Rey Bango

I did a REALLY informal poll on Twitter to see which browser people consider their primary browser. I’ve listed the results below. The “Browsing” category is what I consider results for a “primary” browser in terms of general day-to-day use while “Development” is the primary browser used to build web applications or help you in your job:

Browsing:

Firefox: 9
Chrome: 25
Safari: 10
IE: 2 (including @getify)
Opera: 1

Development:

Firefox: 10
Chrome: 0
Safari: 0
IE: 1

Again, this was a totally unscientific and informal poll but the results were surprising. I would’ve expected Firefox to be ahead of Chrome & Safari in the “Browsing” category, especially since add-ons are such a huge benefit. I know that Chrome for Windows now has extensions but nowhere near the number of add-ons Firefox offers & their currently not available on Chrome for Mac or Linux. I guess it may not be too off base considering that most of the people that follow my Twitter account would be considered advanced users who tend to be early adopters. I remember Firefox going through the same adoption process with techies leading the charge.

Unsurprisingly, Firefox still rules the roost when it comes to a development browser. Add-ons like Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar, TamperData & ColorZilla really make a HUGE difference in getting work done. Other browsers are catching up (Safari Web Inspector & Developer Tools for Google Chrome) so it’ll be interesting to see how that evolves.

I picked up Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book “Crush It!“. I had the pleasure of seeing Gary give a presentation at FOWA Miami and the man can totally get you pumped up. So I really wanted to get this book to understand more about what drives him and if it’s something that can help me in my professional and personal life.

The book revolves around building your brand, something that I’ve been working hard on for some time. Yes, I have a brand and it’s called “Rey Bango”. This is why every account I create on social networking sites and even the domain name of my site is based on my name. In reading through the chapters, it was cool to be able to identify the things that I had already done and if anything, the book served to as reassurance that I was thinking along the same lines as someone very successful in brand building.

While I did like the book as a whole, the biggest value for me came after chapter 6 when he discusses about cultivating your community and ensuring authenticity in your approach. Much of what he discussed resonated with me because of the efforts I’ve made in helping to build the jQuery community as well as building my personal network of professionals. I especially liked his focus on maintaining authenticity & transparency with your community (i.e.: keep it real).

Prior to that, the information wasn’t very useful to me mainly because it focused on things I had already done to build my brand. If you’re just getting started on that though, I do feel that every chapter can be extremely helpful in understanding how to build awareness about you and your passion.

This is the first book I’ve read in a long time where I genuinely didn’t put it down from the moment I started reading it. It’s a short read (~150 pages) and I finished it in a day but it was well-worth the purchase. I’d say that anyone who is genuinely interested in raising their profile and building their brand should pick up this book. Don’t expect it to be a step-by-step tutorial with a lot of hand holding but do expect some good examples of what you can do and a decent explanation of the tools you can leverage to build your brand.

Update: If you look in the comments, Gary Vaynerchuk commented demonstrating that he does practice what he preaches in his book!

I have some downtime at the moment so I wanted to get back to coding a little bit. One of the things I’ve been wanting to mess around with for some time is the Flickr API, mainly because I upload a boatload of pics to the service. Chris Heilmann posted a really great tutorial on pulling back pics using JSON and plain ole JavaScript. I have to admit that it was insanely easy and Chris, as always, did a great job of breaking it down. I made a few tweaks since, as he mentioned, document.write isn’t the best choice for outputting and the code was trivial:

function jsonFlickrFeed(o){
var i = 0, mainDiv = "", foo = "";
mainDiv = document.getElementById( "main" );
while(o.items[i]) {
foo = document.createElement( "img" );
foo.setAttribute( "src", o.items[i].media.m );
main.appendChild( foo );
i++
}
}

So I wanted to do this in jQuery just to see what it would look and had a “woah” moment:

function jsonFlickrFeed(o){
var mainDiv = $( "#main" );
$.each( o.items, function( index, node ) {
$( "<img />" ).attr( "src", node.media.m ).appendTo( mainDiv );
} );
}

It was a silly little snippet of code but it took me back to the feeling I had when I first jumped into jQuery way back in 2006 where the brevity, power & simplicity just amazed me. And the feeling truly hits home after I had read the following from Chris just yesterday:

Use libraries

And for that, use libraries like Dojo, jQuery, YUI, mootools or whatever to work around the browser problems so that you can concentrate on what you want to build rather than how it fails.

Libraries fix browsers

Our main enemy to build cool products are browsers. The technologies and standards that drive the web are dead easy – we just don’t have time using them as we spend most of our time testing and wondering why browsers don’t implement them in a predictable manner. This is where libraries come in and my plea here is to use them. Using libraries you can write predictable applications built on a base that can be altered for all the browsers to come – if you build towards the browsers in use today you build for the past. We’ve done that before and paid dearly for it.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. Yes, it’s very important to understand plain ole JS, which is why I wanted to do this exercise using it but just seeing the minimal effort required to do the same in jQuery just reinforces my belief that libraries are an extremely important arsenal in your toolkit if anything solely for the cross-browser handling that they provide. In my case, jQuery is my tool and I love it. What’s your library of choice?

Today, my dad would’ve turned 67. It’s the first birthday we’ll celebrate without him. As the day goes by, the realization that he’s no longer with us really sets in. I know this day is going to be very rough for all of us, especially my mom. She’s experiencing a whole different level of sorrow than my brothers & I.

My youngest brother already sent me a text message this morning with a simple “I miss him” but simple as it may be, a text message on the phone, I know what he’s feeling on the other side of that line because I’m feeling the same way. I know my brother Rick is also down. I don’t need to ask him. I just know because he was taking care of my dad till his final days. Today is a tough day for him too.

Dad, we miss you so much but we know you’re better off now. A couple of things that I would’ve given you today:

A bottle of Jovan, your favorite cologne. As much as we tried to get you to switch to something cooler, you loved your Jovan:

Kisses and hugs from your 8 grandchildren (yep even the one that’s coming soon from Rick & Cindy):

Another day in North Carolina:

More time being harassed by your sons:

Enchilado de Langosta:

Most of all, I would’ve given you more time with Mom:

I hope you’re celebrating your butt off today, Dad. Without you, we wouldn’t be here and I appreciate you giving me life. Happy birthday.

I’m organizing add-on meetups in Miami and Chicago to spread awareness of add-ons, meet developers who are interested in extending the browsing experience and talking about all of the great things happening on AMO. The dates are:

Miami – Sept 15th (Details here)
Chicago – Sept 29th (Details here)

If you’re near either of these cities, I’d love for you to come out and learn more about Mozilla add-ons.

It’s been several days since I heard the news that my dad had passed away and the pain isn’t any better. I have some good moments and I’m thankful for my amazing wife Maggie who has supported me during the bad times. The passing of my dad is bittersweet. The last couple of weeks of his life truly sucked with obvious signs that the cancer had really started to do it’s dirty work. He had already lost mobility on his left side due to the tumor in his brain and slowly everything else just started to shutdown. His passing, while painful, was the best thing that could’ve happened. His quality of life was just in the tubes and I could see in my dad’s eyes that he didn’t want this. Being an invalid was the last thing he ever wanted.

Cancer Sticks

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. My dad was my mentor. As Joe Stump said, he was the man that made me a man. The thought of him passing was something that I envisioned when he was 90 or 100, not 66. And not this way.

How could my dad who came by boat from Cuba, battled for the freedom of that same country (gun in hand at that), served in the U.S. Military, made a life, raised 3 sons, built a thriving business and finally had 26 acres to retire on in North Carolina be gone? My dad was supposed to be in North Carolina now with my mom & they’re 4 dogs tending to his house, harassing my aunt, brother & sis-in-law and just being a grandfather.

Blaming Phillip Morris, USA for producing the cancer sticks that my dad smoked for at least 40 years is just too easy. That’s low-hanging fruit. You guys & everyone that helps you run your business, from your investors to the janitor that cleans up at the end of the day, royally suck. A lesser man might wish you the same that my father has endured but that’s not who I am. I can only pray that your families don’t endure what we’ve had to.

Coming Home

I was in New York, about 20 minutes from hosting a meetup, when I got the news. The only word I could use to describe the moment was “confusion”. I honestly felt completely disoriented. I have to thank Justin Scott, Fraser Kelton & Alex Iksold for stepping in and helping me gain some sense of focus. They took the lead while I spoke with my family and determined whether to stay or not. My decision to stay wasn’t trivial but ultimately to right one. There was no reason to run out. I had so much time with my dad, especially in the last several weeks, that I didn’t feel I needed to see his body. If my dad would’ve been with me, he would’ve told me to “be a man and do the presentation”! That’s what he would’ve wanted and that’s what I did.

Being alone in NYC for the night, I found solace via my family. My cell phone was my lifeline.

Getting back was no easier. I had to explain to my children that their grandfather had passed which was challenging due to some things going on in their lives, to which my wife & I were trying to be sensitive. I can’t describe how immensely difficult it is to try and explain death to a child. Just a couple of days before his death, I was letting them know that there grandfather would be passing away soon and then it hits. And due to circumstances, I couldn’t tell them all at once but instead had to spread it out over the whole week.

Then I wanted time with my mom to make sure she was okay. My mom is amazing. She’s endured so much and she’s such a strong woman. She’s continued to put on that “I’m okay” facade but I know she’s hurting beyond anything I could imagine. All I can do is wait until she needs me. Until she decides she needs her sons to support her. And we’ll be here for you mom.

And the same goes for my brothers. Two of the toughest guys I know. I’m not sure if I’ll ever see them cry or if they’ll want to talk about it. It’s tough being a Bango man. My dad always taught us to be tough guys. But we all know we’re here for each other.

It Finally Hits Me

Yesterday was so tough. My dad was in my thoughts all day. I cried a lot. I think everything just finally caught up. I knew it would and that’s fine. If I keep it bottled up, it’ll be worse. Even writing this makes me well up. But it helps, helps me to express some feelings that I can’t often verbalize. Not sure why but I find writing a better outlet sometimes.

Something that Joe Stump said has just stuck with me and that’s:

Ain’t no shame in crying over the man that made you a man.

God, ain’t that the truth. Thank you Joe.

Along those lines, I have to thank my Twitter friends whose outpouring of support and love has been a big help. Thank you.

I’ve been trying to keep myself busy. I went to the beach today w/ my wife & baby, just to get away. It was really nice and relaxing and I didn’t have to think too much, which in itself was good.

I can’t say that the pain is any less. If anything, it’s actually worse because I know I’ll never hear my dad say “Como esta mi hijo” again. I can still hear him say that in my head though. Clearly. I’m clinging to that big time right now. His tone was always so reassuring to me & I don’t want to give it up. I have to be realistic (which totally sucks) in that I’ll be in pain for quite some time. I have to be strong though. My dad would’ve wanted me to.

I miss you dad.

Tonight I had to do something incredibly hard. Something that is immensely difficult and with no easy way of doing so. I had to tell my children that their grandfather will be passing away soon.

Some may know from my tweets via Twitter that my father has been battling cancer. Unfortunately, his battle will be coming to an end soon. His cancer has aggressively spread, even forming a tumor in his brain. For months, he’s been slowly losing his motor skills but during the last several weeks has progressively & severely gotten worse. This past week had been especially hard since it was the first time I was unable to understand anything he said, his speech brought down to an unrecognizable mumble. When I saw him tonight, I realized the end is near. I can just see it in his eyes and his lack of coherence.

I truly didn’t want to have my children see him in this state but they insisted, wanting to see the grandfather they adored & tell him that they loved him before he passed on. It’s an unimaginably hard decision to make and even more difficult to do, but I also know the closeness my children have with their grandfather and how important it was for them to be there. My dad had a brief moment of lucidity where he recognized his grandchildren and gave them each a kiss. My mom asked if he loved them and nodded yes. When the girls left the room, I cried.

I’ll be talking with my children about all of this during the week and helping them cope with whatever questions or emotions they may have. I’m happy that the last thing they got from their grandfather was an “I love you”, even if it was just a nod.

After upgrading to Ubiquity 0.5.4, I started noticing something very cool. It now prompts with a really simple and unobtrusive reminder that you have commands available for specific sites. Very neat.

The reason I like this is because it’s just too easy to forget all of the commands that are at your disposal. If you have Ubiquity installed and type in “about:ubiquity” in the address bar, you can look at the command list and see what I mean.

This new feature will definitely help me discover new commands. Here’s an example prompt when I visited Amazon today:

(Click on the image to expand it out)

I’ll be in New York City next Tuesday, August 18th, along with AMO Product Manager Justin Scott, to host the first leg of the Mozilla Add-ons Meetup Tour. We’ll be discussing some of the newest initiatives going on including Collections, Contributions & more. This will be a great opportunity to meet & mingle with other add-on developers, learn about add-on development and pick the brains of AMO team members. Here are the details:

Mozilla Add-ons Meetup – New York City
August 18th, 2009
6-9pm EST
131 Varick St, Suite 909
NY, NY
10013

Be sure to RSVP by filling out the registration form.

View Larger Map

Look forward to seeing you there!

Today marked the 1 billionth download of Firefox, an incredible milestone in the history of the biggest open source project around. Here, let me put that into actual numbers:

1,000,171,095 (at last count)

That is a staggering figure for an open-source application that was officially released on November 9, 2004 (this is why I wanted to know the dates CBeard!).

I’m glad to say that I’ve been a part of every release, in some small way, since it’s early beta stages as it’s been my main browser since I first installed it as Mozilla Firebird. Seeing Firefox make such a dramatic positive impact on the lives of so many and doing so with Mozilla not abandoning it’s core principles of making the Internet better is truly an amazing feat.

Firefox helped to change the browser landscape & forced other players to rethink what’s okay to do (& what’s not okay). It’s just not a given anymore to assume that users will accept “lock-in” into proprietary implementations as the Firefox team continues to push efforts to enhance web standards & support better experiences through open platforms.

And this is a really good thing for the web as it will make projects re-evaluate what’s possible (and acceptable for the overall good of the Internet). Users will benefit from having a better portal to the web. As developers, we’ll benefit (hopefully!) from having less headaches when building apps. And all this will be achievable without the need for another billion downloads to open people’s eyes to the possibilities.