Umbrella Today? on the iPhone

A few weeks ago the Umbrella Today? iPhone app went live on the iPhone App Store.  The iPhone app contains all the simplicity of the website and uses push notifications to deliver on-time and reliable alerts about whether you need an umbrella for the day.  The Umbrella Today? website is great, but the iPhone app works so well that in some ways its the most useful incarnation of Umbrella Today? service yet.

We were excited to discover that 2 days ago the app appeared in the new and notable section on the App Store.

The app is available on the App Store for $1.99.  Give it a try today.

Umbrella Today?

The Lone Star Ruby conference is about a week away. Chad, Jon, Matt, Tammer, Jared, and I will be running a training session on Thursday.

Our approach to teaching thoughtbot’s Rails Best Practices is to go through our development process for a real application called Umbrella Today?, which we began building two weeks ago. After each 45 minute lecture, we’ll give participants the chance to feel the process in 15 minute hands-on workshops.

The concept of the app is simple: enter your zip code, get a yes or no answer to the question “Do I need an umbrella today?”

Sign up to receive SMS alerts on days when you’ll need an umbrella.

Hidden complexity

Seems like a simple app, right? Famous last words. Simple enough to take from concept to launch in a few weeks there’s always hidden complexity until development begins.

For Lone Star purposes, we’re happy about the complexity. In addition to best practices like CI, TDD, MVC, and TLC, it gives us a chance to share many small but collectively powerful topics such as:

• attr_readonly
• Rails template to get things like Factory Girl “for free”
• modules vs. classes
• security bugs
• shoulda_macros directory
• timezones
• SMS
• rake tasks and cron
• confirmation codes that don’t suck
• the importance of database indexes

Lone Star to Boston

thoughtbot’s Ruby on Rails training formally kicks off October 14th in Boston. We’ll be building upon our Lone Star/Umbrella Today experience so if you can’t join us in Austin next week, come visit Boston, which is beautiful in the fall. I recommend making a week of it and staying for the Head of the Charles.

Note: register for Boston training by August 31st and get $100 off.