Paul Irish

Building a solid webapp is a challenge for all developers, but a plethora of tools have emerged recently to assist you. From starting boilerplates, to performance tuning and build tools, you'll get a full overview of the tooling ecosystem. In this session, you'll learn which mature and valuable open source projects can save you time as well as get answers to common questions in building a webapp.

For all I/O 2012 sessions, go to https://developers.google.com/io/

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Do you often use Terminal.app on Mac OS X? If so, you need to consider using iTerm. It offers a number of customizations, including location bookmarks and Command+Number navigation to named tabs that make you more productive at the shell prompt.

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This interactive talk will examine two major questions: What is the mind? and How can we create a healthy mind? We'll examine the interactions among the mind, the brain, and human relationships and explore ways to create a healthy mind, an integrated brain, and mindful, empathic relationships. Here is one surprising finding: the vast majority (about 95%) of mental health practitioners around the globe, and even many scientists and philosophers focusing on the mind, do not have a definition of what the mind is! In this talk, well offer a working definition of the mind and practical implications for how to perceive and strengthen the mind itself—a learnable skill called mindsight. Then well build on this perspective to explore ways that the mind, the brain, and our relationships are influenced by digital information flow and also how they can be moved toward healthy functioning.

Presented by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.

Google Tech Talks
April 22, 2009

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Get the most out of Mozilla/Firefox

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Derek Neighbors decided to release one cool thing per week in honor of Productivity Wednesday. This first one highlights one of my favorite time accelerators Quicksilver. It shows you how to add an event to iCal or Google Calendar via Quicksilver.

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Improve your typing speed with these helpful tips. Sure, you can touch type, but there's more to typing than knowing where the letters are. Veronica will show you how to navigate that keyboard like a pro with this expert keyboard shortcut tip. Keyboard secrets are revealed in today's Tekzilla.

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A simple key combo lets you edit many files at once. Ever wanted to see the size of a group of files? Need to lock several files at once? Veronica brings you a viewer tip to solve all your problems.

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Although much of the human mind remains a less-than-resolved puzzle, we've learned a lot through the scientific process. Cognitive psychology offers quite a bit of data and distilled information in not only how the mind works, but the conditions under which it can work best. I will present some key ideas and how they can be used to help people, especially Rubyists, be creative and effective.

Among the topics covered will be concept learning, the nature of expertise, limited capacity, types of attention, directed attention (including its fatigue and how to promote recovery), and cognitive clarity. Along the way I'll summarize interesting research and occasionally discuss what's happening in the brain during some of these processes.

About Eric Ivancich
Since the age of fourteen Eric has been using and programming computers. And since his high school days, he's been actively involved in teaching others how to create software.

Eric has a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan. For his dissertation he researched neural models of learning and memory, and evaluated models through computer simulation. Along the way he immersed himself in cognitive psychology, and co-taught, with his faculty adviser, courses such as Cognitive Functioning (and Human Information Processing), Cognition and Environment, and Neural Models.

Eric provides both Ruby and Rails training through LearnRuby.com. He integrates his background in cognitive psychology in both designing courses and teaching them.

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Org-mode is a large Emacs sub-systems that has been integrated into Emacs with the version 22.1 release. From it original intend, Org-mode is a system for structured note-taking and project planning. It uses strictly plain text files, making it a truly portable, system-independent solution. The project-planning features are implemented using a fairly simple outlining paradigm, upon which meta-data concepts like due dates, priorities, TODO states and tags are overlayed in a non-intrusive way. Besides outlining the system and its basic concepts, I will give background information into the history of Org-mode and discuss the properties of such an evolved system compared to a top-down designed one. Finally, I will also briefly touch on some technical aspects that may be interesting for Emacs wizards and developers.

Speaker: Carsten Dominik

Google Tech Talks
July 15, 2008

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Find out how easy it is to launch apps from your keyboard with a simple hack.

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Merlin Mann is the creator of the Getting Things Done oriented web site 43folders.com and a GTD Guru in his own right. He came and did a tech talk last summer called Inbox Zero which was packed, and can be seen at http://youtube.com/watch?v=z9UjeTMb3Yk (and is highly recommended). This time Merlin is coming in to talk to us about time and attention, and how to maximize both.

If you think you don't have time to come to this tech talk, then you are likely one of the people who needs it most!

Speaker: Merlin Mann
Creator of the 43 folders GTD focused web site and several others. Also regular on the This Week in Tech podcast and Macbreak weekly.

Google Tech Talks
March, 31 2008

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Sound can be a direct path to healing of body, mind and soul through the vibratory alignment that occurs when it is focused with powerful intent. It can serve as a doorway to explore realms of unlimited creativity, vocal power, and inner wisdom. Through resonance and vibration, the wave forms and harmonics created by the crystal singing bowls helps return us to a state of our natural rhythm and frequency.

Crystal Overtones Can Help:

• Reduce Stress
• Strengthen the Immune System
• Stimulate Endorphins
• Facilitate Creativity
• Balance the Energy in the Body
• Clear Unwanted Thought Patterns
• Move into Conscious Creation with Joy and Certainty

Speaker: Bruce Manaka
Bruce Manaka, author of "Flights of a Runaway Monk" spent 19 years in a monastery living a life of meditation and contemplation. In his therapeutic sound work, he combines the ancient vocal techniques of overtone singing with the beautiful tones of quartz crystal singing bowls to create dynamic vibratory environments that raises the energy level of everyone present. He will experientially show how sound and its overtones can create positive and profound changes on all levels.

"To me, artistic creation is born of deep inner listening. It is about the energies of the artist embracing the dark mystery that we are, giving form and substance to what wishes to be expressed. And with deep listening comes a kind of surrender, an open window allowing the artist to "see" and experience universal patterns of creation. The Kabbalah is one such dynamic pattern, guiding the artist/seer inwardly to deeper and deeper levels of mystery until he is face to face with the Unspeakable Beauty. He then begins to understand that the underlying fabric of this Beauty is fathomless Love, and that its tapestry can be seen everywhere and in all things."

Since making his transition from the monastery, Bruce has married and now lives in Northern California with his lovely wife Patty.

Google Tech Talks
November 6, 2008

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We developers spend a lot of time talking about how to improve technically at our craft, how to write better code, how to be more productive when we're writing code. But what about when we don't feel like coding? What about the emotions that often keep us from putting our fingers on the keyboard and working on that cool library we want to write or finishing up that cool side project we were so fired up about a few weeks ago?

Or to put it another way, why is it that some developers turn out so much more code than the rest of us? How do they maintain five open source projects (or more!) while we might be doing good to make progress on one? It certainly might be that they're smarter, or that they spend more time at it. But maybe not...

Maybe the reason we don't create more is that we're afraid. Afraid of not finishing, afraid of what others will say, afraid we won't know how to solve a problem, afraid that we're not working on the right thing. If creating code is even partly an act of artistry, then it's worth examining our emotional connection with what we're making. It might be time to start realizing that coding productivity is affected as much by our emotional outlook as it is by our technique.

If "fear is the mind-killer", how do we overcome it? How do we get past our fear so we can create something amazing and have a blast doing it? Those are the questions that this talk aims to at least begin answering.

Finally, why is it so important we conquer our fear and go on to create? _why puts it eloquently:

"when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create."

About Nathaniel Talbott

• Wrote test/unit (no tomatoes please).
• Attended every RubyConf (obvious fanboy).
• Presented at every RubyConf (a bit compulsive).
• Founded Terralien (get paid for my passion).
• Afraid of programming (sometimes).

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Summary
In this presentation filmed during Agile 2008, Michael Mah analyzes the development process in 5 companies: 2 Agile (one of them BMC) and 3 classic. He measures the development productivity and effectiveness and compares the results with industry averages. He also presents the factors which contributed to the success of BMC's Agile adoption.

Bio
Michael Mah is director of the Benchmarking Practice and author with the Cutter Consortium, a Boston-based industry thinktank. With over 20 years of experience, Michael has written extensively and consulted to the world’s leading software organizations while collecting data on thousands of projects worldwide.

About the conference
Agile 2008 is an exciting international industry conference that presents the latest techniques, technologies, attitudes and first-hand experience, from both a management and development perspective, for successful Agile software development.

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Under ordinary circumstances, healthy sleep is by far the most powerful determination of high-level performance and productivity. Three major characteristics must be present to define healthy sleep. They are (1) a sufficient amount and continuity to avoid sleep indebtedness, (2) absence or near absence of pathological sleep-related events and (3) reasonable synchronizing of desired time in bed with circadian predisposition. The nature of each of these three characteristics will be elaborated as well as their relation to performance.

Speaker: Dr. William Dement
William C. Dement, M.D., Ph.D., is the world's leading authority on sleep, sleep disorders, and the dangers of sleep deprivation. He is Chief of the newly created Division of Sleep at Stanford University School of Medicine, which is also the home of the world's first sleep disorders center founded by Dr. Dement.

Born and raised in the state of Washington, Dr. Dement remained in his home state for his undergraduate years at the University of Washington. He then pursued his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, receiving his M.D. in 1955 and Ph.D. in Neurophysiology in 1957. For more than half a century, Dr. Dement has conducted basic sleep research, investigated sleep disorders and treatments, and has launched a myriad of public education programs. From 1953 to 1957, he conducted the first studies leading to the characterization of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the basic REM/NREM sleep cycle, and all night sleep patterns.

In 1975, Dr. Dement founded the American Academy of Sleep Medicine serving as its President for twelve years. Dr. Dement was also a founder of the American Board of Sleep Medicine. From 1990-1993, he served as Chairman of the U.S. Congress's National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research. In 2001, he received the largest National Institute of Health research grant in sleep medicine history to establish the effectiveness and benefits of continuous positive air pressure (CPAP) treatment for large populations of patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

As the author or co-author of over 500 scientific publications, Dr. Dement's research, findings, and advice can be found amongst several texts including his own, The Sleepwatchers, and most recently, The Promise of Sleep. He is also co-editor of the definitive textbook, Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, now in it's 4th edition.

Dr. Dement's strong desire to educate students about sleep and the dangers of sleep deprivation led to the creation of his very popular course, "Sleep & Dreams," at Stanford University, which he has been presenting regularly for over 35 years. He will continue his efforts to educate the public and increase sleep awareness as long as he lives.

Google Tech Talks
September 23, 2008

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Summary
Top rubyist Rich Kilmer gives InfoQ visitors an eye-opening look into his years of success using Ruby to tackle tough defense-related challenges at Darpa. Our interview covers a wide range of cutting-edge technologies from DSLs to Semantic Web technologies such as OWL, to using Flash as a front-end UI framework.

Bio
Rich Kilmer is the founder of Virginia-based software and services company InfoEther, Inc. His background includes peer-to-peer software, wireless web, workflow, and pen computing. His current projects make production use of Ruby on several DARPA research projects. He is an active member of the Ruby development community working on Alph, FreeRIDE, RubyGems, RubyJDWP and hosts RubyForge.org.

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Summary
Zed Shaw and Matt Pelletier sat down with InfoQ's Obie Fernandez at RailsConf to explore some of the reasoning behind setting up the mongrel project, getting adoption in enterprise and dealing with developers who just aren't ready. Watch the interview to find out how much Shaw's Enterprise Mongrel product will cost, where the support contracts are and who'll come out on top when the vultures land.

Bio
Zed Shaw has been developing software for close to 14 years professionally and has worked in such industries as academics, security, government, and companies big and small. Matt Pelletier is a partner at EastMedia, a software, mobile, and business development firm based in New York City.

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Everyone wants to become faster when working in the creative field. Getting fast makes everyone happy including you, your boss and the all-important client. In this episode of Quicktips we take a look at a few techniques that will allow you to start shaving precious minutes off of your next project.

Once you have mastered these techniques I promise that you will be well on your way to becoming a more efficient Photoshop user and an super-productive creative professional!

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