Objektum Modernization In The North West 200

Objektum Modernization are proud sponsors of the North West 200 rider Phil Crowe. 

Phil Crowe has embarked on his first ride out at Ireland’s most notorious road race, The North West 200. He will be riding in two classes, the super bikes and the super stocks. Objektum Modernization are sponsors in both classifications. Riding for PCR HMT Racing Phil will be racing on the edge pushing himself to new levels; just as Objektum Modernization have been doing in the software world. 

Objektum Modernization wish Phil and the team all the best on race day tomorrow and we hope for a great result.

My First Company Tool

This week our trainee software engineer Joe has made/developed his first tool that will be used by Objektum at a customer site. He tells us about his experience.

The tool that I have written is called the FileCopier; its primary functions are to take a list of file names and search a directory and all the sub-directories within for each file in the list. Once it has found the file it then copies it to an output destination, selected by the user.

The Problem

The initial idea of the tool was simple, find a file within a nested directory structure and copy it to another directory. It was time to turn this idea into a tool. I started out by creating a simple form that would allow the user to select a file which contained a list of file names that were going to be searched for, select the directory that was going to be searched and then where the documents were going to be copied to.

The code behind the form

This was my first pressured programming experience, the deadline was very close and I didn’t have much of an idea of where to start. Getting all the buttons on the form to work seemed like a good start, and after a few initial hiccups with trying to select a directory in VB6 that will be searched, I was able to find a working solution for all the button click events.

The next part was the one that I thought I was going to struggle with; recursively searching for the file in each directory and its sub-directories. After a couple of hours of writing pseudo code and working with the VB6 file IO libraries I finally found an elegant solution. With the help of Derek and Todd I was able to implement the code that made it possible for the files to be searched and copied to the target directory.

I thought that was the tool complete but we still had some small bugs in the code. It was then time to run through and pick through every small detail and make sure that it was functioning correctly. The first problem we found was that the tool was still continuing to search after it had found the file, because we didn’t tell the program to exit and search for the next file in the list as soon as it had found the one matching the file name. Tracking down the problem was the hard part, but the fix was fairly easy once we had found it.

After a few more small changes I had created my first tool for Objektum Modernization. After tidying up the form it was ready for use.

The thought that I would have made a tool that will be used by a customer within the first year of starting my programming experience was something that hadn’t even come to mind. It made me realise that I am making good progress and I just need to keep practising and learning and it will not be long till I can contribute a lot more than just a simple tool to the company.

The History of Android

With the addition of our latest Android courses for Developers, Joe looks back at the history of Android and it's evolution to become the  best-selling smartphone platform... 

Palo Alto California, October 2003 was the birth of Android Inc. Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White “secretly” worked on Android only revealing to the public that they were working on software for mobile phones. Not knowing much about Android at the time, on August 17^th 2005 Google acquired Android Inc. This made Android Inc a wholly owned subsidiary of Google Inc.

23^rd September 2008 was the day of release for the first Android device, the HTC Dream (G1) which had Android 1.0 on it.  Some of the features of Android 1.0 were:

• That it was integrated with Google Services
• Android market app downloads and updates.
• Multitasking, instant messaging, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The next major update was the release of Android 1.5 'Cupcake'. The update included:

• Faster Camera start-up and image capture.
• Much faster acquisition of GPS location.
• On-screen soft keyboard.
• Directly upload videos to YouTube and Picassa

This update was released in April 2009

Androids next up-date “Donut” was released in September 2009 and came with some very nice additions to the previous version:

• Quick Search Box and Voice Search
• Integrated camera, camcorder and gallery
• CDMA Support
• Multilingual Text-To-Speech function

As winter approached in October 2009 It was time for “Eclair” to be released. The changes for Android 2.0 were:

• Multiple accounts for email and contact synchronization
• Microsoft Exchange Support for syncing of e-mail
• Bluetooth 2.1 support
• New browser user interface and support for HTML5
• New calendar features

May 2010 was the release of Android 2.2 “Froyo”. This update was packed with user friendly updates such as:

• New tips widget for home screen
• Improved Exchange support
• Multiple keyboard languages 
• Adobe Flash 10.1

The heart of winter brought out the “Gingerbread” Android 2.3. Communication was a focus in this update.

• UI refinements for simplicity and speed
• New keyboard for faster text input
• One-touch word selection and copy/paste
• Near Field Communication
• Internet Calling

 February 2011 the first Tablet only update release, Android 3.0 “Honeycomb”, featured:

• Specifically optimized for tablets
• Refined multitasking, rich notifications, home screen customization and updated widgets
• Bluetooth tethering
• Built-in support for media/picture transfer protocol

October 2011saw the release of Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, which is the most recent release to date and updates included:

• Enhanced speed and performance
• Easier-to-create folders, with a drag-and-drop style
• A customizable launcher
• Ability to access apps directly from lock screen (similar to HTC Sense 3.x)
• Better voice integration and continuous, real-time speech to text dictation
• 1080p video recording for stock Android devices

These are just a few of the changes in each of the different releases of the Android operating system.The Android operating system is constantly evolving, enabling for greater things to be done on an android device. Android entered the market as a new mobile operating system in September 2008, in 2010 Android was listed as the best-selling smartphone platform worldwide. This is a huge statement of what Android is delivering.

Our latests Android courses for developers an technology managers and strategists can be found here. 

Web Content Life Cycle

 Joe teaches us what he has learnt about Web Content Life Cycles...

After spending some time looking over different people’s views on web content life cycles I have decided to put my own opinion out there. 

There have been vast changes in what is thought to be involved in the life cycle of web content. The way that I understand “Web Content Life Cycle” is the different phases that your content goes through from start to finish including the idea of it through to it being replaced. 

It all started with the idea of contents life consisting of two phases which were collecting and delivery. This would be writing the content and publishing it, nothing more that. There have been various other suggestions including the humorous suggestion of there being 15 stages to the web content life cycle. 

My opinion is very similar to that of CM Pros which is that there should be 6 main stages but each stage is broken down into a few different parts. These stages are:

Plan, Develop, Manage, Deploy, Preserve and Evaluate. 

Each stage is then broken down for example Develop, consists of Create, Capture, Collect, Categorize and Edit. By breaking down each stage means that each corner of the process is covered and the best content is delivered. 

I believe that not all content needs to be replaced regularly and that if content is good and strong with a few tweaks and updates it can stay good informative and strong. This goes with the stage preserve, updating and adding to existing content is a good way to keep it alive and not having to come up with new content to replace it. 

By using this method of updating and evaluating your content you can keep it as up to date, valid and relevant as possible. Having up to date relative content is extremely important as the more relevant your content the better for SEO purposes. Content will become outdated at some point and will need to be replaced to stop it becoming legacy content and it being useless. This is when the evaluation will tell us that it is time to replace the content with new fresh ideas and information.

Christmas List for Geeks and Engineers

Today is Black Friday in the US. It's the day after Thanksgiving Day and traditionally the start of the Christmas shopping rush. It's the busiest shopping day in the US every year. If you're like me, that will fill you with paralysing fear. The queues, the commotion, the clothes falling off the hangers. It's terrifying out there. But hurrah, technology has saved us once again! Jump online and have it delivered to you whilst you get on with your life. 

So, whether it's for a friend, colleague or loved one, here's our list of Christmas present ideas for those software nuts and computer geeks. Don't worry, we're not turning into a shopping channel or GQ magazine showcasing the "hottest and slickest" gadgets no-one can really afford, this is a fun Friday lunchtime post to embrace our inner nerd.

 

1.  CPG6 GRID-IT TM Organizer $9.99

Keep cables, wires and gadgets tidy with this nifty organiser.

   2. Wipe T Shirt $89.00

This smart T shirt  has a convenient, built-in microfiber cloth to wipe your glasses or mobile phone. 

3. Personalised QR Code Christmas Card on Etsy Approx £2.49

Embrace Christmas 2.0 and send a personalised message on a QRistmas card. 

 

 4. Binary Code Heart with I Love You Print on Etsy Approx £9.97

Say I love you to your partner in a way that they understand. 

5. "Backspace" T-shirt from Threadless  $10.00 (Mens and Womens sizes available)

Everytime you hit the backspace key, imagine that the cursor doing the moonwalk. How can you not be smiling?

Now, remember your Paypal password and get clicking. This activity contains no queues, no unhelpful sales assisstants and no need to fight for survival. Enjoy.