Wednesday 20 February 2013

Developing Facebook App Session

Hi guys, this blog is written especially for my TE class. We had a....programming session? Freeformers an app developer company (I think that's what they are lol) came in to our BFP class to teach us how to programme using HTML, CSS and Javascript. They were suppose to teach us how to develop an app for Facebook but I don't see what they taught us towards the end was relevant. But anyways, below is a step-by-step guide of what we did in class and may be useful for this weeks deliverable.

1) Go to Jsbin.com
2) Register on top right hand corner
3) In the HTML section enter content between body tag. E.g. <body> blah blah blah </body>

HTML for content

Tags Classify content

Title
<h1> title </h1>

Subheading
<h2> subheading </h2>

New Paragaph 
<p> this is a paragraph </p>

Button- this will appear as a button
<Button> Click me! </button>

Link tag
<a href="http://www.google.com"> link</a>

*Note: The tags/ html codes can be on any line, same line or whatever. Doesn't matter. But space it out to make it neater or / and easier to read.

Image
<img src="ieducase.jpg">

 or if its an image on web, right click on the image, select 'copy image location'

<img src="http://www.image.com/hehe.jpg">

Bullet points/ Unnumbered list
<ul>
<li> this is a bullet point </li>
</ul>

Numbered list. e.g. 1, 2, 3,
<ol>
<li> this is numbered list</li>
</ol>

To style your website click CSS on the tab at the top- CSS define how your tags look

1. h1{ <--- this refers to the heading in HTML
2.  Color: red; <--- this makes the header red
3. Text-align: center; <---- the aligns the heading to the center
4. font-size: 14px
5. text-decoration: underline;
6.font-weight: bold;
7. font-family: helvetica;
8.}
9. p
10.{color:blue;
11. font family: helvetica;
12. }

To make reference to certain paragraph. go to html and go to a paragraph <p class="paragraphone">
The go to CSS

.paragraphone{font-style: italic;}

Twitter Bootstrap is useful for getting codes

New page

JS BIN on top left hand corner--> New page

How to add Youtube video onto your page

On youtube, click on Share underneath the video--> select Embed--> The html code will appear, copy it--> paste it into your jsbin html page between the body tags.

You can always change the size of the video, by adjusting the width and height in the code.

Top right hand corner untick 'Auto-run JS' for the page to load quicker.

How to add like button for your Facebook page

1. Go to developers.facebook.com
2. search like button
3. scroll down to step 1
4. copy the jsbin address (the url, jsbin.com/yoursite)
5. paste into the URL to like field box. and add latest to the end of the url. e.g. jsbin.com/yoursite/latest
6. make any adjustments
7. click on Get code
8. copy the first bit of code in the box
9. paste it just under the body tag
10. copy the 2nd bit of code and paste it back to html.
11. If you want it to be below the video for example, paste it under the video code

To add a Comment pluggin, 
1. go back to facebook developer
2. search for comments pluggin
3. copy the jsbin url
4. paste it the URL comment field box
5. get code
6. Copy the second bit of html code
7paste it into the HTML section,

*note* the first bit of the code is to show your connection with Facebook (ideally right under the opening body tag), second bit (short code) of the code is for the pluggin. 

You only need to the first bit (long code) of code once for Facebook pluggins. So you may have 3 Facebook pluggins but only need the long code once and 3 different short codes. 

add <br/> under the pluggins' code to have a gap between pluggins.

To have something in the center, video for example.
Add <center> before the video code
Add </center> after the code

For more pluggins go to, addthis.com

For custom fonts, Google fonts.

For a background image, go to CSS

1.body{
2.background-image:
3.url('http://image.com');
4. background size: 2000px 1000px;
5. background-repeat: no-repeat;
6. }

If you see someone else's website and you like certain components of their page and would like to copy it. Right click--> inspect element (firefox)/ view page source (other browser)

How to "STALK" people, LOL!
Go to Facebook personal profile picture
change the url to http://graph.facebook.com/yourpage- basically add "graph" in front of facebook

Copy ID number
paste it on the url after facebook.com, replace your username in the url address.
 e.g. http://graph.facebook.com/1234567

to see the picture of that person
add 'picture' after the ID
e.g. http://graph.facebook.com/1234567/picture?type=large
?type=large will make the picture large


Javascript
New Page
Add library-->jquery latest
Click Java script
inside body tag add <div class='facebookPhotos'>
go to freeformers.com/snippets
scroll down for Javascript

In the Javascript;
1. //adding an image
2. $('.facebookPhotos').append('<img src="http://fbfbfbdg'/>"};
3.

// LOOP
for (var i = 1; i <= 100; i++){
// Stuff you want to happen on each loop goes here
} //for
// END LOOP


add the code in 2, after //stuff you want to happen...

How to find personal information
Go to Developers.Facebook.com
Click Tools on the top
Click Graph API explorer
Add the info you want to know about in box on the left.
Click get access code

That's about it I think. There's more next lesson.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

A demo video of iEducase

Hi Guys,
We've made a demo video of iEducase. I know in my previous post I said that we are pivoting but this video was actually made a week ago and I never got round to showing it to anyone. I don't want to waste our effort so have to show it to you all.

We are no longer doing what the video says we are doing something slightly different, stayed for more update. Oh btw, yes that is my voice in the video. Lol Benjamin used an app called Scrapbook to make this video. Enjoy!

Semester 2 almost over!!

Hello everybody! I cannot believe how fast it has gone, we just started week 7 of semester 2. Its getting really scary because there are so much to do. We have a 20-page group report and presentation due in 3 weeks time- we haven't started it yet-, my team BCB is thinking of pivoting. Not starting an entirely new idea but just change certain parts of the idea because of the feedbacks we received from our lecturers. Then there are other little pieces of written assignments due in March - not really little they are 2000-3000 words essays. I thought last semester was hectic but this semester is something else. lol.

I don't really remember what happened in the last two weeks, but I'll highlight some stuff.

Got my first assignment back from Managing High Tech and didn't do very well :'( I got 60. My lowest mark so far. I know the UK grading system, 60-69 is a merit/ 2:1 which is good. But I'm aiming for distinctions! Nevertheless! I got 70 overall for the Creativity module. That's 1 distinction, yay! In order to graduate with a distinction, you need to 5 distinctions.

We had 2 written assignments due last week and were due on Valentine's day and Friday. But no way was I going to work on Valentines night for the one due on Friday. So I was working on the marketing last weekend and the managing high tech one on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and submitted both on Wednesday night! I just handed another one this morning. That's all the assignments for this month but have quite a few deadlines in mid- March. Talking about Managing High Tech class, I actually enjoy reading those case studies. I'm able to pick up the problems, strategies, and apply the things I've learnt. But I'm not too keen on the way Keith, the lecturer, teaches he loses me sometimes.

I haven't been to the guest lecture in the past 2 weeks. But on week 4 (I think), the guest lecture was Lisa Long, she was a good speaker. She's a co-founder of Six to Start, a games company know best for Zombie Run and Soniqplay an audio application platform company. Lisa Long explained that the Zombie Run is a health game that makes jogging/ running more fun. People who usually go jogging like to run along with music plugged into their ears, with Zombie Run, there's a voice that tells you what to do. So for example, 'run slight left to pick up a bottle of water', 'speed up, some Zombies are catching up', etc. I haven't downloaded it myself as I don't jog outdoors, I usually run on the treadmill.

Lisa Long also said we should use any excuse to celebrate. Don't wait for big achievements, celebrate any little achievements. This will keep us motivated. I'm definitely doing that now, I've been celebrating with good food! Lol. She also said that networking is total rubbish. Lol. As soon as she said that most of the people in my class including me looked at Dave's (our lecturer) reaction because he always pushes us to network network network. He has sort of brainwashed me a little with that but I still don't like it. My boyfriend is right, its very fake.

Just to revise what I have learnt in the past few weeks.;

  • the Greiner and Churchill's growth models- big and small organisations grow in 5 stages
  • actionable vs Vanity metrics
  • Lean ways to monitor metrics and test hypotheses, e.g. A/B split test
  • how to use @Risk Monte carlo Simulation
  • my excel skills have improved
  • what funnel metrics are; Acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, referral
It makes me feel good to know that I have learnt something. You don't realise how much you've learnt until you actually think about it.

This week in BFP, Itxaso has scheduled a session in developing a Facebook app for our business. Not sure what that means but sounds fun. Anyways, that's it for now. Stayed tuned! 

Friday 8 February 2013

We present you, iEducase!



Hello all! Thanks for reading. As promised previously, this post will be about the progress of the new idea, iEducase, I am working on with two talented guys in my class, Bryan and Benjamin.

In the past couple of  weeks, in our BFP class we've been building the MVP (Minimal viable product) using Wordpress. We are required to create 2 static pages, 3 dynamic pages, a Twitter, SEO and Google analytic pluggins, all these are due on 11th February. I am pleased to say we've done it! Yay!! lol. Please please pleaseeeee check it out and give us some feedback, we NEED feedback. Www.ieducase.com
There are some sections not fully completed yet. I must say I quite enjoyed working with WordPress. I can use the stuff I learnt for my parent's business website.


What is iEducase?
iEducase is an online educational platform designed for students who have learning difficulties like dyslexia, students who are visual learners, or just simple looking for a short cut to reading a long case study. We make case studies into videos, making it quicker, more enjoyable to study and more effective learning.

The Team
Like the previous idea I was working on with Roxy and Nele, our team is very diverse in terms of ethnicity, education background, experience, skills and age? Bryan is Vietnamese, Benjamin is Indian/ German and I'm Chinese.

For our marketing class we were supposed to come up with at least 9 hypotheses and had about 4 weeks to test them. Well in this period of time, we changed our idea twice and so only managed to test 5 hypotheses 5 out of 15. lol. Better than nothing I guess. Our value proposition hypotheses are;

  • iEducase would minimise the time to study case studies
  • iEducase would create a better way of learning for those students with learning difficulties/disabilities e.g. dyslexia.
Revenue Stream Hypothesis:
  • Students are happy to pay for a small one-off fee for each each study.
So far the first two are valid but not the latter.

Moving on...

On Wednesday (6th Feb), we had to deliver an elevator pitch during BFP class. We had to present the problem we have identified and our proposed solution, the 3 main minimum feature of our MVP.

We got some awesome feedback, the mentors and Itxaso like our idea. Score!! Itxaso suggested we should maybe start off create studies on UCL alumni who have startups. Great idea. And guess what 2 alumni have already agreed to corporate with us! A couple of classmates said that they would definitely used iEducase if it means less time to read and have more time to go out/ go out for drink in the pub. But a couple of classmates were so confused with our idea. One of them asked a question to clarify the idea but he still didn't understand. He had a really funny confused look! lol.



Next step
We haven't got a logo yet, Benjamin is working on it. Once its done we will upload it onto our website.
We are looking for students to trial the service and to interview to test our hypotheses. So if you're interested  please go to iEducase.com and subscribe.

I'll  be back!