How I Spent My Summer Vacation, er, Internship
So, uh, for the longest time, I’ve been trying to decide how to write about my cool summer job, especially without it sounding like a sales pitch. I still haven’t really figured out how to do that, but lots of other folks have been writing quite a bit lately, so I’m just going to point you to some of those pieces.
Needle from ITA Software (famous for revolutionizing travel search) is really amazing, cutting edge technology you set up (free trial!) to pull content from the Web or files on your computer into a database where you can manipulate, cleanse, merge, sift, winnow, etc., the data. You can then export it for republishing elsewhere or use the database as a, well, database. No computer programming knowledge is required. As well as the software, we have some useful, fun datasets to showcase Needle. After a friend showed it to me, I was very eager for an opportunity to contribute to its development. Hence, my summer job.
One of my colleagues is going to be on a Monday night (7/26) panel about the future of search as part of the TedXBoston gathering. It’s unclear to me whether seats are still available. There might be a webcast.
