Natalie | Geek with Laptop

Modern Language Wars: A Look at PHP, Python and Ruby on Rails

Natalie on 2012-02-13
In Offbeat

The world of programming has a wide variety of languages, as different from one another as English and Greek.

Sites such as Google and YouTube were built in Python, which dates back to 1991, while Twitter and Hulu were built on Ruby’s rails (1995) and Wikipedia and Facebook were constructed in PHP (also introduced in 1995). Twitter’s moved away from Ruby since and Facebook is not completely PHP anymore, but those were their basic building blocks, proving that if you get a programmer proficient in any of these languages, you can put together a heckuva site.

Are Tablets Taking Over?

Natalie on 2012-01-22
In Mobile

It’s hard to go to any tech event these days without seeing dozens of people swiping a finger across a tablet screen, playing Angry Birds in glorious HD or live-tweeting on what’s basically a really large smartphone (minus the phone).

Read more on Are Tablets Taking Over?…

How Social Media Technology Is Shaping Our Lives

Natalie on 2012-01-13
In News

Sometimes we forget that there’s a whole lot of technology behind our favorite social media sites.

Sometimes it’s a platform, sometimes it’s an app, sometimes it’s software.

But looking at the biggest events in social in 2011, it became clear that social media, and the technology that powers it, has an amazing ability to help shape our lives. Read more on How Social Media Technology Is Shaping Our Lives…

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A Techrospective Look Back at 2011

Natalie on 2012-01-04
In News

2011 was an exciting year for tech geeks.

The tablet came of age, Siri came to life and Spotify finally came to the U.S.

The year also saw an end to Gowalla, Michael Arrington’s departure from TechCrunch and the loss of Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie and John McCarthy.

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Apps to Save Your Sanity During the Holidays

Natalie on 2011-12-22
In Offbeat

The last few days before Christmas can be among the most insane of the year.

Just try going near a mall today. I dare you. And Saturday? Did you know that the Saturday before Christmas long ago overtook the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year? When that day is also Christmas Eve, I don’t even want to think how crazed shoppers will be this weekend.

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