Tap My Mind

RTLB #2: I'm No More Important Than You Are

sisaacs — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 22:51:37 GMT

This is the second in my "Rules to Live By" series. Like every other professional, in every other field, over the years I've picked up a lot of things that make my life easier, or better, both professionally and personally. Most of these things can be summarized in a sentence or two, and I've decided to call them "Rules to Live By". As much as any other reason, they are here to remind myself of things that I've decided to believe in, even if I don't feel like it one day.

RTLB #2: I'm No More Important Than You Are

Regardless of rank, position or title, my life is no more important than yours. You are just as much a person as I am. My concerns are no more important to me than your concerns are to you.

Sometimes this is a really tough pill to swallow. It's easy to minimize someone else's accomplishments, fears and struggles in comparison to my own, especially if those fears and struggles of yours are causing you to act in a way I don't appreciate. Recognizing that you might be facing issues of your own has really helped me remember that people aren't intentionally mean-spirited. I know that when I am stressed by something that it can cause me to act in a way I wouldn't normally act, and other people are no different.

Let me take it a step further now. My concerns should be no more important to me than your concerns are to me. What does this mean? Does it mean I need to solve your problems or be concerned with everything that concerns you?

The short answer: yes.

The slightly longer answer is, well, slightly longer. Obviously no single human can take on the cares of the world, or even the cares of their small subset of the world. But I need to be willing to do whatever I can do for each individual in my life.

I've gotten to the point where it is almost (almost) second nature for me to recognize that you are just as important as I am in the grand scope of the entire universe. It's gotten pretty easy for me to see how your concerns are as important to you as mine are to me, but I have to confess that I struggle every day to concern myself with your issues.

How can I put that much energy into someone else? Why should I bother? Sure, I want to be a nice guy to my family (parents, sister, in-laws, etc.) and friends, but I have my own little family (wife and kids) to take care of, and more than my fair share of struggles. Surely you don't expect me to take on the cares of everyone I meet. Why would I do that?

Call it a spiritual principle, karma, a law of the universe, or whatever you wish, but I've found that my life is better when I put this into practice.

When I hold the door for the man coming up behind me; when I stop what I'm doing to help a mother with her arms full of infant, toddler, shopping bags and whatever else mothers carry; when I help my 87-year-old grandfather up from his chair or down the steps; when I listen to some spill their guts on how someone else has hurt them; when I stop what I am doing to help a coworker through a difficult problem; or when I give a McDonald's bag to the homeless guy on the corner of Market and 2nd Street there always seems to be a reward. Maybe my problems get smaller, or some even go away altogether. Maybe someone unexpectedly does something for me. Or maybe I just feel like a made a little difference to someone for a while.

So, my own personal goal is to, whenever feasible, do what I can for other people. I certainly don't always want to, but I know I will later regret it if I don't, because I am no more important than you are.

Family Pictures

sisaacs — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:22:56 GMT

Tomorrow we are having family pictures of sorts. Actually, we are having an ultrasound. Hopefully by mid-morning we'll know if our next child will be a boy or girl. Hopefully we will have full cooperation.

UPDATE: It looks like we will be having another daughter. Due to a mix up with scheduling, though, we will get another chance to take a peek in a couple weeks. Hopefully the ultrasound tech will get a clearer view then and not have to make her "best guess".

Finding Passion

sisaacs — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 04:29:17 GMT

Passion is elusive. It's sneaky and slippery. It hides and taunts you. For those lucky enough to have found it, you are truly fortunate. For years now, I've been looking for something to be passionate about. Something I could really devote myself to. Something I would be willing to do even if I wasn't being paid.

All this time, I've been looking in the wrong place. I've been hunting passion at work; that's not where it is. I've tried devoting myself to the job, making sacrifices and working hard, but I always felt like something was missing. It's been such a struggle for me that I've seriously been thinking about finding a new career. The problem is that I just don't know what else to do.

As it turns out, the passion has been just off to the side, right in plain view, but not where I was looking. I've always enjoyed working with the WI .NET Users Group and wished that I could do it for a living somehow. Now while working on GiveCamp MKE, I think I've found the passion I've been looking for. There's something about organizing something with the sole purpose of benefiting someone else that satisfies me.

The really cool thing, though, is that once you find passion, you can take it with you where ever you go. I can now feel passionate about work as well (working at a great company helps by the way). Things are different all around once you've found passion.

If you are feeling unmotivated and complacent, keep looking. Passion is there -- just maybe not where you think it should be. Maybe in a few months I'll have to write about Maintaining Passion? Let's see how successful I can be at that.

RTLB #1: Always Assume Good Intentions

sisaacs — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:53:42 GMT

"Rules to Live By" (RTLB) is a new series that I will occasionally be writing here on my blog. Like every other professional, in every other field, over the years I've picked up a lot of things that make my life easier, both professionally and personally. Most of these things can be summarized in a sentence or two, and I've decided to call them Rules to Live By (original, I know). As much as any other reason, they are here to remind myself of things that I've decided to believe in, even if I don't feel like it one day.

Without further ado, I present RTLB #1:

Always assume good intentions.

This one is not always easy, but I've found myself doing this for many years, and it has become second nature. If I find myself in the situation where someone says or does something that could be offensive in some way, I stop and think, "They didn't mean it the way it came out."

Most people aren't intentionally mean-spirited. Sure, some people are just rude, arrogant, selfish morons, but that is rare. It is unlikely that they meant to offend me with that comment or action. There is almost definitely some circumstance I am not aware of that is causing this. Almost always it is a miscommunication somewhere along the way, on my end or theirs, or both.

Yes, sometimes it's my own fault.

Realizing this, it helps keep me from getting unnecessarily angry and reacting in a way that makes things worse, or from sitting and grumbling silently to myself or peers. Staying calm and humble by assuming the problem is very possibly my own fault, I can often approach the person and work through whatever issues there are, and in the end, we are all happy.

So there you have it, Rule to Live By #1. I welcome any comments or feedback. If you have your own rules to live by, I'd love to hear about them.

Curly Brace Placement

sisaacs — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:35:44 GMT

I've been writing code with curly braces for a dozen years or so, starting with C++ in college, then JavaScript for many, many years, and for the last few years, C#. In all that time, I have been a fan of putting the opening curly brace on the same line as the declaration or control statement. For example:

private void DoSomething() {
    // ...
    if (somecondition) {
        myval = true;
    }
    // ...
}

At work, though, I have been working on someone else's code, and I always try as much as possible change my coding style to match the existing code. In this case, that means opening curly braces get their own line, like so:

private void DoSomething() 
{
    // ...
    if (somecondition) 
    {
        myval = true;
    }
    // ...
}

I find that I'm actually starting to prefer the "new line" option. But I don't want to prefer it! I guess maybe I'm stubborn.

I agree that it is easier to visually match opening and closing braces this way, but VS2008 does that for me anyway with clever highlighting. Also, I don't like how much extra room is taken in my editor window. I like whitespace, but this seems to put it in the wrong place for me.

Sigh. What's a poor developer to do?

What's your preference and why?

GiveCamp MKE

sisaacs — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 04:51:59 GMT

I'm very excited to announce that we are planning the first ever GiveCamp in the Milwaukee area: GiveCamp MKE. In fact, it's one of the first GiveCamps anywhere.

"What's a GiveCamp?", you ask. In short, it is an opportunity for developers, designers, DBAs, project managers and anyone else involved in the software development process to give back to the community. And we do it by doing what we know how to do best -- building software. We will soon be accepting applications from various charities for software that they need. It could be anything from a website to a data collection app to a mailing list manager or anything else. For more information about the whole GiveCamp concept, and to see what other communities have had (or are planning) GiveCamps, please visit the official GiveCamp site.

We've been putting a lot of time into this over the last couple weeks, but we're still not quite there. Please bear with us as we continue to finalize things, including the website itself as well as more info about the GiveCamp MKE event. Rest assured that we will be making regular updates to the GiveCamp MKE site, so please check it often or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you don't miss anything. I'm sure I will also post major updates here as well.

I am very excited about this, and how things are shaping up. Remember that conference call I wrote about a couple weeks ago? That was about this. I just wish I could put all of the things I want to say into words tonight before I fall asleep, but that might take me a couple hours. :) So keep checking back here and at the GiveCamp MKE site, and I'll eventually get it all out there.

If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to let me know, or to use the contact form on the GiveCamp MKE site.

Four Eyes

sisaacs — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:59:25 GMT

I'm wearing glasses now and I don't know how I feel about that. I have nothing against glasses. In fact, I prefer when my wife wears her glasses over her contacts. I just don't know how I feel about having them on my own face.

I only need to wear them, for the most part, when I'm working (close range, eye strain, etc.).

Sigh.

I should make sure I keep that roll of masking tape nearby, just in case...

I Am Excited About... A Conference Call?

sisaacs — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:07:11 GMT

For the first time since -- ummm -- since ever, I am looking forward to an upcoming conference call. And I'm really looking forward to it. I don't want to say too much, yet, because I want to get some very basic details ironed out first, but I will say that it is about a special project we are working on for the WI .NET Users Group.

I've been thinking about this project for a few weeks now, and I've actually taken notes. If you have ever been with me to a meeting, that statement alone should let you know how serious I am about this. I am a terrible (appalling, horrendous, atrocious, apocalyptic) note taker, so much that I often don't even take a pen and paper with me because I will get more out of my memory of the meeting than from my notes. But I have notes for this. And they make sense!

So, if you work in technology in the Milwaukee area, keep an eye on my blog over the next couple weeks. If this call goes even half as good as I expect, I will be asking for your help!

Which Is Better?

sisaacs — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:34:42 GMT

I can't decide if I get more pleasure from solving a big problem, or from the process of breaking it into a series of smaller problems and solving each of them. Does anyone else ever think of stuff like this? Or is it just me?

Testing PreCode

sisaacs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:17:34 GMT

I'm using this post to test PreCode -- a code snippet formatting plugin for Windows Live Writer. It uses SyntaxHighlighter on the client side and this plugin just sends the needed code to my blog engine.

As a test I thought I'd just add a couple short snippets, using some of the different available options.

//C#, using PRE
bool b = true;

' VB, using TEXTAREA, "Showing Columns" Dim b as Boolean = True

' VB, using PRE, Starting at line #20
Dim i as Int32
i = 1
i += 3
MessageBox.Show(i)

Note that I may update this post several times while trying different options, or I may delete it altogether if I decide I don't want to bother with the plugin. (I think if I do delete it, it will be the only post I ever deleted.)

I would appreciate it if you would take a look at this post both in your RSS reader as well as on my website in your browser of choice and let me know what you think, my dear guinea pigs.

Working From Home

sisaacs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 03:50:49 GMT

As part of my new job, I will be working from home one day per week. Now that I've been there for a couple weeks, my first work from home day will be tomorrow.

Over the next several weeks, I'll be trying to make improvements to my home office, including deciding which room to use. We built a den/office in the house, but I'm thinking it might not be ideal. It's in the main area of the house, and the doors have windows, making it very easy for Charlize to see Daddy and want to come visit. So the current thought is to setup a small work area in the spare bedroom, which is in the back part of the house. It has a heavy, solid core door, which is typically closed throughout the day anyway. So Charlie will probably never know that I am even in there. For tomorrow, though, I'll probably be in "my chair" in the living room. Charlie and Mommy will be over at Grandma's house for most of the day.

In the past I've worked from home a day or two here and there, but never on a scheduled, regular basis. If any of you work from home, I welcome your suggestions.

Beginner's Luck

sisaacs — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 01:04:16 GMT

Last night my in-laws came over to visit for a while and we decided to play Yahtzee. Of course, Charlie was immediately interested in the dice and the cup, so we let her have a turn rolling. In one turn (three rolls) she had rolled a Yahtzee (five 6s)! On her next turn she rolled four 5s in a single roll! She had a number of other high-point rolls throughout the night (in between playing with a jar of ink pens, some blocks and Little People), but I think the best part for her was when we would all cheer when she rolled something good. And that seemed to happen a lot.

Beginner's luck?

Work Soundtrack

sisaacs — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:18:58 GMT

This happens to me on a regular basis -- probably every other month or so. I get tired of the music I have on my iPod. So I'm looking for suggestions. What music helps you get your job done? Sometimes I need something nice and mellow to get myself into the right frame of mind, and sometimes I need something I can turn the volume up to drown out the background noise. Sometimes vocals are good, sometimes they are distracting. Unfortunately, streaming sites don't work from the office, so things like Pandora are out. Looking forward to your suggestions.

TimeSnapper

sisaacs — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 19:44:17 GMT

I've been using the free version of TimeSnapper off and on for some time now, but pretty regularly over the last few weeks since I started my new job. I'm doing billable work again, and am notoriously bad at getting my time entered. TimeSnapper helps by taking screenshots at some interval throughout the day and allowing me to play them back like a movie.

I've been thinking about getting the Pro version for a couple weeks because there are a few more features that could be helpful. It's an inexpensive program at about $40 (USD), but I just hadn't pulled the trigger and bought it. Then today on Twitter I saw that it was on sale. It was actually on sale for $20. Since I was on the fence at $40, I couldn't pass it up at $20.

If you are like me and have a hard time keeping track of what you worked on, I highly recommend you check it out. I still haven't taken advantage of the Pro features, but even the free functionality is worth $20.

Blog Recategorization

sisaacs — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 05:05:37 GMT

As I mentioned earlier, I was bored tonight. Rather than visiting MySpace I decided to do a little work on the categories I use in my blog. I didn't remove any categories, but I did add a few. As of right now, all of my posts are tagged as either Personal, Professional or both. I don't have any hard fast rules for how I'm going to apply these, but here is the gist of it. If it's something my wife, parents, other family or non-techie friends may want to know, it's Personal. If it's something I want to share with coworkers, colleagues, community, or pretty much anyone else, it's Professional.

So, if by chance you prefer to subscribe to a filtered feed you can use one of the following RSS feeds:

Of course, you can still subscribe to the full feed.

So there you go. A somewhat-almost-semi-productive use of the last 2 hours.