Author: Rob Fahrni

Husband / Father / Developer

Categories
Business Design

Teehan+Lax+Facebook?

Teehan+Lax: “Ultimately, the things we would get to do at Facebook, the people we would get to work with, the problems we get to solve were too compelling to say no to.”

While I’m not a fan of Facebook I can’t blame anyone for “selling out” to them, but this deal is strange. Basically the Teehan+Lax principals just shuttered their company so they could go to work for Facebook.

In a nutshell “the people we get to work with” at Facebook are better than the people we hired and work with every day, so we’re just going to move to Menlo Park and enjoy the good life.

That, of course, is a bit harsh, but it sure reads like that’s what went down, doesn’t it?

From one of their employees, on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/derekkinsman/status/556102474625720320

Also, why wouldn’t Facebook offer everyone a position, or at least give them the opportunity to take a position in California? It all seems very slimy.

The one thing I learned while freelancing, people will try to get you to do work for nothing. Facebook obviously pulled off quite a coup, without having to purchase an entire company to get what they wanted.

It also sounds like they had reached an inflection point. They obviously didn’t like dealing with the day-to-day garbage (who can blame them) and they wanted to do the interesting stuff. Can’t fault them there.

https://twitter.com/derekkinsman/status/556098484953432068

In the end the Teehan+Lax partners did what was best for them. I just feel bad for the 40 folks left standing in the cold of a Toronto winter wondering what just happened, and what do they do next?

https://twitter.com/derekkinsman/status/556144070742269952

Categories
Uncategorized

Over 30? Sorry, you can’t help.

Mr. FredricksenMedium: “This year, we’re looking for outstanding technologists to become members of Global Health Corps. If you’re 30 or younger, have an undergraduate degree, and want to use your skills for a social good check out some of these opportunities to become a GHC fellow.”

I guess the Global Health Corps is an ageist organization? What is wrong with people over 30? Do brains stop functioning?

I’m going to sound like a bitter old man for asking that, but my brain hasn’t stopped functioning. I still feel like a kid in many ways. I love technology and still love creating technology. Why couldn’t a 47-year old man do this work? It’s an honest question. I’d love an honest answer from Global Health Corps.

Categories
Football

SEC, not so tough

USA Today: “By the time Ohio State finished its takedown of No. 1 Alabama in the Sugar Bowl national semifinal game Thursday night, the top five teams in the SEC West had fallen this postseason. Alabama, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Auburn and LSU all lost to teams from supposedly inferior leagues.”

I’ve heard time and again how the SEC can’t be beat. I believed it, as did the pundits, or the SEC wouldn’t have so many teams in the Top-20.

It is time for a real tournament. Limit the regular season to 10 games. This would allow for a real tournament. A tournament of 16-teams. Four teams is a good start, but until they reach 16-teams, it’s all pretend.

One other option. Take the pre-season top 16 and schedule them to play their first four games tournament style. It would be a scheduling nightmare, but it would stir the pot right out of the gate.

Categories
Life

A few of my favorite things

A wonderful bouquet of flowers.I don’t normally look back on the year, and 2014 is a year I’d like to forget, but instead of focusing on the bad I thought I’d share some of the great things of the year. Here they are, in no particular order.

Bitwise Industries

Even though big tech companies could allow folks to work remotely, they don’t, or won’t. If you live in the San Joaquin Valley of California you’re in a definite no mans land of tech, or as I described it once before, a Technology Black Hole. That said a few wonderful folks, leaders all, decided they would do something about it and formed Bitwise Industries as an umbrella company to provide those of us that live in The Great Valley a place to gather, learn, and work. There are so many people to thank for making this happen, but Irma, Jake, Anna, and Rick are amazing. Thank you for giving Technologists in the Valley a hub.

Castro

Castro is my podcast app of choice. It has a unique user interface and works the way I’d like my podcast application to work. It’s simple, does a great job, and is beautiful. Not much more to say.

Slack

I’ve used Slack on a couple client projects and we use it at Agrian. It’s a great way to communicate and keep an eye on other parts of your business. E.G. You can integrate it into your build environment or be notified when a server or database is having issues. I know I’m only scratching the surface of its capability. It’s a great tool.

Basecamp

When I started Freelancing earlier in the year I worked with a couple companies using Basecamp to manage projects. If you need something simple to manage projects Basecamp is a great choice. It’s easy to use and reliable.

Tweetfave

If you’d like a way to manage your Twitter Favorites, look no further. Tweetfave will deliver your favorites to your inbox. Pretty simple.

AFNetworking

If you’re writing iOS or Mac client applications, that needs to communicate to a network service, you’ve probably heard of AFNetworking. This code makes communicating with REST/JSON based services a snap. You can, of course, use it for more than REST/JSON.

Simply Design

Simply Design is another Fresno based company. Tessa Williamson runs this great design shop. When I went back out on my own I wanted to transition Apple Core Labs to Hayseed. Tessa gave me a beautiful design and is so easy to work with. She’s the real deal. (No, Hayseed never came to be.)

New Orleans

Back in May we moved Haileigh, our oldest daughter, back to California. We turned it into a vacation. We hit New Orleans the evening of Tuesday, May 6, and I was instantly in love with the French Quarter. I’m sure this happens to most people that visit. It’s a magical place, and no, I’m not talking about Bourbon Street, New Orleans is so much more than that. We were able to spend one day in this beautiful city. I’d love to live there.

Categories
Life

Days Past

In late 1991 I was laid off from AgData. At that time there were even fewer tech companies in the San Joaquin Valley than there are now so I packed a bag and drove up to Seattle. Kim’s Dad lived there at the time so I had a place to stay while looking for a job.

I found a contract job a few days after I arrived. Amaze, !nc had just released the Windows and Mac versions of The Farside Calendar. It was mid-November, the test and development staff were burned out and they needed help testing the DOS release of the calendar.

All of that backstory just to say I remember driving home each night, pulling out of the Kirkland business park where Amaze was headquartered, driving past a time temperature sign on Interstate 405 that read 38 degrees. It was always raining, always.

I was reminded of that time when I took our pup out this evening to do her thing. It was 35-degrees, it felt nice. Strange how my brain works.

Categories
Football

Da Bears need some Rex

ESPN Chicago: “Hire Rex Ryan. I can’t claim to know anything about general manager candidates, but after reading ‘Collision Low Crossers,’ a fantastic football book about a season with the Jets, I think Ryan would be perfect fit here. Yes, he has a connection with the Bears, going back to his father’s reign as defensive coordinator. But it’s about Rex, not the Bears. He can bring the personality this team desperately needs. I don’t know if he’ll be the savior, so to speak, but it would be a fun ride.”

Since I read Ryan and Trestman were fired today I’ve been hoping the Bears would hire Rex Ryan. Hiring Ryan won’t fix their woes at Quarterback, but it would bring some crazy personalty to the team, and the guy knows how to win, even if he had a horrible time in his last few seasons with the Jets. Hey, Quarterback trouble anyone?

The first thing the Bears need to do is go out and find a Quarterback. I was hopeful Jay Cutler could be the guy, but he’s never been able to elevate to an ‘A-class’ level. I was always a fan of Kyle Orton and had high hopes for him in Chicago. I wish they had kept him.

It looks like Washington may have a couple of Quarterbacks to deal in the off season. I think the Bears would do well to pick up Kirk Cousins.

Guess we’ll see how this plays out.

Categories
Apple

Apple Austin?

t-gaap: “Would Apple be better served by augmenting the Austin campus to the point of moving Apple’s headquarters to Texas?”

No.

They would experience a brain drain never before seen in our industry. People love working for Apple, but they also love California. Even though I’ve heard nothing but great things about Austin, it’s pretty hard to beat what we have here.

Not to mention Apple’s green initiatives align with California values. Texas? Not so much.

Categories
Life

My New Job

I’m happy to say I’ve landed a new full time iOS Development position with a great company; Agrian. They’re a smart and fun bunch focused on creating useful solutions for the Agricultural industry. We live in the great San Joaquin Valley of California, it’s the richest agricultural land in the world. At Agrian we’re “…dedicated to helping all participants in the agrifood industry to grow and harvest crops that are safe, profitable, and comply with a host of state and federal government regulations.” It’s all about making things better for farmers, which in turn, will benefit all of us.

Agrian understands web scale solutions and realizes it’s all about services. Mobile is one tiny cog in that machine and I’m happy to be a part of it.

On the technical side of things I’ll get to use all kinds of nifty stuff day-to-day. We are, of course, using a lot of Objective-C but there is a nice little mix of Swift in the code base, I’m sure that will increase as we move forward. We’re also using some very interesting frameworks. I hope to share more on those later.

The group of developers I’m working with are top notch, all of them. I hope I can live up to expectations.

Categories
Uncategorized

Twitter for Breaking News

Mediabistro: “Twitter is what we wanted it to be. It’s this realtime information network where everything in the world that happens on Twitter—important stuff breaks on Twitter and world leaders have conversations on Twitter.”

The article is about Instagram vs. Twitter active monthly users, but that bit about Twitter being a realtime information network is the important bit. Twitter has been that for many, many, years. All the talk recently is about Twitter screwing with the timeline so it’s more like Facebook. Doing that would take it from a stream of data to a stream with a dam at its head. It would no longer be Twitter.

Maybe Twitter should do some speciality versions of its stream that cater to an algorithm. I’d love to look at it from time to time. For everyday use I definitely prefer the full stream of data, unmodified, as it happens.

Categories
Sports

Nebraska Football

ESPN: “Pelini improved to 67-27 as Nebraska’s coach on Friday with a 37-34 overtime win at Iowa. The victory pushed Pelini’s win total past Tom Osborne for the most ever at the school in a coach’s first seven years.”

Good luck finding a coach to replace nine wins per season.