Serendipity IT Ltd

Honeycomb event breakdown

2011-02-02T21:43:00.000-08:00

If you are interested in Android / Tablets or technology in general then you may want to check out the video from the Google Android Event 02-02-2011. The YouTube clip has this as the description : "A taste of what's new from Android. Join us for an in-depth look at Honeycomb and Android ecosystem news."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfJuigJebRg

As it's over 50 minutes long, we've broken it down into segments with timestamps:
Intro 0:00
Overview / demo of some new features 2:35
Panes demo in gmail 9:00
2D & 3D enhancements incl RenderScript 11:25
-- 3D Google Maps 13:47
-- 3D Google Body 14:40
3D Graphics / Games 15:25
-- Monster Madness 16:00
-- Great Battles : Medievil 17:00
New Camera app 18:25
Video Chat 19:10
-- CNN Video App (incl iReport) 22:30
Android Market Changes 30:00
-- Webstore 31:20
-- My Market Account 40:15
Purchasing Apps 41:18
In-App purchasing 42:00
-- Disney examples 44:30
Video Chat ptII (Lady Killer) 51:00

Android - Elf Shake App Challenge

2010-10-10T01:14:00.000-07:00

We created this for the Androids in Auckland group as a training exercise to allow everyone to modify it how they feel fit and present their ideas along with any issues they have had in the December 2010 meet-up. Everyone can also see what it is like to post their application to the Android market. The winner will get a Free Motorola Flipout from Telecom NZ ( http://bit.ly/bE6V3H ) worth $599.

Remember that Due date: 2nd December 2010 at the Androids in Auckland meet-up.

Currently the Elf Shake application loads a Xmas tree background and has a single elf that falls when the phone is shaken (as seen to the right).

The General Rules:

Your application must contain an image of an Elf
The Elf must do something when someone shakes the phone

For a full list of the rules see http://www.meetup.com/Androids-In-Auckland/messages/boards/thread/9886387/0#38497020

This code as available as the basis to create your own fun application. Feel free to change any images, settings, code, anything – It’s your app!!! Source code including the Entire Eclipse project is available from this link (let me know if you want it uploaded as an SNV project). All you need is to have a working Eclipse with the Android SDK installed (How to guide is here ).

To import the project into Eclipse:

Download the file (ElfShakeApp.zip) from http://code.google.com/p/elfshake/downloads/list
Go to File > Import...
Select General > Existing projects into workspace
Select the "Archive File" option, and enter the location of ElfShakeApp.zip
Click Finish

You should now have the application in Eclipse that you can modify to your hearts content (See the Rules above).

What does this app do currently?
The main activity is nz.co.elfshakeappchallenge.ElfShakeActivity. This Activity picks up a shake of the phone and starts the Elf falling.

Under the ‘res’ folder there are:
- ‘drawable-*dpi’ - the standard drawable folders for a high, medium and low quality image – currently a elf and a tree.
- ‘anim’ – the animation descriptor for how the elf falls
- ‘layout’ – a single default layout with a background image and an ImageView of the elf.
- ‘values’ – the all important string / text that gets used in the application.

We’ve implemented a quick hack so you can test the falling elf on the emulator – just click the screen (onTouchEvent() which calls testShake() ) – you could remove these methods if you don’t want this functionality.

The one thing that I would suggest would be changing the package name - currently it is nz.co.elfshakeappchallenge so you may like to make it more relevant to you.

Please let me know via comment if you have any issues / suggestions for this basic application.

I am currently trying to get hold of a prize for the winner - I'll post it on the meetup site, if get any. - But the "winner" will be the person who made the app do the most but still remain functional and adheres to the rules above. Simon B, Julius and myself will be the judges!

[edit] Telecom NZ have given us a Motorola Flipout running Android 2.1 to give away as a prize - Thanks heaps Telecom!!! (phone details: http://bit.ly/bE6V3H) . Why not get your application started now!!!

Kind Regards,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager

Getting a screen-shot of your Android phone screen

2010-10-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

So you want to get the screen of your Android phone to display on your computer (and then onto a projector or take a screen-shot etc.)?!?!

The follow steps (based on the ones here http://bit.ly/9y5adU) will show you how although there is a small warning that if you are using this for a presentational is there is a lag and the refresh rate needs some work but there are options you can pass in to try to correct this if needed.

It may also be worth noting that if you are seeing bugs / errors on your phone, sending them an image of the issue may be helpful.

The Process:
The following will work if you can get you emulator to work on your machine - just Google how to do that :) - Please note that you don't actually use the emulator, it just sets up the adb bridge (software that connects your phone to your computer) , SDK (Software Development Kit) and USB drivers.

- Download source from http://github.com/commonsguy/droidex

- Copy the files DroidEx.jar and args4j-2.0.16.jar into a directory - just to make life simple

- Plug your phone into your computer - you may to enable debugging on your phone (On the device, go to the home screen, press MENU, select Applications > Development, then enable USB debugging).

- From that directory run the following command (note change the C:\SIT\Android\SDK path to be the path to your SDK)
java -cp DroidEx.jar;%CLASSATH%;args4j-2.0.16.jar;C:\SIT\Android\SDK\tools\lib\ddmlib.jar com.commonsware.droidex.DroidEx
(also to note - this is for a Windows machine but it should work for any platform with some minor modifications).

If you have troubles, drop us a message - more than happy to help Android developers :)

Cheers,
The team.

Android applicaitons we use almost daily

2010-10-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would list out some of the applications we use all the time on our Android devices to hopefully make it easier for others. Please note that we have no link to any of these companies other the the last two which were some of our own creations.

Note Everything - SoftXPerience
Notepad type tool that can sync with Google Docs for backup
http://www.appbrain.com/app/note-everything/de.softxperience.android.noteeverything

GPS OnOff - CurveFish
Widget for easily turning on/off GPS
http://www.appbrain.com/app/gps-onoff/com.curvefish.widgets.gpsonoff

WiFi OnOff - CurveFish
Widget for easily turning on/off WiFi
http://www.appbrain.com/app/wifi-onoff/com.curvefish.widgets.wifionoff

iMobsters - Storm8
Game - build your mob, attach others, build an empire - player id is QJ5JX5
http://www.appbrain.com/app/imobsters%E2%84%A2/com.storm8.imobsters

BlueRss - Ufo411 - I still use this older version but it is now unsupported and replaced by
BlueRSS GR Demo - Ufo411
RSS and Atom reader - pull all your news sources into one place - e.g. Stuff http://www.stuff.co.nz/rss/ , BBC http://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml etc etc
http://www.appbrain.com/app/bluerss-gr-demo/com.bluegorilla.bluerss.demo

Task Manager - Wing Tseng
Task manager - let you see what apps are still running
http://www.androlib.com/android.application.com-wingtseng123-systemmemorymonitor-qFC.aspx

Dophin Browser (tm) - Dolphin Browser
Tabbed web browser - kinda like FireFox - FYI the Android version of FireFox is called Fennec
http://www.appbrain.com/app/dolphin-browser%E2%84%A2/com.mgeek.android.DolphinBrowser.Browser

Of Course,
Blinky McBlink Face - Serendipity IT Ltd
Torch / flashing light app
http://www.appbrain.com/app/blinky-mcblink-face/nz.co.serendipityit.blinky

Magic Octo Ball - Serendipity IT Ltd
Magic 8-Ball style app - featuring Paul the octopus
http://www.appbrain.com/app/magic-octo-ball/nz.co.serendipityit.octoball

Android Mapping on an Emulator : API Key How To

2009-11-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

So we've spent just over an hour trying to get maps showing up on our Android Emulator with messages like "ERROR/MapActivity(292): Couldn't get connection factory client" in the DDMS Logcat console (debug window). We were previously getting a grid that we could pan / zoom.

We have now solved it (by reading the docs). Apparently this isn't an uncommon problem so we've posted our solution here (Other than just reading the "Getting the MD5 Fingerprint of the SDK Debug Certificate" section of the "Obtaining a Maps API Key page")

Please note: all values have been altered and will not work for you!!!

On vista where Bob is the user: (see the note at the bottom of this page on how to get the location)
cd C:\Bob\Android\SDK\.android\debug.keystore

Generate the Keystore with the same credentials as the emulator is going to use:
keytool -genkey -alias androiddebugkey -keystore "C:\Bob\Android\SDK\.android\debug.keystore" -storepass android -keypass android

List the fingerprint back from the keystore:
keytool -list -alias androiddebugkey -keystore "C:\Bob\Android\SDK\.android\debug.keystore" -storepass android -keypass android

Then use that fingerprint at http://code.google. com/android/maps-api-signup.html to get your key - it also gives you a usage for your layout.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
The most important bit of the Obtaining a Maps API key page is the following:
If you are using Eclipse/ADT and are unsure where the debug keystore is located, you can select Windows > Prefs > Android > Build to check the full path, which you can then paste into a file explorer to locate the directory containing the keystore.

Hope this helps other Android Maps developers!

The Team.

Android 1.6 Review of New Features

2009-10-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

Looking over the Android 1.6 (Doughnut) release notes we came across a few new ideas that could or should be created. Firstly we've listed out a few of the new User and Platform Features (more info on them can be found here http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-1.6-highlights.html).

The New User Features in this release are:

Quick Search Box for Android
Updated interface to Camera, Camcorder, and Gallery
VPN, 802.1x - Yes that is right you can now VPN into your corporate LAN from your android phone
Battery usage indicator - usage per application
Accessibility Framework
Android Market Updates

The New Platform Technologies in this release are:

Expanded Search Framework - Hello! it's Google, but now it's also on the phone data
Text-to-speech engine
Gestures
Expanded support for screen densities and resolutions
Telephony support for CDMA
New API packages

android.accessibilityservice - An accessibility service runs in the background and receives callbacks by the system when AccessibilityEvents are fired.
android.gesture - Provides classes to create, recognize, load and save gestures. A gesture can have a single or multiple "strokes".
android.speech.tts - Synthesizes speech from text for immediate playback or to create a sound file.
android.view.accessibility - This class represents accessibility events that are sent by the system when something notable happens in the user interface.

Linux Kernel Upgrade from 2.6.27 to 2.6.29.

"The Linux 2.6.29 kernel really shines with OpenSSL and its RSA 4096-bit performance. The number of signs per second had doubled!"
"The blur performance with GraphicsMagick had jumped from 25 [ed. iterations per minute] to 40 with Linux 2.6.29."
Info taken from http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=linux_2629_benchmarks&num=1

Some interesting opportunities can come out of this.
Security App
With the new Text-to-Speech API you could have the camera pick up movement and SMS you a picture of what it now sees. You could then reply SMS with the Text you would like said "I've called the police", "I'm watching you" or "Please say your name"- on receipt of this SMS the phone could Text-to-Speech it and announce it to the room. It could also start the voice recorder and after x amount of time SMS you back the voice file so you can figure out if that person should be there or not.

Accessibility
Come on people there are loads of opportunities here - read my messages to me, read me some selected text, vibrate or make a sound when I point my phone towards home (compass).

Gestures
"Developers can use the new GestureBuilder tool included in the Android 1.6 SDK to generate libraries of gestures to include with their application."
I'm thinking someone should create a generice GestureLibrary that can be imported into people's applications by default. That way there will be a consistent end user experience.

I hope this starts to get the juices going for you!!!

Regards,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager
Serendipity IT Ltd

Income Models

2009-08-18T15:15:00.000-07:00

When creating a business from an idea there are 2 main things that you should plan for - how to make money for the business and your exit strategy (preferably with the money you made).

Please note these are more income models not business models as business models take the following things into account; offers, customers, finance, expenses, revenue flows, key resources etc.

There are 3 main tried and true income models for making money:

Customer Pays - This is the model used at clothing shops - the customer walks in a buys goods/services and leaves. This is a great model, very easy to understand from a customer point of view and easy to manage within your business. The only downside is that you have many paying customers so you need to control your financial books very well.

Suppliers Pay - This is the model used on Txt Shopping Mall - It allows customers to pay nothing and therefore you would expect to get a greater uptake. The downside to this is that customers don't trust a free model (from their point of view). Usually this model relies on having a service to sell not a product.

Clip the Ticket / In the Chain - Ticketek, the events ticketing agent is a great example of this model - This is used where your business makes life easier for customers and other businesses. Basically you offer other companies products / services to customers and charge a little both ways for the privilege.

There are other supplementary income models like Online Advertising that usually have specific requirements requiring a high volume of something, either online page views or SMS messages sent or similar. Please feel free to add other models that you think may be of interest, there are lots out there!! Wikipedia lists over 20 of them here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_model .

So how do we use this information within Serendipity IT Ltd? We gather together all our ideas once a fortnight and try to figure out the 2 things mentioned above - how to make money for the business (which income model) and your exit strategy (preferably with the money you made). If you can decide these two things and they make sense, then you can progress that idea.

Hope this helps,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager
Serendipity IT Ltd

Get Off The Computer!!!!!

2009-08-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

Spring is here!!! -or at least the hay-fever is. So what are you doing in-front of the computer?!?! Let me guess, you're using social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc). OK now try the next craze (actually is an old craze) - physical social networks!! That's right, actually meeting up with people. While your at it why not try one of the following (or at least organise it now for when the season starts) :

Subfootball - Social soccer with mixed teams played at several locations, on smaller fields. A great team sport form people of all skill and fitness levels.
Touch - The best thing about this game is that it can be played pretty much anywhere in New Zealand.
Walking - try it in a group. You never know who you will meet and it's much safer that walking by yourself.
Swimming - At a gym, one of the pools around the country or even the beach.
or even sitting outside with a book

If you would like to get more ideas check out SPARC . SPARC run the Push Play initiative and have great tips for getting outside this summer!! Get out there and do something - organise it now for the Summer!!! Even better organise it for your work team and get to know each other socially.

Cheers,
The Serendipity IT Team - playing Subfootball this Year at Auckland Domain!!

Quote / saying from unknown "Spring is here, the grass is riz, I wonder where dem birdies is?".

How to complain about bad service

2009-08-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

Recently we signed up to an ongoing weekly service, where we got the initial quote saying how great things will be from day one. When the service was completed we were left with about half of what we were expecting. What are the options in this situation?:

Cancel the service straight away
Complain and give them to option to rectify it
Accept that half is probably about right and maybe our expectations were wrong

We decided to take the second option and complain, and we had a valid reason. The process was quite interesting (hence the blog). We had the list of things that should have been provided from day one (the service description) and literally ranked them based on if they Passed or Failed our expectations. We then took this list and wrote a very calm email following these guidelines.

State that you are not happy with the service.
Write out the Pass or Fail list based on their original service description.
Ask where they now see the status of the service. -Note you should know what you want out of this as well.

We kept it very simple, fairly short, and packed it with fact. We didn't get angry or even touch on the personnel involved.

The Service Company came back to us and asked to give it another go (which is what we wanted from step 3 above). There reply was in the same vein as ours simple and short. It didn't dispute the facts, it just asked to set things right. This company has at least one really good thing going for them - in the service industry it doesn't matter if it's actually wrong or right, it's the customers perception that matters.

In this case we allowed them to try to start again, they failed again and we have now found an alternate supplier.

What was the reason for Complaining if it all got cancelled in the end? Hope - we hoped it was going to work out, we hoped it was just a blip in their service, we hoped we wouldn't have to go looking for another service provider.

If you want some good advice on how to complain check out these sites:
How to Complain
UK Consumer Direct
Ministry of Consumer Affairs

Go forth and complain! - if you have reason.

Regards,
The Team

CodeScan - Code Security: is your application secure?

2009-07-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

The Scenario: We have are looking to implement a CRM for one of our clients who was not only interested in the base functionality, and told us we could basically use whatever “secure” solution integrated the best, without limiting future integration points. The potential solutions were down to a Software As A Service (SAAS) solution or an open source downloadable one.

The Security checks available:
- To check the quality / security of the SAAS solution I could only do a web search for known vulnerabilities and ask peers (note to the world – don’t ask the vendor “how secure they are”, you will never get a straight answer).
- For the open source solution I could do the same searches but I could also run software called CodeScan by CodeScan Labs which allowed me to check the PHP open source software for security vulnerabilities that have not yet been publicly announced – and even better it allowed me to do it without knowing all the code intimately, or being an expert in the language. The differences between the search results and the CodeScan results were “very illuminating” and have now asked the SAAS vendor to provide assurances from a third party tool (suggesting CodeScan). The brilliant thing about the CodeScan tool is that it told me what was wrong with the code, down to the lines of code, so I can go and fix the open source project. This got me thinking about different ways you could use CodeScan.

Other ways to use CodeScan in your business:

Improve your business confidence in your developers, by giving the business a way to critique the quality of code from a security stand point without creating friction.
Check the libraries / modules you download for packages like Drupal – before you integrate them into your production system.
A learning tool for teaching your developers to write secure code.
Check your university assignments before you hand them in.
For larger organisations you could use it as a part of your performance based bonus / pay.
Checking over the copied/pasted code that developers find.
Get a level of confidence in the code you get back from your outsourcing partners.

There is a free trial which allows you to test the current state of your software against the rule base which is kept up to date on the CodeScan servers. You can choose from a range of languages including PHP, ASP classic and .NET, SQL injection with more reportedly coming soon.

CodeScan Labs is generating new releases all the time so I’m hoping that a new user interface, reporting, more comprehensive website and some new languages, it will almost become default for developers to check the quality of their code before it gets anywhere near a public site. So far I’ve put it under the banner of a great tool that we can use to qualify and measure improvements to applications.

Regards,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager
http://serendipityit.co.nz

The difference between an Entrepreneur and someone with Ideas?

2009-07-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Although it sounds like the start to a bad joke, I was thinking about what the difference between an Entrepreneur and someone with ideas actually is, and what the benefits of each are. I feel that the difference can, in general, be explained but the following equation :
Entrepreneurship = Ideas person + Business knowledge + Drive to create a product or service to make money

According to Wikipedia Entrepreneurship is "the practice of starting new organizations or revitalizing mature organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities".

I couldn't find find an entry for "Person who has ideas" although I feel that you could probably say it was similar to an Inventor. From Wikipedia's Inventor entry: "An inventor is a person who creates or discovers a new method, form, device or other useful means."

So an ideas person, may create the idea and build it, maybe even give it away, where as an Entrepreneur either takes an idea, or comes up with it themselves, forms a business strategy around it and drives the opportunity. The good thing is that both are looking for useful solutions to identified opportunities.

Don't get me wrong, the ability to create new ideas is a great, and a huge skill in itself. This is especially true if you can accept that you may not be an Entrepreneur, and you may need help in the business ownership, drive, strategy space. If you are a true Entrepreneur then you can consider yourself a very lucky person.

Regards,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager
Serendipity IT Ltd

Why Google's LiveCD-Android is Huge!!!

2009-07-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

Google has just released a 0.2 version of their Android LiveCD build. I can hear you all asking what is it?

Live-Android is an operating system for you x86 computer (x86). Imagine starting up your computer and having Android as your operating system. OK so maybe people aren't ready to through out there favourite operating system yet, which is lucky as the fine people that created Android LiveCD have done it in a really smart way (and this is the huge bit) - you can boot straight into it from a CDROM or (and this is even more huge) you can boot from a USB drive!! Imagine all those applications that you want to build and ship out via a secured USB drive but need specific system requirements for your application to run - well now you have the capability and it comes with a nice GUI.

The one thing that I really want to test out with the USB drive version is, do your documents get stored on there too. Imagine taking all of your computer with you (music, videos, files, personal settings etc.) - it's like hot desking at work, but hot computering.

I'm the first to admit, I haven't installed it yet - but that is the plan as soon as I've downloaded it and I'll write a nice and easy blog post on how to install it (like the Google Android on your HTC Vouge post). I'll keep you posted. There are a few sites with Screenshots already http://code.google.com/p/live-android/wiki/WhatUserSaid and http://twitpic.com/photos/liveandroid

I'd be keen to see other ideas for LiveCD.

Regards,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager
Serendipity IT Ltd

What is the best programming language to learn?

2009-07-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

I often get asked “what is the best programming language to learn?“, so here is my attempt to answer that question.

For me a good programming language to learn would have to include:

A language that has been around in the public domain for over a year, and should have had at least one update to the code base in the last year (to show it’s still being worked on).
A language that has at least a little bit of example code when you search for it.
The language should have either an active community or company to support you.
There should be new jobs appearing on job sites like seek.co.nz for that language.

So, with all of that what is the best language to learn? Unfortunately it still depends on a) your background and b) what you want to do with it. For example if you have a PHP background and you want to move into more backend systems development, then I’d suggest Java or C# with Spring/Struts or .NET framework. That way you will be covered for a range of currently available jobs. However, Ruby or Python on a Rails Framework may hold you in better grounding for future jobs.

One thing I’ve discovered is it’s more about the framework that you use more than the Language. Once you know one language it’s relatively easy to switch to another (excluding language you have to do memory management like C and C++). For Web Development, Java is good with Servlets JSPs etc, but adding the Spring Framework makes Web Development easy, structured and well documented.

So in short I don’t think there is one answer to what is the best programming language to learn! It’s about the industry you’re in and why you are learning it. Whoever saying that, if you’re new to programming some general suggestions for cross industry jobs are Java and C#.

It would be good to get a few comments from recruitment agencies on the skill they are struggling to find at the moment and what they are seeing as new languages that people are asking for.

Cheers,
Simon Collings
Solutions Manager

Interesting things from BarCamp Auckland 3

2009-07-11T14:35:00.000-07:00

Bar Camp 3 - Auckland is over and I'm pretty sure that everyone had a great time, and learnt a lot!! Last year we shared a few of our insights from BarCamp Auckland 2 and this year I thought we would share a whole lot more from each of the sessions.

Firstly this was the first event where Txt Shopping Mall was seen under it's new name (it was 5556Mall). Txt Shopping Mall, a product of Serendipity IT Ltd, decided to sponsor the event to get a little bit of name recognition out there. I spent a decent amount of the day talking about what it is, how it works etc, so we thought it was good value for us and a good investment for the Auckland IT Community.

I attended a variety of different breakout sessions which covered topics such as iPhone Game Development, Web 2.0 and Social Media, Project Management Tools for Web projects, Marketing for Entrepreneurs, Small Scale Innovation and Database Driven Development. There were also a heap of Quick-Fire 5 minute presentations around lunch time which were great. If you want to check out some of the other sessions the Schedule is currently still available here.

Easy iPhone Game Development, James McGlinn, @jamesmcglinn

Use Frameworks to do your Game development!!! These may include any of the following:

Unity - 3D
Torque -3D
Shiva -3D
Oolong -3D
Cocos2d-iPhone -2D

James centred on the Cocos2d-iPhone framework which can be found at http://cocos2d-iPhone.org. Coco was a Python framework that has been ported to the iPhone to aid in fast development.
If you want an easy tutorial to learn how to do iPhone Game development with Cocos2d for iPhones you should check out this tutorial on how to create an androids game.
Use Sprites in you iPhone Game development for graphics that move / flicker.

Web 2.0 & Social Media -Real Business results - show and tell, Russell Holland @RussellHolland

ExecTweets.com has a list of top Execs that are on Twitter.
Edelman.com has a trust survey which highlights the difference between Social sites that have trust and those that don't.
Russell gave a demo of Debbie Cookies which found the top 50 female bloggers and sent them a nicely presented box of their cookies. What they found was reviews being written for them by these bloggers and the internet traffic and sale went through the roof.
twist.flaptor.com has a great tweet graph
Don't underestimate Twitter with people like Salesforce.com integrating twitter into their CRM product.
Russell has his presentation on http://russellsays.com

Tools to track web (and other) projects - what do you use...?, Russell Holland @RussellHolland

The best quote from this was calling printed paper "TreeWare"
This was a great discussion session and was interesting that people wanted different measures to track things by. One guy wanted everything Time Based, another was Quality, and there were a lot of other mix & match indicators.
Tickspot was a time based tool
LiquidPlanner and Basecamp were 2 general tools
There was a good discussion around CRM technologies with Zoho CRM, Sugar CRM and Javelin CRM being offered as good solutions.

Marketing for Entrepreneurs, Ben Young @bwagy

Ben's Marketing approach is to Blog! Blog often, constantly, on topic. If you can achieve this then you are on the way to building a brand that people can rely on. For example on Ben's blog he has a blog post every business day with set topics for different days, if he's away or ill he'll let his readers know or schedule a post to go live on that day.
Ben has some of his favourite blog posts now published in a book called 'The Best Ideas are Free'
Leverage you Posts! Post a link on Delicious, Twitter, Facebook where ever you can.
Ben uses TechRigy to track his brand and it's reputation online.

What is the right approach to small scale innovation?, Shaun Lee, @vegestoc

This was a great session that I unfortunately had to leave early.
Shaun spoke about the differences in Google's Extraverted approach Vs Apple's Introverted approach.
John Ballinger (I think) said that for any new product idea in Google to progress to even Alpha stage it MUST have numbers to back it up, not just 'I think', or 'I feel'.

Techniques and Tools that assist database development, Kerry Sainsbury, @kerryland

This was a more technical session which was great for me to end on.
There was an introduction to the H2 database which has inbuilt web based gui and a whole heap of other nice tools. The creator of H2 has been key in building other well known databases.
Power*Architect from SQL Power looked like a great Data Modelling / Profiling.
The suggestion of Groovy + Grails for creating Java based CRUD functions.
Hibernate has a generate classes from Tables function and generate Tables from Classes function.

I hope that some of this information is useful. If you want to correct or add anything, please leave a comment on this post.

Once again I'd like to thank Ludwig and the team for organising this great event.

Cheers,
Simon Collings

BarCamp Auckland 3 (#BCA3 on Twitter)

2009-07-11T00:09:00.001-07:00

Today, I was lucky enough to again attend another BarCamp in Auckland. We sponsored the event last year under Serendipity IT Ltd and again this year under our one of our products Text Shopping Mall.

If you want to see the schedule / topics that were covered check http://bca.geek.nz or direct at the schedule on Google Docs. Or if you are more interested in the content a lot of people were live Tweeting from the event with the Hashtag of #BCA3.

Ludwig along with the bartenders, again, did an excellent job of keeping the day humming along.

My one takeaway was from Ben Young (@bwagy on twitter), who said that blogging should be a regular thing. - So you guessed it I'll be writing a blog post every week for Serendipity IT Ltd. They will be mostly focused on IT and Business, although if there is a topic that I, or any of my colleagues, think may be of interest.

We're all looking forward to the photos appearing, and some reviews being written. I'll link to them from this blog post, so be sure to check back.

Cheers,
Simon Collings,
Solutions Manager
Serendipity IT Ltd & Text Shopping Mall

How to build Twitter - not an app but Twitter

2009-05-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

We were tossing the idea around to figure out if it would be hard to build a whole new Twitter and how we would go about doing it. No new features just a replacement service (it was an exercise we were doing, we are not actually going to try it). It was really interesting.....

What we had was:
3 people, 1 room, pens, paper (Low tech)

The Aim:
Each person was to come up with a way to rebuild Twitter as fast and as cheap as you can whilst retaining most of the features

The Results:
1. The first result was to build it from scratch using some existing php libraries.....blah blah - got put in the too hard basket really fast.

2. A result of Use something like Drupal and try to use the existing groups, identity, messaging work in there - still quite a bit of work and fiddling to get it working as a whole.

3. The winner - Use email!! (keep reading)

But wait, here is what we mean by use email : Just use a backend email server for it's built in functions and write an API on top of that. Still want more..

A tweet is just a message = an email is just a message
A tweet can to direct message to someone = just like an email going to an address
A tweet can be replied to = just like an email (and it can even create conversation links with reply id's)
A tweet can be sent to people who follow you = each email address has a group associated to it that they post too
You can follow people = just get yourself added into a users group
Twitter has APIs for developers types = you can just have standard pop3 / imap functions exposed.
You can email into twitter = yeah umm...

So what else could this method bring...

Well for a starter you could probably run it off Gmail / Yahoo Mail / Hotmail so you'd have no hosting costs
Developers understand Mail systems and how to interact with them
You could have premium private groups of twitter (like Yammer) so you could get an income.

Hmmm I wonder if that's how Twitter is built.....

Oh well, we just thought we'd share our thoughts on an exercise we did last week.

Would love to know your thoughts and / or if you have done other exercises around your workplace.

Regards,
The Team

Goolge Voice - a Peak

2009-04-11T18:38:00.000-07:00

We've got our login for Google Voice and we're impressed!! Lucky for you we've taken some screen shots for you to view what is available.

Firstly Google Voice use to be named Grand Central, until Google thought they would buy them out and re-release it. So what is it.... Google Voice is a Telephony Management System, like a PAX but for you personally, not a company, and Google Voice has a whole range of extra features and capabilities.

The title of the home page starts to tempt you with the features - "One Phone Number, One Voicemail and Enhanced Call Features". Imagine if you kid has broken a leg at school, does the school call Mum or Dad or another caregiver and what if the primary person isn't available, how do they get in contact with the second person and what if mum or dad have changed their number... Don't worry Google to the rescue. You get a Google number that you can give out to people (the school) then you get to control how that number acts, forward to both parents number so anyone can answer it, call Mum's phone for 30seconds then call Dad's. Of course if you're a telemarketer you'd be glad to hear about these features because you're going to get hold of someone, think again, people can set up call blocking to get rid of unknown numbers. - That's worth the $0 price tag right there :). You can of course send and receive SMS messages (currently for free) and work even in New Zealand on both Vodafone and Telecom networks. Of course you can make and receive calls with it. If you get left a message Google Voice will email or SMS it to you.

This is the list of features taken from the main Google Voice page.

"One Phone Number"
* Call screening - Announce and screen callers
* Listen in - Listen before taking a call
* Block calls - Keep unwanted callers at bay
* SMS - Send, receive, and store SMS
* Place calls - Call US numbers for free
* Taking calls - Answer on any of your phones
* Phone routing - Phones ring based on who calls
* Forwarding phones - Add phones and decide which ring

"One Voicemail"
* Voicemail transcripts - Read what your voicemail says
* Listen to voicemail - Check online or from your phone
* Notifications - Receive voicemails via email or SMS
* Personalize greeting - Vary greetings by caller
* Share voicemail - Forward or download voicemails

"Enhanced Call Features"
* Conference calling - Join people into a single call
* Call record - Record calls and store them online
* Call switch - Switch phones during a call
* Mobile site - View your inbox from your mobile
* GOOG-411 - Check directory assistance
* Manage groups - Set preferences by group

But don't be fooled it's not just about calling, there is full SMS integration, Access to you Gmail contact lists, and many other features.

The only thing missing so far is an API for developers, but I suspect that will be on its way.

Keep an eye on this in regards to Google Android (Google's mobile phone platform) and GTalk (Google's chat tool).

Below we've attached a series of screen shots for you (click on them to view them at a better size).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
The Team

Home

Sending an SMS

History of SMS conversations

Calling

Contacts from Gmail

Widgets - Call Me

Call Management - first half

Call Management - second half

Twitter Follower Importer - refresh

2009-04-11T18:07:00.000-07:00

Our Twitter User Importer has been referenced in a few locations around the web now and it's getting more popular each month.

So after getting sent a link to Jeremiah Owyang's blog post "Developer Challenge: Create A Crowd Managed Feed Reader" we've decided to ask for a list of new features that people would like added to this service. (hat tip @Gianouts for the link).

Here are a few links for ideas so far.
Developer Challenge: Create A Crowd Managed Feed Reader
Five Twitter Tools We Love
Twittermania: 140+ More Twitter Tools!

If you want any new features added then list them as a comment at that bottom of this post and we'll get onto doing the most popular ones.

Cheers,
The Team

Google Android - now buttering my toast

2009-03-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

Well, while the Google Android mobile platform isn't quite "buttering our toast", it's probably not far off.

This is part 2 of our work with Google Android (part 1 is available here) and the whole ball game has changed - Android has gone from version 1.0 to 1.1 and we've written our first couple of applications - yet to be released to the wild publicly but they are running on our phones.

This blog post is mainly to update you on the changes that you may have to do to get Android 1.1 to work on your OKTA Touch / HTC Vogue and how to release your Android applications (*.apk files).

Firstly have a read of the part 1 of this blog series called 'Google Android - Please butter my toast'. Then because you'll want version 1.1 of Android download it from the Massey Uni website that is doing the porting of Android for the HTC Vogue or click here for the actual v1.1 file. Then all you have to do is follow those same instructions as last time but use android1.1.zip inplace of android.zip - how easy is that.

With Version 1.1 of Android a few things have changed. One of the big changes, where Google reminds us all who operates the Android OS, is the update to the Maps application (based on Google Maps) so it now returns details and reviews of businesses. Other changes include a whole swag of resolved issues (mainly around getting connections to behave) and a few API changes - just to keep development teams employed :).

Well enough on Android 1.1, what about creating applications!!!
We have written a couple of tools for the Android that allow us to do things like control several services via sms (none critical - more just seeing if we could) and we've had a "hack" at some of the games that are out there - replacing resource files so our logo shows up etc. - you know, the fun stuff!! All of these ran fine in the Android Emulators but we ran into an issue putting the applications onto the actual phone. This was mainly because the standard way of doing it was to connect the USB and transfer the APK file - however the USB isn't enabled on this device. Luckily we emailed Martin from Massey who had both the time to get back to us and the world’s most simple answer - put your APK into a folder called 'AndroidApps' on the SD card. To our amazement our applications were sucked up and installed at boot time and worked a treat. Now we can show people demos of the Android games with our logo in the background :).

NOTE: One tricky thing moving from Emulator to actual device was the Internet connection needs to be created and destroyed if you want connect to the internet via your applications. - please don't just leave the connection open as Data over the Mobile is expensive.

Other than that - get out there and start developing little Androids!! You may even be able to sell them on the Android market. If you want any other information from us regarding Android development please either leave a comment on this blog or get in contact via our contacts page.

Cheers,
The Team

Google Android - Please butter my toast

2009-02-22T21:01:00.000-08:00

Last week we started to look at Android, not the little robots, we mean the new Mobile Platform produced by Google.

So there are two questions your probably asking yourself at this point:
What is Android!!
It's an Open Source and alternative to Symbian, Windows Mobile and even the iPhone. It allows developers to create applications and release theme to world (if they want) a lot like the iPhone and App-store. If you want more information you can check out the Google page on What is Android.

What can I do with Android??
Whatever you want. Some ideas we had ranged from just upgrading the usability of handsets as we did, through to creating a welcome kiosk for front of businesses that displays a list of employees and allowed people to type in their name - the Android system could then Text or Email or Call the selected person to let them know that a visitor is in reception for them, it could even print the visitor label for the visitor. Contrary to the headline of this article you may not be able to get Android to butter your toast - yet... but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think of Android setting off your alarm and alerting your IP based Toaster to start the cooking process, it could even text your manager to say that you've overslept again and will be late in to work.

At this point there may be a third question:
How do I get Android???
There are a few mobile devices with Android already installed on them, however, these are not yet available in New Zealand. We had to get an Okta Touch from Telecom NZ (HTC Vogue for the rest of the world) and install Android (download from here) following these instructions. Luckily the Button configurations for the build were listed here.

So far we have downloaded it, installed it on a phone (the Okta Touch), installed the development tools / SDK (integrates with Eclipse), run the emulator and deployed some of the sample applications to it. This is however only the start for us - we have big plans for Android!!!

This is what we did to get Android going:

Download android.zip from http://cs-alb-pc3.massey.ac.nz/vogue/ - link titled "Latest Version for HTC Vogue, Kaiser and Polaris"
Unzipped android.zip to the desktop called testing
Put a completely blank SD card in our Okta
Connected the Phone to the pc via USB
Unzipped Data.gz from the android folder
We renamed the file 'data' in the new Data folder to be 'data.img' - dunno why it just works
Copied the 2 files system.img and data.img (the data.img file could now be in a subdirectory called data) to the root of the SD card (NOTE the SD card should be clean - i.e. not even photos)
Copied everything else from the unzipped android folder to the root folder of the Okta i.e. "My Device"/android
Then you can just Start you Okta and go to Start > Program Files > File Explorer and run a file called "haret" that lives in "My Device"/android. When prompted to select a file just leave it as the file "default"
This should then boot Linux and eventually boot into Android - Good work!!!! (It does take almost a full minute to get there though) .

These are the buttons that will be of interest for the build of Android above - thanks http://www.myhtcphone.com/vogue-cab-installer:

Camera button - Keyboard
Double tap camera button - Switch between portrait and landscape
Volume Up - Back button.
Volume Down - Menu
End call - Power button
Talk key - Launch dialer
Power - Home key when on. Brings out of standby when screen is off

Hope this helps!!!

Cheers,
The Team

KiwiFoo 09 - Unconference Experience

2009-02-14T22:31:00.000-08:00

Respecting the "What goes on Foo camp, stays on Foo camp" mantra, this blog will detail some of my experiences at KiwiFoo 2009. As more experiences, blogs, comments etc come out about KiwiFoo 09, I'll add links as comments on this post. If your after more info now you can check out the #KiwiFoo feed on Twitter.

I've now had the honour of being invited to a few of these events (Barcamp Auckland 2, and the TelecomOne Innovation Unconference). For those who aren't sure, an Unconference has no pre-set agenda; it gets decided, by the participants, just after the greeting talk.

Firstly registration, where I got a very nice T-Shirt to remember the event, a drink bottle, pens , pads and everything else he could get my hands on. Then on to the normal meeting of people you've known from previous meetings and then getting herded into a hall for the pre-conference greeting talk. At the end of the greeting talk, Nat (who ran the event) opened the agenda board where there was the normal rush to post topics that people thought were interesting in the best time slots.

Some of the sessions I personally attended ranged from Advertising and Business issues/ideas, through what’s new on the Technical side of IT, and even a low level session on Android - Google’s Mobile phone platform. My main issue was that there is only one of me and I couldn't go to all of the sessions, all of the time. I'd like to pass on my personal, congratulations to the people who offered the topics - they were all very good. There were start-ups who were getting different perspectives, established companies looking to connect with the technical community and independent people just interested in interesting things.

It wasn't only the sessions that were interesting; the "Hall Conversations" were hugely valuable as well. I solved one of the things on our TODO list for our SMS / Txt Shopping Mall Service - it took about 15 minutes with 3 really smart people. We all then turned our heads to another attendees issue and we offered different solutions from angles - hopefully they will come off.

The key things to take away from this style of conference isn't the T-shirt, pads, pens etc, it's the personal contacts, the new ideas that get generated and the new vigour for trying things outside my normal way of doing things. My head has been spinning all weekend with ideas that could be implemented and luckily, I now have a whole range of people that I can call on to help or partner with.

At the closing gathering, the floor was opened up and the suggestions of different ways to improve Foo camps were offered including a ScienceFoo, MediaFoo etc - if anyone is interested contact Nat.

A Special thanks has to go to the sponsors, who allowed the attendees to pay nothing for the whole weekend; Nat for organising and fronting the event; and as the song says, "behind every great man is a great woman" - Jenine who looked after the running of the event (and kept Nat to only inviting 160ish people).

A great weekend was had by all. Lots of contacts made and ideas generated!

Nice work everyone!! We are looking forward to hearing more about other peoples’ experiences!!

Simon

Twitter &Twhirl 0.9 (0.8.8k) - Saved Search - The best new feature

2009-02-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

(Update 10/02/2009 - The features that we talk about for Beta Version 0.8.8k are in the Version 0.9 release http://twhirl.org/download).

We here at Serendipity IT Ltd use Twitter quite a bit to connect with customers, solutions providers, and just people.

If you’re not sure what Twitter is check out http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter for a "Plain English" explanation.

There are a lot of desktop / phone based tools that makes Twitter easier, but the one we use is Twhirl. Twhirl is just about to release a new version 0.8.8 but it is currently available as a Beta release at version 0.8.8k (linked to here). Please note that if you don't have Twhirl installed then please install the normal version first from http://twhirl.org/.

One of the best features is the "Saved Searches" - this allows you to do a search (for example 'shopping mall') and when someone else mentions 'shopping mall' in a Tweet, it will get added to your normal tweets viewing list. This is a nice feature all by its self but, if you’re like us and have multiple Twitter names (@serendipityit and @5556mall) then you can log into one account and set-up a search for the other account. This means you get alerted whenever someone tweets to your identities or about them - also works wonders with product names.

This is also a really easy way to get notified of what your competitors are up to - and they don't even have to be on twitter - just add their name as a Saved Search and hey presto - you get notified what they are up to because people tweeting about them :)

Hope this helps,
The Team,
Serendipity IT Ltd

2009 Content for 5556Mall - Ideas wanted

2008-12-21T16:51:00.000-08:00

Here at Serendipity IT we have a product that goes by the name of 5556Mall. It allows you to get product information and prices any time, on your mobile phone, by just texting the product name to 5556. We've noticed people wanting prices, product info and stores but they also want different content...

So we'd like to ask what kind of content would you like to have enabled via the 5556 SMS service? If you have ideas or suggestions please leave them either on this blog post or on our 5556Mall blog post (there are even suggestions there to get you started) : http://blog.5556mall.co.nz/2008/12/new-content-for-2009-ideas-wanted.html

Hope you all have a safe Christmas break!!

The team at Serendipity IT.

How to create a media pack

2008-11-15T15:32:00.000-08:00

We have created a media pack for 5556Mall. This is the process we went through to create it:

Get all images / logs etc created
Identify why we are creating it
Identify who the target audience is

We then did a bit of searching on the Internet and came up with the following items that a media pack usually contains:

Description of the product / service
History
Costs involved
Quotes from customers
Contact for further information

If you would like to see the final 5556Mall Media Pack please request it via email (see our contact pages).

Cheers,
The Team
Serendipity IT Ltd

5556Mall - Launch - New Zealand's Text Message Shopping Network

2008-10-20T00:50:00.000-07:00

Great News!!!!

5556Mall - New Zealand's Text Message Shopping Network has launched today (very soft launch, as we are still getting more stores on board )!!!

What is it?

Know what you want to buy, but not sure where to get it? Or how much its going to cost? Introducing 5556Mall ... New Zealand's text message shopping mall! Simply text the name of what you want to buy to 5556, and we will text you back the details about where can buy it and how much its going to cost... its just that easy!!

Here's an example... if you text 'ipod touch' to 5556 you'll get a text message reply saying: "Available from: Geekzone Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) USD$219.94, Available from:ShopX APPLE iPod Touch 32GB $952.00".

You may also be in one store and want to check the price for the same product at another store. Simply text the code of the store that you want to check plus the name of the product to 5556, and we will let you know the current price... easy! For more details, or to find a list of the store codes, check here.

Why is this great news?

5556Mall is a new service that is available whenever and wherever you have your mobile phone, giving you complete freedom to check stores and prices!

Who is behind the service?

The best place to find out what stores are available on 5556Mall, or to find their unique store codes, is to have a look at us on-line at http://5556mall.co.nz , check out our store codes page, or to sign up to the update list, and we'll email you when new stores are added. 5556Mall is proudly brought to you by Serendipity IT Ltd.

Why not give it a try?

Text whatever you are looking for to 5556 now!! We are also still signing up new stores, so whilst we build or base of stores, you can trial the service on-line completely free! Currently Geekzone is enabled with more stores coming asap.

How do I get on the Stores list?
Check out the Contact Us page.

How do I find out about new Stores?
Send us an email and we'll keep you up to date. We will also use Twitter (@5556mall and @serendipityit) to alert the technical community.

Happy shopping!

Thanks,
The Team
Serendipity IT Ltd

When Social Networks and Blogs go right

2008-10-17T21:31:00.000-07:00

We thought we would share a small success story with you around our experiences with on-line polls, Social Networks and Blogs and how they can help your business.

On October 10th a competition to find the Top 10 Start-up companies in 2008 was launched by Start-Up ( @startupnz ) and by Ben Young ( @bwagy ) using Squidoo an on-line poll service. Start-Up magazine offered a 3 page spread as first prize and mention for the next 9 placings. You should still be able to see the poll here http://www.squidoo.com/nztop10startups08 - You may even still be able to vote!! We put ourselves up there as an option, then talked about it quite heavily on twitter, Yammer and other social networking tools - as well as in real life :) . So with the Poll setup, the Twitter community and the Blogging community went into overdrive advertising it. The reason they did this is the people who twittered / blogged normally get close to the start-up companies as it's a great source of information for them. They use this to build trust with the people they get to know, and form relationships from there.

So you still want to know how this can help your business success!?!?!

From the poll hosted on Squidoo, Two separate people/companies, who had good ideas, but not the skills to take it further, linked to my site and read my blog post on Developers - Getting the good ones. We met them on Friday / Saturday and we are are helping one of them develop their product, and we are looking into different options for the other, with a view to aid them.

So, from an on-line poll that used Social Networks to advertise it and having valid content on our blog - we have created 2 linkages with companies who are trying to get their idea off the ground.

Cheers,
The Team
Serendipity IT Ltd

Selling your product - from day zero

2008-10-15T02:23:00.001-07:00

So you have just completed creating a product that you've worked late nights, maybe with a team of others. Early on, of course, you did some prototyping, and got a sample of the target segment to test that they want it. Now what??

How do you take that leap? What leap should you take? How do you get it from your PC, into the public arena, then let the public know it's there.

Below are some of the things that we have, stumbled on, thought about, planned for, missed completely - hopefully a memory jogger for you.

Get all your legal documents in order - create any non-disclosure or financial agreements and terms and conditions that you will need. Run through a scenario of buying your product with someone playing devils advocate.
Figure out how your going to make a buck! (if that's your aim) - it may be something that initially will just build brand, and allow you to charge later on.
Figure out who is going to buy it - get their contact details - name, phone, fax, address, website etc - often all available via Google / Yellow pages then just calling the main number and asking for the person who is in the role you are after.
Create a couple of price lists - one with details and one brief overview - maybe a couple of different prices so you can adapt your prices on the fly based on how your conversation is going.
Ensure that your website is complete - there is nothing worse than not being able to give a website for further info.
Have a solid go live plan and / or release date and how your going to market it.

Once you have all these details in order, take a day out of your normal week and call the people who you identified that will buy it - yes cold calling - but guess what it usually works. Give away enough information to get them interested, but not so much that they can replicate it themselves. The main aim of this call is getting a face to face meeting! - nothing else (so you'll need your calendar with you). Guess what... If they say 'no thanks', then move on to the next on on the list -it's no biggie - the up side is they have heard your company name and product :) If you get a few people saying no thanks then maybe review your product and you list of numbers to call - do they match?

At the meeting, remember, they are not just buying your product, they are buying into your company and your companies reputation. Remember that your there to sell the product, but, they are there to learn about your product - otherwise they would have told you to go away at the phone call.

This is how we tend to run our conversations, it tends to work and builds trust between parties.
Hi ...{their name}... .
I'm ...{your name}... from ....{your company}... thanks for taking the time to meet with me. We do ...{what your main focus is}..., and you may have heard about us regarding...{previous products}.... . The reason I'm here today is to (show you / tell you about) ...{your product}...

At the end of the conversation, ensure you thank them for their time, and create a future contact point, an email / phone call / 2nd meeting / whatever. - This last bit is very important!!! Without this you have to effectively create a new cold call.

After this you only have to launch on the date given, and advertise through the mediums you said, and have a flawless product - but no pressure!! - More on this in another post

This has been based on some of our experience (and our customers) - feel free to comment and add yours!

Hope it all goes well!!

The Team,
Serendipity IT Ltd

Twitter User Importer - Simple Web Tool

2008-10-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

The Twitter User Importer tool.

Just a quick note to let you know that there is now a tool to do any of the following with your Twitter account:

Sync users between your multiple Twitter accounts
Move all your old Twitter users from one account to another
Follow another users followers (if you can follow that logic, you've had enough coffee for the day)

All of this from one handy little tool - The Twitter User Importer tool

Twitter is a micro blogging tool, but don't let that scare you. It basically allows you to chat like MSN Messenger but to a group of people who choose to listen to you. From a start-up point of view it's a great way to build networks of people and from a personal viewpoint you can let your friends know when it's coffee time.

A few users to get you going / follow / follow their followers:
@serendipityit - that's us!! Our official Twitter user

@scollings - that's Simon Collings' personal Twitter account - our Solutions Manager

@bwagy - Marketing / blogging etc @gianouts - High level technologist

@TechCrunch -Gadgets etc

@Twitter - Yes they use it themselves

@vodafoneNZ - Vodafone New Zealand

@freitasm - Mauricio Freitas from Geekzone and many many more.

Hope this tool helps - let us know if you want changes or if you want other tools to be built.

Cheers,
The team @ Serendipity IT Ltd

TelecomONE Innovation unconference

2008-10-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend we were lucky enough to be invited to the very first "TelecomONE Innovation" unconference that was held at Mahurangi College, Warkworth.

Firstly a few definitions:
"unconference" - Like an invite only conference except the agenda is developed by the attendees at the event on the first day of the event, using big whiteboard schedule that can be rewritten or overwritten by attendees depending on passion for topics. Commonly called a FooCamp.
"TelecomONE Innovation" - The name given to the Telecom New Zealand focused event held over the weekend.

This event was like the BarCamp we sponsored a back in July except attendance is by invite only. There were about 60%-70% Telecom Staff from across the business including a couple of senior managers and the rest were made up from external companies (Tim Norton from Plan HQ, and Mauricio Freitas from Geekzone to name a few). Most of the attendees slept on the marae at the school.

Even before you arrive at one of these events you know it going to be different as there is no agenda only timeslots. The agenda gets created on the first day when the attendees put up the topics they want to talk about. Then a bit of juggling to get rid of duplicates, and after about 15mins you have an agenda full of topics that people are passionate about.

As you can imagine the topics that were discussed have to be kept under wraps. However we can say it was refreshing to see Telecom people talk about (actually talk about) how do we engage the customer and work with the customer, even though the people who attended were mainly tech based. Don't get us wrong there were some tech discussions but these were far outweighed by business related topics.

So given that we can't really talk too much about the topics, please take away two things form this post:
1) Telecom are now trying to be customer focused / become a joined up front
2) At Telecom there are some really passionate, smart people

Cheers from the Team,

Serendipity IT Ltd

Products - What defines Cool?

2008-10-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

So what is the difference between 'Cool' for customers and 'Cool' for the IT community - and how do you tell?

All too often we see a Tech based company offering products that they think will take the Cool market by storm, but they don't take off in either the Tech market or the Mass market. We all know that we want to create Cool products and I'm pretty sure that most of us start out aiming for our products to be Cool, which now begs the question - Why don't we all have Cool products?

Some of the reasons for this could be that your product is great in your eyes only. See start-up.co.nz's article titled '10 ways to tell if your product is crap!' for a quick test, or codesqeeze.com's '101 Ways To Know Your Software Project Is Doomed' for a more comprehensive list of things to look out for.

Or maybe you have the wrong target audience - being Cool in a business market requires the 3 R's Rigour, Reliability and a Reason for being there, where-as being Cool in a consumer market may need features at a reasonable price and that's all.

Or maybe the fickle Cool market has moved on to a new Cool - Maybe brown isn't the new black any more maybe orange is - Keep in touch with the market place. Who's saying what about you and your products, and review what you are saying about your products (old info is just as bad as no info). For this Google is your friend, and http://search.twitter.com for twitter conversations.

Or maybe your price point is too high and people can't afford your Cool, or maybe the price is too low so your not Cool your just cheap.

Or maybe, just maybe, the product isn't Cool.

Or maybe we should all stop aiming at Cool and go with "it does what it says on the tin, is a reasonable price, and has had the right marketing". That way if the market makes it Cool then it's a bonus but if the market makes it useful then it will last in that market and you'll actually stand a better chance of making more money from it.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this one, especially as even after all that was written above, everyone is still trying to find the next Cool.

Cheers,
The Team at Serendipity IT Ltd

Part2 : When did doing business get so hard or expensive to do

2008-08-22T21:23:00.000-07:00

In part 1 of "When did doing business get so hard or expensive to do" we here at Serendipity IT Ltd got such a great response from people we thought we would create a whole new post with a whole lot more tools (instead of just adding to the old one like we did with Creating a Employment Agreement). So onto the list:

Networking -How to talk to like minded individuals
Meetup - Allows you to set a time and place and publish the details for other like minded people to find, and / or , you can email out invites. For example Auckland Web Meetup gets over 100 people attending each month (link). The group you want may already be running.

Twitter - Allows quick chat type capabilities that are limited to 140 letters. Currently used mainly by the Tech Aware crowd but may grow to be more - see what the author of http://geekzone.co.nz is currently saying / thinking by clicking on this link.

Feedback Tools -Test the waters before you dive in & keep testing once your in

Site Review - Get feedback from an external source on your web site.

User Voice - Allows you to add a feedback tab to your site and get peoples opinions of the page or ideas. Easy to use and implement. Like Google do with 'Beta' releases, get actual feedback from actual users.

Marketing with a Difference -crowds: don`t just stand out, jump out!

Zazzle - Print anything you like on a range of different products like, t-shirts, shoes, skateboards etc. - U.S. Based.

Accounts -easy online accounting with no software to install
Xero - An online accounting system designed for small businesses and their advisors. It’s simple, smart and secure.

General -the other stuff you may want to do

PDFescape - Allows you to create and edit PDF files. - Please note that we have not tested or used this application.

If you would like to suggest some other tools the please add a comment below and we'll see if we should make a part 3.

Cheers from the Team,

Serendipity IT Ltd

When did doing business get so hard or expensive to do - solutions

2008-08-04T14:35:00.000-07:00

When did doing business get hard and complicated to do! More importantly, what can be done to get around the hard or expensive tasks?

We here are Serendipity IT Ltd we are here to help. We have listed out some of the free or almost free tools out there to help you do business and we have added some templates from our own work and if you like we can add some of your templates to the list (please either post a link in a comment or send us an email as found on out contacts page).

Business Plans - Is this idea working for you or are you working for the idea
Simple Business Plan - A simple Business Plan done in Power Point that we use to determine quite quickly if an idea is going to be a winner or not.

Plan HQ - A business planning tool that allows you to break your goals down and get the satisfaction of ticking them off as you go (like the bit of paper in front of you) but Plan HQ allows you to send updates to investors and other interested parties when you tick items off.

Issues Management - Make customer service / support easier
OTRS - Manage customer queries & complaints, you can set it up to automatically respond to emails for you giving the customer not only instant feedback but a reference number to use in future correspondence.

Employment Agreements - Make sure everyone knows the rules
Create a Employment Agreement - A Free on-line tool from NZ's Department of Labour that creates a contract at the end of it.

Call Management - Get customers to the right person first time
2Talk - Allows you to control how and when you want to be contacted. We have given out our 2talk number as our support number and that allows us to control who gets the call on what day without mucking around the customer. You can also set it up so when the 2talk number gets rung, 2 or even 3 phones ring, again ideal for support.

Meetings around the world - Collaborate with anyone in the world without email
GoToMeeting - Allows you to talk to groups of people via a dial in number and share applications on your PC so you can work with others around the world.

PC, Server, Website monitoring - Make sure your system is working as you want
mon.itor.us - Website monitoring, not only clicks like GoogleAnalytics but server CPU, memory etc - it also sends you alerts in a multitude of ways.

Website Reporting - Who is doing what when they visit your website
Google Analytics - Website reporting that hooks into Google Adwords so you can track goal conversion rates etc. It allows you to view how people got to your site, and the paths they took when doing so.

These are just some of the tools out there that are available. And please remember if you have any tools worthwhile please leave us a comment and we'll add them to the list, or if you struggle to perform a task in your business life please let us know and we'll try to find the solution for you.

Cheers,
The Team
Serendipity IT Ltd

Developers - Getting the good ones

2008-07-29T15:34:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of months I've been asked a number of times "How can I get in contact with a good developer?" and "How can I tell if a developer is good?".

Well I'm here to tell you that there are many good developers out there and they don't cost the world. Even better news is that you may not even need a developer!!!

For example if you are looking at this page thinking, I want a way to write to the world like that, then you can and you don't need to have any development skills. (We use Blogger which is free and allows me to pick colours / layouts from a menu system). If you think you may need a developer but you're not sure if there is something out there that is easy enough, please get in contact with us via one of the methods on our contacts page. Remember it doesn't have to be hard or expensive!

However, if you do want a developer, here are some things to keep in mind:

Usually developers do cost money, and if you go through a temp agency they will add more to the price!
You can sometimes do reference checks yourself with developers as you can see what they have done.
We can put you in contact with some of the guys we use (if they are not from our normal pool then we won't charge a fee). We get the benefit of putting you together to better the whole I.T. area. What goes around, comes around!
If you struggle to get what you want across to the developer at the start, it may be better to not start at all (with that developer).
Developers are like flat-mates in the saying "make friends out of your flatmates not flatmates out of your friends". Meaning just because your friend says they can do it, doesn't mean they should. - Instead why not use them to check out other developers qualifications.
Rates vary depending on the task, skills, length of time and the experience of the developer, but in general you are looking from $30/hr for an 'ok' developer to $100+/hr for an experienced developer who can add that something extra.
For big projects there is always the off-shore option for cheap labour, but be warned that you should know exactly what you want before engaging the offshore guys. (Support Resort do all kinds of programming etc.).

And lastly, if you are a developer who is looking for work, then email us and let us know (your first task is to figure out how to do that).

Cheers,
The Team,
Serendipity IT Ltd

Barcamp Auckland 2 - The aftermath

2008-07-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

from 13 July, 2008 (reference)

Bar Camp 2 - Auckland is over for 2008 and everyone has had a great time.

A talk on startups was given from Simon Collings from Serendipity IT Ltd at the 11:30 session that gave an overview of startups titled "Statups: Idea -> Delivery -> Living The Dream". With people crammed in and sitting on the floor to listen the discussions were varied from venture capital, marketing , planning through to seeing if you can easily explain your idea to the dog.

Once the Barcamp App, with sessions and comments made on each of the sessions, is made available I'll put a link into this post. Other good talks included "Rapid Development - Creating BarcampApp in ~~20 minutes~~ not very long" (Hamish Campbell) which was a live demo that used ~~SilverLight~~ Silver Stripe to literally build the Barcamp App. Also, "Tech Productivity" (Ben Young) who came up with some disscussion points around how to get work done within the week.

There are many reviews that already sum up the feeling, content and atmosphere so we are just going list some of them:

It was good to meet people and put faces to names and by the sounds of it we'll be meeting up at Auckland Web Meetup on the 17th July 2008.

See you there.

We are sponsoring Barcamp Auckland 2

2008-07-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

From 29 April, 2008 (reference)

Serendipity IT Ltd is proud to be named as a sponsor of Bar Camp 2 - Auckland. This is a great forum for meeting people in the IT industry in Auckland.

"At a traditional conference the best ideas originate in the hallways and corridors. Barcamp is all corridor."

The mentality behind the "camp" is no set agenda! The people on the day describe what they want to discuss, then that forms the agenda. This means that passionate IT people are highly engaged and generally have valuable participative conversions that spark new ideas or verify the direction of current ideas.

For more information please see http://bca.geek.nz .

Details:
9am-5pm 12th July, 2008
Botany Downs Secondary College
Register via the web site http://bca.geek.nz

Calling all Frustrated People

2008-07-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

If you are a SME, start-up, large corporate or self employed and your frustrated by something at work, anything, why not let us all know and we can see if someone has the answer for you.

Some frustration starters for ten are:

I don't have time to create a web site
I want a P.A. but can't afford one
How do I reduce my phone bill and give me more services
How do I get away from putting my cell phone number all over the Internet
etc.
etc.

These ones listed above are only the tip of the iceberg. At Barcamp Auckland on the weekend, Ben Young, had a session on Tech Productivity that bought up email, phone, voicemail, text msgs, 24/7 support and much more as frustration source and some ideas where kicked around to solve some of them.

Now is your time to rant about the things that make your life hard - we'll post the ideas, for others to solve, and those that are left we'll take and have a beer over the next week and see what we can solve.

If you don't want your idea blogged but want it added for the beer session email us info @ serendipityit.co.nz (no spaces) and if we get a solution we'll ping it back.

Cheers,
The Team
Serendipity IT Ltd

Welcome

2008-07-15T16:15:00.001-07:00

As is tradition, we at Serendipity IT Ltd would like to welcome you to our Blog. Here we will keep you informed of the latest and greatest product offerings and any exciting news in the IT area.

All of the news from the old site will be migrated, so you won't miss out on anything.

Hope you find this useful.

Cheers,
The Team
http://serendipityit.co.nz