Building the University of Virginia web development community one passionate geek at a time.
The NYTimes recently had a short article about “The Google Way” in their Jobs section of the online magazine. Related by a Google employee (”A Googler”), the article starts: “GOOGLE engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally.” Is this something that could work here at UVa?
Microsoft is reportedly attempting to acquire Yahoo! (worth potentially $50 billion) to fend off the ever-growing Google leviathan. Though this potentially Upcoming deal may be a del.icio.us, peanut buttery morsel for Microsoft, I can’t help but wish that the Yahooligans would Answer the Balmer gang by Flickr-ing them back to Redmond and get back to nurturing the Web 2.0 Developer Pipes. (sorry, I couldn’t resist)
TechCrunch reports on a precautionary tale of what happens when vital files and databases aren’t backed up. The popular web service CouchSurfing lost all its database files last week due to a “perfect storm” of errors and essentially put itself out of business.
Following the report, there was renewed activity on the CouchSurfing site and it appears that there may yet be a happy ending for their 90,000+ users. CouchSurfing announced that it’s reviving its attempts to save the databases and start a version 2 of their web service. Still, they’ve probably lost a big chunk of change in the process, not to mention customer confidence. The moral of the story: backup (and verify), or else.
Microsoft “celebs” have been making quite a bit of news in recent days. First, Mini called it quits (sorta), then Scoble decided to move on, and now the Big Kahuna is stepping aside as well. Wow.
In case you haven’t already heard, Bill Gates announced late yesterday that he is relinquishing his day-to-day duties at Microsoft to focus on his philanthropic organization. The full transition will take place over the next two years, but, effective immediately, Ray Ozzie will take the helm as chief software architect. Good move. Ray Ozzie is one of us and seems particularly tuned-in to the current nature of the web as well as its potential. Now, what about this Steve Ballmer guy?
Yahoo! snapped up del.icio.us this past Friday, adding yet another Web 2.0 icon to its portfolio. It will be interesting to see how Yahoo integrates not only the applications of del.icio.us and Flickr but their impassioned folksonomy communities as well.
Macromedia’s Web site now sports the new owner’s logo (Adobe—in case you’ve been stranded on a deserted island for the past 9 months) and a slightly revised look. I’m not impressed. They basically flipped the background gradient 180° and outlined the previously smooth graphic elements with a 1 pixel black border. And I hope the opening page Flash animation is not an ominous sign of things to come: a bunch of 30-something white people mostly hanging out in trendy office environments. The look is more befitting the pompous, big studio Adobe image than the more casual Macromedia image. But enough of the rants.
So long Macromedia and thanks for the ride. Thank you for pushing the envelope with products that have made our work significantly easier and better. Heck, without Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash, ColdFusion, etc., I dare say a lot of us wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing today.
On a side note, did you happen to notice the new Adobe Web Bundle? Throw everything from Adobe and Macromedia’s Web portfolio into a box, charge almost $2K, and you’ve got it. I thought the idea of product bundling was to make tools affordable (I haven’t seen the student pricing yet). Will there be financing plans to pay for this beast? If this is the sign of things to come from Adobe, expect a massive shift to alternatives like OSS and, gulp, Microsoft. Adobe is killing their golden goose.
The UVa chapter of the Association of Computer Machinery will be hosting representatives from Google tomorrow evening in Olsson Hall (specifics: Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 7pm in Olsson 120). ACM Chair Louse Montgomery extends an open invitation to the beTech faithful to attend this event and/or apply for local chapter membership. Get more information about ACM and this event at their site.
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