hello, i'm rob v

a pretty neat web developer from san antonio, tx, living in san francisco, ca.

Having an awesome “online handle” isn’t going to make what you do online (or off) any better than if you would have been using your own name. We’ve learned this lesson in the last 10 years as we started out being scared to have people learn our real identities online, so we created fake ones (mine used to be iFDL). The time of fear online is long since past, so it’s time to stop hiding behind “RadDude199″ or “ButteflyGrl22″.

Studies show it doesn’t matter whether you ask people for their realistic best guess or a hoped-for best case scenario. Either way, they give you the best case scenario. It’s true on a big scale and it’s true on a small scale too. We just aren’t good at being realistic. We envision everything going exactly as planned. We never factor in unexpected illnesses, hard drive failures, or other Murphy’s Law-type stuff.

When did Texas become gay?…. “Over 450,000 Texans voted for the new license plate design, shown above, which features the new 7-character numbering system. The digitally-produced, full color plate depicts the Davis Mountains, Texas’ most extensive mountain range, and will be available as soon as the Travis County tax assessor’s office exhausts its supply of the current 6-character plates.” (via Say Hello to the New Texas License Plate - Austinist)

When did Texas become gay?…. “Over 450,000 Texans voted for the new license plate design, shown above, which features the new 7-character numbering system. The digitally-produced, full color plate depicts the Davis Mountains, Texas’ most extensive mountain range, and will be available as soon as the Travis County tax assessor’s office exhausts its supply of the current 6-character plates.” (via Say Hello to the New Texas License Plate - Austinist)

What is a browser? was the question we (Google) asked over 50 passersby of different ages and backgrounds in the Times Square in New York. Watch the many responses people came up with. (via Please Enjoy - The Work of Ji Lee )

As a principal and founding partner of a consulting firm that eventually grew to 600 employees, I interviewed, hired, and worked alongside hundreds of business-school graduates, and the impression I formed of the M.B.A. experience was that it involved taking two years out of your life and going deeply into debt, all for the sake of learning how to keep a straight face while using phrases like “out-of-the-box thinking,” “win-win situation,” and “core competencies.

A “slug” is also the term used in newsrooms to refer to the short filename of a story or a photo. Slugs, assigned by the copy desk, might be something like “Bush Speech” or “Va Shooting.” Slugs are “insider” labels for stories that appear in the paper with much longer headlines and captions. With the advent of the web, slugs are no longer “insider” information.

—I always wondered why I referred to url friendly strings as slugs, now I know… Writer Way: Slugs on the web

Quickly sketch out iPhone UI prototypes. Brainstorm your application ideas using our precision cut stainless steel stencil and mechanical pencil. Limited edition of 100. (via iPhone Stencil Kit | Design Commission)

Quickly sketch out iPhone UI prototypes. Brainstorm your application ideas using our precision cut stainless steel stencil and mechanical pencil. Limited edition of 100. (via iPhone Stencil Kit | Design Commission)

[R]ecent versions of every major browser — Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and yes, Internet Explorer — now default to page zooming instead of text scaling for Ctrl+/- and Command+/- commands.. In effect, the browser assumes the burden of relative sizing… What does all this mean? It means px can again be considered a viable value for font-size.

Watch Philip Schiller, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, unveil the new iPhone 3G S, the new MacBook Pro family, and Mac OS X Snow Leopard. See the video-on-demand event right here, exclusively in QuickTime and MPEG-4.

In all, it seems folks are mostly disappointed with the mixed news regarding AT&T’s handling of service and pricing for the iPhone. Despite Apple claiming to be happy with AT&T as the exclusive carrier in the US, it doesn’t seem likely Apple is too keen on AT&T lagging behind other carriers in support of MMS and tethering. And it seems that consumers’ needs, especially when it comes to pricing, won’t be truly addressed until the iPhone is available from more than one carrier.