Yahoo! Hacks

Contributors

The following people contributed their hacks, writing, and inspiration to this book:

• Jacek Artymiak (http://www.artymiak.com) is a freelance consultant, developer, and writer. He’s been programming computers since 1986, starting with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. His interests include network security, computer graphics and animation, and multimedia. Jacek lives in Lublin, Poland, with his wife, Gosia, and can be reached at [e-mail].

• Bonnie Biafore is the author of several books about personal finance, investing, and project management. As an engineer, she’s tenaciously attentive to detail and digests tantalizing morsels about every topic she approaches. Her sick sense of humor turns subjects that are droolinducing in other books into entertaining, easy reading. Her book the NAIC Stock Selection Handbook won major awards from both the Society of Technical Communication and APEX Awards for Publication Excellence, but she cherishes the raves she’s received from beginning investors most of all. She is also the author of Online Investing Hacks (O’Reilly) and QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual (O’Reilly). Bonnie writes a monthly column called WebWatch for Better Investing magazine and is a regular contributor to WomensWallStreet.com. As a consultant, she manages projects for clients and wins accolades for her ability to herd cats. When not chained to her computer, she hikes in the mountains with her dogs, cooks gourmet meals, and practices saying no to additional work assignments. You can learn more at Bonnie’s web site, http://www.bonniebiafore.com, or email her at [e-mail].

• Tara Calishain is the editor of ResearchBuzz (http://www.researchbuzz.com), a weekly newsletter on Internet searching and online information resources. She’s also a regular columnist for Searcher magazine. She’s been writing about search engines and searching since 1996; her recent books include Google Hacks (O’Reilly) and Web Search Garage (O’Reilly).

• Kevin Hemenway (http://www.disobey.com), better known as Morbus Iff, is the creator of Disobey.com, which bills itself as “content for the discontented.” Publisher, developer, and writer of more home cooking than you could ever imagine (like the popular open sourced syndicated reader AmphetaDesk, the best-kept gaming secret Gamegrene.com, the popular Ghost Sites and Nonsense Network, the giggle-inducing articles at the O’Reilly Network, a few pieces at Apple’s Internet Developer site, etc.), he’s an ardent supporter of cloning, merely so he can get more work done. He cooks with a Fry Pan of Intellect +2 and lives in Concord, New Hampshire.

• Ryan Kennedy is a software engineer at Yahoo!, working on Yahoo! Mail. In his spare time, he maintains the Yahoo! Java Search SDK.

• Philipp Lenssen lives in Stuttgart, Germany, where he blogs about Google, works as a programmer on an automobile web site, and eats spicy Thai food with his girlfriend. He likes to ponder future technology and jump on any technology bandwagon that seems worthwhile, especially all the APIs that make a developer’s life that much easier. Philipp’s daily musings can be found at http://blog.outer-court.com.

• Mikel Maron is an independent software developer and ecologist. He has built several geographic-oriented projects around the worldKit mapping package, including World as a Blog and mapufacture. Previously, he led development of My Yahoo! in the pre-RSS days. Mikel was awarded a master’s degree from the University of Sussex for building a simulation of the evolution of complexity in food webs. Originally from California, Mikel is presently based mostly in Brighton, United Kingdom, with his wife, Anna. Links to various things can be found at http://brainoff.com.

• Deepak Nadig is an entrepreneur and has helped build innovative and useful products for 14 years. He is currently taking a break after cofounding and selling Covigna, a pioneer in Contract Lifecycle Management.

• Todd Ogasawara focuses on Mobile Workforce and Mobile Lifestyle technology, paying special attention to the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform (Pocket PC and Smartphone). Microsoft has recognized his demonstrated practical expertise and willingness to share his experience by recognizing him as a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in the Mobile Devices category since 2000. His other technology focus is in the effort to bring commercial (especially Microsoft-related) products and GNU/Open Source software together in a synergistic and productive way. Todd has written several articles about mobile devices, digital cameras, and the Apple Mac Mini for the O’Reilly Network. He previously worked as a technology analyst for GTE/Verizon. He also served as the contracted forum manager for the MSN.com (and later ZDNet) Telephony Forum and Windows CE Forum. More recently, he has served as the eGovernment team leader for the State of Hawaii. You can find his Mobile Workforce and Lifestyle commentary at http://www.MobileViews.com. You can learn more about Eccentric Technology at http://www.OgasaWalrus.com. You can reach Todd by email at [e-mail].

• Mark Pilgrim is an accessibility architect by day. By night, he is a husband and father who lives in North Carolina with his wife, his son, and his dog. Mark spends his copious free time sunbathing, skydiving, and reading Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in the original Klingon. He can be found stirring up trouble at http://diveintomark.org.

• Premshree Pillai is a geek working at Yahoo!. He loves Ruby, beer, and classic rock. He blogs at http://www.livejournal.com/users/premshree.

• Eric Ries is currently CTO of IMVU, a startup creating 3-D, avatarbased instant messaging. Eric also serves, in a volunteer capacity, as CTO of the Taproot Foundation. Previously, he was senior software engineer at There and cofounder and CTO of Catalyst Recruiting. He is author of several free software projects, most recently the peer-to-peer RPC system Kenosis, and coauthor of several books, including The Black Art of Java Game Programming and Mastering Java.

• Alan Taylor has been a web developer for over 10 years and has worked for Monster.com, MSNBC.com, and Amazon.com. He builds web projects (such as Amazon Light; http://kokogiak.com/amazon) and web hacks/toys on an irregular basis, most of which can be found at http://kokogiak.com. Alan believes that open APIs are your friends and are positively the best trend on the Internet in years.