What could renovating an old house have in common with upgrading an old app? *Everything!* Let me show you how this old house renovation project proceeds, from planning to scheduling, demolition to finishing, and how every stage directly relates the lessons learned from app upgrades over the course of my career.

Let's talk about APPS. Lori introduces DragonRuby and RubyMotion, with live code examples

Augmented Reality (AR) is the new cool. But did you know you could write AR apps (and games!) using Ruby(Motion, that is)? Come and escape normal boring reality with us, as we create a native AR app using RubyMotion.

Lori's Keynote at CUSEC 2018

Have you ever run into that problem you are trying to solve, that is tangential to your core business? It’s easy to run off, look for a gem, and use it. What is harder is when that gem … isn’t quite right. Maybe you should look for an alternative. Maybe you should fix the gem. Or if your problem is different enough, you can fork the gem. Or maybe you should just stop wasting so much time looking for the “easy” solution, and just DO THE WORK. This talk was also given at Scottish Ruby Conference May 2014.

Have you tried to use CoreData in RubyMotion, only to get lost in the quagmire of simplistic or confusing examples, DSL's and gems? Have you been asking yourself these questions: Do I have to use XCode to create a CoreData model? How do relationships work in code work anyway? How do I pre-load data into my CoreData store? What is an NSFetchedResultsController, and why do I need one? We'll delve into each of these questions, and review the surprisingly simple, elegant solutions that RubyMotion can provide. This talk was also given at NSScotland October 2013.

It’s tempting to hire a rock star who knows absolutely everything to get your new project off the ground. You can also hire "consultants" to help fill in the holes in your team when taking your existing product to the next level. Or maybe just hire a whole bunch of people for cheap, and they’ll get the job done... But did you ever consider the untapped wealth of the team you already have?

That website you want to use, from your mobile, that just refuses to cooperate. From the annoying "we have an app", to the can't f**king log in, to the redirect-to-mobile-&-forget-the-context sites, there's more than enough websites that invoke Mobile Rage. The best mobile development strategy is "mobile-first", but what if you can't? Come learn about the common mistakes most people make for mobile, & some of the simple solutions you can use.

Another new version of Rails. Delightful. And terrifying. What's changed this time? Fear Not! We'll be reviewing the changes and additions to Rails 3.1, giving you a walk-through of what it all means (asset pipeline, what?), in the context of a brand new app, and an older app that will need to be upgraded.

Maps are easy, right? Right. Except... when they aren't. What about when you need to mix multiple data types on your maps? What about when the simple solutions (paging) to complex problems (too much data) don't cut it with your users? What about when your scaling problems exceed the bounds of all the available solutions?

How to build your own custom UI controls, powered by jQuery, and integrate them in your Rails application.