Talentopoly Podcast

Episode 45 - How and Why to Start a Meetup                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Miles Sterrett joined us to discuss how he got roped into hosting a Ruby meetup and why he does it. If you’ve been considering starting a meetup or wonder what’s involved give this a listen. Show notes Why?:  You’re selfish. You want to lean on others to get better at your craft. You’re unselfish. You want to help others, maybe the whole community, get better at your craft. Both! Ideally, you want to get better, and you want others to get better. How? Get the Word Out (Meetup.com, IndyHackers, Twitter) Make it fun Find a Business Looking to Hire Meeting Attendees (if you need sponsorship) Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks The Golden Ratio: a designer’s guide Responsive Carousel Project: Now Open Source draper - Decorators/View-Models for Rails Applications Raspberry Pi Gets Own App Store: … Make It Even Easier For Kids To Get Coding And Earn From Apps

Episode 44 - How to Roll Your Own Cloud Services For Maximum Privacy                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Edward Rudd calls in and Jacob West stops by our studios to discuss alternatives to popular cloud-based services like Dropbox. Listen to us discuss the pros and cons to doing it yourself. We list some of the software that’s out there that will allow you to setup your very own service for personal use. Show notes Why roll your own? Privacy Storage Total control http://zenhabits.net/google-free/ Pros/cons of “Rolling your own {INSERT SERVICE HERE}”? Good option for young kids Cons 1. A dedicated server just for Zimbra with Domain Keys installed 2. A block of 24-32 ip numbers. (49 ip numbers would be ideal, but it’s harder to buy odd blocks like that.) Put your mail server as close to the middle of that range as possible. It sounds like a lot, but most collocation facilities can hook you up with this for 300-500 usd a month. 3. Proactive attention to getting your ip block removed from all spam lists (especially Barracuda, their list is the most annoying for the high number of false positives) before the fact. Just let them know you exist. 4. Pray that all of the hundreds of moving pieces you’ve just put in place don’t break, that bad hackers don’t brute force their way into your server. Strong passwords don’t really help as much as people tell you they do either. That’s now something you have to worry about too. Where to host? Linode Slicehost “Your house” (Business grade internet options) Dropbox Alternatives Owncloud (http://owncloud.org) - Dropbox Alternative + Calendar + Contacts + plugins AeroFS - http://aerofs.com - Dropbox Alternative without a central server Rsync SparkleShare - http://sparkleshare.org/ - just clients and uses git on the server GMail Alternatives qmail, Postfix, Sendmail Horde, IMP, Squirrel Mail, Roundcube http://www.turnkeylinux.org/zimbra Spam filter? Amavisd (runs spamassassin + virus scanning as a pluggable mail filter) hosted service http://ask.slashdot.org/story/11/08/07/1533224/ask-slashdot-self-hosted-gmail-alternatives Google Docs Alternatives http://www.fengoffice.com/web/pricing.php http://etherpad.org/ http://onedrum.com/ Bought by Yammer and integrated with it now ANY Self-hosted WIKI !!! Flickr Alternatives http://www.zenphoto.org/ http://gallery.menalto.com/ YouTube Alternatives Google Voice Alternatives http://www.twilio.com/api/openvbxhttp://pbxinaflash.net/ Full Backup Solutions? Backblaze Carbonite rsync.net LOCAL BACKUP DEVICE! and the Shoe leather express to a remote location!! Security? selinux, disable password login on SSH Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks Changing times for web developers – 6 Tips You Should Read to survive Workless gem, dynamically scale your Heroku worker dynos Your team should work like an open source project

Episode 43 - Creating a Repeatable Sales Process                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Alex Lopes swung by our virtual recording studio to tell us about why marketing and sales gets him out of the bed in the morning. We focus on the science of creating a repeatable sales process in our discussion. Listen to how Alex suggests you approach adapting to the dynamics of your industry and customers. Show notes If it’s not predictable, it’s not repeatable. Lacking traction: You’re not solving the right problem You’re do not have the right solution You’re not being found and evaluated correctly Customer’s buy pain killers, not vitamins “The pressure point of the opportunity changes over time” ~ Brad Feld Focus on metrics that matter Books to read: Nail It Then Scale It ~ Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom Mastering the Complex Sale ~ Jeff Thull Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks SpriteMe - a service to make image sprites Responsive Navigation: Optimizing for Touch Across Devices TryMyUI - Website Usability Testing A simple guide to responsive typography

Episode 42 - Hosting Your Own Developer Conference                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Tony Dewan stopped by the studio to talk to us about what it’s like to organize a conference. His re:build conference has had some of the top designers and developers in the industry come speak. He shares his tips, opinions and experience so that anyone interested in organizing their own conference can understand what is involved. re:build - A conference for developers & designers rebuildconf.com 2011.rebuildconf.com tagboard.com/rebuild2012 Show notes You live and die by your speakers! Choosing/finding/signing speakers Have an opinion and stick to it Picking/working with venues Clever ideas to limit costs sweat the details - badges, speakers needs, etc sponsorships are hard don’t do it alone understand your target audience - speakers, ticket price, sponsors it’s a labor of love - you won’t make much money Other awesome, inspirational events: Brooklyn Beta Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks FuelUX - A lightweight library that extends Twitter Bootstrap Manymo - A Better Android Emulator The Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adwords CSS3 Microsoft Modern Buttons Better TDD Workflow via Exclusive Tests in Jasmine and Mocha

Episode 41 - Creating Your First Typeface                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Abelardo Gonzalez joins us to discuss how he created his first typeface, open-dyslexic. His font is already getting strong traction among apps like Instapaper and large institutions. He talks about which apps he used along the way, how much he spent and what issues he ran into. Apps used started with app demos and fontforge fontforge requires more time than I had.  fontcreator was cool, cheap, but a little buggy. Messed up font smoothing. FontLab is expensive, buggy, slow iteration, didn’t look like they offered any help. switched to Glyphsapp better workflow. Nicer. Learning materials great source of info was Google’s submission requirements for web fonts exploring FontLab and reading the help file showed me things I should have been doing to maintain compatibility.  Playing with other fonts as examples Just doing it and figuring it out later. Glyphsapp probably has the best tutorials out there Adobe’s website http://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype.html I’m still not perfect. Fixing spacing issues and kerning. https://talentopoly.com/posts/5383-kerning_in_practice_beware_odd_letter_spacing https://talentopoly.com/posts/2843-kern_type_the_kerning_game Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks Understanding Postgres Performance Base 2 - A SQLite 3 GUI Announcing the First Beta Release of Persona Ego Driven Development GitHub Collaborative Coding Training

Episode 40 - Lessons Learned Building RailsThemes.com                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Anthony Panozzo sits in on this episode to discuss what he’s learned building RailsThemes.com. He shares his insights into why you should have a co-founder, what it’s like to build a startup as a part-time job and why you should start charging from day one. He also gets into some of the technical challenges of building gems and how he used Sprint.ly to do their project management. We finish the discussion by tackling the ever-important topic of how to stay motivated and maintain momentum. Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks How Vimeo Saves 50% on EC2 by Playing a Smarter Game Web Design is 95% Typography Tape - A collection of queue-related classes for Android and Java by Square VersionEye - Search Engine for Software Libraries prefixfree - Break free from CSS prefix hell

Episode 39 - How to Approach Front-end Development                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Melanie Archer joined us on this episode to enlighten us about how to approach front-end development. She breaks it down into easier steps and principles that anybody can follow to get a good front-end built in little time. She packs years worth of experience into her recommendations. This is a must listen! Note: There is some background white noise from Melanie’s mic, which we tried to minizmize. Show notes You’re an experienced backend developer suddenly given front-end tasks–where to start? Understand basic user interface principles;  "common concepts" of how user perceive the interface subconsciously. Consistency over “pretty.” Keep to standards users are accustomed to–familiar labels and placement of elements. Find help at the Yahoo! design pattern library: https://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/ or PatternTap: http://patterntap.com Learn the basics of information architecture. Read primers like The Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett (http://jjg.net/elements/) How to start building an interface from scratch How to start building an interface from Photoshop or designer’s comp The role of HTML/CSS frameworks like the HTM5 Boilerplate or Twitter Bootstrap How to organize CSS How to improve. One hint–look at prospective interview questions for front-end developers:  https://github.com/darcyclarke/Front-end-Developer-Interview-Questions#readme Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks Sticky Menus Are Quicker To Navigate Introducing: CSSValues.com Pagoda Box Is Easier Than Amazon Web Services, But More Customizable Than Heroku Bootsnipp - Gallery of free HTML snippets for Twitter Bootstrap

Episode 38 - How to Work in a Team                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Stephen Williams joins us to discuss his trials and tribulations working in software teams. We delve into what tools the team can utilize to communicate and coordinate efficiently. We talk about why you should be using tools like HipChat and Campfire if you’re not already. The episode also touches on important subjects like how to deal with technical disputes, if project managers are necessary, lazy team members and ways that you can put the team first. Show notes Dividing work within the team Tools you use to coordinate or communicate with the team (HipChat, Flowdock, Campfire, IRC, IM, Email) How to deal with a lazy or slacker team member How to handle a technical disagreement Personal philosophy for promoting team over self Know when you are overwhelmed Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks Under the hood: Rebuilding Facebook for iOS Bariol - Font - pick your price JavaScript Programming Patterns Is There a Landmine Hidden in Amazon’s Glacier? OpenHallway - Simple usability testing

Episode 37 - Scalable Marketing Techniques and Tactics                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 David Nevogt joins us to talk about his strategies as an Internet marketer. We discuss the importance of content and links in the eyes of search engines, building out a network of secondary sites and how to send “warm” traffic to your primary site. But most importantly David shares tips and techniques for scaling your content creation and link building strategies so that you don’t have to spend 10 hours a day working on this. Show notes Goals of what you are trying to do important to realize that with all of this stuff you are not trying to create content for your own site that is really going to convert user to your brand from a competitor or whatever. You ARE trying to get leads and send them to your converting site… you can do this through exact match domains (search traffic) a youtube channel an automated twitter account etc… The idea is to introduce people to your brand and your product - you want to have tentacles everywhere… Content Generation What you need long text unique content - 1000 words plus (this is what is ranking well now) short content for blog posts video images. How can I scale this? buying cheap (video and text)  text - spinning 85+ % unique - needs to be done very well in order to be effective.  start with a very good base and get good syntax - do individual word spins copyscape API or dupecop.com image flipping - imagur account and converthub - google sees as unique and gives credit fivver for video or odesk - or animoto api Links to promote the content and boost it linking to deep pages for safety set up this content deep into your site.  site.com/topic link to this page instead of your homepage - latest algorithm is page based this means if you are linking to homepage and you get penalized you are screwed - but if one page of your site (deep) - you are def not screwed. diversity is key diversity in anchor text not over 20% for any specific anchor text use branded phrases and generic diversity in the type of links you are obtaining social video high PR authority blog comments web 2.0 props edu properties scaling it odesk - most people on there dont know what they are doing and it ends up being a waste of time for linkbuilding have an exact blueprinted plan of what you expect them to do on a daily basis.  Should be able to get someone for about 4$ an hour that is good. linkvana.com does pretty much everything very fast multiple accounts that you manage Talentopoly links - Interesting links posted in the last two weeks jQuery 1.8 Released Bootswatch: Free themes for Twitter Bootstrap DMD Panorama Opens API To Power Panoramic Photos In Any App Github’s CSS Styleguide Things I didn’t know about the WebKit inspector

Episode 36 - How to Get Traction for Your Projects                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 We have a chat with James Paden from Compendium Blogware and Emailium to discuss how to drive traffic to new projects. Every developer at one point or another has fallen prey to the “if you build they will come” myth. What is it that we failed to do for our projects that didn’t get any traffic? That’s what we try to find out in this episode of the podcast. Learn about how to use conferences, Twitter, email, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and more to help your software businesses get traction. Profanity disclaimer: Brandon attempts to clean up his language, unsuccessfully. It’s a work in progress. So for the time being don’t listen to this podcast around sensitive ears. During this topic I want to better understand what it takes to get traction for a project. What are some of the common mistakes you made early on? Why is it not as simple as if you build they will come? What funnels do you setup? Where do you spend your time pre and post launch? What are some tricks you’ve used that worked well? Talentopoly Links - Interesting links posted in the last two weeks Understanding Backbone.js - Step by step from jQuery to Backbone kuler - Create a color scheme from an image Ninja power: open-source HTML5 toolset aims to enable richer Web apps I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why. Axutopia - A huge collection of UI widgets for mocking up anything

Episode 35 - How Developers Can Learn to Design                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Justin Belcher drank a beer with us on the podcast and talked about how developers can learn to design. Design can be intimidating and many developers feel like they aren’t capable of creating good looking sites or graphics. But in this episode we talk about how designers approach their field and how they go about their craft. We also shed some light on ways to get started and use some techniques and tools that designers use so you can get better. What constitutes design? (i.e. How are we defining design?) Design and its parallels with development Honing taste and a detailed eye Improving your output Is design an art or can I learn it scientifically? Can I develop an aesthetic sense? What’s the best way to start learning design? What programs should I learn first? How can I get better at choosing good color palettes? What tips do you have for first time designers to help improve their chances of making good designs? What sites do you use to learn more about design? Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks Software Inventory Test iPhone / iPad apps on Windows Stephen Hay presents Responsive Design Workflow Set Text on a Circle Moqups - Vectorial Mockups

Episode 34 - How Not to Hire a Developer                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Mikel Berger from Delmar Information Technologies joins us on the podcast to discuss how not to approach a developer. We discuss the various types of clients and how to handle them. You’ll be laughing out loud when you hear what we have to say becuase you have no doubt run into a few of these clients. The “I have an idea and if you write all the code and do everything I’ll split 50% of the revenue with you” guy The “do you know a good student” guy The “I’m sure this is simple for someone like you” guy The “we must use X technology” guy (where X is the totally wrong technology but his distant relative suggested it) The “the first version must every possible feature and scale for a million users” guy The “let’s not discuss my budget” guy The “you must sign my NDA before we talk” guy The “I need this 6 month project done in 2 months” guy The “you need to make my crappy software less crappy” guy Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks MVC is dead, it’s time to MOVE on. The Pastry Box Project TinyPNG – Compress PNG images while preserving alpha transparency 2012 — Node.js Knockout Action.IO

Episode 33 - Managing Yourself as a Freelancer                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Edward Rudd on the podcast to discuss how he manages himself as a freelancer. He goes over his experiences with time management, the pros and cons of being a freelancer and which tools are key. Tools such as Billings and OmniFocus are mentioned. Interestingly Ed and Brandon offer different strategies for getting your initial clients and how to track your tasks. Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks Google Chrome Speeds Up Fancy CSS Filter Effects Pocket’s Tips for Aspiring Android Developers: It’s Not Really Terrifying… BetaBait - Find Beta Users and Testers Why Do Some Programming Languages Live and Others Die? The Antivirus Era Is Over Benchmark.js Pictos 4 Released

Episode 32 - Bootstrapping a Business                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Aaron Lerch comes on to the podcast to discuss what he’s learned from bootstrapping businesses in his spare time. We talk about the legal factors you need to consider, how to file your business, keeping costs low and a lot more. Read about Aaron’s latest endeavor on his blog. Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks GitHub for Windows Released Kern and Burn | A Publication About Design Entrepreneurship The commuting coder - How to stay sharp on the go Building an iOS Photo-sharing and Geolocation Mobile Client and API Mobile Apps Must Die The Verdict Is In: Google Did Not Infringe On Oracle’s Patents

Episode 31 - How to Start Programming                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Brandon and I discuss learning how to program with Zach Silveira. Zach is 17 and started programming when he was 14. He has worked on about half a dozen projects and uses PHP primarily. He talks with us about why he started programming and what resources he uses to learn. Noteworthy links Grape - An opinionated micro-framework for building RESTful API apps on Ruby HTML9 Responsive Boilerstrap JS Linus Torvalds Invented Git, But He Pulls No Patches With GitHub Fixie: filler content for HTML documents Goodbye, CouchDB On why I am not buying RubyMotion Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

Episode 30 - Managing a software project                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Intro Welcome to Episode 30 of the Talentopoly Podcast. Managing a software project hosts Jared Brown Brandon Corbin guest David Christiansen Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion Podcast network Topic Pivotal Tracker UserVoice, ZenDesk, GetExceptional, Airbrake.io, Intercom, Mister Smith HipChat, Campfire, Basecamp, Grove.io (IRC) Google Docs Github Harvest, Billings Noteworthy links Delight.io - Record and replay your iOS app’s user sessions Mailchimp Email Blueprints Bootbox.js - alert, confirm and flexible dialogs for Twitter’s bootstrap framework Android Ported to C# by Xamarin Sketch - A vector graphics app with a beautiful interface Filepicker.io - A better file uploader crud-bones - Boilerplate template for Node.js projects The design of a signage typeface AWS Marketplace: Server Software for Amazon Web Services Firefox no longer displays favicons in address bar

Episode 29 - Bootstrapping Your Front-end                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Talentopoly Podcast - Ep 29 April 11th Intro Welcome to Episode 29 of the Talentopoly podcast. Bootstrapping Your Front-end hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion New look for post listings Discussion Twitter bootstrap Overview CDNs hosting it Zurb jQuery Icon fonts - Pictos http://designshack.net/articles/freebies/freeiconfonts/ Pattern sites http://subtlepatterns.com/ ThemeForest CloudFlare RailsThemes Wrapping Up Tease next episode Honestly don’t know yet Thanks for listening

Episode 28 - Scaling Your Backend                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Chris Z Questions: What were the challenges scaling Words with Friends? What makes working at scale fun? What makes InstrumentalApp scale? Is load testing worthwhile? Why avoid novel solutions? What is scaling by attrition? What are some good tools for forming evidence based decisions?

Episode 27 - Designing with the iPad                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes Talentopoly Podcast - Ep 27 March 14th Intro Welcome to Episode 27 of the Talentopoly podcast. Designing with your iPad hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Patrick Dow Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion Talk with Patrick Discussion New iPad just came out Lots of discussion around how to design for the iPad Let’s talk about designing with the iPad Review Photoshop Touch - $10 Layer editing is not up to par with desktop version Using your iPad as a secondary display with AirDisplay - $20 + $10 Preview mobile artwork easily Illustrate with a stylus Wacom tabletss support pressure sensitivity Turning this on in the iPad Discuss iPhoto for iPad - $5 Illustration / sketching Autodesk SketchBook Pro Adobe Ideas Styli Wacom Bamboo stylus - $30 Sketch Plus - $15 Cosmonaut - $25 iPen - $89 Great for precision hand writing Requires apps to use SDK Con - Drawing lag on iPad 5 Collaborative drawing apps Another sync app - SyncPad Mock ups / wireframing apps 5 apps for wireframing Adobe Proto Adobe Debut for iPad - $10 Recap Image editing Illustration / sketching Mock ups Present designs to clients Recommendations AirDisplay for mobile developers Collaborative drawing app - SyncSpace Wrapping Up Tease next episode Scaling your back end - Our next guest has scaled an iOS game that you have surely heard of and have probably even played. Thanks for listening

Episode 26 - JavaScript UI Widget Libraries                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Edward Rudd JS Widget Libs for Desktop and then Mobile Questions: What do people look for in each lib? How do you choose one over another? Desktop: Great for Intranet software, enterprise, engineering and scientific web apps Mobile: Progressive (mobile site) vs native-feeling app (typically wrapped in something like PhoneGap)? Actively developed or stale? JS Widget LibrariesLarge screenjQuery UIGrid coming to v2.1 Movement to clean up the API Lots of dev momentum lately Kendo UI by TelerikUses jQuery Recently out of beta Free for GPL Compatible open source projects $399 per developer (sounds like M$ style licensing.. inherited from the “.NET” background) Mention DataViz and Mobile Has custom theme builder for it’s widgets (not jquery UI’s builder) Doesn’t support IE6 Native UI on each device wijmoBased on jQuery UI (in fact, some of the team works on jQuery UI) Uses jQuery UI themes native has a cdn for access. Free version includes 18 OpenSource widgets Commercial versionIncludes 40+ widgets $299+ (per developer) (or $499 w/ support) Ext JSby SenchaMention Sencha Touch (free) $329 - one developer license (no support) MobilejQuery Mobile - jQuery70 kb http://codiqa.com/ (web GUI prototyping tool) Open source Broad device support Degrades Gracefully (progressive?) yes Has a theme builder (jQuery UI style) Kendo Mobile - TelerikNo pricing yet (in beta) Ready for PhoneGap Sencha Touch - SenchaHow is it diff from jQTouch?Much more programmatic to work with jQTouch is more web dev friendly Support for tables while jQTouch doesn’t http://9-bits.com/post/723711597/jqtouch-and-sencha-touch Free for non-OEMs Touch charts Looks like Android & iOS styling is a more manual thing to do jQTouch(problems with Android?) - SenchaWorks with Zepto or jQueryZepto is a minimal, jQuery syntax compatible lib SASS-based theming In beta Progressive Free ~20 kb Others to consider (both free, open source)JoNot easy to see which UI widgets it offers Looks to have less popularity GWT MobileFrom Google (but code is on GitHub) PhoneGap wrapper Great for pure client-side Java devs PhoneGap + XUI.jsOpen source Zirb Twitter Bootstrap Notes: Kendo UI Licensing. Kendo is dual-licensed under GPLv3/commercial license, jQuery UI is MIT/GPLv2. Support. Purchasing a Kendo commercial license entitles you to support (options here). Professional jQuery UI support is offered by appendTo and the filament group. Feature set. Kendo has some components that are missing in jQuery UI (Grid, Chart, TreeView, Upload, Templates, and soon - MVVM). You might need to stitch plug-ins by different authors if you want to use such functionality alongside jQuery UI. Roadmap. Kendo has a fixed release cycle (3 releases per year), with a fixed roadmap for the next release. The jQuery roadmap does not guarantee when the features will be included. Openness. You can browse the latest jQuery UI source at all times. With Kendo, you get only the source code for major releases when you don’t have a commercial license. If you purchase one, you get all the latest source code. http://jqueryuivskendoui.com/  Discuss comparison table Sencha Touch Aaron Weyenberg on Quora - “Sencha Touch takes much much longer to learn and become comfortable with, but it’s more robust. Sencha Touch documentation and examples, however, are quite unrefined in my opinion. There’s almost no MVC architecture support docs, so be prepared to do a lot of reverse engineering. jQuery Mobile can get you up and running in a day, but it’s not as feature rich, and seems not quite as smooth in terms of transitions and effects.” http://www.quora.com/Were-deciding-between-jQuery-Mobile-and-Sencha-Touch-What-are-the-pros-and-cons-for-each  James Pearce, Developer Relations @ Sencha Inc Of course it very much depends on the use-case, your skill set and your desired architecture. If you want an easy, declarative, markup-configured mobile site, then jQuery Mobile’s progressive enhancements is an obvious option. If you want a richer, more standalone (say, MVC) app, built using a  programmatic, RIA philosophy, then the Sencha Touch route would probably be better. It’s more likely that you’d take this approach if you were keen to wrap the app up in PhoneGap to deploy in an app store, for example. jQTouch Sencha touch is a little more complicated for those used to web design to use, in that it is almost a purely programmatic model (you don’t design pages in html, you programmatically add elements to a page). It does, however, have a much richer widget model and is a lot more fleshed out than jQTouch (it is also a lot bigger)… http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3446186/sencha-touch-vs-jqtouch  Recommendations DEPENDS ON THE USE CASE Desktop jQuery UI Mobile jQuery Mobile