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.

Every so often, we’ll chat with an alum about what they do and how they got there. Today we’re talking with program auditor Mark DeNome ’07, emergency health services, ’10, master’s of public policy, about the path he took to UMBC and — ultimately — a career he truly loves.

Name: Mark DeNome
Job Title: Program Auditor
Employer:  BNL Incorporated
Scholarships Received at UMBC: President’s Fellow Scholarship; Bill Hathaway Award

Q:  Tell us a little about how you wound up at UMBC. What’s your background?

A:  I was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, by a single mother on a teacher’s salary. I was already well-acquainted with the primary in-state university most of my classmates selected; however, I knew for a true personal advancement, I would need to find an out-of-state school where I might get significant financial aid. I had a great experience on my campus tour, where I heard the inspiring Freeman Hrabowski speak and came across an exciting major in EHS that was new to me. The prospect of joining UMBC’s fine lacrosse team appealed to me, but what most influenced my decision was the nature of UMBC and the surrounding community to be both immersed yet intimate, a logical step between my rural upbringing and the hustle of the city. UMBC was an university, up-and-coming like I wanted to be.

Q:  How important was it to you to receive scholarships?

A:  Maybe I still would have come to UMBC, but I would have been in too much debt after undergrad to attend graduate school, at least right away. Or, maybe I would have stayed in my hometown and not have been exposed to such diverse demographics and ideas, nor have been able to re-invent myself with a new population which I think is very important for post-high school graduates. Also, I would have been working during semesters. Something so many people just do not understand is that focusing on coursework without having to work is a luxury, so I was fortunate UMBC tries to uphold that one does not have to be rich to be smart.

Q:  What drove your decision to study EHS as an undergraduate, and then Public Policy as a graduate student?

A:  I decided at age fourteen that I wanted to be a doctor, and recognized EHS as a program that would best prepare me and also set me apart from other applicants, which it succeeded in doing. However, once I was exposed to health care as a medical professional and started to understand some of the inefficiencies in the industry, I wanted to get involved in that right away. The Public Policy Department accepted me, and I maintained close ties with the EHS Department as I pursued my concentration in Health Politics.

Q:  Tell us about your career. Were there any lessons you learned, in particular, at UMBC that you carried with you into your work?

A: After more than fifty applications and several jobs below my abilities (not requiring any degree), I was encouraged by a fellow classmate to take an entry level job as a government consultant in emergency management, where I collected the nickname Cupcake from my nature to do the less desirable tasks willingly. As I executed assignments with excellence for my colleagues, I was given more and more responsibility; what had carried over from UMBC was the sense of we “take care of each other.” Today, I lead a team of government auditors. I am glad to be in a position where I can hire and empower driven individuals of all demographics who demonstrate their character in overcoming challenges, and I take pride in the look of pleasant surprise I get from colleagues when they learn I attended UMBC, and they see me for the first time as not what they expected of a white male manager in Northern Virginia.

Q:  Is there a particular class or professor who really inspired you?

A:  No question, my undergraduate adviser and Paramedic Instructor, Dwight Polk, instilled professionalism and showed compassion to all EHS students and alumnis, as did all the EHS staff, from whom I still receive job announcements via email. I have to acknowledge Mark Perks, who would take attendance in organic chemistry by stating the name of every student so so he knew each one, and those were 200 tough names to remember. At the graduate level, my government budgeting course, taught by Roy Meyers, advanced my analytical abilities and introduced me to several tools I consider very useful to the government contractors in the region.

Q:  What advice would you give to students considering UMBC?

A:  Realize that the world wants you to succeed, and that each moment is an opportunity to demonstrate your character to someone who wants to help a person who shares passion for the same things. And there is a lot we share.

Today, W3C published two independent specifications related to touch events. The Pointer Events Working Group has published the Pointer Events specification as a Candidate Recommendation. This specification unifies input from touch surfaces, mouse, and other devices into a single model for ease, flexibility, and consistency of development. The Web Events Working Group also advances the earlier Touch Events version 1 specification to Proposed Recommendation. This specification standardizes an earlier model which works only for touch events. Comments on Touch Events welcome through 6 June. Read more about the Pointer Events Working Group and the Web Events Working Group, and learn more about the Rich Web Clients Activity.

A month after the release of Home, Facebook is working to answer criticisms with improvements.

Facebook Home—an app for Android smartphones that provides users with a constant stream of images, messages, and updates from friends on the social network—launched with fanfare a month ago along with the promise that additional features would be added shortly (see “The Facebook Phone Is Finally Here, but Who Wants It?”). Now, as some users level poor reviews at the app, the team behind it is focused on making those upgrades happen—and fast.