When I joined Yahoo! this past month, and was given the option of having a Mac or a PC, I opted for a Mac. Sweet mother of mercy, was I ever in the wrong camp! For the past 20 years I was an avid PC user, having started way back in the days of DOS and then from Windows 3.1 all the way up to Vista. Yet it took only about two days of using OSX on a MacBook Pro to completely blow me away. It wasn’t so much the sleek look of the product that did it, though it did sweeten the deal. No, what did it for me was the realization of what a well-rounded product I was working with. From the power of the FreeBSD based OS to the incredible amount of attention to detail given to the user interface, I knew I’d found something truly unique. I finally understood what the source of all the Mac Zealotry and fanboyism was.

A few things that stood out to me right away were the completely unassuming trackpad that allows you to do so much with so little. Like the two-finger scroll, the three-finger navigation & the two-finger tap which brings up the context menu; it’s so useful yet so elegantly implemented. Then there’s the backlit keyboard that detects the room’s ambient light level and lights up the keys when needed. Compared to my old ThinkPad’s manually activated ThinkLight, it was like trading in a Lada for a Porsche. Finally, and this is something I can’t stop marveling at because it’s so simple, but the fact that I no longer need to contort my hand in order to hit Ctrl+ keys and can instead hit Cmd+ with my thumb makes life so much less painful; and it’s so much more natural!

The bottom line with Apple is this: though they are seen as a tyrannically run company, it’s actually an advantage. There’s definitely something to be said for controlling the design of both hardware and software–particularly when you’re good at it, which Apple is. In the end, it allows for a much more well-rounded product. What’s more, Apple did something smart when they switched to a FreeBSD based operating system; they outsourced what they weren’t necessarily strong at, and played up their strength: an eye for aesthetics & usability. As a result, their product is a unique blend of the power of FreeBSD and the beauty of Apple’s design Kung Fu.★

What I didn’t mention in the blog post is that so far, this week has been close to surreal. Forget that I’ve been on the Yahoo! HQ campus as a fully carded yahoo for three days. That itself is pinch-me worthy. But it’s been fanboy heaven. I’ve met Tom Croucher, Isaac Schlueter, Adam Moore, Matt Sweeney, Lucas Smith, Stoyan Stefanov, Satyen Desai, Philip Tellis and I shook Doug Crockford’s hand! Yes, I’m a shameless fanboy, and I don’t care! :-)★

The last event of the day was a “show and tell” where people showed what they’d built using YUI. Philip Tellis showed off his YUI port of the Flot graphing library which got me thinking of a little utility I’d written a while back. When I was writing the animation chapter of the YUI section of Professional JavaScript Frameworks, I needed a way to accurately display what the animation easing methods looked like. So I wrote a little utility that basically drew a chart and passed some linear data through a selected YUI easing method, then plotted the points. Voila! Instant accurate representation!★

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Republican or Democrat, fan or foe I challenge you not listen with rapt attention as Keith dissects the issue of health care reform in his trademark lucidity. Rather than rail on the “lunatic fringe,” Keith reserves his venom for the true villains in this story, the insurance companies. Not only is his logic impeccable, his monologue carries the added weight of personal experience. Keith recently buried his mother and his father just navigated the U.S. health care system. Yet rather than the ranting voice of the unfortunate seeking justice, his is the perspective of someone who is more than able to pay for health care and yet is appalled at how incredibly broken the system is. Keith challenges his listeners to action. He lays out with pristine clarity why and how the system is broken and then calls his fellow Americans to act. If you’re American, alive and a human being, you need to listen to what he has to say.

Get the transcript here.★

I failed both written and practical driving tests once each. I once picked up two stranded members of a band whose car broke down on the side of the highway, and drove them an hour out of town to get them to their show. I’ve driven at 160KPH (100MPH). I’ve had a plane full of passengers wait for me, twice. I’ve been in a highway patrol car (in the passenger seat) while it pulled a car over, the name on driver’s license was Phil Collins. I once drove 100KPH on the service road at night because the highway was closed off. I was pulled over by what seemed like 5 cop cars (some unmarked) when I blew a red light. I was let off with a minor speeding ticket. I can drive stick. I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel, literally. I’ve thrown dirty socks out of a car window. I’ve been on a non-stop road trip from Toronto to Texas via Chicago in a van without air conditioning, during a heat wave just to catch a 14 hour bus ride to Guadalajara Mexico. They tell me the bus was boarded by machine gun wielding militia. I can’t confirm it, I was asleep.

I once was separated from my friends by a freight train, so I jumped onto it and then jumped off on the other side, while it was still moving. Yes, it hurt. One hot summer night, when everyone else was asleep, two friends our bikes and I went pool hopping. The pools were closed, we and our bikes were nonetheless refreshed.  I’ve taken Ninjitsu. I was able to do back flips, but only for a day. I was known to perform flawless diving rolls over park fences and other inanimate objects. Both high school fist fights I was in ended up in friendships. I’ve dozed off in the dentist’s chair, while he was drilling. I’ve intervened for a woman being harassed by a drunk boyfriend. Twice I’ve had to speak for children being ignored by their parents at the park, on the same day. I’ve dislocated my shoulder while rollerblading, playing basketball, slipping on ice and falling down stairs, in a mosh pit, sliding down a slide, drying my hair, while driving and just stretching. I have three screws in my right shoulder. I still have all of my wisdom teeth. I once sliced through four layers of clothing and my shin with my own ski, got stitched up, and continued skiing for the rest of the day. I’ve signed my organ donor card. I have, in the past, bleached my hair blond. I dislocated a finger while wrestling with a friend, the doctor told me, “no brain, no pain” as he set it. The jerk.

For a time, I knew Kevin Young. I shook Bill Maher’s hand at an after party, but he was so stoned I doubt he’d remember. I’ve sat and had conversations with pan handlers, very interesting people. I’ve met at least one African prince. A businessman from Cameroon gave me a bracelet as a gift, which I subsequently lost. I have the first season box set of 24 autographed by Elisha Cuthbert, I’ve never met her. Andy Budd ditched me in a bar, after I bought him a drink.

When I was a teenager, after the first dusting of snow of only a half centimeter, I dressed up in a full snow suit. The doorbell rang and I answered to find my elementry school crush dropping my sister off. In humiliation I ran and jumped into the half centimeter of snow. That was my second most humiliating episode, don’t ask me about the first. Ever.

I once memorized and performed a lengthy dialogue as a monologue, switching parts as I went. I’ve been a Roman soldier in an Easter play. I’ve sung in a choir. I was the fiddler in my High School production of Fiddler on the Roof, I faked playing the fiddle the whole time. I can perform David Blaine’s levitation trick, anywhere. I can put lit matches into my mouth. I can make coins appear from children’s ears. It once took me several years to get a joke, I still remember the exact moment I got it. I’m a twice published author. Thrice if you count that scam poetry anthology. I’ve  been known to spontaneously write storylines for illustrations. I can draw. I once won a BMX bike in a city-wide drawing competition. I’m an amateur photographer. I’ve DJed a grade 6 graduation party. I’ve been in a band, yet never played a live show. I compose music. I once froze up during a High School play audition for which I had practiced extensively. The director asked me to sing Happy Birthday instead. The jerk.

I had an email address before it was popular. I shut down my MySpace account before it became popular to have one. I’ve contributed to Wikipedia. I ran my own Bulletin Board System in the mid 90’s. In my High School computer class, rather than write a simple shape drawing program like the assignment, I wrote one with advanced controls allowing you to save the resulting drawing to disk. The class used it to create graphics for their next assignment. I won the “Computer Proficiency” award in High School. I was the Canadian distributor for a European demo group back when the Internet was a dream and contact with Europe meant long distance charges. I’ve made friends on IRC and invited them to stay at my house, before the birth of “social media.” I launched my first website in 1997. I’m in Wikipedia.

I once stayed up all night watching movies in a video store. I saw The Matrix in theater 11 times. I watched The Princess Bride so often that I was able to recite the entire movie from memory for the entertainment of my fellow Scouts at camp. I was into Doctor Who before it was cool. Tom Baker is my doctor. I’ve read all of Tom Clancy’s novels (the ones he wrote, not the ones with his name on them). I’ve read all five books of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy.  I watched the first five seasons of Lost in two and a half weeks. Though I haven’t read it from cover to cover, I’m fairly certain I’ve read the entire Bible more than once. I own the first and only season of Firefly. Whenever possible, I pay for my music. I regularly purchase musical scores for movies, sometimes before the movie comes out in theaters. I’ve been to a Yanni concert. I have a Simpsons script, no you may not have it.

I’ve washed cars professionally and for charity. I’ve cut hair for friends and family. I was a dishwasher for 11 months. I test games. Once, when I lost my job, I took a walk over to my friend’s computer business to find he needed someone to take over while he was on honeymoon. I took the job. I’ve unknowingly interviewed for a job at a domain squatter. I literally felt nauseated when I found out. I asked them to burn my resume. I was a telemarketer for a day. Never again. I’ve felt the cold lonely grip of the sunless morning while delivering newspapers. I’ve thrice snuck out of the country for job interviews while still employed. I’ve had to pass on job opportunities with Yahoo, Netflix, Apple and Amazon because I wasn’t able to move.

I’m a glutton for facts. I regularly use Google to verify references. It makes me appear to know more than I actually do. I know that most of the forwards you get in your inbox are hoaxes. I know where the real Area 51 is. I know that most people mistakenly refer to CIA Officers as CIA Agents, when they both mean something distinctly different. I know that ants do in fact sleep, man did land on the moon, and the NSA listens to all of your communications. I hate it when documentaries get facts wrong.

I’ve eaten cow tongue, sheep brains and fish eye. I prefer to use chop sticks when eating oriental food. I’ve snorted Jell-O. I’ve made Thanks Giving dinner, more than once. I’ve driven to Cornwall just for a Slurpee. I can drink coffee and fall asleep immediately afterwards. I dream vividly every night. I’ve been to a rave and only had Red Bull. I was once wrongly accused of exposing my gluteus maximus out the back window of the school bus and had to write, “I will not expose my gluteus maximus out the back window of the bus,” a thousand times. I had never exposed anything. I learned how to tie a standard shoelace knot when I was 16. Prior to that, I would tie a two loop shoelace knot. I’ve been to a silent auction and didn’t place a bid. I acknowledge pan handlers, even if I don’t have any change to give. I’ve tried buttering my hair as a remedy for bedhead, it hardly worked and it took several washings to get rid of the smell. I have skinny dipped, twice. Three times if you count the snow. I’ve emceed a demo competition. I once got a tattoo of a Christogram on a whim and only researched it afterwards, I was happy with what I found. I failed the seventh grade. I’ve been to summer school more than once. In summer school a kid who reminded me of a friend in high school jokingly tried to stab me with a knife, luckily he didn’t succeed. I failed high school physics badly only to pass it with flying colours in summer school. The high school teacher had a reputation for failing most of his class and for using a University text book. I dropped out of college. I later took one college course in design. I enrolled in Theology at Concordia University as a stepping stone into the Computer Science program, but I never took any Theology courses. I dropped out after a couple of semesters. I later took several University courses as an independent student. For years I was a volunteer at a youth drop-in center. I’ve preached. I can read, write and speak English, French and Armenian. I can usually pick out and even identify different languages by sound or by sight. After having spent two weeks in Mexico I was able to communicate in Spanish. I graduated from Bible college with a double major in music and children’s ministry. I once saved my entire class’ life by pointing out that the muffin pan was covered with oven cleaner, not PAM. I missed the Montreal ice storm of 1998. My name is in the Bible.★

You can listen to it in the player embedded below, or download the mp3, or if you’re really brave, check out the source file.

Anyway, it’s late and I don’t have much more to say except, I hope you enjoy it and that your feedback, as always, is much appreciated.★

So without further ado, here’s the first track that I’ve put togheter in about eight years. Please remember that this isn’t a final cut, nor is it anywhere near being complete, but I wanted to get it out there as soon as I could. (You may notice a 70’s Europop sound with a Russian sounding melody, it’s deliberate.)★

The reason for this is because spammers use new accounts as throwaways from which to crawl name lists and @reply to people with links to their crap. Now, there’s a possible problem with this that my friend Sarven brought up: what if your friend joins Twitter and you want to see their @replies? Well, you could have a mechanism where a ‘trusted’ or proven account could vouch for a new one, or people could opt-in to @replies from a given account.

I know, it sucks, but we can all thank spammer scum for having to implement countermeasures to their crap.★

Basically the idea behind Twitterface is to use Twitter as an interface for your web app. So whenever a user of your service or app interacts with you through Twitter, they’re automatically advertising for you to all of their followers. Check out the presentation for more details.

So without further ado:

Update: The SlideShare editorial team just sent me an email saying that Twitterface was chosen to be listed on their homepage!★

Cleaner URL

What you may have noticed if you read that post is the not-so-pretty URL that Pipes generates. I mean don’t get me wrong, Pipes is great but wouldn’t it be great to have a URL that looked like this,

http://pipes.yahoo.com/feeds/myImaginaryFeed

instead of this?

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=05ed54b00bf80cc43160ee19d6b18e02&_render=rss

Well, you’re in luck because running a feed through FeedBurner will give you a nice URL like this,

http://feeds.feedburner.com/myImaginaryFeed

Usage Stats

But wait, there’s more!  (Sorry, I couldn’t help it.) FeedBurner’s main purpose as a service isn’t really to give you cleaner URLs, it’s to “analyze, optimize, publicize,” and “monetize” your feed. One of the great things about using FeedBurner is that any usage of a feed gets logged giving you usage stats, something darn near impossible otherwise. (Unless of course you’re a server-side code ninja and love writing code for this sort of thing, but then you’re not the target audience for this post anyway so go code something already will ya?)

Abstraction

Finally, using FeedBurner gives you the added advantage of being able to provide a URL for your feed that never changes. Since your actual feed is plugged into FeedBurner and you’re providing your readers with the URL created by the service rather than your own, you can easily change your source feed URL without losing any readers. They’ll always be plugged into your FeedBurner feed no matter what the source is. Instant feed URL abstraction!★