I love how this video talks directly about the pluses and minuses of fundraising and gives a much more reasoned perspective on the choices entrepreneurs need to make than the normal ‘raise, raise, raise!’ tech hype machine.
Also, what beautiful photographs those are behind John Borthwick by his brother Mark Borthwick. Great inspiration for future Skillcrush videos!
This week has been HTML Week at Skillcrush. We have introduced you to your new friends HTML and HTML5, and sent you two handcrafted HTML Tag Cheatsheets to get you familiar with all the HTML tags you need to know.
Now it’s time for you to dive into some code, because coding is totally awesome! Don’t believe us? Well, that’s why we asked Audrey here to tell you:
I think it’s absolutely incredible that syntax, brackets, and logic…compiled and shared on the web - are able to save people time, evoke emotion, and connect people. To me, coding is like a new raw material to make products that make the world better and more meaningful.
You ready? You can do this, we promise!
Below is a link to a downloadable a zip file which includes a sample HTML and a sample HTML5 webpage. Download this baby, open it up, and get coding!
In order to edit the files you will need a text-editor like Notepad++ (PC) or TextWrangler (Mac). Both of those can be downloaded for FREE.
When you are done editing drag your file into your preferred web browser and take a peek.
And if you have ANY questions, we are always here to help: @Skillcrush or hello@skillcrush.com.
Audrey Tan is CEO and co-founder of Waggit. The site allows dog owners to find kindred spirits in New York City and swap dog-favors with them. I’ll rub your belly, if you’ll rub mine! Audrey blogs at Read Audrey and tweets @audreyhtan.
How did you discover and first become engaged in technology?
When I was in college, I worked in the computer labs helping people with really basic things like installing virus patches and fixing printer jams. It was the best job ever. That’s when I realized my love for sitting behind a computer to read, study, and help others. If someone asked me how to use a program, even if I didn’t know the answer right away, I’d buckle down and figure it out. I love problem solving and making computers do exactly what you want is addictive.
Post-college, my first real job was in IT consulting. That’s when I was able to fully understand how ideas go from drawings on paper, to live sites that are developed and tested around the world. Working with the developers was my favorite part of the job.
What excited you about coding?
The ability to create something that solves a problem. I think it’s absolutely incredible that syntax, brackets, and logic…compiled and shared on the web - are able to save people time, evoke emotion, and connect people. To me, coding is like a new raw material to make products that make the world better and more meaningful.
What was the most important thing that you’ve learned in the past year and how did you learn it?
I’ve learned a ton this past year. From Photoshop to basic Javascript - it’s been a never ending roller coaster of trail and error, online videos, and “just Google it.”
I think the most important thing was learning how to get over my fear and insecurity of being a newbie entrepreneur. For the first time, I’ve had to attend networking events with big wigs and answer tough questions about my business, all the while seeming confident and passionate about my vision. It can be very unnerving when someone more experienced, smarter and more cut-throat makes you doubt your abilities to pull off a startup.
By focusing on the things I do have to offer: my charisma, creativity and willingness to listen to others, I’ve been able to push through and keep going. I’ve learned that staying true to yourself and total transparency really does make you attractive to others - even in a bustling city like New York.
When did you launch Waggit and how did you decide to make the jump to entrepreneurship?
I quit my job April of 2011, right after I had received my year-end bonus. Then I packed my bags, subleased my apartment, and traveled Australia, Korea, China and Thailand for the entire summer. It was incredible. I came back and started working on Waggit full time around September of last year. Waggit is alive on the web, but the site is still a puppy - young and sometimes misbehaves. My decision to take the jump to being an entrepreneur came after a lot of soul searching and reading. I actually just wrote a blog post about this exact question, take a peek!
What problem are you trying to solve with Waggit? And how are you solving it?
I want to solve the problem of “who can I trust to watch my dog when I travel?” Why should people be forced to board their dogs and pay a ton of money when there’s someone trustworthy and close by that would be happy to exchange dog sitting favors?
Where do you feel most inspired?
I have mixed feeling about tech conferences, but I’ve been to ones that have really inspired me. Conferences are great for networking and learning good business practices, but for me, the biggest benefit of a solid tech conference is feeling inspired to keep doing what I love and believe it can work. I love conferences where a founder is able to share about really rough times, but how things eventually turned out. There’s nothing like a real life story to make you believe that it could happen to you.
What do you do in your time off?
I love watching brainless comedies on my iPad, eating Korean food and asking my girl friends silly questions like - “If you could date Batman, James Bond or Indiana Jones, who would you date?” It’s funny, I try to not talk about Waggit, but it becomes nearly impossible because my friends inevitably ask me about it. It’s a love hate thing.
Mrs. Moneypenny says women get in their own way when it comes to getting ahead at work. Are you making any of these mistakes?
On the other hand, Joanna Brash says women are promoted based on what they have done, while men are promoted based on potential.
What do you think?
Courtesy of the fine folks at FictiveKin.
Ours were!
While the first telephone call will live on forever - Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson, come here I want you.” - email’s birth is not nearly so memorable. The first email was a test sent by Ray Tomlinson, who says it was something like “QWERTYUIOP”. Not one for the history books!
Reports are spreading that 6.46 million LinkedIn passwords have been leaked online. The hacker who has them seems to have released the passwords but not the associated email addresses. That said, you should definitely change your LinkedIn password ASAP, as well as change your password on any other service where you are using that same one.
Why the urgency to change your password?It turns out that the LinkedIn passwords are encrypted, but poorly. Someone won’t be able to just read your password; but with a little work and a little hacker-sense will be able to figure out what it is.
This isn’t just about LinkedIn. Once someone has your email address and password for LinkedIn, they’ll write programs to automatically test the combination on other major sites out there. So if you use the same password anywhere else around the Net, change it now!
Make sure that your new password is secure. For years you have been encouraged to make your passwords using a combination of letters, numbers and punctuation (like P4ssw0rd$##). As it turns out, those passwords are hard for people to remember and easy for computers to crack.
We recommend that instead, you use a nonsense phrase like “I love steamboat pie” or “unicorn free america radio.” Something that’s easy for you to remember, uses at least a few words, and includes spaces!
To learn more about password security read our term on Brute Force Attack, a common way to break into password-protected accounts.
A 1959 recording of Flannery O’Connor reading “A Good Man is Hard To Find.”
The Internet is a truly magical place.
Dear Ada,
I’ve never done anything whatsoever related to coding or web development. I’m basically totally clueless. But I am interested in learning it, so…where do I start? Can you recommend the best sites/books/etc for a beginner that would be relatively easy to understand? And how long would you guess it would take for me to go from clueless to intermediate or even expert?
Thanks!
Clueless to Expert
Dear Clueless to Expert,
I am so excited to hear that you want to learn more about coding and web development. As I like to say, the internet is the future, so the more you learn the more empowered you are going to be!
To answer your second question first, it’s hard to set timelines for things like how long it takes to go from beginner to expert coder. That necessitates lots of discussion about what it means to be a beginner vs. an expert, which totally depends on what skills you are talking about and their application.
That said, it is possible to learn these skills on your own, and it is possible to go from knowing nothing to being pretty good at a few of them within a few months or a few (short) years of dedicated effort.
I recommend that you start by getting really good at HTML and CSS. Once you start getting into coding there are many different paths you can take, but they all required a solid knowledge of HTML and CSS.
To get started:
We here at Skillcrush are also working on an HTML & CSS tutorial, and will let you know as soon as it is out!
Happy coding!
Yours,
Ada
