100 Users!

We just cracked 100 users last night thanks to our friends at Fordham University partying hard!  Over winter break, I plan to do some much needed polishing on the Android app and adding random extra functionality to the back end.  I am interested in implementing private parties that require a password to join on the front end as the back end was completed some time ago.    I also plan to address the issue of a login only lasting for a couple hours.  Maybe I will add websockets.  The websockets are not a priority right now because the site seems to be handling our current traffic well.  The websockets are a priority, however, for us to complete a number of future functionalities we wanted like keeping the time synced across devices and volume control over votes.

iOS Update

Since we got approved as a Facebook app (meaning we can finally ship Facebook login to users), I have worked towards getting that set up for everyone and it's working wonderfully!  Even better news, we've got an approved beta build and testing set up.  So for HackRPI I will be pushing the app to up to 1000 testers!  So that's really exciting.

Things to fix: QR Code reader needs a back button.  Joining still doesn't work right.  Fix that.

Otherwise, looking really great!

-Jim

News from the backend

Sorry I haven't made any posts yet this semester but I have been getting a bunch done.  I realized that we could potentially have session hijacking problems.  After some research, I found a possible solution here that I attemped to implement.  It was successful and it worked well until I realized that there were concurrency issues.  Specifically, when a session token was renewed, there were often multiple requests from a client being handled at the same time and the script considered the requests with the old token to be proof of theft.  I commented out this process for the time being because it was a serious usability issue and not a huge security issue.  In the mean time, I figured out how to set up ssl with the server so that session theft is less likely to happen in the first place.  FaceBook integration was another huge improvement that took place.  Since a few minutes before writing this post, we got a notification that FaceBook login has officially been approved for MeNext!  At our last presentation at RCOS, Kevin O'Connor gave us the idea to use websockets instead of AJAX calls every 5 seconds to keep the video queue and current video updated.  This is now my major project because I believe that it could potentially be the biggest improvement to the efficiency and responsiveness of the site.  The problem that I am currently facing with this portion is sharing session data between apache and the script that would be running the websocket.

Major Progress on iOS

Facebook Login AND QR Code joining of groups is nearly complete!

I migrated from an external library for QR Code to roll-your-own AVFoundation code using a subview and AVCaptureMetadataOutputObjectsDelegate code.

This is crunch time, and the app store is coming soon.

-Jim

iOS update: 10/14

QR code has been implemented, working the bugs out and testing that soon.  Also partially through Facebook login.  Have to remove old login and fully implement FB but the button is working.  Other than that, I have enrolled in the iOS Dev program, so were all set to publish when the app is finished. This is crunch time, and we have to finish within the next few weeks to allow time to process the App Store requests.

The dependency list is really growing!  Facebook, ZBarSDK, Image cache libraries, networking libraries.  I can't believe the app has gotten so big.  I'm really glad that my first real iOS project isn't some tiny app no one will use. It's a huge app that a few people might use maybe. :)

-Jim

Facebook Integration!

The past week has been exceptionally hectic and interesting for the MeNext crew -- we started exploring Facebook integration. This was prompted by an issue with user authentication that we believe can be solved by using the Facebook login API. Jim read over the iOS documentation for the framework and begun preparing for implementation. Josh did the same for Android, along with registering for an API key from Facebook. I begun working on a revamped, simpler login page to accommodate the change.

iOS Update

Almost ready to ship, have to fix the app knowing if it's logged in and have to fix some interface constraint bugs.  Otherwise basically ready for the App Store!

I've had a lot of coursework for algorithms and multivariable lately, so it haven't been able to push much code, but it will be back on track soon!

Lots of stuff ahead, and only around a month left to be ready to ship.

Expect code this week, by the end of the week, I'd hope.  It not, then this weekend. 

-Jim