I love delivery food. When launched in my hometown of Melbourne, Australia they were offering free delivery. It was fantastic. UberEATS But, one day the inevitable happened and the utopia of friction-less food delivery had vanished — Uber introduced delivery fees of $5. So, I wanted to see if I could get myself free delivery again. But this time I wasn’t going to take it for granted, I was going to earn it. That’s why I created — my ticket to free delivery for life (kind of). www.iloveubereats.com The idea is simple. I created a URL where I shared my unique referral code. I then claimed some free credit and ran some ads to my site directed at those looking to use Uber EATS for the first time (the only way my referral code works). advertising So, here’s how I did it Register a domain. Through the use of I scored a significant discount, marking it down from $13 to a $1.24 domain registration fee. Which, is all the money I spent on this project. If Honey doesn’t find you the right discount, you can also try . Honey Piggy 2. Create a website. If you can straight out make a website — then good for you. That’s all you need to do. I opted to use a website builder called (they have a 14 day free trial). You could also use , which is a bit cheaper after its 14 day trial. I then wrote a little story and placed my unique UberEATS code front and centre for anyone to use. Instapage Wix Oh, and of course, you need a testimonial: Yes, I wrote my own testimonial. 3. Register with Google AdWords for a starter-pack of $75 of free advertising coupons. All you need to do is Google “Google AdWords” and hit the first link. They should have the steps there to get your first $75 of Google AdWords money for free. This is for Australia only — other countries have different free credit values. Note: You can do the same thing on other platforms (e.g. Bing), I just got lazy and full. 4. Set up online search ads running in Australia for specific keywords. Whenever someone searches “uber eats coupon” or “uber eats code” or something similar there’s a little ad running on the side. It looks something like this (it’s the [Ad] you see at the top of the search results). I probably could have refined and tested my copy, but side projects be side projects for a reason. When you hit the link you get taken to and you find my unique referral code. www.iloveubereats.com So, how effective was it? Well, super effective. It cost me about of free advertising money to acquire each ‘customer’ or . However, I didn’t actually pay that money as it was free ad credit. All I paid was $1.24 for my domain. That means I had a return on investment. If we pretend that I actually paid for the ads, I would’ve still had a healthy . Even if these ads were paid I’d still be killing it. Speaking of which, I’ll be periodically turning the ads back on every time I need a bit more dough for delivery. 66 cents $10 voucher 80,545% 1,415% return on investment My site was viewed 373 times. I had over 4000 impressions of my ads with a click through rate of 9.29%. The whole thing took me less time to do than to write this article. That is about 3 hours of work. Behold my glorious remaining credit. What am I doing with all my credit? Well, each code only lasts for 3 months. So, just like any Melburnian would do, I’ve scheduled a soy flat white to arrive at my door every morning at 7.30am for the next three months. That would’ve been nice, hey? In reality I’ve just been stuffing my face with as many sandwiches and burgers as possible. And there you have it. I’ve never eaten so much delivery food in my life. If you want coupon codes for anywhere on the web check out or . Piggy Honey If you want to build a website just like mine check out . You can also use other website builders like . Instapage Wix If you’re thinking, “who is this guy?” — Well, I run a agency in Melbourne, Australia. I’d love for you to check it out at . marketing Hedgehog Agency If you’re thinking, “But, what about Deliveroo?” Don’t worry, is alive and kicking. I Love Deliveroo If you’re Uber and you’re thinking, “should we take away all his credit?” — Please, no, I really want it. , enjoy them! You now have 100 new UberEATS customers If you’re sitting there and thinking, “Can I do the same thing? But, I can’t be bothered setting it all up.” Shoot me an email at bergjosh(at)gmail.com — happy to help. Any questions? I’d love to chat in the comments. :)

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I turned $1.24 into $1000 of UberEATS credit

In this Android Things project we will use an Ultrasonic sensor with a Raspberry Pi 3 to measure distance. We will work with the standard read and write methods, we will learn how to send ultrasonic waves with the sensor, and we will discover some issues. GPIO Requirements We use a with pre-installed (version 1). Raspberry Pi 3 Android Things Developer Preview The sensor is an . (I ordered from .) HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor Amazon The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor uses sonar to determine distance to an object like bats or dolphins do. It offers excellent non-contact range detection with high accuracy and stable readings in an easy-to-use package. From 2cm to 400 cm or 1” to 13 feet. It operation is not affected by sunlight or black material. From you can download the datasheet of the sensor. here Setup As in the , I suggest to follow Google’s tutorial to prepare your Raspberry Pi 3 for Android Things development. previous project Please follow the steps here: _Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is the latest iteration of the world's most popular single board computer. It provides a quad…_developer.android.com Raspberry Pi 3 | Android Things Wiring Now it is the time to connect the sensor to our Raspberry Pi. As you see in the picture the has 4 pins.The needs to be connected to a 5V power pin, the obviously to a Ground pin, and the and the pins connect to a GPIO. Ultrasonic sensor VCC GND Trig (Trigger) Echo And here is how I connected it to my Raspberry Pi: → 5V (Pin 2) VCC → GPIO 21 (BCM21, Pin 40) Trig → GPIO 20 (BCM20, Pin 38) Echo → GND (Pin 34) GND And this it how it looks together:(On the left side you can see a pinout diagram which illustrates the locations of the available ports exposed by the breakout connectors of the Raspberry Pi 3 board) Software To configure a new project, you can follow the (already mentioned) tutorial from Google, or you can use and modify the source of our . previous application _Things apps use the same structure as those designed for phones and tablets. This similarity means you can modify your…_developer.android.com Create an Android Things Project | Android Things Before we start implementing the necessary code, I explain a bit how the Ultrasonic sensor works: to start a measurement, the pin must receive a pulse of (5V) for at least 10us (10 microsecond) Trig (Trigger) HIGH this will initiate the sensor and it will transmit out 8 cycle of ultrasonic burst at 40kHz and wait for the reflected ultrasonic burst when the sensor detected and ultrasonic wave, it will set the pin to (5V) and delay for a period (width) which proportion to distance. Echo HIGH to obtain the distance, we need to measure the pulse. width of the Echo This is how it looks on a timing diagram: The timing diagram of HC-SR04 ( ) source Let’s see the code! First we declare the GPIO pins: Then we need to setup the pin ( ) for read: Echo BCM20 And the ( ) pin for write: Trigger BCM21 And now the fun begins. We need to to the pin and for the beginning and the end of the response pulse. send a 10us pulse Trigger listen on the Echo , because I discovered some performance issues in some cases. (It is possible that my implementation is not correct in the under-performed code) I will show you two ways to do this 1. implementation The first one is the , the way how you do it on an Arduino device, or in C or e.g. on your Raspberry Pi under a Linux operating system. This is a universal, synchronous, procedural way, you don’t have callbacks, asynchronous methods.This code performs well, as good as you would implement it in C or Python. “old school way” Python You can run this code in different ways, with a , or just in a new , etc… Handler Thread I run it now in a separated : Thread It works properly. You can put something in front of the sensor, move it farther and closer, and you will see the distance in cm in the console. (I will mention the commented lines in the section) Findings 2. implementation The second way is the Android Things API provided . asynchronous GpioCallback() way To use the callbacks, we need to register our listener on the pin: ECHO I defined a callback also, because it has an impact in the measurement.I spent a lot of time to get correct results with the async implementation, and this helped also. Handler Usually you just register your callback with the method. That means you listener will be called on the same where you called the register method. Sometimes (in a lot of basic example) this is the UI . And the slowness of your UI has impact on your callbacks. registerGpioCallback (GpioCallback callback) Thread Thread In our cases of the distance measurement. the impact is 1,5cm in the accuracy So let’s prepare the : Handler And here is our method to “read” the distance asynchronously: Basically it does nothing, except triggering the measurement on the sensor.The real calculation happens in the callback: To run the whole calculation we can also use the separated way what we used in the 1. implementation, or we can use a to execute our calculation: Thread Handler Done.Run your code and check the measurements in the ADB log. It works quite well. (Oh yeah, and do not forget to close your resources in both implementation, if you don’t need them) Findings The accuracy of the measurement results are the same (between a certain range) in both implementation. The minimum measurable distance with the 1. implementation is around 8cm. (Same as you write your code in C or Python) The minimum measurable distance with the 2. implementation is around 12cm. If we use lot of computation in the callbacks, between the catch of the high/low pulses, it will impact your measurement. You see a lot of commented log lines. If you put them back, the minimum measurable distance will be around 20 cm, because the device needs some time to process your logging. And if you measure your time in nanoseconds, it matters! ECHO You can also experience with the duration of the methods.In the first implementation in the if you put back the time logging methods you will see.Processing a method takes almost 10x more time than assigning a value to a variable. while loops Log.d() Avoid from the UI Thread.E.g. If you have a combination of heavy computation or logging and callbacks on the UI Thread you will see a really huge impact on your measurements. The minimum measurable distance can easily jump above 30cm. Notes The error cases are not handled in the example app. The measurement capability of the sensors are not the same. I ordered a pack of HC-SR04 sensors from Amazon (pack of 3 pieces, same sensors), and e.g. one of them can measure properly only for 160cm, and an other one measures properly for 240–300cm. If you want to measure properly, you need to first verify the distance with a ruler or with a tape measure, then adapt your code. When you measure a distance, I suggest to do 2–3 measurements and calculate an average of those, because the results have 1–2cm dispersion. Always check the datasheet of your sensor to implement correct algorithm I was not able to reproduce the same performance in the 2. implementation as we have it in the first one. Maybe I missed something, I implemented something on a wrong way or this is an API issue in Android Things. I am not sure yet.I am still continuously thinking and testing, hopefully I will figure it out. If you have any idea, any remarks, please feel to free to comment or send me an e-mail, or modify the source of the project: _Contribute to AndroidThings-UltrasonicSensor development by creating an account on GitHub._github.com Danesz/AndroidThings-UltrasonicSensor

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Android Things Basics: Measure distance with Ultrasonic sensor

I recently guest blogged on The Polyglot Developer talking about RxJS! Below are some excerpts, but you can find the original post . here With RxJS growing rapidly, and the recent release of RxJS 5, it’s easy to see why Observables are becoming a more important part in app development. Soon, Observables will be fully native to the web, and with that, it will become clear to everyone that RxJS isn’t just something for Angular 2. Observables. Native To The Web Platform? One of the common misconceptions in the web world is that RxJS is an “Angular 2 thing”. What most developers don’t realize is that Observables are on their way to becoming native to the web, and if you aren’t already using them to handle asynchrony, you are not adequately preparing yourself for the future. The Best Way To Handle Asynchrony RxJS allows you to solve hard problems with less code, promotes maintainability, readability, flexibility, and composability. These are just some of the reasons RxJS is the hottest way to handle async right now. Learning how to handle asynchrony the reactive way instead of using promises and callbacks will also greatly reduce the probability that you are leaking resources. And because RxJS works with any framework (angular.js, react.js, ember.js, vue.js), node, and even without frameworks, it’s easy to future proof your applications and have confidence in using this . technology Increase Functionality Without A Refactor If you think it’s difficult to use Observables, or a large refactor may have to take place, you’re wrong. With the power of RxJS operators, you can easily add functionality to existing code without altering it. RxJS allows you to increase the power of your application with reactive techniques. In just a few lines of maintainable code, you can have multiplex web sockets and easily coordinate multiple ajax requests. programming RxJS is also great for state management with asynchronous data flows. With Rx, you can handle this in a declarative and flexible way alongside redux or as a replacement for redux. PS you can find me on twitter or helping mentor developers and building cool things at . @ladyleet This Dot Labs is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

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We all end up with the same : why do bad things happen to good phone chargers. This is my problem: one old cable used to work and now it doesn’t, one new cable works great, one new cable says it’s charging but it’s flaky and doesn’t turbo charge. Let’s dive in and see what we can discover. question Left: my old Motorola cable; Center: Imkey USB cable; Right: my wife’s new Galaxy 7 charging cable. The blurriness is also a good estimate of my eyesight. On the surface, these three cables look the same. (This is a cue for me to bust out my handy dandy .) Celestron microscope But first, how do they work? A quick Image search for “micro USB schematic” returns this image from . Google this website If the USB cable were held like the bridge of a Tron Derezzer, the pin on the right is for 5V power, the pin on the left is for ground. I was embarassed after I learned this information. I used to think the outer shell had something to do with the electricity after watching some bogus YouTube videos where people try to fix their cables with needle nose pliers. It all has to do with the edge pins on the inside. My good old Motorola cable I’ve got a Moto X Pure/Style. The cable has recently lost its grip and I have to hold it in in order for my phone to stay charging — (my third replacement). Here’s the close up of the old Motorola. The old Motorola cable that I used to know. It’s seen better days. The Imkey cable (aka this thing looks clever with springs on the ends and it’s covered by Amazon Prime) When the Motorola cable became loose I thought okay, I’ll order another cable online to make sure it doesn’t get faulty again — and because I’m so clever — I’ll order this fancy cable with springs on the end. Except when I get the cable my phone constantly changes its mind about whether or not it’s charging. It also doesn’t do “Turbo Charging” mode. So yeah… I now have a clever phone cable that doesn’t charge. (But hey, shipping was free.) and Here’s the close up. Everything looks perfectly in order My wife’s new Samsung Galaxy 7 USB cable While I may be prone to think I got unlucky with the Imkey cable, unfortunately the Imkey cable situation is true for every other cable in my house. I was thinking there must be something about either the turbo charger plug or the turbo charging cable. Then I tried out the USB cable my wife got with her Samsung Galaxy 7. It worked great. Not flaky. Not loose. Here’s the close up. Samsung Galaxy 7 USB cable. I thought interesting, it’s missing a pin, but it still works great. What’s the difference? The middle one is the old Motorola, top is new Samsung. Notice the flat bottom on the Motorola. At first glance, the reason why my old Motorola USB cable slips right out is immediately apparent. It has no fangs! (I had thought maybe it was filled with dust. I saw a YouTube video that talked about that. But there was nothing in there after I washed the cable out with an insulin syringe and rubbing alcohol, followed by lots of Nintendo blows to dry it out.) The fangs haven’t broken off of the cable. They’ve just lost their spring. I needed to bend them back out. I searched around for some different tools: blood sugar lancet, sowing needle, push pin, needle nose pliers. In the end, the push pin worked best at jimmying the fang back into place. It’s not easy to take a close up cell phone picture with your hands full. Power off before trying anything. It should go without saying: unplug any charger cables before you mess with stuff. This is not a “how-to fix” article but a “let’s mess with stuff and hopefully not kill myself or start a fire but if it happens that’ll be cool too” article. So I bent back the fangs on the USB charging cable and it worked great. Fits snug. No longer has that “is it really plugged in all the way” feeling. Check out this picture to see the opposite end of where the fangs go. You can see the little sink holes where the fangs are supposed to snap into. After reviewing this close-up of the female micro USB, I thought maybe I’ve also bent the impressions on the inside so that the fangs have to be bigger in order for the cable to work. It reminded me of how I fixed my old record player from Junior High — the needle wouldn’t work until after I taped three pennies on to it. The Imkey isn’t exactly the same as the Samsung USB cable Using sophisticated “count the pixels on the screen” measurements, I calculated that the Samsung cable’s fangs were 26% the height of the main cable male body. The Imkey cable’s fangs were only 24% the height of the main cable male body. Size matters. So I jimmied the Imkey fangs out a little more. Sure enough it snapped to a lot better, however it still didn’t recognize ‘Turbo Charging” mode. That’s when I also noticed when looking down from the top, that the Imkey’s shaft was longer than that on the Samsung cable. Also, the Imkey’s pins appear to be slightly tighter. (17% on the Imkey; 21% on the Samsung and Motorola.) So it’s still beyond me why the damn Imkey new cable won’t work as good as my newly fixed Motorola cable or the new Samsung cable. My best guess is that the pins don’t line up as good as the other two cables. I also don’t know if the cable simply doesn’t support the required ampere for Turbo Charging. In conclusion, test what you think you know and look closer. I hope these close up pictures help any troubleshooting you’re doing with your own cables. Here are links to the cables I worked with: , and the . I took pictures with this . Motorola Samsung Imkey Microscope If you found this article interesting, then please press the heart to recommend. Please follow me and the if you enjoy this type of technical stuff. :) publication

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The USB cable that I used to know

I was recently checking into and saw a conversation on r/Oculus about the discussion on HN about ’s on the YC Blog (I love when the internet gets meta like that). I moseyed on over to read the 500+ comments on HN and I couldn’t help but notice much of the overt cynicism surrounding VR and its current shortcomings. Below are my thoughts: Reddit Michael Seibel post You can be on the ground floor of something amazing, regardless of current hardware specs or platform insufficiencies… and that’s what’s incredible. You’ll almost certainly never have the chance to redefine the web or mobile or the desktop, no matter how radical your approach may be. The great thing about VR right now is that you can define what it is. You get to be one of the first to pick up the pieces and create a compelling use-case out of a growing . technology Existing markets are saturated beyond belief — just look at how stagnant the Top 100 lists are in the iOS App Store and on Google Play compared to where they were 5 or so years ago. People sell full iOS and Android project files for , pushing hundreds, if not thousands of copies of the same base app to the market. Everyone seems to be clamoring for marginal improvements on the same idea, while the opportunity for innovation diminishes. dirt cheap VR isn’t , it isn’t a , and it certainly isn’t a PDA, and even if these technologies failed in certain areas, they paved the way for smarter, more personal devices down the road, even if they took years to mature. WebTV vaporware internet appliance We are moving at a breakneck pace, contrary to how it may look from the outside, and we’ve all made incredible progress towards making VR usable, personal, and compelling. There is a growing industry that supports each other, distributes knowledge, and works towards making VR into something that everyone can find value in. VR has untouchable benefits over other platforms, and we’re all trying to utilize those in fun, imaginative ways. The team at and I have been working in VR for years now and I can say for certain that time spent learning this new medium is certainly not wasted — thinking about challenges in a spatial, 3D way takes time and I’m certain that this line of thinking is going to be needed in whatever platforms emerge in the next 10 years. Holos Aside from all of that, try not to be afraid of things that you don’t understand. There have been plenty of unconventional ideas in the past that, barring any logic, have broken into the mainstream with flying colors, and I truly believe that VR will be one of those pipe dreams. My team and I are betting big in virtual reality because we not only see a huge opportunity to capture a strong, passionate user base, but to be the ones to define what VR is capable of 5 or 10 years down the road. We follow the mentality, knowing fully that the best way to assert ourselves in the market is to enable everyone to first better their own experience in VR; then allow them to put their improvements in front of everyone else. “in a gold rush, sell picks and shovels” VR has loads of potential that we can’t even begin to imagine. That’s why myself, my team, and everyone else in the market is going all in. Our work isn’t done until we’ve proven that VR is here to stay. If you’d like to chat, please feel free to email me at tyler@holos.io and we can geek out about the future! is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

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It was once thought to be the stuff of fiction. But the ‘internet of things’ (IOT) is already here and growing at a rapid rate. Simply put, IOT refers to the increasing interconnectedness of different smart devices over the internet. These devices feature sensors and internet connectivity that allows them to receive, gather and transmit information. science A wide variety of devices are have already hit the market and many more are set to be released as developers work towards increased connectivity of electronic devices in homes and offices. Today you can easily control your refrigerator, treadmill, smart TV or toaster from your smart phone. However, IOT is only possible as a result of the availability of a platform on which these devices can operate. Enter Android. Why Android has become the Major Driving Force behind IOT A quick look at the market shows that most smart devices run on Google’s operating system, . Anyone familiar with smart phones is also familiar with the operating system. It is currently the world’s leading mobile device operating system edging out iOS. As of 2013, Android smart phones had outsold Apple’s iPhones 4 to 1. Android However, the war didn’t stop with smartphones. The battle for the top is now being fueled by the expanding demand for interconnected devices and Android is leading the charge. The world of IOT is being created and managed for Android. There are various reasons why Android is at the forefront: 1. Android is a universal front end from which developers can work Android has risen quickly as a software platform mostly because Google (the company behind it) chose to give it away to developers and device makers. The Linux-based software is open source, therefore allowing just about anyone to use its source code and therefore customize it for use in just about any gadget they can imagine. The number of devices that rely on Android as an operating system today are numerous. With such a large number of devices run on Android it is easy to see how Android acts as a front end for IOT. It is easy and cheap to develop devices for IOT making them even more affordable for consumers. 2. Apps drive IOT A gadget is just a gadget. However, with the right app to and software to help it run and perform different tasks, it becomes much more. Apps are what make it possible to use IOT devices. Android is currently the world’s largest app platform. As of December 2016, Google Playstore was reported to host more than 2.6 million apps. It is not surprising that Android drives the IOT movement. 3. IOT is being built on Java Many IOT devices are being built on Java. It therefore makes sense that Android is driving the IOT market. Android allows for Java to be applied in a way that makes sense as opposed to the use of embedded JAVA which requires dedicated devices. The Android IOT Ecosystem To understand the application of Android in IOT, you must understand the IOT ecosystem and Android’s role in it. · The sensor Sensors detect physical properties such as temperature and generate digital signals. Many hardware vendors rely on specific domains such as Linux, Android and Windows. The popularity and availability of Android makes it an easy winner in this area. The fact that Android is open source and can be tweaked for use in any device makes it a popular choice for device makers. · Data Transfer There must be a component that supports the transfer of data from the sensor. The two simplest options available for this are MQTT and XMPP. Android supports both of these open source implementations. The libraries can be used on Windows, Linux and Android. · Device There must a device or processor with an operating system that supports the components of the IOT ecosystem. This ought to be a small and portable device that doesn’t consume too much power but can provide continuous connectivity. In many cases, inexpensive Android devices are chosen for this. Android devices meet the requirements to support a wide variety of sensors. There are also various tutorials available to assist developers. · Program There must be a program that receives the data and stores it. This could take the form a standard Linux Server. This server receives the data, decodes it and processes it. The data can be used for subsequent analysis. There is no doubt that Android is the major driving force behind IOT devices. Reach out to an if you are planning to build IOT Apps. Android app developer

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How Android is used in IOT

I must say this was great to do and a nice little introduction to and . node.js npm I got to doing this from finding it on I think I was looking for the Twitter icon in bootstrap whilst working on my I stumbled across the (as you do) so after stalling with my progress on the FreeCodeCamp(🔥) zipline for a Wikipedia viewer I decided to give the Twitter bot a try and managed to create it and add it to 🎉 GitHub Random Quote Generator twitter-bot-bootstrap Heroku This app didn’t work as well as expected though 🙁, so I then decided to take a look at ’s Twitter bot he had created for the challenge, which I just happen to be taking part in. @amanhimself #100DaysOfCode So with his great documentation and I managed to cobble together my own Twitter-bot which I use on my Twitter account here here @ScottDevTweets If you’r wondering about the post name check here . Technologies used Preamble out of the way, now I can walk through what was used. Cloud 9 I love this development environment, I soon became a fan of when trying to install Ruby on my windows machine and then again after installing Node.js on my computer for the first time. c9 Node.js I already had this installed on my c9 environment so I just had to then I was up and running npm install --save twit Heroku I didn’t really get what Heroku was until I started this project but once I’d read the guides it was quite straightforward and the was already installed on c9 i checked with before attempting to install it. Heroku CLI heroku --version GitHub You can deploy straight from your c9 environment to Heroku and there are loads of other integration tools you can use which I haven’t had time to look into yet. It’s good practice to have your code on a repository somewhere and GitHub is widely used. Twitter You will need to set up a Twitter application from the Twitter dev portal All of the information above is in addition to the guides given by the stuff I’m going to go through now my experience with deploying to Heroku, you may want to host the app somewhere different. Aman My Approach Use to test locally, in ’s example it will tweet and favourite straight away then go on a timer. node bot.js @amanhimself Deploy to Heroku git push heroku master This is after I have added the changes to Git with a commit message and pushed the changes to my repo, here’s the terminal commands: $ git add . $ git commit -m 'my detailed commit message' $ git push origin master $ git push heroku master The final command will build the app on Heroku for you with output like this: I know this isn’t standard practice for GitHub and I am in the process of understanding how to branch and use Pull Requests so bear with me 🙂 The first gotcha for me was the Heroku I couldn’t understand why it kept timing out, this was because it was trying to run the default process instead of the process which is whats needed for the bot. Procfile web worker After getting the bare bones set up on part 1 I then got to playing around with the timings and the query strings used by the bot, this is where things started to go a bit off-piste For quite a while I couldn’t understand why I was getting so many errors, with a whole lot of throughout the code I came to the conclusion that that the query string I was using: console.log(var) var queryString = '#100DaysOfCode, #GitHub, #VSCode'; You can get the logs from Heroku when you app is running by typing: This will give you your logs back from Heroku so you can add all the debug lines you want in there to determine whats going on. I was getting the errors pictured so I started to play with the query string and just using one value at a time which didn’t cause any errors so I decided to pass one value at a time by adding the Gist below. This worked, for a while then the same errors started creeping in, I then noticed that the and were on a timer but using the same random text from the which was about as much use as the previous piece of code as it was a one time initialisation [or initialization] so the same string was being used multiple times causing the errors. retweet favoriteTweet queryString So after some head scratching and playing around with the code, [and tweeting numerous times] Aman suggested that I use the npm package to return a random string value from the string list. @amanhimself unique-random-array So I added the in: var var uniqueRandomArray = require('unique-random-array'); Built the query string: var queryString = uniqueRandomArray([ '100daysofcode', 'freecodecamp', 'github', 'vscode', 'visual studio code', 'nodejs', 'node.js', 'vuejs', 'vue.js', 'inferno_js', 'inferno.js', 'jekyll' ]); Then just replaced the string with the method. queryString queryString() Some other things to note that I discovered when playing around with the bot is the and function was the options, here’s my comments copy pasted from the Twitter dev portal: retweet favoriteTweet params result_type: // result_type: options, mixed, recent, popular // * mixed : Include both popular and real time results in the response. // * recent : return only the most recent results in the response // * popular : return only the most popular results in the response. The next stage for this could be to use the package to change that value too. unique-random-array That’s it for now, I still have a weird bug where if I follow someone and then someone else follows me the bot decides to tweet back to itself! Coming up More stuff with the function, like auto follow back and better replies. .stream() Originally published at blog.scottspence.me on January 4, 2017.

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In software development, we always find ways to perform rapid application development with international code conventions by following standard security and development rules. Although we have several PHP frameworks for development, what about an application which you have to develop in a day or some hours? The answer lies in microframeworks. What are Micro Frameworks? Micro framework is a term used for web application frameworks, usually derived from full stack frameworks. They are helpful in making applications which send and receive HTTP requests, routing HTTP request to the specific controller, and dispatch and return the controller response. They are commonly used to make API applications for other services or tools. There are lots of Micro frameworks derived from different frameworks. We will discuss them separately and how you can easily install them on cloud servers. Top PHP Micro frameworks Here is the list of to PHP Micro Frameworks we are going to cover in this article: Silex Slim Lumen Bullet PHP Limonade Wave Framework To install Restful microframeworks on cloud server, I have made a PHP application server on Cloudways by launching a Digital ocean server. Cloudways is also providing a pre-installed Composer so we don’t need to install it. After launching the application move to your public_html folder and then run the installation commands. Silex Microframework Silex is a PHP microframework built with Symfony components and Pimple. Silex can be used to make single-page applications. Silex has an extension system based around the Pimple micro service-container that makes it even easier to tie in third party libraries. It uses the symfony HTTPKernel to request and response HTTP requests. Installation composer require silex/silex “~2.0” Code Example Simply define a controller and map them to routes require_once __DIR__.’/../vendor/autoload.php’; $app = new Silex\Application(); $app->get(‘/hello/{name}’, function($name) use($app) { return ‘Hello ‘.$app->escape($name); }); $app->run(); Slim Framework Slim is a PHP microframework that helps you quickly write simple yet powerful web applications and APIs. At its core, Slim is a dispatcher that receives an HTTP request, invokes an appropriate callback routine and returns an HTTP response. A slim app contains different routes that respond to specific HTTP requests. To get started, you first initiate and configure the slim app then define controller routes and then run the application. Installation composer require slim/slim “^3.0” Code Example <?php use \Psr\Http\Message\ServerRequestInterface as Request; use \Psr\Http\Message\ResponseInterface as Response; require ‘vendor/autoload.php’; $app = new \Slim\App(); $app->get(‘/hello/{name}’, function (Request $request, Response $response) { $name = $request->getAttribute(‘name’); $response->getBody()->write(“Hello, $name”); return $response; }); $app->run(); Lumen Lumen is a new project from Laravel creator Taylor Otwell. Lumen depends on the laravel base and working with its components but lumen was built for microservices. Lumen is for projects and components that can benefit from the convenience and power of Laravel, but can afford to sacrifice some configurability and flexibility in exchange for a speed boost. Installation //in project folder composer require “laravel/lumen-installer” //for global installation composer global require “laravel/lumen-installer” After installation you need to set the path of lumen by running the command in SSH. export PATH=”$PATH:$HOME/vendor/bin” Code Example <?php /** * Reimagine what you expect… */ $app->get(‘/’, function() { return [‘version’ => ‘5.3’] }); /** * From your microframework… */ $app->post(‘framework/{id}’, function($framework) { $this->dispatch(new Energy($framework)); }); $app->get(‘api/users/{id}’, function($id) { //some code }); Bullet PHP Bullet PHP is a useful microframework used to create REST API that automatically confirms the HTTP request. Bullet is resource and URI-oriented and comes pre-loaded with powerful HTTP features like content-negotiation and caching. Apps in Bullet PHP are built around HTTP URI and defined paths. It handles one code segment at a time and executes the callback for that segment. Installation composer require vlucas/bullet PHP Code Example $app = new Bullet\App(); $app->path(‘foo’, function($request) use($app) { return “foo”; }); $app->path(‘bar’, function($request) use($app) { $foo = $app->run(‘GET’, ‘foo’); // $foo is now a `Bullet\Response` instance return $foo->content() . “bar”; }); echo $app->run(‘GET’, ‘bar’); // echos ‘foobar’ with a 200 OK status Limonade Limonade is a PHP microframework for rapid web development and prototyping.It’s inspired by frameworks like Sinatra or Camping in Ruby, or Orbit in Lua. It aims to be simple, lightweight and extremely flexible. Installation $ wget https://github.com/sofadesign/limonade/archive/master.zip Unzip folder in SSH $ unzip master.zip Example Code require_once ‘vendors/limonade.php’; dispatch(‘/’, ‘hello’); function hello() { return ‘Hello world!’; } run(); Wave Framework Built loosely on model-view-control architecture and factory method design pattern, Wave is made for web services, websites and info-systems. This microframework is built around native API architecture, caching and smart image and resource management. Wave is a compact framework that does not include optional libraries, has a very small footprint and is developed keeping lightweight speed and optimizations in mind. Wave comes by default with a view controller and a gateway intended for website functionality with clean URLs that also incorporates a front-end JavaScript controller. Installation $wget https://github.com/kristovaher/Wave-Framework/archive/master.zip Unzip folder in SSH $ unzip master.zip Code Example $apiResult=$this->api(‘user-login’,array(‘username’=>’bluth’,’password’=>’123456')); if($this->checkTrueFalse($apiResult)){ // API call was successful } else { // API call failed, either because of an error or failure response-code } Final Words Now that you are familiar with the installation of some of the top PHP microframeworks on a Cloud host, there’s no point in dealing with the hassles of shared hosting. There are a few more frameworks, like Flight and Recess PHP, etc., that you can also try on the Cloudways PHP Stack. If you have any queries about the article or any questions in general, use the comment section below! Originally published at www.cloudways.com on September 28, 2016. is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

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Routine

How to Install Top PHP Micro Frameworks on a Cloud Server

Meet Nine Startups Making the Future Back in October we opened our doors at to nine startups, a three month program of acceleration which culminates in Demo Day next Wednesday (Jan 25th). Startupbootcamp IoT | Connected Devices beginning I can’t wait to see our nine teams — mixing high-quality engineering, technical ability & strong experience — pitching their products from a broad range of IoT applications to a room full of investors, partners and mentors (if you would like to attend then ). business you can register on our website So without further ado, introducing our nine startups making the future… helps manufacturers reduce downtime and increase operational efficiency with their devices capturing data from machines and motors for their AI cloud platform to analyse. The ThingTrax platform then sends actionable insights to floor managers before problems occur. ThingTrax ThingTrax — Smart Manufacturing made easy ’s device sits on top of your ski glove or mitten, letting you use your phone and apps without needing to even touch them. You can change your music, control your GoPro and navigate the slopes all with your phone safely stored in your pocket. Their mobile app also allows you to continually update your YodelUP with new features as they are released. YodelUP ’s devices generates data for bike fleet managers to improve their service, and for cities to build world class cycling infrastructure. Their device is either mounted or embedded into a bike, able to monitor and track a fleet of bikes in real time with operators then updated and alerted to problems through Joyride’s data analytics dashboard. Joyride replaces traditional proximity cards with your smartphone. No more keycards, fobs, access cards, or lanyards. Their technology lets people pass through doors effortlessly — using the key that everybody has on them already, their smartphone. Through Doordeck’s easy-to-use platform, building managers can quickly onboard new members, share access with guests and administer or restrict access. Doordeck Doordeck — Revolutionising Access Control helps you cook perfect meals without even having to be in the kitchen. Simply add a bag of food and an Eskesso device to a pot of water. Choose what recipe to cook using their app, and let Eskesso’s smart immersion heater do the rest. You can also order pre-prepared parcels of food to your door through the app — making delicious cooking simple. Eskesso is an alien buddy that makes learning and discovery fun for children. Using AI and machine learning, their device is able to understand what each child is interested in, delivering personalised facts and stories to help them develop. Their app lets parents top Woogie up with new content everyday. Woogie Woogie — AI enabled device for kids education is a wearable device that analyses a horse’s heart rate, activity and behaviour 24/7 in order to alert owners to problems or abnormalities with their horse, giving them all the information they need to avoid future health issues. Trackener lets you control your garage door through your smartphone with a device that can be installed by anyone in under two minutes. Thanks to their battery friendly proximity sensors your garage door will automatically open as soon as you return home and their app means you can control, monitor and manage access to your garage door, anywhere, at anytime. HomyHub is a connected indoor garden that lets you grow pesticide-free vegetables, herbs and fruits in your own home. Through their mobile app you can decide what to grow and monitor your produce throughout, with their hydroponics method and microclimate allowing you to grow all year round. CityCrop Interested in meeting the startups for yourself? Please register for a ticket .Hope to see you there! here

Discovery

Garage

Making the Future with IoT

Let’s set the stage. You work for an agency that concepts, designs and develops websites and applications for clients, be they internal or external (for the purposes of this blog we will assume in-house agencies qualify to participate as well). Typically your agency scopes out digital work on a project or retainer basis. For comparison purposes, this blog is written from the perspective that you are extending a project-based bid for the application project. The Old Model The typical process looks something like this: - Client sends potential agency partner a meeting request or an RFP - Agency schedules scoping meeting or begins scoping project based on RFP- Meeting Execution and / or RFP Proposal Submittal back to client- Pencil Sharpening / Revisions / Price Negotiations / Scope-Honing- Execution of Contract and Scheduling of Deliverables and Milestones- Check In #1 — Design- Check In #2 — Front End Development- Check In #3 — CMS Architecture and Utilization- (This could keep going…)- Client Approval- Application Launch Design Kickoff In my experience, the Strategist kicks off the project by writing a Creative Brief at the culmination of contracts and scoping sessions. This is presented to the creatives so that they can get cracking on creating comps for general ‘look and feel’ direction. Once a comp set has been selected by the client, the comps are fleshed out to include tertiary pages and notification emails to ensure the agency is still on the right track. Front End Dev Kickoff By this time, the developers know the general sitemap and wireframe architecture of the application they are building, and also have the comps in hand as a playboook to begin development. The front end developers at my old agency would start the HTML / CSS application to the static PSDs, resulting in a presentation for front end development to ensure hover states, rollovers, navigation and the like were as expected from the clients’ perspective. Back End Dev Kickoff At this point the front end can continue being massaged, but it’s back end time. Time to tie it all together, bringing the beautiful aesthetic designs and front end code together within an archaic and limiting box of an installed content management system. Once the CMS that’s been developed has legs, the keys are given to the clients to take a test drive for managing and publishing content. If all is well, the CMS is completed, and all your troubles and worries are now all related and connected within the same archaic and bulky CMS Box. The keys are given back to the client, the final invoice is delivered and they are now in the driver’s seat for everything from content updates to security and plugin updates and maintenance. The New Model While we can’t curtail the agency process to exclude future RFPs, painful clients or changing scopes, we can alleviate heartache when it comes to back end development, CMS installation, CMS development, CMS bending and CMS maintenance. offers an intuitive API that can deliver content to any website or application. This gives you the freedom to build your application using any programming language and allows for easier scaling within your development team. Your content is accessed through the and can be made available everywhere. Say good bye to development time lost in CMS installation, configuration and maintenance. The benefit is in development hours saved and sanity. No installation. No configuration. Just content and code. Your content is hosted in Cosmic JS and your code is pushed from your GitHub repo to the Cosmic app server. Read more about . Cosmic JS JSON API The Cosmic Stack Some developers using the Cosmic Stack have reported a 75% reduction in dev time spent and an overall faster, less complicated and more streamlined development process. Developer are offered as valuable time-savers during the development process. It’s easier than ever to manage your project from the first line of code, to content population, to launch day. tools and features The exact same web page design, content and app aesthetics are now: - Portable — Read More - Scalable — Read More - Blazing Fast — Read More - Secure — Read More - Available via API endpoint for localization, customization and ease of use — Read More It’s as easy as signing up, creating a new bucket, installing or building a new web application(s), edit objects and deploy! I get my confirmation email to access my web application and also see my options for bucket upgrades like custom domains, one-click SSL, webhooks and localization. is an API-first cloud-based content management platform that makes it easy to manage applications and content. If you have questions about the Cosmic JS API, please reach out to the founders on or . Cosmic JS Twitter Slack is the Co-Founder & CMO of , an API-first Cloud-based that decouples content from code, allowing devs to build slick apps and websites in any programming language they want. Carson Gibbons Cosmic JS Content Management Platform

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Liberating Digital Agencies by Switching to a CMS API

In all my years at work, one thing that has not ceased to trigger my bewilderment is people using To-do lists. I do not object to them being helpful, but believe they are a suboptimal choice for many kinds of tasks, especially for workers. Let me tell you why. knowledge Most tasks have more than two states Unless you go shopping where the item can be either in your shopping basket or not, the tasks you deal with have more than two states. Often, they include multiple steps, are dependent on others you have to wait for, etc. Some of them take quite a while until they can be completed. Options to deal with that in To-do lists are Subtasks, Sections or Deadlines (I will get to the problems with some of them later). They will only save you for so long. Eventually, your To-do list will get clogged with items you are doing but have not finished yet. And you will only be able to figure out how you are doing by looking at each of the tasks in detail. Task Boards (which I am proponent of), on the other hand, offer a lot more possibilities to deal with states: Not started yet, in progress, waiting for input and completed tasks get one column each. Your scenario is more complex then that? Add a column! You will see how you are doing at a single glance. And it gets better: You can see exactly where tasks pile up and focus on actions specifically resolving that column (ping some people or finally do the last things required). This is just one of the benefits a Task Board can give you. To-do lists do not favor quality This aspect stems from me seeing a lot of people approaching To-do lists with the mind-set of “I have to get all of this done today”, but I believe it applies to a broader group as well. With To-do lists poorly reflecting different states, all that is not checked off is piling up in the same place. You will be inclined to check it off just to get rid of it at some point, sacrificing quality. But there is an even bigger drawback: Because you are lacking visual clarity, you will not see systematic issues in how you handle things. You will not see which task you had to start over again and again until you finally got it done, pointing at a possibly deeper issue. That is another aspect Task Boards handle better: The complexity of your work is reflected correctly. If you have to move a task back and forth multiple times, you will know for sure there was a problem and think about it, potentially improving the process. “Eliminating waste”, as it is commonly called, is only possible with a clear overview of how a process works (even if it is just you doing household things). There is no temporal dimension in To-do lists How do you deal with things that are not relevant for this week in a To-do list? There is no way, so your list will grow or you use crutches such as artificial deadlines (potentially sacrificing quality again) or dividing your task list into multiple ones or sections. And when you do the latter, you are actually building a poor man’s task board (considering Trello is free, it is even worse than that). Task boards offer you a separate backlog column that will not interfere with the things you have chosen to do for now. It separates them visually while keeping them close so you won’t forget. Because the things you want to do now as opposing to next week have effectively different states and should be treated as such. So why are so many people using them for everything? I am not sure, but here is my current reasoning: There is no perfect market when it comes to productivity tools. People do not know about everything that exists out there, so they can only choose from things known to them. And many do not put in a conscious effort to look at different approaches. I come from software development, where Kanban and Scrum are household names. But even I had to put in additional effort to find out what they actually mean as most companies just pick some parts of both and claim to live by those approaches. If there was a perfect market, I believe To-do lists would be the lesser-used tool. Argument 1: To-do lists are more intuitive. The simplest memory aid is a piece of paper with some items that you scratch off. Tadà, To-do list. Compare that to having to sketch out a board and move things around, requiring either digital tooling or Post-its. You can’t blame people searching for a tool to go with the one they understand fastest. Argument 2: They work. Memorizing your task list may work very well some days and totally fail you on others. To-do lists solve that problem well whether the problem is easy or hard, so why look for something else? Task Boards offer you an even better solution for the more complex tasks, but if you’re not actively looking for a better solution, you stay with To-do lists. Argument 3: Conclusion If there were only To-do lists or I just had pen and paper, I would certainly be using them over my memory. But in the wake of all the innovations in how we work and technology, Task Boards have taken a strong lead for most use-cases, and I’d only refrain from them for a shopping list. But my intention is not to stop you from using To-do lists. Rather, I want to encourage people to try them and share their experiences why it worked or did not work for them. Feel free to shoot me a message! Suggestions You want to give Task boards a shot? I’ll keep a list of good resources here as I find them. For now, I can recommend the following things: Personal Kanban: and . A basic introduction to Kanban tailored to your personal life with very few steps, ideal for starters. Also available as a book. Video 1 Video 2 : Arguably the most popular tool out there, it does the job well for your personal stuff. Also, they are actually doing a great job at bringing Task Boards to the masses. Trello : The system that started the rethinking of how to manage a process. A nice primer rethinking how you do things and the concept of waste. Toyota Production System software development methodologies. Recommending the books that started the movements is a little over-the-top, but if you want an overview over software development methodologies. Agile O’Reilly has a very nice book My background My prior experience with task/process management stems from different domains, namely software development (as a person managing a 10+ people team as well as part of a young team where people iterated through a number of solutions), ERP systems, academic research for my degrees, my personal day-to-day planning and of course from shopping lists. I’ve been using Kanban in professional and private contexts for many years now, creating a tool for recurring tasks called to solve an issue with recurring tasks other tools do not. I Could Call You can find the original post (with up to date links) on the I Could Call blog.

Trello

Why To-do lists are fundamentally unfit for most things

This article was originally published on TechCrunch . By Steve Myers, Founder and CEO, Mindtribe . The connected hardware space has undoubtedly gone through a renaissance over the last four years, with VCs nearly tripling their funding between 2012 and 2016. Changes in funding patterns have been felt in the industry in myriad ways, including the viability, typical runway and capitalization of companies. These are fundamental changes that affect how startups decide to run their businesses and develop their products, so they’re vital to understand. This year, we gleaned some new data from Pitchbook around venture funding in IoT to get a quantitative understanding of whether investment in the space is continuing to grow or flattening out. Here’s what we learned… Funding totals are up, but numbers of rounds are down By early November of 2016, IoT funding had already sped past 2015’s total, bringing in $1.27 billion. However, the total number of companies receiving funds was down, from ~200 at the same time last year to 174 today. If the current rate continues through the end of 2016, this would be a 10 percent drop from 2015, while the total funding for connected hardware companies would be up nearly 40 percent. What does this mean? Well, for one, we’re likely seeing the space mature. We’ve heard this anecdotally, but the data agrees: More funding is going to fewer, more promising companies. Although there have been a number of public setbacks in the IoT space (especially around crowdfunded hardware — Skully, Coin, etc.), clearly confidence in the space remains. Other data also points to a maturing investment market… IoT investors gain more experience The chart above shows the year that VCs and angels first invested in an IoT company. We can see here that fewer first-time VCs and angels are entering the connected hardware space, with first-time participation in financing rounds falling from the 2014 peak. To those of us in the industry, this signals a move in the right direction. One of the issues I’ve seen startups encounter over the last couple of years is VCs who have traditionally been in the software space investing in connected hardware. Bubbles and hype attract capital — which is great — but this means interfacing with a growing number of investors who have little to no experience in the connected hardware space and its intricacies. Experienced investors are invaluable, as they can help companies navigate long development cycles. Extra runway and heavy pre-launch testing necessitate greater patience from investors. Instead, startups are seeing pressure from impatient, non-experienced VCs act as a counterproductive force. Anecdotally, startups are also seeing more investors asking tougher questions this year. Problems remain, but pre-round due diligence seems to be getting more stringent. Founders who are looking to start a connected hardware company should expect questions centered around the desire for a working prototype that addresses the basic questions around product feasibility; an awareness around the potential development challenges; an understanding of the technologies that would be used in your product and why you are choosing those technologies; and early signs that a manufacturer is willing to work on your product. These are crucial check boxes that first-time investors were glossing over too quickly during the hardware bubble. More investors have a healthy skepticism fueled by experiencing endless delays or products that never ship. They’re also more aware of red flags, like low-quality schedules, where no buffers are shown for integrating learnings, ID iterations or contingency plans. VCs will always prefer to see a realistic and feasible scenario over one that makes a company look good but is pie-in-the-sky. The trend toward higher expectations and tightening due diligence makes one think that rookie hardware startup founders would have a harder chance at bringing in funding. But you’d be wrong… First-time founders are not at a disadvantage Although the chart above makes it look as though first-time founders have had an unfavorable 2016 in the hardware space, they are, in fact, right around average. From 2012 to 2016, anywhere between 80 to 90 percent of IoT startups were founded by first-timers. Surprisingly, it is 2015 that stands out as the anomalous year, with serial founders jumping into the fray and snagging 22 percent of total funding in the space. Otherwise, first-time founders tend to collect 90–95 percent of all hardware funding. This is obviously just a snapshot of the connected hardware industry, but it illustrates the creation of a healthy market that’s settling in for the long term, with less “bubble” around the edges, where founders and investors are no longer throwing everything they have against the wall to see what sticks. And that’s a good thing.

Funding

Techcrunch

What’s Trending in IoT Venture Capital? More Investment in Fewer Companies

As a person who have spent time writing his own JS framework, I am nitpicky, when it come to frameworks. When it comes to React, there are several things I don’t like, which Vue.js seems to have solved in nice ways (out of the box): My personal preference is templates over JSX. I find the lack of ‘if’ and ‘for’ control statements with JSX causing developers to define lot of temporary variables at the top of render functions, which in turn makes the code more difficult to follow. jsx-control-statements can mitigate that. However templates are certainly more readable. 1. Templates vs JSX: [Besides, babel is a huge dependency that adds to the build system, which I try to avoid. Its 150MB when a full browser — Chrome debian extracted, is 178 MB. Ridiculous!] With React, if one isn’t using Redux, there are two ways to trigger state change on a child component: 2. Updating child components: i. trigger state change through props + listen to componentWillReceiveProps(), which can then change the internal state of the child component or ii. keep a reference to child component(s) during the render() function and then call a method on the child component, which in turn changes the internal state of the child. I personally find method (i) convoluted and rather prefer (ii). However React recommends (i). On the other hand, Vue.js gives an easy way to access child components using “ref” attribute on the component’s custom element. (Besides it looks more nicer/readable than keeping references to child components in JS with React). [1] You might be thinking: “Why not just use Redux”? My question is why add the additional layer when the application/website is small? When it comes to parent component listening to events on a child, I prefer to attach anonymous functions as event handlers to the root element of the child. This makes both the parent and the child easier to refactor if/when needed. 3. Attaching events to component root element: With React, one has to pass function(s) through props (which introduces a name) to attach an event handler to the root element of a component. The name introduces an interface to be documented by the component maintainer, looked up the developer using the component and still limits the number of event types on which the parent can listen to. (Yes, when attaching events to non-root elements, the introduction of an interface may be unavoidable. However attaching event handlers to root element is very common, so..this should be easier right?) Vue.js, gives ability to directly attach an event handler by defining a “v-on:eventname.native” attribute on the component’s custom element. It avoids any named property on the child and is much more declarative, nicer to read. Let’s say I need to implement an abstract pop-up modal, that has two different body and footer shown at two different places in the website. The React way is to define props, and use them in the render function. But with Vue, one can define it with placeholders (Vue calls it “slots”)as: 4. Abstract components: <div class="popup-modal"><main><slot name="header"></slot></main> <footer><slot name="footer"></slot></footer></div> and declare a modal where ever needed: <popup-modal><p slot="body"> Some message </p><div slot="footer"> <button>Ok</button> </div></popup-modal> Vue.js gives a declarative way to define abstract components through slots, which I prefer over using props for this case. Here is a small nitpick. Vue’s syntax for manipulating data/state is nicer than React’s setState() method. One can manipulate the data like usual and expect to see the view updated. Vue uses setters/getters to know when a property changes. 5. setters vs setState(): Side notes: [1] — A gotcha here is that $refs isn’t available until the component renders. I solved this with the JS framework I wrote in the past, by rendering the component in-memory, on construction. This helps in resolving *most* of the references to child components, if not all. It also avoided a “not rendered” internal state, which avoided several checks in the library code, avoiding bugs, simplifying code for both the developer and the maintainer. <- Vue.js maintainers, if any of you reading this, take that as a potential idea/suggestion. That’s all for now. I’ll add more here as I learn more about both frameworks. React and Vue devs: Please comment if I’ve got anything wrong or if I have missed some easier ways to manage code. is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

Why I like Vue over React

The Internet is a landscape with an endless horizon. Its vastness of information, ideas, sounds, and images is matched only by its constant growth and ceaseless change. But one day, the Internet stood still. On Wednesday, January 18, 2012, websites all over the Internet covered their homepages in a uniform message. Reddit, Wikipedia, Google, Amazon, Craigslist— giants of media and commerce — joined more than 50,000 sites in an unprecedented blackout. It was an act of protest so powerful and inspiring that it did something no one thought possible: It moved Congress. The US Senate and House of Representatives had hoped to pass two severely restrictive online censorship bills quietly, without fanfare in the press or attention from the public. These bills were backed by the entertainment industry, and they would have fundamentally changed the Internet as we know it. Aaron Swartz on SOPA/PIPA “It wasn’t that the government went to people and asked them to take down particular material that was illegal. It shut down whole websites. Essentially, it stopped Americans from communicating entirely with certain other groups.” — The Day the Internet Went Dark was the final stand in a campaign that forced Congress to rethink its secretive and cynical attempt to undermine freedom and openness on the net. Reeling from a massive wave of emails and calls from constituents, Congress abandoned the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA). What Made This Fight Powerful Looking back from five years in the future, the defeat of SOPA/PIPA by an unlikely coalition of Internet activists, online communities, and huge business interests is even more amazing. The call to action didn’t fall along party lines. It brought together libertarians, progressives, conservatives, and Tea Party activists. It didn’t matter if you were a major corporation or an individual citizen. For one day, the line was drawn, and the fight for a Free Internet changed everything. New Threats, Fragile Victories But there wasn’t much time to rejoice in the defeat of SOPA/PIPA. Later in 2012, Congress introduced the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and sparked a debate not just about privacy, but once again about laws designed to allow unprecedented government overreach. The following year, a key leader of the SOPA/PIPA victory, Aaron Swartz, took his own life while facing decades in jail for allegedly downloading too many articles from an online database. It was a tragedy that forced a hard look at the law used to prosecute Aaron, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Then in 2014, a new threat emerged. A lawsuit brought by Verizon struck down the FCC’s rules on Net Neutrality and gave telecom companies a window to push for new restrictions. After a massive wave of grassroots support, including an online action reminiscent of the blackout against SOPA/PIPA, the FCC finally proposed rules that would fortify the openness of the Internet and our right to access it. In the last five years, Internet freedom has come to mean fighting against so much more than censorship. Looking Ahead As power changes hands in Washington this month, many questions remain unanswered about the future of the Internet as a space for innovation, creativity, and expression. Donald Trump’s administration includes two new appointments to the FCC who have previously spoken out against Net Neutrality and may try to roll back existing FCC rules as soon as this year. That’s why activists who fought against SOPA/PIPA and stayed vigilant over the last five years aren’t waiting for Congress to introduce new bills to encourage the public to activate. They’re urging action now, while appointments are happening that signal the fights ahead. If the 2012 victory against SOPA/PIPA taught us anything, it’s that whether or not the Internet will remain a place that everyone can access reliably and affordably to share, connect, and create freely depends on us. What We Can Do If SOPA had passed, this piece of writing might not exist. In fact, all of Medium could be taken down if a single company found fault with a single post. And if a handful of individuals hadn’t sounded the alarm when SOPA was introduced, that’s exactly what would have happened to so many sites like this one. So, at the dawn of a new era of leadership in Washington, what can we do to continue the fight? Join us in rededicating yourself to the preservation of this beautiful, wild creation we call the Internet. Keep Watch. Stay Free. This has been a collaboration featuring content from Access Now , Center for Democracy and Technology , Consumer Technology Association , Demand Progress , Electronic Frontier Foundation , Engine , Fight for the Future , Free Press , Kickstarter , Lawrence Lessig , Public Knowledge , Taryn Southern , and Techdirt .

The Day The Internet Stood Still

Even if you are a fan of the Whopper over a Big Mac, you have to admit that McDonald’s must have done something right to satisfy customers for the last 80 years. Started in Monrovia, California by Patrick McDonald and his sons, their small food stand would grow into one of the world’s most recognized eating establishments. Here are a few ways that lessons learned from McDonald’s early growth can apply to your mobile app. Success Takes Time In 1937 the McDonald family opened a food stand called “The Airdrome” in Monrovia, California. The restaurant did not look like a modern McDonald’s. In fact, it had a completely different feel and served items like hot dogs and all-you-can-drink orange juice. But the business survived. In 1948 the McDonalds took all that they had learned, revamped the restaurant, and rebranded it “McDonald’s”. It takes time to create a polished app. As days creep into weeks and slowly into months and you are just ready to launch, know that each bit of work you do on your app makes it a better product. Don’t get discouraged. Your first app may not be the app that strikes it big. Even though “The Airdrome” is not alive today, its descendants are. The lessons you learn from creating an app will help make your next app even better. Adapt Your Menu The first incarnation of what would become McDonald’s included 25 items and even had hot dogs and barbecue. But the brothers soon realized that based on popularity and profits, hamburgers were the way to go. So they simplified the menu to just hamburgers and a few side items. The first spark of inspiration for a mobile app is often a deceptive little fellow. Your brain tells you how awesome your idea is. You envision an app with forward thinking UI/UX, user retention out the wazoo and social shareability like no other app. Then you actually start developing the app and realize not all of that may come true. Often, less is better. If your app has too many features or is covered with tons of flashy UI glitz, take a step back. Look at what is providing the most value to your user and then focus on that. Just like McDonald’s simplified to being a hamburger restaurant, your app may be better off if it narrows its focus on a prime feature. Launch Locally, Grow Globally By 1952, the McDonald family decided it was time to branch out, so they signed up 2 franchisees, one in Arizona and one in California. Ray Kroc noticed the restaurants in 1954 and was so taken by the idea that he partnered with the McDonald family to expand the franchising efforts nationally. In five short years, the total number of McDonald’s restaurants had increased to 102. Today, the number of McDonald’s locations worldwide exceeds 35,000. Your app needs to find its audience in order to succeed. That audience may be users who live in a particular geographic area or are interested in a certain topic. To jump start your user growth, focus on marketing to your initial audience. Once you have a core group of users, expand your audience by focusing on other geographic areas or broadening your topic appeal. Just how McDonald’s grew their restaurants by focusing on one geographic location at a time, you can grow your app by gradually expanding your target audience. McDonald’s was able to succeed by developing a strong initial product, adjusting to customer demand and then expanding to new locations. Applying these same concepts to your mobile app will help grow your user base. To help developers listen and react to user feedback, my company created User Hook. is a suite of tools that lets developers segment and reach users with timely messages and actions. , download our iOS or Android SDK, and get started growing your user base. User Hook Sign up for your free account If you are looking for help with a digital project, check out our company . We also help mobile apps with user engagement and feedback through our service. Cullaboration Media User Hook

ORANGE

Target

Timely

How Growing Your App Is Like McDonald’s Early Years

The origins of the term “ ” are unusually rich and expansive. Originally, it was a wholly pejorative term, meaning to work haphazardly. When people called you a “talentless hack,” it meant that you were wholly unoriginal, cobbling together mediocre performance from the scraps of others’ work. hack Yet these same attributes, when applied to , came to represent the height of creativity. In a quickly evolving field largely devoid of standard operating procedures, the ability to cobble together solutions from disparate pieces became a highly sought after skill. More recently, terms such as and have come into vogue technology life hacking growth hacking Today, with every field evolving at light speed, we all need to be able to come up with unconventional hacks for thorny problems and . Unfortunately, that’s not something typically taught in school or in management training programs, although it probably should be. Here’s how I learned to hack. synthesize solutions from disparate places What To Do When There Is No One Down the Hall? In 1997, when I was still in my twenties, I took a job in Warsaw for what I thought would be a six-month stint. To my great surprise, I ended up spending fifteen years living and working in Eastern Europe, including Poland, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey. It was a time of enormous transition and transformation, where nothing was “standard” and everything was in flux. I felt well prepared. My previous company had an excellent management training program and, with my experience in a highly developed and competitive market, I knew a lot of things that those around me did not. With Poland still trying to shrug off the rust and malaise built up over fifty years of Communism, it seemed like I would have a distinct advantage. Boy was I wrong! Much to my surprise, my background was, in many ways, a drawback. I had been trained to work within a system, to play a specific part in a greater whole. When a problem came up that was outside my purview, I went to someone down the hall who played another part. Yet now there was no system and no one down the hall. So I had to learn a new outlook and a new set of skills. When I problem came up, I had to figure it out myself. That meant cobbling together bits and pieces from anywhere I could find them, seeing what worked and iterating toward a solution. It was challenging, fun and, as I soon found, something the Poles had been doing for a long time. Hacking A House The communist system was hopelessly broken. Everything was run by centralized 5-year plans that couldn’t possibly take into account the needs for an entire society. That meant constant shortages of everything from basic foodstuffs to consumer products like toilet paper. You had to hack to survive. The Poles called it “kombinować” and it worked like this: Say you wanted to build a house and needed bricks. You couldn’t buy them, because nobody had thought to include your preference for shelter in the central plan. Even if you had the money to buy them, you would need a special permit. So buying bricks directly would be out of the question. So you would start by getting your hands on something else, like a bicycle. You could then trade the bicycle to get some chocolates and bring those chocolates to the lady at the meat store. With an invaluable extra ration of meat, you might be able to finally get your bricks. Then you would repeat the process for nails, wood and so on. It was all an incredible waste of time and effort, but it made people master hackers, which may be why today Eastern Europe is a such hotbed for both high tech skills and entrepreneurial energy. Hacking Together A Business As I continued on in my Eastern European adventure, I had the opportunity to do business in an amazingly wide variety of countries and contexts. Sometimes I found myself working with major multinationals, other times with agile and energetic entrepreneurs and, on occasion, I had to deal with some unsavory characters. What struck me was the way that everybody was hacking together different solutions. A particular market in the Czech Republic, for instance, would develop very differently than in Poland, Russia or Ukraine. So companies in the very same industry, putting out what on the surface seemed like very similar products, had wholly different business models. For me, it was not only fascinating, but an amazing opportunity. I was not a Pole, a Czech, A Turk, a Ukrainian or a Russian and was not tied down to any one context. I became something of a travelling gypsy, picking up bits and pieces of various businesses and later figuring out how I could cobble them together into a new contraption of a business model. It was only after returning to the US that I began to realize just how unusual my experiences were. I found that typical corporate executives than the entrepreneurs I had become used to working with. Everybody was playing their part in a particular system, with little understanding of what lay outside of it. seemed a whole lot more like apparatchiks Learning To Compete In A Hacker Economy Today I think just about everybody is experiencing something similar to what I did in the 1990’s. We’re in the midst of a from institutions that control resources to . No system is safe anymore and everybody needs to learn how to hack. Welcome to . shift in power platforms that weave together disparate ecosystems the hacker economy Organizations will need to adapt. Rather than focusing on building efficiency to compete within traditional lines of industry and category, managers now need to . No firm, division or line of business can operate as an island. In networked age, we need to . foment agility and interoperability widen and deepen connections But even more than operational changes, we need to transform how we recruit and train. Rather than asking job candidates, “where do you want to be in 5 years?“ we should ask, “what problems do you most want to solve?” Rather than touting the number of years people have been doing a job, we should ask what they have learned in the last 6 months. In a sense, I was very lucky. I learned how to hack in a foreign environment where uncomfortable barriers of culture, language and custom put me on constant alert. It was scary, exciting, bewildering and, at times, incredibly lonely and depressing. But it forced me to adapt, cobble things together and find a way to make things work. Most people, for better or worse, will never know that kind of discomfort. Nevertheless, in a disruptive age, and everyone needs to learn how to hack. the ability to adapt is the ability to compete is how hackers start their afternoons. We’re a part of the family. We are now and happy to opportunities. Hacker Noon @AMI accepting submissions discuss advertising &sponsorship To learn more, , , or simply, read our about page like/message us on Facebook tweet/DM @HackerNoon. If you enjoyed this story, we recommend reading our and . Until next time, don’t take the realities of the world for granted! latest tech stories trending tech stories

How I Learned To Hack

When I raised my first fund a year ago, there was no way I could have told you what I would learn during the first 12 months. This is an apprenticeship business, to some extent. You learn by doing, and from doing alongside experts. This helps to refine your judgment and taste when it comes to picking winners. You can gain the apprenticeship experience by working for an experienced VC, or by investing along-side them in my opinion. I didn’t have the chance to go work for a VC, so I raised my own fund and am learning from the best by investing with them. Venture Capital I’ve learned so much during the first 12 months of deploying capital at . Mostly I learned from mistakes, and from some great mentors that took time to show me the way. Some mentors were individuals I randomly bumped into at a bar and spoke with for 15 minutes (Chris Sacca at in NOLA), and some were investors who have taken an interest in helping me along. Below is a summary of just a few of the lessons learned during my first year. Deep Space Ventures Collision 7 Key Lessons Learned in My First-Year Investing in Startups: 1) You can learn a lot about how to be a good investor/partner/board member from founders. Founders have been the best resource for me in the last year. There is a therapeutic conversation that happens when founders and investors get together to share what they expect from each other in a relationship. Founders can teach you what they are looking for in a partner, and when you get into a competitive investing situation, that becomes very important. 2) Be obsessed with learning from everyone, about everything. If you stop learning, even for a second, you are going to get hurt by your blind spots. What are your blind spots? You can’t know yet. I constant identify new ones, and the rate at which I identify things I don’t know, far exceeds the rate at which I learn (maybe that’s a personal problem?). But I’m ok with the delta between those two frontiers (thinking of a line graph), because I can ask experts for help. I’m absolutely terrified of what I call “unidentified unknowns” and you should be too. 3) It’s ok to say “no”, and do it quickly. Nothing wastes more time for founders (or investors) than lingering around and not saying “no” efficiently and effectively. If you string founders along, then bad things happen. Think about it from their perspective, if 30–40 investors string them along just a little bit, it can waste weeks and months of time for a founder. That’s just not fair. 4) Don’t hesitate to admit inexperience or lack of knowledge. The ecosystem, and certainly at the seed stage, is a very open-sourced environment. Many people around you want to help you succeed including founders, other investors, accelerators, mentors, lawyers, etc. Their incentive to help comes from their need to see the ecosystem grow, so leverage that. Lean on them for advice and ask a lot of questions. startup 5) Trust your gut, before it gets colored by those around you. Hopefully you have good taste, and trusting your gut, is good advice. If you have bad taste, then I guess you will figure it out, eventually, and hopefully not at a high price, but likely so. I can’t say I have good or bad taste yet, because I haven’t had any proof (no exits — one year in). I’ll report back when I get a sense of how good or bad I am at picking winners. 6) Build relationships with other investors, even if you must buy your way in at first (in deals). I learned so much from other great investors and I would recommend to anyone, to get access to a few deals that great investors are in, so you can have a chance to learn from them first hand. Spending a fractional percentage of investment capital to get access to more deals, with better investment groups, could pay off in the long run. 7) You must become efficient with everything you do. Early on, I tried to take face to face intro meetings with almost everyone. Not efficient, obviously. I want to learn as much as I can about a business meeting them, with the intent of not wasting their time, or mine. Inefficiency leads to missing winners. Missing one winner, can be the difference between raising your next fund or being a one-time fund manager! before Follow me on Twitter @hazesyah Contact Deep Space Ventures

HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive January 16th, 2017

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HackerNoon Tech Stories Archive January 16th, 2017

@joshjulianJosh Berg

@danieldallosDaniel Dallos

@ladyleetTracy Lee | ladyleet

@CodingJoeJoseph Nielsen

@tyler_waiteTyler Waite

@madhu_kesavanMadhu Kesavan

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@raphcrouanRaph Crouan

@carsoncgibbonsCarson Gibbons

@roberttochmanszewcRobert Tochman-Szewc

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@munawwarMunawwar

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@whynotmattMatt Johnston

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@stephenhaysStephen Hays