Techmamas

Nrrrd Grrrlss

I had the pleasure of attending the Girl Geek Dinner - Facebook Developer Garage last week. The Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner website mentioned the two livebloggers, Yours Truely and Valleywag.

I have to admit reading Valleywag is one of my guilty-nerdy pleasures, but their post did not include some of the most important aspects of the night: The room was filled with some kick arse tech savvy gals who were not only interested in the Facebook Platform API (and in the Facebook language FBML...) but also knowing how to using Ruby on Rails as the web framework to write a Facebook app - and then sell it (take those Easter Eggs to the bank)! We also heard from some fabulous Facebook fem product designers and managers at Facebook.

To top it off, I enjoyed hearing from Cyan Banister - anyone that is voted the sexiest geek alive is good by me. I mean, come on, The Sexist Geek Alive team did produce this catchy video:

I did jump at the opportunity to geek up with all the fun props at the dinner for a picture by Vanessa Naylon. As a 40-something girl geek mom of three boys - do ya think I could put myself in the running for the sexiest geek alive?

Maybe not, for now I am just happy to be hanging out with the other girl geeks.

PC World - 101 Fantastic Freebies

I just found this link to PC World - summarizing 101 links to sites with freebies.

Katie Couric - How To Use an Automated Defibrillator

I just received an email from CBS news with the info below, and thought it was relevant not only with the recent death of Tim Russert, but for everyone to learn how to use a defibrillator:
_________________________________________________________________________________
How to Save a Life: If a medical emergency happened in your office, would you be prepared?

Katie Couric and CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook showed the Evening News team how to use an automated external defibrillator in this important YouTube video:

Katie points out just how easy it is to use a defibrillator.  "Trust me, they are a lot easier to use than they are to pronounce, and they can save a life," she says.

More than a million people have a heart attack a year, but only 300,000 have sudden cardiac arrest and of those half of them have never had any previous history of heart decreases.  Nationally, if you go down and no one is around, there is only a 4 - 6 percent survival rate.  If you have CPR it can go up to 15 percent and with a defibrillator the survival rate can be 30 - 40 percent, even higher.

Smartphone Data Plans - Should We or Shouldn't We?

I just received an email from a reader who asked a very good question. She is looking into getting a smartphone and asked if she can just use the calender functions without the extra expense of the Internet data plan?  I replied back with some details but suggested that having Internet access (including email) with the smartphone would be a worthwhile investment.

Some may question why they would need to access their email on their phone.  But I find my day is much more efficient because I am able to access emails on the run, utilizing down time like waiting in line at the grocery store, to keep up to date on emails. Some emails come through that need to be answered right away, and I can do that with my smartphone that includes a data plan (I use the BlackBerry Curve with a voice/data plan).

The price of the data plans has become reasonable. Verizon , Sprint, AT&T and have different plan offerings.  I found a great summary of smartphone data plans is available on the Yahoo Tech site from gadget hound Ben Patterson: Beginner's Guide to Smartphone Data Plans.

For those that still don't feel the need to access email on their smartphone, the answer is "yes" - you can use the calender without internet access. To sync the calender with your pc, many smartphones have a USB port that can be used to connect directly.

Social Media Links...

Take a look at Marketing Roadmaps at the following posts about social media:

• Blogging & social media: What customer service professionals should know, and do, about it (Part 1), Blogging, Social Media & Customer Service Part 2 and then check back for part 3...

• Kris Olsen discusses Five Social Media books worth reading.. I would probably add Sarah Lacy's new Web 2.0 book to the list.

• Josh Bernoff of Groundswell blog posted on the Social Networks around the world

And For Privacy Lesson #1, LOG OFF of your email account

I just saw an interesting article in the New York Times called "A Company Computer and Questions About Email Privacy". The article is about a court case involving Scott Sidel and Structured Settlement investments. On one side is Scott Sidell who left the company and "found out that his former employer was reading his personal Yahoo e-mail messages, after he had left the company", ...including e-mail messages that he had sent to his lawyers discussing his strategy for winning an arbitration claim over his lost job." On the other side is Structured Settlement investments who say Mr. Sidell had returned to the office after he was fired and had begun  using another employee’s computer. 

The discussion was around that while using that other person's computer (at the office), he must not of logged off of his email account. I am not going to debate the he-said, he said - but I will say that this is a great lesson learned for all: LOG OFF OF YOUR DARN EMAIL ACCOUNT IF YOU ARE NOT USING YOUR OWN COMPUTER!  Many email programs have special functions that allow you to stay "logged on" for a short time, without having to enter your own ID/password. This works great when you are using your own personal computer - that you no one else is using... But, if you EVER log on to a public or another person's computer to check your email - it is important to log off afterwards. The same goes for logging onto any other website where a user id/password is needed -  what is also needed is to "log off" afterwards.

Even if you log off, your account can be compromised so it is important to be careful with what information you send via email. So the final lessons learned is to log off of online accounts after using them and save some information for a phone call!

Related links:
Lifehacker.com has an interesting post about "electronic tripwire" in your email account to keep you aware of email break-ins. 

Both Yahoo and Google have info that discuss their security. Yahoo also has a Security Center, while Google has the Privacy & Security Help Center. 

Any others to add?

Liveblogging Facebook Girl Geek Developer Garage

I am here in San Francisco using my new favorite toy (Sprint USB Broadband card - Compass 597) to liveblog one of my favorite social networking events: Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners. The theme of this dinner is the Facebook Developer Garage with the following panelists:
» Ruchi Sanghvi (Principal Product Manager, Facebook)
» Julie Zhuo (Product Designer, Platform, Facebook)
» Alina Libova (Founder and Developer, Easter Eggs)
» Holly Liu (User Experience and Co-Founder, Watercooler)
» Annie Chang (Co-Founder, LOLapps)
Moderator:
Sandra Liu Huang (Program Manager, Facebook)
Introduction:
Cyan Banister (Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Zivity)

This event celebrates and promotes women in technology.  Please excuse any incorrect statements or spelling errors, my son decided to wake us up at 3am with alittle stomach problem so it was not a good night for sleep!

It is almost 7pm and we about to start...

Angie Chang, organizer of the Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner is giving an intro. She thanked Facebook for sponsoring this event.

Cyan Banister (Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Zivity) introduced herself and shared that she was once voted the most sexiest Geek. She talked about the contest - it was a time based test... Started out as 100,000 then she won. Celebrated both female and male geeks. She has a blog: Sexiest Geek Alive (they are accepting nominations now.... ) . 50% or more are online buyers, but there is not good representation the engineers - so glad to see everyone.

Ami Vora from the Facebook Platform group talked about advantages and disadvantages of being a girl geek. No lines for bathroom - one of the advantages. But hard to find mentors. She was excited to bring women from around the social media space together. Seeing this network gave her hope to see a strong female network.

Julie - Is an Engineer at Facebook... She talked about the history and technical challenges and what is coming up over the horizon.
-Why did they build this platform? Value of social contest for applications. Make it possible for users to have a social network everywhere. Then they integrated third party application content and distribution.  One of the biggest distribution channels is the newsfeed. There are also minifeeds, requests and invitations channels. 
About the platform...They created FBML, extension of HTML.  FBML is first parced by Facebook and translated into HTML to be rendered by browser.  FTML helps enforce privacy and can be abstract.
Re-design plans? They are working on a profile re-design to put the focus more on the user and highlight what is relevant. There will be tabs on the new profile. Users will be able to install application tabs.

Sandra- 20% of the people do 80% of the networking. She suggested we all introduce ourselves to the person sitting next to us... I had to great opportunity to talk with Ami Vora.

Panelists introduced themselves: Ruchi Sanghvi (Principal Product Manager, Facebook),Julie Zhuo (Product Designer, Platform, Facebook), Alina Libova (Founder and Developer, Easter Eggs), Holly Liu (User Experience and Co-Founder, Watercooler). Annie Chang (Co-Founder, LOLapps)

QUESTIONS:

How is it working in early stage of products?...Holly- We put emphasis on listening to users and growing. Holly said the social media space is dynamic - fast paced change, it is important to respond to user feedback. Annie said it is exciting, busy - when working on Facebook we get instant feedback. When Ruchi started at Facebook they had a small crew, but over time they matured and understood the value we offered. We added unique visions, it has been truly dynamic and an amazing experience.

How about moving it to the next stage? Julie said they were surprised how the user base grew so quickly, and commented that they constantly look at is what is best for the  Facebook users. Holly said Iterate as soon as you get user feedback and make things easy and accessible for users... Alina started adding ad revenue then used the Facebook developer forum to advertise that she wanted to sell her facebook app.

Where do you go to find ideas for product development and find people to mentor you? Alina gets the most ideas during final week. She uses teachers and a wiki page for mentorship. Julie gets ideas for applications from their user community, suggested if you talk about what you are interested in and passion about you will end up meeting the right people. Ruchi also said to iterate and develop quickly. Holly said simple applications that allow people to share information is important. Alina suggested to find a niche market, most developers are men and there are many women that use social networking apps so having a women's perspective while developing apps is an advantage. Annie said Facebook app distribution is totally different, you just need to understand how people interact with their friends. It will grow if you design it right and people want to share it with their friends.

What facebook apps do you like?

Julie - Bowling buddies and word games (like scramble). Alina likes the friends circle. Holly likes the biggest brain.

Questions from the audience....

Here comes the food....

SUMMARY: Seeing and meeting these women made me proud to be a girl geek!

Kung Fu Panda Movie - Behind the Scenes Technology...

The Silicon Valley Moms Group last week had the opportunity to celebrate the Kung Fu Panda Movie with HP. At the party, we received questions on why HP is partnering with Dreamworks Animation. To answer that question they sent me some info including their press release:

"HP has helped DreamWorks Animation create groundbreaking animation features from Shrek to Bee Movie. For this latest project, HP technology helped animators solve artistic challenges to bring the story of Po the Panda to life. Audiences will see a wide variety of deeply intricate, organic environments that only exist because of the unprecedented power of HP workstations with multi-core processors."

Basically, HP put a bunch of computers to work with Dreamworks to create the complicated animation. The HP site also has a Kung Fu Panda craft page with that was created to "help audiences bring the Kung Fu Panda experience home", including templates to make Kung Fu Panda puppets and take out baskets.

I wanted more factoids so they sent me this Kung Fu Panda Fact Sheet (my 9 year old loves factoids):

MySpace Versus Facebook: Where are the Highschool/College Students Going?

UPDATE: See response from 23 year old blogger/writer Vanessa Van Petten  below...

Andrew Chen from the blog "Futuristic Play" posted with an international analysis of the traffic and ad revenue of MySpace versus Facebook.  The summary had an interesting conclusion: "MySpace leads in the major market (the US) but is losing ground overseas".  That post lead to a discussion on Techmeme, with blogs like GigaOm who added "....Social Networks need to find new purposes for people to come back every day and be loyal."

I can't comment on the international market, but I can comment on the US. I like to use my "completely unscientific" analysis which is just talking with random people to see which social network they use. While some college students are sick of what is out there - which relates to GigaOm's point that social networks need to find new purposes - the overall trend is online social networking becoming the "default stop" for all college students. A neighbor of mine, who has a son entering college next fall, said his son joined the college's Facebook network and has already found a local gal to go on a few dates, a roomate and friends.  College students are using Facebook events, applications, groups and even Facebook pages (good purposes for people to come back). When I ask the teens, they mention both MySpace and Facebook, but say that many are "leaving" MySpace for Facebook. When I asked why - they just said because Facebook is "cool". The Facebook terms of use allow teens starting at 13 years or older to create profiles, but they must be in highschool. MySpace's terms of use specify 14 years or older, without the educational requirements. The educational requirement has turned into an advantage for Facebook, highschool and college students I talk to joined to be part of their school's groups/network.

Yahoo Shine's Rock Mama Meets Rick Springfield

Charlene Prince Birkeland is a writer for the Parenting channel at Yahoo's Shine, but best of all is a real rock mama. She goes to guitar camp, she knows all about music. For years she has been a big fan of Rick Springfield, going anywhere to see him in concert. So you can imagine how excited she was to have the chance to interview and GET A GUITAR LESSON from him... Here is the NOT TO BE MISSED post and video: