November Meetup

Thursday November 26th 2015

McKibbin’s Bishop – 1426 Bishop St., Montreal(QC), Canada

• 17h30 – Socializing, Announcements
• 18h15 – Architecture on Android by Anas Ambri
• 19h00 – Let’s Play! Build your first Cardboard App by Etienne Caron
• 19h45 – Networking, Socializing

Socializing, Announcements

You have an upcoming event, looking to hire Android developpers? Let the community know.

Architecture on Android

by Anas Ambri

About me: I work as a mobile software developer at Guarana Technologies. I enjoy working on both Android and iOS, and I am on a mission trying to convince people to stop using splash screens.

About the topic: Architecture on Android is all the rage right now. Join us in this talk while we try to cover the Model View Presenter (MVP) architecture, how it tries to solve problems like testing and view state storage, and how to decide whether to use it or not. This talk may or may not include code taken from actual production apps.

Intro to VR and Google Cardboard

by Etienne Caron

When I started making a Cardboard App, I had a lot to learn. I didn’t know much about OpenGL, things kept breaking when I changed little details… it was painful.

Not being a very sensible person, I kept going, and I’d like to share with you some of the things I found out:

• OpenGL: How to use as little of it as possible.
• Fill the scene: How to programatically create and design fun and simple 3D models.
• Shaders: Math is fun, or, How to impress your friends with parallel processing.
• Avoiding Death by Build: Use scripting and live shader editing to get instant feedback.
• Look Ma, no Hands: Solving the VR input problem with Android Wear.

Bio

Etienne has been an active member of the Montreal Android community since 2010. As part of the Montreal Android GDG, he organises meetups, hackathons and codelabs. As part of the Google Developer Expert program, he also devotes time towards mentoring startups and developers new to Android.

September Meetup

Hello everyone! We’ve had a pretty busy month, Hackathon preparation Workshops, big shipping dates and late nights for the whole organizing team, as well as various Hackathon involvements.

Our next Hackathon Preparation Workshop will be the 28th of September, and our Big Monthly Meetup will be Wednesday the 30th. This month, we like to thank the people at CloudOps who are graciously hosting us.

CloudOps – 420 Rue Guy, Montréal, QC H3J 1S6

We’ll be starting at 18h, and we have two talks.

RxJava and RxAndroid

par Simon GUEROUT

Vous avez sûrement entendu parler de RxJava ou RxAndroid, ce framework qui fait de plus en plus d’adeptes.
Mais de quoi s’agit-il en réalité ? Comment l’utiliser et qu’est-ce que cela peut apporter au développement d’une application ?

You may have heard about RxJava or RxAndroid, a framework getting more and more attention.
But what does it really do ? How can you use it and what could it bring to your application development ?

Bio:

Simon est un passionné du petit bonhomme vert. Après avoir travaillé quelques années dans le domaine de la télévision numérique, il s’est rapidement tourné vers le développement mobile.
Aujourd’hui il est directeur de Sidereo à Montréal, une agence spécialisée dans le mobile et l’internet des objets.

Simon is a fan of the little green robot. After working a few years in the digital TV business, he quickly moved to mobile application development.
He is now the manager of Sidereo in Montreal, an agency specialized in mobile applications and the Internet of Things.

Intro to the Marshmallow Permission System

by Philippe Breault and Etienne Caron

The new Android Marshmallow permissions model is a big change for the platform. From now on, users will be able to decide exactly what permissions they want to allow applications to use. With this change comes a series of new challenges (and opportunities) for Android developers to handle (and explore).

Bio:

Hey There! My name is Philippe Breault, I am a software developer living in Montréal (Canada) and my job/hobby is Android. I have been working on the Android platform since 2010 and I hope that sharing what I have learned will help people get proficient in Android faster!

Etienne is a software developer who’s worked on all tiers (server, web, mobile and embedded) of large scale software platforms. He’s been the Android team lead for PasswordBox, which was acquired by Intel Security in 2014. He is now Android team lead for TrueKey, Intel’s digital identity manager.

Hackathon Workshop Practical Links

We’ve had our first iteration of the Hackathon Prep Workshop. Here are some important links we’ve shared for reference:

• Android Montreal Slack
• Firebase GitHub Starter Project
• Google Ventures Design Sprints
• Square Open Source
  • Doing REST calls? Retrofit
  • Image downloads? Picasso
  • Android UI? ButterKnife
  • Dealing with memory leaks? Leak Canary
• Square’s U2020

June Meetup, Special Google I/O

Monday June 29 2015

Google 1253 McGill College #150, Montréal,(QC)

For those who missed Google I/O and for those who want to learn more about the new things announced at the event, here is a special GDG post I/O!

Slack group: http://android-montreal.com/slack

Design support library: Coming soon

Intro to DataBinding API: https://goo.gl/j3J2Yt

Google I/O Summary: Coming soon

ATAP Keynote

Sponsored by

• 17:30 – Socializing, announcements.
• 17:45 – Design support library by Marcos
  Damasceno
• 18:00 – Data Binding by Étienne Caron
• 18:30 – Summarize of Google I/O by Laurence de Villers and François Legare
• 19:00 – Udacity MicroDegrees by Étienne Caron
• 19:30 – Google I/O Experience exhibit

Welcome & Announcements

• What is new in GDG Android Montréal
• GDG Android Montreal Slack

Design support library

###by Marcos Damasceno

Google I/O this year brought us what everybody was waiting for since Material Design was announced: The Android Design Support Library. Now many of the Material Design common Patterns like the FAB button, Tabs, Snackbar, CollapsedToolbarLayout and many more features are available for easy use in your apps.

In this talk we’ll do a deep dive into the library, how to take advantage of the main new components available, why they are important and how to bring consistency to your app.

Bio:

Marcos is an Android Craftsman at Mirego and Droidcon Montreal organizer. He loves simple and beautiful UX and UI and has his attention always focused to small details and what makes mobile apps great. A passionate about Start Ups, Marcos already attended to many start up weekends and hackathons in Sao Paulo, San Francisco and Montreal and currently serves as a mentor for some successful Brazilian apps like Mobills (+1M downloads). He has been playing around with mobile since 2010, worked in many significant android apps as well as on the backend side for the Brazilian market. Marcos already had the opportunity to speak at big conferences before and it’s active in the Android community. Marcos recently led the development of a big consumer’s product android tablet app currently used by Sony US and now do great stuff with an amazing team at Mirego.

You can find Marcos on Twitter.

Data Binding

by Étienne Caron

An early look at the Data Binding Library. Data binding basically allows you to bind your model to relevant view elements. Changes to the model will be reflected in your UIs, and vice-versa.

The judicious use of this library promises to dramatically reduce the amount of boilerplate that is traditionally needed when coding Android UIs.

We’ll also see how the library compares to a ButterKnife + RxJava data binding implementation.

Bio:

Etienne is a software developer who’s worked on all tiers (server, web, mobile and embedded) of large scale software platforms. He’s been the Android team lead for PasswordBox, which was acquired by Intel Security in 2014. He is now Android team lead for TrueKey, Intel’s digital identity manager.

You can find Étienne on LinkedIn.

Summary of Google I/O

by François Légagé and Laurence de Villers

In this talk we will review what was revealed in Google I/O and discuss about the new technologies and the impact on user and developper. Of course, we will talk of the keynote of ATAP that surprised a lot of people.

###Bio:
François is one of the mobile gurus at Bell Canada. He jumped in the Android bandwagon in 2009 when segmentation was just a mere theoretical concept on Android OS. He’s also co-organizer of the GDG Android Montreal, gave various talks on the Montreal scene in the past.

You can find François on LinkedIn.

Laurence is a mobile software developer at Bell Canada. She is a recently graduated engineering student who created with other students the official university application of the university École de technologie supérieure. She also participated to the creation of the application Grand Pool RDS and RDS Go. She started the first interuniversity and intercollegiate competition in mobile, ApplETS Mobile Challenge

You can find Laurence on LinkedIn.

Google I/O Experience exhibit

• Cardboard demo
• Tango and dive helmet
• Photo slides from I/O

# Mini-hackathon – Espace Desjardins (Avril 2015)

          <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/124895323?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="400" height="250" frameborder="0" title="Mini-hackathon - Espace Desjardins (avril 2015)" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>              

Nice video showcasing the Google Design Sprint we held back in April with our GDG, right before DroidCon Montreal.

April/May Meetup

DATE CHANGE! Tuesday May 5th 2015

McKibbin’s 1426 Bishop St, Montréal, (QC)

It was announced this morning that the Canadians will be playing Wednesday!!

Our reservation has been changed for Tuesday the 5th!!

• 17h30 – Socializing, announcements.
• 18h00 – Helpful android design patterns by Ahmed Mahmoud
• 19:00 – Introduction to Mortar, Flow and Dagger 2 by Lukasz Piliszczuk
• 20:00 – Networking

Welcome & Announcements

• Google I/O extended: Who’s going to the extended event at Google Montreal?
• Post-Google I/O Meetup: When should we meet to show-and-tell?
• Questions for the I/O crowd: Share your burning tech questions with the team, we’ll try to find answers for you.

Helpful android design patterns

by Ahmed (Yucef) Mahmoud

We’ll be exploring the following patterns:

• Incremental network syncs to reduce requests, save bandwidth, and increase responsiveness
• Google cloud messaging for 2-way communication, eliminating polling, and remote command execution
• Base activity navigation drawer pattern (from google 2014 I/O app). Simpler to work with than the pattern described in the developers manual

Bio:

Yucef developed a passion for Android development two years ago, and has since built a strong understanding of the full stack Android development process. For efficiency and consistency, he strictly adheres to Google’s developer and design guidelines, Google Play Developer Program Policies, as well as sound object-oriented-design principles.

You can find Yucef on LinkedIn.

Introduction to Mortar, Flow and Dagger 2

by Lukasz Piliszczuk

The talk is about how I became a happy Android developper with Mortar, Flow and Dagger 2. I won’t go into the details of how to implement those 3 libraries, as one talk wouldn’t be enough. I will give my feedback, the pros and cons, the overall picture of how things work, etc.

DESIGN / HACK

April 8th from 10h00 to 17h00

Get your tickets on Eventbrite, places limited!

Espace Desjardins

175 Boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest Montréal, QC

DroidCon Montreal and GDG Android Montreal proudly present Design/Hack.

Targeted towards Android developers and UX designers, this is a one day workshop where people
form ad-hoc teams, design an app concept and build a prototype using ‘off-the-shelf’ services and APIs.

As this is a workshop concept, teams are formed on site, subjects are assigned. You’ll benefit
from expert mentoring and advice throughout the day.

All participants are expected to bring their laptops with a fully working Android Studio development
environment. (I.E. You should already be able to run things off a physical device or an emulator.)

We welcome junior Android developers, but we recommend a minimum of experience with the platform
if you want to get the most out of the day.

The team with the Best App concepts will received tickets DroidCon, where they’ll be able to
network with internationally renowned Android professionals. There might also be some surprises 🙂

Part 1: DESIGN (3h)

Adapted from the Google Venture “Design Sprint Playbook”. You will learn how to rapidly
explore new ideas, and go from concept to prototype in record time.

1. UNDERSTAND

– DIVERGE / DECIDE
– PROTOTYPE / VALIDATE

Part 2: HACK (3h)

We’ll give a short introduction to various rapid development tools and APIs. We’ll then
teach you a method to efficiently work as a team with short iterative cycles, without sacrificing
communication.

You’ll then demo the work accomplished, and our mentors and panel of professionals
will review your progress and give you pointers and hints to bring your idea to the next level.

1. TOOLBOX

– PLAN / DEV / INTEGRATE LOOP
– DEMO

Venue

We’d like to send our thanks and gratitude to our hosts for this event, Desjardins :

March Meetup

Droidcon Special!

Tuesday March 24th 2015

McKibbin’s 1426 Bishop St, Montréal, (QC)

Our meetup this month will be at McKibbins. With DroidCon Montreal coming up very soon, we have a packed line up!

• 17h30: Socializing, announcements.
• 18h00: NoSQL & Offline Mobile Apps by William Hoang
• 18h30; Pause
• 18:45 – Intro to spannable by Mike Wallace
• 19:00 – A Touchy System – Pre Droidcon talk *by *
• 19:20 – Why you should come to the VR Talk at Droidcon Montreal **
• 19:40 – Lollipop Superpowers by Marcos Damasceno and Michael Smith
• 20:00 – Networking

Welcome & Announcments

We’ve got more events lined up in view of DroidCon! (PALAIS DES CONGRÈS
/APRIL 9-10TH 2015)

• April 8th: Special Android Arduino talk by Jenny Tong , Developer Advocate for Firebase & Google Cloud Platform.
• TBD: Pre-DroidCon Hackathon, sponsored by Desjardins.

NoSQL & Offline Mobile Apps

by William Hoang

What happens when your Android mobile device does not have a network connection? That device will have no content, no experience and the amazing application that you spent so much effort to build just simply will not work.

This talk would be around the implementation story of creating offline and online applications on Android Mobile.

The journey begins with NoSQL database modeling and what we can do with a NoSQL technology for mobile. The session will go through how to create data object model relations, design for performance in difficult areas with no signal, and how to develop a local Android NoSQL datebase that syncs to the cloud.

We will go over code on how to have your mobile application function offline without relying on the network. You will gain knowledge in NoSQL databases technologies and walk away with insights on how to create offline type of applications that to sync to the cloud.

Couchbase Mobile is a thin client library that would help developers with their mobile projects in creating a local data layer for offline user experience and will provide fast sync capabilities when there is available network connectivity.

Intro to spannable

by Mike Wallace

In this talk you will have an introduction to what will be presented at Droidcon Montreal about Spannables http://www.droidcon.ca/speakers/36.

A Touchy System

by Phillippe Breault and Éric Tremblay

Philippe and Éric will talk about a very delicate subject: The Android Touch System. This talk will set up the bases for what Philippe Breault will present at Droidcon Montreal http://www.droidcon.ca/speakers/16

Why you should come to the VR Talk at Droidcon Montreal

by François Légaré and Laurence de Villers

The subject says it all! Mobile VR is coming very strong, Google last year introduced the Cardboard, Samsung has its own VR Device and HTC and Valve are entering the game with something that looks stunning. Come to this talk and get a taste of what they will present at Droidcon Montreal. http://www.droidcon.ca/speakers/47

Lollipop Superpowers – Pre Droidcon Talk

Marcos Damasceno and Michael Smith

Lollipop is around for a good time already but many things that were introduced are not being used very much, like Animation Transitions, Recycler View and more. We will be doing an introduction of what is coming at Droidcon Montreal from Marcos and Michael http://www.droidcon.ca/speakers/48 http://www.droidcon.ca/speakers/31

Bios

William Hoang:
William is a Developer Advocate on the Mobile Engineering/Developer Experience team at Couchbase. His love for coffee and code has transcended him into the world of mobile while appreciating the offline in-person experiences.

Prior, William worked on the Developer Relations team over at Twitter, BlackBerry, and Microsoft while also having been a Software Embedded GPS engineer at Research In Motion.

William graduated from McGill University in Electrical Software Engineering

• Twitter: www.twitter.com/sweetiewill
• LinkedIN: www.linkedin.com/in/williamhoang/

Mike Wallace:
Mike is a senior software architect with over 20 years of professional software development experience. Five of those years relating specifically to Android. During those years, he has developed a passion for Android and a rich knowledge of its APIs and inner workings.

Philippe Breault:
Philippe is a software engineer from Mirego that has been passionate about android for the past 5 years. He spends a lot of time trying to find better ways to develop great apps, sometimes blogs at www.developerphil.com

Eric Tremblay:
Eric is a software developer at Mirego, where he started working on Android apps in 2012. He has contributed to many interesting projects and developed a passion for optimizing application development through choosing the correct tools and approaches.

François Légaré:
François is one of the mobile gurus at Bell Canada. He jumped in the Android bandwagon in 2009 when segmentation was just a mere theoretical concept on Android OS. He’s also co-organizer of the GDG Android Montreal.

Laurence de Villers:
Laurence de Villers is a young rising star in the mobility business and currently works at Bell, she can produce a app faster than you can think of a title for it.

Marcos Damasceno:
Marcos is an Android Craftsman at Mirego. He’s working with Android since 2010 and he already had the opportunity to speak at big conferences like The Developer’s Conference, DevFest Sao Paulo and now most recently at Droidcon New York.

Michael Smith:
Lead Mobile Engineer at Frank & Oak, also currently working on the new API that will feed the mobile, web and POS clients as the online and physical worlds collide in retail. He’s a passionate about E-Commerce and the overall mobile shopping experience. (edited)

February Meetup

Notman House, 51 Sherbrooke West, Montréal, (QC)

The Meetup this month will be held at Notman House, one of the most popular locations in Montreal for tech community events 🙂

We’ll have a talk on mobile security by Mohamad Elserngrawy and a talk on drawables and UI by Marcos Paulo Damasceno.

Wednesday February 25th 2015

• 18h00: Socializing
• 18h15: Welcome, announcements, present your startup, etc.
• 18h30: CaptureMe: Attacking the User Credential in Mobile Banking Applications
• 19h30: The Magic World of Drawables
• 20h30: Wrap-up, food and drink with the gang at a TBD location.

Welcome & Announcements

Short agenda

• Coming soon in March and April
• Potential CouchBase Mobile session or workshop, date TBD
• Firebase Developer Advocate visit, tentative date: 8th of April.
• Application “Full-Stack” Workshop, date and details TBD
• Call for speakers
• Women TechMaker event
• March Meetup
• April Meetup

CaptureMe: Attacking the User Credential in Mobile Banking Applications

Mohamad Elserngrawy

The topic abstract: I will present a new screenshot attack CaptureMe to expose the user credential (Card ID and password) from mobile banking applications on Android platform.

Words about me: I’m a Researcher and Software Engineer has 8 years of experiences in software design and development. In the last 3 years I focused my research on mobile platform security especially with Android platform.

The Magic World of Drawables

Marcos Paulo Damasceno

Talk description: A very useful and powerful feature of android that developers sometimes ignore or use it wrong. The small details of your app is what make it amazing, in this presentation we will talk about how Shapes, Layer-Lists and more can make your UI jump to another level and amaze your users. All that without being a rockstar designer!

Bio: Marcos is an Android Craftsman at Mirego, one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies.

He loves simple and beautiful UX and UI and has his attention always focused to small details and what makes mobile apps great. A passionate about Start Ups, Marcos already attended to many start up weekends and hackathons in Sao Paulo, San Francisco and Montreal and currently serves as a mentor for some successful brazilian apps.

He has been playing around with mobile since 2010, worked in many significant android apps for the brazilian market in the backend and mobile stack. Marcos already had the opportunity to speak at big conferences in Brazil like The Developer’s Conference and DevFest Sao Paulo.

Marcos moved to Montreal in 2013, where he led the development of a big consumer’s product android tablet app currently used by Sony US and now do great stuff with an amazing team at Mirego.

You can follow Marcos at:

• Google Plus +marcospaulosd
• Twitter @marcospaulosd

January Follow-up

GDG Montreal Android January Follow-up

Hello everyone,

We’ve had a blast this last Wednesday at the January Meetup, and we wanted to send out a little follow up email on some subjects we touched upon

Speakers

I’d like to say a quick thank you to everyone who volunteered to give a talk over the next couple of month, we’ll be contacting you this week to try and schedule the February and March lineups, and give you a chance to prepare.

If you are interested in giving a talk, please reach out to Etienne or one of the other organizers and we’ll add you to the upcoming lineup.

Workshops

I personally received a lot of positive feedback during the Meetup for the idea of organizing App Design Workshops, and to explore some mobile-friendly Client-Server Architecture setups.

We’ll be polling you in the coming weeks to pick between our different subjects, and different timing options (Evening sessions, or week-end afternoon sessions? TBD…)

Android Jobs

Radialpoint has reached out about a Full Stack Mobile Developper position. You can find out more about them here. (Worth a look, they do interesting things)

We also had Aurore visiting from Nurun, another interesting company, who are currently looking for senior Android developper. See the posting here. Find out more about Nurun here.

Upcoming local events

We have a lot of very exciting events coming up, let us know if you want to see your event in a future posting:

Applets Mobile Challenge 2015

• École de technologie supérieure
• 1100 rue Notre-Dame, Montréal
• Du 6 février 2015 à 17h00 au 7 février 2015 19h00
• Open to all college and university students
• Admission is free
• Website
• Eventbrite

McHacks 2015

• February 21 – 22
• Who’s invited? If you’re an undergraduate from any university, from any country, you’re welcome!
• Admission is free
• Website

DroidCon Montreal 2015

• April 9-10th 2015
• Organized by Mirego
• Palais des Congrès
• Website
• Want to volunteer?

Upcoming outside events

Want to organize a carpool to attend outside conferences? Would like to discover a new city with the gang? Here’s some promising outside events on our radar:

BIG ANDROID MEAT & GREET 2014

• Alexandria, VA – April 4
• Madison Auditorium • United States Patent & Trademark Office • 600 Dulany Street
• Website