A clip-on camera that snaps a picture every 30 seconds.

What do you think the US should do about the bloody conflict in Syria?

Image By: Ryan Nagelmann

Do you Snapchat?

Since it’s release in September 2011, Snapchat has been a popular mode of communication for teenagers and young adults.

The application, available for Andriods and Iphones, allows users to send pictures or videos to a recipient for a prearranged time, no more than ten seconds. Then the Snap will “disappear forever.” 

Some have scoffed at the functionality of the app, saying it promotes sexting and can be used for communication between terrorists and criminals. 

There may be a way to mitigate some of this behavior, however it is going to come at at a price.

Engineers like Richard Hickman, lead examiner for Decipher Forensics’ Snapchat research, have developed ways to retrieve photos from the Android version of Snapchat. 

Decipher Forensics released a blogpost on Wednesday saying they would charge $300-500 to recover Snapchat photos using recent forensic software.

This same software can be used to get back deleted text messages, photographs, calendar data, phone records and contacts.  The company started researching Snapchat after they were asked to look into it for both a divorce and missing child case. 

So what does this mean for millions of Snapchat users?

Do you think the app will redouble its precautions to make sure the photos are really deleted? Will Snaps become evidence in the courtroom? 

Your time as an undergraduate has passed. And like the flocks of other Millennials who have been out of college for a year or more, you find slim pickings when it comes to securing a full-time job related to your career aspirations.

Rather than whittle away at home or work 40 hours at a dead-end job, you contemplate an unpaid internship.

"Increasingly, it's become common practice for recent college graduates to take on internships, paid and unpaid. It's a reflection of a tight job market," says Ross Perlin, author of "Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy."

But before accepting any offers to labor away for free, here's what you should ask.

What are the expectations? On paper, the internship seems like a real get, even if it's unpaid. Still, it's wise to have a solid grasp of what you'll do and the amount of work. "It's important to know exactly what you're going to be graded on," says Rich DeMatteo, founder of the career blog Corn on the Job, adding, "If you go into it and you're not sure what's going on, then you could be given a ton more than you signed on for."

DeMatteo suggests researching the company, reaching out to its previous or current interns through sites like LinkedIn, and asking pointed questions about the position during the interview process.

Will you be overextended? Whether you're unemployed or have a part-time job, it's important not to let your unpaid internship consume all your time. "Set limits and within those limits, perform as capably as you can," Perlin recommends.

Balance your time with other employment pursuits by setting a cap on your weekly availability, detailing what tasks you're willing to perform, and restricting weekends. "You can't forget the fact that you're not getting paid. Nobody should be losing sight of that," he adds.

Does the internship have more promise than previous ones? This isn't your first go at the intern rodeo. Rather, it may be your fourth or fifth.

Perlin refers to this as the "internship trap," where one low- or no-paying position after another fails to produce permanent employment.

If the latest variation doesn't bare employment fruit or add skills that increase the likelihood of landing a job at the organization or elsewhere, it may not be worth it. "A certain kind of burnout can set in under those circumstances," Perlin says.

Could it settle a career path? Maybe you have a series of internships under your belt, but none left you clamoring to enter a particular field. Going through with another may give you some clarity. "If you're not sure if a career is right for you, completing an internship is one of the best ways to find out," writes Yair Riemer in an email. Riemer is the vice president of global marketing at CareerArc Group, the parent company of Internships.com.

Is it financially doable? Prior to becoming a full-fledged adult, you had bills that were nonexistent or sent to your parents to pay. But now, a car payment, rent (either to your parents or a landlord) and student loans are monthly obligations.

While an unpaid internship may boost your resume and help you gain work experience, it may not be compatible with your expenses. "I think graduation from college needs to be a transition into a different financial mode, and internships may be untenable within that," Perlin says.

Will your skill set sharpen or widen? An extended stay in the ranks of the unemployed may leave your skills, both hard and soft, rusty. Along with undergraduate and graduate students, the unemployed, Riemer writes, can "get trained in the skills required to make a successful transition to the permanent labor force."

Can you leverage your degree? While the internship doesn't pay, your status as a college graduate could be a useful bargaining chip for collecting compensation a few months in. "You have a qualification under your belt. I think employers, for the most part, still do understand that people can't be permanently working in internship situations after graduating from college," Perlin says.

While some employers will be closed off to any form of payment, Perlin notes: "If you're doing a good job, there is that chance, but only if you initiate the conversation."

Does the company have a track record of hiring interns? To get a better sense of what employment doors will open as a result of the internship, ask about how previous interns fared in getting hired. "During the interview and offer process, interested interns could ask about the potential full-time employment at the end of an internship program, as well as the structure of the program and recent historical or anecdotal company data about past interns," Riemer suggests.

Moodle HQ announced the release of their all new HTML5-based mobile app for both Android and iOS.

Box has acquired Crocodoc, a technology company that provides solutions that display and annotate documents at high fidelity in a browser.

It would be pretty cool if we could do this someday in CSS. The best idea for it that I've come across is to define it in a <meta> tag in the <head>. That way (perhaps) CSS could use it and JS could use it. Like window.matchMedia(nameOfMyMediaQuery) or @media (nameOfMyMediaQuery) { }. But since we can't, Sass has our back. Now the question is, how do we name them?

In Sass, the @mixin would look something like this:

@mixin breakpoint($point) {
      @if $point == papa-bear {
        @media (max-width: 1600px) { @content; }
      }
      @else if $point == mama-bear {
        @media (max-width: 1250px) { @content; }
      }
      @else if $point == baby-bear {
        @media (max-width: 650px)  { @content; }
      }
    }

And you'd use it like:

.module {
      width: 25%;
      @include breakpoint(baby-bear) {
        width: 100%;
      }
    }

Although in reality I prefer something like "bp" just because it's shorter and you need to type it all the time. Which is why "+" would be so ideal instead of "@include". But I digress. Or you could go Brandon Mathis style:

$name1:  320px;
    $name2:  500px;
    $name3:  600px;
    $name4:  992px;
    
    @mixin at-least($device-width) {
      @media screen and (min-width: $device-width) {
        @content 
      }
    }
    
    @mixin until($device-width) {
      @media screen and (max-width: $device-width - 1) {
        @content 
      }
    }

The names should avoid actual numbers. The point here is to assign a name with abstracted meaning, so the numbers can change but the names stay the same. I'd avoid device names like "iPad" or whatever too, because that just sets up bad expectations and will date itself quickly.

Better are naming schemes that suggest relationships between the names themselves. Where one is obviously bigger or smaller than another. Of course this is assuming width queries, which are certainly the most common. But of course your media queries could be different or more complex, and the naming scheme should represent that.

Here's some ideas:

baby-bear
mama-bear
papa-bear

straw-house
stick-house
brick-house

private
corporal
sergeant
captain
major
lieutenant
colonel
general

alpha
beta
gamma
delta
epsilon

very-small
small
medium
large
very-large

-
--
---
----
------

>-<
[---]
<----->

seed
seedling
sprout
plant

pebble
stone
rock
boulder

pawn
knight
queen
king

bishop
archbishop
cardinal
pope

eddard
catelyn
robb
sansa
arya
bran
rickon

knife
dagger
scimitar
claidmore

A
B
C
D
E

From Vince Speelman

lil-bowow
eminem
jay-z
krs-one
rick-ross

From James Nowland

matryoshka-doll
the-one-inside-matryoshka-doll
the-one-inside-the-one-inside-matryoshka-doll
the-one-inside-the-one-inside-the-one-inside-matryoshka-doll

From Philip Brown

michael
jermaine
jackie
marlon
tito

From Rob Stinogle

gandalf-the-gray
gandalf-the-white

From Darby Brown

stewie
brian
chris
lois
peter
(I leave out Meg)

Got some other ideas?

jQuery Conference Portland 2013 has a limited number of regular tickets still available. Two days. Two tracks. Fresh speakers. Jun 13-14. $50 off for members of the jQuery Foundation. Join today and get your first year of fan dues paid for with purchase of both a training and conference ticket. Training provided by Bocoup on Jun 12. Use coupon code CSSTricks25off for $25 off.

Naming Media Queries is a post from CSS-Tricks

Junkspace, 2012, a collaborative installation piece by Department of Visual Arts faculty, Lynn Cazabon and Neal McDonald, was selected for exhibition at the WRO 15th Media Arts Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland. The event features work by artists around the world, and this year, celebrates 50 years of electronic art.

Part of WRO’s Rings of Saturn exhibition, Junkspace “is a time and location sensitive video installation and corresponding iOS App that superimposes two forms of waste, one earth—bound (electronic waste) and the other celestial (orbital debris).” Learn more, or download the app at the installation’s website.