justdrew

Well, it’s hard to believe it’s been a year already, but time for the third annual Barcamp Austin event.

Fun for geeks of all ages.

Come for the drinks, stay for the heady tech goodness.

Should be a good one again this year. Great job to all the energetic organizers and sponsors!

Firefox is now the most popular browser out there. If you use it, here’s how to max out your available viewing area.

In this post- find out how to max out your available space without losing quick access to critical browser functionality.

Here’s a Lifehacker article that goes into detail about how and what you can trim from your toolbars.

There are some settings tricks you may or may not have already discovered (such as moving your address and google search boxes into the topmost row, as well as modifying your userChrome.css to remove seldom-used buttons and even make back and next buttons show up or hide dynamically when unavailable (instead of greying out and taking up space).

If you’d like to try mine without monkeying around with the CSS yourself, you can drop this file into your Firefox directory as follows:

depending on your OS, it goes here:

Windows XP/2000

C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\chrome\
where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 8 characters.

Linux
~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/chrome/

Mac OS X
~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/chrome/

Ever since the first time I started coding with Javascript, I have been astounded at the amount of untapped technology that has been available on the web but utterly ignored. That is simply money left on the table. Not only in terms of unbilled consulting and development time, but in the lack of real value creation in the space.

For example, in 1996, I was challenged to build a computer component configurator for a local firm who had no back-end web infrastructure. I was delighted to realize that I could, even at that time, design and build a working web app run entirely in the front-end using JavaScript. Although it was admittedly inelegant, its shortcomings were due to my own ignorance of how to fully exploit the functionality I had stumbled over.

I was even able to obfuscate the code so that, even though it was sent to the browser, it would take a determined hacker a lot of time to reverse engineer my client’s proprietary software and their business rules.

Over the years, the emergence of things like Ajax and the phenom of social networks have flowered- the seeds of their technology have been germinating for what seems like a very long time. Most of the functionality expressed in today’s websites has been technologically possible since the mid 1990′s. Now that might seem like only yesterday to some of us, but in technology years, that’s an eon.

This article drives home the realization that collectively as web creatives, we’re not doing everything we can to truly push the innovation envelope.

Sadder still- from my perspective, there’s all kinds of things we could be doing to leverage the potential of existing technology- it’s not like we’re waiting around for ways to publish and distribute interaction across a wide network of people and computers in a way that was cutting edge science fiction only 15 years ago. We have so much of this functionality today!

We’ve been theoretically able to do things like show new content on a page without refresh for simple things like form validation and slick slideshow transitions for over a decade- but so few websites even do this well, or with a good (from the visitor’s perspective) reason.

In the end, innovation isn’t just something that’s cool or makes the client say “wow”. True innovation is giving your target audience something they really, really want or need- even though they didn’t realize they wanted or needed it before they saw it.

Tomorrow the first 1/2 day of my favorite conference begins. South by Southwest interactive is a major geekfest, true. But it is so much more than that.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re no stranger to the tech world and you probably know about the Interactive, techno-cousin of Austin’s famous SXSW music festival held each spring in our lovely awesome city.

I’m trying to get my rest before the exhausting but exhilarating 4.5 days. I will share links to the much more prolific bloggers who will share exhaustive details on just about everything that goes on there.

Me, I’ll be soaking in new ideas and inspiration while I meet new and interesting people- many of whom are looking for new opportunities or looking to hire excellent people. I love helping people out- and I love my job!

The addage that you’ve got to stay current on technology has never been truer. With technology growing exponentially (that’s such a cliche, but when the reality of that sets in, the jaw literally starts to drop) and going in new directions, it’s getting harder and harder to stay on top of it all- or even some of it.

Sure, you could surf and read about stuff all day long, but there is no substitute for getting out there into the community.

One of the most exciting things about the OpenSource movement- (okay, maybe second to readily accessible high quality, free software) is that the concept has been applied by many industrious and clever people all over the world not only to software and virtual, online communities- but to real flesh and wild hairstyle communities.

Maybe such a community is active in your town. If you are fortunate enough to live in Austin or a large city with a healthy mass of technical professionals there may be many such communities meeting near you.

Bar Camp is one such group with chapters in many cities around the world. People come together, share information by presenting and listening on many topics that affect and inform the technical community.

By technical, I don’t mean that everyone is a developer, hacker or geek (though many wear such badges with -sometimes too much- pride). There are artists, writers, entrepreneurs and other enthusiasts who simply enjoy being part of the latest technology wave… which this time includes a lot of socializing.

Check out BarCamp.org for an introduction to the community and get out there and meet these folks. You’ll be so glad you did. You’ll meet new friends, learn tons of new things (even if only that there’s a lot you didn’t know was out there) and build on your network of smart and creative people.

Sometimes the things we do only seem to be effective. Recognizing what does and doesn’t work is critical to success.

One of my colleagues, Linda, had the funniest story about technology and people’s perceptions of how things ‘should’ work.

She was working with an auto parts company in the Midwest. This happened during the labor-intensive and sometimes painful transition of repair shops going from paper-based to electronic systems.

Her job included everything from transitioning records from masses of index card files into an electronic database to stringing up cat-5 cable to network a handful of machines in the office and shop floor.

Between climbing up and down ladders and dragging cables through drop ceilings, she had pinched one of the cable ends into one of the partly-open file drawers to hold the wiring in place so she could reach it once she got to the top of the ladder. Just then, one of the shop guys walks past and notices the cable dangling from the cabinet on one end and running across to the office computers at the other.

“Is that how you get the information into the computers?”, he conjectured.

I absolutely love this story; not because I’m laughing at the guy’s ignorance of early data entry techniques and technology. It’s funny because it is reasonable for him to suspect that since information can travel along a cable, and information is held in the card catalog, 1980′s computer technology could vacuum up data simply by dropping a cord into a file cabinet.

Of course, most of us know that you can’t suck up data by waiving a network cable over some hard-copy, there are some critical (deftly avoids using the pun word “key” here) steps missing.

Still, many people have replaced the job-hunt myth of combing over the classified ads with the more modern myth that posting to the big job boards is all you need do to secure your career’s next step.

Obviously, that’s not enough to increase your odds of finding the right best job opportunities when you’re looking, nor is it the best way to find excellent candidates when you’re hiring.

Working with a professional recruiter (of course, as a recruiter you would say that) is one way to dramatically increase your odds of success and increase the quality of the opportunity and the candidates you see.

Read more articles here for details on just how it helps to work with a top recruiter and what exactly makes one recruiter better than another.