Deleting Duplicate mp3 on Mac

Using Amazon Music I download an album twice. It saved each file twice. One like "song.mp3" and the next as "song(1).mp3".

I wanted to delete all the files ending with "(1).mp3". The easiest way is to use the Mac terminal and  a shell. Here's the steps I took:
Opened Terminal
Change to the Music directory typing: "cd Music/Amazon\ MP3
Then typed: "find . -name  *\(1\)\.mp3"

If the find command listed only all the files I want to delete then I type the next line. But I must be certain because it is not reversible. Okay, are you certain?

Now delete: "find . -name  *\(1\)\.mp3 --delete"

This leaves me with a problem for itunes where there a duplicates.

Halloween Jokes 2012

When kids trick or treat at our house we ask them to tell a joke. We have the reputation as the 'joke house.' So these are the best from this year.

• Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? No guts. (a repeat joke)
• Where do ghost go to buy food? The ghostly-store.
• Why cannot you tell a secret on the farm? Potatoes have eyes and corn has ears.
• Why do spiders cross the road? Want to get food.
• Knock knock. Who's there? Joe. Joe who? Joe Biden my hamburger.
• Why no snacks at Halloween party? Everyone was a-goblin.
• Where do celebrities monsters hang-out? Maliboooo!

This were the 2006 Halloween jokes.

Barack Obama for Another Four Years

Some of my friends and family will not be voting for Obama. Many others won't be voting for him either. It surprises me that any citizen can vote against Obama. Or that anyone can vote for Romney. Here is why I am for Obama.

Our country is heading is the right direction with Obama. Being an older guy - I had a different Romney sticker on my car in 1968 - perhaps I take a longer view. History is important.

So I look at the dire situation this country was in at the time GM was facing bankruptcy. Job losses were huge. The stock market was losing value. Personal wealth and in particular home values were going negative. The world was on the brink of a depression. The Democratic team in government moved us away from this doom. So I am for Obama.

The deficit and the debt is a threat but to solve either unemployment must be lower. First, employment is heading in the right direction. Look at these charts and situation either candidate will face in January. Lower unemployment. Booming housing market. And better consumer confidence. The United States is back thanks to the last four years. So I am for Obama.

But back to the deficit and debt. People often talk about these together and they are two different problems. So I want to focus on the deficit and then the debt. First the current situation is not dire given the historically low interest rates that treasuries are now paying. Second, the deficit is being reduced because of the economic situation I just mentioned. Third, is there any reason to believe that a Republican administration can reduce the deficit? History shows us that Democrats are better able to do this than Republicans. Just look at Clinton's surpluses verus Bush's deficits. Fourth, tax cut will not reduce the deficit - see Ben Stien on Fox and Friends. So I am for Obama.

Now to the debt. Politician are right to talk about this as something that we leave our children. Politicians tend to kick problems down the road. Our current debt crisis is overwhelming a result of the previous Republican President, Vice President and Congress. Look at this one chart that shows the huge problems caused by the Bush tax cuts and the unbudgeted wars. Romney's and Ryan's support of continuing the tax cuts is the wrong direction. So I am for Obama.

Science advances our civilization. The anti-intellectual leanings of the previous Republican administration is not something I want to go back to. Embracing the anti-climate change views is just one example. Steven Chu appointment as Secretary of Energy is one example of were professionalism mattered for this administration. So I am for Obama.

Less government is a nice rallying call. But often people say this when they really mean that they don't trust government. But let's first look at less government. Government employment is down. Here is the chart showing public sector employment.  Part of the reason we have a slow recovery is because we have taken the path of less government. But you cannot want less government and then blame Obama for slow recovery too. So I am for Obama.

The social conservatives really don't believe is less government. They are against gay marriage. Defense of Marriage Act was so misnamed. They don't want individuals make decisions on abortion. Andrew Sullivan has called this out over the years. So I am for Obama.

Trust in government. Is government more efficient that the marketplace? No. But does that mean that every function of government should be privatized. Absolutely not. Look at the poor history of chartered schools. Look at the problems with military and semi-military contractors. Look a prisions. A company running a prison wants more business and not to find a way to reduce the prison population. So I trust government. I understand that you may not. But I do. So I am for Obama.

The disgrace of voter suppression and  non-existant voter fraud must be blamed on the Republicans. The voter id laws that Republican legislatures have passed is one of the most anti-democratic acts that I can remember in my lifetime. How can any candidate support this? It is unpopular to be against voter id but the Department of Justice has acted. So I am for Obama.

The other disgrace of the last few years has been the Republican Congress. During their first year of a majority in the House they did virtually nothing for job creation. They passed bills isolely for publicity and not to help the country. Their unified stance to be against anything the President recommended was selfish and echoes of the legislative problems in Congress pre-civil war. Obama has some blame as Woodward points out in his book. This situation worries me greatly. But many individual Republicans in Congress took this stand. So I am for Obama.

Libya may have been Obama's finest hour contrary to what we are now seeing in the news. I believe history will show Hillary Clinton as an outstanding Secretary of State. This is speculation and history will decide. But there should be little doubt that our relationship with our allies is improved. Our country is still paying for the reckless acts of the neocons of the previous administration who are Romney's advisors. So I am for Obama.

Even if one was opposed to any war, one must support our vets who bear the consequences. Though I have not studied this issue, it appear that this administration has supported vets better than any previous administration. So I am for Obama.

Obamacare. I am so glad to see Obama embrace this label. It maybe is legacy. It is hard to understate the positive impact of this legislation. Study the issue of pre-existing conditions. Study health insurance in other developed countries and the United States looks backwards. While I don't think it went far enough, I certainly don't want it repealed. So I am for Obama.

"Just trust me, I have a secret plan." I've heard that before. Recent news about George McGovern remind us that Nixon said the same about the Vietnam War. And we trusted Nixon? History has a strange way of repeating itself, or being so perceived. I'm not for Obama because of this, but Romney's asking for trust scares me.

Drones and privacy. I don't think either candidate speaks for where we should be going as a country related to these two issues.

One side point to keep this all in perspective. NPR pulled together an all-star team of economists to create a dream candidate based on economic policies they could all support. If enacted we could be a better country. But as you'll read, it is probably impossible to have any of these policies enacted just as single payer healthcare is unlikely.

And a final note. This is a billion dollar campaign and too much money corrupts. Lawrence Lessing's book Republic Lost details this. The ability to raise money is seen as an indicator of a successful candidate. I don't this our forefathers thought so. Obama has called for a constitutional amendment that is probably too small of a step. But it is the right direction. So I am for Obama.

Conventional wisdom is that incumbents had to run on their record. Thus, much of the above relates to the last four years. Foes argue that we need a plan for the next four years. Previous actions are the best indicator. I'd like to see the policies of the last four years continue for another four years.

I'd like to see the economy continue to recover. I'd like to see social progress continue. I'd like to see us continue our current foreign policy and withdraw from the battle field. I'd like to see Obamacare fully implemented. So I am for Obama.

I understand that you may not agree, but I hope you do.

My Laptop Stack

Unlike an application and more like a development shop, my new MacBook Pro has a "stack" of software for development.

• Homebrew is my choice for Mac package manager.
• Apple's Xcode with Command Line. I rarely use Xcode but other products depend on it.
• Git and Github, of course.
• Couchdb is my database of choice for right now.
• Node.js
• Dropbox which has all of my book
• Google Drive
• Evernote which is like my personal wiki
• Chrome
• IShowU  with Stomp for screencasting ($).
• Firefox with 
• LastPass for security. On every computer I own.

I'm between IDE/text editor right now. I was using textmate and I'm evaluating sublime. I'm looking at Brackets as well.

TXJS Presentations Remotely

I've never been able to attend a TXJS conference so I've admired the event from afar. It looks like Rebecca Murphey and Alex Sexton hosted another grand event. Here are some great presentations.

Pamela Fox @pamelafox did a presentation on "localStorage: Use It, Don't Abuse It" that is very well documented and a great resource on local storage. The link to Steve Souders case study on Google and Bing is one example that I really appreciated.
http://localstorage-use-not-abuse.appspot.com/
http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2011/03/28/storager-case-study-bing-google/

Rebecca Murphey @rmurphey presented "A New Baseline for Front-End Developers" which which really helps me know where I should be pushing my limits. For example, I really want to automate a lot of my developement/deployment and it reminded me to study Grunt which was on my todo list from jsconf.
http://frontend-dev-baseline.nodejitsu.com/

"Machine Learning in JavaScript" would not have crossed my mind prior to seeing this presentation by Heather Arthur @harthvader. Perhaps I should be spending a hour per day on node again.
http://harthur.github.com/txjs-slides

Ashley @ClassicallyGeek did a wrap up of TXJS which mentioned a talk by Dave Rupert @davatron5000 on "JavaScript in Responsive Web Design". The fitvids.js jQuery plugin looks very interesting.
http://classicallygeek.com/2012/06/14/txjs-2012/

Finally, I'm looking forward to seeing Jed Schmidt's @jedschmidt presentation on "NPM: Node's Personal Manservant". He always has a interesting way of looking at things so I want to see his latest thinking.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tr4nslator/7187168459/in/set-72157630065908247

All the videos from last year are here. Maybe the 2012 ones will be there soon.
http://vimeo.com/channels/txjs

415 unsupported media type couchdb jquery

Hate it when I repeat a mistake. Worse when I repeat it.

Adding a new record to couchdb requires a POST and jQuery supports that verb. So I did the simple

    $.post(toc.dbUrl+'techtocs', data, function(data) {
        alert("Data Loaded: " + data);
    },"json");

But this got me the "415 unsupported media type" error. I was sending application/json type but I still got the error. So I finally looked up my old code and did this:

$.ajax({
        type: 'POST',
        dataType: 'json',
 contentType: "application/json",
 data: JSON.stringify(data),
 url: toc.dbUrl+'techtocs',
 success: function(sdata){
     //stuff here+ 
        }
    });

Glad to get it working on this project where techtocs is the database name.

If Business Takes the Startup Path

When you start a business, there are two well defined paths. One is the startup path with angel investors and venture capital. The other is self-funded, but that is a subject for later.

Assuming you want to take the startup route, in the past couple of weeks there have been two excellent posts about how to structure the company. This question has bothered me since I started my software business in 1978. First, was this article in PandoDaily by Dan Shapiro: "Founders Should Give Their Stock Back: Why Vesting is in Your Startup's Best Interest". He provides a well thought out suggestions for vesting schedules.

Second were notes from Peter Thiel's Startup Class from Blake Masters. Again discussion of vesting and equity in a startup. "It's not ideal to have founders who are fully vested from the outset."

APP IDEA: I'd love to see an app along the lines of Sid Meier's Civilization, where you build a startup. It could reenforce the principles of these vesting articles. Just like Civilization where your first few moves has an enormous impact on your success, so should the startup app.

Intersection of eBooks and Apps

In the space between eBooks and Apps, there is a product. It was suggested to me that this is not obvious.

Historically, books and software are very different things. One physical and the other digital. So we think about them as different even though we now call them eBooks and Apps.

Currently the same screen is used for eBooks and Apps. Already, it is sometimes hard to tell the difference just looking at the screen.

But we still talk about the two as very different products. In doing so we leave a gap. There is no reason you could not take the content of an ebook and put it into an app. On the converse a feature of an app would be useful for telling stories in eBooks.

There are already many titles in this space. Eloquent JavaScript a print book and a pdf eBook, but the "web site" is more engaging because it is interactive.  

JavaScript Community is Real and Growing

Several people have poked at the phrase "JavaScript Community" since JSConf 2012. David Flanagan has said that "it is too big to be a community." Ryan Funduk has said there is a "Culture of Exclusion". There have been lots of tweets and comments. I strongly disagree with both views.

There is a JavaScript community. Fact. There are people working together on JavaScript projects and that makes a community. No matter what you say or try to do, people working together form a community. Recognizing that there is a community is healthy and trying to deny it is harmful in my opinion.

If we did not talk about the community it would certainly be exclusionary. Only by recognizing the community can we make it better and inclusive. Discussion of -isms are welcomed. Talking about the role of alcohol is appropriate. Debates about events are healthy.

Rebecca Murphey, Marco Rogers,  Tim Caswel (in comment to David Falanagan) have already pointed out that a community does not necessarily mean that everyone has the same beliefs. In fact, accepting divergent beliefs in a community are a strength. For example, my strong pro-union views certainly are different than most, but I feel quite comfortable discussing them with anyone at a community event. Divergent views is one reasons I join a community.

None of this introspection should overshadow the tremendous good that the JavaScript community can do and has done. For example, JSConf.eu has strongly promoted Coder Dojo with attention and money to help kids around the world. I look at the great careers that the yayQuery group and others have been able to build with the support of the community. Personally, I've made many new friends thanks to JSConf and have professionally gained. The positives are overwhelming.

When this community started it was very small. In many ways the first JSConf and JSConf.eu started the community. JSConf started inclusive of world, but only a few hundred people were interested in participating.

Today the JavaScript community is huge. With that growth come growing pains. How do we be more inclusive? How can events scale? How do the norms change for a larger community? What are the values? Other communities have faced similar problems. The JavaScript community is very receptive to finding answers to these and other questions. We should be thankful of that value.

Also defending the community is proof that we have a community.

Finally, a community is what you give to it. If you don't contribute it is hard to get anything out of it. So please contribute in ways that are appropriate for you. Let's do even more good.

How Givingline Transformed on The Startup Bus

The learning experience on The Startup Bus is hard to imagine in any other format. Three long days together on the bus and a few in Austin gives you a much more time to devote to your startup effort. You pitch your product over and over again. Product ideas have more time to transform, iterate and pivot. My biggest take away from Startup Bus is how much the concepts can change.

Our project started as a points system for doing good deeds that feed into LinkedIn. We added the "pay it forward" aspect very quickly. A few hours later I drew on the bus window what was to become the Givingline infographic. For a few hours it was difficult to move forward. There was a problem with the team meshing and with the point system. We knew that many people don't want to boast about their giving.

We simplified. We pivoted. We worked on a viable product. The point system was gone. LinkedIn was no longer a consideration. Our team also reduced from three to two. It was uncertain how the revised concept would work, if at all. The bus schedule pushed us to do a prototype.

After about four hours on the first day we had our slim, working mobile prototype. It did not look like the idea that was presented 18 hours earlier. We felt better with something concrete.

On the second day the other teams on the bus really helped us refine the Givingline concept. They heard our pitch several times and offered feedback. They also became a great resource. For example, we were looking for the types of help where Givingline would be useful. We created a list of 10 different examples and passed it around the bus asking busmates to check what they thought we the two best. We also got some great additions.

The Startup Bus ends with making pitches to Venture Capitalists who need a big return on their capital. How does a social good concept fit? How do you monetize it? At the end of the second day there was a party in Baton Rouge. We threw out the sponsorship model. First, we'd open source the project. Second, we would sell it using the software as a service model to non-profits, religious organizations and civic minded companies in local communities. In addition, I came up with a method of users being able to input request via twitter.

At the start of the third day it felt like the clock was winding down so we set priorities. In the morning the prototype wording was cleaned up and we launched the product by uploading it to a public web server. http://bit.ly/givingline was live. Then we focused on the Givingline graphic or inforgraphic. I got some technical help from my busmates and started to work. From our pitches it was clear that this was the secret sauce, the sex appeal or the eye candy. Because of a lack of internet connection, I was never able to complete the coding of the twitter feature that I had hoped to demo on stage. Regardless, we had a slightly more that minimal viable product that looked very good on mobile.

The fourth day was not going to be a product day. The morning was spent at Rackspace, another wonderful host, listening to several all-start startup experts: Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki   and the two founders of Rackspace. Then there were selected pitches to all-start judges. Then a bus ride in the rain to Austin. Then trying to figure out housing. Our product saw no additions that day. Finally at the end of the day, I did get our screencast of the prototype completed and posted. In addition I finalized the two minute pitch to include the open source and software as a service model. We had a completed product ready if we were one of the 16 teams to be selected to make the semi-final cut. With 60 other teams competing and a social good model, I wasn't hopeful. I was very proud of the product we created.

Thanks to my partner Zainab Zaki, all of our DC busmates and conductors and all of the Startup Bus people that made it possible.

On the bus! On the Startup Bus!

Venture capitalist and true rock star Bono speaks the truth about the bus.

Early this morning I got on the Startup Bus to South By Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas. On the way 30 of us will break into teams to prototype a new startup venture and present it to a panel of investors at SXSW. 

Look for my post here and in the Washington Post for the next week. There will also be tweets, pinwheels and a few other social messages along the way. Comments and encouragements are welcome.

Reading, Bookmarks and Pads

Somewhere between the Zite app, favorites on Twitter and Read It Later is an opportunity. For example, I often discover stuff on my phone using twitter but I want to read it on my tablet or desktop. Why not every time I favorite a tweet it now shows up in Zite on my tablet. This is how bookmarks are suppose to work between synced browsers.

So as a developer I should probably be asking "Should this event, like pressing a button, trigger a sync that would show up on my other devices?"

BTW: Love Zite on my Touchpad.

How to get a mobile phone developer job - Part 4 #learnmobile

I was asked to write up my recommendations for learning mobile. All four parts are listed at the end.  Please leave comments of other favorite blogs or online magazines.

---

There are several recommended online magazines. When you read a good article, remember to use twitter and post to your blog. In no particular order:

smashingmagazine.com - especially appropriate is the coding tab. Also articles tagged with css. Like several other magazines, they are now publishing ebooks, but they will cost a few dollars. 

listapart.com - there are so many articles enjoy exploring. CSS articles are a strength. Also ebooks. 

net.tutsplus.com - good source of tutorials both for free and for a fee. They also sell books. 

dailyjs.com - generally for the advanced javascript user, but enough articles on learning that you should not ignore. 

html5rocks.com - good tutorials about the latest features you can get in a browser. If nothing else, it should give you inspiration for your own apps.

Are you overwhelmed? Everyone is. You don't have to read all of the articles. Find the ones the interest you and written in a style you like. Take your time. And you don't need to know everything. Just do something everyday.

The important thing is to create and contribute. It is easy to gain experience at no cost, have some fun and join the world of mobile developers.

Comments welcomed.

Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

How to get a mobile phone developer job - Part 3 #learnmobile

I was asked to write up my recommendations for learning mobile. This is Part Three. Part One is here and Part Two is here. In this part I give you some ideas for simple mobile apps. Please leave ideas for other simple apps in comments.

---

Next round. You'll have to write some code. To do so you'll need to learn a computer language, storing data and about browser styles. For mobile you need to learn some JavaScript.

eloquentjavascript.net - to this point everything has been fairly easy. Learning JavaScript is the one requirement for any mobile app job. You could buy books or pay for courses, but one of the best books is free: Eloquent JavaScript. And if you use the web version, it is interactive. Highly recommended. (Update: Stackoverflow no longer has other recommendations. This was recommended.)

json - you'll often have to read or store data in your JavaScript apps. Json is the format for data in JavaScript. You should master how to read and create Json. It is fairly simple, but it may take a while to grok it. After you do, you may be struck at the beauty of it. Using json in your early projects is a good way to master it.

css and HTML5 - you'll have to know basic CSS in a mobile job. Few people know CSS very well - you need to know the basics like setting colors. Move on from there to HTML5. 20 sites to help you.

Again, don't be overwhelmed. Just learn what you need to get your weekly mobile app published. You don't need dancing, modern fonts to make your app useful. Getting your first JavaScript Ajax code to read a Json file and display it in your HTML page will be thrilling.

There are lots of different ways to learn how to code. Here are a couple to consider.

codeyear - sign up to get weekly emails to help you learn to code. This is the only service that I have not personally used, but it backed by some high profile organizations. Thousands have signed up.

lifehacker - the learn to code series is short set of articles to teach you the basics. It makes it look less overwhelming than the long books.

jquery - I've recommend jquerymobile without specifically mentioning jquery. It is helpful to learn basic jquery stuff like Ajax and html(), but before learning basic javascript first is required. The jquery website recommend some tutorials.

Do a search if you want to find others. Don't concentrate on mastering JavaScript, CSS, HTML for jQuery. These are just tools to help create that weekly web app.

Just keep at it everyday. Everyday use git. Everyday write some code from a tutorial or your own project using git and github. Everyday blog about what tutorials you read, what you coded and what you learned. Everyday tweet about your blog post or highlight a good tutorial. Some days you may have several blog post and tweets. Everyday.

There is a fourth part about recommend daily reading. 

Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

How to get a mobile phone developer job - Part 2 #learnmobile

I was asked to write up my recommendations for learning mobile. Part One is here. In this part I give you some ideas for simple mobile apps. Please leave ideas for other simple apps in comments.

---

Every week publish a mobile app. This is not impossible especially using jQueryMobile and tutorials. It does not have to be 100% unique. Pick a tutorial. Do the step-by-step coding. Then modify if you want. Push it to github and put it in your public dropbox account. Blog about it. Tweet about it. In no time you'll have a portfolio of apps to link to in your resume.

Besides doing the tutorials, here are some simple mobile apps you can do without any JavaScript coding. Basically any list can become a mobile app.

1. Your mobile resume. Rewrite your resume into jQueryMobile.
2. Learnmobile. Rewrite this post into a mobile app.
3. Your mobile apps. Link to all of your mobile apps in dropbox. Update weekly.
4. Favorite recipes. Make a list of food you make often with pictures or videos.
5. Best articles. Instead of just bookmarking resources you like create a mobile app.

Once you have a little JavaScript under your belt you there are more options.

1. dynamic list - store data in Json, read Json and create list. Convert you mobile apps dynamic.
2. add to list - create a list that can be added to and stored in local storage.
3. todo - perhaps the most common app people try. Keep it simple.
4. rate it - provide a list of items to be rated and resort list after each rating
5. #learnmobile tweets - use the tweeter search api to get the latest tweets with the hashtag.

Your next steps are in Part 3.

How to get a mobile phone developer job - Part 1 #learnmobile

Over lunch I was talking with a friend about how difficult it is for young people to find jobs. After mentioning the hiring I see for mobile development, she asked me to write up my recommendations for learning mobile.  This is Part One.

Like most things, you have to show some experience before getting hired. Here are the steps I recommend you take to start gaining experience.

Meetup.com - Get an account and look for meetups in your area related to mobile. Attend some, listen and say hello. At many of the mobile ones that I attend mobile companies are hiring. In the Washington DC area there are probably a couple mobile related meetups per week. Lots of people go with no experience just hoping to learn. You'll figure out in a month which ones are for you.

chrome - I strongly recommend you start using Chrome as your browser. It is the best desktop browser for developing mobile apps. View source on web pages to learn how designers put together some HTML features. Leave the developer tools enabled to see css and javascript. Try changing some css on a live webpage to learn css better.

Git - You are going to need git on your computer. Every time you start a project you use git to create a repository. A repository gives you version control - a safe way to revert to an old version of your code if you need to. This makes it all the easier to experiment with you code. The easiest way to setup and learn git is on help.github.com (see next).

Github.com - If you are going to be a developer, you'll need a github account and get good at using github. Set up a free account. There are over a millions users and even more repositories. Follow a couple and contribute. The great thing is that you don't always have to contribute code. Even documentation is welcomed. 

Dropbox.com - Set up a free account and set it up on your laptop. You can also set it up on your phone and tablet, though this is optional. Do NOT develop code in your dropbox folder. Instead use git on your local hard drive and github. What you'll be using dropbox for cheap web hosting of your code. Put a file in the public folder  (video) and you'll then be able to access that file from the web. Very handy for testing on phones and tablets or sharing with a friend.

Text editor - If you are coding you'll need a text editor. You can spend lots of money but no need to do that yet. If you want to take the full plunge get the free IDE called Eclipse. But for now, all you probably need is something like NotePad++ for windows. 

HTML - Learn very, very simple HTML. To start all you need to know is how to type in a simple page with a title and a couple of paragraphs. HTML5 will come later. 

jQueryMobile.com - You can write a mobile app in 4 hours using jQueryMobile. Really. It won't very graphic, but few non-games are. All you need is a web browser and a text editor (not Microsoft Word). The quick start guide should be enough, but there are many tutorials on jQueryMobile. When you have finished writing it, post it to github. Then do one a week (see Part 2).

blog - Any blogging service will do. I use blogger.com and posterous.com. Others use wordpress, typepad or tumblr.  Every day - repeat - every day write a short post about what you did to learn mobile apps that day. While not many people may read your blog, you need a place to capture what you are learning and share it with others. Your potential employer will also see that you are serious by working everyday.

twitter.com - You'll need a twitter account. Write up what you are trying to do in the profile. Tweet daily. Point out good tutorials you've found. Highlight good blog posts you've written. Thank people. You'll also find a few people to follow. Use the hashtag #learnmobile so others can follow your tweets - and maybe develop a community of learners.

When you do all of the above, you will start building up some experience. People will know that you are serious about learning how to become a mobile developer. You'll also have your first app published on github. And hopefully, your contribution to another github project was accepted which you now add to your resume.

You should be able to start all of the above within 8 hours. Perhaps 4. And at no cost. You'll be on your way.

Keep at it everyday. Everyday use git. Every day write some code from a tutorial or your own project using git and github. Everyday blog about what tutorials you read, what you coded and what you learned. Everyday tweet about your blog post or highlight a good tutorial. Some days you may have several blog posts and tweets. Everyday.

After you do the above, you are ready for Part 2.

Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

How to get a mobile phone developer job - #learnmobile

Over lunch I was talking with a friend about how difficult it is for young people to find jobs. After mentioning the hiring I see for mobile development, she asked me to write up my recommendations for learning mobile. So I started writing and it became this series of posts that I'll publish this week.

This series is on mobile web apps. Not native iPhone or Android apps. Some call it the HTML5 stack. I think of it as JavaScript, CSS3 and HTML5. There is a great future writing apps this way and then using PhoneGap.

I sincerely welcome comments on this series, especially people that have been recently hired into a mobile job. You may have a different approach that others would like to hear about.

My qualifications to write this series may be considered minimal. I don't hire mobile developers. A couple of my mobile apps are in production but none are consumer hits. I don't write apps for the iPhone or Android apps stores. However, I've probably written nearly 50 mobile web apps in the last several years. I now prototyped many projects using jQuerymobile. My first JavaScript application was published in 1996.

And besides, a friend asked me to write this up. So hopefully it is useful to them and others.


Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4