hyalineskies

Forgive me. It’s been a long time.

Now, some two months after my last real post — and after probably ten revisions of this post itself — I’m happy to say that I’m back. While the blogosphere has inevitably evolved and to some degree passed me by, I’ve got the changes in my life under control. Now, with an entirely new life and a new-found challenge, I’ve also a new hyalineskies.

Hello, Nightingale.

That’s right. I’ve finally released a still-very-beta version of hyalineskies 8, also known as Nightingale. My inspirations for Nightingale have come from all sorts of sources, but in the end I wanted to have an aesthetic that appeared almost tactile in nature, elegant in its intricacy and much more complex than the sparse, sterile designs I’ve made in the past while still staying true to my style. While I’m not perfectly happy with the end result of this design, I’ve constructed it such that minor changes should be easy.

Ngihtingale is also built on an alpha version of Fuselage, my WordPress framework-in-development. Building an application from scratch on top of Fuselage really made me realise how much it sucked, and thanks to the prodding of Chris Messina of Citizen Agency, Fuselage is shifting direction into something cooler. What Fuselage is turning into is enough for a post in itself; as for what went wrong, the total user-friendliness of Fuselage turned the framework into something so elementary and high-level that it lost the simplicity inherent in programming with web standards, thus turning Nightingale’s codebase into something so horribly amateur that under most circumstances I’d find it intolerable. (In fact, the theme description for Nightingale in my WordPress administration section is “Beautiful on the outside,” and my Twittering about building a supermodel is sadly more accurate than I’d hoped: Nightingale is beautiful superficially but a disaster inside.) The mistake made here is ultimately valuable, so I’m happy with the end result.

For now, though, go exploring. I personally like the 404 page and the new comment threshold (visible on any hyalineskies article with more than ten comments.) There are quite a few IE6/IE7 bugs that I’m aware of, but I’ve done the best I can while still getting this thing out relatively soon.

Hello, California.

Meanwhile, I’ve now moved to San Francisco, California. I currently live North of the Panhandle near USF, so if you’re a Bay Area hyalineskies reader, I’d always be up to chat at a local coffeehouse or brewpub. Unfortunately, I’ve come to really dislike living in the city (or at least in my neighborhood): late-night food is nonexistent, the cost of living seems unjustified, parking is impossible and San Francisco’s Muni buses are horribly slow. On the trip back from WWDC07 last Monday, my bus actually broke down and we had to wait for another bus to come and pick us up.

San Francisco’s shortcomings aside, I do love the Bay Area. I’m currently spending the majority of my time in Palo Alto, primarily because work is now there. I’ll be moving to Palo Alto next year.

Hello, Rockstar.

That’s right. I quit my marketing job at a Redwood City startup before it began. The week I arrived in Silicon Valley, I was given a formal offer to join Facebook as a Product Designer in Palo Alto, California. The creative environment there is by far the most challenging I’ve ever been immersed in: all of the people I work with are really genius-level, and I honestly am flattered to be able to work with them. I feel much like a proteg´ rapper signed to a major label, and I feel as if this is just the beginning of something great. I spend most of my time in Palo Alto working; after all, I’ve got a lot to learn.

My new-found responsibility is massive. While the projects I worked on last summer at Organic were huge, Facebook is multiple degrees larger. Over 25 million people now watch my every move, and I’m dedicated to not failing them. I’ve been a long-time Facebook user addict having registered in May 2004, and now I’m privileged to build parts of a network that the other 99.999996% of the userbase is passionate about. If you have detailed opinions (not questions like “How do I hack/reset/redesign/etc. my profile”), feel free to e-mail them to me. If you’re a rockstar engineer or designer, feel free to hit me up as well: there may just be a place for you in the Facebook army.

Hello, World.

I’m back. If i play my cards right, social media will never be the same. If I don’t, I can’t say that I haven’t given this my everything. If you’re sick of me writing about myself, don’t worry: your regularly scheduled hyalineskies posts begin tomorrow.