Turns out, I didn’t win (surprise, surprise) so I figured I’d post my little poem here now that the contest is over! Had a good bit of fun putting it together and name-dropped some of my favorite apps/services!

Connected, not rejected,
Bits flow over the wire
—wait, what wire?
Hey, this truly inspires!

But, this begs the question…
Who let Pandora out of her box?
Unrestrained waves,
of the 4th generation!
So wield this third pipe with care,
It allows for creation!

I put on my Goggles,
Take a look through the Sky,
Because layer by Layar,
It’s a feast for the eye!

I tweet to the beat,
Of the city streets,
And with a little bit of Yelp,
Find sweet treats to eat!

Then I update my status,
So you all know the latest:
“Blazing fast speeds,
For me? Yes, please!
Now lolcats can haz 4G!”

But, what’s the current Buzz,
What did you miss?
“Flash mob @ the mall!”
—people have to see this,
Stream it, Qik!

The world is now social,
In the palm of my hand,
While I upload my photos,
And tag all my friends!

Let me know what ya think. Is it decent, or am I just a dork?

Without context, useful information is immediately lost which often leads to logical fallacies. Here’s one of the most succinct examples I’m aware of, provided by the Fallacy article on Wikipedia:

Argument: Cutting people is a crime. Surgeons cut people. Therefore, surgeons are criminals.

Problem: Cutting people is only sometimes a crime.

Without context, poor conclusions result. Consider the following example which photographers will immediately relate to how one exposes a photo.

Imagine a piece of paper divided in half. One half is stark white and the other is pitch black.

Now shine a light on that piece of paper.

A dim light will ensure that black is indeed black—but now the white side appears gray.

A bright light will ensure that white is indeed white—but now the black side appears gray.

The light is context. Vary the brightness of the light and you’ll get different outcomes. Without light we are lost in the darkness, able only to interpret situations with simplified thought experiments held in isolation. Always consider the light.

In the mean time, I recently posted an accelerometer demo and its code over on PreCentral’s webOS Development forums. Figured I would toss it up here on the ‘ole blog as well.

Who Knows How to Use the Accelerometer?

On the development forums, there has been a lot of interest in writing apps which use the accelerometer, but not much code to get anyone started. My goal was purely to give the Palm Pre development community some code to chew on, so this is about as basic as it gets. AccelBall just lets you hold your Pre flat and tip it back and forth to roll a ball around. That’s it. That’s all. Figured it would be something fun to play around with for coders new to the Pre.

Making Things Move

I’ll assume anyone reading this will already know the basics of how to get a webOS app started, so this is just the code that is relevant to doing something useful with the Pre’s raw accelerometer data. Just one event handler and a tiny bit of math pulls off the heavy lifting:

MainAssistant.prototype.handleAcceleration = function(event) {
	this.driftX += (event.accelX * this.scale);
	this.driftY += (event.accelY * this.scale);
	this.driftZ += (event.accelZ * this.scale);
}

And a PeriodicalExecuter to move the ball around once every 30th of a second:

MainAssistant.prototype.setup = function() {
...
	new PeriodicalExecuter(function(pe) {
		obj.moveDot();
	}, (1/30));
...
}

The moveDot function just uses the drift variables which are being updated by the accelerometer’s event handler:

MainAssistant.prototype.moveDot = function(){
	// Move that dot! Note that the Z axis isn't used in this demo...
	this.theDot.style.left = (parseInt(this.theDot.style.left) + this.driftX) + 'px';
	this.theDot.style.top = (parseInt(this.theDot.style.top) - this.driftY) + 'px';

	// And there's more code to keep the ball within the viewport, just snag the source...
}

The Code and IPK

To make life easier, here’s a zip of the complete source of AccelBall, ready to be used with ‘palm-package’ out of the box. Also, the all-important IPK package for those who just want to install and toy with it.

Code: accelball-source.zip
IPK: com.randallagordon.accelball_0.0.0_all.ipk

And last, but not least, I’ll include a link to the official Palm documentation on the Accelerometer’s API for good measure.

I hope you find the code useful and if you make anything with it, please leave a comment and a link. I would love to see what creative applications everyone comes up with!

Presenting, you’re going to hate me for this, karaoke in Javascript! Or, as I like to call it, Jaraoke! Cheeky, eh?

Head over to http://randallagordon.com/jaraoke/ and check it out. Just hit play, and then you’re able to toggle the lyrics in the audio on and off. The song is “Discipline” by Nine Inch Nails, chosen because of the great forward-thinking license chosen for the song, a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial Share Alike license. The lyrics start 24 seconds in, so be patient.

Other Browsers

It is also worth noting that this works in Safari 4 using MP3 sources instead of Ogg Vorbis. Unfortunately the codec playing field is not a level one and Apple refuses to support Ogg on grounds that a patent could crop up out of nowhere…

Chrome should also support this, a <video> tag demo I link to below works just fine. I just simply haven’t done any debugging to see why Chrome doesn’t like it at this point. If anyone catches the problem, please let me know. Determined that this was a server config problem—gzip and Chrome’s Ogg playback don’t play nice together. Adding “SetEnv no-gzip dont-vary” to .htaccess makes everyone happy. So, Jaraoke now works properly in Chrome.

The Markup

The guts are really quite simple. I’m loading up two separate audio files to be played simultaneously, one with the lyrics present and one which is instrumental. Here you’ll also see the two separate source declarations, one for Ogg Vorbis and another for MP3. Beyond that there are two links, one for play control and one to toggle between the vocal and instrumental tracks, and an unordered list element to insert the lyrics into. Here’s the markup:

<audio id='apN' autobuffer="true">
	<source src='audio/discipline_mixdown-nvocal.ogg' type='audio/ogg; codecs="vorbis"'>
	<source src='audio/discipline_mixdown-nvocal.mp3' type='audio/mp3; codecs="mp3"'>
	A custom message can go here for browsers which don't support the <code>audio</code> HTML5 element.
</audio>
<audio id='apW' autobuffer="true">
	<source src='audio/discipline_mixdown-wvocal.ogg' type='audio/ogg; codecs="vorbis"'>
	<source src='audio/discipline_mixdown-wvocal.mp3' type='audio/mp3; codecs="mp3"'>
</audio>

<a id="togglePlay" href="#">Play/Pause</a>
<a id="toggleVocal" href="#">Toggle Vocals</a>

<ul id="lyricsList"></ul>

The Javascript

When the DOM is loaded, the Javascript does some minimal setup. The volume for the vocal track is set to 0 and the instrumental to 1. These settings are floats with a value of 0, volume completely off, to 1, volume completely on. This, of course, let’s the two files play simultaneously without interfering. By calling play and pause during setup, it forces the files to play perfectly synchronized (at least on my system…) so there is no “skipping” when the vocals are toggled. The lyrics and cue times are simply hard coded into arrays and really should be imported from an XML file.

(UPDATE: Newer versions of Chrome no longer play the files in sync; I’ve yet to find another solution. If you have a solution, please leave a comment! Thanks!)

The grunt work is done by setting up an event listener on the audio element’s “timeupdate” event. The callback just checks the current playback time against a set of cue times. If the playback time is past the current cue’s time then it displays the current lyric and increments to the next cue. Here’s the relevant code:

var currCue = 0;
var cues = [ 24.78, 26.81, 29.69, 34.88, ... ];
var lyrics = [	"Am I...",
			  	"Am I still tough enough?",
				"Feels like I'm wearing down, down, down, down, down...",
				"Is my viciousness", ... ];

this.apN.addEventListener("timeupdate", timeUpdate, true);

function timeUpdate() {
	if(jaraoke.apN.currentTime > (cues[currCue] - CUEOFFSET)) {
		var el = $(document.createElement('li'));
		el.update(lyrics[currCue++]);
		$('lyricsList').insertBefore(el, $('lyricsList').firstChild);
	}
}

Taking the Concept Further

Please, let me know what you think, I would love to get some feedback on this. If there is enough interest I figure I’ll take the concept a little further. Such as getting the cue data moved into an XML file, adding some effects (the classic “follow the bouncing ball”, for instance) and, possibly, an editor to create the XML cue data. Perhaps give it a proper design…

Links and Other Resources

Here’s the <video> tag demo that gave me the idea in the first place: STS-116 Launch Profile. As the title implies, it shows a video of the STS-116 launch along with drawing graphs of the speed, altitude and downrange data in sync with the playback time of video.

Also be sure to check out Hyper-Metrix’s jai – javascript audio interface [http://hyper-metrix.com/misc/jai/]. It takes beautifully semantic markup and turns it into an elegant, Flash-free media player GUI. Also puts the <canvas> tag to work, showing off another great new feature.

If you’re going to be tinkering with these elements, don’t forget the best reference—the HTML5 draft spec! Here’s a link to the audio element section.

Update – Examples In the Wild

David Friedman of Ironic Sans used Jaraoke’s code along with other sources to come up with a unique take on traditional volume control. Instead of simply going from quiet to loud, this control adjusts the volume from “whisper to shout”! Check it out and enjoy a laugh over here and also read his blog post about it.

First, take a look at the demo. The cool part of the demo starts at about 50 seconds in and goes a little past 3 minutes. Watch at least that and you’ll be up to speed well enough to understand the following. It does help if you’re also familiar with Qik and Photosynth

Reading some of the comments on TechChrunch’s post, I found several people calling this “a solution without a problem” so I figured I’d give some potential “problems” this could solve. You just have to think about how this technology can be combined with other technologies we already have available, as well as how this kind of stitching technology can be evolved. Two game changing applications spring to mind immediately:

Sports and Live Event Broadcasting

Just think outside the box a little bit. Sure, they’re using camera phones in the demo, but that doesn’t mean you can’t scale up to using 1080p high definition video sources. Or 2K, 4K and even higher resolution sources for that matter. At that point you’d need extremely heavy computing power to do the processing, but it isn’t like we aren’t seeing the silicon showing up to provide the number crunching horsepower. Newspapers think they have it bad because of the internet, just think about the implications of every football stadium installing arrays of high definition cameras around the field. Traditional broadcast single-feed TV won’t be able to compete…

Subscription satellite TV services already allow viewers to jump between different angles of a play. How much would the sports fanatics pay to access a real-time stream that would allow them to “fly” the camera to any vantage point around the field that they wish to view? A custom camera viewpoint for each viewer of the stream, always getting to see what they want to see instead of what the guy in the production studio wants them to see.

And eventually the three dimension mapping abilities of Photosynth will be applicable in real-time as well. This would not only allow you to pan the camera around the field, but also through it. Want to see what a play looks like standing 20 feet from the sideline, thirty feet in the air, on the 50 yard line while zoomed in on the wide receiver? Not a problem. How about watching the play while tracking over the head of the quarterback? Not a problem.

Emergency Response

How would the outcome of disasters like September 11th and Katrina have differed if we had technology such as this in place? Well, if we had enough people on site with high resolution video phones, these citizens could have been a vital part of information gathering for first responders. Granted, we don’t need bystanders getting in the way and hindering rescue efforts. But, if executed properly, these cameras could provide a logistics team with a real-time three dimension view of a disaster site. This kind of information would allow for an unprecedented level of organization among emergency response crews.

And again, this does not have to rely on people with camera phones. A team in a van filled with monitoring equipment could harness the streams coming in from any available networked camera equipment. Any civilians in need of assistance could be identified so their position and any other vital details can be radioed to the closest responder able to provide assistance. Extra sets of eyes on the situation could also identify threats that may not be immediately visible to personnel “on the ground” such as overhead debris that is likely to fall.

Then there is also a whole new level of information that could be made available to emergency personnel when you combine this technology with augmented reality heads up displays, HUDs:

• Overlay data about the locations of all civilians in the area who need assistance and provide information about their injuries, vitals and triage priority.
• Pass various instructions along from off-site support staff such as doctors. This would allow personnel in the field to perform treatments they may not have prior training to perform in situations where the civilian won’t survive without immediate treatment.
• Off-site civil engineers would be able to provide live structural consults to help avoid unnecessary structure collapses and identify problem areas.

However, I am getting a bit off topic at this point, these were just a couple of related ideas that popped up that I wanted to suggest.

So hopefully this gives the naysayers something to chew on. I’ve learned to never question a new technology’s worth. Solutions with out problems don’t exist. We just haven’t found the problem yet.

For those who aren’t familiar with Qik, definitely check it out. Think live-action YouTube—you never know what you’re going to find! And be sure to read TechCrunch’s post about the demonstration.

I also got Mindnasium upgraded and I intend to start working on it again soon. Sad that I only made three posts and let it die, but, like a phoenix, it shall rise again from the ashes! (Maybe…)

And I converted SynerGen’s site over as well. I had previously been running the SynerGen site on a custom backend of my own. Which was sufficient when only a handful of people needed access to post basic text only posts.

Here I showcase one of the latest talks, given by Juan Enriquez. The talk is titled “Beyond the crisis, mindboggling science and the arrival of Homo evolutis.” Enriquez uses a good bit of smart humor to illustrate our current economic crisis and why the advance of technology gives us good reason to have hope for the future.

It is a good bit over exposed. I never can seem to get a handle on proper exposure on overcast days… Might have something to do with my distaste for the drab light that overcast days create.

The music is one of my own tracks, Theta State. If you enjoy it, you may want to listen to more of my music production work.

Build Lebanon Trails Hike Time Lapse – 2009-02-14 from Randall A. Gordon on Vimeo.

And here’s the first one I made while riding through town on Thursday night. Simply a little “proof of concept”. It was just nifty getting to see it work. This one was underexposed, I should have been using my Rebel XT instead of my Pro1 to help in low light.

Night Drive from Randall A. Gordon on Vimeo.

So now I’ve shot one underexposed and one overexposed time lapse. Go me! Third time’s a charm, right?

—

Business name: Freelance web design as Randall A. Gordon, sub-contracting web development to Vitaliy Mikitchenko; Soon to be partners of Mind Kitchen Media LLC

When was the business started: I’ve actively prospected clients since November of 2007; I’ve taken on various projects since the age of 16.

Names of owners: Mind Kitchen Media LLC will be owned by Randall A. Gordon, Vitaliy Mikitchenko and Marta McCasland

1. Describe the business

Although I work as a freelancer currently, I am in the process of setting up an LLC with a partner who, to date, I have simply subcontracted work to. Also in the mix is my fiance who is actively and passionately learning the ropes of the business both from and with me. As such I’ll mainly be speaking from the viewpoint of a soon-to-be LLC owner with insights from my work as a freelancer.

I seek out clients in the local area who I can assist by bringing their communications abilities with their customers and within their business up to date with what is possible using today’s technologies. This means I am far more than just a web designer. I have to be a multimedia maven who can take on many hats.

I have to understand how a business operates so that I am able to identify deficiencies and lay out plans to correct them. Sales and marketing are important to master, not only to get my own company’s name out there, but because the larger part of my work involves marketing and connecting a client with their customer base. Not to mention the very wide variety of talents that development for the web requires in today’s technology landscape.

2. Reason(s) for starting the business. Why?

Ultimately, the freedom to create the way I wish to create. I have grown up living side by side with the internet, using it as a tool every day for more than a decade. It is now time for me to add my creative touch to the internet community. I have a vision for what the future of the world can be and wish to do what I can to forward that vision. I want to leave my imprint on the landscape of computing and user interface and interaction design on the internet.

3. Type of business organization (sole proprietor, partnership, corporation)

I currently freelance as a sole proprietor. However the near term goal is to set up shop as Mind Kitchen Media LLC. At the moment I am learning the last few things I wish to add to my repertoire before I officially “open the doors” for Mind Kitchen Media.

4. Why did you choose this particular organization for your business?

I’m comfortable freelancing as a sole proprietor only because I’m selling an intangible product and the projects I’ve taken on to date have presented few opportunities for mistakes and oversights that could result in lawsuits. However, the plan is to set up Mind Kitchen Media as an LLC which has many advantages.

First and foremost is the protection it affords. Even on the internet there are potential dangers that we must avoid in the form of stepping on someone’s copyright, mistakes in our code causing customer data to be corrupted, security problems allowing customer data to be compromised and the list goes on… It is the new Wild West in many ways. An LLC ensures that when a mistake is made, our personal assets—homes, cars, savings—are not at risk. This one is a biggie. There are far too many stories of good people who lose their homes over small mistakes. Since no one is perfect lawsuits are only a matter of when, not if.

Beyond that, an LLC affords us tax benefits, we get to deduct expenses from profits just like the big boys. That lets us grow our business faster—taxes do a good job of sucking away hard earned money. Corporations are great vehicles for keeping that money growing for you.

Also an LLC will allow us to more easily bring new talent aboard as we need to grow. Freelancers on the internet do an amazing job of networking to get impressively large projects completed, but bringing the myriad necessary talents required in today’s world under the one “roof” of an LLC can assist in fostering more productive relationships. It does this by centralizing a lot of the paper and legal work that every freelancer on the team would otherwise be required to do on their own.

5. What were some of the issues during the start-up process? Why?

For me I have to say organization, setting schedules and education. As I am working a full time job on top of freelancing as a footstep to building my design firm, keeping my “free” time well scheduled has been a particularly difficult task for me. But, I always try to learn from past mistakes and this aspect of my personality is improving. I’ve simply had to learn to rely on a great tool—pen and paper! For the time being, technology still has a hard time beating keeping a Moleskine notebook and a pen nearby to take quick notes. And there’s a great lesson, never forsake good solutions simply to put technology to use!

On the education end, I’ve been teaching myself the ins and outs of designing media for the web for years. There are a massive number of disciplines and technologies which must be mastered in order to excel in this field. It is also difficult to find other people who have dedicated themselves to a never ending education, but thus far I have been blessed with an expert programmer in Vitaliy and Marta is a huge help when it comes to keeping us on task.

6. What are the positive aspects of owning this business?

For this one I’ll switch voices and speak from the perspective of why my partners in this wish to see our business become successful. From the standpoint of in house projects, we have the freedom to go after any idea we believe will produce something fruitful. Absolute freedom…to a point. Ultimately we have to produce products which result in covering the bills, but we get to choose which projects we take on.

There is also the inherent joy that comes from the act of creating something which did not exist before. We get to join together to make something which is “ours”.

Personally, I like helping other people succeed, learn and grow. Being the owner of what will become a large firm with many employees and clients gives me plenty of opportunity to do just that.

7. What are the negative aspects of owning this business?

So far, the only thing that I would call negative is the time commitment, and I only say that because I’m split between two jobs. Beyond that, I am lucky to work in an industry that I love all aspects of. But to pick a particular downside, you will inevitably run into situations where you have to deal with dissatisfied customers. However, I tend to look at such situations as an opportunity to gain a client for life. Nothing changes minds like a sour situation being remedied beyond expectation. Always exceed customer expectations.

8. What is your time commitment each week? Has this changed over the years? Why or why not?

Realistically, an entrepreneur should come to the table expecting to devote a large portion of his or her time to forwarding the mission and reaching the goals of the business they are growing. This is not an easy job. A lot of people like to think that being your own boss is the ultimate freedom, and it can be. But you have to accept the reality of what it takes to succeed.

Expect to put in 80 plus hour weeks when there is no one else around to get the job done. You’ll be giving up your weekends to do research to stay competitive in the marketplace. You won’t be able to watch the game, instead you’ll have to be learning new skills to remain relevant in your field. It is no picnic, but when you do succeed and reach your goals, there is no greater feeling in the world.

For me, my time commitment won’t change over the years. I am living my dream and my work is my life. I don’t fear burnout because I’ve positioned myself to do a myriad of things each day. Nothing leaves me more content than learning something new and what better place to learn something new each day than in media production?

9. How do you deal with employees and the issues they bring to the table?

Everyone’s ideas are important. We will embrace new communications tools as they become available. While other businesses are struggling to get ideas moved between their people, we’ll be using twitter and facebook to connect. I regularly get real work done by text and instant messages with my partners. This communication is the groundwork for being able to effectively deal with problems in the business and more importantly bring stellar ideas to fruition. Just remember what I said before, be careful not to use technology for technology’s sake, there are often better solutions that already exist!

Never undervalue anyone’s contribution to the team. If someone has something to say, be it a problem or a solution, ensure that they have a voice. When you take someone’s voice away from them, you take away their freedom. That is not exactly good for morale.

10. What are the major fixed and variable expenses related to your business?

To date my expenses have been extremely low. I’ve been able to do everything I have needed with the computers and software I already own and relatively low monthly payments for internet access and web hosting. That’s the beauty of delivering a virtual product. The lion’s share of our expenses will simply be the payroll for “mind share”—the time it takes our creatives to generate the final product.

But down the line, there will be many more operating costs. Better hosting services will be required that could rapidly scale into the thousands of dollars if we have a “hit web product” from one of our inside projects. New equipment will be in order. Every employee will require a desktop and a laptop to be productive, likely a smartphone as well. Cameras for both photos and video, audio equipment, printing equipment. If we’re going to embrace the future that is a truly multimedia world—where it is so ingrained that using the “multi” becomes irrelevant—then I intend to provide my creatives with a world class production environment to get the job done.

11. Do you provide health insurance for yourself and/or your employees? Why or why not?

This is on the plate once the LLC is set up. Unfortunately I am not well read on this area and must concede that any answer I could give wouldn’t be worth the words to say it. I can say, this is an important topic, and the Objectivist in me says that I’d rather seek methods to educate and assist employees in finding their own plans, leave the choices with them. I also believe in paying people what they are truly worth and only the best talent will survive in our company, so the salaries we pay will cover the expense of healthcare adequately. And I define adequately as health care I am personally willing to use.

12. How do you deal with the paperwork and tax issues? Are there any tax advantages in owning a small business? If so, what are they?

H&R Block. At this point, that’s all I need, but again that changes when the LLC comes in to play. The plan is to have a lawyer and account on retainer. Expensive, but a cost that inherently must be part of any business that is planning to succeed.

13. If you could go back in time, what would you do differently?

I would have believed in my abilities from the beginning. I have been involved in self-organized groups since the age of 15 when I first connected to the internet. I’ve been training and educating myself for this position all my life…but there is always something new to learn. I tend to let that manifest as self doubt. The best thing I have learned in the last two years is that I don’t have to know it all myself. I only need to make sure I surround myself with people who can fill in the blanks as expertly as I know my own skill set.

14. What is the most important advice you would offer a young entrepreneur?

Understand what money really is. It represents your hard work. It is the representation of time well spent, time spent intelligently, time not squandered. But remember that it is only a representation. The true value is in what you create. Money just allows me to civilly trade the motive power of my will and ability for the motive power of your will and ability.

In our (mostly) free market remember that you do not determine the value of your product—your customer does. Always sell it for more than it costs but not more than it is worth. This is a basic concept that is often overlooked. Determine how much it costs to produce your product—all costs, so that means shipping, inventory and storage, manufacturing, logistics, human resources and the list goes on. Then set the price so you’re not losing money on your product. If that price is above what the product is truly worth, then you need to go back to the drawing board to cut costs and increase value.

Go big or go home. Never accept mediocrity when you know you are capable of producing better work.

15. Have you set-up a retirement savings plan? If not, do you plan on starting one at some juncture? Do small businesses receive incentives or tax breaks?

I have a high-yield personal savings account (still 5%!) and intend to start putting money away into index funds in the near future. I choose index funds for their ability to closely follow the market as a whole. While the economy is in a downturn, I am willing to hedge my bets on the lot of us being able to continue to create and innovate for a long time to come. The market averages an 11% increase year to year and has remained reliable since the beginning. What goes down, must come up eventually in this case.

Once the LLC is running, I feel that a similar approach as I would take with health care is appropriate. Passing along education as to how to use money is more valuable than putting it in a sub-par investment vehicle for an employee.