nathan jara

I was given a link to a crazy cool website by a family member today. The site is called WolframAlpha. It’s a search engine-ish website that allows you to type in any kind of calculation, measurement, geographical location etc and provides for you a plethora of information about that particular thing. It’s also smart enough to dissect your input if you type your query in particular terms or in question form and make educated estimates when your input could have several different matches. An introductory video is available to provide a look at the power of the website. And if you want it for your iPhone, don’t worry, “there’s an app for that.”

For a little more on the whole Facebook privacy issue, just came across this nifty chart created by Matt McKeon. He has provided and interesting look at how the privacy of information has changed over the past 5 years. The data speaks for itself.

Facebook is one of, if not THE most used social network on the world wide interweb. I can say that I’ve been a member of this online community for about five years. Facebook is a very cool online application and provides a great way to keep in touch with family, friends, and old acquaintances all over the world. Sharing photos, videos, and links also makes for a jolly good online time. Recently, however, the Facebook group has put into place some new changes to personal profiles that have caused some controversy.

These changes include adjustments to the way that Facebook shares your personal profile information with third parties. What the changes boil down to is that Facebook has decided that things such as your profile info, likes, interests, movies, music, and book choices should be public information, along with your profile picture, gender, and basic account info. The Facebook group has now made it mandatory that these personal likes and interests be linked to Facebook Pages which are accessible by anyone. Also, if you choose not to allow your interests to be linked to these Facebook Pages, you are not permitted to use this section of your profile at all. The feature is disabled. Additionally, Facebook has added a new “feature” called “instant personalization.” This new feature, which is turned on by default, opts you in to allow third party websites that you visit to gather data from your personal profile to enhance your experience on their website. The third party is allowed to use your information, friend list, etc. to tailor their website for your visit. Some of the websites Facebook has partnered with on this project are Pandora and Yelp.

Now, again, I really like Facebook. It’s a lot of fun to use and a great way to waste time when you should be doing something else, but I think Facebook has gone too far this time. Over the 5 years I’ve been using the application, Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team have made several changes to their privacy policies. I can remember whispers, chats, and blogs posts about the past changes, but none like this one. Facebook is clearly taking advantage of and banking on the laziness of its users who won’t pay attention to the fact that the site is using and sending their personal information around the internet more swiftly than James Bond can pick up every chick he meets. Obviously there’s one and only one reason for the social network to do such a sneaky thing: money, money, and more money. Ok, that was three reasons. By sharing profile info with third parties, Facebook can make big bucks on advertising. Websites and companies will most definitely shell out the cash for ads which can target the most specific audience they want. I mean, why wouldn’t the ad agencies inundate their exact target markets?

Needless to say, I’m not too excited about Facebook’s decision. It’s going to be interesting to see what Facebook’s response is to the latest gossip. Currently, I am still part of the 500 million strong social network, but these latest policy changes have me pondering. But then again, Facebook’s so much fun! But then again, geez, I guess I may really have to start reading those terms and conditions when I sign up for things and not just scroll down and click “I agree.” I dunno….dare I say it…..Tweet Tweet.

Well, I can officially say that I’ve been out west. With my trip to California finishing up yesterday morning, I can also say I really enjoyed visiting the hometown of the Governator. California is certainly a beautiful state. We had fantastic weather all weekend. Clear blue skies and bright California sun.

I really grew to like both San Francisco and the San Jose area. San Francisco is a very rich city culturally. Many different nationalities and cultures come together to form an eclectic mix. From the architecture and make up of the city, you can tell it has been molded by many different backgrounds. Walking through the city, you can see traditional church architecture, modern building structures, graffiti, and contemporary art. Another thing I found interesting, was the layout of the city itself. It’s structured in a very rigid grid pattern. Very different from Pittsburgh of course :) San Jose was great too; it felt very similar to San Francisco, but less city like. It was more town-ish. Both cities feel very new. Which makes sense, seeing as California is one of the youngest parts of the country.

Oh yeah, I did go to a conference while I was there :) The jQuery conference was a lot of fun. We learned about many new concepts and techniques being used in contemporary web development. Several heroes of the web development community were present, which lended to some great discussion and geeky humor :) The time spent was well worth it and I would definitely attend again. Especially if it’s in California.

I had a very good time at the first day of the conference yesterday. We sat in on a lot of great discussions and presentations. It’s been very cool to be a part of this jQuery, javascript, web development community. Taking in the whole experience is interesting to think about. Two years ago when I began doing web development full-time, even a year ago, I don’t think I would have said that I’d be attending, traveling, interested in, becoming an active member of a web development community such as jQuery.

Last night, after the day’s sessions, we were able to catch the end of the Penguins game by streaming the game on-line in the hotel room :) Needless to say, I was happy with the result. Then we drove into downtown San Jose to check out the local scene. We ate at a local Korean restaurant called Omogari. It was great! I’ve never had Korean food before. Very tasty :)  Afterward we walked around the downtown San Jose area. One of the main drags, called Santa Clara, has a bunch of clubs, restaurants, bars, shopping centers, stores, etc. We ended up at Gordon Biersch, a restaurant brewery. They had a sweet patio area outside for a nice drink and chat :)

Today’s conference sessions have been pretty good. I’m not getting quite as much out of today as yesterday, but there have been some very useful tidbits. We’ll be finishing up day two in about an hour and a half or so, then we’ll be heading up to San Francisco for a last party night out. Our flight leaves at around 11.30PM tonight. We’ll be flying to Millwaukee, Wisconson then back to Pittsburgh tomorrow morning.

I had a great day yesterday on my first California adventure. Our training day was very successful. I didn’t learn a ton of new things, but definitely solidified many of the things I’ve already learned about the jQuery javascript library. Training finished up right at 6PM and we decided to walk around for a bit. We couldn’t not visit the local American Eagle store along Market St :)  Then we took a drive out to the Golden Gate bridge. Wow. It was very impressive. We got there right at sunset and I was able to take a bunch of awesome shots. We could see Alcatraz island just off the shore too! Sean Connery wasn’t there though. After a chilly visit to the Golden Gate Bridge, we drove back to San Francisco and found a restaurant called Tropisueno. It was awesome. A really cool authentic Mexican restaurant. I had a chicken dish called Pollo Asado which was fantastic. Afterward, we took a stroll through the streets of San Francisco.

We’re at the jQuery conference this morning at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Research Center in Mountain View, California. We just enjoyed our complimentary continental breakfast along with Starbucks coffee. The conference will be beginning in a few minutes. I’m getting excited, haha. It’s very cool to be hear amongst our fellow web development nerds. I’m anxious to soak up the knowledge :)

I’m in San Francisco, California! Can’t believe it. My first time on the west coast.We left work at 430 yesterday to get out to Pittsburgh International. Traffic on the parkway was thrilling. Luckily we got through it somewhat  painlessly. We arrived at the airport at 6PM for our flight to leave just after 7PM. Going through security was just has fun as I remember almost two years ago when I flew to Europe. Take off your belt, watch, shoes, cell phone, laptop and put everthing in the bins as fast as you can. Walk through the scanner then take everything out of the bins and dress yourself again while not holding up the line as 30,000 people are coming throught the line behind you. Anyway we got through painlessly and I found a Subway and scarfed down a spicy italian on wheat. Our flight left right on time and we were on our way to sunny California! (“sunny California” is best pronounced with an Arnold Schwarzeneggar accent.)

The flight was pretty smooth. One funny thing that happened was when my friend was using his laptop with the pull down table in front of him. The three ladies in the seats in front of us were playing Yahtzee and every time the one shook up her dice, it shook the table and and laptop. Pretty funny.

We arrived in Los Angeles about twenty minutes early. And our connecting flight to San Jose was about 15 minutes late so we arrived in San Jose right at midnight last night. We picked up our rental car, a Nissan Altima hybrid, and drove about 20 minutes to our Hampton Inn hotel in Mountain View. A quick check-in and shower and I was out. :)

This morning we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and hopped on Route 101 towards San Francisco. Traffic wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, especially since we were travelling during rush hour. What a beautiful state. I saw some palm trees on the way, some what I now call San Franciscan houses, and rolling California hills.

We got into downtown San Francisco a little before 8AM, parked the car, and are now set up and waiting for our jQuery training day to begin! Everyone has laptops open and we are raring to go. I’m excited to see what I’ll learn. And excited to see San Francisco tonight :)

Recently, I have been given the privilege to take a trip to California. I’ll be flying to the San Jose area for this year’s jQuery conference held at the Microsoft Silicon Valley Research Center in Mountain View, California. Seeing as how I’ve never been west of, well, not too far west of good ‘ol PA ;) I’m very excited to be taking the high flying adventure to the Pacific coast. I’ll be traveling with three stooges, I mean, fellow web developers. I’m sure there will be plenty of ridiculous puns, dorky humor, laughter, and general sillyness which should only make the trip that much more enjoyable. Oh, and don’t forget all the knowledge and skills we’ll gain :) I’m hoping to find time to blog my trip throughout the weekend later this month. If you have any recommendations for places to see or eat or things to eat and see, please comment below!

This video of the newest Photoshop CS5 feature is absolutely insane. It’s so crazy, I almost have to question the validity of the video. The new feature is called “Content-Aware” deletion and fill. It allows you to roughly select parts of an image and totally remove them without having to do any additional touch up work. This feature ultimately takes the place of what would normally be hours of work. I know I won’t be shelling out the bucks for the new Creative Suite, but I’m sure for many designers, this feature alone would be worth it.

It’s been a busy past week or so. Between being on-call at work last week, preparing for a presentation this past Monday, Olympic-sized distractions, and a new member of the household, I haven’t had a chance to get back to the blogging world. I’m glad to get back to it tonight.

This past Monday was awesome. Two of my past professors from my college invited me to give a presentation to some of their current students concerning my job as a web developer. What a privilege and honor it was! I spoke to a web development class and a web design class. I concentrated most specifically on the amount of teamwork and collaboration with other groups and departments and the types of interactions that are involved in web work. I felt that I was really able to connect with the students. I didn’t catch anyone sleeping, so I must have been at least a little bit interesting :) Throughout my presentation I was able to spark some conversation and dialogue, which made it a lot of fun. The students asked some great questions, and it was very interesting to be on the “answering” side of these questions. Just a few years ago, I was on the “asking” side of the questions. The presentation was such a great experience in this way because I learned a bit more about how much I have matured and grown since graduating college. Thinking of the whole experience now as I write makes me realize how much I have been blessed to have the opportunities I have had to get me to this point. I hope that I was able to encourage the students I spoke with and provide them with some of the knowledge necessary for them to succeed in their pursuits.

I can’t believe the Olympics will be over after this weekend! The two weeks have gone by so fast. I’ve really enjoyed watching all the events and will miss being able to flip to an event just about any time of the day. Of course, with the Olympics over, a lot of my distractions will go by the wayside, which will probably be a good thing. Still, these games have been great. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the result of the men’s hockey tournament, along with curling, and the final speed skating and skiing events. Sometime I wish we didn’t have to wait so long in between Olympics, but I know that’s what makes them that much more, well, Olympic.

The latest and most likely biggest distraction over the past few days is the newest member of the house, Jack. He’s a young mutt my roommate picked up from the pound. He seems to be a beagle, husky, lab mix. So far he’s an awesome dude! Jack is very well behaved and is a ton of fun. He’s starting to settle into his new home and is proving to be quite the companion. He is quite the nosy fellow though. Jack insists on putting his nose into just about everything you do, literally. :) He’s still learning in a few of the discipline areas, but I’m not complaining and I don’t think he is either.