Geekend 2010 has wrapped up. Well, the after-party is happening right now, a block party outside SEED Eco Lounge. However, it’s 42 outside, dropping into the mid-thirties later. I hate cold weather and the Arkansas-South Carolina game is on. My flight is not until 10:18, but that means I need to be at the airport by 8:18, which means I need to get a cab out of here by 7:48 (the airport is far from the city), which means I need to be up no later than 7. I think I’ll stay in. Here’s a recap of things I learned today and random thoughts.
If you want your audience to retain text you show them, attach an image to it. Studies show 65% retention with an image.
Don’t Make Me Think
Be careful if you use public Wi-Fi networks. There’s a tool that can be used to steal your cookies, and therefore your identity on social networks. The scary thing is, this thing has been out three years, and Facebook has known about it and has not bothered to secure their system. Gmail has secured theirs.
If you want to get into smartphone app development, this book is a good place to start: Pro Smartphone Cross-Platform Development: iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android Development and Distribution
I attended a really good seminar about testing for the Web. I honestly expected to be bored out of my mind in this one, but found it very interesting and useful. The presenter discussed a language called Cucumber that can be used to make sure developers and customers are on the same page, and to verify that web applications do what they’re supposed to during both the testing and production phases. Go to cukes.info for more information. Examples are written in Ruby but could easily be applied to PHP or other languages.
Keynote on TwitPic was good as well. The guy founded it while holding a full-time job in January ’08, but retained his job until February ’09. He still only has four employees, two of whom are his parents. He’s only 26. The Hudson River plane crash in early ’09 was the first event that really spiked the use of TwitPic, as well as the Iranian protests several months later.
Organizers did little things all weekend to keep the event fun. They kicked it off Thursday with a marching band. People were tweeting stuff like, “Holy sweet mother of moses they have a marching band!” I have to admit, having seen so many of them at parades and festivals in Downtown Memphis, I was like, “Meh, it’s a marching band, no big deal.” They did their job of getting people fired up though. Throughout the weekend, prizes were hidden around the conference center – MailChimp hats, T-shirts, and games. If you found a MailChimp hat, the deal was that you had to wear it for the rest of the day. The hats were knit caps that looked like monkeys. I have to admit, I didn’t try very hard to find those hats. I wish I’d found a T-shirt though.
A lot of my fellow Geekend attendees followed me on Twitter – I think I gained something like 30 followers in 3 days. I wonder what they’re going to think when I get back to Memphis and my tweets revert to their usual crappy material. “Wow he sure does spend a lot of time in bars,” they’ll be thinking. “And what’s the deal with tube tops? Who is this Nuh-Uh person who eats all the time?” I bet I get a lot of unfollows over the next 7 days once my fellow attendees get a sense of my crap-to-quality ratio on Twitter.
Aw, that’s nice… someone just checked in at the Saucer and shouted that the place is not the same without me. Good to be missed. I’ll be back there tomorrow, although a couple of hours late to Sunday Fun Day (probably more than a couple, since I’m flying Delta which seems completely incapable of ever arriving on time).
Arkansas is whooping South Carolina. The Gamecocks will likely drop out of the top 25 after this. Hopefully we’ll move up to at least 15.
All right, laptop battery is running down, time to hit Publish. Memphis, see you tomorrow.