WDI Progress Update - Can't be Weak this Week, Year Book Group Project

Challenges:

1. Deadlines!!
2. Has_many :through (instead of HATBM) caused grief all day. Saved by Daniel Tsui

Progress @ General Assembly (GA)

• WDI Year Book (RSpec, OAuth, Has_many :through)
• GitHub - Codium
• Meet and Greet - 6:30pm, 9th Apr 2014 

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Business Bootcamp Entry Form and Pitch - Due 4pm Sun 9th Mar Sydney Time (i.e. Sun 9th Mar midnight EDST) - DONE

Progress @ Development of New Products & Services (UNSW)

• Unit 1 DONE
• Most Innovative Orgs 2013
• Relevant Links:
• NSi Innovations @ UNSW
• UNSW Startup Games 2014 

Community:

• Ruby on Rails Development Hub - Tonight 6:30pm @ Ninefold - Attended
• Anglelist
• Founders Institute 
• #Startupaus - Thurs AM - Met Lester CocoaHeads, Michael, Adam

WDI Progress Update and Intro to Startups - Post RubyConf Thoughts

Ruby Conf Presentations: Eagerly awaiting the others to be shared by the organisers!

• Hacking Sidekiq
• Building C Extensions in Ruby

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Units 1 to 4 - Completed 

Curiosity:

1. API - Flot (plotting graphs) using StackOverflow example
2. Building API's with Ruby on Rails
3. Google Web Toolkit and Hibernate

Essentials:

• Read "The Lean Startup" by Eric Ries

Intro to Startups Update - Unit 2 Summary

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Completed summarising all videos and activities on 18th Feb! (better late than never yikes!!)
• Links: Post Mortem of Venture-Backed Startup
• Unit 2 UX Design - Summary
• Summarised Lessons 1-4 pending publication here

WDI Progress Update and Intro to Startups - Unit 3 Tech 101 Summary, Random Thoughts

Challenges:

1. My First Apple Store Experience (George Street, Sydney) - So, by Week 4 of the WDI course I'd already destroyed the 'Delete' key on the Macbook Pro, which I borrowed from my partner. I'm not very Apple savvy, but someone gave me a tip to visit their store. So I get to the Apple Store any I wondered.... Why did the Apple staff direct me to the 'Front Desk' when there aren't any signs in the store? and when by 'Front Desk', they actually meant the people wearing bibs around their neck? Why point me to line up in imaginary queues where the sole purpose is to be plonked in front of one of their Macs and baby sat in filling out a 'make an appointment' form? Why not tell or direct people upfront at the entrance of the store to click the App Store on their mobile? 
2. Finished Hangman game overnight and posted solution on my GitHub account! 
3. JS Object Model Constructors, Prototypes, Inheritance
4. JS Regular Expressions
5. LESS Mixins, Classes, Arguments, Guards

Progress @ General Assembly (GA)

• Javascript - String Literals, JS Special Characters 
• Startup Scene - Read about Anti-Problem Entrepreneurs vs Unexotic Underclass vs Anti-Answers (bureacracy) 

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Unit 1 Killer Startup Idea - Completed (read all forum posts)
• Book: The Founders Dilemma
• Links: Ideas - Springwise, 2014 Biz Ideas, CoolBizIDeas, IdeasWatch 
• Links: Strengths - Strengthsfinder
• Links: Startups - Velvet Onion Tapestry Steve Blank, Tools for Entrepreneurs: Making Something People Love Running Lean QuickSprout FastCoExist FastCoCreate FastCoDesign FastCoLabs Making ThingsPeopleLove Mixergy Agile Manifesto Jet Brains Scrum OnTimeNow IPOWow
• Links: Pitch Decks to VC's - Pitch Envy, Best Pitch Decks
• Links: Misc - Aysadi The Fetch
• Books: 42 Rules Product Management Inspired Create Products Customers Love
• Unit 3 Tech 101 - Completed (and read all forum posts)
• Urgently catching up on Unit 2 by 17th Feb!! ---> up to date now!

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Unit 3 Tech 101 - Summary
• Summary Lessons 1-6
• Front-end Decisions: 
• Platform (decision influence, startup friendliness) - Browser, Mobile, Desktop, Back-end
• Tech Stack (reflect on known solutions) - Web stack, Native, Meta Frameworks, Web Front-end
• Back-end Decisions:
• Priorities (tech options, fast MVP to market, use tech you know)
• Cloud (on-demand scalability)
• Server (Platform as a service) 
• Services (Services as a service) - Identify pre-existing solutions
• MVP - Top priority!
• Prototyping:
• Change costs increase with time
• Sketch ideas to convey details and functionality pre-dialogue
• Wireframing quick visual prototype mockup. Share for test iterations
• Functional Prototypes - Test before build
• User Testing - Insight from others for objective feedback
• Hustling:
• Priority is effort and investment in first customers to build momentum
• Seed data and manual solutions to save time and avoid unnecessary automation
• Kickstarting: "If it's perfect it's too late" - Early perfection and optimisation = evil, "who cares if noone wants to use it", "who cares how fast it is if it misses its mark" - Phil Reither (watch the video)
• Homepage of Startup:
• 5 seconds to impress
• Outsource design?  (compromise quality vs cost)
• Responsive across devices design - Mobile first strategy
• Slogan, Screenshot showcasing implementation, Call to actions
• Developer Competency and Fit Testing and Interviews - Coding ability, Communication skills, Motivation, Aptitude, DNA, Goal compromisings (speed vs quality with modular solutions), Project testing
• CTO responsibilities - Handling build, unforeseens, understanding competing tech and impact of strategies and choices on products and users 
• Outsourcing - Maintain control of product and them, realise common understandings of goals, visions, requirements and activities, candidates are stand-alone features, offers faster solutions allowing focus on strengths and priorities, test their timezone availability and motivation (i.e. Skype interview)
• Product Management - Startup tools - Github (Versioned Source Control, Community, Collaboration), Dropbox, Trello (Digital Post-It Board), Jira (Atlassian System Dashboard), Skype, Basecamp (Product Management Platform)
• Agile Development - "Fail early and fail often", Feedback, Try, Throw-away willingness
• Scrum - Fast moving, Process and Specification (guideliness), Adapt what works to team, Pick and match (good and bad parts)
• Traditional Systems - RUP (Rational Unified Process) like Waterfall with 120 rules, Prescriptive Rules
• Kanban - JIT Change Management modelled from assembly line manufacturing and LEAN Value System
• Scrum (preferred by Startups) - Adaptive Rules, Software development and creative product design, Agile Value System
• Sprint - Daily Standups (mornings <15min), Planning Meetings(start of iterations breakdown into manageable tasks, Timebox <45min, Agenda, Chair, Assign Actionable), Always Testable Product, Deploy after each
• Roles - Product Owner (process, upcoming, priorities, sign-off), Scrum Team (build product, no micromanaged, signoff on tasks at sprint start, responsible to do in sprint or its their fault), Scrum Master(Lord)(team runs smoothly, tools working)
• Artifacts (non-person, touchable) - Agile Manifesto, Scrum Boards (Post-it notes, To Do, In progress, Ready for QA, In QA, Validated) Backlogs
• Links:
• Reddit, Airbnb, Flywheel, Mixpanel, Braintree
• Lean Stack (competitor analysis), BuildWith (+Chrome extension!)
• Omnigraffle (+Photoshop), Axure, Wireframe.cc, MockFlow, POP App (Prototyping), Flinto (Prototyping), Proto.io (Prototyping), Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Fireworks)
• Apps:
• Xero accounting cloud app

Other Thinking (reflecting on this Unexotic Underclass reading):

• Potential clientele?: Impoverished, Injustice chain of deliverers and recipients, Inflexibilities, In-appropriation, Deceptive selling and marketing {reflect on $ vs timeframe to earn value}, Untimely, Unaccelerated and Un-engaging education with limited UX, Unfair distribution of wealth, freedom and rewards (celebrity and anti-problems celebrated and spark interest across society), Lack of humaneness in some large corporates (lenience, common sense, broad effort, care, genuine companionship, are not always prevailing, spectrum of consequences isn't closed loop to drive continuous change), Highly ambiguous and near primitive legal constructs enforced with gaps, and even the most fundamental parallels ignored (lack of proactive behaviour, only excessive wrongdoing and persistent suffering by the good seems to ever drive social movements that realise change for betterment), Media and role models often drive and thrive on widespread curiosity toward negativity, excessively celebrating stupidity and anti-problems (disregard for intelligence and purity in values), Lack of acknowledging human achievements (with broad reason and purpose), cascading unrealistic and uncoordinated timeframes (underpromising, overdelivering, and ignorance of corporate slavery and its impact on the mental and physical health of teams and wider society), lack of hero metrics and parallels, Upheaving long-impoverished markets (technology driving the tides to turn), Rethink societal pressures driven by emphasis on borrowing and manipulation of value cycles, Overhaul life-expired legal systems with tech, Transform emotional intelligence into measurable skillsets, Flatten broader societies class hierarchy (viral knowledge-worker syndrome), Rank quantifiable risk parallels and actions across society, markets and the environment, Rejuvenating and monetizing traditionally boring and mundane jobs using media and gamification, Unjust distribution and priority toward handouts and freebies in response to sympathy trippers, carefrees, excuses, and whingers (average joe busy bodies and the genuinely disadvantaged miss-out or are excluded from offerings)
• Keynotes?: Assume and dwell on impossibilities, Reverse mentality, Back to basics fallback, Demise of the first-class citizen and leveraging the rise of eager emerging markets overhaulling white elephants in our traditional frameworks, Rediscover purpose and passion following creative and adventurous pathways, Filter out monetary enticements to jump back on the treadmill bandwagon of mundaneness and in-humaneness, Carefully judging deservedness

Community Contributions:

1. My First Post answering a question on Stackoverflow

Curiosity:

1. Composition and 'includes' in Javascript to work-around single class inheritance limitations

WDI Progress Update - My First Wireframe, Concept Sketch, LEAN Business Model Canvas

Progress @ General Assembly (GA):

• Balsamiq Mockup - Prepared my first ever app wire-frame this evening thanks to Balsamiq and inspiration from Intro to Startups

Feedback is welcome!

                        

• Concept Sketch - 

• LEAN Canvas of MVP - 

WDI Progress Update - Individual Project Challenges and UX Gaps

Challenges:

1. Watched short video from RailsCasts on refactoring a simple Search Form and implemented into AI app User front-end (not functional yet but feeling more confident). Advised by Alberto Forni to research 'Named Scope' (discussed in Code School)
2. Find out how to apply Google Trends API to AI app
3. Sign up for Rails 1 (and Rails 2 later) 

Progress @ General Assembly (GA):

• Sunday Session
• Valuable feedback obtained on AI app from Danial Tsui, Nick Morgan, and Alberto Forni. Split into Admin and User sections. Time to implement learnings Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship and up-skill on UX aspects.
•  -------> Update 3:20pm 3rd Feb:

  Interesting problem solved with instructors help. 

  Situation: List of ideas displayed on the screen. User requested to tick checkboxes that corresponded to their favourite ideas, and then click a submit button. After clicking the submit button a database query would refresh the same screen with only their favourite ideas shown.

  Problem: The user could submit their favourites and the page refreshed showing them a filtered list of only their favourites. However, if they went back to the original URL and performed the same process, the submit button would be unresponsive (i.e despite using the following code, with none of the checkboxes ticked, and therefore none of the ':search' params being present)

  if params[:search].present?
      @ideas = Idea.where(:id => params[:search])
  else
    @ideas = Idea.all
  end

  Outcome: With the help of GA instructors we exhausted all hack options (i.e. @ideas.to_json, ___.inspect, inspecting network elements in the browser, raise "xxx"), and found that if we deleted Turbolinks from '/javascripts/application.js', and commented out in the Gemfile, the app then fully worked! (i.e. delete //= require turbolinks, and then going to terminal and running, 'gem install' and 'bundle', and 'rails server'). It is thought that the problem was caused due to caching by the Turbolink gem.

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Unit 2 UX - Read 100% of PDF notes. 
• Objectives - Urgently must target detailing Unit 2 audio notes by 4th Feb and implement into Individual Project. Incorporate Unit 1 by 9th Feb. Start Unit 3 reading by 5th Feb and finish by 9th Feb.

Contributions to Developer Community 

• Invited to meet the The Slippery Gypseas band in on 5th Feb to help brainstorm their website requirements!

Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship - Unit 1 Update

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepreneurship

• Unit 1 Summary
• Links:
• Brainstorming Guidelines, Stanford
• Books: 
• Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works, Edition 2, Ash Maurya
• Design Driven Innovation: Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating What Things Mean, Roberto Verganti
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant, W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

WDI Progress Update - Ruby, Sinatra, FileUtils, HTTParty, HTML5, CSS3

Challenges:

1. Ruby Koans
2. Pony gem (SMTP)
3. Error handling
4. GA Pre-work
5. Emmet.io
6. ice Tree
7. Wordpress
8. Heroku
9. Evernote
10. Meta programming (multmaker) 
11. Ruby Warrior
12. VIM commands
13. Stackoverflow
14. Github
15. Google Adsense
16. DevOps
17. Project Euler problems

Progress @ General Assembly (GA)

• Installfest
• Github Homebrew Package Manager 
• Sublime Text 2 (shortcuts, binding)
• Ruby (embedded Ruby files, Ruby API's, data types, conditionals, loops, arrays, hashes, methods, classes, inheritance, exceptions, objects, aliasing, interactive Ruby shell, pry debugging, enumerables, blocks, procs, lambdas, server-side scripts, file and IO classes, file utilities, file pointers, closures, caching, set theory, handling CSV files, handling JSON, HTTP verbs and errors, curl, Sinatra gem and reloader, cat, stash, preferential execution with File__ == $0)
• Ruby Gems - HTTParty, FileUtils, Sinatra app and reloader
• Ruby Modules - YahooFinance
• API's - OMDb
• HTML5 (form fields, responsive)
• CSS (stylesheet use options [import, inline, header], separation of concerns, cascading, descendants, selectors, blocks, properties, fonts, semantic classes, ID's, reset stylesheets, tags, Twitter Bootstrap, incompatibilities reset stylesheets, anchors, spans, blocks, inline, wildcards, link states, pseudo class selectors, positioning, DRY principle)
• Apple Macbook Pro usage

Progress @ Intro to Startup Entrepeneurship (Summer School by General Assembly and Google)

• Unit 1: Finding a Killer Startup Idea

Events:

• Signed up to attend Ruby Conference Australia (Feb 2014) 
• Attended meetup Ruby on Rails Oceana  (ROROSyd)

Future Wants:

• UX @ GA 
• UX tools 
• Volunteer at GA or Fishburners 
• Attend Sydney Business Angels, Sydney Tech meetups
• Attend a Rails Camp @railscamp_au 
• Continue attending Sydney Mobile Developers, and ROROSyd meetups 
• Continue Adobe Creative Suite usage
• Continue Lynda training
• Installfest Ubuntu
• Apply MBT learnings
• Books: Agile Web Development with Rails

Curiosity:

• Apiary, DEP, Audited/PaperTrail, Activerecord gems - (ROROSyd)
• Bundler, Travis CI - (ROROSyd)
• TDD/BDD
• Erlang VM, Elixir, Openresty, Heckle and RSpec
• Concurrency and immutability in languages