Author Archive: Cassandra Wolff

I’ve been with SoftLayer for two months now, but somehow I still find myself in the “honeymoon phase” of company pride and spirit. Yesterday, I had the opportunity to compete in the 12th Annual Texas Dragon Boat Race with many of my coworkers, and I learned that teamwork is more than just “working well together.”

Dragon Boat Racing is a lot more brutal than it looks. While a good team will look like they’re effortlessly and rhythmically gliding through the water, they’re still pushing their bodies to the limit … Just watch some of our SLayers try to hobble around the office today, and you’ll see that the competition wore us out. The experience was more than just a good time (and a reason many of us are still sore); it reinforced to several of us — especially newer employees like me — that SoftLayer is more than just a “company” or an “employer.”

SoftLayer’s founders wanted to create a an environment — a culture — unlike any other, and from my perspective, they were phenomenally successful. You don’t have to take my word for it, though. SoftLayer is a regular on those “Best Companies to Work For” lists, specifically because the company encourages employees to get smarter, get healthier, have fun and and enjoy coming to work. Now that I think about it, I need to get the management team to provide some free Bengay the next time we get out in the dragon boats!

The dragon boat races provided me an opportunity to meet and get to know some of the SLayers I hadn’t met yet, and it was wild to see how quickly we shared a sense of camaraderie and pride to be SLayers as we raced down Buffalo Bayou in Houston.

Beyond the fun and physical exertion of the weekend, one valuable lesson I think we all took away from this experience is that staying “in sync” can prove to be difficult at times. Once we learn to anticipate each others strokes, we became a stronger team … The obvious parallels to our day-to-day responsibilities at SoftLayer should speak for themselves.

I’m proud to be a SLayer and thankful that SoftLayer creates both an extraordinary place to grow our careers and an awesome environment to make great friends. I hear we might be planning to continue this tradition, and if so, SoftLayer can count on us to be there to support our coworkers. If you’re interested in joining us, we have positions for all sorts of skill sets (and I’m proposing we give additional brownie points to applicants with rowing experience)!

- Cassandra

Many of us remember when Flash was the “only” way to enhance user experience and create rich media interactivity. It was a bittersweet integration, though … Many users didn’t have the browser compatibility to use it, so some portion of your visitors were left in the dark. Until recently, that user base was relatively small — the purists who didn’t want Flash or the people whose hardware/software couldn’t support it. When Apple decided it wouldn’t enable Flash on the iPhone/iPad, web developers around the world groaned. A HUGE user base (that’s growing exponentially) couldn’t access the rich media and interactive content.

In the last year or so, Adobe released Flash Media Server to circumvent the Apple-imposed restrictions, but the larger web community has responded with a platform that will be both compatible and phenomenally functional: HTML5.

HTML5 allows us to do things we’ve never been able to do before (at least without the hassle of plugins, installations and frustration). Gone are the limitations that resigned HTML to serving as a simple framework for webpages … Now developers can push the limits of what they thought possible. As the platform has matured, some developers have even taken it upon themselves to prototype exactly where this generation of scripting is heading by creating Flash-free browser games.

Yes, you read that right: Games you can actually play on your browser, WITHOUT plugins.

From simple Pong clones that use browser windows as the paddles and ball to adventure-based Zelda-like massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs) like BrowserQuest, it’s pretty unbelievable to see the tip of the iceberg of possibilities enabled by HTML5 … Though it does seem a bit ironic to say that a Pong clone is such a great example of the potential of the HTML5 platform. Click on the screenshot below to check out BrowserQuest and tell me it doesn’t amaze you:

With an ingenious combination of CSS, JavaScript and HTML5, developers of BrowserQuest have been able to accomplish something that no one has ever seen (nor would ever even have thought possible). Developers are now able to generate dynamic content by injecting JavaScript into their HTML5 canvasses:

<code>
function handleKeyDown(evt){
	keys[evt.keyCode] = true;
}
 
function handleKeyUp(evt){
	keys[evt.keyCode] = false;
}
 
// disable vertical scrolling from arrows :)
document.onkeydown=function(){return event.keyCode!=38 && event.keyCode!=40}
</code>

Look familiar? The game-making process (not syntax!) appears eerily similar to that of any other popular language. The only difference: You don’t need to install this game … You just open your browser and enjoy.

Using a popular port of Box2D, a physics simulator, making pure browser-based games is as simple as “Make. Include. Create.” Here’s a snippit:

<code>
//Make your canvas
<canvas id="game" width="600" height="400"></canvas>  
 
//include your js physics files
 
// create your world
function createWorld() {
	// here we create our world settings for collisions
	var worldAABB = new b2AABB();
	worldAABB.minVertex.Set(-1000, -1000);
	worldAABB.maxVertex.Set(1000, 1000);
	// set gravity vector
	var gravity = new b2Vec2(0, 300);
	var doSleep = true;
	// init our world and return its value
	var world = new b2World(worldAABB, gravity, doSleep);
	return world;
}
</code>

We may be a few years away from building full-scale WoW-level MMORPGs with HTML5, but I think seeing this functionality in native HTML will be a sigh of relief to those that’ve missed out on so much Flash goodness. While developers are building out the next generation of games and apps that will use HTML5, you can keep yourself entertained (and waste hours of time) with the HTML5 port of Angry Birds!

HTML5 is not immune to some browser compatibility issues with older versions, but as it matures and becomes the standard platform for web development, we’re going to see what’s to come in our technology’s immediate future: Pure and simple compatibility for all.

-Cassandra