Yahoo has a new pitch to email users: Forget about your password.
Source: WSJ http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/10/15/yahoo-offers-password-free-login-for-email/
and…
The new @Yahoo Mail app is out. There’s magic at every tap…and now supports Hotmail, Outlook.com and AOL Mail! Learn more here: Yahoo Tumblr
While chatting informally with some co-workers, I heard some of them talking about their frustrations about not feeling recognized for their work or working on projects they don’t think makes a difference.
Corporations, which usually mean people in management roles, value those individuals who go beyond doing what they are told to do and look up from their daily work and try to plan for what they want to accomplish in the next 9 months.
As engineers, we are judged on our productivity but more importantly for our potential and influence. For any piece of work we produce, how many other engineers does it influence? Is the engineer helping others to be more productive? Can the engineer take on bigger projects?
When we work on any project, we should ask ourselves what is the BHAG? What is the elevator speech if I happen to be standing next to the CEO and she is asking me what my project is about.
If you are working on a project that you think is not adding a lot of value, finish up the project, document it well and ask to be assign to something else. Better yet, dream up something you are really passionate about, and pitch your idea to as many people as you can.
Watch his talk on YouTube
ydev setup <anything>
I did an informal poll at Yahoo, and also with candidates who interview with Yahoo.
When they join a new team, how long did it take to setup their dev environment. It ranges from 30 minutes to a day, and even several days.
I asked them what if I pour water on their dev box, how much effort would it take to setup their environment again.
Usually people looked at me like I was crazy, and then they say 1/2 day, and they have to look up a twiki page, or some notes.
The effort I am pushing for at Yahoo is for any dev env to have a single line of setup, to install, verify it works, and takes less than 1 hour.
This tool would track
My team and I built the ydev tool that does exactly that. We love it and so do many others.
In trying to pick iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S3 to replace my Blackberry.
I was torn and have switched back and forth for the last 4 days. I finally found an old document written on November 1, 2011 7:52 AM in Evernote. I wrote this document when I had the Blackberry and why I actually enjoyed having it. It’s nice to have an objective document written before any of these phones were released.
The winner is Gallaxy S3 for me personally
Must Haves
– replaceable battery S3 wins
– easy to type up emails S3 wins
– allow for internet tethering S3 wins
– easy to read screen to read nytimes, software documentation without eye strain tied
– easy to type up tasks and capture meeting notes tied
Nice to have
– easy to deal with large volume of emails tied
zen habits: The Tiny Guide to Being a Great Dad
http://zenhabits.net/great-dad/
“vision without execution is hallucination” –
https://tonytam.wordpress.com/
http://happiness-project.com/happiness_project/2012/05/happiness-without-a-good-work-ethic-is-pretty-impossible/
via Byline
Happiness interview: Hugh MacLeod.
Hugh is a cartoonist with a wildly popular blog, gapingvoid. He is the master of capturing a large idea in a single drawing, and a great deal of his work focuses on happiness: how to find happiness in work; how to have the courage to be yourself, do what you love, and take risks; how to build a life around your own values, interests, and temperament.
He has a new book, Freedom Is Blogging in Your Underwear, where he explores how blogging, and the intellectual and creative freedom it gives him, changed his life.
Having a blog isn’t the right route to happiness for everyone, of course. But zoikes, it’s a thrilling tool. And his book is really about how to think big for yourself and the possibilities that the internet offers.
Gretchen: What’s a simple activity that consistently makes you happier?
Hugh: Besides being with my loved ones, the most important and happiest part of my daily routine is finding that quiet, solitary one- or two-hour window in the day that belongs to nobody else but myself. That is where the magic happens. It’s almost like prayer, only more fun and proactive.
What’s something you know now about happiness that you didn’t know when you were 18 years old?
That happiness without a good work ethic is pretty impossible. I guess I always knew that intuitively, but back then I still equated happiness with “Leisure” and “Party” way too much. That being said, being young and stupid was an awful lot of fun, for a time.
Is there anything you find yourself doing repeatedly that gets in the way of your happiness?
Trying to do too much at one time. It took me years to learn to lighten up and delegate, even half properly. Luckily, I now have a great team, including Jason Korman, my fantastic business partner and business manager.
When I lived in New York, I was surrounded by people (and I was just as guilty of this) who were running around like crazy–jobs, parties, lovers, art galleries, gym, shopping, museums, restaurants, bars, personal drama, the whole nine yards. Not only was it exhausting, very few of us actually managed to get that much interesting done in the end. We were too busy trying to keep up with our peers; it was definitely quantity over quality. Again, a good but expensive lesson.
Is there a happiness mantra or motto that you’ve found very helpful? (e.g., I remind myself that “Outer order contributes to inner calm.”)
“Unhappiness is overrated.” Even from a young age, it always surprised me how far people will go in order to justify their own unhappiness. “I’m totally screwing up my life and the life of others around me for no good reason, and it’s all for THE BEST!!!” Yeah. Right.
If you’re feeling blue, how do you give yourself a happiness boost? Or, like a “comfort food,” do you have a comfort activity? (mine is reading children’s books).
I’m rarely blue these days, however… when it does happen, I remind myself that I’ve actually put the hours in, that my work is good and that what blessings I have are already MORE than enough for any lifetime. Constantly wanting more and more ALL THE TIME is just vanity, is just the devil paying tricks on you.
Is there anything that you see people around you doing or saying that adds a lot to their happiness, or detracts a lot from their happiness?
I think people easily forget that that genuine happiness begins with genuine kindness and compassion for others, begins with genuine grace and graciousness. It’s a surprisingly difficult and painful lesson for us all.
Have you always felt about the same level of happiness, or have you been through a period when you felt exceptionally happy or unhappy – if so, why? If you were unhappy, how did you become happier?
I was miserable for a long time career-wise, till I figured out exactly what I was good at and how to effectively put it into practice. In retrospect I’m not sure how smart that was, but mea culpa, live and learn. Luckily, I always saw my unhappier phases as temporary, I always thought I’d win in the end.
Is there some aspect of your home that makes you particularly happy?
Ana, my girlfriend’s cooking, Yum! Living in a genuinely loving home, however dorky and low-key, is SO preferable to the alternative, I have no words.
Have you ever been surprised that something you expected would make you very happy, didn’t – or vice versa.
I once thought that a flashy, big-city, alpaha-male job in an advertising agency would make me happy. Not only was I wrong, it didn’t even pay THAT well, considering how much blood, sweat, toil and tears it exacted. It was a VERY expensive and painful education.
Though I heartily recommend a quiet, low-key, productive daily routine (at least if you want to lead a creative, artistic life, that is), I’m still glad I had a few fun, wild’n’crazy years beforehand. The trick is to not let the latter carry on too long after its sell-by date.
Reasons I’m disconnecting from Facebook
Facebook made it difficult to remove myself
It’s been 3 months and I don’t miss you.
T
It’s that time of year for me to reflect on why we are here working everyday. Please chime in with your thoughts.
What motivates us to be happy and motivated at work?
Money is a great motivator, it’s an enabler for future security, giving our family what they need and want and a validation of our worth in society. There have been a lot of studies online which show that incremental increase beyond your basic needs do not increase happiness.
From personal experience, throughout my work life, I have received large bonuses, increase in pay, stock option pay outs. The increase in happiness has lasted at most a few days. Surprising even myself. I told myself to enjoy the increase in monetary longer, but it fades quicker than you expect.
Recognition by your peers and your upper management can have a much long lasting affect on your happiness. As more people recognize your good work and actually regularly make comments about it, this can contribute to your long term happiness because it contributes to your sense of purpose in society.
Being valued by others as a source for advice goes beyond the output of your work. You are being seeked out to help others to grow their own career. This will have lasting impact to the people you affect. Sometimes this will even create life long bonds after both of you leave for different companies.
Making a difference in the world and self motivation would be the highest level of sustained happiness. When you feel like your work is your life calling, then your happiness is fueled by the opportunity to work. Your work increases your happiness. Your happiness makes you want to do better work. And the cycle fuels your growth of happiness.
Keep in mind this doesn’t mean you have to work more hours. A balance between work and personal life will lead to happiness long term.
T
Heads up…
Do you communication enough with your direct reports?
What about your peers in the same group?
What about other peers across the company?
And your management chain, 1 level, 2 level and ultimately up to your CEO?
How often should you communicate? What is the most effective way to communicate (email, face to face, blog post, tech talk?)
Yahoo! as a company is 17 years old today. I am very proud to be part of this ship for the last 13 years.
Thank you for allowing me to join as employee ~900. I’ve learn so much from being thrown into the fire.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to build Yahoo! News. I’m grateful to be part of internet history.
T
I love working for my manager, Cecilia. She is caring, funny, a good listener and a good person.
I love working for my manager’s manager, my VP. He is strong, careful, a good listener and thoughtful.
I love my co-workers, they are good, smart, passionate and caring.
This is what makes me love my company, Yahoo!
I have learned a lot from John Thrall. while working at Yahoo! in the last 3 years.
John became the leader for Yahoo! Media during a transition of the leadership position a few years ago.
From the point of view of the rank and file, he looked to be young, high energy but an unknown from our perspective.
I worked with him closely for 2 years to build the new Yahoo! Publishing Platform. He mentored me quietly through the life cycle of conception, buy in from executives, prototype, design validation and finally execution.
All along I appreciated that he never micro managed. Instead, he paved the way for me by evangelizing my role as the architect and encouraging different approaches for me to double check my assumptions.
One of the most important intangibles qualities John demonstrated is his commitment. Famous quote (I paraphrase) : “I’m not going anywhere, I’m here at Yahoo! for the long haul. Let’s do this right!”
He probably has no idea how reassuring and rare it is to hear the commitment spoken out loud and be believed.
T
The Livestand from Yahoo! iPad app launched on Nov 2nd and became the #1 News iPad app and #2 overall app on the iTunes AppStore in 1 day. Today on Friday Nov 4th, it became the #1 app in 3 days on iTunes. You should try it yourself and compare it with Flipboard and Zite and see for yourself which one you like. Perhaps it’ll be another app on your iPad to satisfy your reading needs alongside those other great apps. There is always room for 3.
It’s testimonial to the great work done by the Livestand team, Alison, Jin, Mike, Ric and the engineering members whom I don’t know personally. I know internally it was great feat for the following reasons.
Why am I re-energized to work for Yahoo!?
Thanks Livestand team for injecting more energy in this 12 year Yahoo! veteran !
You might also like: Why I Came To Yahoo! And Why I Am Still Here?
On November 3rd, 2011 Yahoo! Livestand becomes the #1 News app on the Apple AppStore and #1 overall free App
I was the Yahoo! News engineers almost 10 years ago. Yahoo! News is working on a 10th year “9/11 Rmembered” http://news.yahoo.com/september-11-anniversary/
This was 5 years ago
It’s one of the most important task people in large organizations need to do. But often we don’t spend enough effort and thought compared with the importance of annual reviews to their careers
I’ve been doing my self review for over 12 years now at Yahoo! For the first few years, it was a chore and I didn’t spend quality time working on getting peer reviews and writing self reviews. For the last few years, I’m using the following system and it seems to be working well.
At the beginning of year, I’ve already try to imagine my end of the year review and what I want it to say. Given I have planned ahead, I already have some idea of the responsibilities I want to take on, the things I do not want to take on. I create a note for myself call ‘Annual Review Forecast 2011’
Throughout the year, if I get emails/praise from people, I write it down using Evernote into a note named ‘Annual Review 2011 : praise’, these are the people I’ll use during my peer review feedback when I wanted positive feedback.
I have a saved search in my email that looks for all emails I ‘Sent’ in the last year or 6 months, depending on if it’s mid-year check in or full year. Then I look at who I sent the most emails to and make a decision whether that person is a good peer reviewer and include that person in my reviewer list. For Outlook, you can look at the ‘Sent’ folder and sort by ‘To” and scan that list for people who you have interacted frequently for potential names.
View -> Arrange By -> To:
View ->Arrange By -> Collapse All Groups
Today my manager at Yahoo! held an all hands for her engineering group in Yahoo! Media and invited our CEO to take some Q/A.
It was wonderful to have Carol there to talk about why what we are doing in Yahoo! Media is important to the company. It was inspiring to hear her long term perspective.
I had a 10 minute slot to demo how we can use LEGO ( an internal product name ) to launch a fully function site in a day. It was easy with the tools our team have built, it was actually too easy :)
Afterwards, Carol asked me what I learned. Thank god I prepared for that one.
1) Consistency, rhythmic delivery is very important when we work across 4 geographical locations and 3 timezones. We deploy every week, on the clock on Tuesdays.
2) Being a hero is not needed, and most times is not good. People get burned out and there is no process. I’ve played the hero for 7 years while working in Yahoo! News, that just didn’t scale.
3) Developers should use the tools that editors use to know first hand the pain points.
4) Fast excution only happens when you plan ahead.
T
Carlos was first hired in 2007 into the US News team as one of backend engineers to work on http://news.yahoo.com/. He joined when the team was in it’s growing phase (from 2 in 2001, 5 in 2005). He started off working on fixing bugs, adding features to the modules on the web site. Then helped to work on the CMS system. Then taking on the local news component, taking over some of the mail to friend feature for Yahoo!. Taking on a leadership role to lead an entire backend rebuild of Yahoo! News in 2008. He demonstrated a huge capacity to learn, to absorb any amount of work.
Because he was so rock solid, the leadership team gave him 2 of the biggest projects. One was to launch the 2nd content optimization effort in the company after the homepage (www.yahoo.com) in Yahoo! News. Another was to deploy a pet project of mine called 100X to be able to scale up the Yahoo! News capacity by 100X the normal load in case of a huge news spike event. He was left alone to handle everything on the projects and delivered it like they were nothing that challenging. Rock solid performer!
In 2009, he decided to try his hands as an engineering manager and lead a team to transition the entire US News to a Taiwan team. He did this by rallying his team to do hands on training, documentation and 1 month physical shadowing in Taiwan. Again, flawless!
In 2010, he lead a content team to work on the backend of an ambitious project to enhancement an brand new version of a content system which will shape all Media properties at Yahoo! from now on.
After 4.5 years, Carlos has decided to join a start up. I wish the best of luck to him. As he has told me, this is the longest (by 2 times) he has stayed with a company. I thank him for everything he has done for Yahoo!
Top 3 things I remember about Carlos
The team was here and finally finished the first phase of their product. We are all very very impressed. Wait for end of June to hear more!
That was my thought last year… however, I have changed my stance. The most successful way to get children and adults to change is to model the behavior yourself consistently.
If you want people to act a certain way you model it over and over again. Don’t ask them to change though, just act on it. For those who can change, they will slowly follow, for those who do not have the ability to change, they won’t.
You can only accept this, be happy if your behavior changes at least one person.
I have seen this multiple times being successful
From Evernote: |
Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011 |
C. and I did a time boxed 15 minute strip
From Evernote: |
C’s Comic Strip Sunday March 20, 2011 |
C. and I did a timeboxed 15 minute strip
I have a reminder to myself to review whether I’m doing what my job description is defined as
Here is the job description and how I rate myself from 1 (needs work), 2 (meets), 3 (exceed)
• Evaluates new technologies; builds prototypes if necessary
• Writes documentation and provides training on technologies and solutions
• May own shared code components
Responsibilities as a Solutions Architect
• Maintains visibility into properties and platforms
• Recommends solution architectures to properties and advises on best practices
Responsibilities as a Technical Product Manager
• Defines engineering requirements for platform teams
• Performs strategic planning and analysis for her/his area of expertise across Media
• May act as primary Media point of contact for platform teams; or, works closely with Product Manager in that role
Responsibilities as an Evangelist
• Ensures that Media property engineers are aware of recommended/mandated solutions
• Ensures that platform teams are aware of Media requirements and mandates
• Advocates best practices and solutions inside and outside Yahoo!
See Also: Solution Architect: 2nd week iteration on my job at Yahoo!
Time is one of the most valuable asset a human being has. There is a finite amount of time each day. There is a finite of time in our lifetime. And once the moment passes, you can not get it back no matter who you are and no matter how much power or money you have.
I want to focus this blog post on the time spent during the working hours because it’s simpler to put value on top of it. I will write about the personal time spent next time, which is more complex since it’s harder to measure value.
For my job as a Solution Architect in Yahoo!
Given this list of time spent on a weekly basis, I want to answer the follow questions
I’m running out of personal time to finish this blog post and it will be continued..
In the abstract
Today I reminded myself that I’m an average person. I often fall into the trap of being too wrapped up in my own head. As humans, we try to have empathy for other people. We try to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, but we then quickly get back into our own heads. I constantly remind myself that I’m only average, don’t feel too important, try to look my actions through another person’s perspective and more often than not, I realize only I think I’m important and unique.
In the concrete
Why was this on my mind? Carol, our CEO has mentioned the Lego project by name in Yahoo’s earnings report.
We’re investing for revenue growth. For an update by end of 2011, move 135 platforms to new Lego platforms in finance news, etc. 50 new products in market, consistent publisher tools. For first time, SEO optimized. We don’t have SEO which is patently ridiculous. One world wide legacy platform. Also, because of the Lego, we’ll go from 20 languages to 47, which gets us in new markets. Point is, by end of the year faster, innovating faster. Do all these things, but we are not cutting costs to grow the company. We are investing.
At first I was very glad the Lego project is being mentioned by our CEO, on the other hand, we have to execute extremely well to get the 135 properties adopting Lego this year. I was thinking of all the ways I can help others adopt the technology our team has been building.
I reminded myself to check my ego at the door, stop and take stock, understand our customers, understand what the true perception before declaring any sort of victory.
These are the areas where our various teams have to help
As a technologist, I like the proposal to use HTTP header to convey a preference. With any proposals, there will be people who have other ideas. I wonder first who made the decision, how did he communicate the process, and finally made the call.
MEDIA DECODER BLOG: Google and Mozilla Announce New Privacy Features
Mozilla and Google said that they plan to provide browser features that will allow users to opt-out of being tracked by third-party advertisers online.
It has been an exciting 2 weeks for me in my new role as a Solution Architect for Yahoo! Media
I have been meeting with a few of our customers which has helped me firm up my thinking of how to approach this role.
I break it down into 3 areas. How am I measured? What are my daily duties? What is my approach to my job?
1) How am I measured?
2) What are my daily duties
3) My approach to the job
Today I have formally taken up the role of a Solution Architect to help Yahoo! properties on board with a new solution that I help create for Global News
My role is defined as follows
Solution Architect
I should be measured on
I am basically playing equivalent role as an Oracle consultant for the next year.
This is the best option for the team in order to make sure the solution we worked so hard for gets wide adoption as quickly as possible.
I’m looking forward to a fruitful 2011 for Yahoo!
You may also like Soft Skills Of A Software Architect
Do you look forward to Mondays ?
If you do not look forward to Mondays, is it because you will miss spending time with family and friends? Or is it because you don’t look forward to going into work?
If you dread going into work, perhaps you can actively look into how to improve the situation.
1. write down all the things you like about your current job
2. write down all the things you don’t like about your job
3. every week, figure out who you can do to increase #1 and decrease #2
BTW, I look forward to my weekends, but I also look forward to my Mondays
The Typical Yahoo! Engineer from this point known as Y!E. (this is all my personal ramblings, if it doesn’t fit you, sorry.. it fits me)
Y!E is someone who drools when his needs to design his software to work for 30 millions users. Potentially growing at 40% every year.
Y!E designs software with no upper limit. 200 millions users? no problem. 600 million, no problem.
Y!E is always connected to the net, via cell phone, laptop, Wi-Fi at Starbucks.
Y!E really likes unix and would rather have a Powerbook if he can get his hands on one.
Y!E likes to automate mundane jobs.
Y!E doesn’t ever like to buy big expensive machines, he likes to buy lots and lots of cheap machine and name them p1,p2,p3..p100. Every machine is disposable, because that is the only way to build scalable software.
Y!E loves CVS
Y!E loves Y! 360
Y!E loves gadgets
Y!E might not like Perl, but he is good at it.
Y!E usually likes PHP
Y!E usually like MYSQL
Y!E might like Apache, but he is good at it.
Y!E likes to read Jeremy’s blog Y!E usually doesn’t know style sheets, but he will learn it *only* if no webdevs wants to help him
Y!E is used to trying to squeeze every ounce of power from his machines
Y!E likes to get free stuff from forsale.
Y!E likes free stuff from the book exchange, media exchange
Y!E doesn’t like disk I/O bound problems, he is happy with CPU bound problems
(Seriously, though, I don’t think anyone, including Rasmus, would say that PHP was “designed”)
* Powerbook? No thanks. Linux laptop, yo!
* I love CSS – LOVE IT TOO!
* Perl is the devil. PHP is delicious
* All my machines are named after Ninja Scroll characters :)
* I don’t read Jeremy Z’s blog.. Only people I know.
(Bringing back an old post from 2005)
A Yahoo! Engineer (Y!E) is a very lucky person.
Y!E gets into the office anywhere from 6:00am to 10:00am. If this was a bell curve, 80% fall under 9:30-10
Y!E gets to eat freshly cooked omelettes, hot cereal for under $3.00
Y!E gets free espresso drinks all day
Y!E gets free pool tables, ping pong, foosball
Y!E gets vending machines with both peanuts and regular M&M
Y!E can bring a small fridge to his cube
Y!E sometimes gets to ‘chat’ with David Filo when things break :-)
Y!E gets to make a difference in today’s world and gets to work on things that affect the lives of 100+ millions users
Y!E can drop off his dry cleaning, gets his car oil changed on campus
Y!E can get a unix and a PC laptop
Y!E gets to reuse all the incredibly stable infrastructure in Yahoo!’s platform group
Y!E mostly works on things directly related to his job
Y!E can choose to work on many things beyong his scope and show off to his peers
Y!E can make a difference in the company anywhere he wants to
Y!E gets things done in the company if he pushes hard enough
Y!E attends very little meetings
Y!E gets to meet very smart people everyday
Y!E gets to attend a geek talk every Thursday
Y!E gets to work out in an incredible gym
Y!E gets to play on a basketball court
Y!E gets to play on a sand volleyball court
Y!E gets to choose from over 9 different freshly cook styles of food from the main cafeteria
Y!E gets to hear feedback from live users if he chooses
Y!E gets rewarded generously by Y! in every way possible
Now you tell me, doesn’t Y!E work in the best place on the planet?
Be a Y!E now buddy!
I have been getting the same question recently. Wow, you have been around for 8 years at Yahoo News? What makes you stay?
I think I’ll have to write it down to clear it up for myself.
1. there is so much potential upside to the stock and for the company. It’s still the #1 (2008) web property in the world and lots of new projects and direction changes only can mean good things in the future
2. there is so much to do, for someone who can take the initiative, he can still make a lot of contributions.
3. the founders are getting their hands dirty and building safeguards in place to keep their key employees happy
4. the microsoft deal is just a validation of how valuable Yahoo! is. Whether the deal go through or not, it’s really not important. Yahoo! is very valuable as a standalone entity or as a part of any other company.
5. users still love love Yahoo! it’s been proven over 13 years, period. People vote with their clicks.
You should read If I were a Google employee and ‘My Perspective On Working‘
I worked for SGI from 1993-1999 and was bleeding SGI blood. I was the cheerleader for the company and our group. I left SGI when the company just couldn’t deliver the financial results it promised.
A friend from SGI mentioned to me that when I left SGI, I swore I would not be emotionally involved with a company again. I don’t remember saying that, but I’m sure I did. Now looking at where I am, I’m very positive about Yahoo! and many words have been used to describe me. the lifer, old timer, company man, ancient timer, true yahoo.
My perspective on work is that whatever company I am in, make the best of it. Don’t complaint too much, put my energy towards something that I can make a difference. Look at the mirror when I want to complaint and see if I am making things better. Find something I want to change and keep on pushing for it.
Like Chris (co-worker) says, it’s like pushing jello uphill. But if I don’t tackle it, no one else will. While I’m getting paid good money, I vow to keep on pushing the jello. Until one day for whatever reason I part with the company, my next company, I’ll be pushing jello again.
Read ‘My Perspective On Working‘
As we start the year, look around your work cubicles, these are the people you will spend every weekday with.
Ask yourself what you can do to help your fellow co-worker.
Some ideas:
* Give constructive feedback how on she is running a meeting.
* Send one less reply-all email to a plea for help, instead help chase down the answer and reply directly.
* Send a positive email to his manager and cc him.
T
In 1999, I was working for Silicon Graphics but I decided to work for another company because SGI at that point was not performing well and I believed that the company was not financially viable any more.
When thinking of which company to apply for a job, I looked to Yahoo! From the outside, Yahoo! Homepage was something that intrigued me. A site that is constantly running, never going down. I was very curious how it was able to do that. I wanted to be a Yahoo!
When I joined Yahoo!, there were less than 800 people and I immediately sense something about this company. The company is bigger than any one person or any one group. It’s like a big ship that just sails along and no one person’s effort can make or break the ship.
Even though I was very important to the US News group I was working in, my contribution can only add or subtract from Yahoo! in a small way. The many people who came before and after me, their sum of efforts is all part of what makes Yahoo! what it is.
This sense of something bigger than me has served me well over the 11 years I worked at Yahoo! Everyday at work, I can choose to add to Yahoo!, subtract from it, or leave it the way it was when I join. The reason that Yahoo! is succeeding or failing at a certain aspect is due to the sum of every decision made in the company. The reason group A failed at a product strategy may be attributed a decision made in technology or process from many years ago. The reason why a group B succeeded was also due in large part to the decision someone else made to pave the road for the team.
So I ask every Yahoo! to think about this: When you first interviewed at Yahoo! and someone asked you why you wanted to join Yahoo!, remember what your answer was? It could be just a job, or because you believe Yahoo! is one of the great companies, or because you loved one of it products. Regardless of what the answer is.. everyday, please add to Yahoo! and don’t subtract from it. Make the right decisions.
I am still at Yahoo! because I still believe in the company, everyday I want to add to it. The day I feel like I’m subtracting from it, I will make the decision to leave it the way I found it.
The photo is David Filo and the US News team
Yahoo! bought a company named Associated Content, which was recently changed to Yahoo! Contributor Network. I am the software architect on the backend content management system for Yahoo! Media and actively working with the engineer trying to integrate the great tools from Associated Content into the Yahoo! infrastructure.
In order to truly understand the power of Associated Content, I thought I would be a writer in the network and try to actively participate in the ecosystem in order to understand the positives and negatives of the system.
Here is the published piece of article when I was given the assignment to write about a local gym in San Francisco that is not a chain, like 24 hour Fitness.
I was paid a fixed amount, enough for a latte.
Click on the link to check out the published article: 
Flips and Jumps at Acrosports Gym in San Francico – http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6101712/flips_and_jumps_at_acrosports_gym_in.html
* I log in to contributor.yahoo.com, sign up for an account
* Browse through writing assignments
* Claim an assignment
* Write and Submit
* Wait for approval
* Got alerted in a day that it was approved
* Also got an alert that my payment for the piece of writing would arrive in my Paypal account!
This is way cool! Yahoo! Contributor Network connects websites that need content with writers who can write and have domain or local knowledge!
Positives
Negatives
More on writing for Yahoo! Contributor Network
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This is an ongoing series of writings for me to understand the value of Yahoo! Contributor Network. See other similar posts on the Yahoo! Contributor Network
“The views expressed in this post are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Yahoo!.
I was very pleasantly surprised when I browsed to Yahoo! on my iPad and was redirected to a very clean page optimized to my iPad, with swipe action.
It was a fun day where employees from 2 companies met up to play our favorite game.
I played in 3 events: Men’s Singles A, Men’s Doubles A, Mixed Doubles A and lost all 3 and went into consolation rounds and won the Mixed Doubles A consolation. It was fantastic to organize it and meet so many people at Yahoo! and Google who all play badminton. Several of the matches were very close and I enjoyed toying with my opponents to put my training to practice.
The most memorable game was when I was down 10 to 3 and I started to get serious and dragged him out to a 17 to 16 lost. He was horrified that I was able to catch up. I was barely tired.
What I learned
Here are the pics
memory flashback. Y! News launched it’s Most-emailed stories and photos page back in Feb 2000 and New York Times wrote an article that we were the first ones to aggregate and show the data back to users
Back then, we looked at what users were emailing, when we troubleshoot the system and noticed a lot of good and funny photos and stories. Hence the Most-emailed page was born
See the article here
nytimes.com New Economy; Yahoo charts the spread of the news by e-mail, and what it finds out is itself becoming news.
See our real-time page here
http://news.yahoo.com/mostpopular
Yahoo! News reached 40 million unique users per month recently. Today I was sitting around the conference with my co-workers chewing the fat.
When we think in large numbers, there are many parts of our distribution network that we can extend. What if we built a distribution network to place real time election results, or real time breaking news to allow bloggers to distribution that information. What if we were one of the only news sites that can scale to handle 100 fold traffic during a 9/11 type of event. What if 1/4 of the world needed to know about a catastrophe at the same time, would Yahoo! News step up and serve them? What if we could serve 500 million people, how about 1 billion people?
Dream big guys.
(photo is of the Dragon Beard candy from Koi Palace)
Today I was driving into work from Berkeley after dropping off Kate at school. It’s a 46 mile drive if I went on a straight route along 880. Today 511.org said there where 4 accidents on 880 so I decided to take 580, 680 and 237 which turn out to be a 57.5 mile drive to work.
Now I’ve been driving long commutes all my working life, from Berkeley to Mountain View, Castro Valley to Sunnyvale, San Francisco to Sunnyvale. But today was the only day I seriously envy working close to where I live. That’s 14 straight years of driving every day. Moving away from San Francisco is out of the question because Kate lives in SF.
What if.. just what if I quit and work like 2 miles from my house? Driving 57.5 miles is ridiculous.
Would my stress level be less? Is Yahoo! worth all this time wasted? I’ve always prided myself in being willing to think outside the box, except for this commute. I’ve always accepted it as being part of my life. And now I seriously question it.
Being a Yahoo! has been in my blood for 7 years. George said that I bleed purple blood. I agree and it’s unthinkable to leave my team and the company.
For my co-workers who are reading this, I’m just bitching, don’t take my seriously.. or else I wouldn’t write in this blog.
I admit I’m a bit obsessed with working at Yahoo! I don’t work very very long hours but I spend a lot of my free time thinking about Yahoo! I don’t believe I’m a workaholic, just someone who loves his job.
I used to apologize for being so obsessed, but now I’ve come to terms with it. I compare it to being a writer, or an artist. It’s part of who I am now. Being a Yahoo! is my identity much like being a actor, an actress. Our society seems to value people with obvious talents (musicians, painters) and don’t fault them for always be into their ‘job’. However, if you were an accountant, an executive, a lawyer, then you maybe labled as a workaholic. The definition of talent needs to be augmented a bit. Talent is something that you love to do, that you feel most at ease doing and something you are good at.
Yahoo! is like this huge canvas, people who thrive in it get to pretty much paint anything they want. And if it’s good, you are rewarded and you get more brushes and more paint to play with. If you choose not to paint at all, well you don’t get to play.
Engineers are especically blessed. We know the web, we know what makes a good product and we know how to build products. Good things happen when engineers sit down and just do it and make it happen!
I used to apologize for being so obsessed, but now I’ve come to terms with it. I compare it to being a writer, or an artist. It’s part of who I am now. Being a Yahoo! is my identity much like being a actor, an actress. Our society seems to value people with obvious talents (musicians, painters) and don’t fault them for always be into their ‘job’. However, if you were an accountant, an executive, a lawyer, then you maybe labled as a workaholic. The definition of talent needs to be augmented a bit. Talent is something that you love to do, that you feel most at ease doing and something you are good at.
Yahoo! is like this huge canvas, people who thrive in it get to pretty much paint anything they want. And if it’s good, you are rewarded and you get more brushes and more paint to play with. If you choose not to paint at all, well you don’t get to play.
Engineers are especically blessed. We know the web, we know what makes a good product and we know how to build products. Good things happen when engineers sit down and just do it and make it happen!
Today a fellow Yahoo! engineer ping’ed me on IM and asked to shoot some 9-ball. While we were playing, he mentioned that he was leaving in 2 days for the greener pasture of smaller startups.
While I was still taking in the news, I finished shooting in the first 7 balls straight and was about to go for the kill for an easy 8 ball and missed it with too much english. He talked me through how he was going to finish me off and he won the first game.
I told him, this is no way to leave Yahoo!. How come I didn’t know about it until now? There were other people who left and I didn’t find out until several months later.
As a courtesy, I think everyone you ever worked with should be told by email or in person that you are leaving 1-2 week before you leave. I think it’s a basic courtesy to your co-workers that you’ve been dealing with for the last 3-4 years. It also sets a precedence and example for others to follow and not just quietly leave. I have a hard time finding the right words. The following come to mind: humanity, compassion, value, teamates, respect, connect.
When I leave this company, I hope to go out with a big bang!
(photo is from Barcelona)
As an early engineer in the ‘trenches’ I saw Yahoo! from a 5 foot angle. I focused on what I needed to do immediately to keep the site running.
As a 7 year veteran, I see things from 50 foot. I see the business, I try to see and understand the impact beyond my immediate group. I try to plan 6 month ahead.
Playing an architect role for the group, I have to see things from 100 foot. I need to see beyond 12 moths, I have to see the impact internationally across the same properties. I have to look beyond my own future and understand the impact for multiple engineers and their careers.
Today I attended a meeting with a group of influencers in Yahoo! where I got to see things from 10,000 foot high. I saw Yahoo! globally. I got a view on how to impact thousands of engineers, 1/2 a billion users. I saw Yahoo! in 5 years. My view point was expanded beyond what I could physically see above my cube walls. It was an enlightening sight, I loved it while I was there. I learned quite a bit of what I didn’t know and I needed to learn.
Thanks for the opportunity to stand there and watch
Yahoo has a superstar award every year. My manager won it this year… Here is why he deserves it.
1) always positive
2) never blames, never talk down
3) this year: bulit lots and lots of products Y! Tech, Sprint tool, 2005 Y! News redesign, part of many infrastruture product teams
4) embodies Y! Spirit: get it done, get it done right, get it done on time, responsive
5) and.. humble … “What did I do?”, “I don’t deserve it””
ok, where is my raise?
Another Y! mentioning the Superstar award:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-oKQcEzs9fqPhTXNVhxY5?p=132#comments
After a very fillilng meal of traditional German food of fatty pork and dumplings for lunch, I’m up for some sushi.
It’s 9:58 and I’m trying to find some good food here in Munich, a search for ‘munich late night dining’ found me this CNN article
http://www.cnn.com/FOOD/restaurants/weissmann/world/munich.html#ASIAN
Tonight’s gamble:
Sho-ya-Sushi—Though the city offers a bounty of Japanese retaurants, many are little more than loud, trendy yuppie hangouts. That is not the case at this restaurant. A pub atmosphere and handwritten wall-mounted menus set the stage for excellent sushi and such cooked delicacies as exquisite, lightly battered jumbo shrimp. Open daily 11:30 am-2:30 pm and 6-11 pm. $$-$$$. Most major credit cards. Gabelsbergerstrasse 85. Phone 523-6249.
It’s 12:10am, the sushi place moved, and the new sushi place is closed. Biked over to another place that was suppose to open til 1:00am, no luck. I ended up eating at McDonalds!! oh well, haven’t had those chicken nuggets in 4 years. Then biked 2.5 in the dark back and got to take some night scenes of beautiful Munich
Finally made it to DMV after 4 months and picked up my identity.
Now I can be at peace.
Dave Viner is leaving Yahoo! tomorrow and we briefly chatted in the hallway. I told him that he fought a long and uphill battle to make the engineering team better in Yahoo!’s Media Engineering group. I admire him for staying course and never giving up. Here is what I remember about Dave
So I say a word of thanks to Dave for all the great work he has done for Yahoo! Please do the same before he leaves Yahoo! on Friday
Enjoy your time off with your daughter and family, Yahoo! will welcome you back with open arms whenever you want to come back!
PS: He paid a huge compliment to me today when he told me that he has “never met anyone like me who just wants so much to get things done and delivered on products”. It means a lot coming from him since he and I sometimes bump heads as well 
Kate did a wonderful drawing and I forget which princess was which.
Snow White, Cinderella?? , Auora?
Jasmine (jumping out of a bottle), Sleeping Beauty, Ariel
Another one of many perks of working for Yahoo!
When commuting from San Francisco, I ride the Yahoo! WiFi bus straight to
work. I can login while riding and last test I ran, I can get 312 kbps
down and 46 kbps up.
Granted I end up working on the bus, and it’s a better deal for Yahoo! than
for me. But who’s counting when I am on such a geeky bus.
The first thing my manager said to me when he walked in was that he heard Yahoo! News retained the #1 spot again in December. I’m a bit obsessed with statistics. The first day I joined Yahoo! in 1999, that was the first thing I looked at, and I continued to dig through the data every day. It’s what drives me to work and improve our site. It gives me a perspective of what users are looking for and what they do not care about.
In TV
Look at ABC, NBC, CBS. There is no close #4.
In online News
Yahoo! News, MSNBC, CNN/AOL (share #3) #4 (look at the data) is about 1/3 the size of #1
Online Email
Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Hotmail.. #4 Google mail is 1/10th the size of #1
Jeff posted a great list of product launches by Yahoo! in 2005
Read the list and be amazed at what fellow Yahoo! employees have accomplished
http://boulter.com/blog/2005/12/26/yahoos-2005-the-year-of-the-product/
Sometimes software engineers forget the importance of history. I often sit in meetings at Yahoo! when someone goes on a rant about how bad some of the legacy Yahoo! technology was. I’m referring to HF2K and another technology known as idaho.
Which were written almost completely in house and are the equivalent of PHP today.
What I often remind them was that back in 1996, the game was totally different. Funding was often very tight, competition was fierce, the web was so new, the scale and pace of growth was so enormous and there was a lack of proven, extentisible programming languages.
Also the landscape changed so much, a web company need complete total control over it’s core technology and not be dependent on any third party vendor.
All of these factors plus the simple fact that there was a huge pool of kickass C programmers who could write very low level web server code. I challenge you to find more than one programmer in your group who ever wrote an apache plugin in C.
I wrote these C plugins for news, even though they were hard, when they were lauched, you can bet that I’ve tested them thoroughly and I’ve understood the entire web server interaction, most of the HTTP protocol that could affect the plugin.
Even today idaho out performs anything out there. But because machines are cheaper and faster, performance is no longer a factor.
Remember fellow engineers, when you sit back and criticize, put yourself back in 1996, imagine if Yahoo! picked Java servlets, or even PHP or mod_perl, would there be a Yahoo! today? I bet not!
I encourage criticism in my engineering group, but when you criticize, it’s yours to fix. hee
The above is scallion+ginger fried rice, wonton soup (no noodles) and chilli pepper+salt fried squid, perfect HK style food.
This week I’m working in the Yahoo!’s Santa Monica campus. I’m enjoying the change of scenery and I get to work side by side with George for a week. Some initial thoughts on this building.
Wanted to dress up my Honda Element with some personalized plates. I couldn’t believe “A YAHOO” was not taken. I’ve got ‘YHOONWS‘ and ‘YAHOONS‘ as well.
This is available as a kids plate
When I joined Yahoo! in 1999, back then it was still the near the peak of the bubble. I immediately noticed something very different about Yahoo! from the company I just left, SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics)
Yahoo! was cheap with what they gave their employees. They gave me a white box PC from a Taiwan shop in Sunnyvale. Then when I wanted them to give me a desktop to work at home, they just gave me the name of the shop and asked me to pay for it myself. I forked over $3000 for a PC that I used at home. To this day I’m still using my 1999 unix desktop at work.
That week started my frugal days at Yahoo! and I have been noticing that this mentality of saving money was pervasive throughout the company and it starts from the top down.
First it starts with David Filo (employee #2). Anyone who knows David Filo knows that he controls a very tight purse on how many machines you get to have for your property. He is always giving you half the number of machines you ask for. Always asking you to make your software run faster. Personally David can buy a few castles and a few small nations, but he still dresses in t-shirts, wears his shoes out, drives a normal car ( I think ).
Then I noticed that we don’t print t-shirts for every single web site launch. We don’t get free food, we don’t get unlimited book/magazine funds. Every expense report is scrutinized. No one gets expensive ergo chairs without going thru the training first.
This culture of saving money has paid off big time for Yahoo!, I belive it contributed a sense of value for it’s employees. Not wasting resources, not thinking that we are entitled to receiving benefits. It’s a bit of a stretch, but I believe this also contributes to Yahoo! employees putting a lot of value on our customers because we know they have a choice to go elsewhere but they choose to stay with Yahoo! year after year.
The lesson here is that culture starts from the top, it can’t be faked, it can’t be bought, it seldom can be changed after the fact.
Thanks David for instilling your value system in Yahoo! early on.
Someone asked me tonight. “You seem to like your job, now tell me one thing you don’t like about your job”
I pondered that question and I can’t think of a single thing. I think I’m either in denial or I’m one hell of a lucky guy.
I love the pressure of the working for Yahoo! News in the early years when things break and I’ve got people breathing down my neck. For the last 12 years I’ve always worked in a job where I was *the man* 24×7 and always being called on to fix a real time critical problem.
I remember the calmness and inner peace I feel inside when all hell is breaking around me. That is when I’m at my best. I think that is why I procrastinate, because I like to feel the last minute rush of the pressure of finishing on time.
But I think I’m getting old now at 34, at least I hope things break before 11:00pm so I can get to bed on time.
I was having ramen at Ryowa in Berkeley with someone I met who was a consultant. I told her I worked at Yahoo! for 6 years already, she was shocked at first then she said it’s ok, there are a bunch of “lifers” at her company as well.
Somehow that didn’t make me feel better :-) I have been at Yahoo! for a long time, but there are still about 220 people who were here longer, I have to outlast at least 170 of them.
Well our fiscal year 2006 started on Oct 1st. Here comes the annual reviews, quarterly objective for the next quarter. Every year I vow to be more organized and more accountable for my time at work. I vow to keep track of all the little distractions that keep me for focusing on the high priority projects.
I’m starting to keep track of every little request that come to me and request my attention and it’s been interesting how man context switches I make in a day fixing little bugs, troubleshooting and creating bugs for people.
Here is hoping that this year I will at least know where my time is spent
Work To Live or Live To Work?
It’s an age old question and people have different perspectives on this.
Of course there is your family and friends who see a completely different side of you for like 4 hours a day and weekend time and of course those are the people who will always be there for you and they are the most important people in your life.
A simple question I ask myself is what if I didn’t have to worry about money but I’m not filthy rich, would I continue working
We spend 1/3 of our best waking hours at work. Interacting with people from all walks of life, people with similar skills, people with better skills whom we admire very much. We all try to work toward a common goal, some short term, some very long term. It’s usually a very fullfilling job and rewarding (hopefully).
I was thinking of people who are defined as human beings by their work, great artists, entertainers, politicians, writers, professional sports players, humanitarians.. so on.. They have their families whom they can always count on, but I believe they lean on their work to give them satisfaction in life.
I live to work because it’s so rewarding for me. I’m not a workaholic. I try my hardest not to do overtime, I don’t think about work on weekends. However, when I dive into a project for Yahoo! and eventually finish it up and the world sees it, the feedback is immediate, the satisfaction is immediate. It’s almost like a drug. I think much of it has to do with working on live web sites , where things are so dynamic, where user behavior is unpredictable.
So do you work to live or live to work? Are you happy with your situation which ever it is?
Over at the Vendor showcase day at Yahoo! they were doing of all things a push up contest. Everyone was getting me on to try it. The record was 201 push ups by a Yahoo! super stud. (Stu Y.) The rule was that you can rest on top or do a downward facing dog.
I topped out at 114 and couldn’t go on. I took 2 breaks, should have taken my time. Stu supposely took 10 breaks. My muscle just couldn’t pump anymore.
This got me excited about another goal to shoot for: 202 consecutive push ups.
Good start to Push Up Thursday
+114 114 12:00pm
+120 234 11:17pm
+100 334 12:09am
+150 484 12:27am
+205 689 12:40am
+80 769 12:57am
+50 819 1:09am
+50 869 7:52am
+50 919 9:04am
+50 969 9:24am
(missed the 24 hour cut off, oh well, on to 1,900)
+50 1019 1:34pm
It has happened to me so many times now I think I’ll just have to accept it and just go with the flow.
Trying to explain what a software engineer does for Yahoo! News to people I meet or family members has been interesting. Here is a sample conversation with a friend I met.
Friend: “So what do you do for Yahoo!?”
Me: “I’m a software engineer for Yahoo! News”
Friend: chew on some noodles..
Me: “Well, I write instructions for the machines so that everything is automated and even when I’m not at my desk the web site is updating”
Friend: “oh! you don’t type up the news for them?”
Me: I start cracking up.. No no, I don’t. News comes from satellite or from the internet, I write…. I see the blank stare..
Me: Here is my usual answer: You ever watched The Matrix? You know that green screen where all these non sense characters are flowing by? That is the screen I usually stare at all day long except the characters does make sense
Friend: Hmm, ok, continue chewing noodles
Me: I’m a highly paid equivalent to a VCR programmer. Thought bubble: “It’s not that hard to understand, someone has to write the software for you web surfers to use web site”
Friend: I’m sure you are good at what you do. Is that your pager going off? Are you tech support or something? I know what they do, they fix my Windows machine
Makes for funny conversations if the blank stare doesn’t come on too early.
Kate’s going to school next week, sniff.. now on to the memories
Interesting question got me thinking: If I were to take one thing away from your life for a month, what one thing would you not want to part with?
copied from my original 360.yahoo.com blog
My current yahoo id was registered on Mon Mar 24 17:41:20 1997.
I remember when I was working at SGI back then and our lunch conversations were alway about how we thought Yahoo does it’s magic. How it was always up, always fast. We were a bunch of geeks in awe of what we saw from the outside.
Then in May 1999 I decided to leave SGI and come to work for Yahoo. It was a very exciting environment where the term ‘control chaos’ was often mentioned when referring to our engineering code management. Often knowledge for an entire product would reside in the head of this one person. Things get done and knowledge get passed down when you go into the person’s cube and force yourself to sit down with the person for a few hours of ‘brain dump’.
An engineer’s reputation was everything back then. You don’t want to be known as the person who messes up, or your email and phone calls go unanswered. It’s a good way to weed out the weak link.
We have come a long long way, Y! engineering. It’s awesome, I’m still in awe.
The Typical Yahoo! Engineer from this point known as Y!E. (this is all my personal ramblings, if it doesn’t fit you, sorry.. it fits me)
Y!E is someone who drools when his needs to design his software to work for 30 millions users. Potentially growing at 40% every year.
Y!E designs software with no upper limit. 200 millions users? no problem. 600 million, no problem.
Y!E is always connected to the net, via cell phone, laptop, Wi-Fi at Starbucks.
Y!E really likes unix and would rather have a Powerbook if he can get his hands on one.
Y!E likes to automate mundane jobs.
Y!E doesn’t ever like to buy big expensive machines, he likes to buy lots and lots of cheap machine and name them p1,p2,p3..p100. Every machine is disposable, because that is the only way to build scalable software.
Y!E loves CVS
Y!E loves Y! 360
Y!E loves gadgets
Y!E might not like Perl, but he is good at it.
Y!E usually likes PHP
Y!E usually like MYSQL
Y!E might like Apache, but he is good at it.
Y!E likes to read Jeremy’s blog Y!E usually doesn’t know style sheets, but he will learn it only if no webdevs wants to help him
Y!E is used to trying to squeeze every ounce of power from his machines
Y!E likes to get free stuff from forsale.
Y!E likes free stuff from the book exchange, media exchange
Y!E doesn’t like disk I/O bound problems, he is happy with CPU bound problems
Tonight I don’t feel like driving home. I’m here with my 2 pillows and the Yahoo! blanket we got for 2003 Christmas. I’ll be spending the night trying to catch up on some work. It feels strangely very comforting to be here. Yahoo! has been like my 2nd home for the last 5 years.
I bought some organic strawberries and made myself a smoothie. Now crunching on Spelt Flakes. Listening to ColdPlay and Aqualung.
8 Comments from Yahoo! 360 blog
*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/22/2005 09:08 am
GEEK!
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Yahoo! User
commented
06/22/2005 07:11 am
heh, I’ve spent the night at my work, I wish it was half as luxorious at yahoo. wow you guys have lazy boys’ at yahoo?
*
Yahoo! User
commented
06/21/2005 10:18 am
sometimes i joke about doing that. can’t believe you actually did it.
*
commented
06/21/2005 06:18 am
woke up natually at 6:10am. It was the same as sleeping in my own bed :-) going for a run now.
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Yahoo! User
commented
06/20/2005 11:34 pm
and then after i try that i can look for legal advice for the divorce proceedings i most certainly would find myself in.
*
commented
06/20/2005 11:34 pm
let me know how it goes and i may try
*
commented
06/20/2005 11:20 pm
Thanks for the offer. To tell you the truth, I actually enjoy bunking out here.
I’m going to crash in one of Yahoo!’s famous rest areas where they have nice big lazy boy.
*
Jeff B. commented
06/20/2005 10:52 pm
For the record, I’m no slavedriver. I had no idea Tony was going to work all night and sleep under his desk. But I hear it’s not all that bad.
Hey Tony, I live just down the street and we have a comfy pull-out sofa in a spare bedroom. You’re welcome to stay anytime.
I’ve always liked wide, flat pasta. I haven’t cooked in 3 years, and pasta with fresh herbs is my favorite. Today I had a craving for it but I didn’t know where to go for fresh pasta. So, when I passed by 4th and Harrison, I dropped by Whole Foods (1/2 block from my loft) and picked up a pack of Egg Pasta Sheets.
Ah, now how wide to cut these suckers? I cut them into 1″ wide strands. I think that is wide enough for my tastes. I think this wide cut is called Pappardelle
It was a wonderful meal at home, cooked by me, for myself. I’ve been eating out alot lately (the last 4 years)
* Mâche with mango salsa vinaigrette topped with chopped honey roasted walnuts. (if you never had Mâche, try it, you’ll love it)
* 3 glasses of S. Pellegrino
* A huge plateful of pappardelle (cut from fresh sheet pasta) with fresh basil, McEvoy olive oil, fresh tomatoes, finely diced fresh garlic
OK, now what could be better than this?
I joined Yahoo! in May of 1999. I had my pick of either Y! News or Y! Sweepstakes. Lucky for me, I picked Y! News
Very soon, we are about to launch biggest redesign of Yahoo! News ever and I wanted to look back at what I remember of the history.
As I understood it here is the technical timeline of Y! News
Thank you Glen, Umesh, Jeff, Jay, Marc for joining and you guys are bad bad asses.
I’m very very excited about the v10 of Y! News
http://beta.news.yahoo.com/
http://news.yahoo.com
People ask me why I come to work
Tag.Work.Yahoo.News
–> Prev. I’m working where???
Yahoo! News is among the top 3 news web sites in the world competing
with CNN and MSNBC for the #1 spot. It’s a pretty simple and
barebones web site operating with a small team of engineers and
editors. The goal is to partner with the major news wire service
as well as some big name news publishers to build a news web site that host news content and provide an integrate experience for end users.
It’s been a while since Yahoo! New has changed, here is what I want it to do.
Tony Tam 