cool uh? If you are a web developer and you want to integrate these unique input features all i-devices offer into your applications but you don’t have time to read the Object-C Bible, now with Safari mobile browser and its support to CSS3 you can bring them to your audiences by including touchMe jQuery plugin to your next project.
TouchMe currently supports tapping, swiping in eight different directions (north, east, south, west, northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest) and multi-touch features including object zooming, scaling and rotation. Each feature can be individually turned on/off. Event handling functions are fully customizable.
Implementation
TouchMe is nothing more than a jQuery extension. It requires jQuery 1.3+ to be loaded before the library is added to the web page. You can add the code below to load TouchMe and the latest version of jQuery or download a copy to host on your web site.
Once the scripts are loaded, you can associate touchMe to one or multiple DOM objects. Once this is done, the objects will react to input from the touch screen.
Download from Google Code
I am giving away $1000 to if you can find someone to buy my 2010 Mazda 3
Seriously, this is not a scam. I have a job relocation outside the country and I need to sell my car. If you can find me someone who ends up buying it, you get $1000 CAD cash, no jokes. I need to sell it quickly because it is the only piece of asset that’s holding me back. Please reach out to your network for any potential buyers. I would like to eventually deal with the buyer in person, so no international customers. Payment I accept bank draft or cash only.
If the buyer has any questions, please direct him/her to me. You don’t even have to sell to win the money. If you don’t want your referral to find out the little thousand dollar secret of ours, here is the link you can forward to your friend:
http://toronto.kijiji.ca/c-cars-vehicles-cars-trucks-2010-Mazda3-GS-Sedan-manual-27000-km-W0QQAdIdZ455446471
By the way, your friend is not paying your $1000 by buying the car, I am, because I really need to get rid of the it.
Here is an overview about this vehicle:
- Make: Mazda
- Model/Trim: 3 series /GS
- Year: 2010
- Initial purchase: August 2010 New.
- Transmission: manual
- Mileage: 27’000 km
- Body Type: Sedan
- Color: Dark Grey
- Drivetrain: Front Wheel Drive
- Fuel Type: Gasoline
- Other features: A/C, Power Window, Power Mirror, Power Lock
- Add values included: set of 4 winter tires on rim ( $800 ), 4 all season tires on alloy rims ($1500 ), full bottom rust/salt protection, extended manufacture warranty including front to back protection, road side assistance, anti theft tacking.
To tell you more about the car, brought new in summer 2010, this Mazada 3GS sedan has taken care of my business however I need her to perform. It’s the basic package of the GS model with manual transmission. On top of all the solid features packed in this GS module, your purchase includes extended front to back warranty by certified Mazada dealer till 2015, roadside assistance, an extra set of Matt black ally rims plus with all season tires, and four winter tires on rims, full bottom rust/salt protection ready for the Canadian winter.
I take care of this baby because I believe if I take care of my gear, my gear takes care of me. It has never been in any accident, no scratches or damage or any kind, and it’s never been driven outside of the GTA. It has never missed a scheduled maintenance, and I clean it in and out as often as I can, not to mention it has never had any major mechanical problems.
It’s a solid car. As a entry level sedan, Mazada’s invested to build a solid engine for the 3 series. Unlike any other brand in the same price range, you don’t find the same quality of interior in Honda civic, Toyota Corolla, Hyundai Accent or Nissan Sentra. You will realize the solidness from the heavy sound when you close the door, when you shift gears, and when you will experience stability brought to you by the 4 wheel independent suspensions and bucket seats.
Asking $14’000. You are probably thinking, the new 2013 Mazda is only $16’000. Yes, that’s true, but with shipping, tax, and basic protection plans, you will end up paying about $22’000, and still have to buy winter tires, extended protection etc. This car costs me $26k originally. Plus, check this out, here is what the salesman in the dealership tells me “The new model is the 2010 model plus alloy rims”.
All season tires on alloy rims
How to enable granularity after data added to Drupal date field
I have a date filed powered by the date module in Drupal 7 to manage the date/time of an an event content type. Initially in the granularity setting, minute and second were disabled because the event time has always been rounded to the hour (i.e. 2:00pm, 12:00am).
One day the event team want to host an event at the 30th minute ( ie. 12:30pm). With data already associated to the date filed, Drupal doesn’t allow change to granularity setting.
In fact, looking at the data, I find out that minute and second data is actually stored and default to 00:00 in the database. What I am getting stuck with is restriction in the UI level. Enabling them won’t damage data structure.
Drupal has two tables in the database managing custom fields.
field_config: contains default settings of all custom fields.
field_config_instance: Drupal allows a field to be reused in multiple content types. Each time a field is used in a different content type, Drupal create a new instance of the original field. Some settings are inherited by the children instances, others use the settings in field_config table as fall back.
Date granularity settings are stored in field_config only. You can change it in command line using mysql command. If you use phpmyadmin and it allows you do read and edit BLOB data type, it’s easier to use phpmyadmin.
Here is what I did:
1. Grab a copy of the field setting by executing:
SELECT data FROM field_config WHERE field_name = ‘[ field machine name ]’;
2. The command returns something like this:
a:7:{s:12:”translatable”;s:1:”0”;s:12:”entity_types” …}
3. Look for the part of the result where it reads:
s:11:”granularity”;a:6 {s:5:”month”;s:5:”month”;s:3:”day”;s:3:”day”;s:4:”hour”;s:4:”hour”;s:4:”year”;s:4:”year”;s:6:”minute”;i:0;s:6:”second”;i:0;}
Pay attention to ‘s:6:”minute”; i:0;’. The “s” means the option is available, the number follows immediately is the length of the label len(“minute”)= 6 in this case. “i” means the filed is inactive, and you can ignore the “0”. To make minute available on the UI, change “i:0;” to ‘s:6:”minute”’.
Update the table. ie:
UPDATE field_config
SET data = ‘a:7:{s:12:”translatable”;s:1:”0”;s:12:”entity_types…s:4:”year”;s:4:”year”;s:6:”minute”;s:6:”minute”;s:6:”second”;i:0;}…’
WHERE field_name=’field_webinar_date’;
4. Clear cache. Done.
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