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Comment: Re:This seems like complete insanity... (Score 2) 142

by sehryan (#43768975) Attached to: Yahoo Board Approves a $1.1B Pricetag For Tumblr

Tumblr isn't a photo sharing site, it is a micro blogging platform. Flickr has photos and I think video (upload). Tumblr has photos, video, audio, and finally text, which further breaks down in to posts, quotes, and links.

So please, tell me how a five day sprint to reskin Flickr is going to add all of those additional features.

Comment: Re:The Only Surprising portion of the revelation.. (Score 5, Interesting) 536

by sehryan (#43233509) Attached to: Declassified LBJ Tapes Accuse Richard Nixon of Treason

How is not exposing a presidential candidate's treason putting country ahead of personal and party gain? Just because he would gain politically does not automatically mean that he shouldn't do it "for the good of the country." Those things are not exclusive.

Comment: US Government (Score 2) 192

by sehryan (#43138941) Attached to: Drupal's Creator Aims For World Domination

Drupal has made huge inroads in running US government websites in the last few years. The White House, Departments of Commerce and Energy, and a bulk of the House of Representatives (most on one install, I believe) are all running Drupal, to name a few. As a former government contractor, we ended up selecting Drupal to run one of our sites for a couple of reasons.

First, Drupal can run using SQL Server on the back end. I know that sounds horrible, but for us, spinning up MySQL/Postgres was not really an option, and the .Net management systems were either too expensive or a joke in terms of features. So we got the community of Drupal on the hardware we already ran.

Second, its taxonomy features are really unparalleled, at least from what I have seen. Coupled with Views, you can create a page out of just about any combination of vocabularies. We used it to show a category of content, and then let users filter based on keywords. Think categories and tags from WordPress, but on steroids.

Now, all that being said, I hated developing in Drupal. I was able to achieve the goals for the site, including letting non-developers handle content updates with minimal support. But getting there was the most excruciating three months of my career. People aren't kidding when they say the learning curve is enormous.

Overall, I am happy to see Drupal making progress, and think it is fantastic in handling certain types of websites. But at the end of the day, I hope I never have to build another Drupal website again.

Comment: Re:Management panic in action... (Score 1) 524

by sehryan (#42989987) Attached to: Mayer Terminates Yahoo's Remote Employee Policy

I would imagine there is more overhead for remote workers than there is for in-office. For instance, our remote workers come in once every six weeks or so. That is airfare, hotel, and per diem that we are paying that we don't have to pay for in-office folks.

There is also the question of health insurance. I don't know much about this, but it seems like - if these employees live out of state from the main office - that they would need to be using a different health insurance provider than everyone else. I am assuming that would again be at a higher cost than the in-office folks.

I understand the gains of such a set up, but there are costs too, and those costs are usually come in the form of actually dollars spent. For a company whose bottom line is hurting, the juice might not be worth the squeeze.

Comment: Online Schools (Score 1) 433

by sehryan (#42420797) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: CS Degree While Working Full Time?

As long as the online school is accredited from its regional accreditation board, then you should have no fear in attending. This goes for the online, for-profit schools.

I dropped out of college in the middle of my senior year of getting a BA in Music Education to pursue a tech opportunity. Once I settled in to that job, I went back to one of these for-profit colleges to complete a BFA in Visual Communications degree. They let me transfer over most of my credits, so all I had was a year or so of major classes to complete. Before I enrolled, I make sure it was accredited by the regional board.

So while American InterContinental University may not look sexy (and in fact, I find it slightly embarrassing), it is accredited, and I did graduate Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in Visual Communications. It cost me a ton of money (much more than the not for profit schools), but I can put it on my resume with confidence that I am not going to be screened out of a job because of a lack of a degree.

And I know this for a fact because I just got a new job at a local software company. And made it to the final stretch with another software company at the same time. Neither company even asked if AIU was legit, probably because the HR manager doesn't really care. "Education listed? Check. Degree obtained? Check. Moving on..."

Comment: Love It (Score 2) 347

by sehryan (#41250115) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What's Your Take On Stand-Up Desks?

I just moved to a stand up desk last week. Absolutely love it. I design and code websites, so I have a pretty stationary type of job. Standing up, I move a lot more. I also have an adjustable stool, so if I need to rest my legs for a bit, I can without having to adjust my desk.

I have also noticed that the afternoon wall has completely disappeared. You know, the one where you are struggling to focus - or maybe even stay awake. Never happens.

There are plenty of articles out there about standing vs. sitting, as I did a bunch of research before making the switch. To summarize: Standing is better than sitting, but mixing it up is the best. This doesn't mean fully sitting down - the stool I use is a great example. But you do need to be able to change position for a bit, because being in one position for 8-9 hours a day is bad.

Comment: Eink (Score 5, Insightful) 354

by sehryan (#40964763) Attached to: How Will Amazon, Barnes & Noble Survive the iPad Mini?

Put the focus back where it belongs for their particular devices - Eink.

There are a ton of people who don't want to look at yet another computer screen when they are reading, which is why those people (me included) go for the Eink devices instead of the 7" tablets.

That is the space that made them popular, and that is the space they need to put the focus back on as a differentiating - and positive selling - factor.

Comment: Reality: (Score 3, Insightful) 160

The reality is that those numbers don't really matter if you already have a website.

You can easily run stats on YOUR OWN WEBSITE and get the browser breakdown that you should be worried about.

For one of my primary sites, all version of IE beat out Firefox or Chrome. When split apart, Firefox and Chrome are 1 and 2, with IE8 coming in third.

And now that I think about it, knowing who is first or second is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is the percentage of users who are still using browser version that suck to support. So really, what I care about is where my IE7 and IE6 usage is, and at what point is it okay for me to walk away from those users.

Comment: Re:Irony alert! (Score 1) 264

by sehryan (#40210155) Attached to: DirecTV CEO Scoffs At Competition From Apple TV

Even at DirecTV's cheapest currently advertised package ($29.99 for 12 months, free HD DVR), you could purchase eight shows at full price on iTunes (~$45 for a full season in HD). And that is not taking in to consideration the monthly taxes and fees on the DTV service, which could easily cover a Netflix or Hulu Plus subscription. After three months, you are going to start paying for the premiums, which run around the cost of two movie rentals on iTunes per month PER PREMIUM CHANNEL.

And that is just for the first year. Year two, the monthly price goes up, which means you could afford EVEN MORE television and movies if you amortize it out over two years.

Basically, you would be hard pressed to spend more money on AppleTV than DirecTV. I know this, because I made the switch myself. We have eight shows, a Netflix account, and get the locals using a $50 HD Over The Air antenna. Haven't been happier, and are saving a ton.

Comment: Do better (Score 2) 70

by sehryan (#40200429) Attached to: NASA Tool Shows Where Forest Is Being Cut Down

I don't mean to sound like a dick, but as someone who makes web-based geospatial apps for a living, this is one of the worst things I have ever seen.

Half the zooms don't make sense (US zooms all the way out, UK zooms to all of Europe), they have data listed in the drop downs that doesn't actually exist (July 2012), the popups tell you nothing (Country: Whatever, colored in blue, but not clickable), and to top it all of, the "larger" version has no way to access any of the data (no data selection, no zoom levels).

I would like to urinate in an OVULAR, porcelain pool --

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