Home Climbing Wall -- The Lumber Order
4x4x12 (4)Cross-beams:
2x10x16 (2)
2x4x8 (6)Outside frames of walls:
2x6x12 (2)
2x6x10 (2)Inside studs for walls:
2x4x12 (2)
2x4x10(2)Walls:
3/4” Plywood 4x8 (6)This is gonna be…awesome.
[SXSW Notes] Social Search: A Little Help From My Friends
[SXSW Notes] Evan Williams Keynote Interview
[SXSW notes] Beyond LAMP: Scaling Websites Past MySQL
SXSW: Day 1
I’m no Tony Steward when it comes to blogging — you won’t get paragraphs chock full of insightful social media tips … you’re just gonna get the notes I took at SXSW today. Ok, how about I bold the points I found the most interesting. Deal?
So after lunch at Torchy’s Tacos, we rolled into the Austin convention center: me, Tony Steward, Terry Storch, and Zack Foster. Terry and I rolled to “The UX of Mobile.” Here’s my notes:
###
What’s UX to you?* Helping users have a product reach their goals.* SMS still exists and even works on your mom’s phone* Everything that screws up and makes people not want to use your product againIs it easier to iterate on mobile web over an app?* Short term vs long term. Short term = apps, people are going gaga. long term = mobile web.* Obj C vs Java? Who cares? Is it usable?* The mobile web experiences are sub-optimal. This is going to change with further development in webkit.* Mobile web is quick and fast … and everyone will think you’re boring… but mobile web is going to catch up.* But when? When will mobile web be viable?* When for what? It depends on what you’re building.* Issues with mobile web: offline storage and rich visual (games).Testing* Device Anywhere {I’m a big fan of Device Anywhere}, Keynote systems (testing), online emulators.* Always do usability testing on the user’s own device — they don’t know your device* Test early and often* Testing can be one of the first things cut or compressed. Bad.* “testing in context” — seeing user’s test in a real-world scenario* testing with social networks — very difficult with an app that’s not liveWhat’s next?* Interaction with device and other screens (desktop and … TV!)* Mobile web is not a “tiny web screen.” The phones are becoming better and cheaper. More ubiquitous. Paradigm shift coming — prepare for it.* Looking at the full Amazon site on a tiny screen is stupid.* Prior to iPhone, hard to get clients interested in mobile.3 Most important devices?* iPhone, Android (nexus one), iPad* iPad coming from left field. Not from North America? Nokia (n900). Meego - it’ll either die or be huge (rest of world). Lots of development from Nokia in Brazil. Sony playstation phone?* Iphone vs android is something we’ll laugh about in 5 years. Where are we going? Better integration of the browser into the OS. Better capabilities when the browser gets better. When the prices go down, you’ll see clouds of devices.* Design for interrupt-ability — phone calls, SMS, the waiter coming to the table.* Phone Gap - write in HTML+JS+CSS —> access to 6 major platforms (website says 3)* “iphone and everybody else” —> bad answer. Who are the users? What devices are they using? One idea: start with mobile web and track major usage —> make an app for your biggest user.###My one thought on the above: I can echo the comment about how too many companies have the “iphone and everyone else” mentality. Even more, I’ve seen a lot of companies that feel like they need an iPhone app to be successful. On the contrary, there are lots of reasons to not have an iPhone app.- Does your company really need an iPhone app? What benefit will your users gain? What will bring your users back to the app after their first experience?
- Know your audience — there are more Blackberry users than you think.
- Can you get away with starting in a mobile web world? If so, do it. Rather than dropping a ton of cash on an iPhone app — and only reaching a 54% of North American handsets — a mobile web app can get you into the 90% range. Track your users coming to the site and then consider building an on-deck app (if you must).
- Mobile web can iterate faster. You have more control and can release updates faster.
- I make mobile websites. I’m biased.
See? Foster’s notes were much longer. :)I then cruised down to “Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences?” After last year’s launches of both Foursquare and Gowalla, and this year’s impending “Location War”, this is a hot topic — and the fact that the room was packed 30 minutes ahead of schedule proved it.
The speakers included Naveen Selvadurai (Foursquare), Josh Babetski (Mapquest), and Greg Cypes (AOL). No disrespect to the latter two, but they seemed to be a bit out of place. In fact, Cypes kept using Foursquare and Gowalla for his examples and downplaying his company’s recent attempt to enter the space.
To be honest, the panel was lackluster. You could tell the audience was well-educated on the subject, and incredibly interested in hearing experts. But instead of new ideas, the panel spent the first 30 minutes simply explaining why check-in apps are interesting in the first place. Yes. We know. Now what’s next?
I could tell I was not the only one frustrated with the panel — people started leaving long before the event was finished. Regardless, the final few minutes held a few good points (even a few good ones from the audience). Notes below.###How do you create the hook?* Have a reason for them to keep coming back.* LinkedIn progress bar — profile % complete. Positive nagging.Privacy* Using social networks for robbery? PleaseRobMe. * Robbery is not a premeditated crime — it’s a crime of opportunity. No one’s going to really cruise your twitter stream, figure out where you live, and rob your house.* The data about where you are is already out there, contextually.* “Older” generation concerned about sharing their info — teens not too concerned.* More selective on sharing sites — “If i’m not going to sit down to dinner with you, i don’t want you to know where i am.”* Dunbar’s number — you can have a max of 150 actual friends (“stable social relationships”)Augmented Reality* Where are my friends now? Sure. What about: where have my friends been?* Naveen: not very bullish on this. Interfaces have a long way to go before people are comfortable enough to use them. Hard to browse — lists are easier to read than dots on a picture.
Location — what about transient data? Taco trucks that move. Flight #’s, etc.
SimpleGeo - centralizing location data. In order to do this, you must have data providers willing to share data and mash with other data providers… licensing issues.
What’s going to win? Open data. Location information should be in the public domain. Crowdsourced. Place data should have a single identifier. “Whoever figures that out is going to make a lot of money.” (Babetski)
Serendipity: algorithmic? or personal? Naveen: both. Facebook can do a great job suggesting things, but it can’t be 100% — it’s missing the social element.
Fatigue with these games? Naveen: opposed to a real life game (basketball) which has set rules, online games can evolve with the people.###Ok, that’s all I’ve got. I’m pretty excited for tomorrow’s events, including talks on the iPad, more mobile, and HTML5.
PS If you’re at SXSW, don’t miss my bossman Terry Storch at “Technology For Results Not Profits”
Personality Type and Strengths
Me.
Personality type: ENFP
Strengths:
- woo-love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over
- empathy-sense the feelings of other people by imagining themselves in others’ lives or others’ situations
- ideation-fascinated by ideas. They are able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena.
- communication-generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words. They are good conversationalists and presenters.
- positivity-enthusiasm that is contagious. They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.
…and if you’re one of them church-going folks, you’ll know the Spiritual Gifts test:
- Music
- Wisdom
- Knowledge
- Exhortation
- Discernment
We're OK, C?
You may have heard that I quit my job with no other offer on the table.
And yet, within one week of that post, I had an offer. Simply put? Incredible!
But once again, the details may surprise you…
I’m taking a pay cut, moving my family to middle America, leaving family/friends/bands behind … and am really, really excited.
Scared to death, mind you … but really excited.
Let me give you a bit of background.
In October 2009, I had dinner with an old friend of mine from San Diego, @larsrood. Lars was a youth pastor at a church we went to in San Diego for a few years. I volunteered for the group for about a year and, during this time, became friends with Lars (who also got me into rock climbing!). Well, Lars moved out to Dallas, TX to become a Youth Ministry Director. Anyways…he came to visit us in Berkeley last fall and we went to dinner. Over a (really good) pizza, he told me about this church that was doing “church online.” Crazy. But even crazier was that he told me they were not only broadcasting their services to desktop browsers but that he’d recently watched a live church service on his iPhone.
“Preposterous!”, I exclaimed. “Lars, I work at one of the best mobile companies in the country for mobile video. iPhone’s simply don’t do RTSP streaming.” But sure enough, this church had already taken advantage of thepseudo-streaming capabilities released with iPhone OS 3.0 — something not even in our roadmap at our hot mobile startup.
Awhile later, I remembered our conversation and began to peruse their website. Two things struck me — 1) their leadership structure. Now, you may not have had much experience around big churches, but my experiences have been that they tend to be only two-levels deep: head pastor and everyone else. Not only was this church incredibly well-staffed, but they had position titles like “Innovation Leader”, “Media Distribution”, and “Team Development Leader.” Honestly, these positions just don’t exist in most churches, let alone at any of the companies I’ve worked at. Very cool. 2) A job description looking for a developer. I’ve been considering making a career change from what’s on my resume (product/program management) to developing. For the last few years, I’ve spent most of my free time learning to program and learning how much I enjoy the technical and creative challenges. Trouble is, I have no CS degree, and the number of programming languages I know totals … two. But this job posting was like it was written just for me. It was every skill I had, and none that I didn’t. So on a whim, I applied.
Fast-forward many weeks and many interviews later (including a few over Skype) … and a job offer shows up in my email. But I let it sit there.
For Erin and I both, the idea of moving to Oklahoma City was never on our list of life plans. When we decided last year to quit my job, we had no idea what was in front of us, but San Diego seemed like the most likely of scenarios. Then this came along…
As strange as it may sound, there was just too much to consider. Erin and I both have strong family ties in the San Diego area. Off to top of my head, I count 30+ family members and lots of friends. Erin grew up here — I’ve been here since high school. We were married here. We had our first child down here. Oklahoma City? What?
So, we called a family conference. Yup. We pulled together a group of 10 family/friends from San Diego to meet in person, and another six on a conference call. We explained to them the circumstances, where we were with the decision (at the time, 50/50), and then let them pepper us with questions.
We finished our four hour meeting with more questions than answers, and still a feeling of unease. We asked for more time on the decision, and decided to spend the weekend together, mulling over the possibilities. We took long walks on the beach, we spent hours talking alone in our bedroom, and spilled plenty of tears.
But last Sunday, as we sat across from each other at Souplantation, we counted… “1”, “2”, “3”… “Yes.” simultaneously. Then a long pause … then asynchronized”whoa.”
Now the hard part — telling family we’re leaving SD for an unknown land. Throwing away the dreams of long days at the beach, and taking on the ideas that air conditioning is actually necessary in the other 99% of the country. And the idea that there’s not a single Trader Joe’s or REI in the entire state of Oklahoma.
For many of you, our friends from San Diego, we realize that this may come as a shock to you. We understand. Truly. We thought long and hard how this would affect our family and friends in San Diego. We don’t expect you to be happy, but we’d ask for your prayers and support as we step out and begin this new adventure.
To answer some of your basic questions, here’s a Frequently Asked Questions section:
Seriously?
Yes.
When are you moving out?
We don’t know quite yet. Probably some time in February. We’re heading out Jan 29th to spend the weekend house-hunting, then will be back. Hopefully, the house-hunting process is quick and easy and we can begin setting up shop in OKC.
When will you be back?
We’ll be back in March for two events: Eric’s wedding and Ava’s birthday … then we’ll fly back.
Ok, when will you be back after that?
Don’t know. We may not be back for awhile. With Erin due to have another baby in September, our flights may be limited. Furthermore, we’re really trying to do something different with this chapter of our lives: “be here now.” When we lived in San Francisco, we simply lived our lives, trip to trip — constantly trying to get back to San Diego and never putting down roots. We’ve decided to do this a little different. But rest assured, we’ll be back to San Diego a few times a year and we hope to see you when we’re back.
You do realize there’s no rock climbing in Oklahoma?
Actually, there’s a decent amount in the SW corner of the state and the Ozarks have lots of climbing 3-4 hours East. Horseshoe Canyon Ranch (featured in Dosage V) is also in Arkansas and has some incredible bouldering. Trust me, I researched this all a long time ago.
Will Erin be working in OK?
Yup! Thankfully, the church has a great daycare system, and I’m very excited to take a more active role in caring for Ava. If you know of any great hospitals in the OKC area, let us know.
You realize you’re destroying your career, right?
Perhaps … and if you’re right, I’m ok with that. I realize how far I’ve gotten up the ladder, but I also realized that this wasn’t all there was to life. This step for us fulfills a lot of needs we have as a family and as a couple that longs to strengthen our marriage. Email me if you want more detail on that one.
What will you be doing?
Programming! LifeChurch has a dedicated team called “Digital Missions” which creates free, online resources for the worldwide church. There’s been a huge amount of growth over the last year (500,000+ new users in December alone), and the numbers are expected continue this growth in 2010. Fore more information on the team, visit this page.
I’ve been tasked with creating mobile web versions of some of their existing properties. Example project I helped create: m.youversion.com (YouVersion is an online Bible and part of a larger strategy including Android, Blackberry, iPhone, J2ME, and www). If you’ve got the “Bible app” on your iPhone or Android, chances are that these folks made it. I’ve always loved developing for mobile and I’m excited to bring my experiences to this team.
A few more sites created by these folks: ChurchMetrics.com, VideoTeaching.com, BabelWith.me, open.lifechurch.tv, and the Church Online.
Does this mean you’re one of those crazy right-wing evangelical Bible-beating Christians?
All but the right-wing part, yes. ;) And I looooove beating people over the head with my 300 lb Bible. Seriously though, if you know me well enough, but never figured out that I was a Christian … well, my bad. Yes, I believe there is a God … and yes, I believe He can change lives. I’m one of those lives and I know a heck of a lot of others.
I don’t believe in God. Can I stop being your friend?
No. That would be lame. I’ve been your friend, despite all of your crazy ideas. So there.
—-
If you have any more questions, comments, or concerns feel free to leave a comment. And yes, I fully expect at least one or two jokes about rodeos, gun racks, and/or pickup trucks. (but know that I will counter with how cheap housing is out there)
Out On A Limb
I quit my job today.
In a down economy.
With no other job offers on the table.
Yup.
What would drive a man to such madness? Why would I put the financial stability of my family at risk? Heck - we just found out we’re going to have another baby, and here I am throwing away a perfectly good job which provides for my family and allows my wife to stay home.
The answer may sound a bit off to you. I have no 12-step plan. I have no idea what 2010 looks like. All I know is that I need to do something different — for my health and for my family.
In 2009, I realized that I was turning into a divorcee dad — seeing my kid on weekends only (she wakes up after I leave for work and goes to bed before I get home). And heaven forbid I ever want to head out on the weekend and go camping or climbing — that cuts my “visitation hours” to one day a week or less. What good am I to my little girl if she sees me so little? What good am I to my wife if I’m not there to help her raise our family? I was coming home tired, exhausted, and completely unable to help.
This is very different than our lives when we were first married. I remember when we made very little money and had a crappy apartment, yet were content just sitting on the couch together. We didn’t need anything else. Kinda reminds me of this song:
Newly married, new apartment
All our furniture was saved from the dump
Yes dear maybe we can afford a trashcan next monthAll I need is my love for you and a seat for two
New baby new life
We will teach him to speak French
Weve got no money so well make it all ourselves
Ill make the curtains and you make the shelvesAll I need is a power saw and a new sewing machine
Honey, this house needs a little something
That bare mantle doesnt look so good
Someone told me of a man
Who makes animals from driftwoodAll I need is your monthly bonus for a wooden walrus
Honey, the Colbaughs are coming over
This house needs some renovations
Just a wall or two, just a little room
And a few new decorationsAll I need is a sectional and a satellite TV
and dark-wood cabinets that were custom built for me
and a painting by that guy that paints with his feet…Thats all I need
For now
I don’t want to live like that, but I see us starting to follow this (rather depressing) pattern… I’m not saying that I’m going to force my family into a shack to be happy, but I definitely feel like we need to do something radically different … and fast. I don’t want to wake up 20 years from now and realize I’ve missed out on the best years of our life together. Of course I want my daughter to have a big house and a big yard and a puppy … but not at the expense of me not being there.
For 2010, I want to do everything in my power to be a better father to my daughter. If that means leaving my cushy job and promising career, so be it.
For 2010, I want to be a better husband. If that means working from home with a 50% pay cut so that I can do more dishes and change more diapers, so be it. My wife will get my best — not what’s left over at the end of the day.
Could I fail? Absolutely. Could I find myself in 6 months, still unemployed and living at my in-laws, cruising Craigslist in my pajamas? Yup. But thank God I married a woman who not only gets all the things I’ve just told you, but who’s willing to love and support me through this transition. For this, I am truly blessed. And for her, I’ll do just about anything.
Delta Spirit: Recording a New Album
I left the East Bay last night and made the 1 hour drive up towards Napa/Sonoma/Santa Rosa to visit my old friends in Delta Spirit. I arrived around dinner time. Jon was talking on the phone with his lady, Matt was recording a vocal track, Brandon was nowhere to be found, and Kelly was making dinner. Guess which one I settled in with first? That’s right — the guy with the grub.
After a magical dinner of salad and spicy sausages, Kelly picked some mint from outside and made us all Mint Juleps. Then, we cruised over to the studio where Kelly overdubbed a guitar part. Following this, it was Brandon’s turn to lay down a booming single drum track. Two problems: 1) Jon managed to break the single mallet they owned while recording another track earlier in the week. 2) Brandon’s kick drum was a little out of tune.
Step 1: make a new mallet. We toyed around with grabbing the mallet from a kick pedal, but that was a bit unwieldy to handle. So we did what any rational musician would do — we used a sock. We grabbed a drum stick, Brandon donated one of his socks, and we duct taped that thing together. Wah-lah! Insta-mallet.
Step 2: we needed to tune the kick drum. What’s that you say? Tune a drum? Why yes. Drums produce actual notes when they resonate. Don’t look at me like that — it’s true. I remembered an old trick from my glory days: headphones can be used for “reverse transduction.” Basically, you can use the actual speakers in the headphones to convert (transduce) the acoustic sounds into an electrical signal. It’s basically the reverse flow of what headphones are designed to do (side note: I’ve also seen this done for recording a kick drum once. Rather than using a microphone, someone placed a Yamaha NS-10 speaker right next to the kick drum, and ran the output into the tape machine. Crazy.) So we placed the headphones in particular spots on the drum, then ran the headphone cable into a tuner. We first put the drum into Eb — the root of the key for the song. Too high for such a big drum. We dropped down to a 4th? Too low and made the drum sound bleh. Major 3rd below? Perfect.
Here’s a incredibly grainy, crappy cellphone clip I took of Brandon beatin’ the drum:
I’m really excited for these new tunes: I think they represent the perfect balance of progression and improvement for them, along with sticking to the raw sound that people have come to love.
Good luck on the rest of the record, gents — I can’t wait to hear the finished product.
Hi there, I'm Jon.
Writer. Musician. Adventurer. Nerd.
Purveyor of GIFs and dad jokes.