Technology
18 posts

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When I’m feeling good about my job, I tell people I solve problems for a living. On the bad days, I tell people I type for a living. The reality is somewhere in between; I google for a living.

There’s a lot of conversation about diversity in the tech industry and I’m glad we’re having those conversations. There’s an uprising in awareness of the gender and minority pay gap, which is great. The first step to change is acknowledging there is a problem.  Continue...

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I've heard you groan when you were prompted to download Xcode. We all do it. It's a 12.88GB monster of an application that brings even my "this-should-be-powerful-enough-to-create-a-small-planet" Macbook to its knees. But you REALLY want to test your website in the iOS simulator and get a more "virtually realistic" experience than just the chrome dev tools.

It's possible. Continue...

I've implemented a google-like "Feeling lucky!" on this blog's pagination. At current date, there are 21 total pages of entries. It's a toss of the dice whether or not any of them are actually worth reading, so I thought to make the gamble easier, I'd provide a random number to automatically populate the url for you. Here's the code:

{% set randomPage = random(pageInfo.totalPages) %}
<a href="pageInfo.getPageUrl( randomPage )">Feeling Lucky! Take me to a Random Page</a>

Stupidly simple way to make sure empty p tags from WYSIWYG don't muck up space:

p:empty { display: none; }

Go Check It Out!

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Today I am giving a talk about women in technology. This is something I’ve been preparing for since I first learnt Basic at age 13 on a Commodore 64. I’ve had several amazing men encourage me in this field and even in the age of feminism and women’s rights, there is still a lot of speculation and discussion around women equality in technical and scientific fields.

As one of only two women in my Graduate program at Western Oregon where I studied computer science, the idea that more women weren’t in the undergrad or graduate program boggled me. At the same time, however, I struggled with things like Java and building Server Sockets until I would vision jamming a knife under my large toenail as more enjoyable. Continue...

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It wasn’t what they were expecting. I called it the Oatmeal Raisin Cookie talk. I baked in a discussion about gender equality within the title “Creative Development.” I think someone in the second row rolled their eyes.

It was probably the 8th or 9th time I’ve been on stage. It’s always so hard to begin the speech you’ve been feverishly obsessing over. The last nine months, since Low asked if I’d speak, were filled of notebooks and research and outlines and more outlines. I was a proper freak stopping a TED talk or an audiobook to jot down a point I wanted to expand on or integrate in my talk. I spent more than a few meetings scribbling notes to myself in Evernote, only partially related to the meeting topic but relevant to a future conversation I would have with myself first, and an audience second. Continue...

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In an inadequate attempt to capture the spirit of a few hundred geeky women sharing advice, knowledge, code snippets, work ideas, and life discussions, I can summarize as best as I can.

In a word: Support. Continue...

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I’m used to being yelled at. “Point! Point your toes!”
“Drop now!”
“You’re overextended, bring it back, good, good, POP! MORE! Nice!”

These are words I heard coming from the side of four apparatuses growing up. I can still, to this day, call muscle memory from years and hours in the gym. I can answer, almost turrets like, questions about gymnastics. Continue...

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They always say not to have any regrets in life. Thing is? It’s hard to avoid.

There’s that time you thought the tattoo of Winnie the poo was going to be a good idea wen you were 16. There’s the night you got so drunk you told off the barmaid who happened to be your boyfriend’s sister’s ex-lover and a former heavy weight boxer. (Consolation: your black eye looked a bit like an Eeyore so you claimed a “pooh” theme.) Continue...

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Bird by Bird - A business plan

“Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. It was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds,  immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy.  Just take it bird by bird.’ -Anne Lamott

I’m overwhelmed to a ridiculous state. Somewhere along the path of amazing, whilst traveling and producing and speaking, my cart became full of expectations, deadlines and impossibility.

“If you say no too often, Leslie, they won’t ask you back to babysit. Be careful when you turn down a job opportunity.” -Oma Flinger

Continue...