We often hear from brands, celebrities, companies, and organizations who are looking for the best resources to start building an application on Facebook.com, optimize a Facebook Connect integration, or build a Facebook Page. To help you accelerate your efforts, we introduced the Preferred Developer Consultant program in December to connect companies and brands to the resources they need to build with Facebook products and technologies.
We are excited to see the growing ecosystem of businesses that have been created around supporting innovation on Facebook, and today we're expanding this program to recommend 35 additional developers who can help you build world-class social experiences both on Facebook and around the Web. The program now has nearly 50 consultants in 15 countries. Over half of the new Preferred Developer Consultants have international operations and have already built campaigns, community portals, and other social applications in countries like Israel, Lithuania, and Czech Republic.
If you or your company builds high quality Facebook Connect implementations, Facebook applications, and/or Facebook Pages, and is interested in being included as a developer consultant in this program, please visit the Developer FAQ to learn more about submitting your company for consideration.
We also welcome your feedback on the Developer Forum.
Kristin Thayer, who works on the Facebook Developer Network team, is excited to see Connect implemented all over the world.
Google has decided to release the API for its Powermeter tool for developers to create new tools.
Steam for Mac is 100 percent official. Valve just released a statement saying it plans to launch it this April. The first games available will be Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life (and expansions), Counter Strike, and Portal. Portal 2 will be the first game released for Mac and PC simultaneously. Pretty big news, yes.
Steam will be fully native on the Mac, that is, not some rubbish emulation—it uses WebKit (“Safari”). That makes me jealous: Steam for PC uses Internet Explorer, and it gar-bage. It’s the worst part about Steam.
Valve bigwig Gabe Newell said, “As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients. The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”
Welcome to Steam, Mac users! I look forward to sniping you all in Team Fortress 2 over and over again until you accuse me of using an aiming bot, the quit in a big huff. Mwahaahaa~!
For several years millions have shared the places they’ve been using the Where I’ve Been website and Facebook application. The site also has an API (our Where I’ve Been API profile), which allows for much of the same functionality, such as searching countries, marking it visited and adding content such as a story or photo.
The API has an impressive array of methods. Many are accessed via OAuth, which means that users provide your application permission to access their data. Twitter, as well as several other popular APIs, also use this method, more secure than sharing passwords.
Developers of mapping mashups might take specific note of the search and place methods. Developers can find cities by latitude and longitude coordinates, which would allow for some interesting mobile applications, such as logging road trips. Additionally, countries and cities can be searched by name.
The API also contains a few other things we like to see: sample code and even a place to see the platform status (at the bottom of the page).
While the Where I’ve Been API looks useful for retrieving locations, it’s obviously been built to support the site itself. Therefore, the extensive user methods are best used for social travel sharing, the same thing that has made the Where I’ve Been product so popular.
Valve has confirmed that it will be bringing Steam, its market-leading digital download services, to Mac formats this April.
The service supports a library of games including Valve's own Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series, and the recently announced Portal 2 will be the company's first simultaneous Windows and Mac release.
"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality internet clients," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."
Mac OS X only: We've been fans of Quicksilver for years, but the universal application launcher and-then-some hasn't been in active development for a while. Alfred aims to pick up where Quicksilver left off.
That's good news for Mac users, though currently it's a pretty barebones alternative. It does application launching, supports quick web searches, and searches contacts as you type—features that are pretty old hat to QS die-hards. The plus side, however, is that the Alfred developers seem pretty serious about improving the app, adding new features, and, most importantly, keeping the fruits of their labor free.
With this morning's announcement that Launchy is also available for Macs, it would seem Mac users have no shortage of options in the app-launching category. If you give Alfred a try, let's hear how you like it in the comments. Thanks gglanzani!
Apple’s boldest ambitions might be yet to come.
Many think of Apple TV as one the company’s least succesful products of recent years. Despite frequent updates, it does leave much to be desired. According to patent reports dug up by Patently Apple however, it’s likely we’ll see Apple TV soon run the same OS as the iPad. This means the ability to email, browse the web and run the plethora of applications we’re bound to see developed for Apple’s device (along with the iPhone apps that can run on it).
The patent identifies iRemote, Apple’s own iPhone app specifically created to control the Apple TV as where the magic may stem from. iRemote could become your home’s universal remote/mouse. This means using iRemote to browse, type, email, play games, all from the comfort of your couch with your TV as the display.
For those of you who haven’t tried iRemote, I can assure you that this thing has potential. The app is as slick (as you would expect from Apple) but more importantly very responsive and it’s not difficult to see how it become the trick up Apple’s sleeve.
Once Apple plugs itself into what most families consider their hub, the TV, the potential for Apple’s iRemote app to control virtually every part of a home becomes clear. It’s what most people believed 2010 would be like, one device to control heating, lighting, audio, entertainment and so on. Of course, this is all likely to happen with the the help of developers and assuming the iPad takes off, with the help of major utility and manufacturing companies.
Of course, the iPad will itself also plug in to the system, meaning you won’t have to have an Apple TV or iRemote app to make this happen.
It’s also fascinating to then imagine how Apple might take a bigger chunk out of the gaming marketing which up until recently had been a hardly fought out by the likes of Sony and Nintendo. The iPhone has done wonders to prove your phone could become the ultimate in portable gaming. Will Apple TV, the iPad and iRemote do the same for gamers at home?
Apple’s bright future might have only just begun.
Apple attempts at blocking unwanted titles from the App Store have evolved to target so-called "cookie-cutter" apps, developers say. The affected apps -- in the crosshairs for approximately a month, according to claims -- are mostly built with special generator software, which can be used churn out apps based on standard templates. Apple's specific focus though is said to be titles that provide little functionality, such as a simple RSS feed....
The quantity of software in Google’s Android Market app store is growing rapidly. But compared to Apple’s App Store, the Android one is still short on stuff by rockstar developers like this one. Wonder what Google is doing to make it worth their while to build great stuff for its platform?
The developers at Bellshare have recently released an update to their popular BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) weather app, bringing it up to version 2.2.01. With it, comes a lot of good stuff, including support for 3rd party app access! Developers, take note! The update makes it easy for any developer to access BerryWeather’s home location conditions. For the nuts-and-bolts of it all, check out the Bellshare forums (developers only, please!).
Of course, when I first read this I immediately thought of BlackBerry theme development. Pull real-time weather information, and include the data in a weather slot. Ideal stuff. Cheers to Bellshare and a ‘kudos’ in advance to any theme or app developers out there that make use of the new opportunity.
For more information or to download OTA, hit up http://m.bellshare.com/berryweather/ from your BlackBerry. The download will hook you up with a 3-day trial, after which you’ll need to buy for $9.95.
BerryWeather ($9.95) [Bellshare Mobile Site]
[Via: CB]
Related News from IntoMobile:
[This is the fourth post in a series on best practices for government datasets by Harlan Yu and me. (previous posts: 1, 2, 3)]
Even cautiously edited datasets sometimes contain errors, and even meticulously produced schemas require refinement as circumstances change. While errors or changes create inconvenience for developers, most developers appreciate and prepare for their inevitability. Agencies should strive to do the same. A well-developed strategy for fixes and changes can ease their burden on both developers and agencies.
When agencies release data, developers ideally will interact with it in creative new ways. Given datasets containing megabytes to gigabytes of data, novel uses will reveal previously unnoticed errors. Knowledge of these errors benefits the agency as well as other developers using the data, so agencies should take steps to encourage error reporting. Labels in a dataset allow developers to specify errors efficiently and unambiguously. An easy-to-find channel for reporting errors, such as a prominently provided email address or web form, is also critical. Tracking down the contact information of the person responsible for a dataset can be difficult, and a well-known channel reduces this barrier to feedback.
Upon learning of an issue in a dataset, an agency should correct the problem and release the corrected dataset in a timely manner. An important fact to keep in mind when correcting data is that numerous developers may have already downloaded and begun using the old flawed version. For these developers, even a minor modification can cause major issues if not done carefully. Agencies should think about two things: how they will make developers aware that the dataset has been modified and how they will change the dataset itself. The first point is sometimes ignored in spite of its importance. Not only should datasets contain version information, but agencies should also notify developers when the data that they rely on has changed. In particular, agencies should allow developers to subscribe to an email list or an RSS feed for specific datasets that details updates in a well-structured manner. These updates should clearly specify the dataset and version affected, a location where the updated dataset can be found, and a description of the changes to the dataset. When possible, these changes should be specified via a formal, structured description--for example, a diff output--as well as a brief prose explanation.
Correction of dataset contents should proceed cautiously. Suppose that an application allows user to comment on parts of a document. If labels are in a dataset are not maintained consistently across versions, the developer may need to painstakingly map comments from the old data to the corresponding parts of the new dataset. Issues like this can be mitigated through several practices. First, an agency should seek to preserve labels across versions of a dataset when possible (alternatively, in some cases an agency might wish to change the labels but provide a mapping to assist developers). For example, a dataset might aggregate numerous documents, and a minor change in one document should not necessarily change the labels for the other documents. Recall the side note from our previous post that labels should be separate from ordering information. Corrections to a dataset may add, remove, or reorder items. Detaching order from labels can help agencies ensure label consistency across dataset versions. In addition, the last post and its comments discussed whether agencies should provide a label that is separate from its internally used agency label. This separation allows labels to remain consistent even when Subsection X becomes Section Y based on the internal agency labels. Note that these points about consistent labeling can be useful whenever a dataset could have multiple versions: for example, consistent labeling might be beneficial across various versions of a bill.
Similarly, the structure that agencies use for datasets, the locations where the datasets are hosted, and other details of a dataset sometimes must change. Suppose that an agency releases various statistics each month. When the agency is asked to provide a new statistic, the new data may necessitate changes to the XML schema. Alternatively, the agency may decide to host data at the address "http://www.agency.gov/YEAR/MONTH/data.xml" rather than "http://www.agency.gov/MONTH-YEAR/data.xml," causing issues for automated tools that periodically check for and download new data. To reduce the adverse impact of these changes on developers, agencies should provide detailed notice of the changes as early as possible. Early notice gives developers time to modify their tools. These notifications can occur via an email list or RSS feed providing details of the changes in a clear, consistent format.
The possibility of changes and their impact on developers should be taken into account at all stages of the data production process. Suppose an agency adds an element to a schema that specifies a unique individual, but the schema may someday need to specify a corporation instead. Although the agency should not speculatively add unnecessary elements to the schema, it should be mindful of possible changes when designing the rest of the schema. Various design choices may minimize the impact of a change if necessary later. Agencies should also avoid the urge to alter a schema dramatically each time it requires a minor change. A major overhaul—even when done to clean up the schema—may require equally dramatic changes in tools utilizing the data. To ensure that developers notice changes to XML schemas, both schema files and datasets should contain a prominent schema version number. If an agency changes the location where data is hosted, it should consider temporarily using aliases so that requests using old addresses automatically take you to the correct data. Once the old addresses are phased out, agencies should use a standard HTTP 404 status code to indicate that the requested data was not found at the specified location. Simply supplying a "Not Found" page without this standard code could make life harder for developers whose automated tools must instead parse this page.
When making changes, agencies should consider soliciting input directly from developers. Because the preferences of developers might not be obvious, this input can lead to choices that help developers without increasing the burden on agencies. In fact, developers may even come up with ideas that make life easier for an agency.
Our next and final post in this series will discuss a handful of additional issues for agencies to consider.
The Great App Store Purge of 2010 continues. They came for the sexy apps, and other apps said nothing. Now, according to some developers, they're coming for pre-fabbed apps—like RSS apps built using ready-set-go templates from app-building services.
Specifically, they're blocking new submissions of apps that are basically just re-packaged RSS feeds or business cards. What makes this purge not-at-all outrageous is that they're not clearing out apps they've already approved, and they're at least telling app-building services like AppMakr what they need to change in order to make themselves worthy of the App Store: adding features like push notifications, offline access and in-app purchases.
They're pushing developers to make their apps useful and different, in other words, rather than taking up virtual shelf space for goods that could be web apps. If Apple's going to be policing App Store submissions for more than mere maliciousness—which seems like it's going to be the case for the immediate future—it's the kind of policing you'd want them to do, at least in theory. A cookie-cutter app is a cookie-cutter app, a determination that's far less inscrutable than the process to decide what's too prurient to be sold.
But the sex app purge was apparently just the beginning of a larger process to clean up the App Store, and it's clear now that Apple's eminently concerned with the App Store's perception as a huckstery bazaar, and the reflection of that image upon the Apple brand itself. Tacky, shitty apps populating the store are inevitably stains on that glossy Apple logo, and Apple's just starting to wipe them up. The purge will burn hotter before it's over. [TechCrunch]
A solar charger or solar powered device is all fine and good if you live in an area where there is ample sunlight. If you live in an area with heavy tree or cloud cover most of the year, a solar charger might not be ideal. A better option in some cases is a wind generator.
Eolic is a foldable wind power generator that harnesses the breeze to make power for your gadgets. The cool part about the Eolic is its foldable and very portable design. The entire wind generator folds into a carry case that you can take camping or to the beach for power.
The idea behind the concept is to produce a portable wind generator that can replace the need for mains power in a home during an outage or when an area is recovering from a disaster. The device is made from aluminum and carbon fiber to keep weight down and the pole is telescopic to reach a height of somewhere around 18-feet (or three men as the developers put it). The thing is a concept so pricing and availability are unknown. The odds that Eolic will likely never make it to market are slim, but it is cool.
Relevant Entries on SlashGear
Late last week Apple revamped the packages available to developers who wish to create applications for the Mac. In a move which is reminiscent of the iPhone developer program Apple has created the Mac Developer Program and priced it at $99 per annum.
Developers used to pay either $499 or $3,499 for either “Select” or “Premier” ADC accounts. These two tiers of developer program are no longer available and sees the removal of hardware discounts and WWDC access for developers.
The new $99 developer program allows access to “pre-release Mac OS X software” and allow developers to “to begin incorporating the latest technologies into their development process, test for compatibility, and report bugs.”
Access to Xcode tools remains available for free developer accounts.
“I was hired as a ‘best practices consultant’ to help bring a 300-developer company’s development practices into the 21st century,” wrote Ian, “and after six months, I had failed.”
“Our first objective was to introduce automated unit testing. They had all sorts of horribly interconnected code, and the tests would help reduce the fix-here/break-there problems. However, after many, many tutorial sessions with developers, and quite a few long meetings spent trying to convince them of the benefits, no tests emerged. The developers stubbornly held that testers should test code, not them.”
Ian continued, “Adding some teeth to our policies, we set-up a continuous integration server that emailed everyone reports of unit test code coverage. This way, managers could take responsibility for getting their teams to write unit tests. That seemed to do the trick: the number of unit tests and code coverage started to steadily climb on all projects.”
“I finally felt that all my efforts were worthwhile,” he added, “the overall health of the team’s code would now increase immeasurably. Less bugs, less time manual testing, and all that good stuff. And then I started to look at the unit test code.”
public class StaticDataRequestTest {
@Test
public void startClientReqest() {
try {
new StaticDataRequest().onData(null);
assertEquals(
" processing client static data request ",
true,
true);
} catch (Exception ex) {
assertEquals(
" processing client static data request ",
true,
true);
}
}
}
Ian added, “I guess we got what we asked for.”
Developers kicked out of the iTunes store for using private APIs are turning to the unregulated Cydia store, and think the demographic might even suit them better.…
