Hong Kong CocoaHeads~ for Cocoa, Mac, iPhone developers

February passes quick. It’s Chinese New Year, it’s short month, it’s… me visiting France and CocoaHeads Paris.

We are doing something Mac related this month. “What’s on your dock?” is an event where you speakers spend 5 min demo-ing one of their favorite Mac apps.

It’s a great chance meeting app lovers and talk about apps – why and how people like them. You will definitely be inspired and get better ready for your next app. Or, maybe, you can recruit beta testers too.

So, come share your own experience with the speakers, discover new Mac apps and have some random chats with the fellow.

The speaker list will come up soon. It will be a good mix of local and expat speakers as usual.

You aren’t one of the speakers? No worries! Show it to us in the mingling time.

(There’s still room for one or two more speakers. If you’d like to share your favorite with us, please contact me)

Details as follow:

Topic: What’s on your dock?

Date and Time: 25 March 2010, Friday 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, talk begins at 7:15 pm (iCal)

Venue: Ultimate PC & Mac Gallery, Central Shop Two – G/F, 99 Des Voeux Road, Central (Google map)

Registration: Facebook (this meetup is free of charge)

Event Contact: @billibala

Venue Sponsor:

Thanks everyone for showing up!

Ada gave us a detail and thoughtful review on the topic “Adapting for the small screen”. Her company goes further by offering a free usability review of 2 screens of your iPhone app!!

I will definitely make use of the offer and ask for advices on my app. If you have an iPhone app, don’t wait. Please go ahead to contact them about the details of the offer.

If you have missed the event, we have put up the speech in blip. Slides of the speech are up as well.

Happy 2010! Hope you all had a great time during the holiday.

Time for a dose of Cocoa pill

This month’s focus is “Adapting for the small screen”. Facebook app, New York Times app and Engedget app are just a few of the thousands of popular apps which serve as the mobile complement of an larger application. How did they translate a full-blown application to the iPhone? What did they do right and what did they do wrong?

Ada Yuen from AddiThink – a Hong Kong based usability consultation company will answer that for us. They will talk about usability and interface design issues when you adapt an existing desktop application or web site for small screen devices, namely, iPhone.

Ada is a veteran in usability and interface design. Having serviced in company such BunnyFoot Asia and Global Sources, she has finally decided to go indie running her consultancy company -AddiThink specialized in usability, interface design and SEO services.

You can find out more about her in AddiThink site.

Details as follow:

Topic: Adapting for the small screen

Date and Time: 28 Jan 2010, Friday 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm, talk begins at 7:15 pm (iCal)

Venue: Ultimate PC & Mac Gallery, Central Shop Two – G/F, 99 Des Voeux Road, Central (Google map)

Registration: Facebook (this meetup is free of charge)

Event Contact: @billibala

Venue Sponsor:

What a great evening meeting up George and the fellow CocoaHeads!

We are a late in posting update about the October meetup. Finally, the slides are up. You can download from here: Admob Creative Roadshow

Go check out the slides. There are loads of examples of successful ad campaign and, more importantly, tips.

The CocoaHeads Hong Kong bi-monthly meetup is back in October. It’s the meetup for Mac / iPhone developers, designers, advertisers, media buyers!!

The speaker this time… George Chen – Product Design Manager of Admob to share his experience with mobile advertising best practices and user experience.

AdMob is the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace, offering solutions for discovery, branding and monetization on the mobile web. Mobile devices are a critical media platform and we are building the tools to let every business on earth leverage mobile.

Ad revenue is a major income source for free iPhone apps. Many developers just put an ad banner somewhere in the app interface. In many case, developers use ad network aggregators like AdWhirl and Tapjoy to deliver ads to the app hoping to maximize ad revenue.

This may not be the best option…

In George’s talk, he’ll discuss user experience and best practices in mobile advertising.

Want to know the best way to monetize your app? Looking for the best ad placement strategy? Don’t miss the coming CocoaHeads Hong Kong meetup.

Plus, you may notice, we are returning to the Ultimate PC & Mac Gallery in this meetup. There will be special offering to all event participants on software, accessories and hardware items. If you want to get the latest Mac gadgets, hold till 23rd! Get it from Ultimate shop!

Details as follow:

Topic: iPhone Mobile Advertising Best Practices / User Experience

Date and Time: 23 Oct 2009, Friday 6:45 pm – 8:30 pm, talk begins at 7:15 pm sharp (iCal event)

Venue: Ultimate PC & Mac Gallery, Central Shop Two – G/F, 99 Des Voeux Road, Central (Google map)

Registration: Facebook

Event Contact: @billibala

Last but not least, I want to thank George for making his time to share his experience in his personal trip to Hong Kong and Ultimate for providing the venue + special offer!

Barcamp Hong Kong 2009 is on this coming Saturday!

Sept 12 9:30 am till you are drunk @ 30/F Oxford House, Taikoo Place, Quarry Bay

Not sure if you are interested in the Cyberport Incubation Programme. They are having an event on Sept 14 - Pre-Incubation Programme Series - Enhance your Business Value by Cyber Laws.

If you are wanna know more about the incubation programme, please check out the event.

It’s an enjoyable Friday afternoon in the southern part of Hong Kong Island. We had our first event in the Cyberport co-hosted with the Cyberport Incubation Centre.

The event is mainly an overview to iPhone development. The speakers outlined characteristics of the iPhone market, success factors and personal experience. If you missed this event, don’t worry. CocoaHeads own meetup will be in October. Come join us by then.

Last but not least, we have to thank the speakers Gordon from GoGoalSoft, Chris from iGPSD and Franky from CDE Game for sharing their experience with us.

We are co-hosting an event in Cyberport. SME Circle Training: iPhone Apps Developers Mingle.

The event is mainly an overview to iPhone development from business perspective. 3 folks from the CocoaHeads (including me) will give them a few short speeches. Come join the event to meet up startups in Cyberport. They are looking for iPhone and Mac developers to help!

Details:

• Date: September 4, 2009 Friday (iCal)
• Time: 12:30- 14:00
• Venue: Solution Lab - Units 518, Level 5, Cyberport 3 (Core F), 100 Cyberport Road, Hong Kong
• Fee: HK$40 (for non-IncuTrain incubatees), Sandwich lunch and drinks included

Organizer: Cyberport IncuTrain Centre
Supporting organization:  CocoaHeads Hong Kong

Registration:

Please send your name, company name, tel and email with subject “SME Circle Training: iPhone Apps Developers Mingle” to training@cyberport.hk by 12:00nn, September 2, 2009

Seminar Topics:

• Introduction to CocoaHeads, Mr. Bill So
• iPhone development process overview – a business perspective, Mr. Gordon Ho
• iPhone game market overview, Mr. Franky Fu
• Location-based social media application, Mr. Chris Chan

Our friend – Steven Mak is organizing the Certified ScrumMaster course.

Date: 7 Sept – 8 Sept (2 days)

Venue: HKPC Building

Price: not free (please check in the official site)

This two-day course is designed to equip you with Agile software development knowledge on the Scrum methodology, and especially the rationale of the Scrum framework for product development — from the theory to practice.

The course is structured around stories and discussions and is targeted to anyone who wants a deep understanding of Scrum. This includes team members, Product Owners, Scrum Masters and other stakeholders. Most of the course is given from the Scrum Masters perspective.

The first day content is more conceptual. It covers background, overview, roles, empirical process control, and the key differences between Scrum and other ways of developing new products. It also contains common impacts to the larger organization.

The second day content is more practical and answers the how-to-do questions. How to do a backlog? How to plan? How to estimate? How to do a daily Scrum? How to scale? And so forth. At the end of the second day, the participant will have concrete knowledge on how to implement Scrum and an understanding of why to do it that way.

Further Detail of the course:

http://www.scrumalliance.org/courses/3833-certified-scrummaster