As regular readers of this blog know, Geogad has been a big supporter of the Android ecosystem and is available to travelers through its own Android app. It has also been a big supporter of the upcoming Android Hackathon, the first Android hackathon in Silicon Valley. This event will take place on March 13 at Hacker Dojo in Mountain View.

The best feature of hackathons is the way that programmer spontaneously come together to form teams to transform an idea into a working app. To help beginning Android programmers pick up the basics on Android, Geogad will be presenting some introductory classes on Android in the weeks before the hackathon.

The first class is scheduled for Feb. 16 from 6:00 to 8:30 PM. The class will take place at Access Growth in Santa Clara. Two instructors will teach up to 20 students on the basics of Android including

• Setting up Eclipse to create and run Android projects.
• In-depth look at a few Hello World-type projects.
• Lifecycle of an Activity
• Intents, Services and launch modes
• Android tools bundled in the SDK
• Techniques for debugging Android projects

Since this is a good bit of material to cover in a relatively short time, all students are required to have downloaded and installed the latest versions of Eclipse, Sun’s JDK 6, and the Android SDK before arriving at the class. Students must already know how to programming in the Java programming language on which Android is based.

This class will cost $25 per person and is limited to 20 students. You can register here. For more information, contact service at geogad.com

Introductory Android Class

 Before the hackathon begins, Geogad will be helping beginning Android programmers learn some of the basics to allow them to contribute to the team projects.

Geogad has released its first mobile application so that travelers can used the advanced features of their smart phones to search and find Geogad content when they are on the go. This app works on the Google Android platform and is available from Handango.

To support future developments on Geogad’s Android app, I am pleased to announce the formation of the Informal Android Developer Meetup. Tonight was our first meeting. I admit that it was set up very last minute since this Meetup group only formed a day or so ago. Despite the short notice, we had quite a few people show and discuss Android programming issues.

Some tips for programmers that are new to the Android platform are that they should start slowly and build up. There is a great deal to learn, but Google has put together a great collection of tools and samples. My personal suggestions on how to start are

1. Download the Eclipse IDE. You can use another IDE if you want, but this one is well supported by Google. Of course, this is assuming that you already have downloaded the latest Java jdk.

2. Download the Android SDK from Google.

3. Read the intro docs on the Google Android developer site.

4. Work through the Notepad tutorial on the Google Android developer site.

5. Check out the API Demos that should be preloaded on the Android emulator.

6. Check out the advanced Android program samples from Google.

7. If you would like a quick, formal intro and money is not an issue, you might want to buy an ebook on Android programming like “The Busy Coder’s Guide to Android Development“. It has some good starter examples and can talk you through the basics. I don’t think that it has anything that you can’t find on the Google Android site, but it was totally worth the $35 just for the command to switch the emulator from portrait to landscape mode (Control-F12 on Windows).

If you are on Castro St. in Mountain View on Wednesday and want to chat with other Android developers, feel free to drop by Red Rock Coffee Shop. We will be the people with the Android phones on the second floor.

This has been a really busy week in Silicon Valley. This week, we saw that debut of two great new events for mobile. Mobile events have been popping up like mushrooms lately. But I really have to give high points to the two events that I attended yesterday.

The first was the Mobile Content and Marketing Expo held on Oct 6-7 in San Jose, CA. It was the first time this event was held and had a few hundred people attend, but the networking was excellent. Quite literally, the first person that I spoke to was Alan Meckler, better known to the world at large as the CEO of Jupitermedia. This conference is Jupitermedia’s event, and he was taking time out of his busy schedule to personally check out how the conference was running. Since he had a flight back to New York to catch in half an hour, he pointed out Jupitermedia’s editor for the mobile apps blog, Todd Ogasawara. All this on the second and last day of the conference. I just wish that I had been able to attend both days.

The conference attendees were some of the most knowledgeable people in mobile working on the cutting edge. The only keynote that I was able to attend was the one given by Skyfire’s CEO, Nitin Bhandari. His idea of monetizing “pinch units” in ad sales as the mobile equivalent of enhanced page views was interesting, but I am not sure how it could be done.

AdMob sponsored a great event for iPhone developers at a restaurant called Astaria in San Mateo. Not only were the talks and demos great, but restaurant managed to feed a standing room only crowd of about 100 developers. A very difficult task indeed. I really hope that this Meetup continues. I always get such great ideas talking to mobile developers who are releasing great apps.

Geogad has just released its new mobile web site. Yes, you asked for it, and now it is here.

Geogad has made your travels even easier. You can now forget about planning your sightseeing in advance. All you need to do is point the mobile browser on your cell phone at the new Geogad mobile web site at http://m.geogad.com. From this new portal, you have access to all of Geogad’s great multimedia tours and tour stops.

Just image that you are walking around the main tourist office of Savannah thinking about paying big bucks to take one of the many guided tours when a fellow traveler tells you about Geogad’s wonderful tours of Savannah that also are totally free. You are sure that there must be some sort of catch. After all, everyone else is paying $20 for their tours. But you are willing to try it.

You get out your trusty phone, tap the key to bring up the mobile browser and type “http://m.geogad.com” into the address bar. Instantly, you are transported to the Geogad mobile site with a list of choices. You see “Tours” and select that one. A list of Geogad’s professionally created tours is displayed, sorted by country and city. You see two tours for Savannah, one for the Eastern Historic District and another for the Western. You select the Eastern tour and view the sample tour.

OK, you are hooked. This is kinda cool. You decide to sign up and try the entire tour. Hey, the tour starts right were you are at the main tourist office. Even better, it includes directions and easy-to-read maps to the next tour stop. You and your trusty mobile phone are now walking through the sunny squares of Savannah as you listen to the history of this quaint old town.

Before you know it, you have reached the end of the tour, overlooking the Savannah River and River Street with its shops and restaurants. Even better, there is another free Geogad tour of the Western Historic District that starts at this location. You are definitely going to take the western tour. Right after lunch on River Street, that is.

And if you happen to hear other travelers wonder about what tour they should take, you will let them know about your latest discovery, the Geogad mobile tour site.

A few days ago, I hinted around about the object of Geogads’s next tour.  If you knew your St. Patrick’s Day trivia then you knew that the southern U.S. city that throws the biggest St. Pat’s party is Savannah, Georgia.  In the case that this surprises you, then you may like to know that Savannah had a huge influx of Irish immigrants during its cotton boom of 1850 and after the Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840’s.  Call it a perfect storm for creating green beer and grits.

If you are in Savannah this weekend for this party that has been called the Redneck Mardi Gras, then enjoy.  But don’t forget that now you can skip those pricy yet geeky tourist buses and explore Savannah in style, your style.  Just download Geogad’s latest Mobile Tour for Savannah’s Western Historic District and see Savannah the way that it was designed to be seen: in a relaxing stroll.

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