Clever Sink
I kind of like the interesting combination of modern aesthetic and functionality exhibited by this sink that I saw at a WalMart restroom recently. A single piece makes installation easy, the two levels make it easier for kids and adults to use, and the slope ensures that standing water drains off. Not the prettiest thing, but I was impressed by the effort that some design engineer put into it.
Wonder
Took this a few weeks back on my way to work... The contrast was simply amazing -- remarkable brighter than this iPhone-snapped picture shows. I've never a seen a rainbow that just shimmered like this.
This is over by the Tacoma Narrows bridge on SR-16, headed North at about 6:40am.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8, ESV
A Prayer at Work
I pray that I would be
effective in my work,
disciplined with my time,
loving to my coworkers,
forward-looking in my calling,
mindful of my family,
reflecting of Your grace,
throughout the day.
Church Software, First Steps
Trying to do a little brainstorming here for the church software. I did just a little research and found that sure enough there are tons of products out there. The problem I'm seeing is that the interfaces seem a little less than useful and many of them are somewhat pricey. What I'd like is a "roll your own" option for any of these. Don't sell me the service or the product, sell me hosting and management if I can't do it myself.
Some new ideas based on what I found:
Facilities Management: would be nice to add. Isn't really fundamentally different than event planning and scheduling but could provide checklists, reminders, inventory (for consumable products), that sort of thing.
Childcare: Could easily integrate a check-in system for the nursery with all the data that we have.
Background, user meta-information: Useful for programs like Reducing the Risk. Basically, the ability to look at things like when a member has completed some necessary training or certification. Sad that this is needed, but it is.
Financials: After working on the budget committee this year and looking at other software, I believe that this is pretty straightforward. The big deal would be incorporating a tracker for two primary things:
1) Incoming checks and cash. Allow a weekly input where a user's check is recorded (possibly even scanned), the amount is recorded even before it's deposited with the bank. (With newer banks, it might be possible to simply upload check images). It would be very nice if users could check their own contributions online by logging in. Alternatively, any church administrator would have the information available without moving/copying Quickbooks files.
2) Outgoing checks and expense reimbursements. At least at our church we have a fairly small amount of accounts for expense tracking -- this would be easy to import and manage. Granted, this information wouldn't be available immediately in a full-fledged piece of software like Quickbooks, but what we need week-to-week and month-to-month would be adequate. Would provide immediate feedback to accountable parties for expenses that are being made rather than waiting for an end-of-month report.
3) Both of the above lead to budget tracking. With each account, if we have a weekly, monthly, or yearly budget, we can easily track actuals against budgeted amounts.
Anyway -- this is all well and good. It definitely, hugely increases the scope of work.
As a first step, I'm looking at trying to start with
1) Authentication system
2) User management
3) Scheduling system (rotating assignments with exceptions, email reminders, rescheduling/adjusting by admin only)
For our church, this is the most critical need. I'm going to be working on some models and some basic system requirements and we'll see how far I get. There's nothing there yet, but I've set up a new website here: http://steepleproject.org/ The plan will be to start formal documentation there, code repositories, etc.
If you have any thoughts or suggestions, please leave a comment!
IT Dept. vs. IT Consultant
I moonlight from my full-time gig as a Software Engineer by doing IT support. This ranges from desktop support, hardware upgrades, purchasing assistance, remote access and support issues, network setup, configuration, and administration, etc. Basically, overall I'm acting as an IT Department for small companies.
I think I'm mostly productive in this role. Small offices don't have a lot of issues and to some extent users train themselves to accomplish routine IT-related tasks. The intersection of "IT Consultant" who typically charges a bit more per hour to be on call to resolve a wide range of issues and the role of "IT Guy" who is hired full-time to assist with any ongoing issues is interesting.
A consultant typically:
- Is expensive on a per hour basis
- Must perform constantly to avoid being replaced (which is usually trivial for his client to do
- May not be available immediately since they have other clients, but can often be available FAIRLY quickly if your willing to pay even more
- Is expected to resolve issues quickly and surgically
An IT employee:
- Is cheap on a per hour basis
- But is relatively difficult to fire and replace if performance becomes a problem
- Is available immediately 5 days a week
- Is expected to solve problems as they arise but with little motivation to finish them immediately
I believe that for small companies, the first option is almost always the best. One of the main reasons I believe is motivation. A consultant must perform constantly and consistently with every hour that they bill. They can be replaced easily in most circumstances, and therefore must "earn their keep". In addition, although there are definitely some conveniences of having local IT staff, most small companies do not have enough work to keep their staff busy. If they do, it's likely because processes are not streamlined. If a member of IT staff must do 4 hours of work every day just to keep systems running, they're probably wasting time. An expensive consultant might cost 5 times as much per hour but could be tasked to automate the process once and for all. In many cases, the IT staff member may not have the training or experience to perform automation (often consultants tend to have more rounded experience in process, software development, architecture, etc.) and normally they wouldn't have much motivation to automate a task that would make their own position no longer be needed.
For larger companies, the volume of IT work is likely sufficient to keep full-time staff busy even if they are constantly resolving old problems, and moving onto new problems. In a situation where a single contractor can no longer fill your IT needs, it's likely much cheaper to hire full-time IT staff.
There are scumbag employees and scumbag contractors. One of the biggest things that I have always striven for as a consulting contractor is to work myself out of a job. Ideally, I should be fixing things to a point that my client will only call when they want new features, new technology, new ideas. If all I do is treat a chronic IT wound, I'm part of the problem. Obviously, some systems take constant maintenance. But if I'm working on one system and I see a new system on the market that resolves or reduces these ongoing maintenance issues I will always point my client in that direction. My goal is to provide professional services that improve my client's bottom line -- not my own. Ideally, I'd love long-term relationships that are lucrative to me as well. But I want my customers to be successful with me as a partner, not in spite of me.
Ok, this is starting to sound like a sales pitch.
To summarize, in general, I advocate for IT consultants for small businesses and IT departments for medium to large sized companies (or perhaps specialized small businesses that have unusually high levels of IT needs). I think it's critical that your consultant is really, truly attempting to maximize your ROI, and that they're hired and rewarded in a manner that's consistent with this. The same applies for your employees -- your own IT staff must have support from management so that they can make their own positions more efficient and be rewarded for it. Contractors get greedy with high retainers, and employees get lazy with routine work. All organizations, large and small need to be aware of this and prepare for it in advance.
Car Audio/Automation
I've been sort of disappointed. We don't have our promised flying cars yet. But in addition, some of the existing tech that we do have seems sadly lacking. In an era of iPhones, video chat, Internet video streaming, integrated digital sound systems, etc. it's quite frustrating to observe the current market for car audio devices.
My commute just recently went from a 44-miles-per-day to 130-miles-per-day and obviously, it's nice to have something going in the background be that music, lectures, sermons, podcasts, or NPR (yes, I listen to NPR!). So I've been looking at upgrading from my stock 1998 Toyota Corolla radio with tape deck to something better.
I'm struggling.
This reminds me a lot of how I viewed the pre-Treo 600 cell phone market (although to me, even phones like the Treo were disappointing). You could pick from several hundred choices all of which appeared to be designed without any standardization, attention to detail, solid feel (that horrible crunchy plastic feel that was finally cured with the iPhone), etc. As I survey the current landscape for car audio systems, I'm sort of seeing the same thing.
What I'm frustrated with:
- HD Radio support -- this is easy, but I hate being nickel-and-dime'd for an extra $80 to take the spiffy "HD Ready" unit to be an ACTUAL HD Radio. Let's just make this standard.
- Auxiliary input -- this is almost standard across the board but seems to have so many problems on many units. In many cases, it's either a very difficult interface to navigate or really bad noise on the line. With my 12 year old stock unit, I can use a cassette adapter and get sounding audio in less than 5 seconds. Why are modern units worse?
- Overall interface bizarreness. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and user interfaces are hard to objectively rate, but very few "best practices" are ever followed in interface design for these units. Often there are confusing knobs, multiple buttons that appear to do conflicting things, and odd resets and menu navigation which means you have to press 14 buttons to switch to your iPod input.
- "Flavor of the week" interfaces. Come on people. iPods are neat, iPhones are neat, but don't sell me a unit because it now supports Pandora ON the iPhone itself. The one advantage is that instead of punching input to the iPhone, you punch on the car audio unit. I'm not seeing justification to drop an extra $50+ on this.
What I'd really like to see is:
- Let's be honest, I'd like to see Apple design an interface. They do this amazingly well. Some people may not love it (hey, everyone's different) but it would reset the industry as the development and release of the iPod and iPhone did. The combination of simple interfaces, never being "far" from common tasks, and reasonably strong and durable hardware design would be simply amazing.
- Upgradable firmware. Everyone has wireless these days. Many if not most people could receive wireless in their garage. Even better, why not integrate 3G/4G into these units directly? If you have connectivity, it seems quite reasonable to allow new software interfaces, new protocols, new "apps" of some sort to be used. For that matter, why reinvent the wheel -- let's use iOS or Android as the OS for these devices. If an iPad can sell for $600 with free WiFi or a $30/month 3G subscription, surely a head unit could be at the same price point. Currently, many of these units are $1,000+ and from what I've seen, offer few if any of these benefits.
- Get standard -- allow USB Bluetooth dongles to be used, allow WiFi USB dongles to expand simple systems, provide a web interface so you can use your laptop or home computer to configure settings and features.
- Related to the above, a true separation between hardware and software. I should be able to buy a unit and then buy 8 different navigation systems or audio players that all run on the same hardware. I don't want to be stuck with some name-brand piece of junk "solution" that I can never upgrade or change.
It's much easier to complain than to actually do research. I may have completely missed some models out there or companies who are actually moving in this direction. If so, please leave a comment with any details.
I know very little about Microsoft's foray into this sort of thing. Mainly because from what I understand, their Sync technology is exclusive for Ford vehicles. It sounds cool, but it's only a first step in my opinion. Voice control is great, but they seem to just be replaying the same paradigm of older systems with a few Microsoft-ish bells and whistles.
As a final note, I'll just say that I like the stock units the most -- high-end cars come with some pretty amazing units that are hard to beat so far as making the interface blend perfectly with the car itself. In addition, integrated Bluetooth that's tidily hidden away, steering wheel volume control, etc. are all great features. And maybe it's the presence of reasonable built-in units that's hurting the development of this market. Unless a big name company cuts a deal with a major car maker, it seems unlikely that after-market sales would drive enough sales to warrant some serious investment in this technology.
Any thoughts?
Transitions
Looks like life is changing again... A day before my birthday, I got a 4-week layoff notice. My last day at SAIC in Kent, WA would be February 23. Thankfully, I've just got word this week that I should be transitioning to up to Poulsbo, WA to support my old division on a pretty exciting project. It's nice to stay in the company (certainly makes life a lot easier) and the new project sounds like a lot of fun -- good career experience, work that's satisfying and interesting, and working mostly with a group that I'm already pretty familiar with.
I'm excited about the future. I'm not sure where this road leads in terms of deep technical expertise vs. getting back into academics possibly with a Master's degree vs. moving towards management, but there are many opportunities and options that will be fun to explore.
God is good. Not just because things worked out in this initially stressful situation, but because he has promised to be faithful to his people and he always is. It was wonderful to experience the care and support of a number of friends, family members, and co-workers who all rallied behind me in my efforts to move forward, and provided comfort and support. My thanks to all of you. 
Although I'm not sure of the details, I'm hoping that I will have some energy to move forward with a number of projects over the next year. There are some software projects that I wanted to kickoff, some more opportunities I wanted to chase down for the new business, and some fun projects around the house that I wanted to work on with Sarah.
Picture from National Geographic (http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photos/patterns-sand/egypt-sand-dunes-photography.html)
Privateer
So I'm listening to a new Pandora station this morning (Thanks Robert for the suggestion -- good stuff). The music of the particular track that I'm listening to at the moment reminds me so much of an old MS-DOS game called Privateer by Origin Systems. I remember distinctly getting the game from my Dad in 1993 and loading all 7 or so diskettes into our ancient beast of a computer. After some tweaking to fix some memory issues, we finally got it up and running. The basic gameplay is as a pilot of [initially] a small ship, flying between planets, space stations, asteroids, and other bases while choosing to play as a trader, a mercenary, or whatever you chose.
This game was amazing. The graphics of course look awful now as I review the site. But the game play was incredible. The joystick took some skill to use effectively whether you chose life as a merchant or a gun for hire. Interaction and AI wasn't great, but for the time, it was pretty good. I spent many hours playing the game and really enjoyed it. The music was "futuristic" synthesized music, probably not the best quality, but it always felt so fitting for the game. The game created an incredibly immersive world that sucked you in despite the relative simplicity compared to modern games like EVE Online. It was a good balance. I was inspired, intrigued, and entertained but not to the point that I forgot about reality altogether. Newer games definitely provide more depth than this old-time game, but I can't afford to spend an average of 2.5 hours per day (which apparently is average for EVE Online players).
I did also play Freelancer (made by the same designer after Origin was acquired by Electronic Arts) but it just didn't feel the same.
Anyone out there know or or can recommend any games like this that can balance a high level of fascination with a certain restraint that still encourages reality?
Kill Kill Bill Bill
I'm here to say that Quentin Tarantino stole my idea.
Also you'll notice that I still have some outstanding homework to complete. My Mom returned this to me, and let me know that she's still waiting on this (notice I have one more "fig" left). I intend to fax and return ASAP -- I was home schooled -- she's not just Mom, she's the principle and apparently I shouldn't have graduated.
Twitter: A great way to complain
I was pleasantly surprised recently to find a practical use for Twitter. I'm no Luddite, but I rarely find a lot of value in Twitter that I don't find elsewhere. I'm following a lot of tech writers/bloggers/developers and that can be good for keeping up with developing trends, but I digress.
The practical feature: Complaining.
We had a miserable experience at the local Red Robin recently (South Hill/Puyallup, WA). Dirty, long wait, poor waiter service, etc. I posted this on Twitter:
Just got back from #RedRobin -- disgusting.... that place has really gone downhill. Too bad.
Notice the tag on RedRobin. I was surprised when I fairly promptly got a reply on Twitter:
@andrewflanagan Yikes! Can you please send us the details/location at [email protected]? Thanks for your help.
The beauty of this is that anyone searching on Twitter for RedRobin will find my tag and see my post and my rotten rating. I sent an email, they replied (CC'ing a huge number of Red Robin staff) and I was asked if I wanted to talk to the manager.
This is pretty good service. My blog (yes, this one) is not exactly all that busy and I could have posted here for weeks without anyone at Red Robin being aware of it (or even if they were aware, they wouldn't care since it's not exactly all that visible).
So Twitter gives you visibility. Not just to a company, but to that company's customers. I suppose it's a little bit more like picketing a store instead of sending a letter to the management (which is more like a blog entry).
I also recently had an issue getting approved for our Bizspark account with Microsoft (you get free software -- essentially an MSDN subscription -- as well as help with your start up). Again I complained, and again I got a quick response (which was very civil). Interestingly, when I followed up via email, I was asked (somewhat rudely I would say) to remove my complaining post from Twitter. I complied, since they did fix the problem, but I'm somewhat surprised by just how much visibility I got.
What are your thoughts? Will the visibility last? Any similar experiences using Twitter or other social networks?
Twitter Updates
Location
StackOverflow
Reading...
- New hymn by Douglas Bond: Creator God, Our Sovereign Lord, 2007 (andrewzle's YouTube Activity)
- I'm not on Facebook (TYWKIWDBI ("Tai-Wiki-Widbee"))
- Business Ideas (Dilbert.com Blog)
- Safe Passage (Futility Closet)
- Unquote (Futility Closet)