The Firehose

Posted by on April 10, 2015 No comments

Many yeas ago (geez, it hurts to say years), I had the idea the rework the Microsoft Money application.  I got a little ways into it and just kind of stopped.  Recently, the idea has been coming back to me, especially with the new Windows Universal apps design.

So, I loaded the code back up and saw that I had a pretty decent base to start with, so I do what I normally do when I have a large, daunting task in front of me.  I mad a list of all the steps that need to be done.  That usually works for me.

After making a decent high-level list of tasks to be done, I changed gears and started doing mock-ups of screens.  I’m probably putting way too much time into the design, because I want it to look as similar to the original as possible.

That kind of design is difficult.  If you don’t do it exact, and I mean exact, people will just say it’s a knock-off.  But if you do your own thing entirely, people will say it’s nothing like the original.  So, it’s really a gamble.

After taking a break from that, I decided I would peek into MS Money’s resource files to see if there were any clues as to what I need to do.  Holy shit, bad idea.  Microsoft kept all their pop-up forms in the resource file.  There are over 600 pop-up forms in MS Money.  Just the effort in recreating these forms is entirely overwhelming.  Then considering the logic involved as to when they are shown and the processing after they are closed, I can’t process that amount of effort at the moment.  Again, if you’re going to copy an application, you sort of have to do the whole thing, or at least have a roadmap as to when it will get done.  My list just got a whole lot longer.

So I opened up my list and started analyzing again.  I have about 45 top-level screens and most have multiple pop-ups.  And I’m not even done analyzing the application yet.  One good thing (relatively) is that my original scope was for the personal version and now I’m running the business version, which more than doubles the capabilities of the application.  So, I can certainly lower my expectations for a first release if and when it comes to that.

As far as releases go, it would definitely have to be incremental.  There’s so much to do.

Birthday Wishes

Posted by on April 8, 2015 No comments

On a popular image site, I saw a captured text message thread of a person who was receiving texts for a wrong number.  The texts were wishing him a happy birthday and asking what he wanted for his present.  Deciding to prank the real recipient, he asked for a bunch of One Direction merchandise.  The result could be taken as funny or cruel, depending on your sympathy for random strangers.  Some say his birthday was “ruined”.

There’s where I perk up my antennae.  I remember the day my birthday was “ruined” and I never celebrated my birthday since.  In hindsight, it was pretty ridiculous that I got all upset over the situation, and at the same time, I now feel it was ridiculous to make a big deal out of my birthday anyway.

There are some people that think their birthday is some magical day and they put a whole lot of effort into it and have very high expectations.  Since I’ve given up on that celebration, I don’t see the value in it.  It definitely increases the chance of disappointment, and why would you want that to happen on a day that you hold in such high regard?  Not to mention, this belief puts undue stress on the people who have to make your day “happen”.

It’s kind of my personal philosophy to stay out of everyone’s way and not be a burden on anyone.  That makes me sound like a hermit, and I’m not exactly opposed to that label.  I’ve become generally self-sufficient.  When asked what I want for my birthday (or Christmas, for that matter), I don’t have an answer.  There’s nothing really that I want or need that I can’t get for myself.  So the incredibly few people who insist on celebrating these events with me are always struggling for ideas.  It reminds me of me trying to buy gifts for my dad.

Checkpoint II

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

My hair stylist is observant.  The last time I went in to get my hair cut, she asked, “Are you losing weight? You’re looking skinny.”  I hesitated and said, yes, I was.  Then she asked something peculiar: “On purpose?” And I paused again and decided to be honest.  “Not really.”

I don’t talk about my health much at all, because no one wants to be around someone who’s going to depress them.  I’m explained before that I am an uncontrolled diabetic by choice, just living out my life and facing the repercussions.  I am fortunate enough to be around people who respect my choice and don’t badger me or try to have me committed.

Looks like I last discussed this about a year and a half ago.  So what’s life been like since then?  Well, I had plateaued on weight loss for quite some time, but that seems to have had a breakout recently.  Not much fat on me at all, so it’s starting to eat some muscle.  That makes a pretty obvious physical change, I guess.

If I had to describe the overall experience, it’s just like aging faster.  My hair is getting a little thinner, but who knows if that’s just hereditary?  I’m losing weight, like an old person does.  I’m slowing down.  But, I am still enjoying life, or rather, I’m appreciating it more.  Choice between working extra hard to please the boss and get a promotion or getting out of work right on time and relaxing with a book at home?  No-brainer.  So, in some ways, I’m acting older, too.

It doesn’t mean I’m just kicking back and waiting to die.  I still fund my retirement accounts.  I still save money.  And I’m still learning new things to help me in my career.  My curiosity and quest for understanding is not diminishing.  I believe when you stop being useful, that is when life is over.  You hear it many times from people, when they don’t feel useful, they don’t care about life.  So, become knowledgeable.  Be the most informed about anything and keep yourself relevant.  It doesn’t even matter if you become homeless.  Be the best trash, can, and bottle recycler in your area.  Take pride in what you know.

I’ve read plenty of warnings about diabetes being a slow and painful death.  Pain-wise, I guess it’s ramping up a little since my last report.  I get random sharp pains here and there, which certainly wouldn’t be normal.  It’s usually at night and usually in my legs or feet, but I’ve had it in my forearms, hands, and even my dick.  Yuuuup.

Despite pain, how’s life?  It’s pretty darn good.  I’m not immobile.  I can get around with all but the most active.  Stamina is a little lower, but then again, I’m not getting out and hiking like I used to either.  I don’t really let myself get depressed for very long.  It comes and goes.  And so does everything.  I guess it’s probably a tell-tale symptom, having peaks and valleys of energy, clarity, and mood.  But I’m ok with it.  One thing that seems a bit persistent is my disconnected-ness.  I get lost in thought a lot lately.  It seems I would be pretty ok with being alone all the time.

At one time, I considered creating a more detailed blog or journal of my symptoms and condition for anyone curious about living uncontrolled.  Maybe it would be used as a warning for those who were unsure of what to do.  I decided against it.  Mostly because it would cause me to have to focus on the minor setbacks or troubles that I face each week instead of just living my life and doing the best that I can.  You won’t hear me complain (much) and I won’t regret my choices.  I certainly am not going to blame anyone else for the results of my choices.

And life goes on.

“This” Is Not Good.

Posted by on April 2, 2015 No comments

I write Windows software for a living and as a hobby.  When Windows 8 came out and they introduced the new Metro/Modern app paradigm, I was unconvinced.  I never investigated why I felt that way, but I felt so strongly about it that I didn’t even want to invest the time to figure it out.

I’ve recently had another burst of motivation to get certified in my programming skills, and the training I’ve been studying involves these new-style apps.  For a while, I was interested, but then as I saw and learned more, I got less interested.

I think the same reason I dislike the modern apps is the same reason I don’t use any apps on my phone.  And that’s not surprising since they are essentially the same thing.  The problem I have with the apps is they operate in a singular focus at all times.  You start at a high level, you dive in, then you back out and do it again.  The bottom line is, this will not work for nearly all business applications and it won’t work for many productivity applications.

The official training is as much marketing as it is instructional, and I understand that.  As a developer, you have to sell the reasons for creating an application in a certain way.  One of the marketing themes is that the user should be “immersed” in the application.  There should be no chrome and no distractions.  I don’t see how this squares up with business data, which is primarily a collection of relations.

In a business app, you can have an “Order”.  But that order has a related customer and products.  That customer has a related company and contacts and previous purchases, and each of those products has related inventory, cost information, purchase history, and so on.  How can you “immerse” the user in an “Order”?  If the user then wants to see the customer information, now you have to immerse the user in a “Customer”, despite the context that the focus is still an Order and you are viewing the Customer in the context of that Order.  Ditto with viewing any Product Details.

And I think that’s the part that bothers me to the point that I can’t even begin to want to understand it.  A Modern app feels like, “You are working on this. *click* Now you are working on this.  Do not think about what you were working on, this is what you are working on.”  In fact, the immediacy of “this” sums up my dislike of Modern apps.

When Windows 10 was previewed, I was excited that Modern apps could be run in windows instead of full-screen.  It didn’t dawn on me at the time that windowed Modern apps didn’t fix the root problem that the application itself was single-screen.  Even if you think about a lowly web application, even they can open pop-up windows.  And by that, I mean real windows, not just frames in the main window.

It all just feels like trying to sell a limitation as “the best way”.  We can’t do something that way, but that’s not important, because this is the best way to do it.  It’s similar to a situation I have at work on the application I help write.  The user can’t have more than one screen open at a time because of the way the form controls talk to the parent form.  It doesn’t have to be that way, but the early developers didn’t know how to do it correctly, so this limitation was created.  Now it’s considered best for the user to only be able to have one screen open at a time.

Get More

Posted by on March 27, 2015 No comments

Many months ago, I had come across a book, The Four Hour Work Week, and I was quite unimpressed by it and its author.  Recently, a blogger that I follow read the book and was advocating for it.  Not for the processes in the book exactly, but more along the line of “getting your due.”

My personal employment situation is different than both the Four Hour author and this blogger.  I work for a company and I develop and maintain their internal software.  I’m not a consultant, so the blog author’s primary arguments about “you are paid $50/hr, but your employer gets paid $150-$300/hr for the work you do” don’t resonate with me.  Even so, I have held those jobs in the past, so I know what it’s about.

I know myself well enough to say, I’m not cut out for running a business.  I know because I’ve tried.  There’s a lot involved.  The blogger says that for the difference in what you get made vs what you could potentially make, you could hire the people that can make it happen for you.  Not a salesperson?  Hire one.  Not an accountant?  Hire one.  And I guess you could keep justifying that a lot.  After all you’re making 3-6x what you were making before.

At least you’d be making that much if you were perpetually busy.  Scott Adams recent book has a very wise observation that there is an upper bound on what you can make if your income is dependent on your labor.  And that’s the upper bound.  There is no lower bound. And when you start from scratch, you don’t have the luxury of a backlog of work and pay.

Bottom line is you have to be of the entrepreneur mold.  And there shouldn’t be anything wrong with not being of that type.  You should still be able to be successful by being the best you can be in your field.

With that position – my position – stated, I must say that I believe the teachings of the “four hour work week” are detrimental for young workers.  If you find this works for you, then you are already that type of person.  I don’t believe just anyone can become “that person”.  I know I couldn’t live with myself like that.  I’ve also learned in my time that I don’t want to be associated with people like that.

Which then brings me back to my inner conflict with a blogger I enjoy reading.  I guess I need to wish him well, because everyone has to find their own way.  My way has worked well for me.  Could I have more?  Probably.  Would I also have more stress in my life?  Probably.  Would I trade more money for more stress?  Absolutely not.

Triangulating Everything

Posted by on March 25, 2015 No comments

Today, I drove to lunch taking a back road to avoid the usual stress of traffic and I got to thinking about the tradeoff triangle, you know, Good/Fast/Cheap – pick two.  But that didn’t really make sense for what I was doing.  I was trading time for a better driving experience.  It was something more like Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable. 

I thought I was on to something there.  I tried applying it to some other modern conveniences.  I have someone wash my car every few weeks.  That costs a little, but it also frees up more time for me to do what I want.  That fits.

In fact, there’s a whole lifestyle philosophy that promotes that when you get to a certain level of net worth or earning potential, you need to stop doing some things because it isn’t worth your time (in a somewhat literal sense).  A breakdown of that philosophy may be for a future post.

But what if you enjoy doing something and the cost isn’t important to you?  Like mowing the lawn, you could get someone to do it cheaply, but you enjoy it.  You’re sacrificing time for cost and pleasure.  Ok, that still fits.

What about upgrading to Business Class when flying?  Sacrifice cost for pleasure.  There’s a lot of things you can sacrifice cost for extra comfort.  That’s a common one that fits well.

But the equation doesn’t work for everything.  There are some legitimate sources of tasty fast food, where it’s a balance of cheap, fast, and pleasurable.  So what’s the sacrifice there?  That’s a better fit for the Good/Fast/Cheap equation, where you can usually argue that you’re giving up quality for the others.

I guess we need some definition as to when to use Good/Fast/Cheap and when to use Cheap/Fast/Pleasurable.  It seems G/F/C applies to things you receive and C/F/P applies to things you experience.  Tangible and intangible.

Now I have a problem with Cheap when dealing with experience, because that has a negative connotation.  How about Economical?  That makes Fast stick out, but wow, that’s a hard one to replace.  I can’t think of any -able or -ible terms to fit in there.  That will have to wait.

Great.  I now have a physical and emotional tradeoff triangle for my analytical processes.

Gonna Be One Of Them Old People

Posted by on March 23, 2015 No comments

… with the leased telephone.

Verizon nags me non-stop about upgrading my Internet service so I can get faster speeds and a new router.  The thing is, I know why they want this.  They need to move on to a new standard for routers and until everyone switches, they’re pretty much stuck.

There’s an easy way to resolve it though.  Just offer me a hardware trade.  You want to get rid of the old router, so just give me a new router and we’ll call it even.  I have little need for more speed.  I got 60/60 in a speed test just now, but for $10 more a month, I can get 75/75.  Sorry, V, you gotta try harder than that.  I figure they’ll make the offer eventually.

I have mixed emotions about Verizon.  FIOS has been rock-solid and a dream come true.  I can’t complain about my bill either.  The first time, the contract was under my ex wife’s name for 2 years, then I changed it to my name and got another new user bonus for another 2-yr contract.  Then I worried about losing that special pricing in the next contract renewal.  You wouldn’t believe it.  My price went down.  Not a lot, maybe $5, but still.  Who ever heard of a utility bill going down?

No, my big beef with Verizon is their bundling.  I don’t watch TV, I don’t need a land line.  I have (and rent) one base-model cable box because I think I have to.  Nope, I just need Internet, but it’s more expensive to not get the 3-way bundle. Still, how can I complain when my rate is dropping?

The Efficiency Of Procrastination

Posted by on March 23, 2015 No comments

Today is a Monday, both literally and figuratively.  I left on Friday with something on my work plate and a clear plan as to what was needed when I came back in today.  Nothing went as planned.

The project I was working on was a final push on a task that had been dragging out for months and months.  It was an integration with another company. The dev on the other side and I were really dragging our feet on it.  But management was having no more of that, so we both got told to make it happen in a week.  I knew I didn’t have much to do in this, so I agreed right away.  That’s when I made my plan of what I needed to do.

I arrived this morning and got to work.  Preparing to do my initial smoke test, I fumbled around, because I hadn’t looked at the code in well over a month and wasn’t sure what steps needed performed for a successful service call.  After half an hour of research, I figured it out.  That is, I figured out it wasn’t complete.  In fact, it was fairly incomplete.  All the testing I’d done up to that point was manually faked.

So, I did what I normally do when I’m put up against the wall – I made a list of what must be done.  The list was short, but wasn’t pretty.  I had to get other people involved with some steps, so my “oversight” might be noticed.  And some was just some tedious coding.

Then, I wasted no time and got to work.  Within an hour, I had everything done that I could get done and now had to wait on someone else to do something for me.  And as I wait, I write this entry… (this isn’t procrastinating, btw)

I read a quote recently that was something like, “Procrastinators can make a 15 minute task last 8 hours and can do 8 hours of work in 15 minutes.”  Precisely.  I just did it.  Why didn’t I do it earlier?  It might have been the feeling that came over me today when I realized I wasn’t done.  Before I made the bullet list of work to do, I started thinking of what needed done and started second-guessing myself, wondering if that was really the best course of action.

It’s a problem I face regularly.  When you know so many different ways to accomplish something, you can have trouble choosing which one to do.  Everything has pros and cons, so you can talk yourself into (or out of) any choice you make.  So you enter what is termed analysis paralysis.  And you procrastinate, because if you make no decision, you haven’t made the wrong decision.

But, when it comes down to the wire, you have to make a choice and run with it.  And usually, you will find it is a workable solution.  If anything is horribly wrong with it, you can fix it then.

The Same And Different

Posted by on March 21, 2015 No comments

Last night, I got the strange urge to play the keyboard.  Although my posts make me sound like it’s something I do all the time or it’s something that I’m constantly re-inspiring myself to do, the truth is, I don’t play all that much.

So, when I sat down, I kind of bopped around wondering what I should play and if there was anything I could still remember.  Then it started coming back to me again.  And I played and I kept on playing.  As would be expected, my stamina wasn’t all that great and my accuracy on the notes was a little faulty, but for the most part, my hands went where they should have.

Today, I played a little more.  I guess my hands got a little sore from the workout last night because I couldn’t play as much.  But while I was playing, I did my little daydreaming about being a rock star (or some kind of star).  I thought about how my technique was crap and how I may get criticism for how “poorly” I play.

But then the realization dawned on me that some of the most innovative players were not formally trained and had a style of playing that was unconventional.  Why should I be any different.  In fact, I might say that it would require a personal technique in order to play in an unheard fashion.  And it would make it harder for someone to imitate you.  You would have your unique sound because it’s done with a playing style only you know.

And that naturally made me think outside the world of music at how having your own style for everything is important.  It’s not good to be exactly like the crowd, but you do need to have some “accessibility.”  I’ve heard a lot of music that doesn’t sit right with me and I’ve seen a lot of people that just don’t sit right with me as well.  Maybe people should strive to be unique and accessible.  Although lately, I think that some people are taking the individualism stuff a little too far.

And, as an off-topic aside, playing keyboards yesterday and today made a significant change in my typing: faster and more accurate.  I had been lamenting lately how bad my typing was becoming because I could barely type a sentence without having a typo.  I’d be constantly stopping and correcting things and it was slowing me down drastically.  I think I may have just found a solution for this.  That’s a happy discovery.

In Recognition

Posted by on March 19, 2015 No comments

There’s a job that is pretty well underrated in the modern age and it needs a little more promotion.  That job is: Lifeguard.  When you read that word, what’s the first image that came to mind?  A person sitting in a high chair beside a pool or on a high deck at the beach?  Just sitting there all day?  Maybe yelling at people every once in a while?  Sounds like an easy and/or boring job.  Anyone could do it, right?

If your lifeguard is not doing anything at your local swim area, be grateful.  That means you have a community that is educated in water skills and water safety.  But, there are many places where this is not the case.  In my area, where people come on vacation to go to the water, it’s painfully obvious that water skills don’t come naturally.  And that is why you need lifeguards.

A lifeguard is not just someone who likes to swim.  A lifeguard is not even just someone who can pull another person out of the water.  Lifeguard certification consists of many specific saving techniques – ones that EMTs and Paramedics might not even know.  There are precise ways to handle different emergency situations and skills that must be honed to perfection to avoid causing additional injury to a victim.  A lifeguard is an emergency first responder and is essentially an ambulance in the water.

There is another element of being a lifeguard that elevates them above EMTs. (You wouldn’t think this to be the case, but it is.)  When an ambulance is called and an EMT is sent to an accident scene, the damage is already done.  The EMT can only keep things from getting worse.  In the role of lifeguard, there is the opportunity to stop an accident from even happening in the first place.  Lifeguards are trained to identify signs of distress and trouble and can respond before anything bad happens.  Of course, this can be completely underappreciated, since the person being saved wasn’t in desperate need of assistance yet.

So the specialized skills of a lifeguard are beyond those of an EMT because an EMT is too late to the scene to help.  If that isn’t impressive enough, consider what “late” means to a lifeguard: 20 seconds.  Can you look out into a crowd of people, identify someone having problems and get to them in 20 seconds?  And if you think that any good swimmer could be a substitute for a certified lifeguard, consider some of these.

Could you save a a struggling person without being drowned yourself?  The victim isn’t trying to kill you and it’s nothing personal, it’s just self-preservation.  Could you save a person with an injury without causing further injury?  What if it was the neck?  What if it was the spine?  How long can you do CPR?  You don’t stop until the ambulance gets there.  How are you with heat?  You’re in the sun for a long time.

Lifeguards are not beach bums and they are not Baywatch.  They are trained professionals who save lives when needed and prevent bad situations from becoming disasters.  They will be the ones who are first on the scene for emergency assistance, whether for cuts, broken bones, jellyfish stings, choking or even drowning.  You may never see one in action, for which you should be grateful, but don’t discount the level of safety they provide.

I am almost always fascinated by trade magazines, because they illustrate how serious and passionate people are about their individual profession.  For example, at my first jobs working at pizza shops, the store would have a subscription to Pizza Today.  Yes, there was plenty going on in that industry, with techniques and technology to keep up on.  So, check out Aquatics Intl and get an appreciation of a lifeguard’s world.  They take it seriously and there is constant education and training happening there as well.