How to hire front-end engineers

http://theonda.org/articles/2011/01/21/how-to-hire-front-end-engineers

Excerpt:

Chris Zacharias, a YouTube front-end developer, had a very thoughtful postaround the challenges of hiring front-end engineers. Despite having hired a lot of engineers during my career (as engineering manager, VP of engineering, founder, & CEO) and having honed a process for figuring out who was likely to work, the front-end (HTML, CSS, & Javascript) role has become the biggest challenge of the lot— especially after the 2004 "AJAX revolution" when the role became quite a bit meatier.

And it wasn't until Zacharias's piece that I realized that it's because I'd always used the wrong resume screening & interview approach. Because I've recently fielded a load of questions from entrepreneurs who also find this a hard role to recruit and hire for, here is a list of the "don'ts" that I had to learn the hard way.

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User Experience Resources for Front End Designers

http://www.thisisaaronslife.com/user-experience-resources-for-front-end-designers/

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Separating social circles on Facebook

http://www.piercom.com/Blog/Pierponters/March-2010/Keeping-your-Social-Media-Social-Circles-Separate.aspx

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eVite Alternatives

http://www.xmarks.com/site/www.anyvite.com/#s

Anyvite, anyone?

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Wufoo: Online Form Builder

http://wufoo.com/

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Parenting the Chinese Way: Is this real?

The Roar of the Tiger Mom http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2043313,00.html

Sent from Mobile

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interview: Google's Matias Duarte talks Honeycomb, tablets, and the future of Android

Check out: "Exclusive interview: Google's Matias Duarte talks Honeycomb, tablets, and the future of Android" - www.engadget.com http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/07/exclusive-interview-googles-matias-duarte-talks-honeycomb-tab/?icid=engadget-iphone-url

We're not going to lie -- we're pretty excited to bring this to you guys. Here at CES 2011 we had a chance to sit down with Matias Duarte, the man behind webOS (as well as the Sidekick and Helio UIs), who's now heading up Google's user experience for Android. Matias is currently driving the interface and design for Android 3.0 (AKA Honeycomb), and it's clear that he's bringing his big, bold ideas to the Android platform. This is the first video interview Matias has done since leaving Palm, and we pressed the man on his involvement in Gingerbread and Honeycomb, what had to be torn down in Android, how desktop OSs can inform mobile devices, and much, much more. Don't just take our word for it -- follow along after the break and watch the full interview!

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This article came from the Engadget iPhone App, which features everything from the latest smartphone news, to reviews and hands-on looks at laptops, HDTVs, gaming, and more. To learn more about the app or download it go here: http://www.engadget.com/downloads/iphone

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Smithsonian on "Genius of Design"

Documentary series on the Smithsonian Channel called "The Genius of Design". Each episode has its own topic and includes interviews from world famous designers - past and present as well as historical and future trends.  One was on a history of materials and talked about the design 'revolutions' caused by the Eames' brothers molded plywood, and impact of the invention of plastic.  Another was about sustainability and focused on cradle to cradle design. 

 

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/site/sn/show.do?series=784

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Sketching and Experience Design

Lecture by Bill Buxton for the Stanford University Human-Computer Interaction Seminar (CS 547). 

Designing for experience comes with a whole new level of complexity. This is especially true in this emerging world of information appliances, reactive environments, and ubiquitous computing, where, along with those of their users, we have to factor in the convoluted behaviors of the products themselves. 

In this talk, Bill discusses the design process itself, from the perspective of methods, organization, and composition.

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What is Design?

I thought this short film from the kids in university was hilarious:

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Top Trends for 2011

Snagged from the Holiday Wish e-card from Hot Pepper Studios:

Top Trends for 2011

1. Mobile Smartphones

According to Mary Meeker, who recently joined venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, sales of mobile smartphones will surpass that of laptop and desktop computers before the end of 2012. In a recent ABI poll, over 50% of smartphone users would shop using their mobile phone and 53% would do mobile banking. Firms that do not pay attention to the mobile market will likely regret their lack of action...visit the Verizon Wireless site on your smartphone for a dose of irony.

2. Tablet Computers

The Internet almost brought the publishing industry to its knees but now it may be on the verge of saving it. The iPad, Galaxy and maybe even the upcoming double screen Kno tablet seem to be perfect platforms for newspapers, magazines and books. Based upon the weight of an average middle school student's backpack, we'd predict that tablets will be a boon for textbook publishers as well. Check out Flipboard for a glimpse into the new world of publshing.

3. Design Rules

Since the dawn of personal computers, screen size and resolution have been big issues for designers. Today, a cheapo Dell Vostro ships with an 18.5" widescreen display and a MacBook laptop sports a dinky 13.3" display, but a smartphone may be lucky to have a 3.5" display. Great design and user interfaces are essential to making customers happy. Smart companies will reap big rewards for paying attention to the customer experience across these multiple platforms. Let's call 2010 the financial tipping point for user experience investment.

4. Convergence

For years, the practical realization of convergence limped along on a road to nowhere. According to Dan Rayburn of the global research firm Frost & Sulivan, the reason convergence has not taken off is due to the lack of a standard because companies will not work together. However, once Google TV and the recently revamped Apple TV ship significant units, this story will change, and 2010 is the year of change.

5. Augmented Reality

Juniper Research predicts that Augmented Reality (AR), where virtual or computer generated graphics or sounds are overlaid in real world environments, will take off in 2011, mostly on mobile smartphones, tablets or handheld multimedia devices. Some of our favorite examples are acrossair's New York City subway location locator and Word Lens, a magical app that Instantly translates printed words from one language to another. While much of the interest has been generated by AR's integration with shopping, we predict that AR-enabled applications will begin to take off on a large scale.

Infonugget “27 million Facebook users play Zynga's Texas Holdem game, about equal to the number of viewers who watch American Idol” —Mary Meeker, Internet Analyst, Morgan Stanley

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Peter Skillman on Nokia's Meego OS

http://mynokiablog.com/2010/09/19/nokias-new-hire-peter-skillman-talks/
An excerpt:

4 Must Haves

Peter casually mentioned that if you’re missing one of these you’re dead:

·         Delicious hardware

·         Cloud services

·         A rich user interface

·         Developer ecosystem

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