Babatunde Adeyemi's Blog

Ruby on Rails Tutorial, 2nd edition (updated for Rails 3.2)

2012-01-30T21:31:00.000-08:00

Michael Hartl’s free has helped a lot of people to learn the voodoo that is Rails and Michael is currently updating his ebook for Ruby 1.9 and Rails 3.2, and of course, the update is still available online for free. This initial release consists of the first five chapters, and each week he plans to release 1–2 additional chapters until the full book is out. You can sign up for the Rails Tutorial News Feed to be notified when new chapters are ready.

The second edition includes many new features:

Fully updated for Rails 3.2 and Ruby 1.9
Coverage of the new asset pipeline
Behavior-driven development (BDD) with Capybara and RSpec
An introduction to Cucumber for writing client-friendly tests
Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets with Sass
Better automated testing with Guard and Spork
Rolling your own authentication with has_secure_password

GTBank is becoming more innovative

2012-01-30T21:12:00.000-08:00

One of the newest solutions from GTBank is the 'SKS Teen Mastercard', which enables you to send money to your teenager anywhere in the world. With this, GTBank is trying to create compelling solutions for teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 which will enable them to also have their own Mastercard which can be used worldwide.

Good one on that GTBank.

Free “Starling” book from O’Reilly

2012-01-29T06:47:00.000-08:00

O’Reilly has just released a free book on the Starling Framework written by Thibault Imbert. This is essentially an updated and enhanced version of the getting started PDF that he wrote around the time of the release. Here is the abstract:

Starling is an ActionScript 3 2D framework developed on top of the Stage3D APIs (available on desktop in Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3). Starling is mainly designed for game development, but could be used for many other use cases. Starling makes it possible to write fast GPU accelerated applications without having to touch the low-level Stage3D APIs.

Most Flash developers want to be able to leverage GPU acceleration (through Stage3D) without the need to write such higher-level frameworks and dig into the low-level Stage3D APIs. Starling is completely designed after the Flash Player APIs and abstracts the complexity of Stage3D (Molehill) and allows easy and intuitive programming for everyone.

Thanks to Thibault for creating a great beginner resource for Starling. You can also check out Lee Brimelow's video tutorial on Starling at gotoAndLearn.

Is Femi Fani-Kayode any Different?

2012-01-28T07:42:00.000-08:00

A fellow encountered this with Femi Fani-Kayode yesterday on Facebook:

Adegbesan Adekoyejo:

Very well said, i want to begin to look at you as the new because u still look young and you are very intelligent, however i am odds with that reasoning, perhaps because you served under another wasteful government where the vice and the president exposed their dirty linen in public. I am not one taken to sycophancy sir, i also suspect we might see you in 2015, or maybe not. Are you able to tell us using the luxury of your facebook page what you achieved as Minister of the Federal Republic during your tenure and why the allegations against you are not true. I am sure we have so many like me who will like to know sir. That said, excellent piece as always!

Femi Fani-Kayode:

@Adegbesan, young man, this posting is not about me but about our country and in any case who appointed you as the judge over me or anyone else? If you want to know about my achievements when I was in public office four years ago please go and ask your father (if he is still alive) or go to my website and read up on it. Meanwhile I have nothing to prove to you and neither do I care what u think of me or the government that I served. Do yourself a favour and think about what is happening in your country today and where it is heading rather than obsessing about me and what I may or may not do in 2015. Even though you are still very young make your own contribution to national affairs and try to focus on the message of others rather than being fixated on the messanger. I assure you that your problems in Nigeria are much bigger and greater than FFK or OBJ. We have had our time...let's see what you will do with yours.

Adegbesan Adekoyejo:

@FFK, thanks for sending me to my Father and that was such a good way to answer an innocent question. Did i strike a wrong nerve? I do not judge people but allow them to serve to us their achievement in service, i have not accused you of any ills, but the questions i asked will still come up in the future. Nigeria is boiling at the moment and we all know and should work towards ensuring it does not disintegrate for which i see you clearly do, that said, tough questions await you in 2015, regardless you are such an intelligent man and i enjoy your write-ups but was that reply intelligent?

At this point, another fellow, Ajayi Sunday Joseph commented:

@FKK, well scripted sir. I love you so much. but you are too hard on Adegbesan.

Two minutes later, Femi Fani-Kayode deleted the post.

Five minutes later, he deleted me as a friend on Facebook. - Alhaji Oshine Oyedeji

What do you think of Femi Fani-Kayode before now, and right now?

Neurotechnology Develops Biometric Technologies for Low-Power Android Devices

2012-01-11T08:48:00.000-08:00

A software development and algorithms developer for biometric, voice and object recognition technologies, Neurotechnology has expanded its biometric technologies offering to include the VeriFinger Embedded SDK, the VeriLook Embedded SDK and the MegaMatcher Embedded SDK (software development kit) for finger biometrics, facial biometrics and multi-biometric systems, respectively.

The latest embedded biometric technologies developed by Neurotechnology have been designed specifically for mobile platforms such as compact, low-power devices like handheld computers, smartphones and tablets. These advanced products incorporate the same algorithms as the PC counterparts of MegaMatcher, VeriLook and VeriFinger, thus ensuring AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System)-level accuracy in terms of recognition quality and usage.

With a 1 GHz processing speed, it hardly takes a second for VeriLook Embedded or VeriFinger Embedded to process and identify face images or fingerprints. The initial release version of MegaMatcher Embedded includes both VeriLook and VeriFinger biometric algorithms. Subsequent versions of the MegaMatcher will include voice and iris biometrics as well. The embedded technologies require the same biometric templates and API as their PC counterpart, thus enabling easier and faster migration to embedded applications. They support Android operating system version 2.2 or higher. Neurotechnology will also enable support for WinCE and ARM Linux operating systems.

The software development manager, Pavel Cuchriajev stated that since mobile platform support is crucial to biometric applications, the new embedded product line has been developed to support the Android platform. Cuchriajev added that this new feature opens several opportunities for development of end-user biometric solutions.

VeriLook Embedded, VeriFinger Embedded and MegaMatcher Embedded are available as a software development kit that can support web-based or stand-alone biometric solutions for devices running on the Android OS.

Huawei Unveils the World’s Slimmest Android Smartphone

2012-01-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

Huawei unveiled the Ascend P1 S, which it claims is the world’s slimmest smartphone.

Running on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, the Ascend P1 S is only 6.68mm thin; in comparison, the Motorola RAZR is 7.1mm thick and the Samsung Galaxy S II is 8.49mm thick. In addition to its super slim form factor, the Ascend P1 S is also the fastest and most compact smartphone in its class, with a dual-core 1.5GHz processor with 1GB of RAM.

The Ascend P1 S boasts a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with HD resolution of 960×540, toughened with Corning’s Gorilla Glass for extra durability. For imaging it comes with a back-lit 8MP camera and a front facing 1.3MP camera.

Read more

Amazing Newsletters to Subscribe to for Web Designers/Developers

2012-01-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

Listed below are newsletters you can subscribe to get once-weekly top stories of the week for Javascript, Web Design & HTML5:

The US Says Goodbye to IE6

2012-01-04T21:45:00.000-08:00

Time to pop open the champagne because, based on the latest data from Net Applications, IE6 usage in the US has now officially dropped below 1%!

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Web browser, Frontend and Standards Feeds to Follow by Paul Irish

2012-01-04T21:39:00.000-08:00

Paul Irish recently created some feed bundles that you can follow in Google Reader. While a lot of conversation has moved to Twitter and G+, hugely useful information is still published regularly to blogs.

It's easy to click through and subscribe in Google Reader. There is also OPML files if you want to take them elsewhere.

JavaOne 2011 Videos Now Available for Viewing/Downloading.

2012-01-03T00:53:00.000-08:00

Oracle and Parleys are working together to bring a lot of JavaOne 2011 content online for you to watch/download.

A total of 48 sessions are currently publicly available on Parleys.com, and have been viewed over 75,000 times already.

You can find all the content in the Java > JavaOne 2011 space on Parleys.com.

The Inside Story Of Tech's Hottest Startup

2012-01-02T00:42:00.000-08:00

Here’s that rare Steve Jobs story that has never been told, about the company that got away.

Jobs had been tracking a young software developer named Drew Houston, who blasted his way onto Apple’s radar screen when he reverse-engineered Apple’s file system so that his startup’s logo, an unfolding box, appeared elegantly tucked inside. Not even an Apple SWAT team had been able to do that.

That company is Dropbox. You can read the full post at Forbes.

Prettify your Google Android Emulator with these Nexus S & Nexus One Skins

2011-12-31T07:42:00.000-08:00

Heiko Behrens recently created high-quality skins for Samsung Nexus S and HTC Nexus One for use in the Android emulator. Every Android Developer knows that the emulator by default comes with an ugly looking skin that looks more like something from the 90s when you compare it to the look of the Android phones out there.

He was able to create the skins with their native screen resolution at a superb image quality. They offer a glow effect when hovering over the hardware buttons, render a subtile drop shadow on both orientations and come with smooth corners on every edge. However, the outstanding feature of this set of skins is the fitting overlay image that can be put on top of the actual emulator screen. The skins were based on the great work of Alexander Gillis.

To download the skins and to read instructions on how to put them to use, read more on his blog.

Mozilla Firefox has been given a new Lease of Life by Google

2011-12-31T07:26:00.000-08:00

Google will pay Mozilla almost $300M per year in search deal, besting Microsoft and Yahoo to be the default choice in Mozilla’s Firefox browser, a huge jump from its previous arrangement, due to competing interest from both Yahoo and Microsoft. Google is committing close to a billion dollars to bankroll a browser which is a rival to their own browser.

At $300 million a year, it’s just about three times the size of the last deal ($128M) they signed with Mozilla back in 2008.

That high price might have stemmed from the bidding war between Google and others (Microsoft & Yahoo) and from subsequent anti-trust issues. When it was originally reported that the Google/Mozilla search deal had expired, I thought the end might have come for Firefox, but that is not to be the case any longer with Google's new deal of almost $1 Billion they just signed with Mozilla.

Congrats to you Firefox on the new lease of life.

Not all Nigerians are scammers

2011-12-30T15:59:00.000-08:00

Sure, we do have a lot of such bad eggs in this country, but not all of us are scammers.

If you can't see the white of their eyes, don't dare to offer any form of assistance to them, else you'd be scammed. And don't be desperate for any reason.

It's the bad eggs that spoil the broth. Never knew we have so many of the such scammers from Nigeria in Malaysia & Singapore right now.

To reduce the scourge, the penalty needs to be much more than just deportation. Deportation isn't sufficient enough to scare scammers from doing their thing. Get that!

Video: When Apple’s Siri Kills People.

2011-12-22T12:09:00.000-08:00

If Apple’s hands-free assistant Siri one day turned against the human race and transformed into a freakishly evil killing machine, well, that would really, really suck. However improbable, that hypothetical situation is exactly the fodder Rooster Teeth Productions used to create the “Siri: The Holiday Horror Movie (Trailer)” clip below.

The clever spoof shows Siri taunting, attacking and killing a group of friends who all received the iPhone 4S for Christmas. At one point — in its familiar female voice — Siri quips, “Life has no meaning. It’s true, you’re alive and then you die, you die, you die, die, die, die … ” After that, all hell breaks loose.

Hilarious, but come to think of it...

Google Launches Android Training for Aspiring Developers

2011-12-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

It seems that two can play at the same game Microsoft began months ago in trying to pull more developers to the platform. Google’s Android team has just launched some online training sessions to help aspiring developers create their own magic.

Android Training is the name of the program, and so far it includes as many as 11 general sections, 34 lessons to help you get started. We’re not really sure how much of a developer you already have to be in order to not have a hard time following through these courses, but for a free price tag, you can’t lose.
Reto Meier, part of Android Developer relations, said:

“From designing effective navigation, to managing audio playback, to optimizing battery life, these classes are designed to demonstrate best practices for solving common Android development problems. Each class explains the steps required to solve a problem, or implement a feature, with plenty of code snippets and sample code for you to use within your own apps. We’re starting small and this is just the beginning for Android Training. Over the coming months we will be increasing the number of classes available, as well as introducing over-arching courses and sample apps to further help your development experience.”

Head on over to Android Training to get started.

The Click Through Rate (CTR) of different Mobile Devices

2011-12-15T06:17:00.000-08:00

Inner-active did a good job on enlightening developers about the CTR of various mobile devices.

The Open Governance Index – A new way of measuring openness (Infographic)

2011-12-15T05:01:00.000-08:00

The Open Governance Index is a way of measuring the relative openness of 8 major open source projects, from Android to WebKit.

Source: VisionMobile

The 3 Pillars of Google’s Strategy

2011-12-13T13:16:00.001-08:00

Google’s strategy is all about ads, not selling services and their three-pronged strategy for making money are the key drivers for the company’s success.

Google is in the first place an advertisement business, as an overwhelming 96% of its revenues come from digital ads. The three pillars of Google’s strategy are what enables the company to sell more ads for more money. Google increases its reach by flattening any obstacle that stands between its ads and eyeballs. Then, Google expands its visibility to the user by providing services, creating more opportunities to show ads. Finally, the company squeezes the maximum out of those opportunities by mining user data, which allows them to understand and target users very efficiently.

In conclusion, Google doesn’t give away all its consumer services for free out of the goodness of its heart. Its purpose is to make profit. If services are provided for free, they are meant to flatten, expand and mine in order to sell advertisements.

Read the full post here

Creating Beautiful & Compelling Android UIs

2011-12-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

Android isn't known for beautiful UIs, but you can fix this. In the talk below, Eric Burke shows how Square customizes every aspect of the UI to create delightful user experiences. Through real code taken directly from Square, we'll see how to create custom views that defy expectations.

If you develop on Android, you should watch the video in it's entirety.

Wife of Rovio Exec Wears Angry Birds Dress to Finnish State Gala

2011-12-11T09:34:00.001-08:00

Angry Birds don't just make good games, they're also great for formal dress, it seems.

Read the full story here.

Chocolate City Group & Pepperoni Foods Win $50,000 As Finalists At the 2011 African Awards for Entrepreneurship

2011-12-11T01:07:00.001-08:00

Chocolate City Group, Abuja, Nigeria, and Pepperoni Foods, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, each won $50,000 at the 2011 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship on Thursday, this week. First Atlantic Semiconductors and Microelectronics Nigeria Limited from Nigeria was also one of the 10 finalists in the competition, though they weren't part of the participants that won $50,000. The following participants were the 10 finalists in the competition, out of which Zimbabwe’s SECURICO came out tops and won the grand prize of $100,000:

Cellular Systems International, Senegal
Pepperoni Foods Limited, Nigeria
Chocolate City Group, Nigeria
SECURICO, Zimbabwe
Expand Technology (Holding) Limited, Mauritius
soleRebels, Ethiopia
First Atlantic Semiconductors and Microelectronics Nigeria Limited, Nigeria
Unique Solutions Company Limited, Gambia
InvesteQ Capital Limited, Kenya
Victoria Seeds Limited, Uganda

The ten finalists underscore the diversity of entrepreneurs in the competition, representing eight countries including Ethiopia, Gambia, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The top ten, which includes three woman-owned businesses, work in a range of industries, from software to entertainment to agribusiness.

“The winners of the 2011 Africa Awards represent a diversity of backgrounds, industries, and geographies, but they also share a common determination in building and scaling a successful company,” said Matt Bannick, Managing Partner of Omidyar Network. “We congratulate each of the winners, and welcome them to the Awards’ growing network of business leaders who are fostering innovation, job creation, and positive social impact from within Africa.”

To determine the winners, finalists gathered in Nairobi to present to a prominent jury of African business leaders and investors. The panel was chaired by Malik Fal, Managing Director of Endeavor. The jury also included some of Africa’s most prominent entrepreneurs and investors, including Kamal Budhabhatti, CEO of Craft Silicon and Grand Prize Winner of the 2010 Africa Awards; James Manyika, Director of the McKinsey Global Institute; Ayisi Makatiani, the CEO of Fanisi Capital; and Tokunboh Ishmael, co-founder and Managing Director of Alitheia Capital. The winners were evaluated on profitability; return on investment and growth; long-term business strategy; leadership, culture and values; investment in employees; innovation to address market needs; and contribution to the community.

The grand prize winner, SECURICO, based in Harare, Zimbabwe, provides guarding services and electronic security solutions, and is the first security company in Zimbabwe to be ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) certified. SECURICO has more than 3,400 employees, 900 of which are women, making it the largest employer of women in the private sector. The company exemplifies the vital role played by entrepreneurs in creating economic growth, prosperity, and realising opportunity in Africa.

A record 3,300 companies from 48 African countries submitted entries to compete for the Grand Prize of US $100,000, and six additional prizes of US $50,000 each, including the new Coca-Cola Award for an Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur, granted to Victoria Seeds, an agribusiness based in Kampala, Uganda. The Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship recognizes and rewards business leaders who embody the entrepreneurial spirit and qualities required to succeed in business and who are the inspirational role models for the next generation of African entrepreneurs.

Congratulations to all the winners, and we give big kudos to Chocolate City Group, Pepperoni Foods and First Atlantic Semiconductors and Microelectronics Nigeria Limited for doing Nigeria proud at the competition.

A Graphical Deep Dive into Android's 10 Billion App Downloads

2011-12-10T05:52:00.001-08:00

The app with the lucky number 10 billion is Photobucket Mobile and they’ll be getting a great prize package, including tickets to next year’s Google I/O developer conference.

Google still has a few days to celebrate 10 billion app downloads with 10-cent apps on Android Market. That's like buying an app for less than N20, in Nigerian currency. What are you waiting for? You can follow which apps are promoted each day on +Android, their Google+ page.

Constructive Solid Geometry 3d Modeling in JavaScript and WebGL (csg.js)

2011-12-09T02:13:00.001-08:00

Constructive Solid Geometry (CSG) is a modeling technique that uses Boolean operations like union and intersection to combine 3D solids. This library implements CSG operations on meshes elegantly and concisely using BSP trees, and is meant to serve as an easily understandable implementation of the algorithm. All edge cases involving overlapping coplanar polygons in both solids are correctly handled.

Evan Wallace, the same guy who brought us that amazing WebGL water simulation is back at it again, this time with a library called csg.js for doing Constructive Solid Geometry modeling in JavaScript.

The models above were created with this code:

var a = CSG.cube();

var b = CSG.sphere({ radius: 1.35, stacks: 12 });

var c = CSG.cylinder({ radius: 0.7, start: new CSG.Vector(-1, 0, 0), end: new CSG.Vector(1, 0, 0) });

var d = CSG.cylinder({ radius: 0.7, start: new CSG.Vector(0, -1, 0), end: new CSG.Vector(0, 1, 0) });

var e = CSG.cylinder({ radius: 0.7, start: new CSG.Vector(0, 0, -1), end: new CSG.Vector(0, 0, 1) }

Pretty impressive, uhm? Be sure to check out the demos. And here's the code on Github.

Source: BadassJS

Mobile Performance Manifesto

2011-12-09T02:09:00.001-08:00

David Calhoun recently wrote an excellent post, “Mobile Performance Manifesto”, which summarizes a lot of research that has been done. If you are into mobile web development, you should read this.