BrainSpool - Home

Gangplank Hacknight

2008-05-07T19:34:00Z

Where are you on Wednesday nights?

Be part of something bigger! Join us!

Successful Agile Retrospective using Mute Mapping

2008-04-04T23:12:00Z

I have been meaning to blog about the success and failures that we are having at Integrum doing Agile Development. First let me say that anything you ever find in this blog related to agile probably did not come directly from me. It came from those that have gone before us and have been gracious enough to share. It is my hope that in sharing our experiences that others can build better teams from seeing our failure and our success.

Earlier this week I did part one of a story writing workshop that I will talk more about later (after I finish the series). It seemed to go fairly well and pretty much 98% of all the content came from the teachings, writings and discussions had with probably the greatest user story writer of our time, Mike Cohn. If you do not own User Stories Applied go buy it right now.

So this morning while waiting to see the surgeon, I was reading my news feeds and read James Shores blog article about Retrospectives. While I had seen this while reading his book The Art of Agile Development it was the incredible poster that made me attracted to this post.

We have been alternating every week who runs our retrospective and it has been a long time since I did one. I knew this was the thing I needed to encourage me to push us into a deeper retrospective, so I volunteered to run this weeks retrospective. I won’t recap the details of what was done, read the article and buy the book for the details. :)

I did capture a brief glimpse of mute mapping by the team on video and am including below.

When we were done mute mapping it was clear that communication/respect was the winner on what needed to be the focus of the objective. The team came up with a list of guidelines/points that are important for communication/respect. We have made a giant poster with this list of items to help keep us in check.

Here is the list:

Integrum Guide to Communication and Respect

Actively LISTEN to each other
Planning happens with ALL members of the team
Deal directly with people to solve problems
Be aware of WHAT you say and HOW you say it
Rally wagons at first sign of problems
Communicate Roles
Communicate EARLY and OFTEN
Be RESPONSIBLE for what is expected (demos, standups, timekeeping, planning, etc)
Acknowledge and understand different points of view
Stay on point during discussions
Make time to communicate

The best part is that we had a discussion on our interviewing process immediately following the retrospective and we already saw a huge improvement in communication during that quick meeting. Some personal take aways I have are.

Making the retrospective a game helps people get involved.
Uncomfortable silence can help surface problems.
Brainstorming with out expectations of what will be done with the data lends to more transparent sharing.
Mute mapping can be fun and is highly effective to quickly organizing data.
Stating the prime directive* and grouping things by what was done instead of who did what reduces the feeling of being attacked.
Good healthy conversation lets you tackle/resolve problems in a very calming way.

If you are an agile shop, share your experiences with retrospectives!

This is a community call out. We need to more actively share our stories.

*There is a good discussion on the prime directive on InfoQ

KISS - Fisher Price Block Stupid

2008-04-02T23:42:00Z

So we have all heard the phrase KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid. In fact, Jim Weirich gave a good presentation at Mountain West Ruby Conference with three slides to hit home the point. Thanks Jim! In talking with a customer the other day they used the phrase in jest that we need to Keep It Fisher Price Block Stupid. Since I have three kids that all made it out of the toddler stage the visual imagery of fisher price blocks hit home.

How often do we say someone is trying to put a square block in a round hole? As software artisans how do we design Fisher Price Block Stupid software that works with the user instead of against the user? But wait, we need Fisher Price Block Stupid tool in order to rapidly develop software. Seriously, when I look at agile, it so Fisher Price Block Stupid (on the surface).

Okay before I get flamed.. Agile is also a black art one can never master. I hope to make a blog post soon that reconciles how something can be simple yet complex at the same time. Until then I challenge you to make everything you do Fisher Price Block Stupid.

SXSW Kid Beyond and The Unicorn

2008-03-21T23:16:00Z

There is so much to write about SXSW but have been too busy. Figured I would at least post a few video highlights as they trickle in.

The Unicorn Kicks It Off

Kid Beyond Part 1

Kid Beyond Part 2

The Wizard

Wardo

SXSW...theunicorn chronicles

2008-03-10T13:40:00Z

Normally Im pretty organized and keep detailed notes of presentations and what not. SXSW is just too overwhelming and light hearted to keep on the action from a slow old antiquated blog. I have been actively twittering most of my adventures. That is when my iphone battery is not dead. 1200 SMS messages a day plus surfing the intertubes it can not withstand the 18 hour days I have been having.

Props to theunicorn for being the superstar of the event.

Phoenix Rails (February)

2008-02-20T16:35:00Z

This is a recap of last nights Phoenix Rails meeting for those that may have missed it or who attended but are looking for links from the discussion. I had originally written this and not saved it, my Macbook failed me with the famous command-tab freeze lockup and all was lost. So if this version sucks I apologize in advance.

The social hour started early with much nostalgia on early computer animation. There was talk about the early days of Pixar and how Silicon Graphics was one of the one viable hardware choices. The talk began to meander to Smalltalk at Xerox PARC and how to buy one of those machines on eBay. People continued to trickle in as the conversation progressed each adding their own experiences.

At 7pm Marc (with a “c”) Chung of OpenRain fired up the projector and started to give his presentation on Amazon’s EC2 Platform to a full house. He gave a nice overview of what EC2 is and how to create new instances and manage them. He demoed a great ruby gem for ec2 that has a full ec2 shell called ec2sh. There is a good article describing its use.

Next Marc fired up several EC2 instances and demoed a few application using MPI Ruby a ruby implementation of the Message Passing Interface Standard. This part of the presentation was fascinating and show the potential of EC2 for distributed applications and platforms like MPI Ruby and ERLANG.

Marc did a great job conveying the risks, limitations and frustrations that OpenRain has realized during the exploration of EC2. There was a great question and answer session comparing various services and functionality. Overall, there was a general sentiment that cloud computing is really just starting and that limitations are being overcoming daily. Additionally other Amazon Web Services like Mechanical Turk, S3 and SimpleDB were discussed.

There was mention that Mountain West Ruby Conf and Gotham Ruby Conf were both on the horizon.

After the meeting 10 or so attendees headed down to Churchill’s Pub and Grill for more conversation. Everyone was into their conversation that we ended up helping shut Churchhill’s down for the night. :)

I wanted to shout out to Bryan Williams of City Tech visiting all the way from Chicago, IL.

Additionally if you are just getting started with Amazon Web Services and Ruby you might to check out an Introduction to AWS for Ruby Developers

You should be able to find audio of the event shortly on Rubyology.

And Less Allan, yes I was rocking the SVN up bitches shirt. It got lots of great comments!

Hasselhoff Bathroom Art (Prank)

2008-02-08T16:34:00Z

So last week Lindsay and Erica went to the Google Geek Girl Dinner. We felt it was our duty to prank them in the same way we would anyone else in the office out on travel. During our retrospective Matt Gist was talking about this tool called Rasterbator. Because we have the maturity of an junior high school it took us about an hour to recover from the name Rasterbator before it clicked that we needed to print SOMETHING. Of course, a five foot tall picture of the Hoff in a speedo was the only acceptable answer. The question? Where do we hang this? In the girls bathroom, because they are all out of the office was also logical. So how big? Five feet should do, cause no one puts Hoff in the corner.

It took a few minutes for the image to print it was over 40 sheets. Josh Huckabee and Chris Young artfully assembled the image and hung it with style. It just so happens that when you sit on the throne, that the Hoff’s junk is square in your face. In the most hideously cool way. Additionally when you open the door the entire mirror is filled with Hoff starring back at you. So if you are in the neighborhood on Thursdays (or any day) drop on in to see our art work and experience club Integrum first hand.

Top 5 Reasons to Attend SXSW

2008-02-08T15:56:00Z

So Popped Collar put out his top 5 reasons to attend SXSW.

I figured I would add five of my own….

5. Everyone needs a trip to mecca. Do your patriotic duty and pay homage to George and Laura Bush in Texas

4. Being in Texas just makes you feel smarter.

3. Enjoy the spring break parties you never were cool enough to attend in college.

2. It’s no fun being the only web designer/developer in phoenix.

1. How else will you learn how to Bankrupt your Startup in 5 easy steps in under an hour?

Refresh Demo Night

2008-02-07T02:03:00Z

Refresh Phoenix last night was quite the event. There were probably over 70 people gathered at Inza in Scottsdale, AZ to watch five minute demos from local Phoenix companies. Below is a quick hit list of what was presented. refresh notes:

1. Show in a Box (Cheryl Colan and Clintus McGintus)

Show in a Box is a package of free video-centric themes and plugins for WordPress, made by and for independent video-on-the-internet creators. We’ll teach you how to set-up your very own website for your video “show” and provide many of the tools needed as a free download.

2. Square Mile Web (Eric Eaglstun)

The Square Mile is a new, fun way to share and find interesting images.

3. Durt Bagz (Erin Atherton)

Erin stated that this is Threadless for dumb people. In a nutshell, users generate sign designs. Users vote on sign designs. Erin creates limited runs of bags with the most popular designs. She also has a dirty laundry section that are interviews with fake celebrities. You can also make custom durtbagz. Erin you need to hook up AZ folks attending SXSW so that you can get some free marketing!!!

Dynamic presenter that engaged people well. Kudos Erin. Looking forward to the “How to Stay From Being Lame” video blog that she mentioned was soon releasing.

4. My Community Board (Deacon Hayes)

Recently, we’ve lived in three places where we didn’t know the people who lived right next door. Then we thought, “there has got to be a better way”. Nothing is better than creating something to scratch a personal itch. Deacon was a quality presenter and is attempting to solve a very real problem we encounter in this digital world. Curious to how something like this might fit into The QC

5. Travel Click (Kevin Schumacher)

Show case of proprietary content management system for the hotel industry. Travel Click is looking for developers.

6. Crowd Box (Seth Markowitz)

Conference. Content. Community.

Crowdbox helps you manage your conference content, create a community around it, and help your attendees build their professional relationships and networks.

Unfortunately the speaker spent the majority of the time discussing the space as opposed to showing the product. However, what was seen probably showed the most promise out of all the demos. I think the product takes best in show for this demo night.

7. Testing Software (Hugh Dunne)

Windows GUI application to automate testing. No website or take away here.

8. Read Phoenix (Erica Lucci)

Listing of blogs in the Phoenix Area. I mentioned that an OPML feed was done, but not published. Unfortunately I got my projects mixed up. Will look to get this functionality added by end of weekend. :(

9. XID Card (Brian Shaler)

The XID project is intended to provide a free, open, and decentralized method of sharing your online identity with your friends. Brian did a great job covering a huge project in five minutes time. Like all of Brian’s adventures, this one is sure to be a fun ride.

10. gAuto (Srini Vasan)

A safe and easy way to buy auto services. Vertical market specific directory listing with quality rankings. Another project birthed out of personal need. Roughly 3 weeks old.

11.Neh Meh Yeh (Matt Gist & Matt Heidemann)

It’s a simple question, “How are you today?”

Nehmehyeh is a super rad way for you and yo’ friends to track how your mood be everyday…until you die.

12. Twitter Sign (Matt Gist)

Have you ever seen an odd sign?

This is where you broadcast those signs to the twitter world.

12. After Halloween (Daniel Davis)

There are people good at what they do and there are geniuses. Daniel is a genius. Just enjoy what he is capable of.

Daniel is also rocking Tiny Army a new group for illustrators.

Two different companies announced that they got funding (I don’t recall their names). Additionally, several people were looking for CakePHP developers.

There was an announcement that the AZ Republic is looking for submissions for its 35 under 35 contest. Unfortunately links to get applications seem to be too sparse for me to tinker with.

All in all a great night. I won’t even get into the wild after party at Ling and Louies.

Share Your Story

2008-02-01T17:56:00Z

A hotly contested argument here in the Phoenix area is that it is a culture desert as well as real desert. That nothing is ever happening and there is no excitement. While I think we have a long ways to go, there certainly is some exciting stuff happening locally. Refresh Phoenix is a big part of that.

Here at Integrum we have been inviting other shops to occupy space with us rent free to try to stimulate relationships and information to take things to the next level. Forty has been occupying space for sometime and we have really enjoyed the fruits of co-working.

We have been extending this and now have Draw Backwards lined up to occupy and start co-working. I don’t think I can adequately articulate the advantages to working in this way without having real experience with it. The amount of energy that comes out working in this environment is incredible. Which brings me to the whole reason for this stupid blog post (I have had it on my list to blog about co-working for like 6 months)...

At the SEED Conference Jason Fried talked about great chef’s make their name by releasing their cookbook. That is sharing the secret to their success. 37 Signals of course did this with Getting Real. I shared with James Archer and ACME Photography that someone really needs to do this for photography. There is no good place to get that expert photographer mojo.

So yesterday Adam came out for a photo shoot and some lunch. Lunch was incredible. We at Ninja and had some wicked Teppanakyi (sp). The conversation was hilarious and there are some new surprises brewing out of the conversations. Normally Im all about sharing the information and bouncing ideas, but one of these requires some secrecy not because of any business plan or trade secrets, but in order to have the proper impact it has kind of hit you out of the blue.

Back to the chef of photography. Hearing Adam and James talk about processing labs, photo paper and a myriad of other topics I was in awe of how much I was learning by just watching. So guys when are you gonna start your video podcast? SERIOUSLY! Then the photo shoot was amazing. Adam truly is a master in how he works. I think someone said “we should do this every week, it’s so much fun”. I think corporate photo shoot I think… YUCK!!! However, the ACME magick has people requesting for it weekly. Someone needs to bottle this and share it with the world.

Adam / James I urge you please take it to the next level. Share your craft and increase our awe in what you are able to do behind the lens. I really really want to learn how to use ABE (ACME Beard Enhancer).

Emotion Socks

2008-01-29T23:33:00Z

So the guy who just doesn’t care has started a local phenomena called emotion socks (see he really cares!). This is a form of twittering where you express your mood in terms of socks. For example say its raining and you are feeling down. You might express this as “Im sitting in the house with my rain is depressing socks on”. Perhaps you are excited to go to a the big super bowl game this weekend on you might state “I’ve got my going to watch the patriots demolish the giants socks on”. Going to see the Phoenix Suns? You might say “Changing in to my purple and orange phx suns socks.” You get the picture.

So Sunny Thaper requested that kThxTees offer Integrum branded business time socks. Well this just isn’t practical, but we think we have something worked out for biz time Nike shoe line!

SEED Conf. Part 3 (Jim Coudal)

2008-01-22T00:15:00Z

So we broke for quick lunch. We had sat with Matt Browne and Chris Abad from Integral Impressions. We then went a working lunch on architecture. I used to want to be an architect and have a father in-law that is a well known architect. So, I will save you and not go into detail about how much I loved this session as I am sure I might have been the only one in the building that loved it. I learned a ton about Mies and Rem

After this enlightenment Jim Coudal took the stage. What a great personality and stage presence. I could listen to Jim talk all day. He is just a fun guy. He showed this great video about being less than focused. The great thing is that he emphasized that it’s okay! You learn a lot in failure and success. Short attention spans are NOT necessarily bad. Use them to your advantage.

He mentioned that a good strategy is to fail a lot. Client work is a good way to develop your craft on someone else’s dime. When looking to do a product evaluate on three things…

Can we make money?
Can we be proud of it?
Can we learn something new?

The items are not mutually exclusive. It is important to balance financial items and satisfaction. You have to constantly adjust to where you are at. It is okay to not know what you want.

The day wound down with a panel session of all presenters fielding questions. It largely had a lot to do with stealing. Jason voiced that it pisses him off when people steal 37 signals work and Carlos voiced that he feels similar to the RIAA in his views of protecting his work. Largely this whole conversation grossly turned me off as I am very liberal when it comes to copyright. I realize that these guys are largely talking about gross theft which I am against, but they portrayed it poorly.

I am sure there is tons that I missed as I feel so wordy just writing down a three part series. Overall, I enjoyed the conference and got a lot out of it.

SEED Conf. Part 2 (Jason Fried)

2008-01-21T22:41:00Z

After a quick break, we started back up with a talk from Jason Fried of 37 Signals. He talked about how he originally started Spin Free and then partnered with Carlos Segura to form 37 Signals. He outlined 10 things that impede us from success. I will note that the power went out during this presentation and he performed flawlessly in working right through it without missing a beat. Additionally he did excellent at fielding questions. I really must say he quite a good speaker.

1. The great unknown

Don’t get wrapped up in a 5 year plan or complex financial projections. Be opportunistic. Avoid product roadmaps and don’t be afraid to wing it.

2. Red flags

These words should scare you (need, easy, only, can’t, just and fast). DANGER WILL ROBINSON

3. Worrying about things that don’t matter (yet)

Pixels and polish, the what if’s, parternships, customization, etc. The longer it takes to develop something the less likely you’ll launch it. (OH SO TRUE)

4. When is enough, enough? You need to use it. Cover basic needs.

5. Too many cooks.

Work expands to fill people/time/resources available. If it takes more than 2 or 3 people the scope is probably too big. Expand to the edge before growing.

6. Not enough cooks.

This could be a blog post in and of itself. This was the big take away for me. Good chef’s become great by sharing their secrets, teaching others, promoting, educating and sharing what they are known for.

7. Interruption is the enemy of productivity.

It was interesting to see Jim Coudal’s almost contrarian response to this.

8. Passive vs active communication.

Communication usually fails, except by accident. Passive means like IRC, Campfire, IM and email work better than things like direct interruption (should tapping). When you write, you think! Passive tends to be shorter and more to point.

9. Meetings are toxic

They focus on symptoms rather than causes and should be a last resort. Meetings are costly. No such thing as a 1 hour meeting. Ten people in a 1 hour meeting is a 10 hour meeting.

10. Make tiny decisions

This is like judo, break down everything into very small decisions. Small decisions are easy to undo. They create progress which is great for morale. Tiny decisions prevent large mistakes. Move quickly.

Jason talked a bit about sustainable pace (in different terms). He favors small projects released regularly. Eventhough all 37 signals products were down during this talk he was very composed. Again I was impressed. He urged people to “eat their own dogfood” and engage in self marketing of their products.

SEED Conf. Part 1 (Carlos Segura)

2008-01-21T22:18:00Z

Last week I spent time with Ruinous in Chicago, IL for the SEED Conference. I figured I would give a quick recap and some random thoughts. The conference had a good pace and an interesting feel. I suspect people either left really inspired and excited or completely and utterly bored. I have never been an overwhelming fan of 37 Signals so while I was excited to attend, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

We rode the Red Line from Hotel 71 to Illinois Institute of Technology and found out that it probably added 3/4 of a mile to our walk. Normally this would be no big deal, but with the sub-zero weather it was not fun. Upon arrival we quickly got greeted by two folks and handed a Field Notes journal. I grabbed a bagel and OJ. Got situated and headed into the auditorium for the conference to begin. The crowd was noticeably different than that of Rails Conf . Average age was probably late twenties/early thirties and a mix bag of designer/coder/entrepreneur.

Jim Coudal started by introducing Carlos Segura. It was interesting to note that Carlos was an original partner in 37 Signals. He talked about several case studies and ventures he has been associated with. He was inspiring in noting that recognizing your surroundings and not discounting how difficult that is to do is what helps him succeed. He had several slides about man hole covers to illustrate this. One of my favorite quotes from Carlos was “Communication that doesn’t take a chance, doesn’t stand a chance”. The message was to push the envelope. He talked about a brand being a statement. That Volvo stands for safety, BMW for engineering, Ferrari for performance… What the hell does FORD stand for?

He highlighted how he put this to work in the Rock Shox The Earth is not Flat campaign. I was hands down floored by how much detail went into this campaign. The attention to detail and authority he demanded to make it work was awe inspiring. He transitioned into his work with Corbis and how important it is to convey connection, personality, emotion and value. That it is important to be committed in same fashion as a team member.

He touched on fact that he thought print was not dead and that people like physical things. This was great because I would hate to see my beloved books become extinct. He really emphasized that his brand is TRUTH. Nothing is free, nothing is easy and you have to work hard to make it. He challenged pricing by asking customers what their budget was and then determining if he could achieve the results they wanted within those constraints. This is an approach we have long talked about and I really like. I liked Less Than Allan’s comment about real estate on this subject. I really would like to do a separate blog post on that.

He started to wind down the presentation by stating that you have to build trust with your customers. The easiest way to do this is in the little things (being on time, being honest, etc). He rightfully pointed out that the customer is irrelevant in doing the work and that really we are advocates of the target. This is always difficult, but paramount to recognize. Be upfront in the beginning while you are still friends was a common theme. He hinted that you need to create your space and your environment. You can’t do everything, you have to apply sense and sensibility and be detailed in your craft. Bring in outside resources as necessary.

Last but not least. Consciously manage your brand. A quality brand is a lot like personal hygiene. It takes a lot of effort to be good. Check back for Part 2 and Part 3 later.

SEED 2008 Blogs

2008-01-21T18:15:00Z

So this last week I attended the SEED Conference in Chicago, IL. I hope to post about it in more detail later. One thing I did was Twitter Track the word seed during the conference. This morning I went to all the twitter pages of everyone that twittered about seed over last 5 days. I then went to the home page listed in their twitter account and subscribed to the RSS feed. I then quickly generated an OPML file of the feeds. You can download it and import to your feed reader of choice. If you attended SEED and want to be added to the OPML feed just comment to this post.

New Gist Design

2008-01-16T02:24:00Z

So the master designer whipped up a new blog theme for me. Loving it’s simplicity and clean look. PLUS it has RED. You can NOT go wrong with RED. Thanks Matt!

Local Technology Events

2008-01-15T16:37:00Z

So in an effort to get out the office (and house) a bit more and do real life networking instead of that phenomena known as “social networking” in the digital world I have been attending more local events.

It started with an informal twitter meetup lunch at the Sonoran Brew House. It was a great intimate meeting with about 15 tweeters. I got to meet lots of new people and have good dialog with old friends. Arizona’s Premier Business Photography company was on hand to capture the event.

I missed the Phoenix Refresh meeting, because I was celebrating my wife’s birthday (and Elivs’ too). Erica Lucci has a recap.

The next day I got a word that the AZ Groups tech lunches were opening an south east location. So several of us stopped by and checked out the action at a packed Chipotle’s It was nice to meet several people from the .NET world and hear about what is new and exciting on the other side. Lots of curious questions about ruby and rails.

That Thursday was Social Media Club. This was a bit of a drive for me and I had very limited time because had kids to drop off and pickup. This was a whole new crowd of people with a very different feel. The event was held in the offices of Jobing.com and featured Jody Gnant. I learned a lot about U stream and lifecasting in general. I started a Club Integrum stream to host our Thursday Dance Parties.

I rounded out the week with an unscheduled visit to TweetupAZ. I didn’t plan on attending because of my schedule but it worked out perfect to stop by for an hour on the way back to theqc. This event was huge (over 50 people) and had tons of great conversation. It was very non technical but very social. Good times.

I missed the Ruby AZ meeting yesterday, but will be attending the Phoenix Rails meeting today. Then tomorrow it’s off to Chicago, IL for the SEED Conference.

Add to this 3 or 4 great technical lunches that have been fundamental in bouncing a new idea and you have a recipe for a great month already, but of course Arizona is technologically dead and there is no community here. ; )

Menu Design Overload

2008-01-07T18:42:00Z

Several weeks back some arizona rails consultants headed to Streamers for lunch. We go there rather regularly because the food is good and there are several things on the menu that a bit quirky and favorites of the team. As noted before, I am trying to take everyday life experiences and relate them how to run a company better.

It seems like every visit someone comments that the menu is hideous. It has pastel colors exploding all over the page and there is so much content in horrible fonts that is amazing you can even read it. The menu is just overwhelming with choices. This started to get me thinking about how maybe they have TOO many choices and with a cleaner design perhaps they would do better.

However, after a lot of pondering on this subject, I’m crazy like that. How are they still in business? Why do we go there? The truth is the atmosphere is pretty nice and the food is great. In all honesty, they get most of their traffic off repeat business and word of mouth referrals. Come to think of it everyone on the team orders on advice of what others have had. I mean how else do you decide to order the “Quatro Fromaggio” out of the endless list of sandwiches? I think that being focused and having a clean design is extremely important in the software world, but in reality delivering business value and making the customer happy is still ulitimately king.

If you have been to a Quiznos lately probably noticed that they have completely redesigned themselves. They have stripped out almost every choice. I was disappointed at the lack of choice the last time I went there. It was too focused and too clean. I felt like I was missing out. They were cheating me out of my comfort zone!!! I ordered the equivalent of a Whitecastle slyder in sandwich form (Slammies). I was dead set on being bummed out. Then I ate the thing and was like WOW!!! This is awesome. A virtually party in my mouth! I walked away not caring that they simplified things. They had chosen to excel at this new sandwich type and they succeeded. Kudos Quiznos.

Point being, kick ass at what you do. Make your customers walk away remembering you for what is important to you. If you do via slick design and simplicity GREAT. If you maybe you aren’t the slick marketing wizard, it doesn’t mean you can’t succeed.

How important do design and marketing effect what you are doing or how you do it?

Getting Things Done

2007-12-21T16:27:00Z

This morning I woke up and saw a request from Geek Guru John Murch asking how I arrange my GTD system based on my Make a Make a Mark on Your Customers post. Since I have really been changing it around some, I figured I would outline what I am doing in hopes of getting feed back to make it better.

Let me start by saying I am either highly organized or the worst train wreck in the world. It really depends on which cycle of life you catch me in. I am an all or nothing personality when it comes to organization. I happen to be going through that cycle of reorganizing so its a good time to talk. I have done GTD and other systems on and off over the past ten years. Yes, including toting around a clunky day planner or a Palm/Visor dork indicator religiously.

I have generally experienced three fairly large let downs in every system to date.

1. Content too disparate

There are too many streams of incoming information. Voicemail, email, personal conversation and paper inboxes. Each system was good at capturing one but not all of these incoming streams of information for me.

2. Delegation

The biggest nemesis to organization I have found as my sphere of responsibility has grown is delegation. Information streams into my system and I need to hand it off to someone else. If I hand it off and it leaves my system then I forget about it and I get clobbered later if the person whom it was delegated lets me down. If I hand it off and it stays in my system it creates so much noise I no longer want to use the system.

3. Losing my mind

My brain thinks faster than I can process. It switches context 45 times in a two minute period. I will be struck by some revelation to get something done in a place where I can not readily capture it (say driving) and by the time I get to my destination the thought is long gone and never captured in my system.

When we first started what is now the Best Ruby on Rails Shop we had started a product called Down To Biz to help solve these three problems. We had several prototypes, if you are interested I would be glad to show you. Once 37 Signals released Highrise and we got buried in consulting work we kind of left downto.biz by the way side and my hopes of getting organized to this day are still largely crushed.

Being forced to get refocused made me decided to try to assemble some tools that already exist to combat these problems and give me something that while less than perfect at least keeps me sane. The first thing I did was decide that I need to simplify. GTD is great, but it’s fairly heavy if you follow it strictly. My goal is to get there but start small.

So here is a list of tools that I use and how I use them.

Mail.app / Google Mail

I use Mail.app via google domains (you could just as easy use google mail). In a nutshell, I have made a commitment to keep my inbox empty. All incoming mail gets acted on immediately. It is either responded to or put in GTD sub folder of Defer, Delegate, Incubate, Reference or Research.

If I defer something I add it to my todo list (I will discuss later) and file it in defer so I can reply to the email when the deferred task is complete. If I delegate something I put in my todo list (delegate) and file it in delegate so I can reply to the email if I need a status update. I put things that have potential but I am not sure how I am going to proceed in incubate. I use reference for emails that have no action to take but I might come back to later. In all honesty I rarely use this. I generally will use Delicious to book mark websites (adding a toread tag). The same goes for research.

Backpack

I have tried several dozen todo list products. I have ultimately come back to Backpack. Now that I have an iPhone with a quality browser I don’t need to “sync” my todo list to anything, its always available to me. I do a couple of things to help out. I have two contexts that I use @integrum and @home. This helps me narrow down todo’s based on what context I am in.

Additionally I use lists to categorize todo list items. For example I have a category for blog posts. This way if I think of something I want to blog I throw it in that category. I use this same designation for delegations by creating a delegation category. Backpack’s drag and drop makes it very easy to move these things around.

One of my primary reasons for using Backpack is that it supports OpenID and since we use BaseCamp and Highrise at Integrum and Media Geeks it puts everything in one place for me. I am able to use those systems as additional context switching mechanisms.

Sandy and Jott

The best thing I ever did was get an assistant. Sandy is the best thing that has happened to me. She is a computer that I can email or call (via Jott) to remind me to do things. This is finally the thing to solve problem #3 above for me. I can be driving or at a soccer field and think of something that I need to do. I simply call Jott, ask for Sandy and tell her to remind me to add it to my list. She then will send me an SMS message and email reminding me to add it when expected. For example this morning driving in I realized that I left my phone charger in our Jeep. I simply called Sandy and told her to remind me to move it back to my car tonight. She will SMS me tonight at 10pm to remind me, cause she rocks!

With minimal effort I could configure Jott to talk to backpack and call in my todo’s, but for now I am happy with Sandy relaying the message to me. It makes me feel important having my own assistant!

iCal, Google Calendar, Spanning Sync, iPhone

To manage my pre planned appointments I current use iCal. I do this because i like it a LOT. Additionally it syncs very nicely to my iPhone. However, many people including Integrum use Google Calendar as a way to share calendars. I solved this by purchasing Spanning Sync to sync google calendars to my ical. It is a crappy program, but it does the bare minimum to meet the requirement. If you know of something better let me know. This lets me get all my appointments in multiple places. The thing I like is I can create different calendars for different contexts. I have soccer, work, home, community and other calendars all separate so I can publish and filter as necessary.

Call Weaver/iPhone

Call Weaver is used to turn all voice mail into email for me. Though I find I have less and less voicemail all the time. iPhone voicemail I just listen to when have time. Both kinds get turned into tasks as need be. There are some things like Grand Central that I am looking into as well.

For now this formula is proving useful, but not perfect. I would love to hear how others are abusing tools to get things done.

Make a Mark on Your Customers

2007-12-18T23:57:00Z

Over the past week or two I have had some time to really start thinking about the little things. Some of this is because I have sat down and started to get all the stuff off my plate and into a GTD type system so I am not stressing on it, but mostly its because there has been a concentrated effort to start thinking about how to get Integrum to the next level.

We have discussed a lot about trying to project our company voice and display the personality we have to our customers. We are a group of smart and talented individuals that are committed as a team to provide value to our customers. We have a lot of fun and generate a lot of energy in doing that. People that interact with us often comment on what a personality our company has, but we have trouble projecting that to a larger audience.

Trying to answer the “how do you send a message to your potential customers?” question made me change my thinking. I started to ask, what companies impress me? What can I learn from those companies. One place I stop at least once a week if not more is QuikTrip. I just love that place. Then I started thinking about the insanity of that. Why on earth do I like a gas station? It really made me stop and think. You see I have been conditioned to go to QT for so long now, that I don’t even look at the gas prices. Truth is QT could be $1 more than the other gas stations, but I wouldn’t know it. It is because I am not looking for any other gas stations. QT has my business. The truth is that QT provides me such a great experience, I refuse to accept anything less.

I know. I know. How can a gas station provide a great experience? When I think of QT I generally think of four core components that do it for me.

Awesome Layout

Every QT I have been to has great entry and exit points. They have giant gas bays and multiple pumps. I never feel like I am fighting for a gas pump. This eliminates frustration and road rage, setting the tone for customers from the minute they enter the establishment. Someday if you drive a 36” RV you will really learn to appreciate this subtle enhancement to the experience. Look at most QTs and notice the amount of construction trucks, trailers and commercial vehicles that are getting gas. Another overlooked item is that QT gas bays are extremely well lit. They provide a feeling of safety in an often threatening environment. In fact, they even have safe place zones at all their locations.
That just covers the external parts of QT. Once you get inside the store, the traffic flow just works. They have moved the lids, napkins, straws, etc to a staging area to not hold up the filling of drinks. The checkout stations have multiple POS machines and clerks have the ability to run multiple transactions at the same time. It is not uncommon to see a QT employee checking out three customers at one time. Talk about impressive!

Cleanliness

Before QT when I thought of a gas station, I thought of dirty, dingy and smelly. A rest stop in a horror movie. After experiencing QT I think of them as a place to find a clean and reliable restroom. If it seems every QT is brand new, it is because most of them are. Generally they spend as much opening new stores as they do closing old stores. I saw somewhere the average store length is around 7 years. All of them I see are immaculately landscaped. I have seen articles where they mention spending over $50,000 a year in manicuring their landscaping.

Friendly Atmosphere

In a nutshell, I feel important at QT. The minute I walk in the doors I am greeted with a hello of some kind. Not most of the time, every time. It isn’t just me. They will say hello to you to. That’s what they do! In over 200 visits to QT, I do not recall ever encountering a rude or unhelpful associate. Come on, everyone has a bad day sometimes. QT employees may have a bad day, but they sure don’t pass it to their customers. The staff always seems knowledgeable about their products and services. If I didn’t know better I would say that every employee is a manager, because I have never heard someone say “let me ask my manager”.
More than anything they express they care by being helpful. The battery on my tire gauge ran out in the RV during our last outing. I figured I would just buy a new one since I really wanted the tire pressure to be correct. I went in and looked on the shelf and couldn’t find one. I asked the counter help if they carried them. Their response was bottom row first column on the left. I looked down and the spot was empty, but it was the right spot. Before I could utter that they were out an associate was by my side trying to help me look. She mentioned back to the counter that they were out. I was already impressed, but the story didn’t end there. The counter help asked me if I wanted to borrow theirs. WOW, I was floored. I borrowed and returned it and they asked to make sure it worked when I returned it. Score one for QT!

Consistency

QT’s are corporately owned and follow a consistent pattern. They are laid out the same and have the same features. This enforces their brand by being consistent. It’s one thing to set expectations and meet them. It is another thing to consistently do so. In fact, I like to think often times the difference between good and great is consistency. The truth is I always no matter which QT I am going to, I am going to get the same great experience.

As part of researching QT it seems that their gas prices are generally lower than average and during the summer they run a special on cheap fountain drinks (this is important in Arizona). While this might get customers in the door initially, it is certainly not any gimmicks that keeping them coming back. In fact, AM/PM used to be the power house here in Arizona. They did it by low drink prices and the cheapest gas on the block. They were generally horribly laid out, dirty and had unfriendly employees. Add to that each AM/PM was different in policy and placement and you start feel rubbed the wrong way. My last straw with AM/PM was when they started charging .35 cents to use something other than cash. I am glad to say most AM/PM’s are out of business today while QT’s continue to be erected. Circle K is in trouble as well. QT has set a new bar and customers are demanding it out of the competitors who fail to meet it.

So, as I sit here thinking about this stuff I have to ask, “How did QT get this way?”. I think the answer is that their leadership instills these values at it’s very core. How come their employees are so much better? Because they treat them better of course. QT is consistently in the top 50 best places to work by Forbes. They are committed to their employees and so their employees are committed to their customers. It seems to be working.

Ultimately it comes down to values. Front and center on the QT website is their statement, “Quick Trip is more than just another convenience store or fuel stop. It’s like a family. From fresh products to fresh smiles, we’re here just for you.” They are living up to that statement. I feel like they are there just for me.

In doing research for this I found, QT Insider a site by a customer dedicated to QT. That’s the kind of company to have. The remarkable kind. So tell me, how does your company live up to the t shirt rule?

kthxtees Tech Shirts

2007-12-14T17:17:00Z

At Integrum we have a lot of fun doing what we do. It seems like almost daily we come across a phrase or a concept that we all say would make a great t-shirt. At one point we started writing these “slogans” on the white boards around our office. Often times art was included with the slogan.

We finally broke down and said lets take a day and put up a site so we can make these t-shirts real and start wearing our creativity instead of just admiring it on the white boards around the office. So after much deliberation about what to call this venture we have launched kthxtees.

We realize that because we are doing print on demand that prices are a bit higher than if we created locally and held inventory, but honestly we don’t want to be a retail shirt vendor. We just want a way to express ourselves and let others share in the fun. If you have a shirt idea that you have always wanted done, drop us a line. If we like the idea we will try to design something and get it up in the store. We hope to release 1 or 2 new shirts per week. We certainly have a large back log of ideas from our white boards.

Declaration of Interdependence

2007-12-14T16:30:00Z

I have been wanting to blog about my agile experiences more, but have a difficult time brain dumping all that is going on inside this thick head of mine at times. I stumbled across the declaration of interdependence that is a compliment to the Agile Manifesto this week and it really drove home the impact that agile has in how I view the software world.

We have discussed what our values as a team are at Integrum and are on our way to putting forth a values statement about what is important to us. I think often times it is too easy to get lost in the day to day of having to get things done and it can be easy to compromise your values. That is why I think it is invaluable to to have them posted in your face and put on the forefront of your mind on a regular basis.

For those that may not be into “agile” or know what it is, here are the core values from the above documents in a single post.

Agile Manifesto

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

Declaration of Interdependence

We increase return on investment by making continuous flow of value our focus.
We deliver reliable results by engaging customers in frequent interactions and shared ownership.
We expect uncertainty and manage for it through iterations, anticipation, and adaptation.
We unleash creativity and innovation by recognizing that individuals are the ultimate source of value, and creating an environment where they can make a difference.
We boost performance through group accountability for results and shared responsibility for team effectiveness.
We improve effectiveness and reliability through situationally specific strategies, processes and practices.

When it comes to software development what are your/your teams values?

Early Christmas? rSpec, Merb and PickAxe

2007-12-14T16:07:00Z

	So this mornings RSS feeds bring tiding and good cheer. Apparently Santa’s elves have been hard at work this fall to bring such great presents in time for Christmas… Prag Dave informed us that there is a new Pick Axe book in beta for “Ruby 1.9”.
The fabulous David Chelimsky blabbed that rSpec 1.1 has hit the streets!!!! Story Runner and Next Example Groups goodness is official now. Just when you thought as a Rubyist that you couldn’t get anymore good gifts Ezra let the world know that Merb 0.4.2 has been released.

iPhone Raffle

2007-12-10T19:08:00Z

So for Christmas we gave everyone iPhones for Christmas. Some people already had them, so there was discussion on what a second iPhone would mean for them. One of our contractors Josh Huckabee, came up with a great idea to start an iPhone Raffle. In short order he had the site up and is already $200+ dollars towards his goal of $2,000.

Rails 2.0.0 and 2.0.1 Released

2007-12-07T15:44:00Z

Sure you will see this a thousand times, but I noticed last night before going to bed that Rails had a 2.0.0 tag applied. Shortly there after Version 2.0.0 showed up on RubyForge.

Like all things agile. Stuff changes quickly and this morning a 2.0.1 tag was applied. It looks like it is now available on RubyForge as well.

Congrats to all the people that put their time and effort into getting this out the door!

A wonderful REVIEW RESOURCE on Rails 2.0.x exists and is worth checking out.

Phoenix BarCamp Reminder

2007-12-07T15:37:00Z

Quick reminder that this weekend (tomorrow) is Phoenix Bar Camp. Be THERE!

Markaby Helpers? Eliminate += and <<

2007-12-04T23:40:00Z

I have been playing around a little with Markaby while working on a few projects. I have had some trouble getting rid of tags and replacing with Ruby code. Not because I don’t like, but because it just feels so different. While doing templates this way I started thinking that this really feels similar to a smell I can’t stand.

In attempting to not have any logic in view templates while doing Rails work all logic gets moved to models or helpers. The problem is that generally that means some html tags get moved into helpers as well. Traditionally I have seen this done a few ways. The most common ways I have seen is some form of string concatenation. I find this smells as it just doesn’t feel very Rubyish.

.concat Concatenation

+= Concatenation

<< Concatenation

I do see some use of content_tag, but until recently you could not easily nest using a block. Now in edge it supports passing a block which seems much more elegant.

Content Tag with Blocks

However, seeing Markaby in action being able to set ids and classes right off the element is pretty sexy. Additionally not having to type content_tag a million times is nice. It certainly feels like the most Ruby way to handle the problem.

Markaby with Blocks

If you are a Rubyist tell me how you handle rendering HTML in your helpers. Why do you do it that way?

There is a nice screencast on the topic over at RailsCasts.

Rockin' The Weezer Glasses

2007-12-04T21:24:00Z

Yesterday dealt me a mean migraine headache. I wear 30 day extended wear contacts. Being lazy I generally change them every 180 days. So for the first time in about six months I popped them out and fell a sleep. I woke up to an alarm clock that I couldn’t read the numbers on (man am I blind). I put my glasses on so I could function and decided to give my eyes a break and wear them today. My kids forgot that I even wore glasses. My co-workers laughed that I wore glasses and our tenants told me I had Weezer glasses. I bought them wanting to be quirky because I wear them about twice a year.

Weezer Wear	Deke Wear

Jott Meet My Friends, Twitter, Sandy and Amazon

2007-12-04T16:39:00Z

I have had on my GTD list for some time to revisit Jott. I had created an account some time back and toyed around with it. My partner in MediaGeek crime has hooked Jott up to his home automation server and can turn devices in his home on and off with a phone call. Yes, I am jealous. So this morning before diving into work, I decided to try a few things out.

I figured that it would be nice for Jott to work with other technologies that I use regularly to see if I could find a good use for this innovative technology. First on the list was getting it to work with Twitter. I had originally thought about writing a gateway to do this, but was trumped by our friends at Big In Japan and EgorCast. I never really got it working and never revisited it. The great thing is that Jott has made it easy to support “links”, so that any service provider can provide a link for a Jott to be posted against (oh how my evil mind is turning now). It just so happens that Twitter is a “friend” of Jott. Which means it is as easy as clicking “Jott Links” tab and then clicking “add” for the service you want.

Within minutes, I was able to record a Jott that immediately got sent to my twitter account. This is great because now I can twitter while on the run (okay driving), in a slightly safer manner. While I won’t advocate talking on the phone while on the road, I will say it is better than texting while on the road.

So my Assistant Sandy got a little jealous. She asked why I never Jott her. Good question Sandy. I must start by saying Sandy is most wonderful. So I added Sandy to my Jott friends and gave her permission to accept Jott messages.

I called up Jott, asked for Sandy, told Sandy to remind me to call Steve in five minutes. You know what in 5 minutes I got a text and email from Sandy telling me I better call Steve. Sandy really is the perfect assistant. I wonder what she wants for Christmas.

Lastly, Jott is friends with Amazon by default. This means I can call Jott ask for Amazon and give it a category/product. Jott then will email a list of products matching that product to help me get information on it. They do an excellent job explaining how it works. Try it out.

So how do you plan on using Jott to further the functionality of the services you use? or better yet the services that you create?

Remote Satellite Invades Neighbors House

2007-12-03T17:46:00Z

Upon arriving home on Friday night, we got a call from my wife’s brother. He was in town doing some work and wanted to stop by to visit. It is rare that we get a chance to visit so we were very excited. Paul works in a part of the tech industry that fascinates me, audio/video. He has owned his own production company and done work for G4, ESPN and numerous other exciting adventures. He was in town doing the video feed for the AIA 5A State Football Semi-Final. He owns live video streaming operation that is very cool. He has a trailer with at 2Gbps uplink to feed streams real time from events. One of his big clients is a new start up call Vootage. Vootage does feeds for many high school events. Turns out that Paul will be back next week to stream the finals. So we get two visits in one week!!!!

It was great to hear about the process, the equipment and the technology involved. Most of the work is currently done in Flash, but they are doing a lot of experimenting with Silverlight. Additionally, there is a lot of use of Ruby on Rails!

Breaking the Chains of iPhoto FlickrExport

2007-12-03T17:43:00Z

I used to be militant about using Free Software. I was one of those guys. I had ideals and convictions about how users of software should be treated. Sadly, I became complacent. Fighting for Freedom is a pain in the butt. It is not very rewarding on a day to day basis and people think you are nuts for fighting for the ideal. So, over time I adopted using OS X because it was sexy and it just worked. As time progressed I stopped using all the Free tools I had come to know and love and I stopped thinking about my freedoms as a user. Yes, I admit it, selfishness took over and fighting for freedom slipped away.

I think about this often. I complain this country is in trouble. I complain about corruption in the government. I complain that we don’t stand up and do something and so we are bound to suffer as citizens. You know what? I am a hypocrite. When it comes to something I care a LOT about (software/technology), I have not only enslaved myself, but I have begun to blindly look away while others are enslaved. In many respects, I have made my peace with being the type of person that can turn a blind eye and lie to myself.

However, tonight I encountered the type of bondage that I will NOT partake in. So FlickrExport, good bye and good riddance. You see I like photos. I even liked iPhoto enough to be a slave to it. I took the next step and made life easy by buying FlickrExport. This allowed me to get my photos to Flickr in a very easy fashion. So, the pain started when I put a Mac Mini in the house to control our house and media. I have a daughter old enough to take pictures and use Flickr. We wanted a photo station to hook any of the media devices in the house to and upload content for sharing. It was great except FlickrExport wanted a license key.

I went to my laptop to get the license key that I dutifully purchased to bind myself in chains. There was no key to be found. Okay, no problem I will just go to the FlickrExport website and request the key be resent to me. Yeah. That would require that Connected Flow actually give a crap about their paying customers. I was redirected to the Third Party system KAGI that handled the license transaction.

This is where frustration hit the roof and I realized that software license prison is painful. Requiring me to know the transaction id of the purchase or the credit card number and date of purchase is comical. The only way I would have that information is if I had the original email. If I had the original email I would not be going to KAGI’s site to try to retrieve it. Okay, I realize that perhaps I should have printed the key and receipt. I should have saved the email. You know what. NO! I don’t want to do business that way. So Connected Flow, take FlickrExport and shove it! I will have to open a separate program and take the extra minute to drag photos from iPhoto to Flickr Uploadr, but you know what my freedom is worth it, your license scheme is NOT! Sadly, Flickr Uploadr isn’t truly free, but at least it doesn’t have the license scheme from hell.

As my subscription for Flickr is up as of this month. I am really considering going somewhere else. Somewhere that has truly free tools.

November Phoenix Rails Recap

2007-11-21T17:05:00Z

Last night’s Phoenix Rails meeting was a nice kick off to the holiday. We covered a number of topics and saw some new faces. I am impressed that we have had visitors from United Arab Emirates and Houston, Texas in the last few months. Since we covered so much, I figured I would do a quick recap with links as many of the topics were new to many attendees.

Jade Meskill started the meeting by recapping some items encountered at RubyConf.

Ruby 1.9 : Matz Town Hall
JRuby : Ruby for the JVM
Rubinius : Rubinius 1.0
Rspec : Behaviour Driven Development with RSpec
Adhearsion : Next-Gen VoIP Development with Ruby and Adhearsion
MetaSploit : Sploitin’ with Ruby (Point, Click, Root)

This conversation brought up Telegraphy as a counterpart to Adhearsion. There was also brief discussion on Asterisk vs Callweaver.

Chris Matthieu followed up with some local ruby news items.

Wruby was featured in Ruby Inside.
Local rubyist David Koontz from Rising Tide went the Phoenix Java User Group to present on JRuby. (You can catch it here)

I apologized I wasn’t able to get some folks doing work with facebook to show up and talk about what they were doing, but started a small discussion on OpenSocial and talked about the plugin to expose rails resources as an open social api.

I did a quick visual demo of home automation using Indigo RubyOSA and Rails. I will try to post on this later. Pertinent information is where to get home automation gear… Smart Home and Mac Home Store are both sources cited.

James Britt wrapped up the conversation by discussing moving away from Trac and on to Red Mine.

Please sign up for the Phoenix Rails Group and the Phoenix Ruby User Group at Working with Rails.

Thanks to all that attended.

Marvel Comics Online

2007-11-15T16:39:00Z

A few days back I saw rumblings of Marvel Comics releasing their catalog online. I must profess I still have probably 2,000 or so comic books under the stairs at home. I even have some original page masters from Strange Tales. While an avid reader of science fiction, I went through a 2 or 3 year spread where I consumed as many comic books as possible. It all started on a road trip across the states one summer. I bought 5 or so comics in a truck stop and was dying for us to run out of gas so we could stop again and get more.

While I am disappointed that Marvel has chosen to make this pay service, I am delighted to see them get digital. Someday perhaps they will learn about online community and see that giving away the digital version might actually make the paper version sales explode. Anyone else out there ever enjoy comics? If so, what were your favorite titles and what do you think of Digital Marvel?

DishNetwork Sneaking Around?

2007-11-15T16:26:00Z

I have been a DishNetwork consumer for some time. I have bounced between all the services and found my way back to DishNetwork (mainly because when we moved to the new house the local cableTV company didn’t provide service). Getting into the Home Automation space I have been following things a bit more closely when it comes to technology in my living room. I was pretty amazed when EchoStar (DishNetwork) bought Sling Media. It confirmed that DishNetwork might be the only provider that gets it.

So a few nights ago I fired up the TV to catch up on shows (soccer keeps me about two weeks behind). Low and behold there was a “custom” DVR recording from DishNetwork on listing. I decided to play it. In a nutshell DishNetwork now lets you attach your receiver to an ethernet connection. They announced IP Video on Demand. While I am not drooling to use this, I am thinking they are up to something wicked with SlingBox. I really need to get an Airport by the TV and hook up audio and cable box. In a nutshell, I think I am motivated to get the digital media setup going at the house.

$10 Million Android Bucks

2007-11-14T17:29:00Z

I was watching Britts soccer practice last night and skimming through YouTube videos. I happened to find this Google Android Demo video:

Love the concept, but think the UI is horribly ugly. Free Software aspects are nice. Anyhow the kicker is that Google has squirreled away $10 million in funds to dole out to new fresh android applications. What is crazy is that I have seen virtually no press on this. What gives? THoughts?

Ruby System Call

2007-11-14T00:19:00Z

So today for a customer we were faced with the problem of finding out of if a process was already running on a system. We toyed with several variations doing everything via shell script before executing the ruby script, but in the end we decided we needed to do it inside of the ruby script in order to use the custom logger that the project uses.

We found that a good article from Jay Fields on system calls from Ruby. We decided that %x was exactly what we were looking for because we needed the return values.

The first part executes `ps ax` which will give back to stdout a list of the running processes.

The second part takes that output and executes `grep irb` which will give back to stdout all the processes containing the expression irb.

The last part takes that output and does a line count to see how many lines are returned. The trouble here is that three lines were returned even though only two irb processes are running. The reason is that the grep irb also shows up as a process containing irb. The great thing about unix is that there are ways to do about anything.

Doing the following:

Gives us the desired output. By adding that `grep -v grep` we are telling grep to eliminate lines that have grep. This now gives us the desired result of 1. Now we can accurately tell if a process is already running. More specifics on the unix part of this can be found here.

Go Green?

2007-11-11T15:32:00Z

We hear a lot about going green for the environment. That is stop wasting valuable resources and promote healthy (to you and the environment) choices. The idea of lean agile practices could be considered similar. One of the key factors in lean agile is eliminating waste. Several SCRUM colleagues started The ‘W’ Campaign to eliminate <font>waste</font>. So do something good for your organization today, find one source of waste and eliminate it.

Get Your Ass To Bar Camp

2007-11-09T15:32:00Z

December 08th at UAT is Phoenix BarCamp

While sometimes it can feel depressing seeing that this weekend there a San Diego BarCamp. Super Happy Dev House is rocking in San Francisco. Just about the time it feels like a technological desert around here, I am pleasantly reminded that we are building a vibrant community here!!!! If you care about technology, you need to attend. Thanks James for putting this together.

Auto Maintenance

2007-11-06T17:34:00Z

My schedule is busy and one thing I wanted in a chore program was to help me keep track of repetitive tasks like changing air filters at the house, putting in pool chemicals, etc. One of those things was helping maintain our cars and our RV. I thought, that it was important enough that maybe it should be a separate application. Well today I found Service Beacon which seems to do an excellent job of this. It even includes RECALLS and helps find service locations.

Maybe I am easy to impress this morning, but this has me excited.