Year-end
At the end of the year we summarize, go to play bowling and donate. Let’s recall it in this order.
So many things happened in 2010. Smartphones, tablets and other gadgets changed the way we live. Being a programmer, it’s I find this even more interesting because we can use our own applications on the new devices. Almost all of our partners started mobile projects with us this year. We’ve continued to develop on iOs for iPhones, iPods and iPad, have started projects on Androids and got acquainted with Bada at the end of the year. We ported BpMenetrend, our widely used iPhone project to Android and Bada, getting really positive feedbacks. Beside the mobile worksphones, we started new projects on the web, on thick client and facebook also. It was really was a long and eventful year.
It’s hard to imagine, but the change of the IT world will be even faster next year with new tablets, android TVs and ebook readers. Knowing that we have to learn so many things and continue running projects also ensures us that also 2011 will be exciting as well.
Having so many new things, we needed something constant, so we organized the Christmas party at the bowling alley again. Unfortunately, this game doesn’t give you good chances to blame the circumstances if you lose. We simply had to admit that Robi was better than us. Next year we have to try something new to beat him. Maybe we’ll go to try sumo.
We celebrated Christmas with donations, giving presents to the ones who really need them. We chose a kindergarten and a small East Hungarian village’s community this year. Kids got tools to play and learn, while we brought food and some money for the families in the village.
We personally delivered the packages to Selyeb, a small place in the north-east. Seeing personally the differences in the country is more touching than reading in newspapers. Most of the working places have been closed in the last twenty years in that area. Working for the local government or growing something in their small parcels are the only possibilities for the residents. After a long conversation with the people there, we weren’t sure that we would be able to break out from a situation like that.
From this point of view we feel even luckier having to have a good job, which gives us the possibility to learn and develop new things all the time. We hope 2011 will give this chance to more people.
We all wish you a happy new year!
Budapest transport app update
After long time we refreshed our award winning Budapest Timetable application in the Apple AppStore.
The main element of the update is the ability to update, however silly this sounds. From this point on the application downloads and updates the fresh timetable database regurarly.
Many things have changed on the market since we published the program. iPhone4 is here, needing higher resolution and the wave of new Android handsets give us the final impulse to finish that version also. One thing is constant: our app is offline, using internet connection only if it refreshes the database, but you can do this at free wifi points at home or in cafes. It’s still an important feature for youngsters using iPod touch or people having an expensive 3g connection, like tourists.
The application sends us anonymous usage statistics if the user opts in, which helps us to tailor the features for their needs. The UI elements were polished by Zsolt from volll again.
Have you seen the new version? Come and check out the project’s web-, facebook- or twitter site.
After we got really nice feedback about the app, many companies started new mobile projects with us. We can’t wait to have them public and show them to you :)
Are you going to start mobile project also? Why don’t you drop us a mail, we would be happy to talk about it.
Analytics
Since we deal more with our own products like joszaki.hu besides other special projects for our clients, we deal more with following the users in the systems. The most basic tool for it is Google Analytics, which now we use for not only web-based, but for mobile environments, too. The actions can be saved even in an offline app, and be uploaded later through API. It's an obvious advantage that we and our partners can browse a well-known and professional surface.
As we had become more and more interested in this stuff, we bought the second edition of Brian Clifton's Advances Web Metrics. Nowadays the books from England arrive here in no time, without problems, but we'd still prefer an ebook reader. The author is an ex-Google employee, he knows the inside part of Analytics, and nowadays works as a web-analytics consultant. The book is really interesting, it's worth to read even those parts that deal with the basics, because it gives a lot of background information. It's clear that the author has observed and analyzed the reports for many years.
For me it was really entertaining to go deep into Analytics, because I had to think it over as a product developer, as a marketing person and as an engineer at the same time. It's a good exercise with the puzzles that are similar to programming. Many people use Analytics, but surprisingly few utilize its knowledge, although with a few clicks and a few lines of javascript, miracles can happen.
These are my favorites for now:
Intelligence
In the intelligence menu, it searches outstanding strangenesses (like the purchasing intensity of people living in Budapest has risen, or they spend more time on the site). We can also add filters manually (like the visit fell by 50%), and we can set to get an email notification when the condition comes true.
Goals - transactions
That's the first thing which everyone should set, just to force yourself to mark the goal of the homepage. It's easy if it's an e-commerce page (we sell, we're happy), but it's also useful on other sites. E.g. sending a sales lead mail, or subscribing to a mailing list can also be useful. And you can also count its value. If we stick money to these things, too, (and it's worth to), we'll see the produced value of them in each and every report, e.g. splitted to referrers.
Virtual pageviews, events
We must use virtual downloads and events because of the spreading of AJAX systems, since the visitor is not necessarily moving between the sites.
Custom variables
This is beautiful. :) With a function, we can label our visitor, and we can tell for how long the label should stay there (on page, session or visitor level). If there's any important feature that segments our visitors, we can distinguish between them very easily by this tool, and we can instantly see how the certain segments perform, and what profit they return.
I wanted to survey my knowledge after studying from the book, so I went throught the Google Analytics Individual Qualification test. It brought back the university exam fun, but it was fine. My result is 87% which is not bad, maybe if I had gone through my answers once again, it would have been better.
What was interesting for me is that these online tests give you a lot of time, and you can even stop the timer. So theoretically you could look up every answer on the Internet, and what's more, they don't even write that you shouldn't do so. Fortunatelly, I didn't need it, I just checked a few little things, mainly in the already open Analytics account. I recommend it for everyone who's curious whether they can distinguish between _trackPagevies and bounce rate. ;)
iDay 2010
Like every summer, the time came to have a cool free day named team-building day. I don't really know how other companies do it, but choosing the activity is a part of the show for us. Normally, we use some overcomplicated voting system with many rounds, having campaign speeches in between. The majority of the speeches are held about the voting system itself, not about the activities :)
After this process, which is a bit more complicated than choosing a pope, sometimes we have to recommence everything because we don't like the outcome.
This year we've chosen the village Zamárdi near lake Balaton, to try out an adventure park and a gokart track. At the adventure park we had to go on stretched cables between trees in various poses. First it's a bit scary and tricky, then it becomes really exhausting.
With gokarting we have a good choreography. We cover some rounds, then we sit and talk about the secret formula which can calculate the real results based on the participant's weight and time. We haven't succeeded yet, but we don't give up the fight :)
Mac Os X – as a Linux user sees it
I try to write down my experiences of Os X politely.
As we cannot develop softwares for iPhone on any platforms other than Mac, I have to use a Mac Mini.
What I like:
It's nice. The little tray down there, on which there's a little spot lamp lighting the running applications' icons, is really cute.
I also grew to like that I can quickly change between the desktops by clicking on the icon of the running application.
What I don't like:
Under Linux, I always set the mouse in such a way that the window, above which the mouse is currently staying, becomes active. I'm really used to it and like it, for me it helps many times that e.g. I see the full window of the browser, but I modify the source code in the window above it, which is partly covered by it. There's no such a setting under Os X. Furthermore, I noticed that sometimes one click is not enough either. Sometimes I have to click two times to be able to write where I want. The first click switches to the application, and the second one puts the cursor to the place where I want to write.
There's another function which belongs to handling windows, and I use it many times: I can move a window by grabbing it anywhere, by pressing Alt and pressing the left button of the mouse, or I can resize the window with the help of the middle button of the mouse. This is a great help, especially on a large monitor; it's good that there's no need to aim precisely but you can rearrange the windows with the help of the keyboard. I miss it really much.
I didn't manage to get used to the speeding of the mouse, and I couldn't switch it off either. As for me, I like to cover a big screen by relatively small moves. But under Mac, sometimes my mouse rushes out of the monitor, because the speed of it is increased due to the quicker moves.
I couldn't get used to the keyboard either. Apple + C / apple + V is really uncomfortable, somehow my fingers are being twisted by it. But switching the apple and control keys didn't work either, because this way I kept pressing the bad ctrl + c combination in the terminal.
It's also very annoying that when I use the computer with vnc and there's no monitor plugged in, it does not offer the certain resolution which would equal my notebook's resolution, so I have to be careful not to pull the mouse down too much, because then it would mess the whole thing up. So, I had to put the tray to the left side, which is not as beautiful as when it's down.
And of course there're a lot of other things which I haven't learned or haven't set, but apparently, those are not so important, I can still work in this way.
All in all, personally, I don't like it so much, but of course, that's a matter of taste...
