Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

Grit Daily’s Congressional Startup Day: Wednesday at Industrious Tampa

This Wednesday, August 11th, is Congressional Startup Day, and the startup news hub Grit Daily is holding a celebratory in-person event at the gorgeous coworking space, Industrious Tampa from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.!

Congressional Startup Day used to be known as “Startup Week Across America”. It takes place in August for a specific reason: That’s when the U.S. Congress takes its annual recess, and when lawmakers go back to their home districts. It’s a great time for senators and representatives to get in touch with entrepreneurs in the places they represent, and for entrepreneurs to entrepreneurs to share their ideas with elected officials and discuss the importance of the businesses and opportunities they create.

The 4X Latina VC Summit is the main attraction of the Congressional Startup Day, and you can catch it in person or virtually. It will feature four of the global top ten Latina VCs talking about all things money and startups:

  • Consuelo Valverde, founder and managing partner of SV Latam Capital in San Francisco.
  • Miriam Rivera, CEO of Ulu Ventures, and early seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on IT startups.
  • Luciana Carvahlo, the VP of People and Performance at Movile, Latin America’s largest tech investment group and accelerator.
  • Amanda Jacobson, the Chief of Staff for Oyster Financial, a neobank for SMBs that’s co-headquartered in Mexico City and San Francisco.

Here’s the event’s agenda:

TimeEvent
1:00 – 5:00 p.m.Grit Daily’s Congressional Startup Day at Industrious Tampa.
2:30 – 3:00 p.m.Latina VC Summit, with Ayurella Muller (Forbes Columnist) and Loralyn Mears, Ph.D. (Grit Daily)
3:30 – 4:00 p.m.One-minute startup pitch competition x 12, Grit Daily Royale.
4:20 – 4:40 p.m.“How to Raise Money.” A panel with Loralyn Mears, PhD. with Todd Belveal (WashLava)
4:45 – 5:00 p.m.Closing Keynote by Florida Legislature Representative Jackie Toledo.
6:00 – 7:00 p.m.VIP dinner. Inquire for tickets. Limited to 20. VIP only.

Want to know more about this event or register? See the event’s EventBrite page.

Mask Face Protective - Free photo on Pixabay

Remember, we’re in Florida, and we’re in the middle of an all-time high for COVID-19 cases. If you plan to attend the event in person, you should be fully vaccinated and mask up for the event. Alternately, you can attend the anchor event, the 4X Latina VC Summit, virtually.

Categories
Mobile Programming

What’s new in Android Studio Arctic Fox?

This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development-related article every day during the month of August 2021.

If you haven’t updated Android Studio lately, you may not be aware that the newest revision, codenamed Arctic Fox, has been released on the stable channel. That means that it’s the official current version of Android Studio.

This new version packs a lot of interesting new goodies, but for me, the biggest development is built-in support for Jetpack Compose — the new declarative/reactive/state-driven way to build user interfaces — and the accessibility scanner for the Layout Editor.

To find out more, check out this video from Android Developers:

Categories
Mobile Programming

Learn how to access an API in Android with Retrofit

This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development-related article every day during the month of August 2021.

Mobile apps are often front ends for APIs, so one of the first things you should learn about Android programming after getting a reasonable grasp on the basics is how to access an API. If you’re at this stage, this is your lucky day: Tutorials.EU has just posted a new tutorial titled Everything You Need To Know About Retrofit in Android | Get Data from an API that shows you how to build an app that accesses the Rick and Morty API:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyqK1hbZ6Z4

There are a number of Android libraries that you can use to access APIs, including OkHttp, Volley, and the one used in this tutorial: Retrofit.

Both OkHttp and Retrofit are creations of the digital payments and financial services company Square, whose work you’ve probably encountered when buying something. Both are HTTP clients, but when it comes to accessing APIs, you want to use Retrofit, because that’s exactly what it’s for.

This video is the first in a series. This first video will cover the basics of API access with Retrofit. There’ll be a second video where you’ll clean up the app’s architecture using the MVVM pattern, and then a third video where you’ll change the implementation so that it uses coroutines to perform tasks in the background.

Categories
Hardware Mobile

Unboxing the RedMagic 6R, in photos

The top of the RedMagic 6R box. Tap to view at full size.
This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development-related article every day during the month of August 2021.

I write apps for both iOS and Android devices, so I make it a point to own both an iPhone and an Android phone. Since I’m giving my current Android device, a Motorola One Hyper, to my father-in-law so that he has a mobile phone from the current millennium, I needed a replacement. This set of photos is of that replacement: the RedMagic 6R.

The bottom of the RedMagic 6R box. Tap to view at full size.
The side of the RedMagic 6R box. Tap to view at full size.

RedMagic, a sub-brand of Nubia, which was originally a sub-brand of higher-end phones from Shenzhen-based phone and telco equipment company ZTE, specializes in gaming phones. In addition to using the better CPU and GPU chipsets required for gaming, RedMagic also does a better job of packaging than you’d expect from many other Chinese phone companies who are competing solely on price.

Case in point: Compare the sleek RedMagic packaging you’ve seen so far to the box that my 3rd-generation Motorola G came in:

Tap to read the original article.

I peeled off the shrink wrap and opened the box to see this:

The top layer inside the RedMagic 6R box. Tap to view at full size.

The RedMagic 6R packaging is layered in a manner similar to the iPhone’s. The top layer is a box, which I flipped over to open, as shown below:

Opening the top layer box. Tap to view at full size.

In addition to the SIM tray ejection pin, the top layer box contained the following:

The contents of the top layer box. Tap to view at full size.

Its contents were the Quick Start Guide, a warranty card…

The Quick Start Guide and warranty card. Tap to view at full size.

…as well as a basic case, contained within a protective envelope:

The included case, still inside its envelope. Tap to view at full size.

The case itself is one of those clear, pliable, “soft gel” ones:

The case. Tap to view at full size.

The next layer contained the phone itself:

The phone layer. Tap to view at full size.

The phone’s thin protective plastic sleeve has a little tab that makes it easy to lift out of the box, which was a nice little high-end touch:

The phone, now out of its box. Tap to view at full size.

Here’s the front of the phone, which is still inside its protective plastic sleeve…

The front of the phone, still in its sleeve. Tap to view at full size.

…and here’s the back:

The back of the phone, still in its sleeve. Tap to view at full size.

Finally, I hit the bottom layer, which contained the AC adapter, a USB-C to USB-A charging/data cable, and a USB-C to 3.5 mm headphone adapter:

The bottom layer of the box. Tap to view at full size.

I knew that the RedMagic 6R came with a basic soft gel case, I decided to spend an extra 15 bucks for the hard case, which came in this box:

The box for the RedMagic 6R hard case. Tap to view at full size.

Here’s the case:

The RedMagic 6R hard case. Tap to view at full size.

This may be my favorite Android unboxing experience of all time. It’s certainly a good deal more photogenic than the 3rd-gen Moto G unboxing experience:

Tap to read the original article.
Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, August 9, 2021)

Here’s your weekly list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events — plus a little area tech news — for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, August 9 through Sunday, August 15, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

This list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under the category of:

  • Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
  • Tech project management / agile processes
  • Video, board, and role-playing games
  • Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
  • Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
  • Toastmasters (because nerds really need to up their presentation game)
  • Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
  • Anything I deem geeky

I’m moving this list to Fridays so that you’ve got more time to plan for the upcoming week. Let me know if this change works for you (or if it doesn’t)!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

This week’s events

Monday, August 9

Tuesday, August 10

Wednesday, August 11

Thursday, August 12

Friday, August 13

Saturday, August 14

Sunday, August 15

Tampa Bay Tech News

Fast, the one-click-checkout-as-a-service company, chooses Tampa as its east coast hub

From St. Pete Catalyst:

San Francisco-based fintech startup Fast, an online checkout company, is expanding to Tampa. 

Fast announced the plans on Tuesday during an event in partnership with Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, NASCAR driver Parker Kligerman and other local athletes at Sparkman Wharf.

Fast CEO Domm Holland will lead the efforts to expand in Tampa and name it the company’s East Coast hub. Holland co-founded the company with former Uber operations executive Allison Barr Allen. 

“I’ve been asked by many Silicon Valley friends why Tampa? One of the biggest reasons is Mayor Jane Castor,” Holland said, crediting her understanding of his business needs and how Fast fits into the city’s goals of bolstering the tech sector. 

“I wanted to be in an area brimming with innovative energy and stocked with skilled talent,” Holland said.

Want to know more about Fast? Check out this article in protocol, Fast has a plan to reinvent online shopping. And then kill the password as well as this interview from episode 1103 of This Week In Startups where Jason Calacanis interviews Domm Holland:

Tampa-based tech company, Blue.cloud, nimbly transitions to successfully grow revenue 200% amidst pandemic

From That’s So Tampa:

Here in Tampa Bay, a not-so-quiet tech boom was already underway. From Oldsmar and Clearwater to Tampa and St. Pete, more and more tech companies were choosing to move to – or get their start in – the area. So when the world transitioned from hard copy to the cloud, the region was well-prepared to step into the role everyone needed: help figuring all that stuff out.

Perhaps the best example is Blue.cloud, a cloud-only digital transformation company that got its start in Tampa Bay. Having already been in operation for more than 15 years, Blue.cloud (formerly Bluenet, founded in 2004) was one of the industry leaders in a perfect position to leap to the rescue last March.

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles. Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!

Categories
Mobile Programming

The “Awesome Android Complete Reference” repo on GitHub

This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development a day during the month of August 2021.

Today, I’m giving you a quick entry for Android August: The Awesome Android Complete Reference repo on GitHub. This is a curated list of great Android development reference material, including tutorials, projects showcasing various architectures, third-party libraries, UI references, notes on performance and optimization, best practices, and more.

Categories
Mobile Programming

FREE video learning for the beginning Android developer

This article is part of the Android August series, in which I’m writing an Android development a day during the month of August 2021.

While you can buy Android video courses on Udemy and other places, don’t forget that there’s a good selection of great video tutorials for free. These are my current favorites.

Kotlin for Beginners

If you’re new to Android development, chances are that you’ll actually be learning not one, but two different things simultaneously: the Android framework and the Kotlin programming language.

If you want a solid grasp of Kotlin, I can’t thnk of a better YouTube video than Donn Felker’s Kotlin for Beginners. The video is almost 10 hours long, but it’s quite thorough. Even experienced developers who are new to Kotlin will find it helpful:

Build a Simple Android App

My current favorite Android tutorial video on YouTube is Philipp Lackner’s Build a Simple Android App, which walks you through the process of building a “to-do list” app in just over an hour:

Google’s Android Basics in Kotlin course

Straight from the Google mothership, Android Basics in Kotlin is a YouTube video-based course that tries to walk the middle road between teaching Android development and teaching Kotlin. It does this by having you build a set of apps.

If you’re into certifications, this course is designed to prepare you for the Associate Android Developer certification exam. Units 1 through 5 of the course are available, and there’s a Unit 6 coming soon!