arc90 blog

Readability – Now Available In Three Delicious Flavors

rich@arc90.com (Richard Ziade) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:56:18 -0500

Our popular Arc90 lab experiment, Readability, original built in plain ol' Javascript (open source and available here) has been ported to other programming languages as well.

Nirmal Patel ported Readability to Python (source here). It powers his ridiculously sweet Hack et al, a full-content RSS view of articles pointed to by Hacker News. Yesterday, we got word from Keyvan Minoukadeh that he's ported Readability to PHP.

If anyone else has built their own flavor of Readability, be sure to let us know by emailing us or pinging us on Twitter at @arc90.

Wi-Fi In the Sky

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:05:36 -0500

As a frequent traveler, I often use flight time to catch up on everyday things. I tend to stuff my carry-on bag with magazines, a book, my journal and, if I'm bringing my laptop, the most recent DVDs from my Netflix queue. If I don't open any of the listed items, it's probably because I turned up the music on my iPod to take a nap.

I've become accustomed to sitting down, buckling up and disconnecting from the world. When the airplane doors close, electronic devices are turned off so you can't check the weather at your destination, log onto Facebook or respond to E-mails.

All of that changed on a recent return trip from Atlanta. Even before I made it to my seat on an AirTran Airlines flight, the numerous inflight Internet signs made me wish that I had charged my laptop.

The budget airline now offers Wi-Fi service on several flights; by the end of July, AirTran will become the first large U.S. airline to offer wireless Internet access on all of its 136 carrier jets.

For a fee, AirTran will offer Wi-Fi for wireless-enabled laptops, smartphones and personal digital assistants. It will cost $7.95 to $12.95 per flight, depending on the duration. Frequent fliers can also purchase monthly plans for a single airline carrier (other partnering airlines include American, Delta, United, and Virgin); mobile flight passes are at the lower end of the cost plan. For the moment, though, voice over Internet protocol calls are blocked so you won't be subjected to hearing somebody's video chat conversation.

JetBlue's BetaBlue planes provide free e-mail and instant messaging, along with access to the Amazon.com site for sky shopping. The airline's hub terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport has free Wi-Fi, a service that is typically limited to smaller airports around the country.

When I book flights, I tend to include the cost of getting to the airport with the ticket price. While I might find a good deal from Newark's Liberty International Airport, it costs half the amount to reach JFK Airport from my Brooklyn apartment. In the near future, I will probably start adding Internet costs to my booking. If you have a connecting flight and the trip doesn't end at AirTran's main hub in Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, you could end up paying an extra $32-four charges for each plane-for Wi-Fi service.

Will the public pay the extra fees? Most people aren't willing to buy food on flights and bring their own sandwiches or snacks. If I fly with JetBlue, I tend to watch television channels instead of paying $5 for an on-demand movie. Although some airlines provide phones onboard their planes, does anybody actually use them?

Since inflight Internet is a new phenomenon, the airline industry has plenty of time to make customer-orientated changes. Perhaps you will be able to order Internet services when you're purchasing your ticket. If you're flying with an airline that has checked luggage fees, you might have the option to combine charges.

After years of charging customers, most luxury hotels no longer charge for Internet access. Maybe there will also be a day when Internet on all flights will be free. It might not happen anytime soon because it costs approximately $100,000 to outfit an aircraft with equipment. However, there will eventually be a time when the equipment is paid off. If competitors start offering free Wi-Fi, it could catapult a trend within the industry.

Inflight Internet access is a great solution for checking back into the non-vacation world. I tend to disconnect from newspapers and television when I'm away from home; the couple of hours spent in the air might be sufficient for catching up on RSS feeds, reading about what happened around the world or even uploading recent pictures to Flickr.

The bigger question is do you really need to go online? The flight between Atlanta and New York takes approximately an hour and half-the perfect amount of time for reading, writing or watching a movie. If I'm on a plane, I like the fact that everybody should assume that I can't be reached for several hours. When I land, I know that my eVite invitations, concert ticket reminders and bill payment notifications will still be in my Inbox, waiting for me. Flying sans Internet gives me a break from the incessant noise- at least, until now.

It seems that we really can't live without the Web, even when we are hundreds of feet off the ground. Although I feel nostalgic, I admit that I won't be able to resist the temptation of having an Internet connection while I'm airborne. I know that I will eventually use my credit card to participate in the newest technology trend. But I'll still pack my books and magazines for old times' sake.

Meet Michael Rehse

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:21:51 -0500

Title: Developer

Joined Arc90 in: August 2008

My most prized possession: My bag. I've had it since high school.

While growing up in Redmond, WA-the home of Microsoft Corp-it was almost impossible for Michael Rehse to avoid pursuing a career in technology. Many of the people around him, including family members and even the next door neighbor, were immersed in different programming languages. His dad, a consultant for technology companies, even studied Fortran as a foreign language at Ohio University. Michael doubts that this classification would hold water in today's world.

"You can't really call it a 'conversation' since computers are deterministic automatons," Michael said. "Programming languages have many of the same characteristics as regular spoken languages, but they are fundamentally different because they are used only as commands; they are not used to speak to a sentient being."

As a child, Michael experimented with a 286 computer with Windows 2.0; his family eventually upgraded to a 486 with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. The computer had QBasic as a default, and when he was in third grade, Michael learned to program in QBasic from his dad.

"I made an application that would calculate how many toothpicks you could get out of a tree," he recalled. "I remember having problems with floating point numbers. At that point, I didn't know what scientific notion was."

Growing up near Microsoft's headquarters had its share of local celebrities. The Rehse's neighbor, Jeff Alger, worked for Microsoft Corp and wrote Secrets of the C+++ Masters.

"That book used really advanced concepts that I still struggle with today," Michael said. "Though luckily they're things that I may never have to worry about, since they deal mostly with pointer arithmetic and memory allocation. We never really have to use that these days . . . most of it is handled by the operating system or the language on the backend."

Michael expanded his skill sets by teaching himself Visual Basic, along with C and C++. After taking an Advanced Placement Computer Science class during his senior year of high school, Michael decided technology could be his career path. He interned at Microsoft the summer before he left for college.

"I had a great time at Microsoft," Michael said. "There were really great, smart people there and it taught me a lot about the software process. They are a development centric company and they like to create new things that do lots of stuff. They don't like adhering to standards, since they find them limiting. It just makes it really hard to interface with anything else and it makes it really hard to design a good interface. I guess that's what stems from being a really development centric company."

Michael attended Harvey Mudd College, where he majored in Computer Science. He decided on the Claremont, CA school for its proximity to the entertainment industry, as acting had become another passion.

"My first love is acting, but I also happened to be pretty good with computers so I decided to pursue a Computer Science degree," he said.

After three semesters in California, Michael eventually returned home to reconsider his career options. He attended a community college and then decided to move to the East Coast.

"My Dad visited back before New York City was cleaned up," Michael recalled. "I was a little nervous about all the crime that he told me was rampant because, at the time, you did not ride the subways."

Once he arrived in New York City, Michael followed his career goals, earning a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Pace University while pursuing his acting dreams.

"There are two primary acting markets in the United States-Los Angeles and New York," Michael said. "I'd heard that New York was the best place to train since there is so much theater. You can get away with a lot more in film. If you are New York City trained, and respected in the community, then you could pretty much get an acting job anywhere."

When Michael started at Arc90 during the summer of 2008, he experienced a bit of a culture shock in his new work environment. He temporarily sat at a small desk, facing a pillar and directly below an acoustic guitar; on some days, his co-workers threatened to shoot him with a rocket launcher.

"It really wasn't what I expected," Michael recalled. "I got here and I started reading about REST."

His first reading assignment included RESTful Web Services, by Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby. Michael had previously crossed paths with Richardson as he was writing the book; the author had explained the concept firsthand.

"The book that he was writing is Arc90's REST bible," Michael said. "He was also writing O'Reilly books about something that I didn't really know-RESTful web services. He was the first one to explain them to me."

Michael learned more than RESTful services at Arc90, though. He appreciates the opportunity to focus on design instead of just concentrating on code.

"I love the fact that we get into long debates about the right way to do things and we spend a lot of time designing code, instead of just writing code," he said.

During an office competition to complete the statement, "____ is 99% ____ and 1% ___," Michael won with his submission.

"If you don't design your code first and how it will interact with other systems and itself, you will end up with a horrible mess," Michael commented. "It takes a lot of time but you're going to spend that time maintaining and fixing bugs."

When he's not programming, Michael can be found performing with the ThinkPound sketch comedy troupe; he's been a member of the group for three years.

"I have always loved comedy," Michael said. "My favorite actors were Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. That's what I wanted to do as an actor-I wanted to make people laugh."

As a child, Michael made it through several agency cuts during casting for the role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars (Episode I). He admits to being a Trekkie and would have jumped at the opportunity to meet its creator, Gene Roddenberry.

"I would love to talk to him about the philosophy of Star Trek," Michael said. "Star Trek has had a huge impact on my life. Everything I've learned in life, I know through Star Trek, including the way that they relate to the universe and how they show a better future."

With the reemergence of the Star Trek movies, Michael still hopes to make his way to the big screen.

"Now that there's a new franchise, maybe I'll be able to build enough star capital," Michael said. "But I would keep working remotely for Arc90."

The Secret Ingredient Behind TBUZZ

joshd@arc90.com (Josh Diehl) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:21:45 -0500

Arc90 has recently had a run of success with our lab projects. First, Readability hit the net and went absolutely berserk. Seemingly overnight there were dozens of tweets and links to it. Most recently we released TBUZZ and once again Arc90 enjoyed a big jump in attention. You may already know that both projects were the brainchildren of Arc90 founder Rich Ziade. He has an uncanny knack for seeing unfilled needs in online life and dreaming up the right solution. As Readability and TBUZZ were released and started to "blow up" (as the kids say), it's been fun to tease him at lunch about his new rock star status. "Mobbed by Readability fans for autograph requests yet?" He's usually a good sport about it.

What you probably don't know is how Rich's ideas went from a flash of inspiration to full-featured, robust software. A lot of was due to the development team; they certainly deserve mounds of credit for producing apps that work great and also fit into a bookmarklet. In the case of TBUZZ we had another contributing factor. The "secret" ingredient was a bit of eating-your-own-dog-food goodness: we used our own product, Kindling.

For those who don't know, Kindling is an idea collaboration web application that helps organizations gather and refine ideas from its members. Submitting, voting, commenting, and moderating ideas are are all key aspects of Kindling. One of the features of the upcoming release is the ability to create a Room, basically a separate space in Kindling for discussing ideas focused on a particular theme. As soon as the alpha version of TBUZZ was released internally to Arc employees the feedback began, mostly through emails to Rich and the dev team. It quickly became apparent that there was a lot of duplication of effort going on, so we created a TBUZZ room in Kindling and directed everyone to submit their feedback there.

This move proved key. By the end of the day several important changes to TBUZZ had been submitted, refined, and approved. As a result of using Kindling, we were able to harness the creativity and expertise of the entire Arc team to turn TBUZZ from a good implementation into a great one, all in the course of an afternoon.

If you'd like to learn more about Kindling check out www.kindlingapp.com.

Meet Chris LoSacco

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:19:20 -0500

Title: Partner

Joined Arc90 in: May 2006

Most people don't know that: I'm colorblind.

If some of Chris LoSacco's co-workers are still trying to figure out why he only keeps a stack of Starbucks napkins on his desk, he has a valid explanation.

"I like things to be minimal," he said. "In college, my desk was very organized; I only had a Post-it dispenser. My roommate would throw a single Post-it into the garbage just to get to me."

Keeping things simple is a running theme in Chris' work life, stemming back to his first encounter with Arc90. He first heard of Arc90 during his senior year at New York University. The Downingtown, PA native decided to attend the school's job fair, but he did his research first.

"I got the list of the companies that were going to be at the job fair," he recalled. "I went through the list to figure out who I wanted to talk to. Out of 100 companies, there were two that were remotely worth talking to."

After searching the Web for Arc90 and its founder, Chris discovered Information Objects, Rich Ziade's paper about interaction design and how software should model the real world. Chris realized that Arc90 was a company worth talking to.

"The things that I was interested in and what Arc90 is all about were exactly the same," he said.

At the job fair, Chris had the opportunity to talk with Rich and discussed Alan Cooper's Inmates Are Running the Asylum, a book that both respected. He left a lasting impression with the people he met.

"Chris was a full-blown technologist who was interested in design and usability," Rich recalled. "He didn't give his resume to everybody. He knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to work. That's great advice for anybody looking for a job."

Chris was hired as an Interactive Designer in the spring of 2006. He wasn't confined to the role and used the flexibility within the company to contribute to various projects.

"I wasn't tasked to write code but I did," he said. "Everybody was doing everything and there was the opportunity to pitch in wherever you could help."

Chris and Rama Poola, another graduate of NYU's Computer Science program, started at Arc90 around the same time. The company had just relocated to its Third Avenue office and the new hires used the extra space to their advantage.

"There was the junk room with a white board," Chris recalled. "Rama and I would have an idea about something and we would IM each other 'Junk room?' and start sharing. A lot of good stuff came out of the impromptu sessions."

Technology had been part of Chris' life since childhood. He was raised around computers- his dad works for a company that builds software for nursing homes-and started tinkering with the Web at an early age.

"I was growing up just as the Internet was taking off," the 25-year-old said. "I remember dial-up connections and when Web pages were just text. I was making my own sites at 14 just to play with the technology."

But the Internet wasn't Chris' only passion. He attended NYU to focus on acting and majored in Drama. Once there, he realized he couldn't see himself leaving New York; during his junior year, Chris added Computer Science as a double major to secure his future in the city.

"I knew I wanted to stay in New York and I wanted to be able to pay for that," he said. "There was a strong possibility that I would become an actor and work hard but you can't pick and choose your work. I didn't want the 'I'll take anything' lifestyle."

After graduation, Chris acted in student films; he intended to keep movie shoots in his schedule until he realized that technology held an important role in his life.

"I was figuring I could do it on nights and weekends," he said. "When I became more involved at Arc90, it naturally became that this was more of my life."

Chris is the mastermind behind SVN Notifier, an Apple Dashboard widget for collaborative version control. He envisioned the tool for the Arc90 lab after finding flaws with other Subversion software.

"It's useful because it stays out of your way until it has something meaningful to say," Chris commented. "I wanted to be notified when other people working on the same stuff as me made a change to something. SVN Notifier seemed like an easy, unobtrusive way to do that."

In the fall of 2007, when he was 24-years-old, Chris was promoted to the partner position at Arc90. The title came with more responsibilities, but some things stayed the same.

"Everybody asked if I was going to get a new business card," he noted. "I still don't have one!"

The new role also changed his perspective about work and interactions at Arc90.

"There is a different approach of looking at it," Chris said. "It becomes a longer view, such as how does this fit into the picture of where we're going in a year or four years. I started to think about the things I was doing and the things I was enabling the people around me to do-how they were beneficial to the company and not just to me."

During his time at Arc90, particularly since becoming a partner, Chris has learned that discussion is an important problem-solving tool.

"Disagreement and being critical of ideas is a good thing," Chris said. "There are very few people who will try to force things down people's throats 'just because.' There is a mutual respect that just because you don't agree on something there can be a healthy process to come up with the best idea."

What are you doing this summer?

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Fri, 22 May 2009 10:40:18 -0500

Are you a kick-ass web designer with exemplary visual and interaction design skills? Are you passionate about technology? Do you want to spend your summer working with the great minds behind Kindling and Readability?

Arc90 is looking for you!

We're looking to hire a summer intern who goes beyond possessing the technical skills. At Arc90, we have a design-driven approach to development and a focus on prototyping first; we believe that software is always better when you can interact with it.

We also like to brainstorm. You should be prepared for meetings where you put on your thinking cap, imagine the user experience and then defend your viewpoint to others.

Your work load might include client or internal product work. We will always encourage your contributions to the Arc90 Lab.

The basics:

The internship runs from the beginning of June until the end of August. We are also looking to fill this role for a long term.

It's a paid internship-you can either save money for books for the Fall semester or contribute to your beer fund.

You will have access to the fully-stocked kitchen where you can make as many peanut butter and banana sandwiches as your heart desires.

We don't have a dress code. If you wear a suit, we will probably make fun of you.

There is an eclectic mixture of people at Arc90. Some of your future co-workers are motorcycle enthusiasts, foodies, musicians, and video game developers. You can root for the Mets or the Yankees-somebody will be there to defend you.

If you're not won over yet, you can read about the experiences of a former Arc90 intern.

Now does this sound like the kind of place where you would want to work?

Send your resume and portfolio to contact@arc90.com.

Meet Sima Shimansky

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Wed, 13 May 2009 15:48:36 -0500

Title: RIA Developer

Joined Arc90 in: July 2006

My most prized possession: Lila. If babies could be considered possessions . . .

Like others in her generation, Sima Shimansky grew up imagining a range of career possibilities. The Brooklyn, NY, native thought about pursuing jobs in industrial psychology, chemistry and law. Before she ventured into a career in technology, there was even a time when Arc90's RIA Developer considered joining the FBI.

"I went to the FBI offices downtown," she recalled. "I was on a mission but I didn't qualify to be an agent. I wasn't old enough and I needed an advanced degree."

A year later, as she was completing course work at Brooklyn College for her Bachelor's in Psychology, Sima realized that she didn't want to be a therapist or pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology. Instead, her lifelong interest in art helped to open her eyes about following a rigid career plan. For her senior thesis, Sima researched the portrayal of women in art, focusing on Tom Wesselmann's Great American Nudes. Wesselmann was also a psychology major during his undergraduate years and eventually became a popular artist.

"He made me realize that you don't need to be tied to your major," the Park Slope, Brooklyn resident noted. "You can change your mind and your path."

Sima started to explore graphic arts, first taking art courses and then moving onto more complex multimedia work.

"What drew me specifically to computer art was the 'undo' function," she said. "I loved the fact that you could always go back and do things better."

Inspired by the techniques she was learning, Sima decided to continue her education at the School of Visual Arts, where she received her Masters in Computer Art and Multimedia. For her first job after graduate school, she designed web layouts for a technology company; she didn't totally connect with her work.

"The work I was doing was repetitive and boring, like formatting a hundred pictures of purses for a Website," she said. "I didn't feel qualified to do the more advanced graphic stuff because I didn't consider myself a designer. I had trouble with creativity on demand, which is why I moved on to coding."

Sima jumped at the opportunity to learn a new language and branch out from HTML when she was working for the technology department of a nonprofit organization.

"They needed a ColdFusion developer," she recalled. "It was a more advanced language but it was tag-based so it wasn't such a far out idea. I ended up really liking it and enjoyed working with SQL and databases."

Armed with these new skills, she interviewed with Arc90 in June 2006. She was drawn to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere.

"I liked that it felt familial," she said. "People watched out for each other and hung out together outside of work. It was very inviting."

On a professional level, Arc90 was a match as well.

"There's a lot of opportunity to learn here," Sima said. "There's always a challenge and I never feel stuck. They'll give you the tools or a chance to explore."

Sima's work in Flex is an example of her technical exploration as a client-side developer.

"It was a big step for me because the language was so different," she commented. "It's a completely different way of coding. It was scary but exciting. It was the next natural step for me."

As an RIA developer, Sima spends her days developing the front-end of the company's web applications, while continually adding tricks to her ActionScript trade. She compared her job to her favorite hobby.

"It's like cooking-start with a designer's comps, add one (large) part service API, one part architectural decisions, some ActionScript goodness and finesse and voila-you have a web application," she said.

One of Sima's most unforgettable memories about her time at Arc90 dates back to the Monday morning of March 3, 2008, when she was nine-months pregnant and expecting her first child. Although she came to the office prepared for a full day's work, she went into labor as most of the company was either working or taking a lunch break.

"I was in the middle of instant messaging about a project," she recalled. "I was asked to do something and I responded with, 'I'm going to the hospital. I'll be in touch.'"

On her way to the elevator, Avi Flax, one of the partners at Arc90, asked her about her lunch plans.

"I said, 'I think I'm having a baby for lunch," Sima recalled.

Since coming back to Arc90 as a working mom, Sima has had to learn to balance her responsibilities on both ends. Though she adores spending time with her daughter, the pull of work and technology is strong. If Sima ever decides to leave the world of technology, however, she already has another career plan in mind.

"I would be a construction worker," she said. "I like to be outdoors and I like to work with my hands. Instead of building web applications, I could build houses."

Introducing: TBUZZ!

rich@arc90.com (Richard Ziade) — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:28:52 -0500

We're big fans of Twitter here at Arc90. We use it to share choice quotes or just talk about whatever. Hell, there are even people out there wiring Twitter up to their ovens.

Of course, one of the most popular uses of Twitter is to share a link to a Web page. To that end, we wanted a tool that provided a dead simple way to share a link out via Twitter while surfing the Web.

So we got to thinking: "Wouldn't it be cool to tweet a page in just a few clicks? Also, wouldn't it be cool to see what others are saying about the page on Twitter?" After the success of Readability, we figured we'd dust off our mad bookmarklet skillz (Firefox extensions are nice, but we wanted everybody to join the fun) and take a crack at coming up with something cool.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and you've got TBUZZ:

We've been using TBUZZ within Arc90 for a few days now and it's a lot of fun. We've found it's the easiest way to tweet about a link you've come across. It's also a really cool way to chat with others about the page you're staring at - through Twitter. It's sort of like dropping a comment thread onto every Web page in existence.

You can install TBUZZ in just a few seconds by visiting:

http://tbuzz.arc90.com

If you've got any feedback, thoughts (or glowing reviews) of TBUZZ, be sure to include them in the comments below.

My Type of E-Book

tim@arc90.com (Tim Meaney) — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:32:19 -0500

I'm a voracious reader, of analog books, magazines and hypermedia. When I want to focus on a particular topic and shut out the world, there's nothing like a long form paper book: no links, no ads, no comments, no feeling that I'm missing better content somewhere else, no quick check of Twitter or to see what the weather will be tomorrow. I have exactly no desire to get an e-book reader and mess with this balance - the gravitational pull of hypermedia is too strong for me.

My aversion to e-books aside, I've recently added a digital element to my reading. I'm nearly through Gettysburg - A Testing of Courage, and during the course of reading it have constructed a full mental image of the battle. The landscape and geography in and around Gettysburg, of course, is a major character in the narrative. After reading about Culp's and Cemetery Hills, Big and Little Round Top, I just had to see them. Some searching, viewing of maps and in particular a browsing around of the flickr tag "gettysburg" and I had some amazing 'real' images to supplement those of my mind's eye.

Have you been supplementing your reading, particularly of non-fiction, with the web? I'm not sure why it took me so long to bring these two [favorite] activities together, perhaps it's been my strong separation of analog and digital reading. I think I'll soften that stance a bit.

Note: the above image is of Little Round Top, one of the most important places in America's history. Thanks to Candice for giving me permission to use this image.

History Lesson

tim@arc90.com (Tim Meaney) — Wed, 06 May 2009 09:42:23 -0500

It took me almost a year, and a week off of work, to catch up on reading and finally get to Vanity Fair's piece: How the Web Was Won: An Oral History of the Internet. And while I'm sure your reading list is as backed-up as mine is (well, was!), if you're in this industry you really should read it. It's a first-person account by many of the major players of the invention of the Internet and the World Wide Web.

But in case you don't, here's a few choice quotes:

Paul Baran - inventor of packet switching (breaking up data into packets to reassemble on the other side):

I get credit for a lot of things I didn't do. I just did a little piece on packet switching and I get blamed for the whole goddamned Internet, you know? Technology reaches a certain ripeness and the pieces are available and the need is there and the economics look good - it's going to get invented by somebody.

On the decision by the Government to give the building of the hardware Interface Message Processors to Bolt, Beranek & Newman:

In a congratulatory telegram to the company, Senator Edward M. Kennedy referred to I.M.P.'s as "interfaith" message processors.

Leonard Kleinrock - member of the ARPANET Team, on the Internet coming on-line:

September 2, 1969, is when the first I.M.P. was connected to the first host, and that happened at U.C.L.A. We didn't even have a camera or a tape recorder or a written record of that event. I mean, who noticed? Nobody did. Nineteen sixty-nine was quite a year. Man on the moon. Woodstock. Mets won the World Series. Charles Manson starts killing these people here in Los Angeles. And the Internet was born. Well, the first four everybody knew about. Nobody knew about the Internet.

Vint Cerf - co-designers of the TCP protocol on the invention of @ to identify people on a network:

A guy named Ray Tomlinson, at Bolt, Beranek & Newman, figured out a way to cause a file to be transferred from one machine through the Net to another machine and left in a particular location for someone to pick up. He said, I need some symbol that separates the name of the recipient from the machine that the guy's files are on. And so he looked around for what symbols on the keyboard were not already in use, and found the "@" sign. It was a tremendous invention.

Marc Andreessen on creating the first browser:

It sounds obvious in retrospect, but at the time, that was an original idea. When we were working on Mosaic during Christmas break between 1992 and 1993, I went out at like four in the morning to a 7-Eleven to get something to eat, and there was the first issue of Wired on the shelf. I bought it. In it there's all this science-fiction stuff. The Internet's not mentioned. Even in Wired.

Jeff Bezos on early Amazon:

When we launched, we launched with over a million titles. There were countless snags. One of my friends figured out that you could order a negative quantity of books. And we would credit your credit card and then, I guess, wait for you to deliver the books to us. We fixed that one very quickly.

...and so on - the Morris Worm, The Browser Wars, the first e-mail used in a legal case (Jon Poindexter in Iran Contra) - read it. This history is compelling and important.

Meet Doug Burns

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 14:34:40 -0500

Title: Developer

Joined Arc90 in: April 2008

Most people don't know that: I'm self-taught and didn't go to college.

In early 2008, Doug Burns was living and job hunting in Washington D.C. After seeing an Arc90 job posting on 37signals, he made his way to the company's site and encountered a familiar name. Developer Javier Julio had posted an announcement to the Arc90 blog for cfDrinks, an event organized by Adam Lehman, the ColdFusion Product Manager. Lehman also happened to be one of Doug's former co-workers.

The blog post increased Doug's interest in Arc90 since it showed that the employees were adamant about incorporating technology into their personal lives.

"I read through the blog posts on the website and I could tell that the people at Arc90 were really passionate about technology," Doug said. "It goes beyond just a job; it's something they do for enjoyment. That's how I have always felt about it and I was excited about the opportunity to work with people who felt the same way."

A few months later, Doug, his wife Courtney and their dog, Sascha, packed up a U-Haul and drove it from Washington D.C.'s DuPont Circle to Brooklyn. Doug grew up in Washingtonville, NY and was excited to move closer to his roots.

"I've always wanted to live in New York City," Doug noted. "I lived up and down the East Coast and I love living in a city. New York is as big as you can get in the United States."

Doug's initial interest in computers sparked when he was still in high school and upgraded from the family's Commodore 64 to his own Mac LC III.

"In 1992, Macs weren't what they are today," Doug said. "I really loved the original Mac OS. When Apple decided to abandon it for NeXTSTEP, I have to admit I was a little worried. Obviously, my worries were completely unfounded since they took a great thing and made it much, much better."

Doug's formal introduction to the world of technology, however, came while he lived in Tampa. He worked at a print shop and had the opportunity to expand his design skills.

"The Web was starting to get big and the company had a website," he recalled. "I started designing the site using PHP and built an E-commerce system."

The flexibility of the position allowed Doug to add to his skill sets.

"I transitioned that whole time, from design to development," he said. "I loved it because the problem solving aspect is addictive. There is always a thrill of seeing the thing you made."

Doug experienced the exhilaration firsthand while working on an automated engraving technique.

"The print shop made engraved pencils," he said. "They used to hire people to come in and type the names onto the pencils. It was amazing the first time I saw this machine, with its arm coming down to engrave the pencils. The code that I wrote was actually causing some physical action to happen."

On the other hand, the technological advances had some unanticipated side effects.

"When we automated the pencil engraving via the Web, 30 people lost their jobs," he recalled.

From the print shop in Tampa, Doug relocated to Washington, D.C. He worked at the U.S. Department of State for seven years as an internal consultant before starting his own business. In 2007, Doug founded Travelworks Technologies, a Web travel reservation system which allowed users to build a trip while talking to an international reservation system. He created the prototype and also funded the project.

"Travelworks Technologies became too much; having to do everything was overwhelming," Doug said. "I was doing development, marketing, sales, and system's administration. I am a perfectionist so everything had to be perfect and there was no one to help me control myself."

He also found that running a company was lonely at times; he eventually closed Travelworks Technologies and returned to the job market.

"I missed talking to other people about work stuff," he said.

At Arc90, Doug has numerous outlets for conversations about programming languages or the latest social networking trends.

"I've never worked with people who are completely on the same wave length as I am but it's that way here," he said. "Anywhere else, I would be a superstar. At Arc90, everybody is a superstar and they understand what you're talking about. As far as quality and ideas, they are starting at a much higher level here, especially when people are collaborating."

One of Doug's most memorable experiences at Arc90 was watching Readability take off.

"After Rich's initial blog post, Readability was all over the Internet in a few hours and the buzz continued for weeks," Doug said. "It kind of reminded me of the Dot-com era UPS ad where immediately after a new online store went online, orders started piling in. These things happen often on the Internet, but this was the first time that I was on this side of it."

Readability Updated With Some Handy Tools

rich@arc90.com (Richard Ziade) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:11:50 -0500

We're trying to make sure our already-bloated ego's are kept in check as the praise for Readability continues to roll in. Many of us here at Arc90 use it all the time and we're glad it's made reading on the Web more enjoyable.

Today, we're happy to announce an important update to Readability. At the top left corner, you'll find three buttons that make the Readability experience even better. You can now reload a page, print a page and send a page's link to others in just a couple of clicks.

One note about privacy and security. We will not be keeping logs of your sent emails and corresponding notes and we will never share your emails with anyone. You can view the source code behind this release (tagged 0.4.1) in Google Code. Readability is an open source project.

To install this update, all you have to do is.nothing! Just keep using Readability the way you always have. We hope you find this update as useful as we do.

Meet Rama Poola

kamnik@arc90.com (Kamni Khan) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 11:13:27 -0500

Title: Director

Joined Arc90 in: June 2006

If I could go anywhere: I would take a ride to outer space. I would really like to see the Earth from space. After seeing monumental sites, I've realized that pictures can't do anything justice.

Rama Poola jumped into the world of code even before he had his driver's license. Arc90's Software Management Developer started learning C++ when he was only 15.

"My cousin went to the University of Pennsylvania for computer engineering," he recalled of his first introduction to programming. "I latched on and taught myself for a while."

When he was 16, Rama enrolled in an introductory Visual Basic class at his local college, Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, CT. He eventually took a C++ class during his senior year of high school.

"At that point, coding was very interesting to me," Rama noted of his initial interest in programming languages. "It was similar to solving math problems but it was more concrete. When you code, something comes out of it and there is something that you made."

Rama met Arc90's founder, Rich Ziade, at a New York University job fair in 2006. As senior double majoring in Computer Science and Economics, the Boreum Hill, Brooklyn resident wasn't primarily looking for a position at a technology company.

"I was looking at finance jobs," Rama recalled. "Arc90 was intriguing because it was a tech and design firm. I wanted to see what my options were."

Rama initially debated taking a position at an investment bank, but the experiences of Tim Meaney, an Arc90 partner who previously worked at the same investment bank, gave Rama an insider's perspective of life in the financial world.

"It was my interviews that made me realize that I didn't want to go into finance," Rama noted "I was willing to take a risk and go to a small company. At that point, Arc was just starting out and I wanted some excitement. I was 21. What did I have to lose?"

That's not to say there weren't some first-day jitters.

"I didn't think I would be at the same caliber as other people," he stated. "At bigger companies, you're not at the same level as other people when you're in an entry level position."

Rama quickly learned that Arc90 isn't run like most investment banks or a Fortune 500 company.

"It's not your age or your experiences but what you're good at that drives your position within the company," he said. "Arc90 cares about the quality of your work over the numbers of hours you put in. They see that your contributions are based on the quality of what you produce."

The company's hands-on work environment allowed Rama to show off his skill sets. Although he didn't always see himself in a managerial role, working at Arc90 has helped Rama discover new talents.

"Arc90 gives you chances to explore new avenues for what you want to do," he noted. "I've learned a lot of leadership skills here and those skills have helped me to progress to where I am. Managing people is something that you can't teach. You fall into it and if you have it, you can succeed."

Rama was recently promoted to the Director position at Arc90. His responsibilities include overseeing programmers, helping to design the backend of software and interacting with clients. Although Rama doesn't code as often as he used to, he still enjoys his role as head of the Shared Services team.

"I'm better suited at designing the system," he noted. "I like helping developers reach the goals that we set. It's more about having a team effort instead of just focusing on a single coder."

He's also grown on a personal level; he admits that he's learned to have patience.

"When working in a group scenario, being a patient person is key," Rama added. "Everybody has to learn to work together. You have to put aside faults and get the job done."

One of the Rama's favorite aspects about life at Arc90 includes learning from the individuals around him.

"Working with intelligent people challenges you to be smarter," he said. "There's no real competition; being around smart people makes you want to try harder and gain more knowledge. Everybody benefits from being around people they want to learn from."

When he isn't working with programmers or interacting with clients, Rama enjoys exploring his creative side with by writing music and playing the guitar. He got his first guitar when he was eight-years-old.

"If I had unlimited money and didn't work here, I would be a musician," the 24-year-old said. "I love playing my guitar. I try to find every open mic that I can to get people to listen to my music."

In 2006, during Rama's first summer of employment, the company released Arc90 Vol. 1, a collection of original music written and performed by the employees.

"It was the first event that I was involved in," Rama recalled. "It was cool that the company threw a release party for us. We had some serious talent on the CD."

A former Arc90 employee also used one of Rama's songs from the collection, "The Good Life," for his wedding compilation CD.

"The CD still lives on," Rama said. "It's great that it's a part of people's lives."

Don't Design to Get Compliments on UI

chrisl@arc90.com (Chris LoSacco) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:06:02 -0500

I've been reminded a lot lately -- especially with the releases of The Better Project and the good showing that Kindling made at the Web 2.0 Expo last week -- that the best compliment you can get on a UI is that the product makes a difference in someone's work, or let's someone do something they couldn't or didn't want to do before, or makes twenty minutes a day a little more fun.

It's not "Wow, that looks great". It's not "What a slick interface". It's not even "Users probably love this" (which is a different way of saying, mostly, "That's a pretty UI"). I'd much rather hear "What a great idea for an app" or "I could see myself using this every day" or "How am I working without this?". That means the UI is doing its job: getting out of the way of content and utility.

If you're designing to make something look good, you're probably going down the wrong path. Focus on providing something that's going to make someone's life a little better after they use it. That's a compliment you want.

What Do You Want To Make Better?

rich@arc90.com (Richard Ziade) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:55:34 -0500

Everyone has their things, places, interests and causes that they care about. There's never really been a place to share and discuss how to make those things better in a collaborative way, until now (cue the dramatic introduction music) :

So what are you waiting for? Go make something better: