Mels Dev Adventures

The BBC micro bit  A while ago I attended Hacksoton  which is a hack day in Southampton, UK. It was a great day and I got to see and hear new and interesting technology (I would recommend for children and developers in the area). One of these technologies was the BBC Micro bit  . What is it for?  Its designed to get children into coding, you can use python, javascript or block editors. I loved them so much that I decided to get myself one as it can also be used with raspberry pi. So below is a video of me opening my micro bit go and I hope to do many exciting projects in the upcoming year and will be writing up about them so keep an eye out! What would you like to see with the micro bit? let me know in the comments below.

Tutorial of how to make a RSS feed using Feednami which is an alternative to google api which no longer works. This is a basic example and can be improved. First go ahead and make a new ionic project $ npm install -g cordova ionic $ ionic start exampleProject blank Now find index.html and insert... <script src="https://storage.googleapis.com/feednami-static /js/feednami-client-v1.0.1.js"></script> Into the header, then in <ion-content> below Ionic Blank Starter insert a new div <div id ="feed" ng-controller="feedCtrl"> </div> Open app.js, now we are going to make the controller from Feednami that will get our rss feed. .controller('feedCntl', function(){ var url = 'http://daringfireball.net/feeds/articles' feednami.load(url,function(result){ if(result.error){ console.log(result.error) } else{ var entries = result.feed.entries for(var i = 0; i < entri...

This post will show you how to sign your apk manually, from ionic framework for release. Recently I signed my first apk from ionic and ran into some issues that will be ironed out in this blog. 1. You will need to have the sdk and jdk / jdr tools installed. 2. Have a ionic project with the Android platform installed. LETS START You need to build your app using below in the cmd line then move that project-release.apk file into this directory   ionic build android --release exampleApp\platforms\android MAKING THE KEYSTORE You then need to make the key store in that file and write in all the info. Do not lose the key file and keep a record of the information. keytool -genkey -v -keystore my-release-key.keystore -alias alias_name -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000 SIGN THE APK Now we have to sign the apk jarsigner -verbose -sigalg SHA1withRSA -digestalg SHA1 -keystore my-release-key.keystore HelloWorld-release-unsigned.apk alias_name no...

Test marketing as a developer. Is it worth it? Previously:  I finished developing an app for the Human Values Foundation called My Place HVF ( android / ios ). The idea about the app was to teach children about Values and throughout the game, they could earn badges like right action, love etc. They also can unlock levels to different worlds and can be a part of a silent study/their own time to explore... I recently visited a school to test out the My Place HVF app. This was my first client app and the first time I got to see it tested on children. At first, I was a little nervous and how they would react. Would they like it ? Would they find faults? What happens next? All of these questions and more got answered on the day. Did they like it? We tested it on primary school children from year 6 all the way to reception and I am delighted to say they loved it. It was an awesome feeling to see people play and enjoy something you have made and spent many hours on, it al...