I’m happy to announce Steal My Idea ( http://davidrs.com/stealmyidea/ ) has just launched! Steal My Ideas is an e-library of business and social enterprise ideas that are free for anyone to browse, submit, or steal. There are many brilliant ideas out there from people who don’t have the time or resources to implement them (Think about all the […]

If you are interested in trying out programming and have the determination to experiment and try coding on your own, then… congratulations! …you’re awesome!… and here is a list of my 4 top resources for helping you learn how to program. These are in the order in which I think they might be most useful […]

I have an upcoming job interview and have been doing my JavaScript research and review. Here is a great list of JavaScript resources that I’ve been using: Videos JavaScript Closure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWSQ4mWNFPU JavaScript Hoisting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sw49K4pxHCU Reading Mozilla Developer: Re-Intro to JS https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/A_re-introduction_to_JavaScript Objects https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Introduction_to_Object-Oriented_JavaScript Activities CodeAcademy – Free http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/javascript CodeSchool – Free / $25-month: Some courses are free, the […]

My Ottawa Data I was recently contracted for a small Ottawa exclusive app, and found the install data was markedly different from Google’s global snapshot. Hopefully this helps you make your API choice for local app development: *Disclaimer: The sample is so small, take this information as is. One of the biggest choices in Android […]

*If tech talk bores you skip down to the charts.* What’s Kiva? An awesome non-profit that uses crowdsourced microlending to alleviate poverty through economic empowerment: www.kiva.org I’ve spent the last couple of days playing around with the Kiva API, and here’s what I’ve come up with. Recent Activity & Generous Countries Kiva provides access to […]

Last weekend I took part in a hackathon hosted by an offshoot of Engineers Without Borders Canada. This hackathon was focused on using the Canadian Government’s international aid data in various and creative ways. iPolitics coverage of the event can be found here: iPolitics Coverage My Team I worked on an amazing team with 2 […]

Technologies: PhoneGap 3.0, JavaScript,(jQuery AJAX), PHP, MySQL Nick Breen and myself were recently contracted to build a cross-platform app as part of an awesome art piece for Ottawa’s upcoming evening art festival: Nuit Blanche. The artist was super awesome and agreed to let us open source the app we were contracted to make, I hope […]

I am working on an app that requires offline maps for a known region, in my case the city of Ottawa. I am using Phonegap 3.0 for app development, Leaflet.js as my mapping library, and MobileAtlasCreator to download my tile package. I have my code working and have created a git repo here: https://github.com/davidrs/phonegap-3.0-leaflet Step 1: […]

I’ve built a tool to let you run Twitter voting at your event. Choose hashtags or keywords for each option Setup the app with your terms http://www.smewebsites.com/twittervotes/setup.php Make sure all columns in the chart are empty (this means no existing tweets) Let participants tweet at these keywords to vote. The webpage will automatically refresh itself every […]

This article is about the potential for the Amazon + Facebook loop-hole. It is for curious techies, not people looking for free e-mail. It’s definitely not convenient, but free e-mail anywhere in the world beats the hell out of roaming charges or buying SIM cards in every country.  How it used to be In older versions […]