Lead us not into temptation

So this is my first real attempt at photography at night (althought it is the second exposure). I took it on the way in to work at around 5:45am in the morning. It was all light up, and was the only thing that had activity. So I parked, pulled out the tripod and the camera, set up the camera, and the cable release, and set the apeture at f8 and set the shutter speed to "B" bulb. I held the shutter open for a count of twelve.

I titled this photo "Lead us not into temptation" . Mostly for comedic affect. As you all know, I am allergic to wheat, so doughnuts are double trouble for me.

  

Train Song

So there is one song that I keep listening to over and over again on the train ride into work.  It makes me think of all of the things I see each day and want to share with my Beautiful Wife but cant', because I can't describe what I see well enough to paint the mental picture, or life gets in the way and makes me forget. 

3X5 by John Mayer

I'm writing you to
Catch you up on places I've been
You held this letter
Probably got excited, but there's nothing else inside it

Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm
In the mood to lose my way with words

Today skies are painted colors of a cowboy's cliche'
And strange how clouds that look like mountains in the sky
Are next to mountains anyway

Didn't have a camera by my side this time
Hoping I would see the world with both my eyes
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way
But let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
Just no more 3x5's

Guess you had to be there
Guess you had to be with me

Today I finally overcame
Tryin' to fit the world inside a picture frame
Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to
Lose my way but let me say

You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes
It brought me back to life
You'll be with me next time I go outside
No more 3x5's
Just no more 3x5's

New lyrics to an old song

Tonight we decided that we would have Jamba Juice for dinner. Of course it's never simple to get where you are going around the holidays. That being said, our local Jamba Juice is right next to the Mall. So I don't have to tell you how bad it was...but I will. Basically it took 20 minutes to drive a 1/4 mile. So between the traffic and the bad christmas music being played at levels generally reserved for arena rock concerts, I came up with some new word to an old song.  So please read the lyrics while humming the song "Let it Snow".

While the Traffic outside is frightful
And the drivers in the parking lot seem so spiteful
So if we've no place to go
lets stay home
lets stay home
lets stay home

The Little Boy goes for a joy ride

This post is written mostly by my Beautiful Wife. I have only changed the names to protect the guilty.

Here is her Tale:

 This morning The Little Boy (Are we really sure he is just 4 years old) put on his "superhero" shirt and said he was going to go see stepbrother. He put the leash on Max the Wonder Puppy, took the car keys down from the hook by the door and went outside to the car. He put Max the Wonder Puppy in the back seat, took his carseat, placed it in the drivers seat, pushed the button and moved the chair forward to the steering wheel.

 Released the emergency brake and put the keys in the ignigtion. He then started the car....

I had been watching from the door never in a million years thinking he had the process down to this extent. When he started the car I went out and dragged his screamming and kicking body, along with Max the Wonder Puppy back in the house.
I am now getting my clothes on and am going to take them to go for a hike and a long talk about how some things are just for grownups.

As I was explaining that he couldnt drive the car becasue it wasnt safe for him, HE explained to ME that, "I honk the horn at people. Its okay, seee." I think the trouble is going to come in convincing him that he isnt big enough to do it and after him going through the process of starting the car, Im not really sure he couldn't be a better driver than most of the people out there on the road.

1 year and counting

Wow, It passed by yesterday and I didn't even realize it. Yesterday was this blogs 1 year anniversary. I can't believe that I've been ranting online for a year now. I remember I just started this as a sounding board. I started it really simple.  Of course I've gone a little further of that. I think I've kept pretty true to the the description. "Rantings and Ravings on Technology, Geekdom, Music, Life and some other stuff. Of course that is a little vague. :-)

What Classic Movie are you?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

CruiseControl for .NET

Joe Field has written a great article on setting up CruiseControl.NET from Scratch.

Oh, I forgot, here is the SourceForge.net link to CruiseControl.NET, as the link in the article times out before it'll open

Homemade iPod ad

I thought that this was very interesting. George Masters has created his own version of an iPod commercial. There is a great article about this on wired. In short, he has created a great 60 second commercial that is up to the apple standard. If you ask me they should hire him straight away.

Dad's new project

This weekend, I got to help Dad on his new project. He got a 2001 Triumph Daytona 955i. It's a really nice bike. It does have a couple of issues, like it needs front forks. Truth betold, that just isn't that big a deal. after converting a dirt bike in to a quad, restoring this bike just isn't going to be any problem. We decided to document the bikes transformation. Check it out

3 Years

Well today is December 10th, which means that I've been at my job officially for three years. It's amazing how fast the time has gone. The good news is, I stilll feel like I have I have a lot to add and I can facilitate change. Which is a pretty big thing, I mean, for the most part I feel like I am still learning and growing.

High Tech Cat

As you can see Rufus is a high tech cat. He traded in his sqeeky mouse for a computer mouse (Optical of course, cause you can't clean a regular mouse out when you don't have thumbs). And like most of us, he rests his head on the keyboard when he is frustrated with the computer, or trying to figure out the best way to get to the next level in Star Wars: Republic Commando. 

User Centered Application Testing

Application testing has been a big part of my workload lately. One application we use internally creates these very old and very propietary file formats that are downloaded into these very old propietary application. Well lately it has been having "issues". Under certain situations the file created has spaces in it. Well of course the propietary system throws a hissy fit everytime that it encounters a space.  Of course whenever the system has one of these little fits we have to fix it and figure out what happened. Now I am also doing Information Architecture for a design. Having these two things on the brain at the same time, it hit me all of the sudden if I create a user profiles for my Information Architecture, why not create user profiles form my applications, especially for my testing.

So lets say this application is for a loan. Well there several ways to fill out a loan application. So I create 5 to 10 user profiles ranging from a young adult to a retired couple.  Then I create an xml file with all values that my application has, and fill it out according to which user profile I am working on. Then I load the values in to memory and test from there. While this isn't completely worked out in my head I thought I would jot down the theory behind the idea.

 

On Another Subject

Okay, so the skater punk of my youth, thinks that these two clips of Danny Way jumping the 75' gap is just amazing. If he was in the air any longer it would require a pilot's license.  Clip1 Clip2 

Warning: Kids don't try this at home. Because even if you do figure out a way of building the ramps and are able to pull off the jump, your little brother will tell the neighbor kid, and he will tell his Mom and his Mom will tell your Mom and your Mom will be standing in the middle of the ramp with her arms crossed giving you that, I am really disappointed in you/I am so mad at you right now/wait till your father gets home look. And we all know that look means "grounded for life!"

User Centered Design

Tonight I am doing a little research on User Centered Design. User Centered Design goes hand and hand with Usability and Information Architecture. Here are some links that explain the advantages much better than I can.

• User-Centered Design and Web Development
• INTERFACE DESIGN: User-centered design
• Usable Web
• IBM Ease of Use - User -Centered Design

It happens to all of us

When you work with clients, be it internal clients in your company or doing freelance work and have clients that are not as educated as one would hope, we all run into these little communication issues. These little issues usually are amazingly frustrating. So here is a site dedicated to them. clientcopia

Information Architecture

In implementing any good website you need to layout the information in a logically format and flow. This is called "Information Architecture". Truth betold this is just as important to how useful and usable your website as the design. Now I know that some designers out there would disagree with me, but if the navigation doesn't make sense, people aren't going to stay at your site for very long.  However there isn't nearly as many online articles on IA as there are for making those apple-like gel buttons in photoshop. So here is a list of some articles that I find useful.

• Information Architecture Tutoral
• Information Architecture for Everyone
• Visual Vocabulary for Information Architecture
• Information Architecture Resources

Marketing at a Whole new level

So Amazon is trying something new. The gimick is a cute short film that has a good message to it. Of course in the film are carefully placed products. At the end of the film those products are listed as cast members, and on the page below are links to those items. I'm not sure whether this is brilliant or evil. Check it out

a Secret Passion

So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Something that till now, only my Beautiful Wife and close friends and family members knew. Are your ready? Okay, here goes, I love infomercials. I know, I know, how in the world could I like them, right? Well, I do, I don't know why, I just do. My new favorite is the Magic Bullet. The whole idea, that people would invite you to a party, and show you how they prepared all the food for the party with this little magic machine is brillant. Of course there is no way in real life that anything like that would happen. Which is probably why I like it so much.

Of course I can't leave out the inventor of the informercial, Ron Popeil. You have to has some respect for the man that invented hair in a can and the pocket fisherman. His latest and greatest is the new "Showtime Pro". And of course it is all very affordable with only eight easy payments of $31.95. I don't know why, but I simply love that. The fact that it's marketing that is just right out there. It isn't trying to connect with you emotionaly, just here's the product, this is what it does, and oh yeah it pretty affordable.  Ron, always comes up with the best little tag lines. "Set it and forget it." You can just say it, and people will say "oh, you have a Showtime Rotisserie Oven too!"

Now what really makes informercials the best, is the "if you call with in the next 20 minutes" call to action. This is where they think they have you hooked and, BAM, they hit you with the free ginsu knifes and the solid flavor injector, a 59.99 value, absolutely free! And if that isn't enough, they will even reduce the payments by one. You have to love this, they know that everyone wants something for nothing, and that is just what they are playing too.

So by now you are thinking that my house is filled with products "AS Seen on TV". But, no not so much. You see, they are all what we call in my house "turniptwatelors". And you don't actually buy them, you just sit back and enjoy them through the magic of television.

Everyone is a designer

Have you ever notice that everyone thinks they are a designer? Honestly, everyone does. This has always been the case and it seems to be getting worse. When I did graphic design, every customer thought they could design. My first taste of this was the first business card I designed. It followed all the good design rules, no element was to large to detract from the other elements. At a glance, you would know the companies name, their telephone number and who you were dealing with. It had a design that drew your eye from the top left corner to the bottom right. Of course the customer wanted their logo that they had designed themselves (which of course took four hours of clean up to make usable) to be bigger and the phone number to be smaller, and really completely threw off the balance completely. They were thrilled with this version and I hated. But I had bills to pay and had to eat, so they were right. It didn't matter to them that my design made them more memorable and less like everyone business card.

Flash forward a couple of years, it's the dotcom boom, and I am working at one of the big music websites. One of the sites I was responsible for was the an DC site. It featured clips from the past AB shows, and audio clips of the songs that were DC's number one for the weekly top 40. The site had a black background, a header, navigation on the left side, and content in the middle. just like almost every site on the internet.  Anyhow, we get a call from DC's lawyers, and they tell us that there needs to be a clear division between the navigation and the content. Now, the site had been up for awhile, it was very user friendly. They just somehow thought that for "legal" reasons, it needed to be their. So I said apparently this was something they taught at the Harvard School of Law and Design.

Flash forward to today. I find out from my boss, that someone that hasn't studied design, usability, trends in the industry has made more design decisions for us. I already feel that the usability of the design has been choked, with my only relief from that feeling being that we will get to redesign it. Adjust the architecture to fit the growth that we need.  I just don't know what to think. The whole corporate status quo thing just doesn't work for me. I like new designs. I like new projects. I like learning new things. Working on leading edge technology. Don't get me wrong, I do understand the difference between bleeding edge and leading edge. I guess I'm just a frustrated designer, frustrated by people that think art is a waste of time, and are willing to tell me what is a good design, when I have spent so much time studying design.

Quote of the Week

This weekend we spend some time with my Beautiful Wife's Family. The Quote of the week if from Joe. He is my Wife's Niece's father inlaw. The context was he was talking with a younger family member that just had his baby born the day before. <quote src="Joe">Remember, accidents cause people!</quote>