Oh The Places You’ll Go…

Since finishing the word wrap feature, I have mostly been doing some user interface (UI) enhancements. Here are the two biggest enhancements that I have made.

1. I taught myself JavaScript in order to do this. Basically, someone will select certain options from the “Type” drop down menu, and when they are chosen, the “use-predefined values” checkbox is checked, which triggers the fragment below it to open. I must admit… it looks pretty cool in action, and I am quite proud of the fact that I got to learn a new language AND that it is a change that got through to production right away.

   

2. A lot of bugs that I have been working with lately have been CSS issues. Basically, the product looks great when using Firefox, but when using Internet Explorer (IE), there are certain things that do not look the way they are supposed to. As a result of this, I have been writing/learning a lot of CSS hacks for IE7. One major thing that happened was that all of the formatting on the reports were broken. Although only the email reports were assigned to me, the way I fixed it, it actually ended up fixing all of the reports. So now, they look nice and the formatting looks the same as it does in Firefox.

I am a little past mid-way in my internship, and I can definitely say that it has been quite a learning experience. I am looking forward to seeing what the next few weeks of summer have in store for me, as far as work is concerned.

For this week and the last one, I have been working on a feature that will allow people that use PI to wrap text when they send emails, if they wish. After 2 weeks of getting used to the code and getting a better feel for symfony, I have finally implemented the feature! The lead developer will now put the feature into production for use! I am so excited: my first very contribution!! :) Here is a small and not-so-amazing screenshot (see right-hand corner) of the feature itself.

I even fixed another thing that seemed to be a bug. It turned out just to be a user error. So, I feel like it has been a really productive day.

Also, we had our monthly hands-on meeting today and our weekly engineering meeting. I am the only girl in the engineering department, between all of the companies and the technical work being done. Needless to say, I feel very accomplished today.

Work is a ton of fun, and I cannot wait to see what the rest of summer has in store for me. Also, Fridays are the best: free lunch for the entire office, and today was catered Tacor?a… it was soooo good! :D It’s been a good, productive day. More fun to come next week… yay! :)

This is just a quick update: I finally finished the askeet tutorial, so I will begin working on Prospect Insight (PI) stuff now!! :) Right now, I am working on a word wrap for emails. According to one of my fellow interns, the email system is the most developed part.

In other news, I am playing for the Hannon Hill tennis team, and my first match is Monday, so I am really excited!! :)

Also, the French Open has started, and Federer’s draw is looking quite nice, if I must say so myself. Will this be the year?!? :) I sure hope so!

Today was my first day at work, and it was totally awesome! :) I got in around 9:15 and left around 5:30. I think it really helped that one of my good friends is now also a co-worker of mine: it calmed down my nerves quite a bit. Anyway, I spent most of today just configuring the computer so that I could finally see Prospect Insight (PI). PI is essentially Pardot‘s product, and after I finally got everything configured, I could see why it sells well and is absolutely amazing. The CEO, David, is quite a genius, if I must say so myself.

All of the developers (for both of David’s companies) are placed in one room, and it is just a really relaxed atmosphere to work in. It is also a ton of fun, and already in the first day, although I feel like I am on information-overload mode, I learned so much!

On top of all of this, my boss is absolutely amazing and wonderful! He is the coolest EVER, and I totally love him! :) Also, I met some other people in the office, including the marketing department. Everybody is just so friendly and nice, and I cannot wait to get to know them better. I even already got invited to play on the tennis team (they play on Mondays, so I didn’t go today, but I think I will start to go for that starting next week) already!! It’s really exciting!! :)

Before I can actually start coding PI, I need to get familiar with the symfony framework, which is used to code PI. Although the documentation is not so great, the creators of symfony put up a wonderful 24-part tutorial, which walks you through developing , a web 2.0 application (click the picture to see a live demo).

Anyway, I am on Day 10 of the tutorials: I hope to be finished with them by early next week. I will also sit in on a few demos and client set-ups (which Adam, my boss, will be doing), so that I can get a better feel for the product.

Stay tuned for more soon!

It is (almost) official! I have my very first CS-related job offer for an internship this summer at Pardot. I am incredibly excited and so happy! I found out today at around 4:45, and it totally just made my day. Checking email today has been really good: there has been nothing but good news! I got another interview offer too, from another local start-up, called ATechs. This will take place at 4PM on Thursday, and I am excited to see the type of work that they do, as well. I also got a few more scholarship applications (Google and Microsoft), and moreover, I even received an invitation to a job fair in Atlanta on MLK Day.

It looks like summer is going to be a very exciting time!!! Although, I have to say that I really do love Pardot… it felt absolutely amazing to be there, and even though the learning curve is steep, I cannot wait to begin learning and finally applying all of my skills, if I end up working for them this summer!! :)

Click on their logo to go to the website and check out more about Pardot! :)

There was a snow day back at home today… oh how I miss the snow days here: just an unexpected day off from GT here or there would be quite nice. In other news, the Australian Open started today. Go Federer: you are my man!!