PhoneGap Tutorial: Using the Geolocation API

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Darlene Tate

Watch more at: Up and Running with PhoneGap. This tutorial explains how to display location information in a mobile application using the Geolocation API.

This tutorial is a single movie from the Up and Running with PhoneGap course presented by lynda.com author Ryan Stewart. The complete course duration is 1 hour and 56 minutes long and shows how to build and package native device applications using PhoneGap and web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Introduction
1. Overview of a Mobile Web Application
2. Overview of PhoneGap
3. Setting Up Your Development Environment
4. Creating an Application
5. Compiling a PhoneGap Application
6. Extending PhoneGap
7. Testing and Debugging an Application

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is a mobile development framework produced by Nitobi, purchased by Adobe Systems. PhoneGap, is an open-source framework for building mobile applications. It enables software programmers to build applications for mobile devices using JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS3, instead of device-specific languages such as Objective-C. The resulting applications are hybrid, meaning that they are neither truly native (because all layout rendering is done via web views instead of the platform’s native UI framework) nor purely web-based (because they are not just web apps, but are packaged as apps for distribution and have access to native device APIs). From 1.9 version onward it is even possible to freely mix native and hybrid code snippets. As a web developer, you have full access to what the device can do.

History

First developed at an iPhoneDevCamp event in San Francisco, PhoneGap went on to win the People’s Choice Award at O’Reilly Media‘s 2009 Web 2.0 Conference and the framework has been used to develop many apps. Apple Inc. has confirmed that the framework has its approval, even with the new 4.0 developer license agreement changes. The PhoneGap framework is used by several mobile application platforms such as ViziApps, Worklight, Convertigo and appMobi as the backbone of their mobile client development engine. Adobe officially announced the acquisition of Nitobi Software (the original developer) on October 4, 2011. Coincident with that, the PhoneGap code was contributed to the Apache Software Foundation to start a new project called Apache Cordova. The project original name, Apache Callback, was viewed as too generic. Then it also appears in Adobe Systems as Adobe PhoneGap and also as Adobe Phonegap Build (now out of beta).

Early versions of PhoneGap required a person making iOS apps to have an Apple computer, and a person making Windows Mobile apps to have a computer running Windows. After September 2012, the “PhoneGap Build” service allows a programmer to upload his source code to a “cloud compiler” that generates apps for every supported platform.

W3C Geolocation API

The W3C Geolocation API is an effort by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to standardize an interface to retrieve the geographical location information for a client-side device. It defines a set of objects, ECMAScript standard compliant, that executing in the client application give the client’s device location through the consulting of Location Information Servers, which are transparent for the application programming interface (API). The most common sources of location information are IP address, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth MAC address, radio-frequency identification (RFID), Wi-Fi connection location, or device Global Positioning System (GPS) and GSM/CDMA cell IDs. The location is returned with a given accuracy depending on the best location information source available.

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Google Sites Tutorial: Creating a New Site From a Template

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Darlene Tate

Watch more at: Google Sites Essential Training. This tutorial shows how to create a Google Site quickly, using a premade template.

This tutorial is a single movie from the Google Sites Essential Training course presented by lynda.com author Susan Metz. The complete course duration is 2 hours and 37 minutes long and covers the best ways to create, edit, and customize a website with the easy-to-implement templates in Google Sites.

Introduction
1. Getting Started
2. Editing the Text and Layout of a Page
3. Creating Pages
4. Adding Images and Video
5. Managing Pages
6. Defining the Site Navigation
7. Integrating Google Docs and Google Calendar
8. Changing the Site Design
9. Gadgets
10. Sharing Your Site
11. Resources for Help

Google Sites

A screenshot of a website made using Google Sites

Google Sites is a structured wiki- and web page-creation tool offered by Google as part of the Google Apps Productivity suite. The goal of Google Sites is for anyone to be able to create a team-oriented site where multiple people can collaborate and share files.

Features

Custom Domain Name Mapping – Owners of both personal Google accounts and Google Apps for Business accounts are allowed to map their Google Site to a custom domain name.
Multi-Tier Permissions and Accessibility – There are three levels of permissions within Google Sites: Owner, Editor and Viewer. Owners have full permissions to modify design and content of the entire Google Site, whereas editors cannot change the design of the site. Viewers can only view the site and are not permitted to make any changes to text or otherwise.

Extension

Gadgets: These are XML modules that can be embedded in a Site – that can contain custom CSS & JavaScript. Gadgets achieve two purposes:

Separation or Abstraction: The custom code can be abstracted to a distinct file
Reuse: The same gadget can be reused by multiple sites as it is published publicly

HTML Box: These allow embedding custom HTML, CSS and JavaScript but with following limitations Google Sites Documentation

iFrame is not supported
one HTML Box can not interact or refer to code outside including other HTML Boxes.
Script cannot create another script, image or link tags

However, JQuery is supported

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Fluent 2012: Paul Irish, “Javascript Development Workflow of 2013″

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Darlene Tate

The past two years have given us a wealth of tools and editor innovation that makes developing web apps more fun and certainly more productive. Learn what a modern development workflow looks like, from editors and plugins, to authoring abstractions, testing and DVCS integration.

Paul Irish

Paul Irish is a front-end developer who loves the web. He is on Google Chrome’s Developer Relations team as well as jQuery’s. He is also recognized as an expert in cutting edge Web Technologies like HTML5 and CSS3.

He develops the HTML5 Boilerplate, the HTML5/CSS3 feature detection library Modernizr, HTML5 Please, CSS3 Please, and other bits and bobs of open source code.

Web Developer Tools Support

The web’s five most popular web browsers have support for web developer tools that allows web designers and developers to take a look at the make up of their pages. These are all tools that are built in to the browser and do not require additional modules or configuration.

Google Chrome -Web Developer Tools
Internet Explorer – F12 Web Developer Tools (As of version 8)
Safari – Safari Web Development Tools (As of verion 3)
Firefox – Web Developer Toolbar
Opera – Opera Dradonfly

The Open Source Definition

The logo of the Open Source Initiative

The Open Source Initiative’s definition is widely recognized as the standard or de facto definition. Raymond and Perens formed the organization in February 1998. With about 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed and open development already provided by the Internet, OSI continued to present the “open source” case to commercial businesses. They sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source.

OSI uses The Open Source Definition to determine whether it considers a software license open source. The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted primarily by Bruce Perens. Perens did not base his writing on the “four freedoms” of Free Software from the FSF, which were only widely available later.

Under Perens’ definition, open source describes a broad general type of software license that makes source code available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent copyright restrictions. The principles, as stated, say absolutely nothing about trademark or patent use and require absolutely no cooperation to ensure that any common audit or release regime applies to any derived works. It is an explicit “feature” of open source that it may put no restrictions on the use or distribution by any organization or user. It forbids this, in principle, to guarantee continued access to derived works even by the major original contributors.

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HTML5 Tutorial: Integrating the Google Store Locator Library

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Darlene Tate

Watch more at: HTML5 Projects: Geolocation. This tutorial shows how to link to JavaScript frameworks in HTML, including the Google Store Locator Utility Library.

This tutorial is a single movie from the HTML5 Projects: Geolocation course presented by lynda.com author Joseph Lowery. The complete course duration is 42 minutes, 35 seconds long and shows how to include a robust store locator application with access to directions, custom markers, and feature filtering.

Introduction
1. Understanding the Project
2. Mapping the Stores
3. Customizing the Map

Google Maps

Google Maps (formerly Google Local) is a web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, that powers many map-based services, including the Google Maps website, Google Ride Finder, Google Store Locator, Google Transit, and maps embedded on third-party websites via the Google Maps API. It offers street maps, a route planner for traveling by foot, car, bike (beta), or with public transportation and a locator for urban businesses in numerous countries around the world. Google Maps satellite images are not updated in real time, but rather they are several months or years old.

Google Maps uses a close variant of the Mercator projection, so it cannot show areas around the poles. A related product is Google Earth, a stand-alone program which offers more globe-viewing features, including showing polar areas.

Google Code

Google Code is Google’s site for developer tools, APIs and technical resources. The site contains documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs—including discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google’s developer products.

There are APIs offered for almost all of Google’s popular consumer products, like Google Maps, YouTube, Google Apps, and others.

The site also features a variety of developer products and tools built specifically for developers. Google App Engine is a hosting service for web apps. Project Hosting gives users version control for open source code. Google Web Toolkit (GWT) allows developers to create Ajax applications in the Java programming language.

The site contains reference information for community based developer products that Google is involved with like Android from the Open Handset Alliance and OpenSocial from the OpenSocial Foundation.

Google Data APIs

The Google Data APIs allow programmers to create applications that read and write data from Google services. Currently, these include APIs for Google Apps, Google Analytics, Blogger, Google Base, Google Book Search, Google Calendar, Google Code Search, Google Earth, Google Spreadsheets, Google Notebook, and Picasa Web Albums.

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AJAX: Understanding AJAX

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Darlene Tate

Watch more at: AJAX Essential Training. This specific tutorial is a single movie from chapter Introduction of the AJAX Essential Training course presented by lynda.com author Dori Smith.

The complete course has a total duration of 4 hours and 22 minutes. AJAX Essential Training table of contents:

Introduction
1. Developer Essentials
2. Understanding the DOM and XML Formats
3. Understanding XML HTTP Requests
4. Previewing Links with AJAX
5. Creating Dynamic Forms
6. Creating Dynamic Maps
7. Understanding AJAX Frameworks
8. Using the YUI Animation Widget
9. Closing

Jesse James Garrett

Occupation: Academic and Computer scientist
Website:
http://blog.jjg.net/

Jesse James Garrett is a user experience designer. In a 2005 paper, Garrett coined the term Ajax to describe the technology behind emerging services like Google Maps and Google Suggest, as well as the resulting user experience which made it possible to eliminate reloading the whole page.

Garrett authored The Elements of User Experience, a conceptual model of user-centered design first published as a diagram in 2000 and later as a book in 2002. A second edition of the book was published in 2010. Although originally intended for use in web design, the Elements model has since been adopted in other fields such as software development and industrial design. He also created the first standardized notation for interaction design, known as the Visual Vocabulary.
Visit his blog: Adaptive Path.

XMLHttpRequest

XMLHttpRequest (XHR) is an API available in web browser scripting languages such as JavaScript. It is used to send HTTP or HTTPS requests directly to a web server and load the server response data directly back into the script. Development versions of all major browsers support URI schemes beyond http: and https:, in particular, blob: URLs are supported. The data might be received from the server as JSON, XML, HTML, or as plain text. Data from the response can be used directly to alter the DOM of the currently active document in the browser window without loading a new web page document. The response data can also be evaluated by client-side scripting. For example, if it was formatted as JSON by the web server, it can easily be converted into a client-side data object for further use.

XMLHttpRequest has an important role in the Ajax web development technique. It is currently used by many websites to implement responsive and dynamic web applications. Examples of these web applications include Gmail, Google Maps, Facebook, and many others.

XMLHttpRequest is subject to the browser’s same origin policy in that, for security reasons, requests will only succeed if they are made to the same server that served the original web page. There are alternative ways to circumvent this policy if required.

JSON

JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange. It is derived from the JavaScript scripting language for representing simple data structures and associative arrays, called objects. Despite its relationship to JavaScript, it is language-independent, with parsers available for many languages.

The JSON format was originally specified by Douglas Crockford, and is described in RFC 4627. The official Internet media type for JSON is application/json. The JSON filename extension is .json.

The JSON format is often used for serializing and transmitting structured data over a network connection. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, serving as an alternative to XML.

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SEO Tutorial: Understanding SEO and eCommerce

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Darlene Tate

This SEO tutorial explains how customers shop with search engines, and shares specific techniques for bringing them to your ecommerce site. Watch more at: SEO Fundamentals

This tutorial is a single movie from the eighth chapter of the SEO Fundamentals course presented by lynda.com author David Booth. The complete course is 3.5 hours long and explains what search engine optimization (SEO) is and how you can start using it to increase your website’s visibility to search engines and attract the right kind of traffic to the right kinds of pages on your site.

SEO Fundamentals table of contents:
Introduction
1. Overview of Search Engine Optimization
2. Keywords: The Foundation of SEO
3. Content Optimization: How Search Engines and People View Web Pages
4. Content Optimization: Technical SEO
5. Long-Term Content Planning
6. Link-Building Strategies
7. Measuring SEO Effectiveness
8. SEO for Ecommerce
9. Local Search
10. International SEO

Methods and Metrics

There are four categories of methods and metrics used to optimize websites through search engine marketing.

Keyword research and analysis involves three “steps:” ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines, finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.
Website saturation and popularity, how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on search engines (saturation) and how many backlinks the site has (popularity). It requires pages to contain keywords people are looking for and ensure that they rank high enough in search engine rankings. Most search engines include some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. The followings are major tools measuring various aspects of saturation and link popularity: Link Popularity, Top 10 Google Analysis, and Marketleap’s Link Popularity and Search Engine Saturation.
Back end tools, including Web analytic tools and HTML validators, provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can deliver conversion-related information. There are three major tools used by EBSCO: (a) log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ; (b) tag-based analytic programs WebSideStory’s Hitbox; (c) transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues ensure websites meets W3C code standards. Try to use more than one HTML validator or spider simulator because each tests, highlights, and reports on slightly different aspects of your website.
Whois tools reveal the owners of various websites, and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.

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SEO Tutorial: Analyzing Keywords

Posted on September 29, 2012 by Darlene Tate

This SEO tutorial shows how to analyze which keywords are bringing the most traffic to your website with Google Analytics. Watch more at: SEO Fundamentals

This tutorial is a single movie from the seventh chapter of the SEO Fundamentals course presented by lynda.com author David Booth. The complete course is 3.5 hours long and explains what search engine optimization (SEO) is and how you can start using it to increase your website’s visibility to search engines and attract the right kind of traffic to the right kinds of pages on your site.

The Keywords Attribute

The keywords attribute was popularized by search engines such as Infoseek and AltaVista in 1995, and its popularity quickly grew until it became one of the most commonly used meta elements. By late 1997, however, search engine providers realized that information stored in meta elements, especially the keywords attribute, was often unreliable and misleading, and at worst, used to draw users into spam sites. (Unscrupulous webmasters could easily place false keywords into their meta elements in order to draw people to their site.)

Search engines began dropping support for metadata provided by the meta element in 1998, and by the early 2000s, most search engines had veered completely away from reliance on meta elements. In July 2002, AltaVista, one of the last major search engines to still offer support, finally stopped considering them.

No consensus exists whether or not the keywords attribute has any effect on ranking at any of the major search engines today. It is speculated that it does, if the keywords used in the meta can also be found in the page copy itself. With respect to Google, thirty-seven leaders in search engine optimization concluded in April 2007, that the relevance of having your keywords in the meta-attribute keywords is little to none and in September 2009, Matt Cutts, of Google announced that they are no longer taking keywords into account whatsoever. However, both these articles suggest that Yahoo! still makes use of the keywords meta tag in some of its rankings. Yahoo! itself claims support for the keywords meta tag in conjunction with other factors for improving search rankings. In Oct 2009 Search Engine Round Table announced that “Yahoo Drops The Meta Keywords Tag Also” but informed us that the announcement made by Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Search was incorrect. In the corrected statement Yahoo! Senior Director of Search states that “…What changed with Yahoo’s ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system…. it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section.”

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Google Drive Tutorial: Publishing a Web Presentation

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Darlene Tate

Google Drive

This Google Drive tutorial shows you how to publish a presentation to a web site that can be accessed by anyone or restricted to people on your domain. Watch more at: Google Drive Essential Training

This tutorial is just a single movie from the tenth chapter of the Google Drive Essential Training course presented by lynda.com author Susan Metz. The complete course is 4.5 hours long, and teaches new Google Drive members the essentials for creating, formatting, sharing, and editing Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms. Google Drive is now the home of Google Docs, and is a file storage and synchronization service by Google that was released on April 24, 2012.

Storage

Google Drive gives all users 5 GByte of cloud storage to start with. A user can get additional storage, which is shared between Picasa and Google Drive, from 25 GB up to 16 TB through a paid monthly subscription plan (2.49 US$ per month for 25 GB). Data storage of files up to 1 GB total in size was introduced on January 13, 2010, but has since been increased to 10 GB. Documents using Google Docs native formats do not count towards this quota. The largely anticipated cloud storage feature by Google is said to be replacing most of Docs’ features in 2012.

Google_Drive

Google Drive Essential Training table of contents:
Introduction
1. Getting Started with Google Drive
2. Navigating Drive
3. Organizing Files with Folders
4. Syncing Files to Drive
5. Uploading and Exporting
6. Creating and Formatting Documents
7. Creating and Formatting Spreadsheets
8. Functions, Formulas, and Charts
9. Creating and Formatting Presentations
10. Presenting and Publishing Presentations
11. Creating and Formatting Forms
12. Sharing Docs
13. Simultaneous Collaboration, Comments, and Revisions
14. Mobile Access
15. Templates
16. Troubleshooting Google Drive
Conclusion

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Building Android Apps: Understanding Layout Settings

Posted on September 3, 2012 by Darlene Tate

This Android app development tutorial explores the layout requirements and settings you need to know when building applications. Watch more at: Android App Development with Java Essential Training

This specific tutorial is just a single movie from chapter three of the Android App Development with Java Essential Training course presented by lynda.com author Lee Brimelow. The complete Android App Development with Java Essential Training course has a total duration of 7 hours and 13 minutes, and covers how to build the user interface, work with local data, integrate data from the accelerometer and other sensors, and deploy finished applications to the Android Market.

Mobile devices

Java ME has become popular in mobile devices, where it competes with Symbian, BREW, and the .NET Compact Framework.

The diversity of mobile phone manufacturers has led to a need for new unified standards so programs can run on phones from different suppliers – MIDP. The first standard was MIDP 1, which assumed a small screen size, no access to audio, and a 32kB program limit. The more recent MIDP 2 allows access to audio, and up to 64kB for the program size. With handset designs improving more rapidly than the standards, some manufacturers relax some limitations in the standards, for example, maximum program size.

Google’s Android operating system uses the Java language, but not its class libraries, therefore the Android platform cannot be called Java. Android executes the code on the Dalvik VM instead of the Java VM.

Java support

While most Android applications are written in Java, there is no Java Virtual Machine in the platform and Java byte code is not executed. Java classes are compiled into Dalvik executables and run on Dalvik, a specialized virtual machine designed specifically for Android and optimized for battery-powered mobile devices with limited memory and CPU. J2ME support can be provided via third-party applications.

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Getting Started Building an Android App

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Darlene Tate

This mobile app development tutorial explores how to get started building an Android app using the Java programming language. Watch more at: Android App Development with Java Essential Training

This specific tutorial is just a single movie from chapter two of the Android App Development with Java Essential Training course presented by lynda.com author Lee Brimelow. The complete Android App Development with Java Essential Training course has a total duration of 7 hours and 13 minutes, and covers how to build the user interface, work with local data, integrate data from the accelerometer and other sensors, and deploy finished applications to the Android Market.

Android App Development with Java Essential Training table of contents:

Introduction
1. Getting Started
2. Android App Fundamentals
3. The User Interface and Controls
4. Graphics and Styling
5. Supporting Multiple Screens
6. Animation and Graphics
7. Menus and Dialogs
8. Notifications and Toast
9. Working with Media
10. Preferences and Data Storage
11. Locations and Maps
12. Creating a Home Screen Widget
13. Publishing Your App
Conclusion

Grab Your Free Guide!

These Are The Droids You’re Looking For: An Android Guide

Android is among the most influential operating systems crafted this century. Along with iOS, it has paved the way for mobile devices that offer an unprecedented level of functionality. Currently Android is the most common mobile operating system–and there’s no sign that it’s popularity will wane anytime soon. If you’re reading this guide, it’s likely because you have an Android device. This 23 page guide will go over Android’s history and the different versions on the market. Knowing this is important, as Android is frequently updated with new features and not all devices are sold with the same versions. Also some other topics this guide will cover will be home screen interface, multimedia, the android marketplace, tweaking your android and last but not least security. Also with this free guide you will also receive daily updates on new cool websites and programs in your email for free courtesy of MakeUseOf.

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