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Showing posts from 2015

Taking stock of 2015

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I was inspired by this  post  by femgineer to write my own post about acknowledging my accomplishments of the past year. One of my 2015 resolutions was a continuation of the previous years' - Be more active in the tech community . This goal was big enough to try out different things so I pretty much said YES to any opportunity that came along. 2015 was my year of firsts. Here's my list of tech accomplishments in chronological order: First-time team lead at work Submitted my first abstract to a conference (and many more after that!) Wrote my first blog post Gave my first technical talk at the Android Alliance meetup Gave my first technical conference talk at AnDevCon Boston  (and DroidCon NYC after that!) Hosted my first luncheon at AnDevCon Boston Was a first time panelist on Girl Develop It's A Day in the life of a Developer series Was interviewed for the first time on Youtube for Android Dialogs Gave my first non-technical conference talk at ElaCon

My first non-tech talk at ElaConf

I gave my first non-tech talk at ElaConf Nov 2015 last weekend. ElaConf is a conference that empowers women in tech and its proceeds all go to Girl Develop It . Learn more about it at elaconf.com . Why do I call my talk non-tech ? Because the talk does not feature any code and it does not feature any technical problem that I solved. My talk was titled "Preparing for your first talk" but it's applicable to anyone who is preparing for any kind of talk - technical or otherwise. I was inspired to give this talk after writing this detailed blog post on how I prepared for my first big conference . Some of my tips and tricks were very well captured by the wonderful artist who was sketch-noting at the conference as well as one of the attendees. Your 1st talk w/ @yashvprabhu #elaconf pic.twitter.com/EVFLedMQgQ — ELA Conf (@elaconf) November 21, 2015 Lots of great presentation advice from @yashvprabhu ! ✨ #elaconf pic.twitter.com/fN5SVlKzE8 — Alyssa Dill (@alyssadill) N

How I prepared for my first big conference talk

Last Friday, I gave a talk at AnDevCon Boston. I had about 4 months to prepare since the conference's C all for Proposal(CFP) deadline was in March and the conference was in July. "Monetize Apps on the Play Store: Integrating in-app Billing in Your #Android App w/ @yashvprabhu at #AnDevCon http://t.co/Pw1ZKy5Fek — AnDevCon (@AnDevCon) June 30, 2015 I have broken down my entire process of giving a presentation - from writing an abstract to giving the final talk into the following steps: Choosing a conference and submitting a proposal Breaking down the topic into smaller components Giving my talk at a local meetup Prepping for the conference Prepping hours before the talk Choosing a conference and submitting a proposal The whole process of giving a talk started at the Write/Speak/Code conference which happened earlier this year in March. On Day 1 of the conference, I wrote down several topics that I have expertise in. I settled down

At GDI Philly's Day in the Life of a Developer Panel

My local GirlDevelopIt chapter @gdiphilly is running a 5-event career speaker series titled "A Day in the Life". I recently had the opportunity to be on "A Day in the Life of a Developer" panel which was aimed at women transitioning into tech and curious to know what a developer does every day. The panel was very diverse with three women from a Humanities background and two from a Computer Science background. A Day In the Life of a Developer is May 6th featuring @Not_Pele @_leekinney @yashvprabhu @ahoefinger & Cella Sum http://t.co/Q2b3tz66fV — GirlDevelopIt Philly (@gdiphilly) April 15, 2015 We started off with each panelist's perspectives on the following questions. Some panelist answers are mentioned below: How did we get into this field?   Early interest in math and science, Went to Engineering school, Transitioned from a tech support role, Took some Computer science intro classes. What is our educational background?  Engineering, Pho

My first talk!

I gave my first talk at Android Alliance Philly yesterday on Monetizing Android apps with in-app billing on Google Play Store. The audience was wonderful, asked a lot of questions and gave me plenty of ideas on how to improve my talk and presentation. Kudos to  @corey_latislaw  who live-tweeted and sketch-noted while I talked. What an amazing way to remember things! Great talk by @yashvprabhu at @androidphilly ! Wish we could record at the Comcast Center. pic.twitter.com/xlCSFIWfBJ — Corey Leigh Latislaw (@corey_latislaw) April 29, 2015 #SketchNotes from @yashvprabhu 's talk at @androidphilly on monetizing apps with the play store. pic.twitter.com/8jdtcgWk4G — Corey Leigh Latislaw (@corey_latislaw) April 29, 2015 I'm looking forward to giving this talk at  AnDevCon Boston  in July! "Monetize Apps on the Play Store: Integrating in-app Billing in Your #Android App w/ @yashvprabhu at #AnDevCon http://t.co/dvWDNEwqUM — AnDevCon (@AnDevCon) April 30,

Amazon Kindle Fire cheat sheet for Android developers

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My company recently published our Android app on the Amazon app store for Kindle Fire tablets. While getting ready to publish the app on the store, I realized that the list of Kindle Fire specifications that Amazon has here is neither developer nor customer support friendly. Kindle Fire devices show system version in this format: 7.5.1_user_5170020.  This does not convey the Android OS version at first glance. So, if a user or a customer support representative says that your app is not working on a Kindle and they only give you the system version, you as a developer are not sure which version of Kindle it's failing on. If you are also debugging via USB on a Kindle device, Android Studio only shows you the Build Model and not the OS version. To solve these issues, I made the cheat sheet below to help Android developers quickly determine which Android OS version a Kindle is on. Hope this helps! Note: This table is as of March 28 2015. Build Model