A Rain of Frogs

Where the hell are all the good front-end web developers in Toronto? You’d think a city the size of Toronto would have talent aplenty.

Well, it turns out this is true. Toronto is an incredibly web-talented city. The real problem is, most of the front-end developers want to be freelancers now. It’s the new black. They all want to be rockstar-ninjas slicing out the code while they engage in impressive work-life balance gymnastics.

As someone who is responsible for the hiring of such fine talented people, I can totally understand them. Hell, I am tempted by the lure of freelancing too – I’ve even done it as a ‘full time gig’. The thing is, I like being part of a company, part of a team. Outside of the actual work, I like being around people. I like the socialization. And I’ll admit it, I like the benefits that come with being part of a good company – medical and dental, paid holidays and bonuses. Work-life balance is not only possible when one is an employee, when one works for a good company, it’s desirable.

I have recognized that I want to be a part of something bigger than I could ever be a part of as a freelancer, so the choice has always been easy. I don’t want to be ‘ninja-ing’ code in ten year, or even five. I have higher aspirations than that, and I believe I have a lot more to offer the industry in terms of experience and ideas than simply providing good code.

We’re going to see a gradual shift back to employed web professionals as it becomes clear that there is no real career path for web developers who freelance except the next client, and I think it’s going to happen sooner, rather than later. Maybe it’s something of a job-seeker’s market right now – at least in Toronto’s web industry – but I expect that’ll change quickly when the pendulum begins its trundle back.

It’s that time of year again. Sarah and I took the kids out to the orchard and picked about 20kg of apples. I took some pictures – including the one above – with my iPhone, and posted several of them to Facebook. Since I haven’t yet been ambitious enough to create an app that allows me to size and upload images to this blog yet (or even simply post) – I had to wait till I got back to my laptop to post this one. Enjoy!

Okay, so I have this iPhone. And it’s really really cool. It’s not so much a mobile phone that can also surf the web on a crappy browser as a mobile computer (with a really good browser) that can also receive phone calls. That’s a small but important distinction, and it is the one that made the iPhone reasonable to me. If it were merely a mobile phone with a mediocre browser, it’d be way to expensive and I’d probably not be interested.

It does lots of cool things, but you’ve all seen the commercials, so you know about that. I’ll just tell you what it does for me: it makes it so that I don’t have to open my laptop unless I am actually going to do some work.

That’s a big thing. I don’t have to open my laptop check email or Facebook. Or to see if one of you has commented on (or even read) this website. I don’t have to open my laptop to read my newsfeeds, or calculate something, or get directions to wherever I might need to go. I don’t have to open my laptop anywhere I am.

Think about that. I can now use my laptop for what it does best: creating things. I have effectively separated the creating of web goodness from the rest of my web interactions. It means when I have my laptop open, I am not distracted by NetNewsWire and its little red indicator telling me how many amazingly urgent and stunningly imperative things I still haven’t read, or by Mail doing exactly the same thing. The Gmail indicator doesn’t have to turn red. Hell, it doesn’t even have to run any more.

And then there’s the whole new development environment for me. Not just at the web level, but I’ve been dusting off my Objective C and considering a few applications for the device. The limitations of the iPhone compared to desktop development is challenging and exciting, and ideas for ways to push up against its boundaries seem to just jump out of my imagination.

We’ll see how the app development turns out, but the real point of all this is that I am excited about it. The iPhone is not just a mobile computer (with a really good browser) that can also receive phone calls, it’s also something that is inspiring me.

Oh, and yes, it’s just so much fun to use!

Adrian’s got himself an iPhone. What a lovely thing it is.

More to follow, as I get used to this entirely new (to me) way of accessing the Interwebs.

I’ll be gone away the next four days. I know I’ve been scarce in these parts lately, but I’m working on it, I really am!

Step 1

Find a dupe – someone controversial and embarassing enough to draw attention away from yourself and your business. An alcoholic is good, as is someone who has driven multiple companies into the ground.

Step 2

Steal an election to get dupe into power, have dupe start unpopular, illegal war to line the pockets of your friends.

Step 3

Steal another election for dupe. Have dupe poke nose into all sorts of foreign politics. Make sure he ruffles feeathers everywhere. Have him destroy the economy to continue unpopular, illegal war. Ensure him a long enough rope to hang himself and his political party.

Step 4

Choose a new dupe that will give the American people hope. Make him as different from any past president as possible, while still evoking the most popular of those past presidents. Let original dupe’s party self destruct. It should be so bad it drives people to vote for new dupe and his party. Since the American people will be full of hope for the future, they will happily elect new dupe without ever realizing that he actually works for you.

Step 5

Profit! For added results, lather, rinse, repeat.