Developers Connect Meets Cagayan de Oro's Geeks

Last April 5, Developers Connect (or DevCon), had conducted a meet up with other technology enthusiasts in the city at the astonishing Cleversoft Complex. DevCon has been widely known in promoting Filipino talents when it comes to the field of information technology. They have various chapters around the country and Cagayan de Oro has just recently been one of them. The non-profit organization has also been known in providing informative and fun events to IT students, educators and professionals.

DevCon Geek Up was joined by different IT professionals and students in the city.

The event started with a pleasant welcome from the Executive Director of DevCon, Ms. Haifa Carina Baluyos, who is also a Kagay-anon now based in Manila. She introduced the organization and its mission to everyone who was there that night. Although this has not been the first time that they had conducted an event in the city (since they already had an initial meet up last February and some university events as well), but still the organization has gone much introduction for the sake of those who have not attended the previous meet up.

Mr. Michael Jones Sia, manager of Gaisano Interpace Computer Systems, one of the lead suppliers of computer hardware in the country has sparked the event with the information of what is actually happening to the IT scene in the city. Afterwards, Mr. Todd Grannis, CEO of Cleversoft Inc also welcomed everyone and gave a brief introduction about his company.

Then there were Tech Talks right after dinner. Topics for the talks were about the trends in web development, mxGraph and an introduction to Twitter Bootstrap by Mr.Cris John Tagupa, Mr. Lionel Amarado and Mr. Arthur Vincent Simon respectively.

Mr. Cris John Tagupa on his talk about
"Trends in Web Development"

Aside from the talks, prizes were also given away to lucky participants who were participative and lucky enough to win during the raffle. Lucky for me, I didn't have to push my luck for any of the prizes because I had my own set of freebies (the perks of being a volunteer and an emcee, yeah!)

Some of the freebies and prizes that were given
away during the event.

The event ended having everyone filled (not just by the food prepared by the Cleversoft Team) with new learnings and information. Everything would not have been possible without its generous sponsors which we would like to greatly thank. 

Thanks to Cleversoft Inc. for the awesome venue and food; Mozilla Philippines and Google Developers Group Phils for the freebies; Globe Labs for the cool 4G Tattoo Sticks that were given as prizes; Gaisano Interpace Computer Systems for the awesome flash drives that were given away during the raffle; BlackBerry, Exist Software Labs, Morphlabs and most importantly to everyone who attended. Till the next DevCon event!

GDG-CDO conducts Student Dev Day

Since its launching last January 2013, Google Developers Group Cagayan de Oro never failed to bring out the best of the IT Community as it hosted its recently concluded Student Developers Day last February 16, 2013 at the Integrated Technology Building, AVR 1 of Mindanao University of Science and Technology (MUST). The event is simultaneously conducted with GDG-Bacolod and is sponsored by Globe Labs, the telecom company's innovative and dynamic developer community. 

The event was participated by about 200 students from different schools in Northern Mindanao. It was a great venue for the students to learn new technologies at the same time meet fellow IT enthusiasts from different courses and universities.

Series of talks were presented to the students and a lot of prizes were given away (thanks to GDG and of course, Globe for the amazing prizes). Snacks were also served. It was definitely not-your-kind-of-student-event considering that it was a free event and there were new technologies being discussed by some of the finest people in the IT industry today.

GDG-CDO Community Manager, Josan Dometita shares
some GDG events to look forward to.
-pic courtesy of Mr. Reymart Canuel-

The program was warmly welcomed by Google Business Group CDO Community Manager, Mr. Jon Doblados. Similar to the 1st Meetup, an introduction about the community was done to answer all the curious minds of the students and also to give them an idea on what to expect in joining this community.

After much introduction, various technologies were discussed to the students. Mr. Reymart Canuel, GDG-Baguio's Community Manager was first to discuss how Google App Scripts work.  

Mr. Bryan Carl Chug of Aestrea Software Development made the whole audience shriek as he pulls out one shy student from the audience to help him demonstrate how "groovy" is Grails. As quoted "cool lang tayo with Groovy". 

Ms. Anne Michelle Santos of Globe Labs and
Mr. Reymart Canuel of GDG- Baguio with the students
-pic courtsey of Ethel Bobis-

Bryan Carl Chug of Aestrea Software Development
 discusses how to use Grails.
-pic courtesy of Mr. Reymart Canuel-

 Ms. Anne Michelle Santos of Globe Labs also discussed how Globe can further help developer's apps through the telecom's API's. She even demonstrated how a developer can make a mobile app that could send text messages using their API. She also gave away cool stuffs to those who randomly sent her an SMS using the simple PHP program she presented.

Students were also given the chance to present their developed apps by a show-and-tell. Here's a list of the projects presented by some students during the event:

Alvin Rivera (Capitol University)
Augmented Reality Base ID in Mobile Application

Richeve Bebedor (AMA)
Word Analysis using Google Translate API
Google Maps Data Analysis

Niel Patrick Mugpatan (MUST)
Twitter Bootstrap

Raven Duran (MUST)
Skedyul and GIT

Ravede Guibone and Alyssa Domondon
Android Application for Cagayan de Oro Transportation Route Mapping




The top 2 student presenters namely Alvin Rivera and Richeve Bebedor were awarded with Globe Tattoo Prepaid Sticks while the others got a GDG shirt for their marvelous efforts. All presenters also received a cupcake and a Globe Labs shirt.

The organizers and volunteers of the GDG-CDO Student Dev Day
-pic courtesy of Mr. Reymart Canuel-

 Overall, it was indeed another successful event for Google Developers Group Cagayan de Oro. The event wouldn't be possible without the dynamic speakers, Globe Labs, student volunteers from Xavier University and MUST, and of course the very enthusiastic students allover Northern Mindanao who participated. Till the next Google event!

To view more pics CLICK HERE.

Google is finally in Cagayan de Oro!

Last January 26, 2013 marks a date for all the computer geeks in Cagayan de Oro City. Google Developers Group Philippines has launched its newest chapter in the City of Golden Friendship and conducted its first ever meetup at Dynasty Court Hotel. The CDO Chapter would be the 7th in the Philippines adding with Baguio, Cebu, Manila, Zamboanga, Bacolod and Davao.

The Han and Ming function rooms at The Dynasty Court Hotel were filled
with local computer geeks from different companies and institutions.
-Pic courtesy of GDG-CDO-

The 1st meetup was basically more of a meet-and-greet, overviews about the new chapter and a lot of geeky Google sharing. The event was formally opened by Google Business Group CDO Community Manager, Mr. Jon Doblados. Snacks were served before proceeding with some series of talks and fun.

Google Business Group CDO Community Manager, Mr. Jon Doblados
-Pic courtesy of GDG-CDO-

After everyone got satisfied with the food, Ms. Chelle Gray, Google Developers Group Program Associate for Southeast Asia, officially introduced GDG to the Kagay-anons and what it is in store for everyone. She mentioned the advocacies of Google and why such community was established.

A participant shares her experience as an Android App developer
starting from scratch. "I had no idea on how to develop these 
apps at first, and so I Googled how."
-Pic courtesy of GDG-CDO-

Following Ms. Gray was GDG-CDO's Community Manager, Ms. Josan Dometita who shared her experiences as a GDG Member back then. She mentioned some activities which she had joined such as hackathons and parties. She gave the the community an idea of what's going to happen in the upcoming months for GDG -CDO.

She also mentioned how bonded the different GDG PH Chapters are and even got to do a Google+ Hangout with Ms. Anne Olvido, Community Manager for Bacolod and the whole Philippines. Together with Anne, she told the other members how amazing it is to be part of such community and how it is living up its advocacies.

There were also sharings done by other professionals, games, prizes and let's not forget FUN FUN FUN! The event was concluded by slicing a very cute Android cake (poor Android).

THE MURDER OF THE POOR ANDROID CAKE AND THE COMMUNITY MANAGERS
(L-R) Ms. Chelle Gray, Ms. Josan Dometita , Mr. Jon Doblados
- Pic courtesy of GDG-CDO-

Overall, the GDG-CDO 1st Meetup was indeed a success. Expect GDG-CDO to conquer the local IT scene in the upcoming months. Till the next Google event!

iTunes 11

After a month's delay of release, finally we are getting the all new updated iTunes 11! It has a very new interface and a lot of cool new features which brought down it's predecessor iTunes 10.7. Let's all take a closer look of how this new improved iTunes work and whether we'd give Apple another thumbs up or a thumbs down.

Say goodbye to the old iTunes 10 and greet a the new iTunes 11 a big hello!

The all new and improved iTunes 11

It's time to let go of the ever famous cover flow which iTunes definitely is famous for since its first release. I guess Apple had the idea of overhauling the application to fit to the new interfaces of the iOS 6. The design is basically very similar to iPad music players but what's great with this new version is that it has that very smooth feel. 

Choosing for songs, albums, artists and playlists became much easier since everything you need is just a click away at the very top. The menu bar was even hidden to maintain its neatness and classy environment. 

There was no exact replacement for the cover flow since if you would want to check out the album artwork, you would have to manually click on the album cover located near the player controls to pop-up a new window which would show the album artwork and another set of controls. That's kind of confusing for new users but I'm sure everybody will get the hang of it.

The feature which I absolutely like about iTunes 11 is the albums tab. Yeah, it looks more of the album tab of your iPad music player, but hidden in it is a feature where a list of songs from an album is shown differently. And for every album, the color scheme changes depending on the color scheme of the album. 

Choosing for a particular artist is even easier with iTunes 11 since everything is now a scroll away. Playing your favorite song as a next track is now more convenient since you can just click on a song which you would want to be played next and it automatically is being added on a queue.

So many cool features are in store for the new iTunes. Check it out by updating your old iTunes. For me, it's definitely a great update for everyone. I would say this is an early holiday gift from Apple.

Get to know more about the new iTunes by visiting the official Apple iTunes page.