5 ways to ace your next UX design interview

For the month of July, we’re talking careers! We want to help you get the tools and advice you need to get started in UX, or take your career to the next level. Look out for more posts on this topic, and don’t forget to join the conversation in the forums!

Job interviews are nerve-wracking at the best of times. Whether you’re just starting out in UX or need a little inspiration, here are five ways you can prepare to nail your next interview. 

1. Your portfolio is everything (well, almost!)

Portfolios are the standard for showing work for designers. But the trouble with creating a UX design portfolio is that so much of what we do isn’t strictly visual. This makes it hard to showcase your work in a portfolio in the same way as a graphic designer or UI designer.

Because many UX designers come from a UI or graphic design background, many employers still expect to see a portfolio of your work. They often expect UX designers to have traditional design skills.

This attitude is starting to change, but even so, you need to a way to show your previous work. You just might need to get a bit creative. Here’s how:

Write about what you do

Blogging about UX design shows your knowledge of the field in a creative way that potential employers can easily understand. It demonstrates your passion for the field and helps you learn (and teach) difficult or new concepts. Try guest blogging for other UX design sites to boost your SEO and make your blog easier to find.

Create a website

A website is essential for employers to find you, and a platform to talk about the work you’ve done for previous clients. If your work wasn’t visual, present it in an engaging way using images, logos and photographs.

Wireframes

Wireframing is a visual element of UX design work, even if it’s not the prettiest or most polished part of what you do. Upload project wireframes to your website under client projects. This way you can show your interviewer the ‘back end’ of design – the thought that goes into the navigation, information architecture and user flow for each site.

2. Know what UX design means to you

It’s common to be asked about you define UX design in an interview, as it gives a clear insight into how you work, and how you’ll fit in with the rest of the team. If you’re a junior, you need to be able to work effectively with the company’s senior UX designer. For senior roles, your approach to the field shapes the company’s approach.

Where do you sit on the UX/UI debate?

A commonly used definition of UX design is:

“The process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility, and pleasure provided in the interaction between the user and the product.”

Compare that against a common definition of UI design:

“UI design is focused on the design of the actual interface elements that the user interacts with to accomplish a goal within an application.”

It’s useful to understand both, and where you sit on the continuum, as it helps to place you within the existing skills of the team. If there’s no UI designer, for example, you might be expected to work in this area too.

3. You are not an island

UX designers work with all sorts of people: user researchers, UI designers, content strategists, CEOs…

Teamwork and communication are core skills of a good UX designer – we work with lots of different types of people in this job. Interviewers need to see that you can explain complex concepts simply and clearly, and that you’re a team player.

If you’re the sole UX designer at a startup it’s likely you’ll be working with everybody – from the copywriter to the CEO herself. You’ll be responsible for seeing projects through from end to end, with the help of user groups, of course. If you’re lucky enough to be part of a large UX team, you’ll probably work with user researchers, UI designers, graphic designers and content strategists.

Whether flying solo or in a team of UXers, you’ll always have an ongoing dialogue with the web development team. They’ll work with you to scope out your ideas, plan your timelines and ultimately implement your designs.  

4. Describe your unique process

The UX design process

Because there’s so much ambiguity surrounding UX design, it’s a good idea to talk your interviewer through how you work.

Try speaking on their terms, and explain (based on your research of the company) what you’d do if you worked there. This helps your prospective employer visualise you working there, which is handy trick that can help you land the job.

If you’re new to the field, a standard process can guide you until you’ve figured out exactly how you like to work.

The general UX design process involves:

1. User research: Collating information from your target persona via interviews, user groups, surveys and questionnaires to understand the needs and behaviour of the user.
2. Design: Structuring, labelling and organising content on the site (information architecture), wireframing, prototyping.  
3. Testing: Usability testing (observations, questionnaires, surveys), A/B testing, remote user testing.
4. Implementation: Working with web developers and UI designers to get your design built and functioning.

5. Engage with your field online

Show your interviewer that you’re passionate about what you do. They want to see that you’re in it for more than paying the rent. In addition to blogging, make sure to mention blogs you read, influential people you follow and sites you admire for their UX design.

Need some inspiration? Here are a few of my favourites:  

Blogs

• UXMastery
• CareerFoundry
• UXBeginner
• UX Motel
• UXReview
• UXMatters
• UXMag

Sites with great UX:

• Medium
• Herrlich Media
• Harry’s

Influencers on Twitter

• Abby Covert @Abby_the_IA
• Jared M Spool @jmspool
• Whitney Hess @whitneyhess
• Karen McGrane @karenmcgrane
• Peter Merholz @peterme
• Liz Danzico @bobulate 

Got a UX problem you want help with (career or otherwise)? Join UX Agony Aunt Ashlea McKay for our next “Ask Me Anything”. Midnight Wednesday 6 July PDT or 5pm Thursday 7 July AEST. Get all the details

The post 5 ways to ace your next UX design interview appeared first on UX Mastery.

by Rosie Allabarton via UX Mastery

5 Success Stories from the Emerging Internet of Things Market

A term describing the interconnectivity of multiple physical devices via the World Wide Web, the Internet Of Things (IoT) is often thrown around as a buzzword or hyped as a flashy trend.

But as of 2016, the importance of the IoT can no longer be ignored. The same technology that can be used to flush a toilet every time a toaster turns on can also be used for things like improving prenatal health care, preventing sports-related injuries, and enhancing our indoor air quality.

The following IoT products go beyond financial success by proving just how integral the IoT is becoming to our health and wellness.

1. BabyBe

When babies are born prematurely, they are often taken to a neonatal intensive care unit and put into an incubator. This reduces the risk of infection and helps maintain hydration. It’s essential for the baby’s survival, but there is a cost: The mother is unable to physically interact with her child.

The company BabyBe Medical believes there’s a better way. Using Intel’s Edison developer board, the BabyBe helps connect premature babies with their mothers by replicating the movement of the mother’s heartbeat and lungs for the baby.

The BabyBe is made up of three parts. The baby lies atop the Bionic Mattress, a pad comprised of air bladders and heating elements, and the mother holds the Turtle, a devices that mimics the feel of a baby’s body, against her chest. The Cradle, which sits beside the incubator, translates data from the Turtle into pneumatic actions for the Mattress.

Allowing premature babies to experience their mother’s movement and touch can expedite healing and development time, which means less time in the hospital, fewer hospital bills, and a more fulfilling mother-child bond.

2. Shockbox

While America’s Funniest Home Videos showed us just how much we all love watching children hurt themselves, sports-related concussions are a serious issue, and according to the National Athletic Trainer’s Association, sport-related concussions account for 58 percent of all emergency department visits in children aged 8 to 13. But in an IoT world, not even Bob Saget can get in the way of safety.

In 2011, a man named Scott Clark watched his 10-year-old son take a nasty hit during a hockey game. After wondering whether or not his son had a concussion, he decided to do something about solving that particular guessing game. So he co-founded Shockbox, a device that attaches to a player’s helmet and uses sensor technology and Bluetooth to measure head impacts. If the Shockbox records a hit hard enough to result in a potential concussion, it notifies coaches via their smartphones. It also tracks the time, date, hit direction, and force estimate of each impact, making it much easier for coaches to decide if and when to pull a player from the game.

In 2015, Shockbox was acquired by i1 Biometrics, a company dedicated to reducing sports injuries. With this additional backing, hopefully the Shockbox and other products like it will become the standard for collision sports.

3. Foobot

No, Foobot isn’t a Dave Grohl robot clone, although one can dream. It’s actually the first air monitoring system that both monitors and improves indoor air quality. Give me the best indeed.

Created by the European company Airboxlab, the Foobot is equipped with internal sensors that measure the levels of volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter in a user’s home. When levels reach a critical threshold, Foobot sends the data right to your smartphone, and by integrating with products like Amazon’s Echo, Alphabet’s Nest, and If This Then That (IFTTT), Foobot can turn your home into a smart home by adjusting air purifiers, filters, and other connected devices.

Launched in 2015, Foobot quickly won over consumers by achieving a 90 percent retention rate after three months. This may be due to the fact that Foobot is the most intelligent air monitoring system available, and anyone concerned about their air quality, their daily health, or allergies should consider letting a Foobot into their home.

Continue reading %5 Success Stories from the Emerging Internet of Things Market%

by Joshua Kraus via SitePoint

Web Design Weekly #242

Headlines

The Psychology of Color in Marketing and Branding

Gregory Ciotti, part of the marketing team at Help Scout, delves into the psychology of colour. For him, it is one of the most interesting, yet controversial, aspects of marketing. Whilst the article may raise more questions than answers for you, a clear takeaway is that the kaleidoscopic nature of color theory means we may never have definitive answers. Look at the research and find your own palette. (medium.com)

Matt Mullenweg Interview and Q&A from WordCamp Europe (wordpress.tv)

Sponsor Web Design Weekly and reach over 22,000 designers and developers

Articles

An Introduction To Redux

If you have been keeping an eye on the JavaScript landscape of late you would of seen Redux being mentioned an awful lot. It’s pretty neat and this post by Alex Bachuk is a great place to start learning how it all works if you haven’t had the chance yet. (smashingmagazine.com)

Improved Font Loading

Many web fonts are quite large, causing a long delay until the browser can use them. WebKit has mitigated this in two ways: improving font download policies, and making fonts download faster. (webkit.org)

Angular 2 – Best Practises to Level Up

A collation of 12 best practices and tips to help you write better and cleaner code when using Angular 2. (blog.budacode.com)

How Facebook Live Streams To 800,000 Simultaneous Viewers

This new Facebook feature allows people to share video in real-time. This post details the feature’s origin, problems it faces, its scabaility and much more. (highscalability.com)

Paul Irish discusses Progressive Web Metrics (youtube.com)

Tools / Resources

Content Jumping (and How To Avoid It)

A guide on why it happens, how to avoid it and some examples. This article is a good reminder that one of the most important things when designing any user experience is to keep expected behaviour in mind. If things don’t work as anticipated, it can be unpleasant, frustrating and even disorientating for the user. (css-tricks.com)

anime.js

Anime is a flexible lightweight JavaScript animation library. It works with CSS, Individual Transforms, SVG, DOM attributes and JS Objects. (anime-js.com)

Decorative Text Underline

Decorative Text Underline uses a combination of box-shadow and text-shadow to form a modest underline that preserves the element color and weaves between text descenders. (codepen.io)

Clips To Bounds – Episode 1 – Pull Requests (soundcloud.com)

Coloring emoji using CSS (codepen.io)

A Scrolling SVG Sunset (thenewcode.com)

Inspiration

React-powered Hacker News client (github.com)

CSS in 2016 and Beyond (youtube.com)

RandomFont (randomfont.com)

Jobs

Product Designer at Trello

We’re looking for a savvy product designer to join the Product Team at Trello. Your work will have an impact on how millions of people all over the world collaborate and organize their lives. (trello.com)

Need to find passionate developers or designers?Why not advertise in the next newsletter

From The Blog

Integration and Comparison for ES6

If you’re still writing JavaScript using ES5 and desire to author in ES6 fear not. Dennis Gaebel has you covered. He looks over some logical ways to start using this new syntactical sugar in your own work today. (web-design-weekly.com)

Last but not least…

The Languages Which Almost Became CSS (eager.io)

CaptionBot (captionbot.ai)

The post Web Design Weekly #242 appeared first on Web Design Weekly.

by Jake Bresnehan via Web Design Weekly

Tracking GPS data with the Tessel 2

The Tessel 2 is a JavaScript-focused microcontroller that has a range of pre-built modules you can attach to extend its functionality. In this article, we will explore what we can do when attaching a GPS module to a Tessel 2.

If you are new to working with the Tessel 2, I covered the basics of getting started with the Tessel 2 earlier this year. Have a read of that first to get a grip on the basics of setting up the Tessel on your Wi-Fi and pushing code to it. It also teaches you how to make the LEDs on your Tessel blink like crazy. Very valuable skills to know!

Connecting the GPS Module

To bring some GPS functionality to your Tessel, connect it up to port A on your Tessel 2 — this is the one closest to the USB power connector:

As you can see above, you'll want to connect it with the large bulky rectangle bit and electrical components facing up. If you look at the pin connectors, you will see one which says GND — that should match with the GND on the Tessel 2's port A. Basically, there are plenty of telltale signs if you are connecting it incorrectly!

Starting Our GPS Tessel App

Create a folder for your Tessel app called "gps" (or whatever name you'd prefer). Go to that folder in your Terminal/Command Prompt and type the following to initialize a new project:

[code language="bash"]
t2 init
[/code]

Then, run the following command in npm to install the GPS module:

[code language="bash"]
npm install gps-a2235h
[/code]

gps-a2235h should match the name on your GPS module (this is important to note, in case future GPS modules are a little different).

If you find you get an error message like this:

[code language="bash"]
> cd examples ; pakmanager build || echo 'Could not build pakmanager package. Please make sure pakmanager is globally installed'

sh: pakmanager: command not found
Could not build pakmanager package. Please make sure pakmanager is globally installed
[/code]

You'll want to install that globally first like so (and then attempt the gps module installation again):

[code language="bash"]
npm install pakmanager -g
[/code]

Our Tessel's JavaScript

Our Tessel 2 JavaScript code is relatively simple and looks like so:

[code language="javascript"]
var tessel = require("tessel"),
gpsLib = require("gps-a2235h"),
gps = gpsLib.use(tessel.port["A"]),
WebSocket = require('ws'),
ws = new WebSocket('ws://192.168.0.30:5000'),
latestCoords;

gps.setCoordinateFormat({
'format': 'deg-dec'
});

gps.on('ready', function() {
console.log('GPS module now searching for satellites...');

gps.on('coordinates', function(coords) {
console.log('Lat:', coords.lat, '\tLon:', coords.lon, '\tTimestamp:', coords.timestamp);
latestCoords = coords.lat + ',' + coords.lon;
});

gps.on('fix', function(data) {
console.log(data.numSat, 'fixed.');
});

gps.on('dropped', function(){
console.log('GPS signal dropped');
});
});

gps.on('error', function(err){
console.log('GPS Error: ', err);
});

ws.on('open', function() {
setInterval(function() {
if (latestCoords !== undefined) {
console.log('Trying to send coords of ' + latestCoords);

try {
ws.send(latestCoords, function ack(error) {
console.log('Error detected while sending: ' + error);
});
} catch (e) {
console.log('Error caught while sending: ' + error);
}
} else {
console.log('No coords coming through');
}
}, 10000);
});
[/code]

Let's go over what is actually happening here. We start by requiring the Tessel module and our GPS' module:

[code language="javascript"]
var tessel = require("tessel"),
gpsLib = require("gps-a2235h"),
[/code]

We then set up the GPS module by telling it which port our Tessel's physical GPS module is located in. I placed mine in port A, which I defined like so:

[code language="javascript"]
gps = gpsLib.use(tessel.port["A"]),
[/code]

In order to send data back and forth between our Tessel and our server, we will be using WebSockets. Due to the wonderful fact that the Tessel 2 runs JavaScript and npm modules, we can run the commonly used ws WebSocket module on the Tessel. We add in the ws module and set it up to watch for our server location. I ran this all locally, with my Mac running the Node server connected to my 4G router and my Tessel also connected to the same 4G router. This allowed me to directly use an IP address to refer to the server.

[code language="javascript"]
WebSocket = require('ws'),
ws = new WebSocket('ws://192.168.0.30:5000'),
[/code]

If you wanted to have this run over the web, you could host this on a publicly accessible server and change the WebSocket set up to:

[code language="javascript"]
ws = new WebSocket('ws://www.myfancynodeserver.com'),
[/code]

Continue reading %Tracking GPS data with the Tessel 2%

by Patrick Catanzariti via SitePoint

Why the Internet of Things Still Has a Long Way to Go

The Internet of Things (IoT) doesn't exactly boast a reassuring name. Especially the "Things" part. That sounds to me as if we still haven't completely figured out what IoT is all about. Even though we have made good progress on this journey compared to 2 years ago, I still have a hard time explaining to non-technical people what the Internet of Things is.

However, far more problematic is the fact that many people do believe they understand what the IoT is about, yet they miss the bigger picture. The Internet of Things is not something to be compared with emerging technologies like virtual or augmented reality. The IoT is real. Any bugs in this technology can have serious implications in the real world. Together with the rise of artificial intelligence, this duo could bring about a dangerous combination.

There are many reasons we should not treat the IoT like any other emerging technology. While Terminator has brought the dangers of AI into pop culture, it will not be surprising if the same happens with the IoT very soon.

Before getting overly enthusiastic about the vast possibilities of the IoT space, let's have a closer look at the dangers of it.

Internet of Unsecure Things

While bugs can break software and render it useless in a worst case scenario, implications in the IoT space are far more serious. What if a flaw in your new shiny connected thermostat accidentally drops your home's temperatures rather than increasing them in winter, bursting water pipes in your home? How about connected IoT light bulbs turning on in the middle of the night awakening you from your well-deserved sleep? These scenarios might sound absurd, but they are real possibilities.

Medicine is sensitive territory here. Where medicine and bleeding edge tech meets it is hard not to see the potential dangers. A woman who receives a heart pacemaker with wireless capabilities could create a vulnerability in her very own body for hackers to access and misuse — hackers could hold her life in their hands.

With IFTTT already offering many IoT features to the masses (we've covered IFTTT a few times here at SitePoint!), the digital world and the physical world are already moving much closer together. Under such circumstances, it makes sense to raise concerns for security measures on connected devices, as implications could be way more severe than any old fashioned software bug.

Continue reading %Why the Internet of Things Still Has a Long Way to Go%

by Elio Qoshi via SitePoint

An Introduction to Android Firmware

Android phones and tablets are generally a lot more open than their counterparts running operating systems such as iOS, Tizen, or Windows 10 Mobile. If you don't like the firmware the device manufacturer has installed on your Android device, you are free to replace it with your own custom firmware. CyanogenMod, Paranoid Android, and the Pure Nexus Project are examples of custom firmware that enjoy a lot of popularity among Android users.

Custom firmware is also the only way you can install newer versions of Android on devices that are no longer supported by their manufacturers. Unless you own a device that belongs to the Nexus or Android One series, I'm sure you knew that already.

In this article, I help you understand what Android firmware really is and how an Android device uses it. I also introduce you to the tools you can use to replace a device's firmware.

A Word of Caution

Replacing firmware is a risky operation that can potentially make your device unusable. In most cases it also voids your device's warranty. Make sure that you have a backup of your data and a copy of your device's factory image handy before you go ahead and experiment with flashing custom firmware.

1. What Is Android Firmware?

Originally, firmware was a term used to refer to tiny, mission-critical programs installed in the read-only memory, or ROM, of an electronic device. Modifying firmware was either impossible or required special equipment that was usually out of the reach of ordinary end users.

Android firmware, however, is very different. It includes the entire Android operating system and it is stored in a writable form of memory called NAND flash memory, the same type of memory that is used in storage devices, such as USB sticks and SD cards. The word firmware is used only because device manufacturers didn't bother to come up with a new word for it.

Android firmware is also often referred to as Android ROM because, by default, it is not possible for users to directly write to it.

2. What Does Android Firmware Contain?

Firmware installed on an Android device by its manufacturer contains a build of the Android operating system and two additional closed source programs that are usually irreplaceable, a bootloader and radio firmware.

Understanding Bootloaders

An Android bootloader is a small piece of proprietary code that is responsible for starting the Android operating system when an Android device is powered on. However, the bootloader almost always performs one more task. It checks if the operating system it is starting is authentic.

How does it decide what is authentic? It checks if the boot partition has been signed using a unique OEM key, which is short for Original Equipment Manufacturer key. The OEM key, of course, belongs to the device manufacturer, is private, and there is no way you can know what it is.

Because of the authenticity check, you cannot directly install a custom ROM on an Android device. Thankfully, these days, most device manufacturers allow users to disable the check. In Android jargon, they allow users to unlock the bootloader.

The exact procedure you need to follow in order to unlock the bootloader depends on your device. Some manufacturers, such as Sony and HTC, expect you to provide a secret unlock token. Others just expect you to run a fixed set of commands using a terminal.

Usually, a tool called fastboot, which is a part of the Android SDK, is used to run the unlock commands. For example, if you own a Nexus device, you can unlock its bootloader by running the following command:

fastboot flashing unlock

You learn more about fastboot later in this article. Note that, if you own a device that has a bootloader that cannot be unlocked, there is no easy way for you to modify or replace its firmware.

Understanding Radio Firmware

It might come as a surprise to you, but your Android smartphone actually runs another operating system on an independent processor called a baseband processor. Radio firmware refers to the operating system that runs on the baseband processor.

Usually, it is an RTOS, which short for real-time operating system, and is responsible for managing the cellular radio capabilities of the device. In other words, it is what allows your device to make calls and connect to the internet using wireless technologies such 2G, 3G, and 4G LTE.

The RTOS is a proprietary piece of code and popular baseband processor manufacturers, such as Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Spreadtrum, make sure that its internal workings stay a secret. The Android operating system usually communicates with the RTOS using sockets and callbacks.

Generally, it is not a good idea to replace the radio firmware of your device.

Understanding Android Builds

The Android build is the only part of the firmware that is created from open source code. Consequently, this is the only part that you can modify and extend. When you hear Android enthusiasts say "I flashed a new ROM on my device", you can be sure that they are talking about a new Android build.

An Android build is usually shared in the form of a ZIP file that can be used by fastboot. It has the following contents:

update.zip
|-- android-info.txt
|-- boot.img
|-- recovery.img
|-- system.img
`-- userdata.img

android-info.txt is a text file specifying the prerequisites of the build. For example, it could specify the version numbers of the bootloader and the radio firmware that the build needs. Here is a sample android-info.txt file:

require board=herring
require version-bootloader=I9020XXJK1
require version-baseband=I9020XXKD1

boot.img is a binary file that contains both a Linux kernel and a ramdisk in the form of a GZIP archive. The kernel is a boot executable zImage that can be used by the bootloader.

The ramdisk, on the other hand, is a read-only filesystem that is mounted by the kernel during the boot process. It contains the well known init process, the first process started by any Linux-based operating system. It also contains various daemons such as adbd and healthd, which are started by the init process. Here is what the directory tree of the ramdisk looks like:

ramdisk/
|-- charger -> /sbin/healthd
|-- data
|-- default.prop
|-- dev
|-- file_contexts
|-- fstab.grouper
|-- init
|-- init.environ.rc
|-- init.grouper.rc
|-- init.grouper.usb.rc
|-- init.rc
|-- init.recovery.grouper.rc
|-- init.trace.rc
|-- init.usb.rc
|-- init.zygote32.rc
|-- proc
|-- property_contexts
|-- sbin
|   |-- adbd
|   |-- healthd
|   |-- ueventd -> ../init
|   `-- watchdogd -> ../init
|-- seapp_contexts
|-- selinux_version
|-- sepolicy
|-- service_contexts
|-- sys
|-- system
|-- ueventd.grouper.rc
`-- ueventd.rc

system.img is the partition image that will be mounted on the empty system directory you can see in the above tree. It contains the binaries required for the Android operating system to run. It includes the system apps, fonts, framework JAR files, libraries, media codecs, and more. Obviously, this is the file Android users are most interested in when they flash a new ROM.

The system image is also the file that makes most Android users develop an interest in flashing custom firmware. System image files provided by device manufacturers are often full of unnecessary apps and customizations, informally called bloatware. The only way to remove the bloatware is to replace the manufacturer's system image with a more desirable system image.

userdata.img is a partition image that will be mounted on the empty data directory you can see in the ramdisk directory tree. When you download a custom ROM, this image is usually blank and it is used to reset the contents of the data directory.

recovery.img is very similar to boot.img. It has a boot executable kernel file the bootloader can use and a ramdisk. Consequently, the recovery image too can be used to start an Android device. When it is used, instead of Android, a very limited operating system is started that allows the user to perform administrative operations, such as resetting the device's user data, installing new firmware, and creating backups.

The procedure you need to follow in order to boot up using the recovery image is device specific. Usually, it involves entering the bootloader mode, also called fastboot mode, by pressing a combination of hardware keys present on the device, and then selecting the Recovery option. For example, on a Nexus device you need to press and hold the power button in combination with the volume down button.

Alternatively, you can use adb, a tool included in the Android SDK, to directly enter recovery mode.

adb reboot recovery

3. Using fastboot

The easiest way to flash new firmware on your device is to use the fastboot tool. fastboot follows the fastboot protocol to communicate with an Android device. However, it can only do this when the device has been started in fastboot mode. The quickest way to enter fastboot mode is by using adb:

adb reboot bootloader

To flash a custom ROM that is available in the form of a ZIP file containing all the image files I mentioned in the previous section, you can use the fastboot update command. For example, here is how you would flash a ROM present in a file called update.zip:

fastboot update update.zip

If you want to flash only a specific image, you can do so using the fastboot flash command. For example, here is how you would flash only the system image:

fastboot flash system system.img

Similarly, if you want to replace only the boot image, you would use the following command:

fastboot flash boot boot.img

It is always a good idea to test if a boot or recovery image is working before actually flashing it to your device. To do so, you can use the fastboot boot command. For example, here is how you would check if a custom recovery image called twrp.img is compatible with your device:

fastboot boot twrp.img

Note that none of the fastboot commands I mentioned in this section will work if the bootloader of your device has not been unlocked.

Conclusion

You now know what Android firmware is and how to replace it. I want you to understand that replacing firmware is a risky operation that can potentially make your device unusable. In most cases it also voids your device's warranty. Make sure that you have a backup of your data and a copy of your device's factory image handy before you go ahead and experiment with flashing custom firmware.

by Ashraff Hathibelagal via Envato Tuts+ Code

Do PHP and IoT have a future together?

It's IoT Week at SitePoint! All week we're publishing articles focused on the intersection of the internet and the physical world, so keep checking the IoT tag for the latest updates.

A whole week of mostly IoT resources on every channel and, yes, that includes PHP. What? "PHP and IoT!? Surely you're mistaken!", you must be thinking. No, dear reader. PHP and IoT go well together - better than one might expect.

In this post, we'll list some getting started resources. Throughout the remainder of the week, we'll have some amazing hands on posts for you - everything from creating a drinks machine with PHP, to a real life alarm when a door in Minecraft opens (yes, really!) - and that's just on our channel. Be sure to check out the others, too!

Without further ado, here's some introductory material for you if you feel like dabbling before we dive in properly!

Hardware

• Electronic Components

  • When starting out, it's sometimes difficult to know how to use electronic components, or how to plug them into a circuit. This little guide by the excellent Christopher Pitt is helpful for figuring out a handful of common components.

• Arduino

  • Arduino is a neat hobbyist development platform. It abstracts the steps from resisters and wires to functional computation. You program Arduino boards using C/C++, and this guide will fill in the details to get you started...

Continue reading %Do PHP and IoT have a future together?%

by Bruno Skvorc via SitePoint