MacWorld 2010: Web Development Symposium

While attending MacWorld Expo 2010, I went to Nick Floro’s session – Market Symposium SA: Web Development: Tools, Trends and Technology. It was a great session on various Web 2.0 technologies. Topics covered were: Web 2.0, Designing Interfaces, Social Media, Video on the web, Simulations & Games, Project Management, Prototyping Techniques and other Tips and Tricks. Below are more information about the session as well as the slideshow.

Attend this day symposium and learn about the latest trends, solutions and what customers want today in web development. You will gain valuable knowledge on how to manage projects, developing new ideas, the latest hardware and software tools and what’s new in delivery for the web. Whether you’ll be creating marketing, education, presentations, e-learning, e- mail campaigns, asset and content management applications you won’t want to miss this session! Whether you are new to web development, a graphic artist wanting to learn more, a marketing manager, production coordinator or an instructor, this is the symposium to see the latest in web technology.

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MacWorld Expo 2010 Overview

MacWorld Expo 2010 was quite a fun and educational experience. Even without Apple being at the show, the Mac community is still very strong. What I really loved this year was being able to meet the actual iPhone app developers at the App Pavilion and seeing the projects that they’re working on. There were also a lot of learning opportunities at the conference as well. Below are some of my conference highlights:
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GameSalad – Create Games without Coding!

I attended MacWorld Expo 2010 recently and one of my favorite booths was GameSalad. They promised that I could make a game without any coding or programming at all. So yes, I was interested! I sat in for the beginner session to see how GameSalad works.

Photo by Albertech.net/@dragonal; Taken at MacWorld Expo 2010; I’m in the lower right!

GameSalad is the world’s most advanced game creation tool for non-programmers. With GameSalad, game makers of all levels can bring their ideas to life without programming a single line of code. Build games visually using a drag-and-drop interface along with a robust behavior system. Publish your games quickly and easy to the iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac Desktop, and the Web.

If you want to learn how to make games for the iPhone (or Mac), try out GameSalad. They had training sessions on the expo floor, which I thought was a lot of fun. Sessions ranged from beginner to advanced, and didn’t require any programming knowledge at all.. just a bit of creativity.

Basically, you can import your graphics (let’s called these actors) into the GameSalad software. Then you can place your actors onto the canvas (like the background) and add in other pieces in layers. Add behaviors to these ‘actors’ and you got yourself a game!

For the beginner session, we made a pinball game. We added the game’s background, along with the flippers, pegs, and pinballs. The flippers behaviors were control by the Left and Right Arrows. When clicked, the flippers would move up in an angle. If the ball touched a peg, points would be added up in a scoreboard.

The creation you create with GameSalad is all yours. This also means if you are creating an iPhone version of the game, an Apple Developer’s license is also require since you are publishing it under your account.

If you’re a graphic designer with an eye for games, definitely consider GameSalad. The software starts at $99 a year. I was able to create a simple pinball game in under 30 minutes… just imagine what you can do with just a little more time.

For more information, see GameSalad.com and follow them on Twitter.

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MacWorld Expo 2010: Abvio Fitness iPhone Apps

I thought Abvio’s Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter iPhone apps deserved Beatweek’s Best of Show Award at MacWorld Expo 2010 for their innovative way of motivating individuals to exercise. I simply loved the features they integrated in the 2.0 versions.

Are you a fitness enthusiast? If you enjoy running, cycling, or going for a walk, try out Abvio’s new line of fitness apps — Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter. These exercise apps use the iPhone’s GPS to track and visualize exercise activities as well as help improve athletic performance and health. Each of these apps are similar to one another except for the fact that they come pre-customized to suit the needs of its user — the walker, runner, or cyclist.

Some of the great features of Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter are:

• An iPhone-centric approach, no Web site accounts, passwords, or ads required.
• Ghost racing against previous runs, walks, and rides along a route.
• On-device calendar of all runs, rides, and walks.
• On-device graphs of pace and elevation.
• On-device manual entry of runs, walks, and rides.
• Exceptional battery conservation.

Some of the new features that were demonstrated to me at MacWorld were pretty innovative! The features in the 2.0 versions include:

• The first apps to support use of the iPhone’s earphone remote to start and stop the stopwatch.
• The first apps on the iPhone to speak Twitter replies using text-to-speech technology.
• The first GPS apps to include a Twitter client for reading and composing tweets.
• The first GPS apps to share runs, walks, and rides using Google Maps, with links as simple as http://j.mp/5ouyIC
• The first GPS apps to use fuzzy logic to filter GPS locations for more accurate GPS location reporting.
• The only apps among our competition to allow full export of all your data.

If you would like more information about Runmeter, Cyclemeter, and Walkmeter, see their official website at Abvio.com

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