Software, Fitness, and Gaming – Jesse Warden

Blog

  • Email False Positives – My New Daily Tragedy

    I’ve got 1995 emails after just a weekend, 75 of those made it through Mail, Apple’s default email program. 35 of those “not junk” emails are spam. I’ve been prompted in the past to make Junk mail automatically head to the junk folder, but I got too many false positives, incorrect marking of legitimate email as spam, to feel comfortable doing so. I don’t have time anymore, however, to continue to teach Mail what is good email. I’ve turned it on so I can move on with my life.

    I can whine about the fact that I’m losing good email, be a studious developer, and implement the various server-side / client side methods that exist out there. I don’t, however, have time. Email is screwed; it’s built on a flawed platform of not verifying authenticity.

    X gens on back to baby boomers wonder why us Y gens really don’t get all uppity about privacy issues, like blogging our personal lives, voluntarily installing spy ware, and handing over personal information on disparate websites. Yes, a few of us think the US government’s various privacy violations need to have multiple people be held accountable because they are wrong, but bottom line is the perception is different. One of the reasons is, we recognize the value of identity and the power it entails by knowing, for sure, another’s identify. Social networking systems abound that allow control over our relationships. It’s not so much retaining control of our data, but rather getting more control over our communications with others.

    Email has no forced identify, and therefore, has no control. As such, it has slid far from my personal social network. Yes, I still get and read emails, but the time invested is getting less and less return. Many attempts have been made to off load the work to the sender by clicking those authorize email links in auto-responders. I’ll never click those as they themselves are spam messages and do not adapt to changing email addresses.

    Instead, the move to a stronger identify has strengthened my network. For example, I now text a whole lot more than I did last year. I used to hear on the news and blogs that “kids” these days were textting, and thought email was something old people used. I thought textting was pretty dumb. Now, I use it all the time. Unlike my wife who gets copious amounts of incorrect text messages, I get text messages from people I know. I don’t get spam. You can’t send me a text message unless you know my phone number, which isn’t hard to get. For now, I have more control. I’ve gotten spammed twice in my life on IM. I have various identities on IM to ensure I have control over “how much presence” I truly am exposing. My phone numbers are still my #1 fave to communicate.

    Textting, IM, and phone calls rock. Email sucks.

    On the flip-side, I need to be accessible to potential new clients, friends & family, and other people asking me questions, hence I have 3 email addresses. I’ll let Mail’s junk filter, SpamSoap, and whatever Google uses handle the frontal assaults. While spam does get through, it is extremely manageable now, and 3 points of contact allows an easier time of communication.

    While it is a shame I don’t have time to remove all false positives from my life, this is the world I live in and I need to move on. It’s email’s fault for not being built with spam control built into the protocol. Networking is one the pivotal things that helped me be successful. It is hard to walk the fine line how you communicate with those in your network to ensure relevance, and generally filter out the signal to noise ratio for both friends and business. I’d say this year email took the biggest hit in terms of relevance. My primary means of interacting with the world is via email, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. Yet today I just pressed “apply” on settings dialog that could negatively impact my life.

    Drama Queen? Sure. Worried? Don’t have time. Email is very important to me and I have no choice but to put faith in the email that gets through being relevant.

  • Identifying Team Resources

    Fellow UM consultant Andrew Powell talked about the RIA Team Concept. That inspired me to write about my recent team building experience.

    I had the opportunity 3 months ago to augment my team. Placed on a large Flash development project, I knew I couldn’t do it alone with the resources I had. That’s what my gut said. It took me about 3 business days to identify the scope of the project based on what I was told from various stakeholders (dude’s and dude’tt’s in charge). It took another 5 business days to identity the true extent of what available resources I had. I’ve had no formal training in resource management. A resource being defined as a person with a skill set that is valuable to my team. Typically, I’ve been an added resource to a team, a Flash / Flex Developer hired to enhance an existing team. This time around, I was looked upon as the person who could correctly identify who, and how many, additional people we needed.

    I looked at the project’s scope & deadline, people I currently had available, and knew I needed help. How?

    • I’ve done enough development before to know what I’m capable of.
    • Over time, I can recognize people’s skill sets, and make an inference as to what they can accomplish in a given time frame.
    • I’ve done enough variety of work to recognize what skill set does what type of work best.

    Those 3 are mostly drawn from experience. Experience can’t be taught, it must be lived. Regardless, reporting on experience helps others learn how they came to be, and as we understand others’ experiences, we can understand ourselves.

    There were some obvious signs of what we DIDN’T need. The project was a refresh; meaning, an existing website was adding a new design and changing some functionality. The data, all dynamic from a set of .NET web services on the back-end, was not changing. If it was, there were numerous in house resources that management assured me would be more than capable of knocking them out quickly while being flexible to requirements.

    Good, no need for server dudes. Bad thing, though, these gals n’ guys are easier to find than client peeps, say… a qualified Flash Developer.

    The single developer I was assigned to work with was not a designer. I am not a designer, I just like designers. I knew we needed a designer. Even if it wasn’t the one actually designing the new site, we needed someone to be accountable for the design in my team. Developers tend to have no regard for layout, font choice / size / weight, and will ignore gradients that don’t display on their monitor. It’s not that we can’t, it’s just we aren’t paid to do those things; we’re typically focused on making things work, not look good. As such, we needed someone to work with us to keep us in check. Having a design change break working code that was fought hard for 2 months later is a major morale & productivity killer. As such, you need to massage it into submission while the patient is open. A designer working with the programmers to ensure the design is correct and to help adjust to design requirement changes should be done in tandem, not at the end of a project.

    I needed a designer.

    Another week into it, I realized we weren’t allowed to rewrite things. I wanted to nuke the whole code base, but that wasn’t in the time frame. That’s always a joke in the Flash industry because you can typically re-write bad ActionScript faster and end up with something with less bugs, easier to test, and more scalable anyway in the end if you know what you are doing. The trick is how do you sell that to management? Do you do it anyway, risking that if you take longer you defied orders, or instead look like a hero at the end? All kinds of crazy, ethical blurriness here. That, combined with the insane deadline + the amount of code to jury-rig into submission was… daunting. Considering I had a seasoned programmer on my side, I felt good. He didn’t have any Flashdev experience, however, so I knew I’d do a lot of peer programming. Peer programming being defined as 2 programmers using 1 computer to program. I do this a lot for solving bugs with my teammates . He’d teach me about the code base since he had experience with it as well as the business. In turn, I’d explain why you can’t mask device text at author time in the Flash Player, why the existing code base was f00ked via copious justifications, and all of those other nuances us Flash Developers know about our platform. That means 2 developers barely making headway. I needed someone else doing recon in other areas, covering our backs, and generally being a work horse while us two forged ahead in deadly waters.

    I needed an additional, experienced Flash or Flex developer… preferably Flash.

    Another week into it, the sheer amount of “screens” and “sections” made me realize that there would be a lot of production art. Production art being the process of converting Photoshop, Illustrator, or Flash FLA files into a design that can be programmed inside of the authoring tool, in this case the Flash 8 IDE. This is, unfortunately, an art. Designers can be pretty good at this, but it is rare that programmers are because a lot do not have a design appreciation for the assets they are converting, and thus quality and intent can be lost in the conversion process. As the tools in the industry get better and more integrated, hopefully this skill set will go away (*ahem* :: cough :: :: Adobe :: :: cough :: ), but for now it is a necessary evil. It has a worse perception than Information Architecture in that many do not even recognize it as a skill, let alone a valid task. This one requires a lot of educating management very delicately if it’s considered new.

    I needed yet another designer. They could not only use Flash from a designer’s perspective, convert assets, but also ensure us programmers aren’t making a mess of the implemented designs.

    So, I managed to get:

    • 1 in-house programmer, experienced with the code base and business
    • 1 in-house designer, experienced with the business
    • 1 remote developer brought on site with Flash Developer experience
    • 1 remote designer brought on site with Flash Design / Development experience

    The whole time, I managed to convince management to allow us to all work in the same office. That’s right, 5 dudes in the same office. Because of the deadline, remote work wasn’t possible as far as I was concerned… at least at the get-go. The in-house designer was originally on a different floor, but f’that . After 2 days of IM’s, phone calls, and trips to the elevator, my team and I had had it. We apprehended some fans, and even snagged an extra whiteboard. I did my best to make Twizzlers always available. Unexpectedly (to me), management started ensuring that our productive garden thrived, and watered us with facts gleaned from copious meetings we didn’t have to attend, and gave us sun beams of praise. It was great how it worked out!

    I feel I made good decisions, and things worked out better than I thought they would. I was really nervous at the beginning asking for so many resources, both internal at the client company I was consulting for, and from my own consulting firm. I’m technically asking both companies for a lot of time and money from various individuals. Those are not decisions to be taken lightly. I’ve never argued with my gut, though. If he says jump, I jump. All the experience collects there, you see. Thus, I trust it implicitly. Yes, yes, I swear I did some double-takes and did some second-guesses just in case. Nothing like role-playing devils’ advocate, out loud, near others who you shouldn’t be role-playing near.

    The only challenges were keeping the designers focused 100% of the time. Forces outside of our control made it challenging to present them production work in a steady stream. Additionally, the amount of bugs and code re-factoring made it hard for us developers to showcase completed sections for the designers to do their thing on. I am constantly playing catch up to find valid sections that are ready for “painting” or “design inspection” as it were. QA became a good scapegoat (aka back up task) but RAD development, even with a good plan, isn’t always everyone going 100%. Developers, even in agency work, are always slower than designers.

    Anyway, I know the above was kind of vague, but hopefully that give you some insight into how I made my decisions. I made the mistake in the past of not asking for additional resources sooner, so learned from that, and nipped the problem before we hit the starting gate. I am glad I was given this opportunity to learn and am glad it worked out so well. I typically write about the hard lessons I’ve learned from failures, but this is a success so it’s a nice change.

  • Halloween Mix 2007

    Mix this year is from German DJ G-I-S, something he did back in August (Thanks Milkshoes!). I didn’t have time like last year because of consulting and the Adobe MAX conference. It’s scary enough to count as Halloween. Dark Drum & Bass mix.

    “Who are you?”

    “I AM THE REAPER!!!”

    Breaknights [2006_09_15].mp3

    I couldn’t find the Air Force uniform at Costumes, Etc. in Buckhead to be Colonel Major John Shephard from Stargate Atlantis. So I’ve dyed my hair black and am going as Neo from the Matrix Revolutions. My scalp has a burning sensation… is that bad? I rented that suit cape thing he wears and bought like 20 glowsticks to hand out to people at Eleven 50 where Hybrid is spinning.

    LOL, Matrix!

  • Various MAX 2006 Notes

    I’ve slept for 2 days straight, and now left wondering where I’m going to get a costume for tonight’s’ party. Hybrid’s in town and I can’t miss that. Breakfast at 3:00 pm.

    I didn’t manage to do as much live blogging at MAX as I would of liked to. The wireless simply didn’t work. It’d tease you every so often with a correct DNS finding, and then… boom. Therefore, at the bottom of this entry is my notes for Keynote Day 2. I didn’t make the sneaks on Day 3, slept in, but everyone gave me their version of what they saw. So many people to talk to, so little time. I really didn’t like Vegas, but enjoyed MAX overall. Vegas is total cheese, overpriced, and the desert air dries you out. MAX seemed well put together in terms of getting people out there to direct you, a multitude of events for everyone, and enough food and coffee in a steady stream. If you needed software, there were enough Adobe people around to hook you up.

    You didn’t get that personal touch you get at WebDU, though. Since MAX is so big, 3,500+ people, it’s impossible for them to give you the individual attention you get at smaller conferences, especially for speakers. Not to mention the fact there were like 50 billion categories. General Attendee, Partner, Speaker, Community Leader, etc. Not complaining, just my first big conference so taking note.

    Blue Man Group was cool.

    I almost lost my voice, but per her majesty’s direction, drank a lot of coffee and tea filled with honey as well as water and throat lozenges. I spoke 2 hours in a row no problem!

    A bad (good?) thing was seeing a lot of my Ozzie friends. They really made me “home sick” and want to go speak at WebDU again. Her majesty and I discussed it briefly, and even entertained the idea of her and I both speaking. She was kind of livid that a lot of people didn’t know the true definition of what an Information Architect is. People would start spouting “database” or “QA” and she’d go off. To their defense, most IA’s I’ve read about on blogs can’t even concisely identify what it is they do. Each does a different task at a company that is similar yet vastly different in implementation. They then get insecurity in the definition, and rightly so.

    Regardless, it’d be nice to see some IA/Usability presence at WebDU, so… we’re still entertaining the idea.

    Got my office yesterday. They ran out of smaller offices, so I was forced into a bigger office. Averages $63 a day. Not what I wanted, but definitely not breaking the bank in what it offers. Free shared T1, free coffee, lockable door, all in an office building with similar shared offices. They are usually full up with sales people. I foresee myself speaking about what I do a lot of times while there… it’s a good thing, though. It’s right next to Cingular’s and Verizon’s northern offices; I think that might be Verizon’s corp HQ, :: shrugs ::. Anyway, I’ll be sure to show off my Flash Lite enabled phone to any who will watch. I only get it, the office, for 2 weeks and then have to get a new project to justify my staying there, but based on the people at the conference looking for Flash Devs, and my own consulting firm’s amount of Flex work, that won’t be a problem.

    Gotta say, highlight of the conference for me was seeing all the Flash Developers getting interested in Flex. A lot said about the same thing: “Yeah, installed it… playing around with it, seeing what it can do.” Awesome. It’s easier to get Flash Designers and Developers to try new things than it is entrenched Java devs, even though, currently, Flex 2 has more to offer to the server heads.

    It was also nice to have Adobe there to see my preso’s. I think my first one went great, 2nd not so much. Both were plan B’s; my MacBook didn’t have a VGA or DVI output, thus I couldn’t show any code. Either way, got a lot of good feedback, but none negative which made me nervous. Good thing, since Adobe was there, we got to discuss some things with regards to designer developer workflow, component sets ability to showcase design, file size, etc. I have full confidence Adobe will continually improve this area. Hopefully by then a lot of Flash peeps will be already bitching on their blogs about how hard things are, and Adobe will then satiate that need at it’s apex.

    I didn’t really attend many sessions. I was representing my consulting firm, Universal Mind, so attempted to help at the booth. The other time was spent talking shop, meeting new/known online people, and teaching impromptu Flex 2. I did manage to catch Roger’s module session on Thursday. It was a lot of material in such a short time stemming from the fact that it’s a low level architecture decision to do some of the things he is suggesting. They shouldn’t be taken lightly, thus, it’ll be good to do some experiments of my own and see how I benefit. Frankly, I’m pretty happy with the framework SWF scenario, where you have classes you need “loaded in first”, and later SWF’s have them excluded from the compiler. However, it’s not very flexible, and harder to test. We’ll see, need more time to test.

    Good to meet some new faces at my own firm, and actually get to know people. Since UM doesn’t have an office, we all work all over the country, either on site with clients or from our homes/offices. Thus, these are good times to connect and build a report with fellow consultants.

    I’m clearly the only one at the conference who doesn’t care about Apollo.

    Personal Goals after the conference?

    • Release a component set for AS3, AS2 for Flash 8 and Flash 9 IDE’s as well as Flash Lite 2. There are needs not being met here.
    • Operators in the US suck and must die. They are sabotaging Adobe’s Flash Lite initiative. We need to build a Symbian OS based client that play Flash Lite content for the average consumer that also pays developers. We then send to our friends via Text message and say, “Install this”, and they then send to their friends if they think it’s cool. The whole Nokia-Prominent type solution is bullshit, and won’t fly with large clients like Ford that have to “hope” their content will get picked by an Operator. Ford probably wouldn’t use my solution either… unless a big company bought me. I know some agencies, though, would much rather have a confirmed audience that can see their content vs. one that “might” see it.
    • Play with some public alphas/betas… I’ve been so busy and burnt out this summer, I’ve had no time for anything fun on the side.

    So, yeah, gotta go shopping so I don’t have to pay double club cover with no costume. Day 2 Keynote live blogging notes below.

    *******

    The Verizon dude walked out, found a phone, and said “This is awkward…”. Kevin Lynch came up, and showed putting notes on PDF’s and sending an email that allows other to review it.

    He’s now currently having a meeting with one of the retired Adobe founders, John, who is in San Jose in Breeze. You can see both their mugs there in Breeze. Apparently he didn’t play golf when retiring and made web sites instead.

    Al Ramadan up next.

    The theme of his preso is making money in the United States since people like me can’t really make dough doing this yet. He heads right to the Chumby. He’s discussing his son who uses it. Relaying how it is an opportunity. The peeps from Chumby are apparently here at the conference, running a birds of a feather (informal get together).

    Play-station 3… what what? New CPU… 35 times faster than the ps2, 60 gig drive, wireless support, 7 wireless controllers, drives 2 HD TV monitors… of course, has Flash built right in… what frikin’ player!!!? Stop clapping crowd! NOOOO!!!!

    Have to go digging in Google.

    He’s discussing NttDocomo (sp?) leading the way building phones that have Flash on it. Discussing Koreans who are getting up to speed to. Some of the whole phones in Flash. D-900 from Samsung; the actual UI of the phone adapts. Light and dark based on light, weather, where you are at, etc.

    John Stratton, VP & CMO of Verizon Wireless has a previously recorded video. He’s talking about mobile downloads and shooting large numbers. He seems positive. Verizon, Qualcom, and Adobe have gotten together to launch Flash Lite 2.1 on Brew. I love hearing C-suits say “Rich”… lol!

    He says they many devices they have will have Flash Lite on it.

    Chocolate device that launched this year, and apparently more next year.

    Verizon dude again. Al’s talking to him. They are changing the phrase from “It’s the Network” to “It’s the Flex Developers”. He responds, “Good!”.

    So, he’s pushing Brew. Peggy Johnson, president of Qualcom something and something systems. Did I mention I need coffee?

    She knows we’re all hung over.

    She’s got one of those headsets all the speakers have… I just noticed it. It’s like the one from Stargate Atlantis… maybe I can gank it for Halloween, I want to go as Colonel Shephard.

    She’s talking about taking requests from Operators and talking about how hard it was because of lack of consistency, and thats where Brew came from. Devs make apps, testing groups ensures they can run across a few handsets. Operator looks at apps, and decides which ones they want to take to consumers. Operator takes app, makes catalogues, exposes it out to users, and then users can choose which one they want to download. The billing system already in place. User pays, money flows back to dev.

    I am telling you now, this is NOT going to fly with agencies. I know devs might like this for apps, but for portals and design products designed around a brand, agencies don’t give a flip about this process, and will create a custom app/game/content and want to find some way to get it on phones. I don’t see how Brew fits into that. For me, as a Developer? Sure… but there are no brands I can sell without permission. Operators are a barrier to brands who wish to get themselves in front of consumers on phones.

    Anyway, she’s talking about the dudes who made SMS in their garage, and now have mad bling.

    $700,000,000… ? Apparently they are paying out this much money to developers this year. Hrm, must have gone to Java developers, hehe.

    Atom, FunMobility, Smashing Ideas. Where is Dale’s endeavor? These companies are hosting the Flash catalogues for Brew. I guess Dale doesn’t do Brew, hrm.

    Bill Perry is coming up to stage to show some Mobile Authoring. He’s showing a game in Flash 8. It has Flash Lite 2.1 in it. You have to choose a new option in the Flash Publishing Settings via the post processor drop down; something for Brew.

    Brew has a publishing wizard that comes up after you publish. You can download this update today on Labs to Flash apparently. You have to give your app an ID and applet name. 2nd screen, more info that you have to fill out. 3rd screen for icons. 4th screen for generating mod and nif…iff… files. 5th screen, finish. It creates the files, puts on a folder on the desktop, and launches in the emulator.

    The folder has 3 files. The mod and qmif… you transfer these to the phone. He us using the Brew AppLoader. Dropped .mif folder to root; it has a dialogue that he types a path in. A .mod file is like a SWF. A .sig file apparently allows you to test on handsets too. Smells like someone needs a JSFL script, hehe.

    He’s now showing a phone that has VCast on it, a Verizon Wireless one. The game is on the phone, and has sound. Apparently this application can be purchased by users today. He’s going to his phone, Get it Now again, Get games, get an application… connects to network, he downloads the Mini Arcade… Shockwave? Haven’t seen Shockwave in awhile, the term anyway.

    Bottom line, Verizon handles the Operators on your behalf. The download is kind of slow, but that depends on your phone. Sorry, “Mini Arcade for Shockwave”. He now downloads all mini games to phone. He’s got a menu to choose a game to play, shows a menu, and he can purchase a game.

    Geez, he’s to do 3 clicks to buy something. Technically, once the client is downloaded, it’s 2, but dude… 1 click purchases! You need to make this easier Verizon. Less clicks to content == more bling.

    Bill’s showing Photoshop now, he’s got an interface for Flash Lite in it. Photoshop has a “Save for Web and Devices…” menu item. Wow, it has mobile emulation in Photoshop. You can change phones from a menu to see what it looks like on other phones. It even has filters to show you what it looks like if the phone is outdoors, stuff like that. The Adobe Device Central appears to be an app that allows you to test this stuff outside of Photoshop and Flash. Sorry, need coffee.

    LOL, library from a Flash Lite dev in Japan looks so typical; no folders, no organization. Either way, hot wallpaper that can get device information, and change the way it looks like time of day.

    They are now doing performance emulation… finally! He’s showing a spinning torus knot. It’s running a calibrate test on the phone. If he now checks the checkbox for emulate performance, it slows the animation down, showing how it’ll probably run on the phone. FPS wasn’t really a problem in building 1 game in Flash Lite 2, it was the amount of “things” you do per frame. Either way, mega frikin useful! I don’t have to test on my handset all the time now. That’ll save booku amounts of time.

    Al makes a final rally call to creatives and developers.

    Kevin is congratulation Georgio and Barbara on getting married here.

    Youngest attendee at MAX is 14. You have to be 21 to attend, but somehow got special permission. His name is MAX, he’s a long time ColdFusion Developer, hehe.

    MAX is on stage.

    What have you been learning?

    A lot of Flex stuff… amazing what it can do.

    What did you do in it.

    Wrote a couple components in it.

    If you get your components ready you can post on your site

    Ok, hehe.

    Got you a backpack full of MAX items. Also have a Lego Mindstorms kit.

    Crowd digs this kid.

    Glad you’re at the conference and looking forward to things you create.

    Thanks.

    Bruce Chizen up next. He wants a PS3, one for him and one for Max. Not much to report. He’s showing apps, summing up their initiative, being positive for investors. Web TV or click tv… whatever it was called looks like some quick Flex app Andrew Mueller showed me yesterday, haha. He was like, “I don’t want it’s good for…” I’m like, “Who cares, let the business dudes figure it out, this is fun!” Apparently they did… or maybe not and just got huge cash flow via investors. I thought there were 3000 people here, but there are over 3500!

    MAX awards. I’m sure they’ve got these peeps posted on a website. People are getting awards. Good on them!

    We had to vote for the winner via SMS; they had a Flex and ColdFusion app that showed the results of voting live as it happened with what state you were from.