Month: September 2012

If you’re like me and have finally decided to see what all the Node.js fuss is all about, The Node Beginner Book by Manuel Kiessling is a great jumping-off point. In a set of programming exercises that take up barely half an afternoon (and that includes doing some deliberately slow reading and additional noodling with the code), the book provides a quick and easy introduction to building a simple web app with Node. It can’t possibly hope to cover everything with 69 pages of actual text, but if you’re reasonably competent with JavaScript and have at least a little web programming experience, you’ll find this book a pleasant, fun and quick introduction.

The Node Beginner Book is licenced under Creative Commons and is available to read free-as-in-beer online. If you’d like the book in an ereader format, it’s available in a nice bundle with Hands-On Node.js by Pedro Teixeira — an introduction to Node.js and an API reference — for as little as $9.99. You set the price (the minimum is $9.99), and you get both books in PDF, .epub and .mobi formats. Even though my finances have been drained by almost half a year’s funemployment, I decided to support the authors and send ten bucks their way. So far, it’s proven to be money well spent.

Links

• The Node Beginner Book by Manuel Kiessling
• Hands-On Node.js by Pedro Teixeira
• The Node Beginner Book / Hands-On Node.js Bundle
• Reviews of The Node Beginner Book:
  • Amazon
  • The Lancs Coder
  • AKA Web Design

Scott Rose does a wonderful job playing a perfectly face-punchable Apple fanboy stereotype in this video, Shit Apple Fanatics Say, Part 1. Some of my favourite lines are:

• “You get what you pay for!” (Actually quite true, as proven by a few gadgets I have, including a crappy Android tablet I bought at a charity auction.)
• “Nobody needs Flash!”
• “Nobody needs a Blu-Ray drive!”
• “No, they love working eighteen-hour days. It’s part of their culture.“
• “Nobody needs to add RAM!”
• “Nobody needs removable batteries!”
• “Gestures! Gestures! GESTURES!”
• “Just stick with [iTools | .Mac | MobileMe | iCloud]; Apple’s gonna fix it.”

My favourite use of the “Disaster Girl” meme to date.

Click the comic to see the original.

Thanks to William van Bergen for the find!

Nokia’s Head of Design

Over at Wired, there’s an article on Ahtisaari (full name Marko Ahtisaari, but like Pele, Charo or Stifler, he’s better known by a singular name), head of Nokia’s design studio. Nokia currently cranks out the best-looking of the Windows Phones, and the new 920 is continuing that trend. Ahtisaari is big on big-D design, seeing it as more than just how something looks, but how something feels and works. It’s a philosophy most associated with Apple, which explains why the article’s author fixates so much on Apple throughout the article.

Specs for Nokia’s Lumia 820 and 920

The Verge’s live blog covered the big Nokia announcement earlier today, and now Nokia have released their official announcements of their new high-end Lumia 920 and mid-level Lumia 820 phones. Their specs are:

You can find a full Lumia 920 spec sheet here.

The Shoestring Budget “Ugly Little Game” That Became an App Store Hit

The thought process behind Luca Redwood’s game 10000000 (pronounced “Ten Million”) — an App Store hit despite its complete lack of marketing — was built on a budget so small that he had to borrow a friend’s Mac to build it. It’s also a great reminder of the importance of cutting stuff out, the lesson that Antoine de St-Exupéry taught: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

How to Build a Simple Drawing App for iOS

Ray Wenderlich’s site remains my favourite place to learn about iOS development. In the latest post, there’s a great tutorial on using UIKit to build a drawing app.

The Verge is liveblogging the Nokia 920 keynote, and so far it looks as though it’s going quite well. My only complaint is that this is the sort of thing that Microsoft and its hardware partners needed to do back during the Windows Phone 7 launch in 2010.

Apparently, the new screen is sensitive enough to let you operate it while wearing mittens. If there’s one feature that would come in handy in places like Finland and even here in Canada, it’s that.

Also notable: at one point, one of the presenters says “It just works.”

The Hand Eye Society describes itself as a “not-for-profit coalition of people and projects in support of Toronto’s videogame communities”. Their goals are:

1. To help people make games
2. To connect game makers with each other and with an audience, offline
3. To foster diversity in game creation and public perception of games

…and hey, it just could be that videogames could make the world a better place.

With that in mind, you might be interested that the Hand Eye Society is holding an Education Working Group Meeting tonight (Wednesday, September 5th) at 7:30 p.m. at Education Through Media (1610 Bloor Street West, between Keele and Dundas). They say:

If you have any experience teaching people (informally or not) about games we’d love you to come and share your perspective.

If you have an interest in games and education but no experience, but may be able to volunteer some time to these work on these initiatives, you’re also welcome. (Ten hours of volunteer time makes you a full Hand Eye Society member and eligible to vote in the next AGM.)

I have more than my fair share of teaching videogame programming to adults and kids, and I’ve been meaning to do a few more good deeds, so I plan to be there. If you’d like to attend as well, please RSVP to Jim Munroe at jim@handeyesociety.com.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.