Andrew's Rants

Looks like the cat's out of the bag

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:14:32 GMT

Yes, the rumours are true.

As my soon-to-be-new boss, Roger Lawrence, has just announced tonight, I've accepted an offer to come on board the Australian DPE team at Microsoft as the Academic Developer Evangelist. I see this as a culmination of the past 7 or 8 years of my career and various activities, each one in turn seeming to push me further and further in the direction of dedicating myself to the task of enthusing students and the groups of people who look after them about technology.

I'm really looking forward to meeting lots of students, teachers and faculty members and talking about computing technology and can't quite believe it's only about 10 days before I officially start with the team. I'd like to take a moment to call out the guys I've worked with at Readify for being the best bunch of dev's, guru's, techheads, geeks that I've had the pleasure of being alongside of. Don't worry guys - you haven't heard the last from me by a long shot.

Oh, and for all my fellow student teachers at UNE - yes, I'll still be studying with you. :)

My role as Academic Developer Evangelist covers all of the Microsoft technologies, from the languages such as C# and VB and the tools to use them such as Visual Studio (including the free Express range - how cool is that? Free powerful developer tools - and that's only the start!), databases such as the soon to be released SQL Server 2008, design tools like Expression Design, and the really cool stuff like Popfly, XNA Game Studio Express, Microsoft Robotics Studio, Photosynth and the whole Live space including Live Mesh (have you checked that out yet? You can keep your data online and accessible from wherever you are. And that's just software - then there are all the programs and events like Imagine Cup, Student Day and so on... awesome.

I don't think I've thought or said the word "cool" as much as I have in the last 12 months or so with so many of these technologies coming out. And I get to travel the country to talk to universities, schools and students themselves about all of this and more - showing them that technology isn't simply a commodity to use, but something that can really change the way you approach today's world.

COOL!

There's a huge amount of work for me to do, and I can't wait to get started!

Congratulations Team SOAK!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:26:09 GMT

Imagine Cup is an awesome competition run by Microsoft, and open to university students world wide. Every year, students can enter one of half a dozen or more categories to show how they can innovate on a theme. This year, the company I work for - Readify - sponsored the Australian arm of Imagine Cup, promising internships to the top three teams in the Software Development and Design category.

It turned out that one of the finalists already worked for us, so we had to bow out of the judging of the local comp so that there was no bias, but despite that, Team SOAK, the team with the Readifian, won the Australian competition and headed to France.

The news has just come in - and I mean, JUST - the announcement was made 10 minutes ago in Paris and it was twittered immediately by multiple people - that Team SOAK has won the worldwide competition, beating out some stiff opposition from all corners of the globe.

And not only did they win their category - which is quite simply, an AWESOME achievement - but they also won the Innovation Accelerator award which sends them to the US for a two week business training trip to capitalise on their amazing creation.

Team SOAK built a system that monitors and maintains water usage for farmers and has garnered immense interest from government, non-profit organisations and farmers all over the country, and it's such a pleasure to know the four keen, young and bright minds who came up with the concept and were able to push it through to such an awesome world stage.

All accounts from Paris say that their presentation got better in every round, and they won the hearts and minds of their competitors and other attendees at the big student gathering.

Way to go Team SOAK - you did an amazing job and you deserve to have the congratulations.

You know - it's amazing to think that half the world away you can get such immediate information. Thanks to @Rog42, @DavidBurela and @longzheng for keeping us all up to date with what was going on in Paris.

[edit]

An official link to the winners list for all categories:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/jul08/07-08ICWINNERSPR.mspx

Hmm, I feel like I just wasted some time...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:31:00 GMT

I stumbled on an article posted last week that talked about the top ten technologies that would be in place by 2013, and the top five technologies that would be gone by the same time. "Wow!" I thought, "I love these kinds of articles, they really stretch the mind and make you wonder what's possible!" So off I went and spent the next 15 minutes reading a multi-page article that seems to regurgitate information from a number of other sources, many of which themselves highlight stuff that's already in place, and those that don't are "finger in the air" kind of statements.

If you want to see the article, here's the link: The Digital Home of 2013

Now, a quick summary of what I think of the author's points (including direct links to each page):

High-speed telecommunications
I'm not so sure about this one - we could be even better off than what he's saying here... oh, hang on, let me rephrase. The US could be even better off - Australia's probably not. :)
It's an HD world
Yep, it is. Already.
Gaming gets real
What's wrong with Metal Gear Solid 4? I don't really get his point, and he seemed to just take a cheap shot at gamers for no reason. In fact, if anything, he's hurting his own point in doing so.
Reach out and touch something
Yes, I'll pay this one.
Automated home control
Yeah, ok. It's been a long time coming, but this one is probably true.
Green goes mainstream
Huge discussions already going on, and the public knows it too - why else would GE report such huge increases in sales.
Welcome to the cloud
Google Docs has already been going on for a while, Microsoft's Live Mesh is now upon us, and other various bits and pieces are here. Don't need to wait another five years thanks.
The rise of streaming media
This is growing every year, and it takes very little thought to throw this in to a list such as this one.
Online distribution of TV, movies
By his own admission, this is already happening. As in, now. But further to that, it's just a sub-point of point 8.
Collaborating across town, and across the world
Dunno about him, but I already work in a company that depends on this. Now. Again, already happening. And using Photoshop Express as an example of good collaborative software? Please!

And the five destined to die technologies:

Blu-ray - huh? I don't know about that. His argument is kind of the same as saying CDs won't take off because of the truckloads of cassettes (or vinyl) out there - oh...snap. With HD comes consumables capable of storing HD. I can already dump an hour of video off my $200 handycam and have it nowhere near small enough to fit on a DVD. If I had an affordable Blu-ray burner and consumables, I'd be on it.
Desktop PCs - Yeah, but I don't see a huge difference between the way most people use laptops and desktops, and I would have liked the author to actually state reasons for why this might happen as opposed to saying it's based on sales (although that would require actual prediction rather than following existing stats).
Slow mobile networks - well, duh. If we're talking WiMAX and 4G in Point 1, then it's a no-brainer to say the corollary.
Locally stored files - I disagree with this, although I suspect that people like Mitch are going to disagree with me in turn. :) What's the benefit of having your data up on the web? If you're a traveller then sure, maybe. But for the average home (which this article is supposed to be talking about), I see it as unlikely. Most people will prefer to keep a hold of their data where they can get to it easily, and regardless of how quick your internet access is, it's still slower than a local network.
Desktop Operating Systems - I don't get how this can work. What does the browser run on?

*sigh* How about some imagination!? Some creativity!? Maybe even some magic!? Pretty much everything mentioned is either already upon us or will likely be realised in only a year or two - not five. How about for the home:

In-built video conferencing in your TV so you can video chat to your relatives overseas (through your gaming console of choice)
Live collaborative video editing so you can dump the video of your child's soccer game on the laptop, and have your wife help you edit it from home.
Pet management tools. Feeding, yard care, health monitoring for conditions such as worms, ticks, etc.
Health monitoring for your family. Warning signs for the elderly or the infant. Blood pressure monitoring for the highly stressed worker. Automatically dispensing appropriate medication as part of your daily diet.
Community Grid Computing and Community Networks. that somehow shares the load of water/electricity/gas consumption. Also, maybe better Neighbourhood Watch that keeps the streets a little bit safer.
GPS-everything with more up to date maps and intelligent software that reroutes based on traffic, weather, important dates in your life, etc. Imagine, you're creating a route to go pick up that amazing tri-level snooker table you picked up for a steal on eBay and the device pops up that it's also your wedding anniversary and along the way is a place that stocks that brand of handbag your wife loves, so provides an additional routing to incorporate that if you choose to. And then, while you're out - the Home Automation system kicks in, transmits to your GPS that you're out of dog food and the GPS pops up a suggested diversion to get it from a pet shop that's in the vicinity, and promises to get you home on time because it's found a better path around the peak hour traffic.
Integrated kitchen technology. Have the freezer automatically deliver the frozen meal to your microwave, have the microwave cook it to the right level by reading the info off the pack and then deliver it to your serving area. Oh, and have it initiated remotely, so when you're 10 minutes from home you can kick it off and have it ready when you walk in the door.

Sure, OK... none of these things may happen, but wouldn't it be kinda cool if they did?

I'm tired... this will probably look completely wrong in the morning... :)

Does Twitter change the way I communicate? "News versus Features"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:32:52 GMT

Without a doubt, yes. And whether it's Twitter, Plurk, FriendFeed or some other derivative branch off the same trunk, I think it's hard not to be affected by its inclusion in your communications with people.

A little over a week ago I posted a couple of blog entries I'd been thinking about for a little while. They were just opinion piece/rant kind of things, the sort of stuff that personal blogs are made of. If you're interested in me, you might come and read my blog and get something out of it. If you're not, you're not.

Around the same time, my daughter did extremely well in her latest gymnastics competition. In fact, she came second overall at a prestigious invitational, with a first in one of the individual events, and a second in the other two individuals. For Glenda's (my wife) benefit - I was (and still am) completely 110% proud and impressed that she did so well. She's been working hard, training many hours every week and she finally got a pay off and I am incredibly happy for her (there's nothing like that feeling of joy knowing your child is happy for something they did well).

But I digress.

The point I was going to make was that Glenda pointed out that I hadn't blogged about my daughter doing extremely well. She had a point - I hadn't. Twelve months ago, I'm pretty sure I would have, but at this point I didn't. Why not? I think it was the fact that as soon as I knew she'd done well, I'd tweeted about it. I then followed this up with a second tweet with more details and then a little bit later with a twitpic of her holding her medal and ribbons.

In this instance, I see Twitter as kind of like my personal news service, delivering up to the minute news about what's happening in my life, while the blog is more like the magazine you might read on the weekend. To me, it was important to shout to the world (or at least those in the world that show an interest in what I'm doing) that I was proud of my little girl and the fastest way to get the news out was to tweet it. And once the news was out, the pressure wasn't there to write up a blog post about it. After all, most of the people who read my blog regularly also read my Twitter feed. They already knew how I felt about her - I even got some very quick "congrats!" tweets back at me.

Nice.

So, do I need to blog about that circumstance? I don't think I do any more. It's news, not a feature article.

A feature article would be me talking about my daughter's long suffering commitment to training in all types of gymnastics, the multiple days a week she goes to practice and training, the many competitions she has attended. It would talk about how proud I am to be her dad, how it makes me feel all mushy inside when I see her beaming after doing well, and taking it stoically when she doesn't; how it breaks my heart when her legs are cramping up when she's trying to get to sleep because she's pushed herself a little bit too hard.

Every time I see my daughter, my heart lifts a little (or sometimes, a lot!). She is definitely a gift from God for me. In her words, I love her a million love hearts. In mine, I love her even more than that.

...

Oh, and my son is pretty darned cool too, you know. I don't get to talk about him as much because he doesn't do all the flash, but AndyPuppyJnr is an awesome young man - maturing all the time and just being Mr Awesome. He's loving and caring and loves to be around me and Glenda and his sister. I give him a tougher time than I should, for which I am truly sorry because I love him very much and am so glad that he's like me in so many ways.

Oh, and to keep my wife happy - AndyPuppyJnr, you rock for doing so well in your Gold Rush assignment! 95%? Fantastic, little buddy!

---

So if you're interested in the more "newsy" side of things - check out my twitter feed - http://www.twitter.com/mrandypuppy. Otherwise, feel free to stay tuned here - just realise you may not find out what I had for breakfast! ;)

What makes a great developer?

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:22:35 GMT

I was recently asked if I could provide an important trait that goes into the make up of a great developer. While there are obvious characteristics around knowing your technology and programming theory, and other such areas, but the one that came to mind immediately was this:

Be Humble

To be a successful developer you have to realise and recognise your own limitations and not impose yourself over the top of others, particularly in areas in which you may be weak. I'm not saying don't approach your work, customer, client, whatever with confidence, just don't approach it with arrogance. There's nothing quite like someone who thinks they know everything to stop people offering to help them, and in an area for business that's often quite critical, you need everyone pulling as a team.

I'm quite happy to say "I don't know', but I'm also prepared to say "but I'll try to find out" - which is often followed by the cry of "help!" with the people I work with.

Recognise what you don't know and be humble.

---

Some of the other guys who've been asked the question have already blogged their thoughts:

Andrew Coates - Be hungry for knowledge http://blogs.msdn.com/acoat/archive/2008/06/24/how-do-you-become-a-successful-developer.aspx

Craig Bailey - Practice! http://www.craigbailey.net/live/post/2008/06/Great-developers.aspx

[edit]

Just including some other great tips:

Bronwen - Love learning http://www.soulsolutions.com.au/Blog/tabid/73/EntryID/479/Default.aspx

Tatham - Learn through sharing http://blog.tatham.oddie.com.au/2008/06/25/tip-learn-through-sharing/

Why I like technology - part 15,345,234,123!

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 02:31:58 GMT

Technology is cool. Normally I'll get excited about the "big" stuff - Surface Computing, Silverlight, how sweet Uncharted Drake's Fortune looks in high def...

But the day to day stuff really rocks my socks as well. Case in point.

My favourite dance group back in the late 80's was an Aussie group called Boxcar. I had their first album on vinyl - and then later on got their other two on CD. Thing is, about 12-13 years ago, I lost the record. I was devastated because of the memories the songs evoked and while the remixes were still accessible through the CD, they just weren't the same - I wanted the original.

For years, I would check out music stores, and periodically trawl the web looking for their stuff. As the time went by however, I think my hope died too and I haven't looked around for that album for a year or so.

When talking to a friend on Friday, I mentioned my desire to still get this album if I could find it, and while it was fresh in my mind, I thought I'd do another web trawl.

And boy, am I thankful that I did.

First hit was pretty much a Wikipedia article on the band, which then linked in turn to other Wikipedia articles for their albums and external links to sites such as discogs and most impressively of all, to Boxcar's own site. This in turn revealed that they'd made a mini-comeback late last year and were now working on a new album. Their website actually cycles through all of their music, so I was able to hear a couple of favourites that I hadn't heard for a very long time.

This then gave me hope enough to check eBay out. And yes, someone was selling a copy of Vertigo! With a reasonable Buy It Now price and reasonable shipping. In less than 2 minutes, I had logged into eBay, clicked the buy button, navigated my way through PayPal to pay for it and received the confirmation that I had indeed purchased the CD. Then I noticed that the auction had been due to finish in only 5 minutes after I found it. If any part of that process had fallen over, I wouldn't have made it in time. But everything worked - Google, Wikipedia, Discogs, Boxcar's own site, eBay, PayPal...

Five years ago, the information wouldn't have been present on Wikipedia and even Boxcar's own site didn't exist. I might have lucked into an eBay auction, but I had been checking eBay semi-regularly, so maybe not. Internet access was slower, so getting to the finish point of buying the album might not have happened either (and I wouldn't have even known because finished auctions don't display by default).

I know it's small, and it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but it was a "cool!" moment for me on Friday when it happened, and here I am 3 days later still with a smile on my face when I think about it.

Technology empowers.

Getting picked on...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:53:52 GMT

I've always been a geek. This past week I've actually been thinking about geekiness and its acceptability (or lack thereof) in society, and how the every day person thinks about technology.

When I was a young lad, my owning "a computer" was seen as being the utmost in geekiness, an antisocial group of loners. Sure, I was too young at the time to be a black-clothed goth type of individual, and the computer - a Commodore Vic-20 - required the TV to actually be used so there was no hope of me hiding away in my room - but being a computer geek meant you were different and you got picked on.

I got picked on.

As time has progressed, computers became more mainstream and more accepted, and geeks were brought back into the fold - at least partially - of cool people. If you could handle yourself socially, you could fit in. Still, there were others out there who now felt threatened because they didn't understand how to work with computers - and guess what? You got picked on.

I got picked on.

At some point there was a sweet spot for computing technology. Prior to this, it wasn't mainstream and there were very few who understood the value and opportunity to be found in technology, let alone had a passion to make it really shine. After this sweet spot, it gets interesting.

First, the sweet spot. For a short period, computers were cool. People talked about them at parties. If you were a geek with the mystical powers of knowing how a computer worked, people asked you about it, they wanted you to show them your knowledge and skill. They wanted to "do" computers and media, movies and society all said "geeks are cool! Praise the geek!" It was a golden age where, when a threatened bully would try to pick on you, you had 90% of the room defending you. Yes, there was still "being picked on" but for this short time, you didn't face it alone.

When I look at technology today, I see that it's become a commodity, almost like the kettle or microwave. People use it because it's there. It makes their lives easier but they don't realise how much they rely on it or how much more they could get out of it if they only knew how. Enrolment numbers in IT-related courses continue to drop in universities, high school students are also following the trend and not opting for IT specific subjects.

Talking about technology to a typical group of people, gets you looks of "he's a crazy man" and "let's talk about the latest rugby game/TV show/weather" again. We're now in a world that sees technology as just being part of life, and no more worth talking about (let alone getting excited about!) than doing the ironing. So, those people who do talk about it are seen as dorks or nerds (because geek is now a word belonging to the "cool" people) and, lo and behold, get picked on.

I get picked on.

Oh, and you also get picked on because, post-sweet spot, people come to you because you should know everything there is to know about every kind of technology that's out there. If their brand new microwave doesn't work the way they want it to - that's your fault. If they can't print - they're gonna call you, and when you can't help them because they bought some cheap, dodgy printer that you have no experience with, it's your fault. You'll get picked on.

I'll get picked on.

But don't get me wrong - getting picked on is nothing. When I was a kid, I was physically bullied, but what did I do? Kept living. And here I am a quarter of a decade later, still loving technology, still having "wow" moments on a weekly basis about what you can do with it.

I think people who pick on geeks/nerds/dorks need to look at what they use in their lives and realise just how cool stuff is. I mean, most people have a mobile phone in their pocket that can call anyone in the world! And some can do email and/or video communications on that same small device. People are losing their laptops (even the fact that they HAVE a laptop should be a revelation!) because they're so small and light that they're mistakenly being thrown out with piles of paper.

Here's a real world example of the coolness of technology that almost everyone should be able to appreciate. Fifteen years ago, you probably used a camera with film. You would then take this film to get developed at a camera shop, wait a few days for it to be developed and then stick the photos in an album (or leave them in their folders!) which would see the light of day once a year or so as you felt nostalgic enough to dig them out. I can point to some of my favourite photos I took back in 1992 - that I haven't looked at in at least 5 years! And these are photos that I loved taking and love the memories they invoke. You had little option in terms of editing them - the best you could do was a pair of scissors.

Today, you probably use a camera with digital storage. You take the camera or digital card and plug it directly into your computer and download the photos to your hard drive. You can choose the photos you want to print, do your own corrections to them - red eye removal, cropping unneeded edges, even do tricky stuff by fudging backgrounds to get rid of elements that are not required (see below).

Spot the difference

But not only can you print the ones you want and how you want them, but you have other options to keep them more at the forefront of your memories. Mobile phones, computer screensavers, even digital keyrings. And then there's your TV - something that is in pretty much everyone's house and in a position of extreme accessibility. Rather than having it as a black rectangle or square when not in use, why not use the space to remind you of the special times that warranted photography?

With the prevalence of media centre PCs and wireless networking (and don't tell me it's out of this world expensive, because you can pick up a used Xbox 1 console and get it refurbished to run some open source software for less than $150 total - but that's a whole other blog post), this is easy. Basically, keep the photos you want to display on your computer's hard drive, hook the media centre PR or other device such as an Xbox up to your network and point it to the location and it does the rest. We have a number of TVs in our house, all hooked up with Xbox consoles and then in turn to the network. Whenever a TV is on and not being used, it randomly cycles through our photo collection and we are all - even the kids - constantly reminded of different times in our lives, often provoking discussions or comments.

A very simple, every day, use of technology. The thing is, there is SO much stuff that goes on under the covers to make that happen that it would make your ears bleed and your eyes pop. For example, the open source software I use on the Xbox consoles is completely free and has been developed by people in their spare time. It plays more music and video formats than any media player I have on my PC and does so with more consistency. It can be configured in a myriad of ways and has multiple user experience interfaces defined so you can make it look how you want it to. It's solid, quality software that people did because they wanted to. And by people, I mean geeks. I mean dorks. I mean nerds. People like me. People that probably get picked on.

And that's just one example.

So, bring it on - pick on me. I don't particularly care. Technology is cool, and I'm happy to admit that I'm passionate about it.

I was going to rant on a bit more, but I'm trying to exercise some non-geek restraint in the face of my passion. :)

Relieving Stress

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:32:42 GMT

At the moment I'm in a bit of a bind. After a week of being really ill, I'm now on top of the world physically, but faced with crunch time in both work and study. Work is awesome - we're up to the final phases of the new Pro .NET 3.5 course thanks to a bunch of guys working with me and it's looking really sweet. In a week or two it'll be done bar a full run through to find any continuity or timing problems.

So the only real problem is that I set myself a deadline for this Friday for a bunch of things, and while most of them are going to be hit, I might not get everything done that I wanted to.

So, how would I relieve this stress?

Rock Band sessions every second day for about an hour. Banging on those drums lets a lot of tension out. It's great.

Of course, that leads me into the second set of stress. My last major assignment for this term is due on Friday (yeah, in two days) and I have done about 10% of it. My only exam for the term is on Tuesday morning (yeah, in five days) and I haven't had time to study except do some brainstorming.

So, how would I relieve this stress?

You'd be half right if you said Rock Band but if I played Rock Band that much then I wouldn't get anything done. :)

No, instead of doing that, I thought I'd get humourous with an online activity that we were required to do for one of my subjects. Mind you, I haven't encountered a funny bone in this particular lecturer so I have no idea whether it will go down well or not, but I had to do something to make me smile or I might even think about doing some manly crying. And of course, the activity didn't actually call for humour, so it will be interesting to see what happens when she reads what looks like a comedy TV script instead of a serious critique of an assessment task plan.

And yes, the Rock Band sessions need to continue - particularly at the moment with the weather being so wet. Giving up that small amount of time would mean I don't have down time that my brain needs to not think. And I think that, rather than adding to my stress level because it's taking away time from what I could/should be doing, it's helping the stress levels go down, or at least maintain some equilibrium.

So, here's hoping that:

I can balance work's scheduled 8 hours a day with getting everything done that I'd hoped,
with an hour or two a day for the next week for both assignment and exam prep that still allows me enough time to get the assignment submitted on time and the amount of info I need for the exam crammed into my brain,
some down time to wash the stress out,
some decent family time with not just my wife and kids but the whole family (oh, did I mention that they're coming up this weekend? Nope - just something else for me to do!),
church and home group,
and still have time to sleep!

Hmm... wonder why I think I have time to blog? ;)

I enjoy my TV but the networks? Dunno about that

Sat, 31 May 2008 15:00:52 GMT

(just a quick rant because I'm tired)

Sometimes I really scratch my head over network decisions about what shows get renewed or cancelled each season. Of course, most of the time I have to simply shrug it off and figure that I'm different from the majority but looking at the survey www.tv.com is currently running, I don't think that's the case.

Of course, there are some unsurprising stats - Heroes has been renewed by NBC and has the support of about 82% of the voting public, as does the renewed Chuck with 76% support. Similarly, ABC has got the support of 85% of voters for its renewal of Lost and 3 out of 4 are glad Grey's Anatomy is coming back.

Interestingly, the three most overwhelmingly supported renewals all come from FOX - House with 90% approval rating, Prison Break with 93% and "24" with an amazing 99% supporter versus non-supporter ratio (This is personally interesting, because I find FOX the network hardest to understand in its programming decisions).

However, all of these networks, along with CBS who I'm leaving 'til last because they don't look aligned with those people who show an interest in what airs on the small screen, appear to be incredibly hit and miss with the voting viewing public. Take a look at some of these percentages for shows being cancelled. The percentage is the number of voters who indicated that they thought the network was wrong in cancelling the show:

NBC

Journeyman - 70%
Bionic Woman - 75%
Las Vegas - 85%

ABC

Men In Trees - 67%
Women's Murder Club - 68%

FOX

New Amsterdam - 78%

Before I reveal some of the odd stats for CBS, the one network that seems to have got it right is The CW. Everything they renewed this year has great approval ratings, with Supernatural winning out with 89%, while viewers are accepting of the ones they chose to can.

So, CBS... this is where traditional marketing seems to not quite fall in line with reality of the people who care.

While the "old favourites" all got renewed with very low approval ratings, newer shows have been given the boot. CSI Miami continues to live on despite only 56% approval, Without a Trace is sitting at 66% and CSI New York at 68%, but the big whopper is Survivor which has more people saying it should die now than the number of viewers saying bring it on (approval rating of only 47%).

Compare this with Jericho receiving a 92% "boo rating" for being canned. It just makes you scratch your head and wonder what the heck is going on.

And then I caught sight of Moonlight. At the time I wrote this blog post, it has received 261,000 votes (the most I saw on any one show) from viewers obviously very upset about CBS not renewing this great vampire drama for a second season. CBS are facing a 97% rejection rating for this decision. To me, that sounds like a bad one.

Now, obviously the caveat is, that this is only a survey, and a survey of people who know about and frequent www.tv.com. However, I would argue that these people are key influencers with their friends and families, so it's hard to tell where the numbers lead.

All I know is that I'm with most of the voting trends, and in particular, I'm most unhappy about Moonlight. Bring back Mick and Beth!

See, it's like this...

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:43:20 GMT

I like to think of myself as someone who is from a more modern generation than the one I was born into. I prefer to multi-task, I like change and am visual-spatial in the way I approach stuff. I like mobile phones, online messaging clients, email and Facebook. I Twitter, blog, run a website, run multiple messaging clients, have umpteen million email accounts.

But despite my love of all this, sometimes I just need to switch it all off and have some "alone time" with just me and a good book or game.

And I notice that from time to time, I'll go dark in one or more areas as my focus on the day to day of being a salariman and father, an active member of my church and a friend and brother to my family. So, currently it has been my blog. Oh, I've been alive and well on the Intarweb - Twitter has been very active and GAMEparents has been a "return to joy" experience for me. Those who email me have been getting (as far as I can tell) quicker responses, and Facebook's been getting a small look-in too. But the blog has suffered.

(Last year it was GAMEparents, and I'm now finding that as much as I'm loving writing for it again - yes! I'm enjoying writing! - I have to build back up a bit of trust factor with some of my audience because I let it slide for so long. On one level, that's fine - GAMEparents was always a passion for me and it's something I'll continue to do for a long time yet - but on the other I feel for those people who liked coming to the site for regular updates on stuff they could get for themselves or their kids. Am I going to have to do the same with my blog?)

So, unlike today's generation, which truly does multi-task and seemingly can't operate without doing multiple things at once, maybe I was born just that little bit too early and don't have the right gene to be able to keep up with everything all at once.

Or maybe it's just that there are too many ways to communicate.

Oh, and I got a Distinction for my first assignment - W00T!

Good Game - Monday night - don't miss it!

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:28:04 GMT

Don't miss out on an opportunity to have a giggle at my expense.

ABC's Good Game came up to interview me about video gaming for the younger audience. We talked for quite a while and I reckon they walked away with over an hour's footage of just me answering questions, plus more background stuff - Ashleigh playing DS, me "working", etc. There are a number of angles they could take with my interview - pure parent, mix of parent and journalist, gaming totally rocks for young kids, being cautious about gaming, all sorts of stuff.

For a 5 minute piece, it'll be interesting to see where we end up. :)

Well, I guess if you miss it, it'll be OK. ABC are good at making sure you get their info and Good Game are no exception. Not only will it be broadcast on ABC-2 on Monday night, but they'll re-air it on Friday night on ABC(-1), and also publish it for streaming and download on the Good Game website: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/

Just what IS a data type?

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 13:14:00 GMT

In my computer studies subject I was asked to write an assignment where I defined a unit of work around one of the official Board of Studies options. The one I chose was Authoring and Multimedia but I hit up against a puzzling situation where the curriculum didn't seem to make sense in my context of understanding in the computing field.

It all revolves around what the definition for "data type" is.

First, here are the offending sections within the curriculum:

In the introduction for the option it says "The project should incorporate three data types into a multimedia project controlled by a computer." Looks ok so far, but then I got hit with this beauty:
The last activity said "Innovation in a selected data type such as animation."

Say what? Animation is a data type? Since when? Data types as far as I understood were very constrained pieces of information. From a primitive point of view, we're talking about things like integers and dates. Yeah, you can get composite types too, but these are still well defined types made up of primitives. Composite types would still be data types though and have a defined set of properties but not much else.

Animation has surely got to be a class type at best. And even if it is, you can't just leave me hanging with "animation" without telling me what your definition is of that term. Is it "animation" the way PowerPoint thinks of it - i.e. the movement of something from point A to point B? Is it "animation" the way a cartoon animator would think of it - i.e. an artistically produced cel-animation? Is it "animation" as in a series of graphical frames put together to make something look like it's moving - i.e. a video? Is it "animation" as in something overlaid in a video?

Using animation as is, is too amorphous a term to consider it to be a defined data type, surely? Data types are

Wikipedia seems to back me up (look up both data type, and animation)... the books I've written back me up (which means the technical editors and reviewers all do). But if I'm right, then where does that leave me with the Board of Studies? Where does it leave me for my assignment?

I posted my query on the university forum and got a varied response (for the record, the lecturer wasn't sure but is trying to get a definition and a list of acceptable data types for me). One student said:

multimedia data types are
.mp3
.doc
.mpg
.jpg
to name a few
these are the files you import into the autoring enviroment like flash, director, dremweaver, or use in html files.
any other questions just ask

Ah yes, thanks mate - I think I'll leave it. They followed that up with a second post that was a bit more on the right track (as far as I can see):

and sorry for those who havnt a multimedia degree
sound
image
animation
video
text
graphics
are all multimedia data types
this has nothing to do with programming

Still - that list raises even more questions for me - in the context they're referring to, I'm guessing "text" is not "string" but a multimedia text object that has intrinsic functionality beyond that of a data type (or at least, what I consider to be data type). Is a "text" data type something that allows input? Formatting of individual characters? Copy/paste? Is it output only? Does it allow animation? No, wait - animation is a data type, not an action on an object... they've differentiated between animation and video - at least that's something.

Given their obvious background in multimedia, I've followed it up with further questions (oh wait, that means I am asking them "any other questions"... *sigh* never mind) to further clarify this kind of cloudiness.

I would question their last statement though - data types are all about programming, whether it's a formal identification in software development or you're using them in a multimedia project, or even to define components of your real world interactions if you're going to be as loose as the Board of Studies appears to be in its definition of what a data type is. It's just a different programming context.

Oh well - the assignment is done and submitted. I used the generic terms animation, sound, text input object, etc, to describe things students had to do and avoided defining them explicitly as data types. We'll have to wait and see how that affects my marks.

8 Random facts about me

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:14:21 GMT

Woke up this morning to discover both a twitter and a post from Frank Arrigo, tagging me in the latest meme.

Always fun to be a part of these - missed out last time, so only fair to get in and do it now, on a nice wet Good Friday.

The background/rules:-

Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are my 8 tidbits:

I have a small pebble ground into my left elbow from a bicycle mishap when I was a teenager.
My dad's birthday is Feb 14 - makes it much easier to remember Valentine's Day and be the "caring husband".
The first video game I created was accidentally wiped when my sister recorded the radio on the same cassette.
I can't stand the taste of bananas or eggplant - will retch (or worse) if I accidentally eat them.
My first rock concert was Bon Jovi back in the late 80's.
I once slept in a tribal village on the border between Burma and Thailand. We were given the chieftain's hut where I got to keep an eye on the guy's ageing rifle the entire night.
I was taught to surf by Mark Richards when I was a young lad.
Even though I live an hour from the Hunter Valley, my favourite wine is the Brown Brothers Everton from down south.

Another 8 people to be tagged? Sure, how about:

Cool education related info sources

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 01:22:28 GMT

Thanks to a recent blog post by Alfred Thompson, an Academic Evangelist for Microsoft in the US, I've discovered a few great places for getting information about education and what's going on around the world.

Top spot goes to the aggregation of quality and interesting blogs at AllTop (where Alfred pointed to), but already I've started appreciating some of the individual blogs as well.

For one thing, there are a number of blog posts by educators out there dealing with having better presentations - here's one that shows before/afters of a PowerPoint deck.

Or how about this explanation of why Twitter works.

What we have to learn from this stuff obviously doesn't belong solely to the education realm - good presentation skills are essential for most people at Readify, and I don't know how many times I have tried to explain Twitter to people who haven't tried it.

Good stuff.

How much do we learn?

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:55:24 GMT

Just a quick one tonight as I've been busy with work, study and church this week. One thing I learned this week was how well we learn using different senses and different levels of involvement. What's interesting is that I suspect that most people would get the correct order of success rates (for example, practicing something is more effective than simply reading about it), but some of the percentages are quick shocking.

Take a look for yourself:

What we hear only - 10% effective
What we see only - 15% effective
What we both see and hear - 20%
What we discuss with others - 40%
What we experience directly and practice doing - 80%
What we teach others - 90%

The percentage represents how much of the information we end up retaining (on average) when using that particular technique or communications medium. Yeah, studies show that only 10% of information that we only hear is taken in to our memory, and reading about it fares only a little better. Having someone present the information with visual support is only slightly more effective.

However, it's when we actually get down and do it for ourselves, that it shoots right up - 80% retention rate - and when we need to do it to explain it for others - a whopping 90% (which I guess you'd hope was true!).

It's one of the reasons why a number of my fellow Readify guys are always encouraging others within the organisation to have a go at training or user group or RDN sessions - preparing to tell others about a block of information requires that you understand it yourself first.

It's also why we push stuff like hands on labs as being essential components of training sessions - without that hands on, practice for yourself, experience, you're likely taking in less than half of the information that's being thrown at you.

My fave band from ABDC - Jabbawockeez

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:19:46 GMT

There's been a seemingly sudden interest in dance with the success of So You Think You Can Dance? This latest reality show in the US has a full name that's a mouthful - Randy Jackson Presents America's Best Dance Crew.

That said - absolutely awesome to see all these street crews come together and dance each week. My favourite, by far, is Jabbawockeez - their isolation moves combined with the breaking and fluidity in their steps is incredible. Someone put together this compilation of their first six performances - make sure you check out their first real (not the audition) and last performances... wish I was that good when I used to break.

Did I delay?

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 07:18:26 GMT

So I decided to use the Delay Delivery option in my email processing this week to see if it would make much impact. I have to say it did, and I'm going to continue to use it. Here are some of my thoughts:

Within a day I was going to bed happier and with a clearer mind. I think it was to do with the fact I was no longer worried about whether someone would respond to that last email I sent.
Within a day I was also waking up happier, knowing that I had time to prepare for my day properly rather than racing upstairs to see if anyone had replied to something I had sent before.
Partly this was to do with my delay option being set to 8am the following morning - I felt this was a reasonable time to send as it meant that it would be there for most people when they start the day, but also meant that it was unlikely that anyone would be replying to it before I was awake.
I made two slips on my goal to use Delay Delivery throughout the week - one intentional and one not, both had interesting outcomes:
- The unintentional one was to let someone know I wasn't feeling well and so might be a bit late up the following morning. This person playfully pointed out that I'd broken my own rule, which helped remind me of why I was doing it. Cool.
- The intentional one actually highlighted the very purpose behind the experiment. I am working with someone on a cool new project. He had emailed me some ideas late in the evening and I initially accidentally left the Delay Delivery off in a reply. Because he responded immediately, I took the time to intentionally reply to him (see, already walking the slippery slope), explained my goal to delay delivery and apologised for my failure, and added some additional comments.
  It was his response that brought it home to me:
  "To tired to do the brief now, but I can do it in the cab tomorrow morning..."
  So, because I had broken my own rule, here was a colleague responding late in the evening and saying he was tired but was obviously feeling pressured enough to get the job done that he was volunteering to do it in a cab. This was unfair on him and was certainly not my intention (which I had even told him in my previous email!).

So, the upshot of all this? I found this week to be a happier week overall even though it's been pretty busy. I also made an impact on others who noticed the communication style change and expressed a positive reaction about it, and finally, I saw the direct result of me not following the rule.

Delay Delivery continues! Now, if I could just make it happen in Outlook Web Access I'd be laughing. :)

Copyright means nothing revisited

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:03:18 GMT

About this time last year I added a blog post about concerns of plagiarism. I was feeling particularly sensitive over it because I have experienced this myself (to be clear, not with the website in question though). Anyhow, a kind soul pointed me to last night's MediaWatch episode where they outed the same site I blogged about.

I'm writing this in the interests of fair play on both sides - if the owner of the site in question is being honest about what's been happening, then apologies go to him. Although the question remains that since many people have publicly commented on this seemingly common practice over at this website, why was it not until mid-February 2008, and by an independent, external company, that the problem was "discovered"?

Links:

ABC's MediaWatch Vodcast
The transcript of the MediaWatch article (helps you see what people are saying a lot easier)
And the website's response - the front page and page 3 are quite interesting.

As I said - if he has been unfairly done by through some dastardly means for some nefarious purpose - I feel for him and his company. However, it's for you to make up your own mind.

In case the page is removed (as was the one in the original blog post), here are some screenshots.

Do I delay?

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:48:56 GMT

Recently I have been going back over the Virtual Worker Manifesto written by my Readifarian colleague, Darren Neimke, and my own comments on that piece. The reason I wanted to look it over again was because I have lost track of how much time I spend working/not working and I'm feeling a bit out of control with little to no time "away from work".

Working from home can do that to you, but I also wondered if it was also partly due to some of my own practices when it comes to work. Because I can be up at all hours, and so can my work colleagues, sometimes I will have email conversations late at night that could probably wait until the morning (or on the weekend that could wait until Monday). These add to the disruptive nature of working in such a connected world and not having a lot of separation between home and work environments. Worse, as a manager or senior employee sending communications late at night, what kind of message am I sending other people who work for Readify?

I mean, it's more than OK if people want to engage in some late night discussion, but am I helping to promote a sense that it's a responsibility to be always connected?

Roger Lawrence suggested that using the Delay option works well for him and his team. He faces much the same kind of challenge. The majority of his team tend to work beyond the normal "office hours" bracket and can be up at all hours. However, to minimise his own impact on the team, he marks anything he sends after a certain time each evening to not be delivered until the following morning, around 8am.

It got me thinking - it wouldn't be a problem to do this as a general rule, would it? It would mean that conversations that weren't important could still be responded to, but wouldn't invite a flurry of back and forth late at night. Rather, it would funnel those communications to a more appropriate time of the day.

Of course, if someone has sent me something important that needs an urgent response and I happen to get it, then by all means I'll answer it, but having implementing this kind of behaviour promotes the importance of down time and giving people space from work - something I'm feeling I need for my own sake so that I have proper family time. Surely others need that too.

Outlook 2007 allows you to easily delay messages, right out of the box (even for POP accounts). Firstly, go to the Options ribbon in the message, and click Delay Delivery:

From there, simply check the Do not deliver before option (if not already checked, select the date/time you want it sent and click Close:

That's it - carry on composing your message as normal and you've helped minimise disruption for your colleagues!

Of course, having a company so spread out means the office time zone for me may not be the same as for someone else, but I've already commented previously on how we need to be careful of that.

I think I might try it out and see how it goes...

Glad it was easy...

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:33:01 GMT

...you know the type - you buy something that has mostly print of an Asian origin on the outside of a plain brown box and you're thinking, "I wonder if I'm going to have trouble putting this together?"

Fortunately, this time around, the item in question was a simple dog fence enclosure and so just required each of the panels to be pinned together.

Here is the complete set of English instructions (including grammar, punctuation, etc):

Installment Instructions of

I. Materials Available:

6 iron nets;
6 iron sticks .

II. Steps:

Note: it must be horizontally toward outside.
Join front net together with right one,and fix with iron sticks up and down.
Join left net together with front one,fix with iron sticks up and down.
The pet cage is made.

Fortunately, I don't think I need to know the name of the product I'm "installing" - phew. However, the thing that's got me wondering is step one - I can't for the life of me figure out what they were intending, even with the benefit of a black and white photo accompanying the step which seems to feature someone's hand, index finger outstretched and touching the cage.

And step four - love it - "the pet cage is made"... So I've joined the "front net" to the "right net" and the "left net" to the "front net"... what the heck are these other three nets for? The pet cage is made already, so can't be for that. hmm...

Book List: I've been busy...

Sat, 02 Sep 2006 12:15:08 GMT

I've been busy...

Me and Nick Randolph: Professional Visual Studio 2005
Taking a unique IDE-centric approach, well-respected authors examine the IDE capabilities readers will need to perform specific tasks, demonstrated in the context of building XML Web services.
*cough cough* me: Wrox's Visual Basic Express 2005 Starter Kit
The practical, task-oriented approach, along with numerous tips, tricks, and additional techniques, all help to get you up to speed on the most important Visual Basic 2005 concepts and information.