Top Chef Nerdery on the 2nd of July

Non-programmers arm yourself for the upcoming Silverlight v. Flash battle

If, like me, you work with and around web/tech nerds, you’ve undoubtedly heard murmurings about Flash vs. Silverlight. I’m not sure if this is as contentious of a battle as Mac vs. PC or IE vs. Firefox, but it seems to have that kind of potential.

I set out to find out what exactly the hubbub was about these two technologies and why they’re doing battle. There’s a lot of information about this, mostly aimed at people who know a lot about coding and not a lot of information (at least that I could find) aimed at people who just want an easy answer. I don’t think there is an easy answer. Though I did manage to glean a pretty good deal of info from these three articles. Knowledge is power, arm yourself now because you never know just when the Silverlight or Flash question becomes as self-defining as Coke or Pepsi.

• WikiAnswers: What is the difference between Flash and Silverlight?
• Smashing Magazine: Flash vs. Silverlight: What Best Suits Your Needs?
• Inside RIA: Flash and Silverlight… an unlikely symbiosis?

A Trekkie talking-to

When it comes to the age-old question of who’s the greatest Star Trek captain, this rolling Trekkie debate may have gathered new steam earlier today at The Nerdery when it was learned that (name withheld) not only did NOT have a fave, but (are you sitting down?) has still not even seen the current summer blockbuster.

Come to think of it, this person was nowhere to be seen when we camped out for opening day tickets.

After a good talking-to from HR and some free advice from others, so-and-so is taking in a matinee today. It’s an excused absence.

The Nerdery handles nerd-cred breaches like this internally, however, this blog made the editorial decision to send a shot across the bow.

Each of us has our own coping mechanisms – I had to count to ten again after just rehashing the scene (real or imagined) in my head….phew. Beam me up, somebody, and sing me back down, Bob Dylan:

“You gotta serve somebody/You’re gonna have to serve somebody/It may be Bill Shatner/And it may be Picard/But you’re gonna have to serve somebody”

A company update in 11 tweets

Friday Links: How Michael Jackson’s death broke the Internet & Why all your favorite movies are really the same

• Dramatic Ad Uses Eye-Tracking to Change Content - PSFK.com: A new ad installation has gone up in Hamburg, Germany that uses eye-tracking technology to change the content. The ad for Amesty International exposes the problem of domestic violence with the tagline “It Happens When Nobody is Watching”
• Hold On, I've Seen This Before: How Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix, and Harry Potter are Actually the Same Movie | Spiteful Critic
• Internet groans under weight of Michael Jackson traffic - Ars Technica: The news of pop icon Michael Jackson's collapse and subsequent death sent ripples across the Web on Thursday afternoon, affecting numerous services and sparking yet another spam campaign. Twitter, Google, Facebook, various news sites, and even iTunes were practically crushed under the weight of the sudden spike in Internet traffic. The phenomenon may not be new on an individual level, but combined across services, it was truly one of the most significant in recent memory.
• Need Something? Talk To My Right Ear: We humans prefer to be addressed in our right ear and are more likely to perform a task when we receive the request in our right ear rather than our left.
• Transformers Rule iPhone Paid Book Apps - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat: "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" steamrolls the box office this weekend, iPhone readers are lining up to buy .99-cent digital comics in the Apple iPhone store. Transformer tie-ins now occupy the #2, #4, #6, #7, and #11-14 slots on the "Top Paid Apps" in the books category of the App Store.
• Understanding Credit Card Debt & Credit Card Late Fees | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice | Mint.com Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice: I’m linking to this more for the rad infographic than for the actual information, though that's good too!
• Productivity vs Activity in the Digital Workplace: Productivity is seriously different than activity. I would argue that on any given day there's a good chance that I'm simply being active. Really, really, really active. I know those really active days from the really productive days because I have little to show in terms of results from active days. When I reflect on those active days, I realize that while I was busy, I wasn't purposeful.
• Funkadelic Advertising: Top 10 Augmented Reality Adveritising Campaigns… so far
• Art Direction for David Foster Wallace’s Books » Lone Gunman
• 50+ New and Beautiful Free Wordpress Themes | CrazyLeaf Design Blog
• Old Coupons - a set on Flickr

jQuery - any questions?

Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about jQuery but were afraid to visit The Nerdery in order to ask. Or maybe you were busy, or just nowhere near the neighborhood. Regardless, here’s what you missed if you missed Marc Grabanski’s jQuery Essentials talk at the Twin Cities Web Design user group gathering.

Watch it here:

jQuery Talk at the Nerdery from The Nerdery on Vimeo.

Slides are here:

Skimmer wins gold at Cannes

Skimmer, the Fallon created and Nerd built social-media aggregator, won a Gold Lion at the Cannes Lions international advertising festival, according to AdAge.

Woohoo! Congratulations to everyone involved. Nice work, people.

Good evening, jQuery

Tomorrow at 6 p.m., The Nerdery welcomes jQuery expert Marc Grabanski to lead a Twin Cities Web Design user group discussion on jQuery essentials.

Marc Grabanski is the original author of jQuery UI Datepicker and has worked extensively with jQuery since the release of the fast, lightweight and concise JavaScript library.

A snippet from the library? Check this out:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/path/to/jQuery.js”></script>

I could read between the lines of this stuff for-like-ever. Where’s my jQuery library card?

Mark Grabanski will better address how the open source JavaScript library simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development – and how he uses jQuery as a Minneapolis-based web developer who consults with businesses creating startups.

When: Wednesday, June 24, 2009 6-8 p.m.
Where: The Nerdery, 9555 James Ave S. suite 245, Bloomington MN

The Twin Cities Web Design user group is a community for Minnesota-based web designers, developers and anybody interested in learning or developing their skills in the web marketplace.

Get more info and RSVP.

Testing Obama’s Nerd Cred

John Hodgman’s address at the Radio & TV Correspondent’s dinner in DC is a pretty good listen filled with nerd references including this one on the topic of nerds versus jocks:

You know where I stand on this great divide, I’m a big fat geek. And there are those of you who’ll say, “Wait a minute didn’t he earlier say he’s a nerd? There’s a difference between geeks and nerds, of course.” To you people I say: shut up nerds. This is not the time for bickering. This is a historic moment because seated to my right, right now is the person some people say is the first nerd president of the modern era.

IMHO, not quite as awesome, but much more friendly than Stephen Colbert’s performance a couple years back.

A Golden Ticket to the next Overnight Website Challenge

Yesterday at the Engaged Philanthropy Conference I spent the day with about 300 people talking about social innovation. Most of these folks, I gathered, spend most of their days working/living it. Four standout nonprofits were there vying for the Social Entrepreneur’s Cup, which comes with a $20,000 grant from Social Venture Partners Minnesota. 

Remember when Ed McMahon would show up at people’s doorstep to tell them they’d hit the jackpot? Here’s where we get to be like him, minus the big cardboard check. We sweetened the pot for the Social Entrepreneur’s Cup winner by throwing in a Golden Ticket to the next Nerdery Overnight Website Challenge, where last year, by the numbers, 120 volunteer web pros worked for 12 nonprofits in one room for 24 hours straight – for zero dollars.

And the Golden Ticket goes to … Rural Renewable Energy Alliance (RREAL), worthy winners of the 2009 Social Entrepreneur’s Cup. RREAL’s mission is to make solar energy available to people of all income levels. 

Here’s hoping all three runners up for the Cup also apply for the next Challenge, they are: Admission Possible, Hearth Connection, and lastly, Apple Tree Dental, whose founder began his presentation by saying, “Some of you are probably wondering, ‘What’s this dentist doing here?’” We soon found out. He’s doing what he’s uniquely qualified to do and helping people in dire need of something he’s passionate about. He’s doing what he can.

Social Venture Partners Minnesota executive director Brad Brown challenged everyone in the room yesterday to make Minnesota the Silicon Valley of social innovation. We’ll do what we can next February by working with our friends in the interactive community to help another batch of Minnesota nonprofits move their mission forward by creating websites they couldn’t otherwise afford.

Nerdy deeds, done dirt-cheap. Like the good dentist, we’re just doing what we can – a simple something we should all aspire to.

So welcome, RREAL. Get some rest and we’ll see you in February.