Lots of things have to happen behind the scenes until Codebits takes place. We've been working hard for some months now, but we thought we'd share some of the latest developments with you.

Food

Large quantities of pizza have been ordered; we're working on some alternatives to the pizza, but still can't make any promises. Do understand that we're providing all of this for free and that it always involves making a great deal of effort to make it happen.

Beverages

Large quantities of Red Bull (way more than last year, yes), enough Cola that could fill a swimming pool (including light Cola) and lots of other drinks such as water and coffee. There may be some surprises in the beverages department too.

Others

We also have people working on other things like chocolates and fruit (apples, pears, bananas, etc).

 

Another thing we're arranging for are microwaves. We know that some of the attendees like to bring something different with them and could probably make some use of a microwave to heat their food; hence, we're making them available.

 

Stay tuned for more news.

TMN and SAPO's SmartPhones team will be present at Codebits. They'll bring gadgets and knowledge to help you with your mobile projects.

Among the list of devices they'll be bringing are iPhones, Blackberries, HTC Magics, Samsung Galaxies, Nokias N97, Nokias 5800, Bluebelts, Silverbelts and probably a few more.

The teams will be available to showcase what they've done so far and share their experiences with you.

Some of these devices will also be available for groups to develop with (more details soon).

If you're interested in seeing what they've done so far, look for Cine SAPO, SAPO News, SAPO Kiosk and SAPO Mobile on the app store of your choice.

Today we went out shopping for some supplies.

 

 

Mitch is going to be at Codebits and thus we'll have a set of work benches for attendees to work with and learn from him.

 

8 working places will be available during the three days of the event, fully equipped with soldering irons with stands equiped with sponges, wire cutters and strippers, long nore pliers, desolder pumps, solder wick, hot glue guns, hot glue sticks, power strips, extension cords, table lamps and more.

 

There will also be more news regarding electronics and arduinos pretty soon. Stay tuned ;-)

We'd like to tell you a bit about the format and the rules of this year's 24 hour competition.

 

During the first day of Codebits a new functionality will show up on the website, allowing you to create your team and edit the description of your project.

 

Other users will then be able to join the team after the approval of its creator.

 

 

This will help attendees to create teams even if they don't know anyone at the event, and the listing of the project abstracts will help ensure we don't have a handful of projects that end up being the same thing (the rule of thumb is: before initiating a project, make sure no one else is doing it).

 

We have also finalized the first draft of the rules for the competition:

• Each person can only be part of one team;
• Each team can only present one project;
• Each team must comprise at least two elements;
• If you're presenting a web project, you must provide a URL for the jury to give it a try;
• Projects must be initiated and developed during Codebits.

These rules have been created to help ensure we'll have fewer but higher-quality projects on stage this year.

 

As a reminder, the fact that you're an attendee doesn't oblige you to create a team or present a project. And as a side note, if you're a speaker you can also enter the competition.

 

A few other satellite competitions will also take place during Codebits, each of which with its own set of rules, which means you'll be able to enter them with different groups.

If you want to attend and haven't managed to get selected, portuguese tech magazine Tek has five entries for you.

 

In order to get one of these entries all you have to do is head up to Tek and leave a comment about Codebits.

 

The five best comments received until 18:00 GMT of November the 20th will get an entry to Codebits.

 

Be creative! Have fun!

Twittlis is the monthly meeting of Twitter.com users in Lisbon.

 

It takes place on the first Wednesday of every month, which means that December's edition is going to happen right before Codebits, and so the organizers are inviting everyone who's in town for Codebits to join them the day before at Mar Adentro, a very nice lounge/café with free wi-fi.

 

They say "Twittlis (like Twitter) is completely informal and open - arrive at any time, leave at any time. Come meet in person the people who you follow or follow you on Twitter. It's also a great event to discover more about what people do with Twitter even if you're not a user (yet!)."

 

If you're coming to Codebits and wanna warm up the day before: Twittlis.

Hello everyone! 

The Special Codebits Challenge that will award a special guest access to our Codebits Speakers' dinner is now live!

 

 

 ..we will give you a special Quiz Challenge!

This time, we will give a very special prize to the first Codebits contestant to complete the quiz.

He will be a special guest from the Codebits organization to our speakers dinner! 

So, get ready!

As for our last quiz, congratulations to all your answers, especially the most creative ones.  

The last level of our Challenge #5 asked the contestant to write a Haiku poem. Pedro mg was the first contestant to get all the answers right and had this great poem: Code bits in winter; Ruby poets; Using vim.

From Diogo Ferreira we got Some brilliant people: The planning of a project; The winter roars outside.

haikus are easy; but sometimes they don't make sense. refrigerator. 

UPDATE: For the sake of clarity: yes, you can stay at the Codebits building during the nights; this information is provided because there's people who want to have a bed and such, during the night.

 

A number of attendees have asked us if there are any good hostels in Lisbon.

 

Well, The Guardian has recently claimed that the center of the hostels world is in fact Lisbon.

 

It seems there are plenty of them, reasonably cheap and with very good conditions that will make you wish you lived there and didn't have to go home by the end of your journey.

 

Here's three of them:

 

Lisbon Lounge Hostel

• Web Site: http://www.lisbonloungehostel.com/
• Online Booking: http://reservations.bookhostels.com/lisbonloungehostel.com/
• Address: Rua São Nicolau, 41, 1100-547, Lisboa
• Email address: info@lisbonloungehostel.com
• Phone reservations: (+351) 213 462 061

 

The Travellers House

• Web Site: http://web.mac.com/travellershouse/iWeb/Site/main.html
• Online Booking: http://reservations.bookhostels.com/travellershouse.com/
• Address: Rua Augusta, 89, 1st floor, 1100-048 Lisboa
• Email address: book@travellershouse.com
• Phone reservations: (+351) 210 115 922
• Skype: travellershouse

 

Goodnight Hostel

• Web Site: http://www.alfaiataria.org/goodnight/
• Address: Rua dos Correeiros 113, 2nd, 1100-163 Lisboa
• Email address: gnbookings@gmail.com
• Phone reservations: (+351) 213 430 139

 

If you're used to travel around the globe staying at hostels, you should know that these are not your average hostels. We're not talking about places built to make money, we're talking about places built by people who love to travel and like to find somewhere cozy to stay during their journeys.

 

If you're not used to hostels, you should know that while these places are very affordable when compared to hotels, they also usually have a much smaller number of rooms, so if you're going to book something you should probably do it soon.

 

There are several other hostels and similar places in Lisbon. Don't refrain yourselves from adding more information by comenting this post.

 

Hostelbookers is one of many websites that will allow you to search for hostels in Lisbon. Airbnb can also be useful if you're looking for renting an appartment for just a few days.

 

There has been great participation to our Codebits challenges this year!

 

 

To all you guys awaiting, the Codebits Challenge #5 is now online!

 

As a reminder, these challenges work as a qualification round for the SAPO Codebits Quiz show. Last year we had great fun, if you want to know how is it like, check the video.

 

The last codebits quiz had 18 valid answers. The winner is Cláudio Valente,  with an elega^H^H^H esoteric solution using Unicode to include more information per character. Cláudio  managed to get 461 strokes with the following solution:

 

 eval(eval('猽❫⁃⡖楦⡊ℽ湵汬噣汥慲眨䤩㭚⡗絫⁌⡖䨽湵汬㭉㵳整眨䌬㤩㭔㵣牥慴故汥浥湴⠢獣物灴∩㭔⹳牣㵵㭢潤礮慰灥湤䍨楬搨呗欠数木戬愬捖唽≨瑴瀺⼯獥牶楣敳⹳慰漮灴⽅假⽱∻甽唷䩓低㽍䘽戻䐽愻匽挪㘰㭚㵫⡖伽䨮煘煒敳畬琮䍈㭤㵏㡫⡦䄭ㄡ㵦⹎慭教䙗⤮浡瀨欨晁昮㑽⤻甽唷䉹䭷䩓低㽣䠴猽∫搷♳瑡牴䬽∫䐷♥湤䬽∫䐷⬲㌺㔹㨵㤦䵚㵫⡖伽䨮煂祋睘煂祋睒敳畬琻伽伦♏⹃䠻楦⡏噩昨⅏⹰潰噏㵛佝絨㵛崻伮景牅慣栨欨敖栽栮捯湣慴⡥⹐牯杲慭献偲潧牡浗⤻核欨敁儼㵓☦〽㵥穙䑗⤮獯牴⡫⡦ⱥ䅦種汯捡汥䍯浰慲攨敺圩⹭慰⡫⡥噯⡥⹃䠴㜠慴•⭥稷㨠∫攮呩瑬攷⠢⭑⼶〷楮畴敳⥜屮≗坽㭤嬰崦♌⡗㭌⡗㬧㭭㵻䄺∩筲整畲渠∬儺≥⹄畲慴楯渢ⱗ㨢⥽∬䠺≨慮湥氢Ⱬ㨢晵湣瑩潮∬䴺❪獯湔慧㵊∻✬∷∺✫∧ⱱ㨢䝥瑃桡湮敬䱩獴∬∴∺≓楧污∬眺≉湴敲癡氢ⱖ㨢⥻∬夺∮楮摥硏昨∬堺≒敳灯湳攮∬稺∮却慲瑔業攢ⱋ㨢䑡瑥∬∸∺∮晩汴敲⠢紻搽∢㭦潲⡸㴰㭸㱳⹬敮杴栻砫⬩筺㵳學崻爽浛穝㭤⬽牼籺絥癡氨搩'.toSource().replace(/\\u(..)/g,"\\x$1\\x"))+'')

 

As a runner-up we have Luis Neves with 553 strokes, no chinese character was damaged, though:

 

function epg(n,e,m){x=new XMLHttpRequest();x.open('GET','/services.sapo.pt/EPG/Search?q=Duration:[*+TO+'+(m*60)+']&wt=json&rows=99999');x.onreadystatechange=function(){if(x.readyState==4){r=JSON.parse(x.responseText);d=r.response.docs;h=[];k=0;for(i in d){u=d[i];w=u.StartTime;b=u.ChannelName;if((b.indexOf(n)>-1)){for(j in w){g={c:b,t:u.Title,d:u.Duration/60};g.s=w[j].replace(/T|Z/g,' ').trim();if(g.s.match('^'+e))h[k++]=g}}}h.sort(function(a,b){return(a.s<b.s?-1:1)});for(i in h){y=h[i];o(y.c+' at '+y.s+': '+y.t+'('+y.d+' minutes)\n')}}};x.send()}; 

 

Please use the comments in this post to discuss the solutions, as always we are open to discuss any detail or question.