Weekly plan #7

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

This week the plan is to finish the mockups along with the functional requirements.

With this we expect to end the week with a demo presentation about how the system should work using the mockups and flow diagrams. Also, we expect to have some code this week, but not for the presentation purposes.

Review Week 6 – Finishing mockups

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

The plan for this week was  to see what we needed to finish: the UI mockups and some other requirements, for that reasons we went to talk with Ken about our advances principally the part where we tell our users about the use of their “personal information” for our app, we show him our privacy message and well he made us some recomendations of a more friendly way to ask for this, and we are changing this.

Also another one was to try to make modifications to our way to show the gps location of our users .

cambio

These are some of the things that we have to correct before continuing with the test of the application, we will continue seeing what else we need to improve before having a first beta version.

A week without the Tech giants.

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

Impossible. That’s the first thing it comes to my mind by reading the title of this blog entry. But, is it really impossible? This week in class we learned it is not, but this will come with a lot of problems (unless you live in a small town with no access to the internet as I used to do before I moved to the city for college).

First: who are these giants? Just read the next post and you will know, probably you don’t even need to leave this page.

“How 5 Tech Giants Make Their Billions…” …

Now you know who the top 5 are, ask yourself if you think you can live at least a week without them (I mean you obviously can live but you know what I mean). Maybe if you’re an apple user like me you could say the easiest ones to leave behind would be Amazon, Microsoft and Google; I gave this answer when I was asked. Next I will talk about what I thought would be my easiest order to leave them.

  1. Amazon. I said this was the easiest one, but did you know almost all the incomes amazon have is because of their cloud services? AWS hosts a loooot of content we use on internet so if we just “turn off” Amazon a lot of web pages would do the same.
  2. Microsoft. This was my second choice because as an apple user I don’t use much of their products, only Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneDrive but I actually use sometimes the equivalents from Apple. The thing with Microsoft is that their services are more focused on companies, so it’s very probably that you be asked to used some product from Microsoft in your work, in mine we use Azure Web Services.
  3. Facebook. Facebook
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Review week 5

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

This week we were able to generate the following screen designs:

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The first one will be the initial screen of the application, we just have the logo and the input for the bici’s code that the user will have to enter in order to map their information with its bicycle. The splash screen will be similar, white background and the logo will be launched.

Then we have the permissions screen, a topic that we previously discussed, where we clearly ask the user for share with the app his location.

Later on, we have the map screens where the user will be able to see his location, general information of places and to end up their journey. While he does not click the button, application will be saving its coordinates every time user moves 10 mts.

We are also thinking about putting other screens to give the user more relevant information about their journey, for example distance, speed, total time, etc. But this is not really important for the goal of this project, it could simply give it more value as a cyclist application.

I’m not living in a smart city

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

Last week, we didn’t have a class because of our beautiful and not well followed constitution so we didn’t discuss any topic in class BUT I did went to work, school, meetings, parties, towns so I will talk about that, how the city I’m living is not that smart as a “Mexican silicon valley” should be.

The first thing is the lack of bridges or bridges in places that don’t have sense. I am talking about the bridges for pedestrians. I work in an office located in a very crowded avenue so it’s almost impossible to cross from one side to another unless you walk 500mts and try to cross in the crosswalk which activates the green line each 5minutes for 5 seconds so you may end up in the middle of the avenue. Why don’t you get off of your bus closer to your job you may ask, let me answer: I am lazy, obviously I’m taking the bus that leaves me the closest to my job which is in the other way of the avenue, well there’s another that may leave me at least in the same side as my job BUT if I want to take this bus I have to take another one to reach the place for that bus and I am not that smart taking buses.

Another thing that makes me believe my city ain’t smart is how they try to be smart but are too lazy to do it. The other day I went to Walmart and the made a big area for picking what you may buy online with a special zone, different colors, etc. But it wasn’t working, they had the place closed by yellow tapes like a crime scene. And the reason a get mad about this is because when

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Weekly plan #5

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

This week, according to the ideas that the whole team has collected in the previous weeks, we will finish defining the screens of which the application will consist.

Finally we will make designs, our mockups, for based on them to program the views. Together we will share opinions and generate the general idea, but Gabriel is the one who will illustrate the designs.

At this moment, we are clear that we will use the logo of “mibici”

MiBici

and in general we will use those colors for the theme of the application.

Weekly review, week #4

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

Last week we focused on continue developing the requirements for our app. It is very important to have well defined our requirements, functional and non functional. Some points we have defined so far are

  • Development of an iOS app.
  • Native app developed using the Xcode tools.
  • Use of API’s for location services as google maps.
  • The design must be simple to the user with not many features but the ones that may cover the main functionality.
  • A Non-Relational database as MongoDB or FireBase.
  • The app must be available all the time.

Concerning the user interface we have opted for a simple as it can be design for the commodity of the user. We are still figuring out how the final design will look. We know what elements will our app have, but we still don’t know exactly how it will look.

We look like we are a little bit slow in the development, but this stage of the project is crucial for how the project will be developed later. We hope to have all well defined so no more changes be necessary later in the development.

How is it goin’, city

--Originally published at How to HACK or not

I missed the class for week three BUT I am good citizen, I think. Yeah, didn’t do a research about what my classmates studied in the class, but now I am available for everything they want to show me (don’t do an albur joke, please).

What I know we did (because I was there) was to getting together and plan how are we gonna deal with the data we collect from the users of the mobile app, they need to know they will share the info with us and have to agree in doing it, otherwise we would just be a new baby facebook.

So, we went to a meeting with our professor and discussed about that and… we didn’t reach a solution, but we were close. Actually while a was on my way to the meeting in the bus a realized we could do something like I was doing in that moment. Let me explain myself better, I am not a user of busses, I am new at this because of my new job, so I downloaded an app called Moovit which tells you how the public transport works in the city, THANK YOU.

Well, this app asks you if you want to a part of a world movement helping all the community to save the world by sharing your data and giving comments or feedback once in a while. I AM CLEARLY EXAGGERATING but it’s kinda true. They have like a forum where the users share their info and report of a problem with the app or the system or their lives. Anyway, I think that the simple fact of being part of a community that helps the others and the app recognize you for that is something good for you in exchange for giving the info, is Continue reading "How is it goin’, city"