I spent the weekend at Yahoo Hack Europe 2013 – a two day bonanza of tech talks, chocolate fountains and 24 hours to produce something new.
We use (and contribute to) the Yahoo User Interface library in Lamplight, so I was keen to go along and try some of the other technologies Yahoo provide to developers that I wouldn’t normally use. I’ve been to a handful of hacks now and they’ve all been great for learning, working with different people in a different environment, and the satisfaction of producing something in under 24 hours.
The result was ‘Contextificator’ – a bookmark you can add to your browser which, when you click it, will add a sidebar to the page you’re reading, and show you information relating to the page you’re reading. The idea was to automatically provide extra context to whatever it is that you’re reading.
It was a really good weekend – Yahoo put on a very good show – and good learning for me. And pleasingly, the Contextificator won second prize overall!