2011
User Interfaces are Fun
One of the aspects of software development that has always impressed me with its depth is the side that comes with interface design. Over the past 3 months, it’s been on my mind a lot as I’m designing a couple of projects, and one thing that really surprised me is the level of customization that people are accustomed to anymore. Check out this simple question:
What G-Mail theme do you use?
I asked this just about a month and a half ago to my Facebook friends list. The results were actually quite interesting… A programmer? Classic. An airline pilot? No interface (go-go mobile). Someone in medicine? The sunset theme. Someone who has fully embraced their inner child? Ninja theme. Me? The Android theme.
The theme fits the person, in every case, and the more you know about them, the more it makes sense why they’d choose what they’d choose. Heck, I chose mine because I find the colour scheme more calming than the stock one, but it maintains the clean straight forward crispness I seek as a developer. It really got me thinking about when it comes to my work, how much customization to give. Sure, it’s always a nice thing, but when is enough, enough? It’s never something I add early on, and moreover it’s something I only really play with when I have the extra time and am not working on something bigger. But I’m at that point in one project, so I’m trying to think this thru…
As I sat here tonight, attempting to work thru another UI design, this thought process came thru my head, and I must admit I think writing this out helped me a bit. Designs are intended to be simple, but at the same time just customizable enough to allow people to have their own “feeling” without destroying the functionality of the item.
Now granted, I won’t go as far as some people who think that just because a system is customizable that it is an ugly thing by default. But in the end of things, that’s what the people wanted to make it now isn’t it? Hmm, more to think about…
Oh well, just kinda rambling. Hope everyone is well, and I’ll write more later.икониикониПравославни икони
2011
Disconnect
I’m going to make this post intentionally short and sweet, because I’m about to piss off a lot of people with my personal view on something. But you know what? At least I have it, and I’m willing to state it.
I feel ashamed.
Tonight my twitter, my Facebook, my circle of social contact is spammed with the messages of cheer that a single individual has been martyred. Sure, okay, he did bad things, really terrible things. I’m not denying that in the least, there are some insanely powerful people out there doing stupid things with their power and causing countries and people worlds and worlds of hurt. But let me lay something out there for you:
A life, no matter whose life, is something worth respecting.
I almost laughed when I saw people who are devout in their religious beliefs cheering at the death of another human being. Did your book and faith not tell you that’s wrong? From my works in theology, even a simple person like myself knows it’s wrong to wish death upon someone… and yet here they are, doing it blindly, as though to scream out “Amurica, fuck yea”… But this isn’t even a religious argument. It’s simply a moral one…
Hell, if anything, you should be more afraid. A simple history lesson will tell you that every time an evil is defeated, a bigger, more bad evil is just around the corner.
Maybe I’ll make some people upset with this, maybe I’ll make some people mad. But if I make just one person think before they jump on the bandwagon, then my work here is done. Who knows, maybe now we’ll actually fix what’s been broken within our own borders during this “war”… I can only hope.
(Sub-note: I want to make it extremely clear before even one person suggests otherwise of my statements. I completely support our troops, I believe each person over there made their choice, and I support that decision with 100% of the person that I am. I just don’t believe the ends justified the means. How many sons were lost so that people could sit at home for a brief moment and believe that one less boogy man exists in the world? How many? Imagine if it were your husband/wife/son/daughter/father/mother/neighbor/friend.)
Trip to Halifax
I know it’s been a while since I posted, but I’ve been insanely busy, so my apologies for that. Moreover, I wanted to take the time to write this up all proper and stuff, cause it’s got some pretty huge news in it, and for that it’s worth every moment I’ve taken to write this up properly.
For those who don’t know, from the 5th thru the 12th of April, I was up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. 12 hours each direction of flying, and let me tell you that’s a story that’ll be covered later on in this post, but never the less… you really get an appreciation for the length of the travel when you hear it in terms of hours in flight. My trip over there was quite relaxing, on my hop from Portland, Oregon to Toronto, Ontario, Canada the plane was even only about half full! So we had plenty of room to stretch out and actually enjoy the flight instead of being all cramped up. Quite enjoyable, and make the trip seem less painful as I plugged in my laptop and enjoyed a movie and working on a couple projects.
Then I landed in Halifax at about 10:30pm local time. As per norm for me travelling, I hadn’t slept the night before, so I had been up for going on 40 hours at this point. But I was alive, I was enjoying it, and I was happy to be there. Erin, whom I had gone on the visit to see, was there to meet me, and we used a transport service called Driver Daves, which if you’re ever in the Halifax area and need a ride to and from the Airport? I highly recommend! We gathered my luggage and set off for her place. Getting back to her place about 11:30pm, my travel had finally come to an end. It was so nice to just be able to stretch… ugh, finally.
Over the next couple days, we explored Halifax, and I got to witness first hand this city I had been hearing about for over 2 years. My only regret? That I didn’t stop to take more photos. But I’ll admit I was completely unprepared for the wind portion of the weather there and as such it was rather nippy you might say. It still surprises me as I think back on it how much the area reminded me of a smaller version of the Seattle area I grew up in. Nice people, culturally diverse, wonderful food, wonderful atmosphere, just all around good times.
Over the weekend, we took the 4 hour drive north to Prince Edward Island (PEI) and visited her parents for a night. PEI has a remarkably small population for a province, only something like 130,000 people live there, and as you’re driving from the Confederation Bridge across to Charlottetown you really get an appreciation for all the farm land that exists out there. Then we arrived… and it was almost immediately obvious I was in for a bit of a surprise. (Granted, I knew it was happening, but I had no idea to the extent) I was flat out shocked at the sheer amount of amazing food they decided to make. I could instantly tell it was something her parents enjoyed doing, and I felt honoured and humbled by the entire experience. Not exactly something that happens a lot to me.
It was on the way back from PEI that I had what I’d consider a moment of clarity. Ever have one? Where everything in your world just feels right, everything is going according how you’d think, and you just know? Yea, had one of those…
Needless to say, the end result is, Erin and I are now engaged.
I’m working on getting everything in order to move up (or down as the case may be) to Halifax. I’m working on getting everything locally in order, and I’m going to be leaving Northern Idaho. It’s a big move, and it won’t be without bumps, but it’s something that feels right, and it’s something that I want to do. So here’s to it.
And you know? There was more I was going to say, but that feels like a pretty good place to close this post, and I’ll save that for another one. So in closing, here’s a couple pictures that I took while on the trip. Enjoy.
Earth Hour… Tonight.
As I sit here quietly relaxing my late night away, thinking about how in a few brief hours my counter to the right of this post will go below the double-digit mark in terms of days remaining before my trip, listening to one of my favourite online radio stations, I’m reminded of something… Today is Earth Hour. But the question I have to raise to myself is, how many people who I know even know about it? Or know what it stands for.
For the last 3 years, I’ve been increasingly active in Earth Hour, which is to say I’ve shut my lights off and encouraged others to do so. It’s really a simple concept: for one hour, one day of the year, you shut down your electrical hold on the planet. You don’t have to go anywhere special, you don’t have to do anything above and beyond, you just have to kill your power for at least an hour. And let me tell you, it’s actually quite enjoyable…
See, for all that I am a technology based person, the things that matter the most are the ones that I do when unplugged. Spending time with someone, spending time sitting there drinking a wonderful drink and scribbling in a notepad, getting away from the electric world and going camping. And that’s just the start of the list. It’s ironic to me that I send this message in a completely electric medium, but the simple fact of the matter is, the more people get away from technology in their lives from time to time, the happier we are. We sleep better, we dream better, we smile more, and most importantly, we see so many things that we often just let slip past us.
This year, the good people at Earth Hour are encouraging people to take steps beyond the 60 minute mark. You’ll see their logo listed as “60+” everywhere, and it’s a statement of more than just extending the time of darkness, but doing things that will have an effect on your entire year. Personally? I’m going to support the businesses that are doing amazing things to make a difference in our world by getting us away from our dependence on petroleum. Some examples? Coca-Cola and Pepsi have both already designed and begun implementing bottles for their products that are made from plant-based materials. This is huge if you’ve ever stopped to consider how many of these bottles (despite the efforts of the recyclers on the planet) end up in land fills. There are so many other companies making strides like this that are going to have lasting and positive changes to our planet, and my resolution for planet Earth this year is to support them at every available opportunity.
The question is, what are you going to do?
2011
Anxious is an Understatement
I don’t know how to put this best… I haven’t been this excited for something in a very long time. If you look to your right, you’ll see a countdown clock that is counting down the time remaining until my trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. I must check that clock 10 times a day, and every time I get more and more exited for the future.
I’ve spent some time doing some light reading up on the area, and it’s remarkably similar to the area I grew up in for being over 3200 miles away (~5400 km, for those in metric! Oh yea, learning that conversion in my head quickly too). Surrounded by water, city on a hill, only real thing missing is the amazing mountain shots. But by the same token, Halifax has a music and food culture that I’d just about kill for. You don’t realize how little you have around you, until you really take a look at somewhere else. Maybe it’s the fact that Idaho has almost nothing in comparison, maybe it’s that I just need a change of pace, or maybe there’s something I haven’t quite said here yet that is really driving me. Odds are really good it’s the last one, but that’s a story for another post now isn’t it?
At any rate, April 5th I leave for Halifax, and return about a week later. After that? Who knows now, but things are looking good, and I’m super excited for this trip. March is going to be a very long month indeed, any suggestions for speeding it up a bit?
In closing, I want to point out to everyone something that was linked by my friend Andy on his Facebook account. In this article by the Huffington Post there is an amazing video showcasing some of the beautiful things that make the Seattle area so incredibly special. I urge everyone to go check it out, and see just how wonderful an area most of the people who know me grew up in. I was so taken back by the music in the piece, that I went in search of a full copy, and Erin actually found the link I’m about to share. Enjoy some just damn good music.
Mat Kearney — City of Black and White
Til later.
