Showing posts with label googleio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label googleio. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Flashing Android M Developer Preview on Nexus 9

I got a Nexus 9 tablet from Google I/O, which is really exciting because that means I have a device to install Android M Developer Preview. Google is hosting What's New in Android: Hack@Home this Friday to talk about M, so I want to make sure my device is ready before then.

I took a video of the process:

For those of you who prefer text to video, here are the steps, mostly from https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#instructions:

  1. Download the volantis image from https://developer.android.com/preview/download.html.
    Unzip it (tar -zxvf filename.tgz on linux). Navigate to the unzipped image directory (For Nexus 9, it starts with volantis).
  2. Become a developer by tapping Build Number 7 times.
  3. Enable USB debugging.
  4. Important! Enable OEM unlocking.
  5. Run adb reboot bootloader.
  6. At this point your device is OEM locked:

    Run fastboot oem unlock.
  7. Press volume up to confirm unlocking the bootloader:
  8. Now your device is OEM unlocked:

    Run flash-all.
  9. Wait for 5 minutes or so.

    And voilà! A dialog warning you that this is a preview. Exactly what we want.
  10. Lock again with adb reboot bootloader, then fastboot oem lock, then disable OEM unlocking from developer options after reboot.
Posted by at 10:55 AM 0 comments
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Monday, June 1, 2015

Fit Cat at Google I/O

One of the most exciting things at Google I/O this year for me was to meet Virginia Poltrack in person.

Online introduction

I wanted to make an Android Wear watch face with a cat that does different things depending on how many steps you took that day. The first order of business is to find an illustrator to draw the cute cats. I posted on Google Plus to ask for recommendations, and my friend Macy introduced me to Virginia. At that point I didn't say anything about a watch face, so I was really surprised when I saw this on Virginia's profile:

Yup, not only that she is an amazing illustrator, she has made watch faces before!

Rapid iterations

Once I explained my idea to Virginia, we both got really excited and started working right away.

Our goal was to launch before I/O, and we did it! Twice, in fact: first with just the cat, and then with pedometer integration.

Women Techmakers interview

At this point we have only worked together online, so we were really looking forward to seeing each other at I/O. Then Natalie Villalobos from Women Techmakers gave us a wonderful surprise: she interviewed both of us about Fit Cat!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Bma3d0wko#t=208m30s

Fit Cat everywhere!

Google I/O was a perfect place to test Fit Cat since I tend to walk a lot during conferences. I snapped photos of it throughout the day.

My friends started doing the same, and it was so heartwarming to see Fit Cat everywhere!

Only the beginning

It has been such a pleasure working with Virginia. We are already plotting our next projects together, so stay tuned!


Get Fit Cat from Google Play
Posted by at 7:41 PM 0 comments
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Sunday, May 31, 2015

Google I/O 2015

Lines, Lines, Lines

Just got back from Google I/O, and as always, there was so much happening that I constantly felt that I was missing something awesome. This year the lines were particularly bad though. Not only there were long lines for the keynote, but most of the sessions filled up very very quickly, big or small.

Big room for What's New in Android? Full.

Small sandbox for Espresso? 4 walls of people all around. The sandbox talks were run twice, so for the second run I sat through the previous talk just to make sure I had a seat. It was ridiculous.

Sketchnotes

For the talks I managed to get in, I took sketchnotes.

Keynote

See the background of the photo? It was a chair in the playground area, which looked like a circular accordion made from cardboard. I loved it.

What's new in Android Developer Tools

I stood in line 20 minutes early to make sure I get into What's new in Android Developer Tools. I was taking notes furiously, but there was no way I could keep up with Tor demoing at machine gun speed. Gotta download Android Studio 1.3, pause the video as each new feature is mentioned, and try it out:

Building Fitness Apps on Wear

I just made an Android Wear watch face, Fit Cat, that integrates with Google Fit so the cat gets fitter as you walk more. I had some trouble with the Google API Client, and it was super useful to talk to the engineers on the team.

ATAP

This was an amazing presentation. Really creative technology!

Espresso

I have been writing many blog posts on Espresso, and really wanted to meet the team. To make sure I did not repeat my mistake of not getting a space at the first run of the sandbox talk, I got to the second run super early. Like, a session early. Result? Front row seat (actually, bean bag), and a great conversation with Valera. Yay!

I want more!

I really enjoyed the sessions I went to, but I missed so many. I would love to see Colt live, but alas, so did many others, and I didn't manage to even get close to the sandbox.

The open playground area was really fun, but I am ready to sacrifice it if that translates into more room for talks and thus, more chance to see our awesome Google presenters in real life.

Further reading

Posted by at 5:43 PM 1 comments
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Location: Moscone Center West, 800 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Public speaking mid-year score card

Can you believe it's July already? I started the year with a resolution to be a public speaker, with the specific goal of giving 5 lightning talks and 3 full-length lectures. Let's see the mid-year score card!

Lightning talks

  1. April 2, 2012: Ignite Where 2012, San Francisco, CA
  2. June 28, 2012: Ignite Google I/O, San Francisco, CA

Full-length lectures

  1. April 6, 2012: Fluid Android Layouts, WindyCityGo, Chicago, IL
  2. April 11, 2012: Caching Strategies for Mobile Apps, Philly ETE, Philadelphia, PA
  3. April 17, 2012: Mobile Caching Strategies, Twitter Engineering Submit, San Francisco, CA
  4. May 16, 2012: Reusable Custom Components, AnDevCon III, Burlingame, CA
  5. June 8, 2012: Progressive enhancement for Android web apps, Dutch Mobile Conference, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Looks like I'm coming short on the lightning talk side, which is quite surprising. I thought it would be more difficult to get accepted to give lectures. Also interesting that all my lightning talks were in Ignite talks, which is way more challenging than the speak-at-a-meetup quick talks I had in mind when I came up with the goals.

Ignite at Google I/O

Ignite talks are challenging because it follows a very specific format: 5 minutes, 20 slides, auto advancing. The auto-advancing slides is the trickiest bit, since you don't control the rhythm any more. I rehearse way more for Ignite than my full-length lectures, because I need to internalize the timing to sync my speech to my slides. It's almost like lip-syncing!

The first time I gave an Ignite talk was at Where 2012, to a crowd of 30 people or so. I was rather scared of the auto-advancing slides, but I found that I just need to wait until the next slide to appear before transitioning to a new topic.

Ironically, because I felt I did pretty well at my first Ignite, I was more nervous when preparing for my second one. I kept thinking that it was not quite as good. I mentioned that to my friend Julia, and did a practice run with her. She loved it! I notice that I really feed off the energy from the audience, even if only one person was listening. So the practice run was all I need to get back my confidence.

Ah, confidence is such a fragile thing. I walked into the room, and wow, it's big! It probably seats a thousand people. A thousand people! Plus the event was live streamed. I never spoke to such a large crowd, and I was so ridiculously nervous while waiting for the show to start. Fortunately once I got on stage I was back to my elements.

Here is the recording of the Ignite show at Google I/O. Let me know what you think!

Posted by at 4:54 PM 0 comments
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Location: Moscone West
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