Events for our fifth Portfolio Review Week are just about wrapping up, and with over 300 events and 3,234 uses of the hashtag #BehanceReviews, we are blown away by how well our online community can come together and collaborate offline. Thank you to all of our hosts and attendees for a truly amazing week and stay tuned for some additional stats! Here are some highlights:
Pinterest Page
#BehanceReviews on Twitter
PRW Flickr
This post is part of a series where Behance developers talk about the various tools they use to get things done and make ideas happen.
Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
Hi there! My name is Krasimir, software engineer here at Behance. I’m part of the backend team and my main responsibility is to break the site and fix it after that (on my first day here Bryan said I could, so I do it from time to time).
My job is to implement new features and improve the old ones. I work on a better way of storing and retrieving the images on Behance. I was also involved in improving the way invites and requests on the site work. The rest of what I do is still under wraps.
I moved to NYC almost 4 years ago and joined Behance about 1 year ago. It’s great to be a part of something that I’ve known and followed for a long time even when I was back in Bulgaria.
Read more →
It’s day four of Portfolio Review Week and events are happening by the dozen (even hundred??) each day. We’re keeping up from Behance HQ and bringing you highlights from around the globe. Peek into some of these fantastic reviews.
Cape Town, South Africa
Penang, Malaysia:
Portfolio Review Week 5 is currently underway and we’ve been seeing tons of Tweets, Instagrams, Blog posts, and other social media blips all week. We’re continually amazed by the excitement around all of the events. Keep posting pictures and recaps of everything you’re doing and keep an eye out for our updates on Pinterest!
Here are some shots from various events around the world!
Auckland from anjanaiyer
Portfolio Review Week just started yesterday, but hosts around the world have been promoting their events for weeks in creative and beautiful ways. We’ve rounded up some of the amazing, eye catching posters for Portfolio Reviews worldwide.
Portfolio Review Week has officially kicked off internationally. With over 300 events scheduled worldwide, people are sharing work & getting feedback all over the world, and the internet!
Be sure to check out some of the early tweets & pictures from these events, and hashtag your own with #BehanceReviews!
@mtldo + @cfortier at #chefconf2014
At ChefConf 2014 this year, Chris Fortier and I had the privilege of presenting on the challenges of moving from a physical data center to the cloud. Beyond the move, we had to move towards more automation and a hands off approach to managing servers. This meant learning Amazon Web Services in depth and getting Chef onto every one of our machines. The result of our work was a library of cookbooks that could reliably work in three distinct locations: physical servers in Rackspace, laptops in our SoHo office, and cloud instances in AWS. As we developed these cookbooks we gradually improved our process and testing techniques. We reached a flow that kept cookbooks tested and trustworthy no matter where we launched. This also gave the whole team visibility into system changes that would have been easily missed otherwise.
The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, and we’re thrilled to be included among this year’s incredible list of winners! This round, Behance took home the webby for Best Navigation/Structure. A big thanks to The Webby Awards and everyone who voted for us. Our team here at Behance couldn’t be more excited!
Learn more about the Webbys and check out the other amazing winners and nominees here.
Who are you and what do you do at Behance?
I’m Manny, a DevOps Engineer with Behance. My team is responsible for the infrastructure that keeps Behance up and running. We use a lot of different technologies to guarantee the best experience for the Behance community. My recent focus has been on building software tools to automate the processes that tie all these technologies together. Since we are a small team we don’t want to burden ourselves with redundant tasks; automating these tasks is key.
What are three desktop tools you can’t live without?
Macvim: I deal mostly with text and code. Having a good editor is really important. Vim has been around a long time and has many plugins to handle every task imaginable. This version, for OSX, does everything I need.
Evernote: This is my “to do list” and my “brain dump”. Everything that comes my way ends up here in some form or another. This helps me keep things in order.
Ag - The Silver Searcher: Again, having to deal with so much text, Ag lets me search through all of it quickly and easily. In my opinion, it’s by far the fastest plain text search tool around.
What have you worked on recently that you’re extra proud of?
We regularly have to roll out changes to our systems to fix issues or improve performance. Whenever a change has to be made, there is always a risk that those changes may have an unexpected impact. Recently, I’ve worked towards being able to simulate those changes before we make them on the live site. This lets us test our new ideas in a safe place without worrying about affecting the site.
What are some startups that you’re a fan of?
Several of the startups that I’ve loved in the past, who have done great engineering work (like Netflix and Etsy) have grown too big to be called startups anymore. I think they came from great roots and still deserve mention. On the horizon, I see “The Internet of Things” growing everyday. Google is even showing an interest now after their purchase of Nest. A startup I’m watching in this field is Smartthings. They are trying to make every device in your house smarter, providing feedback about what’s going on in your home. Since their system can be dropped into any home I think it has the potential to go really far. Another startup that I have to mention is HirePurpose. They are out of NYC and I have had the privilege of working with them before. They have a noble cause and are working with different military branches and government departments to make the lives of veterans better. I am really rooting for their success.
What do you listen to while working?
Recently, I’ve been a big fan of Spotify’s discover page. It’s one of the places where I discover new music. When I want something more familiar, I’ll go back to my playlists. It’s become an eclectic mix, ranging from Celia Cruz to Porcupine Tree. Though most recently, I think I’ve been listening to Rocket & The Ghost and the Bastille songs that get less radio time. Bastille’s cover of “Rhythm of the Night” is haunting and brilliant.
