- I was able to snag my vanity Facebook URL (they are calling them usernames): http://www.facebook.com/danromero.
- I’ve been taking a lot of pictures lately, cross-posting them on both Facebook and Flickr.
- I recently got my first byline on TechCrunch.
Blog
Some brief notices
June 13th, 2009
Caffè Americano
June 11th, 2009
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson analyzes Starbucks’ newest competitor: McDonald’s.
The article discusses how most Americans only care about consuming coffee for the caffeine, rather than experiencing it in a café with friends. This is likely the result of the American fast-food culture (fast as in speedy eating, not unhealthy — Panera Bread falls under this category). And from that perspective, it’s no surprise that McDonald’s has been able to snag a large chunk of market share so quickly.
I’m personally not a big coffee drinker. I enjoy the taste, but certainly can’t tell the difference between coffee arabica and coffee canephora (arabica is supposed to be superior). In all honesty, my favorite type of coffee is a coffee-flavored frappe. But I do believe any type of coffee is best enjoyed with a shot of good conversation and a generous helping of people watching.
The Big Switch
June 2nd, 2009
No, I am not writing a review for Nicholas Carr’s book. I am here to tell you that I recently switched over from my long-time host, Joyent (formerly TextDrive), to Media Temple.
The site should now load significantly faster.
Thoughts on Microsoft Bing
June 1st, 2009
Sunday night, Microsoft launched its much heralded new search engine, Bing. Initially, I thought Bing was going to be another failed “Google-killer” and a quick search of my name and other test words yielded nothing noteworthy. But after spending some more time playing around with it today, I am more impressed.
For one, Bing is quite snappy. And while Google still remains the standard for speed, Bing is the first search engine that I’ve used that can perform in the same realm.
Looking at the search results, I’ve found Bing results to be comparable to Google ones. A result that I found more useful on Bing than an equivalent search on Google was for the Canon 40D. Bing provides easy access to searches for the manual, troubleshooting, and the battery. Additionally, all of Bing’s searches offer other relevant searches at the top of the results. And while these features are certainly not game changers (Google has both, albeit, in less accessible places), they reflect a thoughtful effort by the Bing design team to make the average search more specific.
What would make me use Bing on a more consistent basis? If it alllowed real-time searching of Twitter and Facebook. (This suggestion came from Loic.) If Bing wants to steal market share from Google, it needs to cater to power users — aka web nerds. Adding real-time results from both Twitter and Facebook (two entities which Microsoft has better relations with than Google), would make the service unique, and that much better.
Analyzing analytics
May 27th, 2009
Although I don’t receive a huge amount of traffic, I am currently running two different analytics packages on this site. The first is Shuan Inman’s Mint; the second is Google Analytics. I use both because they each do well with different things, and frankly, because I can. And since my site has a fairly small bandwidth footprint (it’s mostly text), the extra time required to run both scripts is negligible.
For the day-to-day stats tracking, I use Mint. From a design perspective, it’s a gorgeous piece of software. I think Shaun Inman is one of the web design world’s most interesting and talented designers: besides Mint, he’s built an 8-bit iPhone/iPod Touch game, Horror Vacui (also available for the Wii), an interesting little bookmarklet called Shortwave, and an in-development RSS reader, Fever. Did I mention he invented sIFR?
Mint’s standard layout displays a set of core metrics: visits, referrers, pages, and searches. There are additional modules (called peppers) that you can add to the view, but after spending a couple of months adding and removing peppers, I’ve settled on the default layout, plus Locations (where visitors are from) and User Agents (what browsers visitors are using).
Google Analytics is no slouch either. By most standards it’s a well-designed piece of software. One complaint is that it can feel a bit overwhelming at times — there are too many (poorly explained) features.
I keep Google Analytics running mainly for the visitor map. It’s interesting to see the breakdown of where visitors are coming from and exciting to know that people as far away as Australia and Mongolia have stumbled across the site.
Italy, California first week recap
May 26th, 2009
A quick recap of my last three weeks.
Italy — for my first time in the country, I couldn’t have asked for a better trip. We were able to see everything we wanted, but didn’t have to keep to a preset schedule. We split our time evenly between Rome and Florence, with a day trip through Tuscany (Siena, San Gimignano, and Pisa) thrown in for good measure. Overall, I my favorite city was Siena and my favorite sight was Michelangelo’s David. Gastronomic highlights were Florentine steak, pizza margherita, and chocolate gelato. Unexpected event of the trip: running into the Pope.
California — moved into the “Hacker House” in Palo Alto on Sunday night; started work bright and early Monday morning. (Arrived at 8 a.m. only to discover everyone else arrives at 10.) After a seat relocation on Tuesday, I am now on the CrunchCam. Should be an interesting summer.
Summer plans
April 25th, 2009
With my junior year of college fast coming to an end, and my mind already wandering around somewhere between the Fourth of July and my birthday, I thought I would post my summer itinerary for perusal.
I am done with my last final Wednesday night and depart for Massachusetts early Thursday morning. Google Maps estimates the drive will take 12 hours, but that assumes I avoid D.C. and NYC traffic. Although a pleasant thought, highly unlikely.
On Sunday (May 3), I’m headed to Italy for 10 days. As for what will happen on the trip, I have no idea — it will be my first experience backpacking. For the plane, I ordered copies of Lonely Planet Italy and The Rough Guide to Italy. (Too bad I don’t have a Kindle. The thought of having an electronic guidebook would have significantly boosted the adventure’s nerd credibility.)
Returning from Italy, I will be home again for a few days before boarding a plane for California, where I’ll be working at TechCrunch in Palo Alto. The internship lasts 12 weeks, after which I hope to have a good feel for the Bay Area, and more importantly, know how to correctly order a burger from In-N-Out.
The last two weeks of summer will be back at home in Massachusetts, with a good portion of time on Cape Cod. And it wraps up with with a drive back to North Carolina for my last year at Duke.
A recap of the dates:
- April 30 – May 2: Massachusetts
- May 3 – 12: Italy
- May 13 – 16: Massachusetts
- May 17 – August 7/8: California
- August 8/9 – August 21/22 : Massachusetts
- August 22/23: North Carolina
If you will be in any of those locations while I’m there, you now know how to avoid me I’d love to grab some food or hang out.
Review: Ego (iPhone app)
April 7th, 2009
I recently purchased Ego, an iPhone app from Garrett Murray. The app’s purpose is to do one thing: quickly show you your web stats from Mint, Twitter, Feedburner, and Google Analytics.
I’ve been impressed with Ego for a couple of reasons. First, it’s fast. Slow iPhone apps are my biggest complaint about the otherwise terrific iPhone platform. Fortunately, Ego is as snappy as any of Apple’s original apps, making it a pleasure to use.
From a user interface perspective, the app is simple, focused, and gorgeous. Although my own stats are nothing to call home about, I still boot the app up every morning during my bus ride to campus. The starry glint on the icon has a magnetic quality to it — you need to tap it. Once loaded, the app presents you with a single number for each of the sites you are tracking. Rather than try to cram as much onto the screen as possible, the focus is on displaying a few core metrics and is reminiscent of Mint’s approach to web stats.
And if you aren’t familiar with Garrett Murray (sadly, I wasn’t before I bought Ego), he’s a multi-talented creative based out of Brooklyn. Multi-talented? Aren’t we all? Well, Mr. Murray, besides having a knack for beautiful interfaces, is a pretty good actor. The same week he launched Ego, he released a short film, Forever’s Not So Long. (As John Gruber put it, “quite a busy week.”) He also publishes a regular podcast, The Maniacial Rage Podcast, which, after watching several old episodes, I’m hooked on.
So if you are a web geek with an iPhone (or an iPod Touch!), I highly recommend Ego. Even if your stats are lower than the average attendance of a Friday morning college course, they will at least look good.
The New York Times, in hard copy
April 1st, 2009
A few months ago, I wrote about classes I am taking this semester, one of which is a Public Policy course called Reporting Public Policy. Interestingly, the class requires a traditional, hard copy subscription to The New York Times. (The professor for the class is former Time Magazine editor Susan Tifft.)
So for almost three months now, I’ve been reading a physical copy of the NYT every day. For a kid who grew up in a house that had three papers delivered every morning, it was in a way nostalgic. It was also refreshing. The immediacy and dynamic feeling of the Web had been replaced by the permanent and static feel of the paper. The events were not happening — they had happened. Although only a day old, reading the physical paper has a historical feel to it.
One of the nice features about getting the news from a physical paper is the experience of skimming and scanning articles. Although the Times recently released an excellent digital article skimmer, it falls short of the ability to flip through the pages and sections.
I have also been pleased with the special Sunday sections: Week in Review, Sunday Styles, and The New York Times Magazine. Yes, all of them are available online, but prior to actually reading the physical copy of the paper, I would have never known about them.
After reading a dozen or so articles a day for three months, I am convinced that reading a daily print paper is an excellent way to become an educated, literate person. So if you’re a twenty-something like myself who has never read a daily newspaper in actual paper form, you might want to give it a shot for a few months. Before they stop printing them for good.