Staring at a blank blog post is always a challenge I have a tendency not to post if I don’t have a major topic that I really want to dig into. What’s nice about Twitter is that basically anything is fair game to talk about, as you’re limited to 140 characters regardless of the topic. It’s a really fun way to keep people up to date with what’s going on, and I’m going to look at some Wordpress plugins to bring my tweets as they’re called onto the front page here at the ‘pod.

Happy twittering!

My first day is monday the 12th, and the prospect of settling back into a half-way normal work schedule is sounding great right about now. Lots of challenges to come, it’ll be nice to finally dig in!

After 2 weeks off, I hope I still remember how to code…

I’ve now arrived in Cupertino California, where I’m staying at temporary corporate housing while I search for a suitable apartment where I’ll make this move permanent. In addition to the ominous coverage of the tragic southern California wildfires, I’ve just been introduced to another natural phenomenon of this region:

Earthquakes.

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So Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is out, to generally positive reviews. Unfortunately, my Mac Pro is currently sitting in a box eagerly waiting to be shipped across the continent to its new home. Missing the launch night is no big deal for me, but the ETA on being reunited with my dual processor darling is November 10th through the 15th at the earliest. This means I’ll be sitting through 2 weeks of hearing how cool Leopard is before I have the chance of seeing it for myself.

Of course I’m worrying more about A) getting to California, B) finding a place to live, and C) finding a car, but I’m still kinda jealous that everybody gets to see what the new hotness is like before me.

Hi Crashnauts, how are you doing? I know it’s been a while since I last wrote, but trust that it’s for the best of reasons. In fact life has proved astonishingly vibrant for me the last few weeks, with the reason being none other than that I’ve interviewed and accepted a position as a Front-end Web Development Engineer at Apple Inc. in Cupertino California.

To say I’m excited is an understatement in the truest sense of the word. Apple is a company that has played a part in my life for almost as long as I can remember, they are an institution that has helped shape not only my personal and professional interests, but my perception of life in the digital age. Having the chance to immerse myself in the culture at Apple is a profound opportunity not solely because it’s Apple, but also because I’ll be working with technology for which I sustain great passion.

An incredible opportunity yes. An opportunity without sacrifice? Of course not.

Working for Apple in Cupertino means that I’ll shortly be on a plane bound for San Jose, with the remnants of my earthly belongings on a hot truck pointing west. Being so far from home will be a challenge both emotionally and logistically, but my fortunes extend far beyond simply getting a job at Apple. I’m also gifted with Family and Friends of the highest caliber: it’s with their help that I strike westward for the future.

Well. That got pretty serious at the end. We better have some lolcats to lighten things up.

I’ve been playing a lot of Halo 3.

Now when I need to comb my feeds for any mention of Halo 3, I can do so without straining my eyes to read through each and every entry!

Leave it to hacker community to introduce an entirely new interface convention to a closed consumer device that’s only a month old. A member over at cre.ations.net has done just that, by introducing a really impressive navigation scheme for the iPhone that looks like a blend of the OSX dock and the new “stacks” that will be coming with OS 10.5. As impressive an accomplishment as this is, it’s really only made necessary by the addition of other hacked applications and functionality adding to the total number of home-screen icons for the iPhone. What will be really interesting is over the devices life, how Apple will approach this problem if they start introducing their own additional applications, and if it will turn out similar to this hacked approach.

Had the chance to borrow a great book from a coworker recently, called “Ambient Findability“. It’s a great look at the way people find information in the modern world, with an emphasis on how the internet has changed findability, and how a constant connection to the web will further expand and change the way we retrieve information in the future.

As a developer, I always find it helpful to temper the skills we gain from technical manuals covering topics like javascript and css with books that examine not just how we can do things, but also why. A front-end web developer can be a master of DOM scripting, but if they ignore semantics or information architecture, they’re only getting half the job done.

So if you’re interested, take a look at Ambient Findability: you’ll learn what areas of your layout can be thought of as push vs. pull, as well as why those crazy colored lines on the floor of a library are so terribly helpful.

Every year in August a peculiar event occurs outside of Detroit Michigan. A heard of ancient automobiles take to the street to parade themselves up and down the thoroughfare that is Woodward Avenue. It’s a strange kind of carnival atmosphere that surrounds what’s called the “Woodward Avenue Dreamcruise”, as it’s not an official event per-se: one moment you’ll see cruisers showing off their pristine 57 Chevy, while the next you’ll see an unfortunate family driving a late 90s minivan who have simply gotten caught up in it all.

I was struck by the variety and detail that used to be put into the logo badges that were placed on cars from this era, and I decided to put together a quick photo set showing off some of the more impressive samples. Enjoy!