Open Source mobile app development with PhoneGap

It is now possible to work with PhoneGap on Windows using PhoneGap Developer App available from the Windows Store. PhoneGap is a free, open source framework based on the Open Source Apache Cardova project that allows developing mobile apps using standardized Web APIs.You can create apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. PhoneGap bundles up your code for the device of your choice.

You start here:
http://phonegap.com/

PhoneGap Developer app can be used to develop both Windows Phone 8 app as well as the soon to arrive Windows Phone 8.1 store app. With PhoneGap you have full access to the PhoneGap APIs and there is no need to install platform SDKs, registering devices etc.

Get the information guide relevant to your platform from here:
http://docs.phonegap.com/en/edge/guide_platforms_index.md.html
Watch video here for additional motivation:

The good, the bad and the ugly of downloading programs

It has become quite common to bundle up lots of stuff from various  vendors  in a download whether the person downloading wants it or not. To be fair they do give options to accept or decline and sometimes even after declining they get in any way.

These programs may not fall in the 'bad' and 'ugly' categories but they are not required by the user and they  should not be bundled.

You may have to get rid of them from your Add/Remove programs and there are some add-ons to your browser that you may  have to get rid of and some of them cannot be disabled and produce horrible pops-up ads. I think  this process should be more 'ethically managed'.

I have had similar experiences while trying to install the latest version of flash; almost anything from Softpedia web site and even Microsoft.

Here are the programs that got into my computer even after declining them in the installer windows while installing Silverlight 5.

 

I just needed Silverlight 5 and find minimal interest in the others. It took a while to get rid of the unwelcome visitors.

 

Here are programs I removed from my computer:

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Products with other software

Enterprises use products from disparate vendors based on their business needs; chronological evolution of their business; plain necessity and for any number of other reasons. Hence there are always occasions that they will be looking beyond a single vendor or product. I have been looking at how Microsoft products mesh with other vendor products with the view of helping to provide some help by writing about my experiences which I list here. It is possible that the list is not complete.

Adobe Captivate 3 ---> A rapid review

I downloaded a copy of Adobe Captivate 3 and took it to a test drive. It's really cool. Of course, I have only scratched at the surface of what it can do. Believe me it can do a lot.


The basics are presented (using this program) taking the reader through Recording, Editing, Publishing and Quizzing tutorials. These are really well made. There are many other tutorials discussing Audio, Flash Video, Interactivity, and many others. The interface is very friendly and I could get a demo running in no time at all and merge it with my Power Point Presentation slides.

If you are planning for a demo and pressed for time you may want to take a look at this.