Categories
little people

2007 Little People Awards

Who am I to judge?  Exactly!!!

Here are people who make the cut when it comes to sheer awesomeness – I’ll put down first names only along with a description of why they’re so cool.  By the way, everyone I know deserves an award for awesomeness, so I’m excluding people I speak to on a regular basis, just to be fair.

Phil – self-employed real estate agent, recommends the Hillsdale Imprimis (www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis – check it out), with his own money gave out plaques to local businesses that were making the papers just to recognize effort, he is overcoming a physical handicap that at one point threatened his ability to walk

Steve – professor of medieval studies, has overcome a sight handicap to become an expert on Hildegard of Bingen

Lyn – author of children’s books, started a program to encourage fourth graders  in literacy and writing

Roberta – director of a local horseback riding program for the handicapped

Ken – professor of biology, has defended the study of evolution in schools and written a book about preserving faith while still believing in the scientific method, also volunteers as umpire for middle school softball games

People make a difference one kind act at a time.  Their example inspires me to actively pursue goals that will enrich my own life and the lives of those in the community.

Categories
technology

Apology to the participants in my last Newbie 4357

I accidentally deleted the last episode of the Newbie 4357 show on Operator 11 – crap!! I apologize to the people who participated in it – I was trying to delete the episode that had the sound problems.  Not a good night for Op11 directing!!

Please come and visit next week and we’ll have another great show – Fridays at 6:30pm.

Categories
technology

What do all the Doodads Do?

Depending on how much your loved ones spent on you this Christmas, chances are you have a new electronic thingamajig that does some nifty trick.  I want to take a moment to ponder doodads – why are they so much fun, can/should one doodad do everything, and are we getting too dependent?

 First, a Gizmo Review:

Cellphone – be reachable by phone again; as well as receive text messages, oh yeah, and it’s a camera too, because your cellphone, unlike your digital camera, will automatically adhere to whatever you take with you all the time 

mp3/mp4 player – the Apple iPod or the Creative Zen, welcome to gigs of storage for music, photos, movies, and stuff, this is an entertainment center – think solitaire on steroids

flash drive – use this as backup for your computer or as an extra drive, and then take your files with you to another computer

Bluetooth – this headset syncs up compatible devices when it comes within range, so whichever computer you’re at knows who you are

 PDAs – no longer public displays of affection, this acronym has been co-opted for personal digital assistant – Blackberry, Treo, Palm Pilot are a few – send your e-mail, access the internet and combine functions of the above devices in one handy device

The funny thing about these doodads is that once you start using them, you start to wonder how you ever functioned without them.  So that brings up my next question – are we Inspector Gadget, with the preparedness of the Boy Scout saving the day with our gear – or are we the Borg, giving up autonomy for the sake of being in sync through our implants?  I would say it depends on why we use these devices.  I don’t worry about my work reaching me on my cellphone because I’m not on call when I’m not at work.  My boss however is on call, and he groans about having to answer e-mail on his handheld device when he’s out of the office.  I don’t like competing with someone’s iPod if I’m trying to speak to him/her, but then again I do like walking to work to a beat.  Then there’s the question of whether these doodads are user-friendly.  I’ve heard plenty of people complain about texting because of the pain of getting the right letters.  I tried Bluetooth and had to return it to the store because I didn’t get the whole press and hold the button thing.  I can see why you’d want to access your e-mail all of the time, but then do you really want to be accessible by e-mail all the time?

The whole tricorder-aspect of the portable device appeals to me.  I like the idea of having flexibility about how I communicate.  And as the flight attendants so wisely tell us, their switches do have an “off” position.

Categories
geek

Is the Graphic Designer a Geek?

How geeky is a graphic designer?  Can’t code, probably doesn’t know half the acronyms your first year newbie does, and uses a lot of ‘short-cuts’ to generating web pages – Photoshop and Dreamweaver, to name the most likely tools in the toolbox.

Some would say a graphic designer does the ‘soft core’ web development – asks questions like how exactly should that image be placed in relation to the text, how can we achieve drop-shadow, or which font is most effective in which circumstance.  The fundamental question behind graphic design is does form follow function – is the purpose of the website being conveyed clearly by its visual elements?  As long as this is the question a graphic designer is asking, then yes it is a useful and vital task in web development.

So is a graphic designer a geek?  I would say a thorough to the point of obsessive competence in anything, especially something computer related, makes one a geek in that area.  Sure a graphic designer can be a geek – a very specific type of geek, whose expertise has great relevance to the work of the ‘hard core’ back-end coding geeks.

Categories
geek

Geeky Bloopers

So part of the learning experience, as I as a newbie grow to learn more about coding and web development, is the collection of silly things I mistakenly do as I am trying to accomplish a task.  Rather than feel embarrassed about them, I want to learn from them and even have a good chuckle over them.  Once I do solve the problem, that is – it’s not as much fun when you still haven’t figured out where you made the mistake.

So here goes, some good geeky bloopers – and I welcome readers to submit their own in comments (preferably mistakes you made because you were inexperienced and that were easily fixed, once you found out how):

  •  php-ini – if anyone has had to install PHP on their machine, you will know what I’m talking about.  My problem was I would call up the php info document and it told me I was running a previous version than the one I had installed.  Took forever but we finally figured out I had a single outdated php.ini left over in my Apache folder which the web server was reading – I should have put the php.ini in my PHP folder, not my Apache folder.  Oops.
  • Capital letters – capital letters screw me up sometimes.  I had a jpeg image with the file extension in all caps, so the server couldn’t find the image.  I kept re-checking the spelling and finally it dawned on me the server was case-sensitive.  You don’t need to learn that one twice!
  • Uploading via FTP – had to figure out that the port number really does matter when I first started uploading files to my website via FTP

Then there are bloopers using software – way easier to think of these because they affect how I interact with others:

  • Operator 11 – spent 20 minutes talking to myself thinking I was live on the air because I didn’t realize I had to press the Netcast button
  • WordPress – sent out e-mails to a bunch of people to read a post I had written but had forgotten to publish – they kept getting Not Found errors trying to access the link I posted to the page
  • Skype – tried to host a video conference call with multiple people, it was kind of a disaster because I kept inadvertently putting people on hold, not realizing that Skype doesn’t allow multi-user video conference calls

These are just the few I can think of off the top of my head, but I’m sure there have been many more.  All part of the newbie experience 🙂

Categories
newbie

Geek Speak: Newbie Hurdle #1

Consider this Dilbert cartoon:

flash_javascript_cartoon.gif

Now this actual chat transcript from  http://operator11.com/shows/4992/episodes/28677 

(05:18) Geek #1 Thinking about trying a Mac out – is a Mac Mini good enough for web video, or do I need to spring for an iMac?
…
(09:11) Geek #2 I wish the mini came with a 7200 rpm drive
…
(09:41) Newbie #1 theres a mac mini??
…no Geek response…
(09:44) Geek #3  When i got my new pc i spent 2 days getting vista off it and finding all the missing drivers i needed for xp
… and Newbie #1 has left the studio

So let’s talk about that barrier to entry for newbies, geek speak.  In the tech profession there’s jargon that the techies use that the newbies don’t get.  The sheer number of names for things is intimidating enough, and then on top of that there are all the ways of categorizing the names that just don’t make sense to newbies. 

Is this inevitable?  Is there any way to make it easier?  Where should a newbie start?  This issue was a problem for me when I first started.  I worked through it by sitting with my mentor at geeky gatherings and just writing on a notepad all the nouns I didn’t know.  I remember listing things like “WYSIWYG”, “Ajax”, “CMS”, “Framework”, to name a few.  And what exactly was the difference between Javascript and Java?  What did PHP stand for?  How were you supposed to pronounce SQL?  As geeks reading this might be able to guess, I was sitting in a meetup having to do with developing the back end of web sites.  Once the meetup was over, I took my extensive list of whats-its to my mentor and we went over the terms and concepts one by one.  Over the next few months, I grew much more familiar with the language of web design.  I still hadn’t worked very much with the various tools, but I could understand what geeks meant when they referred to them.

The problem is that when geeks get together, they start talking geek and leave the newbies behind.  To this day, I don’t understand everything they say, but I’m not as intimidated to ask because I do understand a majority of it.  What’s annoying to geeks is having to stop every other sentence (or in mid-sentence) and explain the basic concepts behind what they’re discussing.  What I like about my method of writing the terms down was that I didn’t interrupt the flow of the conversation or demand an immediate explanation.  I wouldn’t be able to ‘get’ the conversation like the geeks did, but at least they would provide a way for me to learn so maybe I would ‘get’ the next one.

Categories
grateful

Seven Things I’m Thankful For

I’m writing this because Adam Darowski, charitable man that he is, listed my name on his blog as one of the people tagged to write what they’re thankful for.

 So here goes:

  1. My cat – a little feline loving goes a long way
  2. Superman – Chris Reeve rocks, and Tom Welling is hot as hell
  3. Creed – can’t listen enough to their CD Greatest Hits
  4. The Internet / E-mail / Computers – all that communication, the challenges of programming, I actually enjoy it
  5. Cell phone – I can be reached by phone – yippee!
  6. Friends – having people to do fun activities with is the coolest thing ever
  7. Family – sisters, parents, extended family, nephew – need I say more?

And here comes the part where I tag people, hmm, who do I know that has absolutely no time to do anything and for that very reason should be thinking about what they’re grateful for:

  1.  Andrew Shearer
  2. Jack Templin
  3. CheriE Summer
  4. Meghan Schaub
  5. Tiffani Allen
  6. Ray Dillon
  7. Joshua Martin

Have fun!

Categories
technology

Mistakes in Logic

In computer science and in life, there are a lot of ways you can screw up the program.  The way I want to talk about is the logic error, the one that has nothing to do with how I phrase the instructions, but rather that occurred because I didn’t create a successful algorithm.  This kind of error has nothing to do with knowledge, but with experience.  No matter how well I know a language, I can still make something silly happen with it. 

So how am I supposed to avoid logic errors?  Testing the algorithm helps, but there is only so much trial and error can do.  Eventually plain simple thought is what actually produces the answer.  Seems obvious right?  Well, if thought were a liquid running through the pipes of my mind, there would be a few ways to clear the way for freer flow. 

Sleep/Exercise – mind-body connection here, my body should be healthy in order for my mind to be

Dealing with Animal magnetism – a term from Christian Science, I use it to cover all the mental failings that don’t really seem to come from anywhere but can become a problem; note upon speaking with a Christian Science practitioner – according to Christian Science in order to defeat animal magnetism I have to pray to know that God is Mind
examples being – doubt of my own ability to succeed, depression, loneliness, etc.  Dealing with these issues is as simple as refusing to listen to any thought that tells me emotions are in control of my decisions instead of me.  I’m not arguing for a Spock-like repression of emotions – emotions are okay to feel, but reason and consistent decisions should be what lead me.

Willingness to make mistakes – Part of computer programming is the thrill of tackling new challenges.  It’s only a matter of time before I’ll know %80 of it, but there will always be that last remaining %20 that escapes me.  Without the courage to try things, I’ll be stuck trying the same old solutions when what is needed is radical new approaches. 

Listening to other people’s solutions – Letting someone else help me out can be a humbling experience.  The truth is I don’t have all the answers, and somebody out there probably has the one I’m looking for.  I have to be willing to admit my own weaknesses and failings and then, when the opportunity presents itself, take the time to hear what others have learned and are going through.

The one thing a computer isn’t going to do for me is think.  It takes effort, but it is a reward in and of itself.

Categories
newbie

The Mentor/Mentee Help Desk Mentality

Say I’m a freshly minted newbie, eager to tackle a challenge, such as debugging a program.  When the rubber meets the road and I find that every supposed fix I try seems to set off ten other bugs and I’m sure it’s something simple but I can’t quite get what that simple thing is, I call my geeky mentor.  The question is, at what level does the mentor-mentee relationship become a burden on the mentor and self-defeating for the mentee, in that the mentee isn’t learning anything, but rather using the mentor as a Help Desk?

When it comes to technical work with computers, there is a lot that goes on that I as a newbie would do better not to try right off the bat, like how to make my own CAT 5 computer cable or how to code an operating system.  However, I might need to debug a program that does require knowledge of these systems, and a mentor would understand that this was outside of the scope of my experience and pitch in.  On the other hand, if I as a newbie ask the mentor to debug my program and it is within my knowledge to do it myself then that is asking the mentor to take on the burden of thinking for me.  So the rule of thumb would be that a newbie should expect to have to analyze problems at least to the point of knowing whether he or she has the knowledge base required to fix it.  If the newbie can’t figure that out, the mentor will become a crutch and correspondingly less interested in helping the helpless.

Categories
newbie

Is there a Newbie vs Geek Distinction?

     So, I was a newbie, but now I’m not that new, I know stuff about web development, I follow blogs and podcasts and Twitter, and I don’t run screaming from code.   So how do I measure up to the larger community of geeks?  The thing is, computer science is such a broad field that it’s improbable that one person could know everything anyways.  How is it then that there even is such a categorization of people as newbies and geeks?
     Much of the distinction has to do with the fact that we are in the midst of a cultural revolution when it comes to web technology.  Not everyone gets the web yet – but they will, it’s only a matter of time.  Development of the web is making it increasingly easier to build communities and communicate.  Newbies are just the next wave of people who are integrating this type of technology into their lives.  
     Besides newbies being a cultural phenomenon, they also represent a phase of learning.  Once a person has understood the significance of technology, he/she has to grasp how to put it into practice.  My own experience learning about technology started with a pen and paper and an opportunity to listen to techie jargon.  I wrote down every proper noun at a PHP Meetup and asked my mentor to explain them to me.  It was important to me to get the concepts down first before starting to write code.  The next thing I did was pick a scripting language – PHP was my choice – and write programs in it.  Of course, not everyone wants to code, this was just for me, but the idea is you have to start somewhere.  A lot of my initial difficulty was simply in figuring out how to install things like a web server, a compiler, libraries, how a browser works, etc.  What was PHP-ini and why did I have to care??  The truth is, this process was made fun by the fact that I had a great mentor – and at this point let me give him credit, he’s the guy in the picture in my geek in the dictionary post, Andrew Shearer (and to be fair, I picked a really geeky picture of him, his glasses aren’t that prominent).  So, geeks can and do give back, and in fact I have found that most of them aren’t scornful of newbies, they are very welcoming and helpful – as long as the newbie doesn’t sit back and say, “I am an empty container – fill me with knowledge.”  Like anything, effort and motivation shine through, and will do a lot more for the successful newbie-to-geek conversion than any number of “Fill-in-the-Blank for Dummies” books ever could.