Today during our bubbletea meetup, I was thinking about how we can make our subsequent meetups more interesting.

One idea is to have different topics – such as cars, movies, tvs, current events, politics (can be dangerous), etc.

Then, a light bulb went on inside my head – how about an AppSwap?

Most of our members use a smart phone, either iPhone or Android phone (I actually current using a Nokia N8, but I am looking to change very soon).  I think it will be interesting to meet at a physical location, and talk about what their latest / favourite apps to be.

So the idea is this:

1. Each person attending the meetup will pay a $1 fee for the meetup (don’t ask yet, just keep reading)

2. Each person, if they have a favourite app that would like to introduce to others, can speak up.

3. Attendees can learn, discuss, and download the app on the location.

4. Will the pool of entrance fee, the crowd will choose the best Apps for the event, and will be award an Appstore Gift card.

5. App developers who want to promote their apps, can help sponsor the event and we can create a user test group during that time.

What do you think?

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Tech Startup scene in Vancouver seems to be very promising these days.  The past long weekend there were TWO events that drew great crowds for working on some cool projects. The more famous one of the two is Startup Vancouver, which seemed to get quite a buzz from local social media. The one that I went to was called Vancouver Hackathon (#hackyvr) – and  was hosted by The Network Hub.

Apparently the two events had quite a different crowd –  hackyvr being a free event and was promoted in the local hacker community (which I must admit I never knew too much about), got many independent programmers, and bright students in the audience.

Over 50 people signed up, and over 25 showed up on a rainy Friday night.  After some beer and networking, each person went around and introduced themselves, and at the same time pitched their projects to the crowd.  Some projects were currently in development, while some were great ideas that the group helped refined.

Some of the cool ideas/projects discussed:

• Mr Toad – Remote console for mobile devices
• A remote management software for consultants and trainers
• Video pitching platform for startups
• education management software similar (but WAY BETTER) to webCT
• Facecred – that’s the project I worked on!

The magic happened after all individuals pitched their ideas – people were supposed to form groups to help out in different projects.   However, staying true to the name of the event, I think most people there had a very strong mind of what they wanted to do already, and hence we see many small teams had formed and most people just worked on their own project that they had started with.

photo courtesy of  @hummingbird604

A few of us – Sean, Paul, Tim, and I – were discussing in the lobby of The Network Hub, pondering what projects to join.  Several ideas were pitched – travel deals curation service (haha that’s mine), and then Sean was like, is there anyway to display achievements?

Hence, the basic idea of  Facecred was born.  The idea is that,

Everybody has some achievement – whether it’s being the MVP of  your volleyball league,  or being a volunteer with the Cancer Society  - and having these achievement awards hidden in a bookshelf or in the basement is not very cool.  We create a service that lets any individuals or organizations to create their awards and recognitions, and be able to award to the person.  The person can then choose to display it on the  Facebook wall and profile.

So with that idea in mind – it was white board time. We spent the rest of the night discussing the architecture, use cases, and how to split up the work.  Sean is a superstar – he took care of most of the backend logic.  Paul is great with Facebook application designs so he was in charged of that.  Tim and I work on the UI that allows the front end website that acts as a dashboard for sending out awards.

Because the past few years I was involved into more business development, my technical skills has actually been quite outdated –  so I wasn’t much help besides the big picture white board diagram and UI design.  I did get some chance to mug around with the JQuery stuff – which is really cool since the last bit of tech work I have done was mostly WordPress or Drupal and some CSS.

So my long weekend was spent with my team mates – Friday night until midnight, Saturday from 10am – 11pm, Sunday from 10am-7pm.  At the end of the weekend, we were able to give a demo of how it works, and everybody who lasted until 7pm got a HackYVR Badge to display on their facebook profile!

I want to thank Mike (@yurechko) for organizing the event, Minna (@thenetworkhub) for hosting us and sponsoring coffee (I think I have half the cannister), Adrian (@AdrianEden) for buying us pizza, and HoweSound Beer (@howesoundbeer) for providing us beverages!  Also nice to meet some cool speakers: Kenshi from Thinking Ape and Colin (@cperciva) from Tarsnap.

At the end of the weekend, great friendship was forged and we will continue to work on this project.  So keep a close eye on  Facecred! (@facecred)

Related posts:

1. The Concept of Appswap meetups
2. The State of Online Travel Industry (Part 1 of 3): The Typical Booking Experience

This is a guide for those who wants to use the iPad as a second monitor for a windows laptop.

Here’s what I used:

• ultraVNC (uvnc.com) for PC (free)
• Mocha VNC Lite – for the iPad (free)

It’s actually very simple to do.

1. Install the ultraVNC server

2. You should see the VNC Server icon in the task bar. Right click on it.

3. Click on Admin Property, select Display No 2

I chose to Remove Aero and Wallpaper, just to make it go faster

4. Right Click on uVNC Icon again and then Properties. Select Video  Hook Driver.  Optionally select the Low Accuracy to increase speed.

5. One more setting:

In  C:\Program Files\UltraVNC, edit ultravnc.ini, to enable to secondary display:

primary=1
secondary=1

6. Make sure your laptop’s Display #2 is active, select  Extend these displays

7. Startup Mocha Lite on your iPad.  Note: IP address will be the  laptop’s address, possibly 192.168.0.x but depends on the network. You can find it out by hovering over the uVNC server icon. Port number is 5902.

You will find that when it starts up it is basically mirroring your display. However,  you can use your finger to scroll the screen – and that will display a second screen.

Next, get a stand and enjoy it as your second screen!

P.S. for those who do not have a laptop, google something called the Virtual Video Driver. I found one here.  I don’t think I’ve got it working on my Windows 7 but I later realize my laptop card can do without.

There are programs and solutions available for the Mac Users,

iDisplay:  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idisplay/id363500805?mt=8

Mocha VNC Lite + Screen Recycler:  http://marthees.com/2010/04/hacksugar-using-your-ipad-as-a-second-monitor/

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