ReidBurke

I've been busy in the last few weeks for good reason: I've been interviewing for a new job at Yahoo!. Today, it's official: I've accepted a position there working on technologies related to Yahoo! Open Strategy. While interviewing with Yahoo!, I met a lot of awesome people and can't want to start working with a few of them. I believe that it'll be quite an experience for me personally and professionally. I'll be working with a team that is making technology ...

I’m halfway through finals week at SIUC. As of right now, all that stands between me and vacation from school is a political science paper.

It’s been a busy semester and I’ll enjoy the break from academics. Instead, I’ll be working on nifty stuff at work among other (awesome) things.

I went on a vacation to Walt Disney World over Christmas. I took a lot of photos, especially of the Animal Kingdom and of my 3 year old sister Jessie. Check them out!

So I’m trying to study for my upcoming math course exams. I was recommended by my instructor to use MathXL, “an online homework, tutorial, and assessment system,” by Pearson Education. This web app sucks because I can’t even use the damn thing. The registration process used SSL and required a “strong” password (it complained about my first choice). However, the system then e-mails you that password back in plaintext!

After logging in and finally selecting my course, I am told that the system requires Internet Explorer’s ActiveX. Couldn’t the “I require Microsoft Windows, stop wasting your time” warning be shown before I went into all of this trouble?

I’m going to study math the old-fashioned way now.

Things have gotten quiet here again, but this time there is a reason. Earlier last month I was in a car accident that was severe enough to total my 2006 Scion xB. Thankfully, I walked away with only a broken finger. At the same time, I have been getting ready for starting college and keeping up my web development job along with my own projects. Ordering textbooks, switching classes, dealing with insurance, rental cars, finding another car, schedules that change ...

The second day I was in California, my friend Dav Glass gave me a tour of the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale. The appearance and general vibe I received while I was there took some getting used to: everyone seemed excited to be there. They had good reason to be: they have their own beach volleyball court, live music, restaurant, game room, and I'm just scratching the surface here. Here's a video of a "virtual tour" of Yahoo! if you're interested: The ...

Yesterday my mom and I started our vacation in California. The trip here was very long, taking several hours flying from St. Louis to Orange County and finally to San Jose. But after staying here for only 1 night, all of that was definitely worth it. First of all, the weather difference is night and day. Coming from Southern Illinois where high humidity is the norm, the climate here is great. We are staying at Hotel Valencia Santana Row, an upscale ...

Ever get the feeling that your cell phone is vibrating, but it really wasn’t? Hello, Phantom Vibration Syndrome.

I'm getting tons of these junk requests every day. I wish Facebook would provide a mechanism to "ignore future invitations" so I wouldn't have 5 new iLike invitations whenever I login. (Besides, I already use Last.fm.) Otherwise, my requests page is becoming just as bad as my MySpace. Other than annoyances such as this, Facebook's Platform is a great concept. I hope that Facebook further refines their Platform to accommodate for situations like this.

I have spent a week with my brand new black MacBook now, and it is amazing. I set it up on Thursday while I was at work. It was extremely simple to set up. I had a external USB hard drive containing a backup of my Mac mini. I just plugged in the drive and the first-run setup assistant asked if I was transferring from another Mac. I selected the "transfer from another partition" and my USB drive came right up. ...