Bootcamp and back home

15 December 2013

This week, I joined a 4-day full-day workshop called “HTML5 and Firefox Mobile OS Bootcamp”.

It all started with an email sent from NTU Ventures at the revision week. When I find out that the speaker will be from Mozilla, I was very excited! The workshop itself was held right after the exam week (10-13 Dec) which I intended to use it to focus on Dhamma Camp 2014 work. After my main committee, Liniki, permit me to join the camp by the condition that I can finish my work, I directly register for the camp.

On Monday, they got an open seminar on how HTML5 impacted the web and why HTML5 apps on mobile computers are better than native apps. Besides me, Stephanie, Edwin, and Stener joined this seminar. For the bootcamp, I, Edwin, Deka, and Stener joined it.

On Tuesday, they talked about HTML, CSS, and JS. For the JavaScript part, the difficulty level escalated quickly. Inside HTML, they talked about object-oriented JS and DOM. After that, they talked about the Developer Tools on Firefox. The hands-on lab after that was to create a basic page structure and a message box for leaving some message by using DOM.

On Wednesday, they talked about HTML5, CSS3, SVG, Canvas, WebGL, Audio & Video. The hands-on lab was to implement drag-and-drop picture and also using animate.css.

On Thursday, they talked about Single Page Apps, and Communication. The hands-on lab was to implement a chat-client (to send and receive texts, images, and links) using WebSocket technology which server was locally hosted on their laptop. It was very cool to have different (personalized) chat-client communicating through the same server.

On Friday, they talked about Firefox OS, the tools to develop and deploy Firefox OS apps. They actually bring with them around 5 developer-only Firefox OS phone (the early version of ZTE Open and Keon). They showed us that our “chat-client” can be made directly into an app with by just adding the app name, description, etc. Every Firefox got the app manage and the Firefox OS simulator can separately be downloaded. After that, they guided us to implement notifications. For some, the feature was still buggy but it was nice (and annoying sometimes because someone would send multiple messages at once, triggering multiple notifications at one). Overall, these 5 days (including the open seminar) was a very nice experience. I think that a 13-week course in NTU is comparable with this 4-day bootcamp.

On Saturday, after checking and rechecking my stuffs, I, HH, Riko, Hiroto, and David, went to Changi around 1pm. After I troubling them for a while by attempting to refund GST, we went for check-in. It was not long until we were told to board the airplane. After arriving at KNO, and got some trouble because of the customs demanding us to fill the declaration form, I am finally home!

On Sunday, after visiting my grandmother, we went to my mom’s parents house and then went to Vihara Borobudur to do some chanting for my grandfather. Then we went back home and continue doing my planning for this holiday:

• Do a Connect-Four game in JavaScript by using Canvas (and what I learned during the Bootcamp). After that, implement an AI.
• Play Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (on NDS emulator); Pokemon Emerald (on GBA emulator)
• Study entrepreneurship on Coursera.

Hope that all of them will be accomplished by the end of the holiday.