Recall when the iPhone was still a sparkle in Steve Jobs’ eye. Windows Mobile 6 was about to make a (tiny) splash. Placeshifting and Slingbox were the hot new consumer technologies at CES. Oh, what a simpler time it was—early 2007 shines strong. To ground our fading memories, let’s transition to a student at the University of Washington in Seattle who just got a second laptop and is trying to keep files in sync with the other one. A quick search of “sync files between computers” brought up an interesting and little-known product: Windows Live Sync. His dreams are answered: [Read More...]
So on a warm yet cloudy day in beautiful Manhattan, I find myself in a busy Burger King near Times Square writing a blog post. Yes, I’m on vacation and this is what I do. What brings me here though, arguably the best place to actually sit down and write something in all of Times Square, is a reflection of a conversation that I had but half hour an ago with non-other than Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern of ThisIsMyNext. We talked of tablets, touchscreens, smartphones, and the future of computing as a whole. On hand for this discussion was [Read More...]
Typically web technologies are split into two sides, front end and back end. Your back end code is being processed and executed on the server based on input from your front end code (see point #3 here for details on that how the data moves specifically). Front end and back end technologies were created at different times, however, and had different requirements and mindsets in place at their times of birth. Consequently, languages can differ significantly in syntax, feedback, resource usage, and ease of use. While many people take it upon themselves to master both sides of the web development [Read More...]
May 082011
For many moons I’ve been driven in the professional space by my love of front end web technologies. Undaunted by the frequent callings of “Nerd alert!” that come from my coworkers when I discover the latest CSS, HTML, or Javascript trickery, I am always watching and waiting for the next development in the world of the front end. I realized early on in my education that the comprehension and implementation of many aspects of computer science are beyond me and that if I wanted to succeed, I needed to buckle down and own something. I decided to own the visual [Read More...]
May 052011
So back in my youth I tried out this whole blogging thing with mixed results. The requisite “listeners” all enjoyed it, although being relatives, roommates, and ladyfriends, they all had incentive to veil their true opinions. The blog was kept alive by a motorcycle trip and a study-abroad, but soon thereafter quickly fell off of the todo list and into a ditch on the side of the road. It currently resides in Google’s ether and has actually done a decent job at generating AdSense dollars somehow. I digress. It’s now 2011, or as I like to call it: The Future. [Read More...]