I learned a lot at Google. I did a combination of development for the front-end (JavaScript/AJAX, CSS/HTML) as well as on the back-end (PHP, Java). Every line of code that I wrote was code reviewed by another Googler before it could be checked in. At first I thought this was an unnecessary and time-wasting procedure, but I came to understand the importance of this, even for the seemingly unimportant pieces of code. When you know someone else is going to be looking at your code, it forces you to program more clearly and concisely, and I learned better coding techniques from the code reviews. Also, by ensuring that all code at Google conforms to the same style guides, any engineer can quickly jump into someone else’s code with the smallest possible learning curve.

My software engineering internship was pretty unique and flexible because of the team that I was on, so I also had the opportunity to do a good bit of UI (user interface) work. I designed from scratch, improved existing UIs, and did research and make recommendations for better UIs. My other team members (here’s two) were very talented and I was able to learn a lot just by working along side them. Working at a company like Google is great because you are constantly surrounded by very intelligent people.

It is a great feeling to know that you’re working at a company which is providing products and services that millions of people use every day. It is an even better feeling to know that your work is directly being used and liked by real people. At Google, while doing research for one of my projects, I had an idea that would help save other Googlers time and make them more productive. Without getting into details about the project itself, after about 1,000 lines of JavaScript, I had created something that a lot of Googlers started using, talking about, and sharing with others. It wasn’t a world changing application that is being launched externally any time soon, but it was useful enough that we could actually see it spreading virally throughout the company, and I got over 100 thank you emails within a few days. I can only imagine the great feeling it would have been to create an external product (like GMail), that millions of people love and use daily.

Another great part of the summer was the opportunities for networking. I was able to visit Meebo for another great lunch2.0, visited the offices of Facebook a couple times, met the creator of Mint (which I think is my favorite web2.0 app of the year), attended WordCamp, and attended the Techcrunch Party 9 at August Capital. It was also great seeing, meeting, and hanging out with a lot of other young people working in the web space - other Google interns, friends at Yahoo! and eBay, those doing startups, others working in the Bay Area, and friends who flew out to visit.
Overall, I’d give the summer a thumbs up. For now, I’m back in Gainesville studying Computer Engineering at UF, where the weather is significantly hotter. A lot of people have asked me about next summer and what I want to do when I graduate. I still do not know. I could definitely see myself at a company like Google, but for now I am just looking forward to a new semester at school and am not making any definite plans yet.

Hibernicor, LLC (Gainesville, FL)

This website is for Hibernicor, a medical technology company that is creating a device which allows for better transportation of donor hearts. The website design was based on the client’s needs.

Highlights:

1. Clean, professional site design to complement the company’s other branding material.
2. Laid out technical content in a simple way by attaching PDFs and other documents where appropriate.
3. Developed a simple way for the client to post news updates for those interested in the company.
4. Built the site around Wordpress as a Content Management System (CMS) which allows the client to easily update the website content without knowledge of web design.

“Our clients think the website is great and has a professional layout that is easy to use.”
-Andrew Rivard, Founder of Hibernicor, LLC

This site is the online home for Swimming Safari, a company that teaches swimming lessons. I came up with a complete website design based on the client’s needs.

Highlights:

1. Site design is fun and inviting to convey a child-friendly swimming lesson environment, while being professional and easy to use.
2. Provide a way for the business to accept online payments via PayPal to save time in processing registrations.
3. Focused heavily on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in order to help drive local business to the site for people looking for swimming lessons in Jacksonville, FL.

My title will be Software Engineering Intern, and I’ve been placed on a team that works on web applications for Google’s intranet. I won’t be able to discuss any specifics of what I’m working on once I begin, but I’m expecting it will relate to primarily front-end work (user interfaces and such using HTML/CSS and JavaScript/AJAX) as well as some PHP.

I’ll be out in the San Francisco Bay area again (6/5/07 - 8/10/07), most likely living near downtown San Jose. I’m definitely looking forward to reconnecting with many of the people I met last year there and meeting many more.

Lastly, some people have asked me about Yahoo!, and why I’m not returning there for another summer. I had an incredible experience at Yahoo! last summer; it is a leading web company and I learned a lot by being there. However, I feel like my summer would be better spent at Google for a few reasons. First of all, this is the one time in my life where I’m able to easily check out multiple competing companies in a relatively short period of time. Secondly, while Yahoo! is doing great things, Google is behind more products that I currently use on a daily basis and I have a strong appreciation for their simple but powerful interfaces such as Gmail and Google Calendar. I’m not putting Yahoo! out of the question in terms of future employment, but I also don’t feel an obligation to go back.

I’m looking forward to this summer at Google. I expect to learn a lot and will hopefully have another great, eye-opening experience.

Some of the panels and parties that I enjoyed the most:

Saturday 3/10:

• After the Brief: A Field Guide to Design Inspiration. It was great to see some examples of inspiration for designers Jason Santa Maria and Rob Weychert of Happy Cog Studios
• Grids Are Good and How to Design with Them. Very insightful and practical presentation about using grids in design from Mark Boulton and Khoi Vinh of Subtraction
• From Tags to Riches: Life After Code.

Sunday 3/11:

• Keynote Conversation: Limor Fried / Phil Torrone. They’re from MAKE, what else do I need to say? It was also good to see Bre Pettis of Make Magazine again.
• Avalonstar Bowling Tournament. Thanks Bryan Veloso, this was definitely one of my favorite parts about SXSW. Competition+meeting others in a fun environment was a great experience. My team, Team Pin Monkeys, came in 2nd place overall, after nearly losing to the guys from Clearleft.

Monday 3/12:

• Barenaked App: The Figures Behind the Top Web Apps. Many thanks to the founders of Freshbooks, Dropsend, and others who were willing to share exact figures in terms of development costs, gross revenue, etc for several popular web apps. I was especially shocked to see the high monthly maintenance costs of these apps - very insightful.
• The Growth and Evolution of Microformats.
• Godbit Dinner. Great to finally meet Nathan Smith and several other great people and had some really good conversations.

Tuesday 3/12:

• Web Typography Sucks. Another great presentation on the current state of web typography. I learned a lot in terms of letter spacing, line height, fonts, special characters, alignment, and more.

All in all, I had a great experience. While I expected to go to SXSW to learn a lot (and I did), I quickly figured out that it wasn’t really just about that. As Richard pointed out, it’s more about meeting people. No other place (arguably besides in Silicon Valley) can you find so many enthusiastic and talented designers and programmers. I was able to just go up and introduce myself to well-known designers and bloggers, and they were always completely approachable and humble. Being in this kind of environment definitely caused me to think about the web design and developing web apps in a different way. SXSWi: highly recommended.

It will also be good to see some people I haven’t seen in a while. I’m flying up with Jon Livingston, meeting up with Richard Crowley, and looking forward to see Bryan Veloso at the Avalonstar Bowling tournament. If I know you (or not, but you’re reading this) and you’re going, be sure to let me know so we can meet up. This is guaranteed to be an interesting experience, and I’m excited. Maybe I’m expecting too much, but I’ve heard from people that SXSW can change your entire perspective regarding the web. Bring it on.

Great post!  In a way, I would strongly agree with you.  In a way, I desire more integration.  Ironically, I actually found/read your post through Facebook Notes because you tagged Richard.

I, too, am an avid user of the “best” social networks (Flickr for photos, del.icio.us for bookmarks, YouTube for videos, LinkedIn for professional networking, etc).

Here’s what I like about what Facebook is doing: making these services available and known for “the masses”.  Blogging/Notes, Photo Sharing, and now Shares.  For people who wouldn’t normally use any of these features at the above named other websites, this is great.

Automatically recognizing blogs listed as “websites” and integrating/importing blog posts as Notes is genius.

In my opinion, this is the kind of the thing that Facebook really needs to do.  Here is another example:

What if Facebook extended this type of functionality to watch your del.icio.us (and other popular/competing sites) bookmarks and automatically import them into “My Shares”?
[Aside: you may not want to pollute everyones News Feed each time someone bookmarks something, but perhaps a message like: "Phil Freo has Shared _7 items_ today." with a link to those items would be good.]

The magic for Facebook can then happen when a lot of del.icio.us users have all their bookmarks as Shares.  “Normal users” (the kind that don’t use del.icio.us) can then benefit from everyone else using it by being able to search/find the best websites about anything.    By keeping the current Shares model, I would never think to search Facebook Shares for a good website (or search my own bookmarks) - but this would cause me and a lot of other people to rely on Facebook for even more, which is exactly what they should want.

So, what else can Facebook do to both integrate *and* allow non-techies to benefit from?  Here’s three to get you started.

1. Automatically watch/import/tag my del.icio.us (and competing) bookmarks as Shares.
2. Automatically watch/import my blog’s comments in imported Notes
3. Automatically watch/import/tag my Flickr photos where possible into My Photos.

[Aside: yes, there are issues with each of these, but I'm more than confident they can be worked out.]

For the average user, there is just a massive amount of very valuable content on Facebook.  For the power user, they now have all of their own content on Facebook.  Everyone would then be happier - especially Facebook.

Here is the CSS:

ul.menu {
margin: 9px 9px 0 9px;
padding: 5px 0px 6px 10px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #afafaf;
}

ul.menu li {
margin: 0px;
list-style: none;
display: inline;
}

ul.menu li a {
margin: 0;
padding: 5px 12px 6px 12px;
border: 1px solid #afafaf;
background: #DDE;
font: normal 12pt Georgia, 'Times New Roman';
color: black;
text-decoration: none;
}

ul.menu li a:hover {
background: #333;
color: #eee;
text-decoration: none;
}

ul.menu li.current_page_item a,
ul.menu li.current_page_item a:hover {
border-top: 1px solid #afafaf;
border-bottom: 1px solid white;
background: white;
color: #333;
text-decoration: none;
}

BrowserCam is an extremely useful (and quick) tool to easily see a screenshot of your websites in over 30 different OS/browser/version combinations. It’s incredibly handy instead of guessing whether it work in other browsers, or trying to install multiple versions of each browser. It’s free for 1 day for every email address you have…

On an unrelated note, 10 Minute Mail, 2 Prong, and Mailinator allow you to have an instant free temporary email address for those sites that require you confirm an email address but you know you don’t need your real address. Leave your browser window open until you get that “confirmation” email and then forget about it.

PS - If anyone has any advice as to how to easily paste CSS or other code and have WordPress preserve it’s formatting (line breaks and spaces), let me know.

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