May 28-29, 2008: two-day Google developer event

Moscone West
747 Howard St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

Disneyland for Geeks?
The Silicon Valley is great place to live, especially if you are a geek (a distinction to be proud of). Google is hosting a gathering for developers that should be a fantastic two-day event. This is really exciting stuff, don’t you think? Check their website for more information.

New Google Technology
Google keeps the developer community busy by constantly improving and introducing new tools. Google I/O features: OpenSocial, Google App Engine, Android, Google Maps API, and Google Web Toolkit….

In a two-day period, Google I/O plans to pack over 80 in-depth sessions in the tracks of AJAX, Tools, Social, Geo, Mobile, Tech Talk and lots of topics to choose from.

Is This For a Newbie or Guru?
Answer: Both. Google offers 101 sessions for beginner Google developers and 201 sessions for the gurus who already know something about the Google development technology.

What Else?
How about a hands-on experience? Bring your laptop and rollup your sleeves. Apply what you learn right away at the I/O Code Labs. Walk though the steps of using Google’s new development technologies such as: Google Web Toolkit, Gears, Google APIs and other technologies in a two-hour session.

Long Day?
Not only do you have a full day of sessions the first day, but Google continues the fun in their ‘Google After Hours’ program in the same venue What a great forum to talk to other developers, share ideas, ask questions or just have fun.

Countdown: 5 More Days
In anticipation, I’m checking Google’s site for updates of code and planning my schedule for next week. The excitement really feels like going to Disneyland.

Exciting Stuff!
Google introduced the preview of Friend Connect to developers.

At a Google Campfire One event on May 12, 2008, developers were given a sneak peek of Friend Connect. Now, information has been posted to Google’s Developer site for the rest of us.

Friend Connect is an amazing tool that allows webmasters a quick and easy way to add social features to their existing websites.

What an understatement…
To appreciate Friend Connect, you really need to see it in action. For a demo and a really good guacamole recipe, check this out:

Webmasters
Gadgets, available from Google or by third party developers, are easy for webmasters to select and add to their webpages.

What Gadgets?
Members - The core gadget that allows users to login and become part of the community.

Review - Users can add comments and rate the site.

Other gadgets – Created with OpenSocial by indepedent developers. One example is a gadget that allows users to add photos to the site.

How It Works
JavaScript code is generated and webmasters can copy/paste the code directly into their webpage. Then, a simple save/publish and the features are live. Friend Connect can turn a static website into a social site almost immediately.

Users
Visitors can sign-in to the website with a Google account, Yahoo account, AIM or other OpenID providers. Once they do, they are given the chance to bring their existing social network with them. Current social network choices are: Facebook, LinkedIn, Hi5, Orkut, and Google Talk. Others are planned to be supported.

Friend Connect gives users a way to interact with social networks on websites.

Application Developers
Appication developers can publish their gadgets where webmasters can easily find and use them in their websites.

Friend Connect is available in a limited beta release, a preview for selected webmasters and application developers. Google is welcoming feedback and suggestions on what webmasters and developers like and other features they would like to see.

Want to be part of the limited beta? Check out the waiting list… I’m in line.

Think of the potential. Friend Connect opens the Social Web for virtually all websites.

Brilliance?
Well, this may be a bit of an overstatement, but organization, productivity and even creativity exist behind a messy desk.

Quite a bold statement, isn’t it?
A popular view of a messy desk suggests just the opposite – chaos and disorganization. I won’t bother to cite references for this one; you can find them on your own.

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, rather poetically,

If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind,
Of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

Aren’t convinced?
Distinguished and reputable experts provide support of this audacious claim. One such expert is Dr Jay Brand. He is a Cognitive Psychologist and ergonomist at Haworth Inc, which designs office furniture and environments based on the needs of the workplace. This is a gross oversimplification. To really see what they do, visit Haworth’s site. Dr. Brand’s wealth of knowledge and experience give a deeper view into the mysteries of the messy desk, among many other topics like office space and lighting.

Impressive?
There’s much more to say about Dr Brand… The brief bio on his corporate site and on Linked-In modestly state his credentials. I’ve gathered other info from around the web in Spotlight.

Virtues of a Messy Desk – Explained
On first glance a messy desk may appear to be disorganized, but closer examination reveals otherwise. Carol Smith, of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports on Dr Brand’s observations.

Most people are tasked with doing several things at a time in a regular workday without the luxury of finishing one thing before starting another. People have capacity of holding multiple ideas in their heads, but use their desks as an extension of their minds in keeping things assessable by being visible and in range of action.

Heady stuff?
Not really. Our short-term memory has a limited capacity to about seven chunks at once – about the size of a phone number (xxx-xxxx). The desk easily becomes an extension of the chunks that we are holding in our short-term memory.

Piles of paper can actually represent a project and can be meaningful to the organizer. Since people think differently, the way that these piles are stacked may vary from spreading out left to right or from piling projects in the classic stacker method. Dr Brand isn’t suggesting that one should deliberately mess up a desk, but rather that there is deeper meaning in the organization of those that do.

Empty Minds
Some companies have a policy for employees to keep their desk cleared off. This practice can actually hinder productivity. After clearing off the desk at the end of the day, one must spend the time to set up and organize the work the following morning. The empty desk is just waiting for the mind to use it again.

Carte Blanche
Dr Brand does not advocate an extensively messy desk. Moderation is key in this discussion. In order for the messy desk to be efficient, once a project is done, the papers should be removed from the desk and put away.

The next time you see a messy desk, look deeper. Consider the organization and productivity behind the messy desk. The brilliance and creativity might even inspire your own.

I hadn’t really noticed how often the ‘Hello World’ code is used. It is the same awareness that you have when you learn a new word – suddenly it is everywhere – in conversations, on TV, in books… Well, the same thing seems to be happening with the ‘Hello World’ code. In just the last couple of days, I have noticed its use in several places. It isn’t that I didn’t know about it; just that I haven’t thought about it in quite awhile.

Most recently, I visited my iGoogle page and thought about updating my gadgets. A few clicks later, I was in the Google Gadgets Developer Docs pages and there it was… an example of a code for a Google Gadget that says ‘Hello, world!’

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<Module>
<ModulePrefs title=”hello world example” />
<Content type=”html”><![CDATA[
Hello, world!
]]></Content>
</Module>

This code is written for use within the Google Gadget Editor (GGE). In the GGE, a simple click on “Preview” shows ‘Hello, world.’

Doesn’t this seem like an ‘inside joke’ among programmers? … Remember the way that ‘foo’ is used by programmers to represent a variable or data that is unspecific? No matter what the Computer Science course, often ‘foo’ will come up as a consistent word to represent something unspecific. This seems to be a bit ironic, don’t you think?

Perhaps the use of the ‘Hello World’ code is simply to invite programmers to a new language with a familiar greeting; like meeting an old friend… or an unintimidating beginning to learning something new.

Perhaps the use is more profound… symbolizing entering a new world.

Whatever the reason, the ‘Hello World’ code is a warm greeting that you respond to with a smile.

OK. So everyone’s first blog entry has “Hello World” as the default entry; every first program does too for that matter.

I couldn’t resist, so I looked up the original C program code.

#include < stdio.h>
void main()
{
    printf("\nHello World\n");
}

Isn’t it beautiful? Even elegant?

Code is poetry.

At least that’s what I’ve heard that they say at WordPress.