September 1, 2009
GoFishn officially launched its alpha version today. After over a year of hard work on the team’s and my part, it’s satisfying to see a project reach this level of completion. There’s still lots to be done, and the next few months promise to be busy as we work towards the next launch.
Alpha invites will continue to trickle out during the coming days and weeks. If you want to keep up to date on our progress, be sure to follow the GoSportn blog.
August 13, 2009
For the past 12 weeks, I was a software engineering intern at Google on the Google Earth team. Spending 3 months in California was one of the most fun and interesting experiences I’ve had in a while, and I miss being out there.
The Googleplex
When I first arrived in California, I was greeted by nicer weather and friendlier strangers than I was accustomed to, coming from New York. It felt like I was on vacation. Moving into my Mountain View apartment and meeting up with Calvin Young, my roommate, was simple enough, and by Sunday evening, I was all ready to get started at Google.
My first day was filled with orientation, exploring Google, and meeting other interns and my host, Stefan Kuhne. It was a fun day, and by the end of it, I was absolutely psyched that I was actually at Google.
1950 Charleston Road, My Office
The rest of my first week was filled with learning the ropes and getting started on my project. It was kind of like the first week of classes during freshman year at RPI. You get a good amount of work done, but you end up spending a lot of time acquainting yourself with the campus, Google culture, and your fellow Googlers. It’s a great way to be introduced to a company as phenomenal as Google, and the Intern Team did a great job of making it happen.
My project, which helps broadcasters (CNN, NBC, ESPN) use Google Earth on their TV programs, was really cool and interesting. I learned a lot and got to work with Google Web Toolkit (GWT), AppEngine, and the Google Earth Plugin for the the fist time. However, I learned more than just how to work with new tools and models. I gained a lot of valuable experience in working with a team at a company like Google, where there are many different projects going on at the same time.
One of my favorite things at Google are the Tech Talks, where someone knowledgeable in a certain topic gives a presentation on the subject. The talks are a great way to learn more and meet people with similar interests. With so many Googlers, it was hard not to find a Tech Talk that piqued my interest, and it seemed like that at any given time, someone was giving a Tech Talk somewhere.
A stuffed pepper, veal, sausage-stuffed quail, and seared ahi tuna with a side of salad.
The food was true to its reputation of being amazing. With so many different meals being offered at the different cafes around campus, it was difficult to find something you didn’t like. I was lucky enough to get to try all the cafes on the Mountain View campus (it’s tougher than it sounds), and only a few were less than stellar (but still really good). If you’re ever invited to grab a meal at Google, I say accept and enjoy it.
On the weekends, when I wasn’t working for GoSportn, I got to travel around and see a bunch of California. I went into San Francisco plenty of times, saw the Warped Tour, went down to Monterrey, went up to Point Reyes, biked and hiked in the Santa Cruz mountains, and a had a great time. There are a few things I didn’t get around to doing, like Yosemite and paintball with the interns, but will definitely be on my list for next summer.
Near Pebble Beach on the 17 Mile Drive
Possibly the best part of the summer was when Larry Page signed my shirt on my last day, which was really cool of him. It was awesome things like that which made Google a great place to work at. Google is a very open company internally, something which is ingrained in the culture at Google. It is this openness which keeps the company innovative, and it is the reason why Google is as renowned as it is.
The people I met out there were great. I got to know a lot of cool people at Google, and got to hang out with interns from Facebook, Twitter, and TechCrunch. I even got around to meeting a few Y Combinator startups (go check out Graffiti Geo). It was a lot of fun, and another thing that was great about California and the Bay Area.
I miss Google. I miss California. Hopefully, I’ll be back next summer, but for now I have other things to focus on. Classes start in less than 3 weeks, and in that time, I have a ton of work to do for GoSportn. I’m looking forward to a great school year and another successful season with the RPI Ski & Snowboard Club.
I'm on a Boat!
PS- The complete set of my picture-a-day from California album is now available. Go check it out.
August 12, 2009
I just redesigned the site in order to do a few things:
Just looking at the site, you’ll wonder where all the HTML 5 is. All of it is under the hood. I’m taking advantage of the <header>, <nav>, <article>, and <footer> tags to improve the mark up on my site. In fact, by setting their display style to ‘block’ all of the elements render as expected, even in browsers that don’t officially support HTML 5.
As far as the CSS 3 usage goes, it’s just to improve the look of the site. The site is still viewable in older browsers or IE8, but will lack the shadows and rounded corners defined by the CSS 3 syntax. I think this is a good way to start phasing in CSS 3 on the web.
I have a few things that I want to post (including post-Google thoughts), and I’ll hopefully get to them this week.
July 19, 2009
About three weeks I caught wind of the Cliqset Developer Challenge on their email list. After brainstorming and digging around their API documentation, I came up with the idea for cliqDNA, a cool web app which gives you a perspective on how you use the web and how your habits compare with the Cliqset community.
If you’re not familiar with Cliqset, they’re a start up based in Jacksonville, Florida (home of the slightly jejune Jaguars). They have a good self-describing page, but essentially they provide users with a method to unify their identities across the myriad of sites out there and are building a fully read-write platform for developers. I joined the site back in March, when the launched their first beta. More recently, they launched their second beta and raised $1.5 million from an angel investor.
In addition to giving you insight on the services you use, cliqDNA also provides you with little snippets about the topics you like to talk about or the type of music you like to listen to. The more people that try cliqDNA, the richer the data becomes, giving everybody a chance to see what really are the most active services on the web.
So why not go ahead and give cliqDNA a try»
June 4, 2009
Recently, I’ve been working on a project involving custom Google Earth layers in my spare time. Using Earth, I mapped out the trails of Okemo Mountain’s Jackson Gore Peak. If you enable terrain and tilt the view, you can get some really cool perspectives of Okemo as you zoom around.
