So GHC day 2 has come to a close, and I've emailed people I intended to email, did some 'work work' and caught up on Twitter.
Favorite sessions: HTML5 and innovation.
The HTML5 session was co-hosted with a session on mobile security – very interesting how mobile browsers are very susceptible to attacks – did you know phishing is 3x more effective on mobile phones? But anyway, HTML5 and mobile is one of those topics I read or go to sessions about any time it pops up – up to a year ago at last year's Philly BarCamp. Wow, looking at that, I'm overdue for an HTML5 app! But moving on …
HTML5 App Awesomes
- You get to leverage cache manifest
- Did you know mobile users are 2x as active as Desktop?
- Words with Friends has been developing with HTML5 – note their multi-platform availability
- MVC. [The speaker literally never defined MVC (model-version-controller, a la rails, django, etc.) in his talk. Kinda a mistake, but I'm bolding it here because while I do more of my professional work in non-MVC based frameworks, I really believe it's something I need to work on.]
- Eliminate zooming by leveraging responsive design! (yay!)
- Of course, check out PhoneGap, Titanium, appMobi for deployment
- And checkout caniuse.com for cheatsheets on using emerging technologies.
I think this session topped out among the top not because it was that good (sorry, guy), but an HTML5 app is climbing up on my list of side projects fairly rapidly.
Oh, and the session was led by a guy from FB, so he obviously showed off the new resource they have for HTML5 development: https://developers.facebook.com/html5
My other top session was the birds of a feather on innovation – it felt really short, but was just fun and interesting, and would be an interesting game to play at a Startup Weekend or such, I expect.
Innovation Exercise
The Stage:
Have people split up into groups of 5-6. This was a good group size because it was big enough to share ideas, but not so big that someone got left out.
Materials:
3 sets of vocabulary – technology, subject, and platform. For example, technology may be Artificial intelligence, HCI, cloud computing; subjects may be environment, travel, politics, etc.; and platforms are mobile, desktop, vehicle (such as in a car, plane, or other vehicle).
The Exercise:
Have each team draw one card from each category at random. The team then has to come up with a product that lives within those boundaries.
It was very fun, and an interesting thing to do at the end of a long (tired) day.
Other items of the day: an amazing long lunch with the DevChixen (http://www.devchix.com/) and visited amazing Portland FOOD CARTS. OMG. I had so. much. food. Yes.
And I almost went to the hotel to rest before posters – but glad I didn't because I would've punked out 🙂 I was surprised at the ones that stood out to me – I find poster sessions so interesting because there's such a broad spectrum of research that (in my experience) I find 4-5 people and have really valuable conversations. I do talk to a few other poster presenters if it looks like they want to practice giving their schpiel. I posted one of my favorites already on Webivore, but some of my other favorites were writing a form validation framework (from a security perspective), phishing bank employees, and developing apps to assist in behavioral therapy. Seriously, wow! Looking forward to tomorrow.