Development

Development — 1 Comment
5
May 08

Beanstalk & Warehouse – Get Your SVN On

If you’re a web developer then you should know all about SVN (Subversion). If you don’t, then I suggest you read this (and this) to get you started. In a nutshell though, SVN allows you keep track of code, changes and versions of the code. Making it easier for a team of developers to work together as well as manage code.

At Younique we use Basecamp for all our project management and it works like a charm. However, even though Basecamp has to-do lists and file management, it’s still built for project management and not code management. We needed to find something that was visually appealing, feature packed and integrated with Basecamp.

We’ve found Beanstalk, a hosted SVN system with integration into Basecamp, never mind a sexy interface that feels just like Basecamp. We’re giving it a go at the moment to see how powerful it really is and whether it’s worth the money (which is rather affordable).

Beanstalk - Version Control With a Human Interface

If hosting something 3rd party isn’t for you and you would like to have something setup on your own server, you might want to try Warehouse. It’s very similar to Beanstalk, minus the integration, but also with it’s own unique features. It costs $30, but I’ve heard it might be going open source. So there you have it, two very sexy and usable applications get to you and your team using SVN.

Development / Facebook — No Comments
30
Dec 07

Facebook Development: MXit Me v3.0

A few months ago I blogged about MXit Me and it’s new changes and it’s 12 000 users. This morning a new version of MXit Me went live with a new look and more features. It’s been long over due as the previous version lacked a lot in terms of usability and usefulness.

Facebook Development: MXit Me v3.0

New Features:

  • View All Friends
    This is something that was requested time and time again, it should have been in the first release. Users can now browse through all their friends on Facebook who have added MXit Me.
  • Block Friends
    Users can now block friends from seeing their number, however this doesn’t apply to the profile badge. There was a lot of privacy code written which gave users a lot of options, but due to Facebook’s recent changes to the platform those options become useless as there is no support for them or work around. So instead, users can choose to display their number on their profile or not. The rest of the privacy features are left up to Facebook’s own application privacy settings.
  • Optimised Code
    This is something that the users won’t see, but we have rewritten the code from scratch. MXit Me now makes less calls to Facebook in order to speed up page loading and response time while still showing the same amount of data. Something that took a lot of time and patience to perfect.

MXit Me Statistics:
At time of writing MXit Me had just over 32 000 users using the application.

  • October: 6,994
  • November: 11,645
  • December 1st – 29th: 5,711

The biggest lesson learnt while coding version 3 was not code features without double checking the state of certain Facebook API functions. Other than that it was really fun writing it from scratch. The main goal for version 3 was to fulfill MXit Me’s purpose and allow friends to find other friend’s MXit number so that the conversation can continue on another platform. I think that has been achieved, finally.

Development / Web Applications — 3 Comments
24
Dec 07

Twaction – Turning Tweets Into Actions

On Thursday last week I decided to start playing around with Twitter’s API. After playing around with it for a few minutes and seeing sites such as Foamee and TweetGift I decided to build my own site using the API.

The result is twaction.com, a simple site that converts tweets (messages on Twitter) into actions. It was really fun to create and at some stages was a challenge. I will be working a few more sites that make use of the Twitter API, these ones will be more useful though.

For the months of January and February I will be giving the two 125 x 125 ad slots on twaction.com away to two African start ups every 15 days. If you work for or own an African start up then please contact me.

Twaction - Turning Tweets Into Actions

I would like to thank Marc Forrest for helping me to get started and registering the domain, Charl Van Niekerk for some PHP insight and testing, Allan Kent for helping me with some PHP issues as well as the peer pressure and Vincent Maher for inspiration because he codes like a machine. I would also like to thank all those who follow me on Twitter and tested the alpha version and gave me advice.

Development / Facebook — 6 Comments
24
Oct 07

Facebook Development: MXit Me

Facebook Development Platform

Over the last few months I have been developing on the Facebook’s Development Platform and it has been a really fun experience. Facebook development is something we’ve really been pushing at Younique, so Devon and myself have really been going all out on the platform with some of our own in house applications.

We have developed our first outward facing Facebook application called MXit Me. Essentially the purpose of the application is a simple one. It serves as a tool for users on Facebook to display their MXit number on their profile so that their Facebook friends can invite them on MXit.

Facebook: MXit Me

We officially launched the application on the 19th of August this year and relied only on word of mouth, links in the profile widget and an invitation system to spread the application through Facebook. We have been seeing amazing growth for the application, however October has been the worst month as the application went through a lot of down time while we were rewriting it and making changes.

MXit Me Statistics:
At time of writing MXit Me had just over 12 000 users using the application.

  • August 18th – 31st: 972 users.
  • Septermber: 6 757 users.
  • October 1st – 24th (12pm): 3 999 users.

Today we officially completed our first major update of the application. We plan on rolling out new features as we finish developing them. Our two biggest features in the new release are:

  • Friend Search
    We built a little search box onto the canvas page which allows users to search through their Facebook friends and find their MXit number. We plan on expanding on this search engine functionality and will launch the updated feature set in due time.
  • Facebook Mobile
    We have successfully been able to integrate MXit Me onto users’ mobile Facebook profiles. However, MXit Me will not show up on the users mobile profile unless it is enabled in their mobile settings on Facebook Mobile. Applications on Facebook Mobile are still rather new, so we will be playing around with the functionality and see how we can improve the application on the mobile platform.

Facebook Development: MXit Me

We use the MXit Me application as our playground on the Facebook Platform in order to keep up to date with the changes that are constantly made on to the platform. As MXit Addicts we enjoy working on this application. It has helped us understand the complexities of the Facebook Platform as well as realise the power it has to reach thousands, if not millions, of people.

Disclaimer: The MXit Me application was created out of the love for the product, MXit. We were not approached by MXit or any of its employees to build the application. We strongly suggest users read MXit’s online safety guide. MXit is a registered trademark of MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd.