Magenic Company Blog

We find ourselves in the thick of the holiday season and the thought leaders at Magenic are showing no signs of slowing down. In one of the busiest times of the year, our Magenicons are busying themselves further with more ways of giving back to the community.

Not too long ago I was invited by my local school board to participate in a roundtable discussion with other parents in the district. New in her role as Superintendent, Lisa Snyder was interested in hearing from parents where we might see improvement in our schools.

I had a chance to catch a presentation at a recent Mobile Twin Cities gathering from Software Developer Andrew Cheron. Andrew has done some work with some major brands and spends a great deal of time exploring and developing games on Adobe Air. Adobe has decided that Air is where they want to spend their time in the mobile space and it’s a good thing that developers like Andrew are on board.

There’s no doubt that mobile is impacting the way we shop, whether it be shopping online, using an app in the store to streamline the process, or just keeping in touch with others while hanging at the mall.

With Black Friday looming I thought it would be a perfect time to talk retail and mobile with Lisa Grimm, Digital Brand Manager for the Mall of America…the nation’s largest mall…in Bloomington, Minnesota.

We talk a lot about mobile in the enterprise. It’s vital that we consider how to best incorporate our employees' mobile lifestyle. To do so, it’s helpful to take a look at what they do…mobilely…outside of the office. Forgive the bit of gender stereotyping, but I think you’ll see the point.

So, at the risk of voiding his terms a service, “a friend of mine” has spent the last few weeks with a rooted (read that as hacked) Android phone. Running the CyanogenMod firmware “my friend” has freed himself from the bloatware that is part of his provider’s pre-installed apps. He’s noticed a significant uptick in speed, a bump in battery life, and the ability to access the hotspot ability once reserved for those with extra cash in their pocket to pay for it.

One feature that Silverlight 4 lacks when compared to its big brother, WPF, is implicit DataTemplates. That is, the ability to define a DataTemplate for a specific type. If you are willing to wait for Silverlight 5, you are in luck because it will introduce implicit DataTemplates to the Silverlight developer. For those of you that can’t wait: fear not. Just because implicit DataTemplates are not supported by Silverlight 4, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get the same effect with a little work.

It happens to all of us. We are blissfully going about our lives in our own worlds. While we have a very good idea of how our actions will impact others, we occasionally find out about the impact of what others are doing…and we are blown away. Such is my exposure to “gamification”.

Fall is one of the busiest times of the year for Magenic’s thought leaders as they try to spread their vast knowledge with the rest of the tech community.  Our leadership team has been going the extra mile to mentor the community in recent weeks, with much, much more on the horizon.  Find out how you can get involved in the future.

When it comes to the Internet and business, Mary Meeker knows her stuff. Meeker, formally of Morgan Stanley and now with investment firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers has been presenting a sort of state of the Internet, especially its trends, for the last eight years. This year, at the Web 2.0 Summit, the overriding theme was mobile!