Reid Burke

  • I’m Joining Yahoo!

    Yahoo!, Inc. Campus

    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 wait 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 like SearchMonkey happen on a enormous scale spanning all of Yahoo!’s properties.

    This means that I’ll be leaving SchoolCenter as a senior programmer in the next couple of weeks. I have spent over 4 years here and learned a tremendous amount from the very talented coworkers I’ve had. I will certainly miss all of them. It also means that I’ll be relocating to the San Francisco Bay area next month. That’s going to be a lot of work: I have to change my car’s registration, get new insurance, get more furniture, schedule the move and find a new place out there. Nevertheless, it will definitely be worth the effort.

    Expect to hear more during my transition, until then, yahoo! ๐Ÿ™‚

  • YUI: ScrollTabView Makes Tabbed Views Even Better

    I’ve recently been tinkering with the excellent Yahoo! UI Library. My first contribution to the community is ScrollTabView, an extension of TabView that uses a scrolling animation to switch between tabs. (Just check out the examples.)

    My inspiration was Panic’s Coda site as well as a few others. Now it’s easy to create a similar effect on your site using YUI.

    Check out my new YUI addons page to grab the code and view more examples!

    Update: I’ve been featured on the official YUI Blog!

    Update 2 (May 27): I’ve been featured on Ajaxian!

  • Y! Live

    Continuing with recent Yahoo news, the just-launched Y! Live is a new webcasting community similar to justin.tv or Stickam. Both Y! Live and Stickam allow you to take part in sharing video as a visitor in a broadcaster’s channel, while justin.tv does not. However, I believe Y! Live’s experience is better than any of those competitors. The Y! Live developer API allows you to go beyond search like justin.tv– you can actually mashup video streams. (Stickam doesn’t even have an API.) The site is billed as a “experimental release” so it’ll be interesting to see how Y! Live will evolve. More on the launch is available on their blog. I’ll be experimenting with the site by going live when I can, stop by and say hi!

  • WSJ: Yahoo To Reject Microsoft

    Matthew Karnitschnig reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

    Yahoo’s board believes that Microsoft’s is trying to take advantage of the recent weakness in the company’s share price to “steal”ย the company. The decision to reject the offer signals that Yahoo’s board is digging in its heels for what could be a long takeover battle. The company is unlikely to consider any offer below $40 per share, the person said.

    Let’s hope Yahoo doesn’t get burned by a possible shareholder revolt. It’s a really interesting move for Yahoo and I’m anxious to see what happens.

    [via DF]

  • Protecting Your Laptop with Undercover 2

    Undercover logoUndercover, a theft recovery solution for Macs, has been updated to 2.0 and is free to all existing users. This release includes a new “Plan B” feature: if you Mac is disconnected from the internet for two months, the Mac will become unusable until reconnected. This release also includes support for Leopard and takes up less resources.

    In the event your Mac is stolen, Undercover transmits iSight pictures, screenshots, and network information to Undercover’s servers, where the information is given to law enforcement to help recover your computer. If this doesn’t work, Undercover simulates a hardware failure to encourage the thief to either sell the computer or take it in for repair. Because Undercover knows when network information has changed, they can determine when the computer changes hands. When it does, they then tell the computer to display a “this computer is stolen” message and make the computer unusable.

    Fast User Switching menuPersonally, I have my MacBook setup with my personal user account and a password-less “Guest” user account with Fast User Switching turned on. (Note that this Guest account is not the “new” Leopard-style guest account: it’s a normal account that won’t delete data on logout.) When I want to put my MacBook to sleep, I select “Login Window” from the Fast User Switching menu extra, and then click the Sleep button at the Login Window.

    If my computer is then stolen, the thief won’t know the password to my user account, so they will have to use the Guest account. The Guest account will retain data, which will be helpful as further evidence when the computer is recovered. If the Mac is then connected to the internet, Undercover will activate and begin sending mugshots of the thief using the computer and screenshots of what the thief is doing. By using a firmware password, the thief won’t be able to wipe the disk, and he won’t be able to stop Undercover, even if he knew it was installed, because he won’t have the privileges as a standard user to do so.

    I wish this “Plan B” was adjustable to a shorter timeframe for even greater security, because my MacBook is connected to the internet at least every 2 days. Nevertheless, it’s a welcome addition, and with an upgrade price of free, it makes it even better.

    Undercover is $49, and they offers a $10 discount to students, which is nice if you’re in college like me.