Seven Questions with Developers: @ludolphus

May 24, 2013 by Ben Friedland

This is the latest in our series Seven Questions for Developers on App.net, where we ask developers the same set of questions to learn a bit more about their apps and the stories behind them. If you’d like to participate, contact @ben.

Our next Developer is @ludolphus, who makes several apps and tools, including the API Console app Console-app.net, ADN File Manager, the iOS app Chimp, and chimp.li for managing your Chimp created media.

@ludolphus lives in Arnhem, the Netherlands, with his wife Feriza. For the past two years, he has worked as a freelance developer doing what he likes the most: creating great software. @ludolphus uses that particular handle because it is a Latin version of his last name ‘Loef’.

Tell us about your App.net app. What are you looking to accomplish with it?

I joined App.net on August 11, 2012, because I liked the idea of App.net and wanted to see great things happing with it in the future. I have a few apps, but I’d like to talk mostly about Chimp, which is available in the AppStore.

It is a fully-featured client for App.net with post streams, private messaging, patter room support, photo/video support, and a lot more. All the photos and videos users upload with Chimp can be managed by the user on chimp.li.

For videos, Chimp creates a link to the chimp.li site exposing an HTML video player. Version 1.1 has lots of new features (especially audio related) and UI tweaks based on user-feedback from users. I’d also like to acknowledge @sham, who helped with the design of Chimp.

Additionally, I made files-app.net/climber and files-app.net/sprinter based on Climber and Sprinter. These sites show the lastest 50 photos/videos made with those apps.

And, lastly, another small mashup I made: http://checkins.chimp.li/ This shows the lasest 100 check-ins (based on the Explore API endpoint) done on App.net using the Places API on Google Maps. The markers are clickable and shows the original post text including name and avatar of the user.

What qualities make a great app?

Good software should do what its users expect it to do in an as simple way as possible.

What tools are important to you as a developer?

SublimeText 2 is where I live most of the time. Other tools include OS X & Linux command line, iTunes for background music streams. I like my 27″ iMac very much, and I have a Linux server zooming which I use for hosting my local development stuff (apache, php, mysql).

And then there is mobile hardware to test apps. The good old Windows based PC is more and more becoming a dust collector…I should redeploy it for something useful. User feedback and suggestions are perhaps the most important tool I have.

Why did you decide to build something on App.net?

I decided to join App.net as a developer because I very much like the idea of not having advertising in the streams and I wanted to build software for users with a guarantee that their content is not used to build a profile that can/will be sold to advertisers.

Here’s my very first post:

ludolphus August 11, joined App.net Let's see what this will become in the coming years. I remember when joining Twitter nobody understood what to do with it, look at it now... I love the idea of App.net and therefor am backing this initiative as a developer.

11. August 2012 via Alpha

What got you started writing code?

What really got me started with code is the Philips Videopac G7000 with cartridge number 9 which is the ‘computer programmer.’ I was around 10 years old. The thing is still lying around somewhere at my parents I think

I have no idea anymore what I did with it though. The first thing I made on the ZX81 is a sort of space invaders game in Z80 Assembly. You can check msx.vanloef.com for my games and tools, a lot of which were published in MSX Computer Magazine, a Dutch publication that was very popular at the time.

Any advice for aspiring developers (all the young coders out there)?

Nowadays it is so ‘easy’ to learn about programming, and there are online courses in almost every language. Just go out and do it. Look at code on Github and learn from it.

Don’t think you cannot do it; if you are really interested, you can. It requires some skills, of course, and the ability to think logically. The Raspberry Pi project is a really nice initiative. It has some great software tools and hardware possibilities to get (young) people to learn about how computers work.

I’m tinkering and working on projects constantly:

ludolphus Announcement:
Xfer.li Easily share files with your friends using your app.net File Storage. Your friends do not need an app.net account to receive the file. Just drag&drop a file from your computer. You'll get a link you can share with anyone, that's it !

24. May 2013 via Chimp

When you’re not coding you’re…

If the weather allows it, I’m outside relaxing in our garden, doing maintenance, enjoying the fresh air. Other things I like: watch movies and tv series, going on holiday with my wife from time to time, listening to music, making nice food.

Seven Questions with Developers: @boxenjim

May 1, 2013 by Ben Friedland

This is the latest in our series Seven Questions for Developers on App.net, where we ask developers the same set of questions to learn a bit more about their apps and the stories behind them.

Our next developer is @boxenjim, who makes Patter for iOS. @boxenjim lives in a small town in northern Utah, almost in Idaho. He lives with his wife and son (and dog) in a little house with a yard and a garage and “a little patch a dirt to grow stuff in.” Apparently no picket fence though.

Tell us about your App.net app. What are you looking to accomplish with it?

Patter for iOS is a messaging application that lets people chat with friends privately or in public chat rooms. As the name implies it is the iOS version of the Patter web application built by @duerig.

The primary goal for my app is to support, promote, and enhance the Patter web application…the mothership as it were. Some secondary goals for me are to learn the App.net API better and to be more involved in the community. I also hope it can be an example of an interesting way to build on top of the API.

Currently, the app is more tailored to somebody that has already used Patter but I hope to make it clearer for those who have little or no exposure to Patter or even, for that matter, to App.net.

All files are hosted in your personal App.net file storage, so we don’t keep your content on our servers.

What qualities make a great app?

I like apps that are immediately obvious how to use and are uncluttered in appearance. I like apps that have a bit of personality and character embedded throughout their interface. I want to be able to get a laugh or two or see something unexpected.

With just about every app I’ve made I try to add in a few little Easter eggs just for fun. With Patter for iOS I decided early on to add something fun or unexpected with every release. I’m trying to do it in such a way that if you aren’t really looking you’ll never notice or be bothered by them, but, if you dig around a little, you will be able to find this whole other world inside the app that you never noticed before.

What tools are important to you as a developer?

A super amazing, super beautiful and supportive wife, a little boy that needs me to bring home the bacon and be a good dad, a whiteboard, a pencil and paper, a quiet place to work, adequate sleep and lots of reference materials. I also have a unicorn and a few other mythical creatures on standby.

As far as a list of hardware/software, I use a 2010 13″ MacBook Pro and I have an iPhone 4S, an iPad 2 and an iPhone 3GS for testing. I regularly use the following apps/services: Xcode, Tower, GitHub, TotalTerminal, Droplr, Dropbox, Soulver, 1Password.

I also have some super awesome beta testers that are exceptionally good at finding all my screw ups and helping me squash bugs. I guess a little bit of imagination and curiosity can’t hurt too.

Why did you decide to build something on App.net?

I was drawn to App.net pretty much immediately after seeing its core values. I joined early on in the original campaign. I had dabbled here and there on the API and had worked on a really simple implementation of App.net for my previous job.

I really just woke up one day with a determination to get more involved on a personal level and to try to build something awesome. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do since.

What got you started writing code?

To be totally honest, I intentionally avoided it for a really long time. I was born into a family of nerds and actually pushed back against my nerdy heritage, but it finally caught up to me. I didn’t really do any actual programming till my mid 20s.

Eventually, after working for a while as an IT/business manager, I decided to back to school. During my first semester, I took a computer science course as an elective and quickly got hooked. I started teaching myself iOS development and within a few months found a “real” job building iOS apps.

I’ve been programming on the iOS platform for something like 3 years and and also did a little web development for about 5-7 years.

Any advice for aspiring developers (all the young coders out there)?

Just go build something. All you really need is a desire to do it and a little initiative. It doesn’t matter much how much you know or don’t know. Just put yourself out there and try stuff out and after a while, work will just come. Just take it a day at a time and a line of code at a time. A lot of the apps I’ve built I did it just to build them.

When you’re not coding you’re…

Um, probably thinking about coding, sleeping or spending time with my family or a combination of all three. I enjoy cycling, photography, metal working, wood working, yard working, camping/fishing/outdoorsy stuff, rifle/pistol shooting, jeeping, fixing stuff like cars and lawn mowers and 4 wheelers, and basically anything I can turn a wrench on. I find that unless I balance the mental activities with some sort of physical activity, I’m just not quite whole as a person. I need to get out and get my hands dirty and calloused and cut up from time to time.

What is Orbit?

April 16, 2013 by Ben Friedland

App.net is a platform for social applications – a network of independently developed apps – that members can choose between. Depending on your preferred method of connecting to App.net, there is an app for you. This series will showcase the variety of apps you can use.

Orbit, developed by @joeldev and @lavoy, is a new file sharing and file manager app that sits in your Mac menubar. It’s a simple, focused app that demonstrates how you can integrate App.net into your regular workflow.

When you drag a file on to the icon in your menubar, it gets uploaded and a public URL for the file is saved on your clipboard. The file is stored in your App.net file storage.

Orbit also displays files you’ve uploaded from other apps (so long as they also use the App.net file API). Say, for example, you share a photo with Robin or a video with Climber, those files are instantly viewable in Orbit. You can then download them to your desktop or generate a public or private url to share elsewhere.

samuelgoodwin What did I do last week? Oh I was just on stage with some dudes in Ireland: http://orbt.io/OLFX.jpg

16. April 2013 via Wedge

Additionally, you can set an Orbit default to automatically upload screenshots to your file storage, which in turn seamlessly generates a public url to share.

Orbit is the latest project to emerge from the last App.net hackathon. The next one is slated for Saturday, June 8, in San Francisco.

Seven Questions with Developers: Climber’s @rrbrambley and @derelk

April 10, 2013 by Ben Friedland

This is the latest in our series Seven Questions for Developers on App.net, where we ask developers the same set of questions to learn a bit more about their apps and the stories behind them.

Our next developers are @rrbrambley and @derelk, who make Climber. Back in October 2011, they started Always All The Time and began working on a game called Destroy, which is currently available on Android. Climber is their first app on App.net. They both live and work in San Francisco.

Tell us about your App.net app. What are you looking to accomplish with it?

Climber is a video-sharing app for iPhone. The first release is dead simple – record a video, add a caption, and post it to your followers on App.net. Each post has a climbr.co link where the video can be viewed.

All files are hosted in your personal App.net file storage, so we don’t keep your content on our servers. We did not feel that it was especially important to have a video consumption component in the first release because there are already plenty of high-quality ADN clients that can serve this purpose.

We just wanted to build something for video sharing on App.net that would allow people to express their creativity and thoughts in a way that is different than the traditional text and photo posts.

What qualities make a great app?

A fast, intuitive interface. And, on mobile – tapping into the native features that you’d expect to see on the platform.

What tools are important to you as a developer?

@derelk: Vim and a Vim plugin for every IDE, mitmproxy, and curl.

@rrbrambley: IDEs that provide all the most basic (useful!) code editing features, in addition to the fancier ones (e.g. refactoring). I just forced myself to delete my long Eclipse vs. Xcode rant that was originally here.

Why did you decide to build something on App.net?

We had decided to go to the App.net Hackathon, so we were just brainstorming ideas and eventually came up with Climber. @rrbrambley had been toying with the API on and off in spare time (and was maybe the first to post from an Android app? #humblebrag), and we had both just believed in principles of the platform, so it seemed like a great opportunity to force ourselves to build something real while teaching ourselves some new things (iPhone development, Node.js, CoffeeScript, and Redis are all new to us).

What got you started writing code?

@rrbrambley: In the ’90s, I would spend a lot of my free time on IRC, and I used a client called mIRC that had a pretty sophisticated scripting engine. People would write and market scripts for mIRC that could provide both utility functionality and aesthetic customizations. So I learned to write mIRC scripts, which led me to BASIC, and HTML. Though, it wasn’t until college when I actually felt like I knew what I was doing.

@derelk: Since I was a super cool adolescent, I naturally spent a lot of time playing text-based RPGs on AOL. That led me to MOOs, where I first learned how to make a computer do something I wanted it to. I was hooked. I also got really into an ancient Mac game-making system called World Builder.

Any advice for aspiring developers (all the young coders out there)?

Take the time to learn and understand the principles behind what you’re doing. There’s a lot of value in hacking until it works, but if that’s all you do, you’re doomed to write inefficient and insecure code.

When you’re not coding you’re…

@rrbrambley:

Seeing live music: http://climbr.co/4199693
Drinking delicious beer: http://climbr.co/4144058
Wandering the streets of San Francisco: http://climbr.co/4217804

@derelk:

Watching movies, making movies, reading snobby magazines.
Sometimes I even go outside: http://climbr.co/4186018

What is Patter for iOS?

April 9, 2013 by Ben Friedland

Patter for iOS, developed by @boxenjim, brings the functionality (and fun) of Patter to iPhone and iPad. Now, iOS users have a simple and elegant way to access their group chats, private messages, and favorite Patter rooms.

Patter, developed originally by @duerig, is a group chat application for the web — IRC for App.net. Patter for iOS retains the ability to participate in multi-person chat rooms, create your own rooms (public or private), or just do private messages. It’s available now in the app store and costs $2.99.

The project started at a meetup in Salt Lake City and developed at our last hackathon in San Francisco.

@boxenjim writes in his blog post detailing its origins that “I asked @duerig about it and he agreed it could be kind of nice to have a dedicated client for Patter. Thankfully he was willing to let me try my hand at a client.”

The most accessible App.net clients by @marcozehe

April 4, 2013 by Ben Friedland

This is a guest post, part of a series where members of the App.net community share stories about how they use the service, which apps they use, and how App.net fits into their lives. The latest is by @marcozehe.

I work at Mozilla as the QA engineer for all things accessibility, which includes the browser Firefox on both desktop and mobile platforms, as well as various other user-facing products.

My goal is to help people with varying disabilities participate in the web, engage in professional or leisure activities, and be both social and productive.

When I first read about App.net‘s attempt to fund the first $500,000, and I read up on what @dalton had to say, I was immediately excited. Finally, there was an effort to establish a social network that would not be driven by advertising sales people, but by user contribution and the money from people who actually wanted to use it. I also was excited about the prospect of the developer API and the signs that this would be a developer-focused effort.

Knowing that a good API inspires a lot of great ideas in a lot of great developers, I decided to back the project myself as a user and help crowd-fund it.

A few weeks later, I had my own account and immediately started playing with Alpha, an easy-to-use web site which was accessible to me as a blind screen reader user.

Accessible Apps

It did not take long before apps surfaced. The very first one I used, and still use to this day because there is nothing comparable on the Mac yet, is Appetizer by @terhechte. The developer was very responsive to suggestions to improve support for the VoiceOver screen reader.

Other apps began to surface for other platforms, like iOS and Android. The first Android client to be accessible was Dash, then named Hooha.

On iOS, the early apps that came out actually did not work at all or not very well with VoiceOver. @tonymillion and @billkunz, makers of the Rivr and Felix apps respectively, were the most responsive to my accessibility requests. @tonymillion actually managed to get the first VoiceOver accessible app out onto the App store, with Felix close behind.

Other app developers started contacting me, and two more projects on iOS are going strong to this day: hAppy by @dasdom and Riposte by the Riposte team @jaredsinclair and @jaminguy, along with Watercooler and Twiggy.

More recently, Robin for Android was released, and @scruffyfox worked to improve its accessibility. The version currently in Google Play is fully useable by TalkBack screen reader users on Android.

I was also privileged to beta test some of the above mentioned apps and directly help them to become more accessible to blind and visually impaired users, thereby help them participate in ADN activities.

On the web, both the teams that develop Alpha and Omega, as well as @ednapiranha who develops NoodleApp, have incorporated suggestions to improve accessibility in their markup.

All in all, it can be said that App.net is a very accessible platform. The web interface and many clients on all major platforms offer support for assistive technologies for people with disabilities. Developers were, and still are, generally very open to a dialog about this topic.

Nowadays, I have the best conversations on ADN compared to other social networks I use. I also am certain about the future of it, because the team around @dalton has proven again and again that they put users and developers first in their thinking.

Seven Questions with Developers: Kiwi’s @isaiah

April 3, 2013 by Ben Friedland

Our next Developer is @isaiah, who makes Kiwi. He’s a Californian recently transplanted to sunny Austin Texas. @isaiah runs YourHead Software with his wife Christi and a few friends. They’ve built cool stuff for Macs since the 1990s.

Tell us about your App.net app. What are you looking to accomplish with it?

Kiwi is a full featured App.net client for Mac OS X wrapped in a clean, simple UI.

We wanted to create an amazing app with tons of features, but without a lot of fiddling or tweaking. So we kept the UI light and friendly to let the content be the main attraction.

What qualities make a great app?

I think what makes Kiwi great is its simplicity: we created a amazingly simple app in spite of all the features.

A great example is the toolbar: We wanted the functionality of the iOS Nav Bar and Tab Bar, but a verbatim copy wouldn’t have felt right on the Mac. Instead we combined them: the edges of Kiwi’s toolbar work like a nav bar and the center buttons create a contextual tab bar. We packed navigation, contextual status, and tabs into one simple UI. And you probably didn’t even notice, which is just the way it should be.

Creating a completely custom UI was a lot of extra work, but we eliminated the dead-space sidebar area so common in other clients, so it was worth it.

What tools are important to you as a developer?

For software, I keep it simple: Xcode, Photoshop, Dropbox, bash, and of course, vi.

On the hardware side a great keyboard is a must-have. I like quiet keys with a short throw and a super lightweight mouse: low impact is the goal.

Also: an Aeron chair and a ton of screen real estate sure make coding easier.

Why did you decide to build something on App.net?

Here’s some background on Kiwi, for anyone not familiar with our history.

We’ve wanted to bring Kiwi back in some way ever since. When App.net turned up last summer it seemed like the perfect fit.

What got you started writing code?

In 1981 I was 10, and Apple donated two Apple II+ computers to our school and an engineer who came twice every week to teach six students the fundamentals. After six weeks, they narrowed it down to just two kids and taught us BASIC and Logo. I was hooked immediately. I wish I knew who to thank for that early introduction.

Any advice for aspiring developers (all the young coders out there)?

Finish! Debug the code, draw the icons, build the website, write the documentation, collect money, support your customers. Any hack can write a bit of code and post it on github, but finishing a real product is something else entirely.

When you’re not coding you’re…

…sitting still, listening to music, drinking a cup of coffee, and watching the world go by.

Lend us your ears: @dalton on The New Disruptors and CMD+SPACE podcasts

March 6, 2013 by Ben Friedland

Update: since publishing, @ttscoff interviewed @dalton on Systematic as did @zeldman on The Big Web Show.

systematic Systematic Episode 36 with @dalton is up now! http://5by5.tv/systematic/36

20. March 2013 via Alpha

zeldman ✩ I never "got" App.net 'til I interviewed its CEO/co-founder today. In Big Web Show No. 84, App.net's Dalton Caldwell makes his case. http://cog.gd/4xo — photos.app.net/3621333/1

7. March 2013 via Alpha

We love podcasts, and recently @dalton has been a guest on two of our favorites.

Today, @glennf interviews @dalton on the latest @newdisruptors. They cover a lot of ground: the App.net backstory, the current app ecosystem, the free tier launch and everything in between.

newdisruptors Episode #13: No-Host Bar Dot Net with @dalton, the head of this very service, App.net. http://www.muleradio.net/newdisruptors/13/ We talk about the disruption of a neutral host that doesn't discriminate against developers, freemium models, and much more.

6. March 2013 via Alpha

For even more insight into our decision to release an invite-only free tier – and to what’s coming down the road – check out @dalton (and Felix’s @billkunz) on last week’s CMD+SPACE.

imyke I was joined by @dalton and @billkunz for a very special @adn edition of CMD+SPACE this week!

Go check it out!

http://www.70decibels.com/cmdspace/2013/2/27/031-free-accounts-and-developer-incentives-with-dalton-caldw.html

27. February 2013 via Kiwi

App.net

What's New on App.net

Author Archives: Ben Friedland

Seven Questions with Developers: @ludolphus

Seven Questions with Developers: @boxenjim

What is Orbit?

Seven Questions with Developers: Climber’s @rrbrambley and @derelk

What is Patter for iOS?

The most accessible App.net clients by @marcozehe

Accessible Apps

Seven Questions with Developers: Kiwi’s @isaiah

Lend us your ears: @dalton on The New Disruptors and CMD+SPACE podcasts

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