Hello World,
Less than two days from now (it’s Jan. 3rd, 2013) I will be taking a trip to the city that *really* never sleeps … Las Vegas, NV!! Recently, I won an All Expenses Paid trip to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas. While there I will be enjoying ALL that Vegas has to offer including participating in my 5th Hackathon, the CEA/MoDev Hackathon, held at CES and sponsored by the Travel Channel. You can get more information here – http://www.meetup.com/modevdc/events/94385142/comments/142895202/?itemTypeToken=COMMENT&a=ed1_17&reply=1&_af_eid=94385142&_af=event
What’s a Hackathon you say? It’s a competition where developers, designers, and other I.T. students and professionals gather together to network and create software applications within a specific amount of time. I find these events to be a lot of fun and very challenging (I love a challenge). You get to meet a lot of really smart people and learn about various technologies. It also tests your knowledge and skills and reveals how well you perform under such trying conditions. In the end you can end up with a potentially commercial application. At worst you will learn what to do and what not to do when challenged with such a difficult deadline. All in all … you will either love it or hate it.
Yes, I competed in 4 previous Hackathons – one in New York City and three in Virginia. My team and I won prizes in 3 out of 4 of these events including taking the global grand prize in the 2012 AppOlympics in held in New York City! So what plans do I have for the upcoming Hackathon in Vegas? While I can’t tell you what we will be creating at the Hackathon (’cause then I would have to wipe your memory – wink) I will give you a summary of the technologies we will be using:
Intended OS/Platform: iPhone and iPad using HTML5, CSSS3, and Javascript for Mobile
Development Tools/Platform:
appMobi XDK – testing and deployment,
WebStorm – source code editing,
Adobe Fireworks – graphics design
Javascript Language/Libraries:
jQuery libraries OR jqMobi libraries (I still can’t decide which I will use),
Sprite3D.js – 3D visualizations and animation
CSS Libraries:
Twitter Bootstrap – easy element styling,
jQuery OR jqMobi (I still can’t decide which I will use)
Cloud Services:
appMobi XDK – app deployment and push notification
Kii Cloud – cloud data storage, access to Facebook, and access to Twitter
I can tell you that it will be a travel related app and that we have dozens of pages of hand-drawn sketches describing our app (Rule #1: No coding before the Hackathon begins). After 4 successful Hackathons I have found that this combination of tools and technologies enable us to quickly create a working application prototype. However I am always open to suggestions and I am always willing to learn more (such as Angular.js and Sencha).
So stay tuned to this site as I submit updates about my experiences at the AT&T Developer Summit, CES, and the CES Hackathon. What about my free time? Well somethings have to stay in Vegas.
Ciao
The World Wide Web According to ... 