Hi again all! After completing a week of work experience in February, I was eager to return to ScraperWiki as an intern as soon as possible and, a few emails to Francis later, we had organised for me to do a months internship this summer, which has now unfortunately come to an end.

My first two weeks at ScraperWiki mostly consisted of writing reports for Aidan and researching possible competitors to ScraperWiki. I was also tasked with writing a blog post on The history of the Pivot table, which taught me that the history of spreadsheet software alone is surprisingly interesting!

I was then tasked by Ian to make a front-end GUI for the NewsReader Simple API that ScraperWiki created. The NewsReader project (entitled ‘NewsReader: Building structured event indexes of large volumes of financial and economic data for decision making’) started on the 1st of January 2013 and is going to finish on the 1st of January 2016. In creating the beginnings of this GUI, I used HTML, CSS and started using JavaScript for the first time, a language which I now really enjoy using. I was also introduced to jQuery and SPARQL.

In the few moments that I didn’t have anything to do, Peter was always on hand to give me an impromptu lesson on what he does on a daily basis here at ScraperWiki and the many concepts that he has to bring to the forefront of his mind on a regular basis. For example, he spent one afternoon enlightening me on the relationship between C and Python and some of the key differences and similarities between the two.

One of the great things about working at ScraperWiki is how the people here get work done whilst also making the work day feel as if you’re just being a big nerd with a bunch of friends. One afternoon during a rare lull in the office, I asked David (drj) a question about the IBM model b keyboard which he uses when he’s in the office. He explained that he had bought it some time in 1999, but that the keyboard itself was made in May 1996 – making it older than myself! However, his keyboard isn’t older then ScraperWiki’s other intern, Sean, who also interned during the summer of 2013 and who is still working there until September 2014.

The keyboard in question!

But being at ScraperWiki doesn’t always mean that your day solely consists of sitting at a computer. Whilst I was there, the Giant Spectacular was taking place in Liverpool, something which myself, Peter and Aine took advantage of during our lunch hour and after work.

Myself, Aine and Sean also had a look at what Young Rewired State and the iDEAS team were doing down at the SAE institute in the city centre, where Aine gave a presentation sharing business advice and where a ScraperWiki ‘alumni’ Zarino also gave a presentation on design.

Overall, my time at ScraperWiki has been interesting, helpful, educational and incredibly enjoyable. I can’t thank everybody enough for all that they’ve taught me, all the advice I’ve been given and all of the great places in Liverpool I’ve been introduced to. Thanks guys!