sixty4bit

Google + Hardware = Not a Bad Idea

2011-08-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

Google didn't buy just a phone company. They bought a hardware company whose best known for phones. Google bought a hardware company. Why would Google buy a hardware company?

So much of Google's software business depends on hardware. All of their search engine software sits on hardware. Those servers can now be looked at by a team of engineers. And let's not forget all of the forward looking hardware. Self-driving cars require hardware. Hardware components that need to be miniaturized.

What other projects might those crazy engineers want to launch that requires hardware? Only time will tell. While everyone is worried about Google screwing over their phone partners, I am betting they are working on something else entirely.

Why all the hate for Google Motorola merger?

2011-08-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or is the media really pouring sour grapes on the Google Motorola deal? I have seen more negative speculation/news on this purchase than most other deals. Is it just that it is a high profile/stakes play? I mean I understand why the Apple and Microsoft lovers would not be fans of the deal, but really? Do we need an article on the 5 ways the deal could go bad? Or speculation that while the other handset makers are saying they support the deal, in reality they are all suspicious? Because Microsoft is going to be a better partner? More secure platform? More profitable? Lower cost? Easier to customize for your customers?

When Nokia and Microsoft signed their deal most of the media thought the Nokia/Microsoft deal was a desperation move on Nokia's part and cast shadows of doubt on whether or not Microsoft had a viable platform. However when Google buys Motorola to protect themselves from litigation suddenly Microsoft's platform is somehow better? Give me a break.

Why chase the dream?

2011-08-18T05:49:00.001-07:00

I have been having a conversation with a good friend about future plans. He is a couple of years ahead of me in experience and dropped some insight that challenged me to answer a question: Why chase the dream of owning your own business?

Growing up I was exposed to the entrepreneurial spirit. My grandfather started his own business while working full time. He ended up passing the business on to my uncle. Was it as big or profitable as the consulting company I work for? Not by a far stretch, but it employed 30-40 people each year and was a good place to work. More importantly though the business was a legacy to me and my family.

As a family we were proud of the business. We were proud of my grandfather and what he had built. My uncle took it to a new level when he took over and we were proud of that too. Pride in accomplishment of the family is what we had. I miss that feeling and that is what I am looking to achieve. I have been on this search for a while without knowing what it was that I was looking for. I knew I was looking to build something that I could call mine, but I didn't know why.

Why are you chasing your dream?

Humorous design decision of the day: Color coding titles

2011-06-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

We are replacing a couple of spreadsheets with a web application. One set of spreadsheets had data separated/categorized into "orange section" and "green section". These were the background colors of the data in those sections. This data really belonged in a wiki, but that is another story. Anyway, everyone started referring to the data by color: like "Is that the orange data or the green data?" The users did not want to lose the distinction of the colors because now every one refers to the orange data and the green data instead of their proper names (which are pretty ambiguous). To keep the orange and green I made the background colors of the page names orange and green to match the spreadsheet. When we showed these pages to the customers they were very excited that we managed to incorporate their color scheme into the application. Sometimes it is the small things that matter the most to the customer.

XPRT tweaks

2011-06-20T17:12:00.000-07:00

Coming from the HTC EVO to Motorola's XPRT has been eye opening on the differences in Android experience. It is completely different depending on vendor. HTC's Sense is pretty nice. My biggest complaint was the browser hides the notification bar. I really like to see the time while browsing so I know when to stop browsing :-) Everything else about Sense was great. If HTC makes a phone with a physical portrait keyboard I will go back. What I really want is the BlackBerry Torch form, but until HTC provides either of those I am sticking with the XPRT.

So, XPRT has a couple of "features" that aren't all that great. Here are the alternatives that I came up with to solve the "problems" that Blur has.

The calendar doesn't scroll and only shows three appointments. It resizes, sure, but there is so much padding around each event that you can only see five events at a time in a full screen widget. I needed a better calendar so I installed Pure Calendar widget (~$2) which doesn't scroll either but I get between two or three days worth of calendar events.

The next issue was actually more difficult to find a solution for. Sense allows you to create a shortcut to call a person with one tap. So on my home screen I had the faces of my family members and I could just tap the face and boom, phone call made. Blur only allowed you to add a link to the person's contact page, but from there you can tap on their phone number and it will connect you. I feel weird saying this, but that seems like to many taps. I want one tap calling! I won't give you the whole story about finding a solution to this problem, but there were at least three apps installed to solve this problem. I finally settled on One Touch Call/SMS (Free!) which works like a champ.

During my search for calendars and one tap calls I happened to install Launcher Pro Plus (Launcher Pro is free, to get some of the extra features you have to upgrade to Launcher Pro Plus which is ~$3). While playing with LPP I just found the calendar form that I have been searching for (scrolling agenda!) so Pure Calendar is about to get deleted. Anyway, Launcher Pro Plus has a couple of other fun features like a quick launch bar at the bottom that you can load with links to applications or contacts. It has snazzy transitions between home screens and a plethora of other features (including a calendar with an agenda!). One cool feature Blur and LPP shares is the ability to resize widgets. I highly recommend LPP.

Anyway, my XPRT is more to my liking now.

Posting eXPeRT

2011-06-19T00:29:00.001-07:00

Yay! This is my first post from my Motorola XPRT! I have had the phone for a week now, and am thrilled to actually have a keyboard again.

I have to say, going from HTC Sence to MotoBlur hasn't been great, but the list of awesome features I gave up for the keyboard continues to grow. Several people expressed concern for my sanity over leaving my top of the line EVO for the XPRT but I assure you all, it is worth it.

The one thing that I wish that it would do but doesn't is autocorrect i and known contractions. The contractions are the worst because I havent learned where single quote lives on this keyboard. I have to search for it every time!

Also, I have enabled the mobile version of this site. It looks great. Thanks Google for adding mobile to Blogger!

Apple vs. Google == Consumer Wins

2011-06-07T11:07:00.001-07:00

How quickly we forget. Robert X. Cringely states:

Having been shown the way by Apple, I expect Google to shortly do the same thing, adding automated backup, synchronization and migration to Android and Chrome.

Uh, didn't Google show off new hardware support for doing just that like a month ago? Chrome OS is completely networked. There's no local installation of anything. The next logical step for Google is to enable that capability on a phone. You login to the phone's hardware with your Gmail address and boom, the phone has your phone number, your apps, your music, all ready to go. Log out of that phone and into another one and all of the connections, apps, and data are there again. **Note** This capability doesn't exist, but it is what I believe to be the next logical step forward for Google.

Google and Apple are having some fun. Each are taking turns innovating solutions and improving existing interfaces. Apple's new notifications are an improvement on Google's notifications. Eventually, the two will drive each other to implementations that please their users. For example, I would love to see the notifications get screen realestate on the Android lock screen.

Google has the pieces to compete. It is just a matter of putting them all together in a cohesive way that improves the lives of their users. They have to figure out how to make it seemless. Apple has figured that out and shown their path forward. If Google hasn't already defined a path forward, they will be working on that now.

Apple's way forward is the most integrated and simple solution to a problem many people have. Everything they are doing with software and services sells more hardware. Giving the non-techies avenues to keep their data backed up and access it from anywhere will sell more hardware. The cost of the software is embedded in the hardware. Apple took the cellular industry's strategy, tweaked it, twisted it, and now are profitting like no one else.

From the phone

2011-06-04T13:12:00.001-07:00

More than likely this will be my last post from my EVO. I am planning to get the Motorola XPRT and I will be able to post more since it actually has a keyboard.

The future looks bright!

Speed up your counts in Rails 3

2011-05-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

Just bumped into this and thought I would share. If you are trying to find the number of records that match two columns in your schema you might do this:

find_all_by_some_column_and_some_other_column('val', 'val2').count

What this does is select all of the data that matches and then does a count in Ruby. This is slower because it retrieves all of the data for every matching record. Whereas if you count like this:

where(:some_column => 'val', :some_other_column => 'val2').count

It will do the count in the database (which databases are really good at) and only return the total number of records that match. If you have 12 records it won't matter much which of the above you use. If you have 12,000 records the second will be incredibly faster.

5 Alternate Uses For GMail

2011-05-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

GMail is the ultimate email client. Humorously, the capabilities that are so great for email actually enable several other "features".

1) Note taking - Any time I think of something interesting that I may want to remember, I write myself an email with the subject starting with "howto:". A couple that I visit often are "howto: make SEO work", "howto: deal with meetings" and "howto: amuse users while they are waiting"

2) Bookmarks - I never could get into sites like del.icio.us. Something about going to another site to create a bookmark just didn't make sense. I tried to use the bookmarklets and the browser plugins, but nothing made sense. Then one day I searched for a note that I knew had a link in it because I wanted to find the link. That was when I started sending emails to myself with keywords in the email to help find the link.

3) To do's - To do's are just short lived notes. I almost always delete them after they have been completed. For some reason actual to do lists or to do list software (web based or fat client) just doesn't work for me. I have started to believe that I have to-do-list-ophobia. But if I send myself an email then I am impacting my zero inbox beliefs so getting that to-do email out of my inbox is a priority. Also, I am always checking my email so the to-do is always available, whereas if the to-do list is in software, I have to actively go looking for it. To-do's even have their own tag with the most annoying color combination.

4) File transfer - I can't count the number of times I have used GMail to transfer files from one computer to another. I have emailed songs, books and of course word documents. This "feature" may seem weak, but I would argue it is so strong that you don't even know it is is a feature. You just expect email to send files. Heck, when Gmail came out one of the first things people tried to do with it was put a file system on top of it. Of course everyone is using dropbox for this now, but I still use GMail from time to time.

5) Tell me about your alternate uses for GMail!

Why Ruby and Rails?

2011-04-16T09:14:00.001-07:00

"Why should we use Ruby and Rails?" has been popping up at work over the last month. Managers are worried about retraining the Java developers. And the Java developers are worried about wasting their time on some fad. Here are my reasons why you should be using Rails to build a web site.

First, Rails is a web framework, nothing more or less. It claims to do nothing but allow developers to easily create websites. It makes hard problems trivial and impossible problems doable. It claims a 10x improvement in development time. That claim is VERY DIFFICULT to believe, so I will address it later with examples from my current project. Rails should be thought of as a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for web applications. Writing templates or views of web pages is eased with many helpers.

Think of scriptlets in JSPs, but terse code that makes sense. The helpers range from creating links to creating whole forms. All of this goodness is packaged up in an MVC pattern. Unlike Struts, which also claimed to be MVC, there is a single layer for Controllers; each layer is contained in its own directory. Another benefit is the directory layout is standard. If you know the directory layout, every Rails application will be familiar to you. This is a big benefit after you have switched to your upteenth Java project which has it's own directory structure, completely different from all of those that came before it.

Second, you get RESTful web services for free. I can't stress this benefit enough. When you use the generators for Rails you get the server side of a the web service. Building the client is trivial. Remember I said I would prove the 10x improvement in developer time? We are building an application which will have many clients. The clients are mostly Java, so a developer was assigned to write the client for the RESTful Rails application. He decided to write a parser in Java. This took a couple of weeks to write and test. And from time to time we find new bugs in the code.

However, we could have written three lines of Ruby that would have done the same thing. I literally implemented the same thing he had been working on for two weeks in 10 minutes. 8 of those 10 minutes were trying to find the documentation on what needed to be written (sadly when I showed him the Rails way he shrugged and said, I know how to do it this way and I already have this time spent on it. Maybe I should have explained sunk costs). 10 minutes vs 2 weeks, 10x improvement in speed might be an understatement. This isn't the only way Rails improves implementation speed. Writing database queries are a breeze.

Rails comes with its own Object Relational Mapping (ORM) tool called ActiveRecord. Similar to Java's Hibernate in functionality, ActiveRecord improves development by making complex is easy. Rails provides generators to create scripts to create tables in your database of choice (support for many databases is provided including MySQL and Oracle). The generator also creates a Model class for each table you have in the database. The Model class is where you write the code for business logic and any methods needed to access the data. Except, you don't need to write much because Rails provides many access methods without the developer needing to write any code. Rails also helps by providing helper methods to create relationships between objects. ActiveRecord provides support for one to one, one to many and many to many relationships with just a single line of code in each Model class or two lines of code in each Model class for many to many relationships (technically you can do many to many with one line of code in each Model class in the relationship, but that method has been deprecated in favor of the more flexible two method approach).

The last time saving feature of Rails is that you can use Ruby gems in your web applications. Gems are like Java's jar files, they are packages of code that can be thought of as a library. Gems easily support dependencies so having a Gem that requires ActiveRecord is easy to create, which means you can create Gems that natively work in Rails applications. Need a User object in your application? Download one of the many authentication gems available on the web. Find the one that suites your need, install it and you are ready to go. Need to upload files? Install a file upload gem. This capability is available in Java applications too, but for some reason they are more complex.

Finally, Rails is a simple and easy way to get a web application up and running. A developer can finish a week long Rails course with enough fundamentals to be ready to go write a Rails application.

Product Development Lesson: Abigail's Purse

2011-04-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago I sat with my daughter after dinner one night and we chatted about entrepreneurship. She was 13 going on 14 but she understood the concept and started to run with it. We talked about what would be a good product. She was going through a very crafty phase. Not crafty as in mischievous, but crafty as in she was painting, building origami, and making artsy things. She enjoyed it and I suggested we should find one of those craft projects that other people might like and turn it into something people would like to buy. We decided one particular project had promise. The craft project was a handbag woven with plastic strips.

She got to work trying to change a craft project into a product. The first discussion was the materials. I told her we were never going to be able to find plastic strips, but we looked on the internet anyway. Nothing was available. I thought we would have to have the strips made for us specifically. So we started talking about alternatives to plastic strips. She came up with using ribbon instead. I liked it because I thought it would make the purse soft and warm vs the cold hard plastic. So we made a trip to Michael's and purchased a ton of ribbon. Problem number two, we had to find a better supplier of ribbon, Michael's was expensive.

She started making the purse out of ribbon and quickly found the next problem. Ribbon doesn't stand up like plastic does. Being the trooper that she is, she tried to make that work as hard as she could. Finally she mentioned that she was having a problem. She needed some kind of support system to allow her to weave. We spent a week or two thinking about this problem and talking about solutions. We tried a couple and failed and some how ended up ruining the ribbon.

This time we went to Joanne's for the ribbon. Who knew ribbon would be so expensive. We got a couple of blocks of styrofoam from Michael to serve as the support system. We cut the styrofoam to the size of the purse, wrapped it in plastic wrap and off Abigail went to build another purse.

This time it was a success. We talked about the fit and finish, it needed a liner, and some kind of tough base. What we ended up with was the purse you see above. I thought it was pretty awesome. She started using it to carry all of her dance gear. And then we stopped working on the purse.

Yesterday we were walking through Wal-Mart and we saw rows and rows of woven bags. A year has gone by since we started working on the purse. But the first thing Abigail said to me when she saw the purses, "They found the plastic strips." The bags are bigger. They are for going to the beach. They are rugged and cold. And they are $7. Each of Abigail's purses were in the $30 range just in ribbon.

The night before the trip to Wal-Mart Abigail mentioned she was ready to do the purses again. That night I searched for ribbon again and I purchased a ton of ribbon that I had found very cheap, 1/40th the cost of Michael's and Joanne's. The ribbon will show up some time soon, and we will make a couple more purses. Hopefully someone on eBay will find them as wonderful as we do and pay a decent price for them.

Lessons:
* Someone always has the same idea
* Get your product out as quickly as you can
* Keep searching for lower cost materials (without sacrificing quality of course)

Skinny User Stories, Fat Unit Tests

2011-03-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues is continuously trying to improve the processes on his project. It is a large enterprisey project with requirements people, testers and a few developers. My friend places high value on knowing exactly what needs to be done and therefor has strived in the past to have very detailed user stories that includes expected behavior and constraints as well as test criteria. He and I had a conversation that restarted his consideration of the user stories. He likes that they are defining the "truth" in only two places, the user story and the code.

While you are defining the truth in two places, I would say that only one of those places has any long term value. The code. As soon as the sprint is completed, your requirements, especially if they live in a tool like Rally, only exist for the sprint where the code is written. After that sprint, it is doubtful that documentation will ever be read again. This is why specs should be light weight. They are only used for a moment in time. Any time that you begin talking about the specs again, you will have to repeat yourself because invariably one person in the conversation will not have a full understanding of the requirements and you won't have the time to send them the requirements to read. Now is a developer going to go through Rally, or any other tool for that matter, to read the requirements for code? No.

The best place to store requirements is in the Unit Tests. Theoretically, you hope to only have one truth, and that one truth has to be the Unit Tests. Every other type of spec is disposable or maybe a better word is perishable. The specs will go away. The contract will go away. The shall statements will go away. The tasks in Rally or JIRA will go away, but the tests will always remain. "Why does this code do
this?" Should always be answered by "look at the test." This doesn't mean leave comments in the test, it means make the test methods the spec.

I've never really been able to put a finger on why I am so against requirements. It seems irrational and crazy. But I think I understand it better now. I have known subconsciously that the requirements are perishable. That they change. They change as soon as you put it in front of someone and show them how it works. The requirements are never absolutely correct. And if they are right, have you put to much time into managing them?

Lessons Learned:
* Requirements are perishable, their shelf life is the length of a sprint.
* Tests are the ultimate "truth" of the requirements of a system.

Happiest Now

2010-09-22T22:40:00.001-07:00

I can say that I am the happiest right now than I have been in a long time. How long? Since I got married long. Don't get me wrong, I have been happily married, but right now things are just awesome. Why? Some people say that happiness is related to community. Right now my community is pretty spectacular.

Family is near by. I talk to my dad daily, my little brother at least once a week, usually more. My kids and I have daily conversations. And my wife and I have been growing as a couple for the last 5 years, the relationship just keeps getting better every day.

I have a bunch of close friends. This is actually a new thing for me. My wife and I talked about moving back closer to our families, and I ended up not wanting to. Why? Primarily because my friends are here. I have work friends and gaming friends and old friends and new friends. And most of the world doesn't understand that this is a new thing for me. It is almost like Christmas every day. Growing up we moved, alot. We moved so much that in 12 years of school, I went to 9 different schools. Which means I had new friends pretty much every year. The years that we didn't move just happened to coincide with the years that I would change schools (going from elementary to middle school). So now, I have friends that I can say, "remember that time ** 9 ** years ago?" and they can say, "Yeah, that was great". Most people in this world have experienced that by the time they are 18. It took me until the age of 36 to have that happen.

My work life is stabilized as well. I am with a good company, that I trust, and that appreciates me. This is new as well. Looking back at that last paragraph I wonder if there was something wrong with me that caused me to jump companies every other year, because that is exactly what happened. The longest I was ever in one place was 2 years. I was never taught how to be planted. The people at my company are great. The company isn't just stable, it is growing. In this economy that is huge.

So, between my family, my friends and my work relationships, my community is pretty strong right now. Which means, I am a happy man.

Don't change my code!

2010-09-22T10:30:00.002-07:00

Dear developer peer,

May I bring up a delicate subject? You were offended because I changed code that you had written. You got upset because there was some sense of ownership of the code. You put time and energy into the code. You had to sweat to get the code to do what you wanted it to do. You pressed CTRL+C and CTRL+V six times to get the code in the right place, and write some very funky if statements to get it to work correctly.

All of that was lost to your wailing about lost code is that now TWO people have had to spend time trying to understand what the code does. Your time and mine. I needed to alter the behavior of your code in some minor way, but before I could do that I had to go through and figure out the twisted logic. What gets lost is that I am offended when I find in your code of 60 lines of nested ifs (4 deep). I am offended when after spending 45 minutes trying to understand the intent, I can, in 10 minutes, convert said atrocity to 20 lines and 1 if.

You yelled at me because I wanted the code to be "my way". And that "there is more than one right way". But when your way is 9 if statements and mine is 1 then, well, I don't feel bad. I changed your code because I was offended. I never got a chance to tell you that because you were so pissed, so, now, 10 hours later, I am telling you. If you don't want me to change your code, then write clean code that doesn't offend me. Write code that doesn't offend the compiler. Write code that won't put the CPUs at 100% for 25 seconds. Write code that lets the database limit the dataset instead of returning everything and then looping through it to discard what isn't needed. And for sanity's sake, don't have the exact same code copy and pasted six times in the same method/function.

And don't take this as me thinking that my code is great. I know my code sucks. I look at the code of other developers that I know are smarter than me and try to mimic their style. I try to improve my code every day. The difference between you and me is that I know my code can be improved and would love it if someone came in and showed me how.

Don't hurt your spleen!!

2010-06-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

Son (via chat): Mom says you have to feed me today.
Me: I promise to feed you, but if you start feeling a little light headed, feel free to feed yourself. (He's 15 afterall...)
Son: Alright, but if I die, it is on your head.
Me: If you die it will effect more than my head. I will hurt in my head, my heart and in my spleen too.
Son: Your spleen?!?! I'd better not die in that case. Don't want you to have a hurt spleen.

Getting Creative

2010-06-16T09:55:00.001-07:00

My son and I were having a conversation about some of his writing the other day. I told him that he needed to be more creative in his writing, and one of the best ways to do that is to give yourself constraints. Here is a great article about why constraints are a great way to get creative:

Next, creativity is all about connecting things. It is about knowing x and knowing y and then figuring out that if you put x and y together you will have something awesome. Often x and y are completely unrelated, but just knowing them helps. That means you have to start to learn lots of x's and y's. And they don't really need to be anything in particular, just... learn.

Open your mind to consuming information. And practice. Then put yourself in a position to create something and then CREATE! And do it by giving yourself constraints and using things that you already know.

Improved Office Arrangement

2010-04-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

I propose that office arrangements should be re-arranged. Currently the bosses sit in offices and the workers sit in cubicles. Managers are always talking to each other, so if they sat in cubicles it would facilitate communication amongst managers. Also, putting the developers in offices would allow them to stay in the zone because they would have fewer distractions.

Managers say they need offices because the meetings they have require privacy, but I imagine that if those meetings were held in the open more collaboration would happen. They say developers should sit in the open because they need to communicate, but all of the times that I have ever "communicated" I was with a manager.

Who knows, projects might show up on time for a change.

Counting in Base 36 with JavaScript and Ruby

2009-11-20T05:36:00.000-08:00

Converting from Base 36 to integer in Ruby couldn't make this any easier:

str.to_i(36)

and back to Base 36:

int.to_s(36)

Humorously, JavaScript is very similar, just not as elegant:

parseInt(str, 36)

and back to Base 36:

int.toString(36)

Counting in Base 36 in both languages is an exercise in converting to integer incrementing and then converting back to Base 36:

def inc36(str)
n = str.to_i(36)
n += 1
n.to_s(36)
end

And in JavaScript:

function inc36(str) {
var n = parseInt(str, 36);
n++;
return n.toString(36);
}

Good times! I hope this helps someone. Googling for the answer did not turn up many hits.

VMA + Twitter = New Day for Marketing

2009-09-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

I believe that the scandal that Kanye created with Taylor Swift was staged by Mtv. I would guess that Kanye and Mtv were in on it at a minimum, but it is possible that all four (Mtv, Beyonce, Taylor and Kanye) were all in on it, but I doubt it. The Rhapsody commercial that followed ("this is Taylor Swift's time") immediately following the incident seemed a little like an apology.

But the change for marketing came at the end when Mtv showed that they were *measuring* the Twitter traffic and pointed out that the traffic really jumped when Kanye did his thing. Mtv just proved to the rest of the world that if something big enough happens a measurable amount of
chatter will be generated. Granted, few people will get the level of traffic that Mtv generated, but I don't think that makes it any less important for businesses of all sizes.

Adding commas to numbers

2009-08-23T15:08:00.000-07:00

I could not find any good utils out there to add commas to numbers in JavaScript. So I wrote one:

I found a Ruby example a long time ago, and it has served me well. Here is my Ruby comma util:

I love the Ruby version, but I am pretty proud of my JavaScript version as well.

Firefox Prism Page Search

2009-08-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Firefox Prism is nice, but it is killing me. I use it primarily for Gmail. Gmail's keyboard shortcuts don't work from time to time. "gi" or Goto Inbox never works. "y" or Archive works most of the time.

I wish they would open up more of the options because this one is driving me nuts.

Google Reader Request: Why am I subscribed to this blog?

2009-08-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

I am reading a blog post from a blog that I don't remember subscribing to. I don't remember because I subscribed to it a month ago and they haven't updated since then. I actually prefer this model of posting. Few REALLY GOOD posts because then when you read them it is like you have found a gem that you weren't really looking for.

But then you have people like me, who don't post very often, and when they do they are complain about some feature that an awesome tool on the Internet doesn't have. And you wonder, why did I subscribe to this feed? It is because 2 years ago this guy actually posted something useful and you thought future posts would be good too. HAH! I tricked you!

What is missing from Reader is the ability to find out why I subscribed to a feed in the first place. My first gut reaction to this "need" is a "note" icon next to the name of the poster. When clicking on the icon a note is displayed which I wrote sometime soon after subscribing that tells me why I subscribed. My second gut reaction that was prompted by the disgust of having to write something like that is that Google creates a summary of the blog as a whole.

I doubt any of these are really good ideas, especially since it is so easy to just go back and read past titles and dive into posts for clarification, but it sure would be nifty to not have to research why I subscribed to this random feed. Hopefully the brilliant Reader team can come up with something better that fits the need.

Daily Inspiration In Passwords

2009-07-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

I have been running a little personal experiment that seems to be working. Instead of using some random whack password like 4tUg9giB I use something like Dr1nkL3ssDP. That password would remind me on a daily, and sometimes hourly, basis that I should drink less Dr. Pepper. It meets the criteria of being strong, it is meaningful which means it is easy to remember, and the best part is that it is a reminder of an improvement that you are trying to make at the time.

Also, since you should change your passwords often, you can change your password to help you with your next improvement.

*Note* All passwords used in this post have never been used by me, which should be obvious since I still drink Dr. Pepper like never before.

Default Browser in Mac OS X

2009-06-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

My current browser is Firefox. I am not a big fan of Safari. I am using Prism until Google Chrome is available for Mac OS X. Whenever I click a link in Gmail (which is a Prism app) it would open up in Safari. Annoying.

So, I opened up Options in Firefox and found the "Check Now" button to set Firefox to be the default browser. Nothing changed. So I went to Options in Safari, to see if I could make it the default browser, thinking I would go back to Firefox and hopefully fix the mess. I was surprised to find a setting that allowed you to choose your default web browser. I selected Firefox. And now links in my Gmail Prism app open up in Firefox.

So, if you are wondering how to make Firefox your default web browser on Mac OS X, just go into Safari's options (on the General tab) and set it. Easy. When you know where to look.

I am sixty4bit

2009-06-14T20:47:00.000-07:00

When I was in the US Navy I was introduced to chatting on IRC. This was way back in 1995. I had been on AOL a time or two, but I didn't have a nickname that I liked. I looked around the server room and saw a DEC Alpha. It had a 64-bit processor. I thought I would get fancy and use sixty4bit as my nickname. It stuck. So, I am sixty4bit on most networks now, including Facebook.

New job for reporters

2009-05-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

The Christian Science Monitor states reporters deserve low pay. Robert X. Cringely proves reporters deserve low pay (it takes him a little while, but he gets there).

I was thinking I should hire a couple to keep track of the politics of my current project. How awesome would it be to have someone posting daily to the development blog the highlights of the day. They would report on who said what and bring to light all of the different pieces of insight that everyone has on the team. They would be a glorified court reporter, but there is a chance that they might find something that no one else is seeing. They would probably be good at writing documentation too.

Unfortunately, I think they would fall into their old ways and just become part of the machine and not bring any extra value.

Getting Started with Rails

2009-05-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

A friend just asked me how to get started on Rails. I thought I would share my thoughts with the world also:

First, buy the books from the PragProg guys:

Don't worry about getting the Programming Ruby 1.9, it has another 6months to a year before it will be the preferred way to go. The community hasn't shifted to it yet. Just be aware that it is coming. Both of these books are must haves and really the only requirement to get started.

Second, I highly recommend buying a Mac or installing Linux. It can be done on Windows, but it just isn't fun. There will be a ton of new things that you are going to have to learn and being on a Mac usually gets you answers faster because so many people are using them. And the majority of the screencasts are on Macs. This isn't a must, but it will make your life easier.

Third, watch screencasts at PeepCode

Start with Rails 2 from Scratch (there are two)
Then do the REST Rails series
Then learn about Git

You can skip the PeepCode screencasts if you don't want, but I feel like they are the best way to get started. Be sure to buy the pack of 5, it will save you $10.

Git is a distributed SCM and is really important. Everything in the community is moving to it. Rails is hosted on GitHub as are most of the libraries that you will need. If what you are doing is open source, then using GitHub will be free. They have excellent documentation to learn about Git on their site.

Fourth, watch more Rails Screencasts. These are free. Basically, you will want to search to see if he has answered a problem you have.

Fifth, bookmark the RailsApi. This is the best Rails API site I have found.

Deployment is going to be pesky, but I highly recommend Heroku. To deploy, you just push your git repository to the server and they take care of the dirty work for you. It is awesome. And brand spankin new... So there are times when it has issues but they are usually resolved rapidly.

Subscribe to the Rails talk mailing list. A good resource when you have questions.

I hope this helps a new Rails developer get started!

Rails Maturity Model

2009-02-20T07:25:00.001-08:00

The problem with RMM is that it sets someone up as the judge and jury. And no one likes to be judged. Also we have seen things like this fail so many times. To get people on board, Obie needs to address the fears that are cropping up:

* How will it be different than getting java certified?
* Customers and employers have been burned those java certs, how will RMM avoid those problems?
* How will you keep shops from labeling themselves Tops in RMM when they haven't yet been judged?

Cisco certification came to mind when I started thinking about certifications that had meaning. It is a very rigorous test that is difficult to pass, and expensive. RMM would have to be all of those things but... Is it really worth it?

The top dogs in our industry are well known because they all speak at conferences or have open sourced their work. It is the "lesser well known but still provide great coders" companies that could be helped by this. But I think there is a much better way. How many contributions has the company made to OpenSource projects?

Provide a way for companies to publish who their developers are and then look in different repositories to see how much that company has contributed. This would be a much better tool to determine the merits of a company.

Jing is awesome

2009-02-19T18:45:00.000-08:00

I needed to make a quick screencast recently, and I just happened upon someone's blog who used Jing to create one. It probably isn't the most robust screencasting tool out there, but it worked great for my needs. Jing also allows you to take screen captures quickly and easily. I was using Skitch for that work, but Jing has taken it's place. Take a look at my previous post about ads taking up to much realestate on websites to see an image created using Jing.

The thing I dig about Jing is that it adds a little orb to your screen that just unobtrusively sits there until you need it, mine is sitting in the top right corner of my screen. Then, you click on the orb and it gives you three choices: Capture, History and More. You click on Capture, it allows you to create a box around the area you want to capture and then asks if you want to capture an image or a video.

It is quick and easy. It comes with a quick way to share your screencasts or captures online too.

Ad Space

2009-02-18T21:17:00.000-08:00

I needed a synonym today so I decided to hit up my favorite synonym site: thesaurus.com. I did the search and the result came back and I found a word to replace the one I had. But I had difficulty finding the answer on the page.

The grayed out portions of the image are all ads or whitespace. 78% of the screen is taken up by ads! I didn't even count the popup blocker at the top of the page which was blocking another ad. Some may point out that the content on the left is actually navigation to other words, but these lead to dictionary.com and all cause a popup ad. It is a gray area (pun intended) but I counted it. It constitutes about 15% of the screen so if you want to give it to the content side of the equation you are still talking about 63% in ad space. Worse still is that they break up the useful parts of the page with a huge ad. That little sliver that tells you what you searched for and the actual answer that brought you to the site is separated by an ad that interupts your flow and makes it difficult to actually find the information you are looking for. Making it hard to find the value on your page isn't a good thing.

Having 78% of the screen taken by ads is the equivalent of a one hour television show having 45 minutes of commercials. Google has succeeded as a search engine and done so well as a business because they don't take up that much space with their ads, they don't blink and they are actually relevant. This argument seems late to the game, but obviously service providers are not understanding. Please, if you are going to put ads on your page, make them relevant, give me easy access to your content (which is where the REAL value lies) and don't flash things at your users.

Accidental Leader

2009-02-06T21:22:00.001-08:00

I am an accidental leader. Seth Godin says that to be a leader you
first have to make a choice to lead. Well, I made that choice a very
long time ago, but it wasn't until recently that I actually started
leading. Humorously, I actually started leading just after I had given
up on the very idea and just started trying to get things done. This
is why I feel like an accidental leader.

In fact I am not an accidental leader. I just finally got out of my
own way. I just stopped looking for the credit that I was due and just
worked to do the right thing. I was given the title "Lead" and did a
pretty bang up job. But when the job was finished and I had to move on
to something else, I remained a leader, but was happy just being one
of the troops again.

My next step is to figure out how not to be an accidental leader, but
to sucessfully create a tribe and move them in a direction
purposefully. The first couple of things to work on are:

* learn to not scare people with my passion
* learn to effectively communicate goals and direction
* learn to communicate in a way that is not perceived to be grumpy

The second item above will be worked on through this blog. I can learn
that through writing. The other two will require conversations with
people about things that I am passionate or upset about. Most of the
perceived grumpiness comes from quick statements, replies, or requests
that don't have the appropriate amount of politeness to buffer the
thought being communicated. I believe that will be my most challenging
change.

No more accidents!

Test Post

2009-02-06T20:57:00.001-08:00

This is a test of posting via email.

Rails Singularize Fun

2006-12-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine is building his first Rails application. He has been having problems with his models. Here is the error:

ArgumentError: ./script/../config/../config/../vendor/rails/activerecord/lib/../../activesupport/lib/active_support/dependencies.rb:399:in `to_constant_name': Anonymous modules have no name to be referenced by

We started chatting about it around 10:30pm. At 1:50am I had an idea:

>> "niche".pluralize
=> "niches"
>> "niches".singularize
=> "nich"

His niches weren't being singularized properly. I checked genres, they work.

>> "genres".singularize
=> "genre"

Rails did not play nice today :-)

First Post!

2006-12-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

I am posting again, but this time from a new address. I will be posting about personal and professional topics. Topics will range from my daughter's cute sayings to grumblings about how much EJB's suck. So I hope you enjoy!