The Dangling Pointer

The Auditorium of Grief

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:51:54 +0000

Each grief has a voice. Sometimes they speak at once. Sometimes they’re quiet, just sitting there with you. And for a while, you just let them.

Always on the cusp of something

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 16:52:44 +0000

That gap between the magic I know I can reach and how often it escapes me — that’s the hardest part of living in my brain.

Figma is freaking great

Thu, 30 May 2024 00:33:23 +0000

I've been meaning to write up what's been going on since I left Shopify last year. ADHD brain makes me want to come up with a long well-written post with a storyline and quippy section titles. Well, then ADHD brain aborts the process because I get decision paralysis and never write anything.

I got laid off on May 4th, 2023. I was very upset by the whole situation, rage sold my SHOP equity, and then got rid of everything with the Shopify logo on it. Shopify was such a good fit for me and I was learning a lot. Losing that HURT. That catharsis helped me focus on how I wanted to spend my time being unemployed. I decided to start looking for a new job right away instead of taking a few weeks to decompress. I'm not entirely sure I'd do that again, but I wouldn't have found Figma if I had done that.

Life after a Layoff

Tue, 23 May 2023 21:06:28 +0000

Finding a new job takes a lot of effort. I've been recently laid off from Shopify (along with 20% of my friends) and have been spending the past three weeks applying for jobs, connecting with friends, and searching for that next thing. It's exhausting work. This is my first layoff (and probably not my last) and the approaches I've used in the past to find a new job don't really apply right now.

Happy Holidays 2022 Letter

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 21:58:18 +0000

Happy Holidays! We weren’t motivated to send cards out this year, but I did get a letter written and put some photos together from our year here to share. If you’re on your mobile phone, the PDF won’t be viewable inline, you’ll need to download it to view.

Christmas-Letter-2023 Download

Reminders, ADHD, and Siri

Thu, 22 Dec 2022 13:17:42 +0000

I heavily rely upon Siri (and Google Home sometimes) to set reminders for myself. I have ADHD. I have hundreds of thoughts flying through my brain throughout the day, all at the same priority and speed. Once in a while, I catch onto something that I need to remember. ADHD brain says “oh hey, it’s important, there’s no way you’ll forget it!” - where my mindful brain says “lol, you’ve already forgotten it, jerkface!”.

Hobbies, Accessories, and Unrealized Potential

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 01:25:42 +0000

Courtesy of https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14781362334/

I was having a semi-philosophical discussion with a friend about hobbies, which inspired this post.

In my mind, I have a long list of things I want to learn. Technical things for work, technical things for personal projects, fun stuff, hobbies, etc. The ADHD brain in me makes it difficult to prioritize what I spend my time on. My friend mentioned that they've been spending so much more personal time lately on doing things unrelated to programming. That resonated with me as well!

Hello, Shopify!

Fri, 24 Jun 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Well, I took some time to figure things out, but it didn't take too long to make the final decision. I'm now working at Shopify (and we're Shopifolk, lol) as a senior development manager for the Point of Sale retail channel and apps.

I'm still in my onboarding time here, but my role and responsibilities will become clearer over the next few weeks. Shopify has a seriously well-organized program to onboard all new employees. I am super impressed. You can read about some of the recently released cool things from the team I will be working on.

Farewell, Automattic!

Wed, 08 Jun 2022 20:05:07 +0000

On April 3, 2013, I was sitting in the #devmke Freenode IRC channel talking to other developers in the Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA) area. I saw a conversation about one of the people working from home and thought, what an incredible place this must be to work! For some reason, I had heard the name Automattic before – and after landing on the homepage, I realized why! It was because of WordPress and specifically signing up for WordPress.com to get an Akismet API key to prevent comment spam. When I saw a Mobile Wrangler job posting, I immediately applied. I got the offer in May and started near the end of July 2013.

Love the light and endure the darkness

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 15:19:06 +0000

I saw this quote on a friend's wall as I was leaving their house. I found the original and decided to share it here.

I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.

Og Mandino

The Radio Effect

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 19:52:08 +0000

I listen to a lot of electronic and trance music to keep a part of my mind occupied while I focus on my work. What I've noticed over the years is using a playlist or a service like Pandora doesn't quite do it for me. I could never put my finger on it until it clicked one day. Having the ability to skip a song makes the experience of listening more in the foreground where I have yet another choice to occupy my mind. Do I like this song? Should I go to the next one?

Sometimes it's the little things...

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 13:46:45 +0000

I haven't seen a majority of my coworkers off-camera for 559 days as of today. The mobile teams at Automattic got together in Chicago at the beginning of March 2020, right before the pandemic hit the USA. We continue to do things to help connect people together to accommodate that lack of in-person meetups. It's not the same, but it helps.

Then yesterday, I got this in the mail.

It's funny how sometimes the small gestures can have the biggest impact. I know I'm not alone. Getting this small physical item does help ground my mind a bit to realize I work with other humans, not just Zoom participants. 🙃

A short analogy on Feedback & Unit Tests

Fri, 23 Jul 2021 18:16:58 +0000

Unit tests are something that engineers write to test the work they've done in smaller pieces. Code that is tested tends to perform closer to expectations. Future changes to old code protect the way things work by causing unit tests to fail if something is changed unexpectedly. Passing tests are green checks ✅. Failing unit tests are red Xs ❌.

Default behavior is to write your unit tests after you're done writing the solution. When an engineer sees all ✅, they call it a day and ship it. The funny thing with unit tests are ... they are also subject to being full of problematic logic or buggy code. How does the engineer know their tests are correct or cover all the scenarios if you've never seen a failure?

When my brain goes on a little adventure

Mon, 28 Dec 2020 20:25:22 +0000

It me.

What a funny (and accurate) way of describing the mental float during conversations when my ADHD is ramped up. This cracks me up! I feel like there should be some background sound effects with this. A nice animated parallax effect would finish it off. 🤪

A letter from your ADHD friend or family member

Sun, 28 Jun 2020 21:47:16 +0000

I worry a lot. Let me rephrase that - I worry often. Additively I think my worry amount is low, as if there were any way to measure worry definitively. Having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, to me, shatters my day into so many small moments of time. When I worry about something, it doesn't last long because my brain is moving onto some other concern or input. What do I worry most about? People and relationships.

ADHD & that feeling when

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 18:58:41 +0000

That feeling when you have so many ideas for blog posts but never have enough time to put them into words for others. I do have one idea in-flight, and a coworker helped me copy edit. This is my accountability mechanism to get that post out there by the end of June.

The Impact of Sixty Seconds as a Kid

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 01:06:52 +0000

I have memories from my childhood but most of them are fragmented with how my ADHD brain works. There have been plenty of times talking with family about things that happened when I was young and I have no memory of it. I suppose my crappy attention & focus made it hard to store contiguous memories.

There are some things that are very clear in my head, though. One of those clear memories is of my dad and it lasted exactly 60 seconds.

Garmin Forerunner Pace Alerts Don't Make Sense

Fri, 24 Jan 2020 13:58:05 +0000

The TL;DR is that Garmin's pace alerts seem to trigger on average pace but the alert on the screen shows current pace. It can be confusing especially early on in a run where the average is much more volatile.

Garmin Coach

I own a Garmin Forerunner 245 GPS watch and use it track my runs, bike rides, and any indoor activities. I also have an Apple Watch Series 4 with Cellular but don't use it for tracking any longer because of weird GPS behaviors. The Forerunner 245 has definitely been a superior GPS unit and their biometrics (especially with their heart rate strap and sensor package) blow the Apple Watch out of the water.

The Lead Developer Austin Notes

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 17:36:04 +0000

I attended The Lead Developer which is a single day conference for people leading engineering teams / teams of developers in Austin, Texas. I took notes on about ¾ of the talks on my iPad using Goodnotes. I'm getting closer to sketchnotes the more I practice this and I figured why not share what I took.

Videos should be published soon by the organizers.

Download the PDF Download

Swift by Midwest 2019 Notes

Fri, 19 Apr 2019 18:07:07 +0000

I attended Swift by Midwest in Chicago (Elk Grove Village) IL this past week. The Klein family did another great job hosting an iOS conference and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I recently bought an iPad Pro 11" and have been really loving using Goodnotes 5 to take handwritten notes. I thought I'd share my notes with you all in case you wanted to see some of the take-aways from the conference.

Being mindful during video calls

Thu, 24 Jan 2019 01:50:41 +0000

Working remote means I'm on a lot of video calls. I've come up with a bunch of little tweaks to help with attentiveness and mindfulness during the call. It is important to show you're listening.

Look at the camera often

When you're in person you look at people's eyes to show them you're listening. Doing that on a video call requires a bit of counter-intuitive body language by looking at the camera. You won't be looking at the person but they'll see you looking directly at them. It's a subtle difference but I've found it highly effective.

About getting paid to not work for 90 days

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 14:57:36 +0000

I've been on sabbatical from work since mid-August. Today was my first day back. What did I learn in that time?

No single moment of truth achieved

I did not have that quintessential "aha" moment of clarity that I thought might come during this unique time off. This experience was a huge shift for me living a life of priorities only set by myself. I had the ability to do whatever I wanted every day (somewhat) and it took some time to embrace that.

The Last Battle

Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:49:05 +0000

The last few weeks have been hard for me getting over the loss of Burkley. Every day is a little bit easier. Things like this poem have been helpful. Grab a tissue, it's a good one.

The Last Battle

If it should be that I grow frail and weak And pain should keep me from my sleep, Then will you do what must be done, For this — the last battle — can't be won. You will be sad I understand, But don't let grief then stay your hand, For on this day, more than the rest, Your love and friendship must stand the test.

Longest Move Streak: 567 Days

Thu, 18 Oct 2018 15:38:15 +0000

I just reached an arbitrary goal of 567 days of closing my red ring on my Apple Watch. I do have rest days once in a while and I'll set my move goal down about 40% for those days. I've forgotten my charger on a trip and ran to an Apple Store to buy another one just to keep it going.

Even if I lost the streak, I'd know I'm still sticking to the daily fitness goal.

Goodbye, Burkley ❤️🐶❤️

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 20:18:18 +0000

On May 10, 2001 Burkley was born. On August 4, 2001 we found Burkley at a pet store, brought him home and named him. We knew he was going to be a huge part of our lives and we would become caring pet parents quickly. Burkley was a very trustworthy dog after he grew out of being a puppy. We could leave him at home without any worry that things would be okay when we got back. He loved being part of our family.

Making bread with my mom

Wed, 12 Sep 2018 00:49:05 +0000

My grandmother died in 2003. I miss her dearly. She used to make the best bread and always would freeze a loaf for me to take home and enjoy. I've wanted to learn how to make her bread myself to keep the tradition going. Sadly it took me until now being on sabbatical to motivate myself to work with my mom on recreating the recipe.

This past week I drove up to my parents' house and spent half of the day working through making two loafs of white bread. My grandmother's recipe was never really written down so my mom tried to remember some of the special steps she followed.

What does community mean to me?

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 23:14:20 +0000

At the opening remarks of That Conference 2018, Clark Sell asked every attendee to post a short video of what community means to them. Here's my contribution!

[wpvideo 34LbZJva]

Ninety days of getting paid to not work

Tue, 14 Aug 2018 19:41:34 +0000

Yesterday began day one of 90 that I'll be taking as a sabbatical from work.

Every five years at Automattic we're given an awesome gift of a paid sabbatical - something I've never dreamt possible in our current age. The word "sabbatical" is heavily laden with teaching references. Even dictionaries reference education in its definition:

sabbatical | səˈbadək(ə)l | noun a period of paid leave granted to a university teacher or other worker for study or travel, traditionally one year for every seven years worked: she's away on sabbatical | he requested permission to take a sabbatical in Istanbul | he took a three-month sabbatical from his job as CEO of a family business.

Plex Media Server not showing updates

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 14:23:50 +0000

Since November of last year (roughly) I've noticed that the Plex Media Server app doesn't ever show that there are updates available. I've manually reinstalled the latest server copy several times and it still hasn't updated automatically. I found a solution that resolves this.

On macOS you have to delete a preference key for the last time the server was updated. A borked version got released which had a higher numerical value causing the server to never find an update.

China is changing the future of shopping

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 20:26:55 +0000

A coworker referred me to this recent TED talk about how China is changing how commerce happens. Not only does it involve the ecommerce sales experience but all the way through the supply chain to how products are designed. This definitely has opened my mind to how mobile devices can be involved in a consumer's shopping experience.

https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_wang_how_china_is_changing_the_future_of_shopping

Don't do this with your Instant Pot

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 02:51:48 +0000

I bought my brother an Instant Pot for Christmas. If you've never heard of them before they're a fancy electronically-controlled pressure cooker. You can cook many different things in it and they even have a Bluetooth model. I've wanted one for a while but never could justify getting it - so my brother got to be the guinea pig. He absolutely loves it so I was motivated to finally get one myself.

Why My Shoes Can't Talk Any More

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 21:11:51 +0000

At the end of October I bought a pair of Merrell Bare Access Flex. Absolutely loved the shoes from the first run. I instantly became a fan of the zero drop shoe style which is closer to running barefoot.

After only about 80mi / 130km of running, I started to notice some tearing forming on the outside of both shoes near that darker rubberized swoosh.

My First WordCamp US

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 01:07:40 +0000

This past weekend I attended WordCamp US 2017 in Nashville TN with over 1,000 other attendees. I don't know the actual number, but it was a lot. This was the first WordCamp US I ever attended - so I didn't know what to expect. I was given the honor to be able to speak to everyone in a session called "How Working Remote Saved My Life" based loosely on topics related to my favorite blog post.

My Two Favorite Logos

Wed, 22 Nov 2017 15:05:00 +0000

Here is a photo of my two favorite logos - the Jetpack logo and the That Conference logo.

Jetpack is a plugin you can install on your WordPress site to give it super powers that WordPress.com sites have but still self-hosted on your own servers.

That Conference is an awesome community tech conference that I've blogged about before. I've spoken there a number of years and really enjoy the mix of people and personalities it brings. Plus it's at a waterpark and families are not only welcome but integrated into the conference itself. I've seen some pretty smart children giving awesome talks!

We Need to Re-Think How Music is Released

Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:44:35 +0000

Having an all-you-can-eat music service like Apple Music is fairly incompatible with how music is traditionally released. Releasing singles and then eventually full albums and then sometimes deluxe albums and then even remix albums causing a lot of confusion. I end up with tons of duplicates in my library which then skews the "randomness" of shuffle. Here's the scenario:

Hear a new song that you like and add it to you library. This song comes from the single.
Listen to "radio" streams or curated playlists and hear the same song. That song is being sourced from album. You add it to your library again because you don't really know if it's in your library yet or not.
Listen to your library in shuffle and keep hearing the same songs over and over again.
Realize you've added five versions of the same song - several are identical versions.

The multiple versions of songs also creates confusion when individual albums are pulled from the service by the studio for whatever reason. I'm assuming most reasons relate to contract negotiations. I also hate when songs are pulled and then are no longer playable then we they do get added back they're not always associated with what's in your library.

People Are Not Drawn to Perfection in Others

Mon, 23 Oct 2017 15:00:16 +0000

My leadership coach shared a quote with me today that I'm using to help develop a talk I'm doing about how working remote saved my life.

In general, people are not drawn to perfection in others. People are drawn to shared interests, shared problems, and an individual’s life energy. Humans connect with humans. Hiding one’s humanity and trying to project an image of perfection makes a person vague, slippery, lifeless, and uninteresting.

Quote taken from Robert Glover in No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex, and Life

I’ll never misplace this bag

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:55:24 +0000

Filed Under: Crazy Shit My Insurance Provider Does

Wed, 18 Oct 2017 00:11:17 +0000

My employer recently changed our insurance plans around because we're big enough now to manage our own insurance rather than use a third party co-employer. We actually have nearly identical plans with the same provider, Blue Shield of California. A limitation with their website requires me to register a new account to use with the new insurance plan. The stabby part of that is usernames are based on e-mail addresses. I have to use a different e-mail address which is annoying but at least they support the Gmail plus sign trick.

Professionalism & Kerning

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 19:50:04 +0000

kern | kərn
verb [with object]

(usually as noun kerning) adjust the spacing between (letters or characters) in a piece of text to be printed. • make (letters) overlap.
design (metal type) with a projecting part beyond the body or shank.

When I saw this poorly kerned sign in a doctor's office I suddenly became less trustworthy of their ability to perform as medical professionals.

Today I Climbed a Mountain

Sun, 17 Sep 2017 04:36:26 +0000

I did something amazing today. I climbed a freaking mountain.

I'm at the Automattic annual Grand Meetup in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. I went on a hike with several of my coworkers up Blackcomb Ascent Trail. This was probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I made it.

Time: 3 hours 15 minutes

Distance: 8mi

Elevation Hiked: 3,900ft (1,200m)

Heading to Whistler

Mon, 11 Sep 2017 12:32:37 +0000

I'm off to Whistler British Columbia for another yearly Grand Meetup at Automattic. Eight days of face to face work and play with 600 of my closest coworkers. I expect to come back with a full heart, head, and notebook. I also expect to be emotionally drained from being "on" for that many days.

Cannot. Wait.

What is Your Definition of Success in Life?

Fri, 08 Sep 2017 18:02:53 +0000

successful

How do you define success or if you're successful in life? To some success is defined by their monetary reward or compensation. To others success is defined by the number of children they've raised. Success could also be defined simply as living a life you enjoy.

Most likely once you've defined what success is, you're in a state of non-success. Success is something you still want to achieve. The problem with labeling yourself as not yet successful has the connotation though that you are the opposite of success - which is failure. This boolean expression is a logical falsehood. Humans are always striving to be successful at life or individual tasks. If you don't reach your definition of success I'd rather re-evaluate the definition than give up and declare failure.

Vicious Cycles - A Stop Animation Film

Thu, 17 Aug 2017 13:35:28 +0000

My brother recently sent me this video and reminded me how much we thought it was funny as kids. Turns out that film got me interested (for a while) in stop animation. I created a couple hours of stop animation shorts with my friends and brother. Too bad I don't have that footage any more.

Vicious Cycles was created in 1967 by Chuck Menville. Its production value is simple by today's standard but it still is hilarious.

Mondays through the Eyes of ADHD

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 19:25:29 +0000

Stop being a butthole about what tech you hate

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:50:11 +0000

I renamed an article title and changed the URL. Follow this link to the updated post.

Stop being a butthole about what tech you hate

Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:13:51 +0000

I’m attending an awesome conference this week and I’ve been seeing a trend that I want to address.

On more than one occasion I’ve noticed people bad-mouthing a particular technology they’ve deemed as being inferior. Specifically I’m addressing the number of speakers and panelists bad-mouthing WordPress. On more than one occasion WordPress has been called (and I’m paraphrasing) crap and useless.

As a full-time mobile developer I do not develop on the PHP side of WordPress. I barely know how to create a plugin even after working four years at Automattic. I personally do not have a drive to learn WP dev beyond what I need to accomplish my job. Just because I don’t use WP directly and only the APIs doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for it and the entire community of developers and volunteers behind it.

US Postal Service Scans & E-mails Your Incoming Mail Pieces

Sat, 05 Aug 2017 16:22:53 +0000

The United States Postal Service started a new service in April called "Informed Delivery" which promises to e-mail you images of the envelopes of today's mail being delivered. You'll know what important mail is waiting for you in your mailbox even if you're not at home. You'll also know if mail isn't getting delivered to you properly and you can report it to the Post Office with a couple clicks.

How Would You Define a True Leader?

Thu, 03 Aug 2017 13:25:39 +0000

Some words I use when I think of a true leader

I've been engaged with leadership coaches for several months as part of Automattic's internal leadership training program. Having a coach has been mind-opening and an excellent option for leadership training in a completely remote work culture. One of the recent questions asked of me was in regards to what I felt a true leader is and what qualities they embody.

Bells on Road Bikes

Thu, 27 Jul 2017 00:55:41 +0000

Plenty of Roadies out there (road bike enthusiasts) are anti a lot of things - bells, kickstands, racks, etc. When I bought a Crossrip 2 cyclocross bike from Trek I decided I'd accept no kickstand. It annoys the hell out of me and I'm looking for other options like a Click-Stand to prop the bike up when I'm parking it. The one safety item I really needed but hated the look of was a bell.

Vacuum the Brain with Morning Pages

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 12:42:04 +0000

I've blogged a lot about my struggles with attention and focus over the years since I started working remote. I continue to find tools and adjust my behaviors tiny bits at a time to help align me with the world I work in. I've been doing mindful meditation daily, usually in the morning, to help calm the brain and prepare for the day.

Just yesterday I was introduced to a fun practice called Morning Pages to help organize my thoughts in the morning to start the day. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, uses morning pages to spill out thoughts and ideas from her head onto three pages of paper. The daily practice involves stream-of-consciousness writing (or commonly called free writing) three full pages of handwritten text. Topic is unimportant - it's whatever comes to mind. Julia says some of her students call it "mourning pages" as it usually turns into a bitch session.

Keyboard Wrist Rests are a Lie

Sun, 18 Jun 2017 14:04:00 +0000

Since December I've been working with a physical therapist to help with some shoulder and neck pain that keeps recurring. After many hours of therapy including dry needling we've determined there's nothing wrong with my back or neck and it must be posture-related. I've been constantly tweaking my standing desk setup to make sure I'm maintaining decent posture.

Part of the research took me into proper keyboard setup. I have a keyboard riser to put it at the proper height when standing at my desk. I discovered that the wrist rest is a complete lie and I was using the keyboard improperly. Resting your wrists while typing can compress the nerves in the wrist leading to carpal tunnel syndrome. Some experts say you can rest your palms instead to keep the angle of your wrists more neutral. I've found an even better approach - let your hands float over the keys & rest your hands when you're not typing.

Being Mindful for 122 Days

Sat, 20 May 2017 13:44:13 +0000

It's been nearly four years since I started the journey of understanding how my attention & focus work. Along the way I've learned several things that have been key factors in developing tools to modify my behaviors to perform better.

Most importantly any tools/habits you use or create are ephemeral. The tool may or may not work for you. Maybe the tool works for you for a couple months but then it becomes a hinderance. Possibly even the tool feels like it has always worked but something lets you understand it never really did help. The key thing to realize is your toolbox will and should continually change with you over time. No matter what people say you're a continually changing person - even old dogs learn new tricks. It's okay to throw things out and to try new things.

Don't try to change too much too quickly. This is probably just as important as the first key but it's not very obvious until you start trying new things. If you try to change too many things or switch a habit drastically it's much easier to abandon when you don't feel immediate successes. Instead try to incrementally change towards something longer term.

I've always wanted to have a meditation practice and make it part of my daily regimen. I felt it was the one missing piece to my daily routine with exercise that could help curb some of the ADHD symptoms. The problem was I didn't know where to get started and was really afraid of being a failure. I've always had a very open heart and mind when it comes to spirituality - if I couldn't "get" meditation then that would make me question a lot of things. I realized that my biggest fear was based upon my perception of how meditation can work and look.

Mindfulness meditation is one of the many ways you can practice meditation. Specifically it focuses your mind on being present in the moment - to be aware of what you're doing but not getting overwhelmed or misdirected by emotions, memories, and other inputs. My husband started meditating with the Calm iOS app to help with his challenges with anxiety. I learned that meditation doesn't require hours of effort every day and having an app on my phone made the barrier to entry super low. It also helped that he broke the ice by starting the practice and the two of us support each other with motivation to try to get a session in every day.

The Tooth Fairy™

Wed, 17 May 2017 19:05:14 +0000

A coworker posted about how one of her children caught her in the act of being the Tooth Fairy. I gave her a great response to share:

The Toothy Fairy™ is a 100% remote/distributed workforce dedicated to the childhood dental successes around the world. In some cases TF may subcontract work to a local resource when constraints arise from any number of influencers. Please explain to your children that this outlier instance does not prove the non-existence of TF employees or their founder, The Fairy Herself.

Of course it's a remote job!

Flash Talk: Working Remote Saved my Life

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 00:56:02 +0000

Every year at Automattic's Grand Meetup we're required to give a flash talk of up to four minutes on any topic. This past year I gave mine on a subject related to my post "How Working Remote (Probably) Saved My Life". I'm actually developing a much longer talk to dive deeper into what's been involved with my successes and failures. Until then, here's my flash talk for your enjoyment.

[wpvideo M5HpGRy1]

You're Doing AES Encryption Wrong

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 01:05:23 +0000

Well, it's possible you're doing it properly ... but likely not. At CocoaConf Chicago Rob Napier gave a presentation on iOS security and highlighted his cross-platform AES encrypt/decrypt library, RNCryptor. You'll find implementations for Swift, Objective-C, Java, PHP, C, JavaScript, Haskell, Go, and many more.

Do you know what password stretching, CBC, PBKDF2, and IVs are? If you've said no to any of these, you should probably look at RNCryptor.

Check it out!

One Important Reason I Work From Home

Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:00:36 +0000

Open windows. ☀️🎐🎏

Choosing Between Google, Amazon, & iCloud Photos

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:12:32 +0000

I recently went down the rabbit hole of figuring out if I am using the right solution for offsite storage of my photo library. I've been using iCloud Photos for over a year and am not totally happy with the solution. I decided to try out both Amazon Prime Photos and Google Photos.

My home Internet connection has a 5Mb/s upload speed which feels pathetically slow. I wanted to test each solution with a good chunk of my photo library uploaded which made this a time-consuming experience. Here's what I came up with after about two weeks of futzing.

Podcast Interview - Roundabout: Creative Chaos

Sat, 18 Mar 2017 00:22:08 +0000

My friends Tammy Coron and Tim Mitra invited me onto their podcast, Roundabout: Creative Chaos, to talk about my work, life, and Star Trek. Check it out!

http://roundaboutfm.com/episode-80-aaron-douglas/

Also hosted on: Stitcher | iTunes

Installing Icecast 2 on DreamHost VPS

Sun, 05 Mar 2017 15:22:20 +0000

Weather Underground Radio Streams

Weather Underground provided a free service to host all of these streams so you could listen into important weather bulletins over the Internet. Weather Underground was purchased by the Weather.com parent company The Weather Company in 2012 and then IBM purchased The Weather Company in 2016. Weather Underground moved all of their services over to Amazon Web Services and canned a few legacy products including the NOAA Weather Radio streams.

My Failures are my Distractions

Mon, 20 Feb 2017 21:44:06 +0000

Today is one of those days.

What kind of day is that? It's one where I feel like I completely failed today despite all my best efforts to control my focus and attention. I look back at my notes and I see I ticked off some things but left some completely untouched and forgot about. I know I'm certainly more critical on myself about these things than most. Feeling like a failure ultimately leads me failing so I try to not even get in this mood or direction.

Leadership, Awareness, and Fear

Wed, 15 Feb 2017 13:28:08 +0000

~ Aaron Douglas, sometime this week

I've been a team lead for a couple years now at Automattic - a little over a year of that with the larger team (Go Slytherin!!). I've made several discoveries of what being a lead (team, project, technical) means. I've realized one thing I have to do is to put myself into a higher state of awareness and embrace fears.

Awareness

Leads have to see the business landscape with different eyes. My main goal as a team and project lead is to unblock the pathways for my teammates to succeed. I'm required to involve myself in conversations that are out-of-band from what the team is connected to. These conversations get summarized in my head and become part of discussions with project leads and individual 1:1 meetings. I have to pick out the important things that relate to the team and bring that into conversations to establish insight amongst everyone.

Focus & The Non-Permanence of Pencils

Tue, 07 Feb 2017 15:11:16 +0000

I've been trying to brainstorm ideas on paper lately before committing to an approach on how to solve a problem. For some reason I wasn't getting a ton of satisfaction switching back to pen & paper - it wasn't helping my focus. Then I realized something from my days in school. I used to prefer pencil over pen because of the feel of the graphite on the paper and the non-permanence it implies.

Experience Life as a Beginner

Fri, 03 Feb 2017 19:12:49 +0000

I'm nearly four years into my challenge of hacking my brain to be successful at working remote with Attention Deficit Disorder. I've struggled with trying to understand my behaviors and challenge myself to change incrementely over time. There's one repeated concept that always comes up in my practice - my past experiences both help and hinder my progress. The key is being able to experience life as a beginner.

Beginners have a great platform to learn knew things. First off they realize they have a set of things they need and want to learn. There is motivation to better yourself and usually a fairly well defined place to gain the knowledge from. Beginners have (or will quickly) admit they don't have all the answers. Those of us with experience trying to learn new things may think we understand things well enough. We're not open to seeing things as a whole.

It's Funny What Kids Will Remember

Sun, 15 Jan 2017 16:04:24 +0000

Back in the mid 1980s there was a kids' TV Game Show called "Double Dare" on the Nickelodeon channel. We didn't have cable TV but at some point it started to air on regular television. Our local TV station even aired an episode early in the morning before school at 6:30am.

The show format was fairly simple. One part were standard panel-type questions with answers gaining you points. Sometimes your team would have to perform "physical challenges" which usually involved something messy - like digging through a small pool of pizza sauce looking for a flag. The team with the most points at the end got to go through an obstacle course for sixty seconds. Collecting flags throughout the course got you more money and prizes to take home.

Cameo on The More Than Just Code Podcast

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 23:34:55 +0000

My friend Tim Mitra hosts the weekly "The More Than Just Code" podcast which is all about mobile software development. This past week he put out a call for people to tell the listeners what the iPhone has meant to them. This coincides roughly with the 10 year anniversary of the first iPhone launch.

https://twitter.com/mtjc_podcast/status/819412969754939394

I decided to submit a clip of my own and made it onto the show! You can listen to the whole podcast to find it (around the 19 minute mark) or via this handy dandy link to that exact spot.

Apparently I ❤ Swag

Fri, 13 Jan 2017 17:07:46 +0000

Stop Looking at the Past in One Year Chunks

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 20:50:34 +0000

We all do it - look back at the previous year somewhere around January 1st. We total up what we've accomplished in that one year and determine if it was a success or it sucked. Variables like births, deaths, accidents, career changes, friendships, personal health, and travel all seem to be popular indicators of success or suck. The reality is you should really stop looking at your past as increments of one year advances.

Every Good Manager Will...

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 16:49:40 +0000

This week Michael Lopp (VP Engineering @ Slack) posted a summary of Tweets responding to the question "Regardless of seniority every good manager will...".

I took that list and tried to correlate the responses into several buckets. I used Trello to visualize this.

https://trello.com/b/Wr78Mx6k/good-managers

I came up with five buckets:

Compassion/Empathy - Feel like a human and realize others feel too.
Give/Take Feedback - Listen to others, tell them what's going right & wrong, and do the same for yourself.
Filter/Map/Reduce - Take in the world above and turn it into smaller things that are important for your people to know.
Unblock - Don't be an obstacle for your people to succeed - and help remove obstacles from their paths.
Trust - Everyone is an adult and was hired for a reason - trust them in their decisions and make sure to gain your people's trust.

Badly Explain Your Profession

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 03:52:24 +0000

I spend all day tapping on glass trying to make it do stuff. I tap harder when stuff doesn't work. Then I clean fingerprints off of the glass. Finally I swear at the glass.

The Cross-Posting Effect

Fri, 30 Dec 2016 16:49:55 +0000

A lot of my friends on Instagram are also my friends on Facebook. They, like myself, tend to cross-post photos from Instagram onto Facebook and Twitter. I noticed a funny effect from that cross-posting - you end up missing a lot of posts from your friends.

Mindless scrolling. We all do it. Facebook was made for it as well as Instagram. Your brain is bored so you grab your phone and start scrolling through posts. I think we're sort of zombies when this mode clicks in. I usually end up snapping out of that zombie scrolling mode when I see posts I've already remember seeing. Semi-conciously I feel I've reached the end of any content that I may want to read or view.

RayWenderlich.com Christmas Video

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 18:13:01 +0000

I'm an awful singer but decided to help out the RayWenderlich.com team with the annual Christmas video. Check out our excellent work.

Original Post at RayWenderlich.com

I'm now aaron.blog

Tue, 20 Dec 2016 20:00:40 +0000

The Dangling Pointer has a new address - https://aaron.blog! The old domain name(s) will still continue to work but you'll be redirected to this new address. Exciting, right??

Not too long ago Automattic launched the .blog Top-Level Domain and started offering domains through https://get.blog. I decided to jump on the bandwagon and get my own!

Radio Garden

Tue, 13 Dec 2016 20:56:42 +0000

http://radio.garden

By bringing distant voices close, radio connects people and places. Radio Garden allows listeners to explore processes of broadcasting and hearing identities across the entire globe. From its very beginning, radio signals have crossed borders. Radio makers and listeners have imagined both connecting with distant cultures, as well as re-connecting with people from ‘home’ from thousands of miles away – or using local community radio to make and enrich new homes.

The Slack Channel Effect

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 02:28:00 +0000

Instead of talking in a big group we split off into separate channels which is somewhat anti-collaboration.

I realized the other day that channels in Slack (or any other group messaging platform) are both good and bad. When there are a small number of rooms it's easier to find a conversation or to be involved in the majority of discussions. As the number of people in the rooms grows, chats become more noisy. The solution is to create another channel - ideally something subject-specific to filter out the noise. There's a counter-effect which is somewhat unexpected - it can reduce interaction between members.

Why Single Sign-On is Stabby

Thu, 01 Dec 2016 20:38:17 +0000

Want to know why I really don't care for single sign-on? Let's pretend I want to sign into StackOverflow.com.

The Flow

Oooh! I want to check my reputation on StackOverflow! Oh crap, this is a new computer. Let me log in!

Huh. Well, let's check 1Password.

Shit. I didn't save my password. Oh wait, maybe it was Google?

Okay I think it's the second one.

Preventing Spam iCloud Calendar Invites

Fri, 25 Nov 2016 14:55:15 +0000

I woke up this morning seeing two notifications of calendar appointments I just couldn't miss. [sarcasm]

Annoying, right? Here's the best part. No matter what I do - Accept, Maybe, Decline - the sender of the spam appointment receives the notification of my action. There's no way to just simply delete the damn invitation from your calendar without sending the reply! Well I guess that means 章兴言 & 历昭 are going to get a sad decline from me.

Summarizing Text in macOS

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 16:16:43 +0000

There's a cool service in macOS called "Summarization" that takes a block of text and figures out the most important sentences or paragraphs in it. I've used this service before to help reduce the amount to read on longer posts and conversations. It is definitely not perfect but it can help provide some clarity where our TL;DR brains need it.

In this example screenshot you can see I'm looking at a Wikipedia article. The summarize service gives you the option to summarize by paragraph or by sentence. There is a slider to indicate how much detail you want to retain. While less seems better, I've found the algorithm loses accuracy roughly around 40%.

Taking a Deep Breath

Wed, 09 Nov 2016 13:30:27 +0000

Today I'm starting the day off with a deep breath and an eye on the future. Life seems to be a series of stepping stones and the path to the place where we all get along is not perfectly straight.

Just remember to be kind to your fellow humans, we are all citizens of this planet. None of us has any more right to be here than the other.

Another day, another set of iTunes Connect errors

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 13:20:24 +0000

Conferences & My ADD Brain

Sun, 23 Oct 2016 16:10:17 +0000

I drafted this post with an idea that I wanted to apologize to all the people I've met at conferences and I do not recognize them the next time we meet. It's especially embarrassing when I've had conversations online with them and didn't connect to two realities. The problem lies with how my brain works and how Attention Deficit Disorder can skew memories and how I process things.

Frequently when I meet people I've forgotten their names within seconds. I try to say their name over again and to reinforce the memory of meeting them with some facial features or bits about what they work on. This process works well in the beginning of most events but within a few hours to a second day or more, I'm toast.

How Not to Do Push Notifications

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 22:41:19 +0000

Not pictured: 10 more notifications below these.

E-mail Notifications Aren't Always Useful

Fri, 26 Aug 2016 17:15:54 +0000

https://www.flickr.com/photos/restlessglobetrotter/2660204217

Notifications are an essential part of most computer systems. Operations happen asynchronously and users who care about the completion of them need to be notified somehow. In most cases e-mail is the primary way someone is notified. E-mail has been around forever and it's easy to address a message to a specific user or a group of users. Most programming frameworks also include the ability to e-mail.

I hate e-mail notifications. Okay; so hate is a powerful word. I severely dislike e-mail notifications.

Bicycler's Quiet

Fri, 19 Aug 2016 13:05:29 +0000

Bicycling is my meditation. I use it as part of my toolset to calm my brain and to train my mind to take in a lot of input and focus on important things. I recently realized that there's a moment that doesn't happen very often when biking. It sometimes takes an entire summer for me to have it occur. I call it the Bicycler's Quiet.

Bicycler's Quiet is the sudden loss of wind noise in your ears when you're cycling with the wind. It doesn't happen very often because you need to be cycling at roughly the same speed and direction of the wind. Biking on days with very little to no wind doesn't do it because your movement creates wind across your ears.

Another Year Around the Sun

Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:30:32 +0000

I turn 37 today. It's been an amazing journey through life so far and I can't wait to see where the next 37+ years lead me.

In the past five years alone things have changed so much. I finished my master's degree, we got a place "up north" for the weekends and met so many fun people, I've had amazing jobs doing what I love - software development, and I've had the opportunity to speak at a number of conferences about the things I've done. I've also learned a lot about myself listening to my brain and figuring out this thing called ADD/ADHD.

I am a procrastinator.

Fri, 12 Aug 2016 14:11:48 +0000

I have always believed I was a procrastinator. I tend to put difficult tasks off until when they are due. I always believed it was the pressure of the deadline that forced me to complete the task. College gave me a series of structured deadlines to learn new things. Procrastination can also add undue stress onto your system. Over time it will make you feel like you're stupid and can't get anything done. ADHD and procrastination seem to go hand in hand as well.

Just Get Started

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 13:10:29 +0000

I tend to set myself up for defeat with how my brain works when trying to accomplish a task. I overthink things.

When I pull a task from my list of things to do a process starts in my head. I visualize the task and then try to figure out what the solution is and how it looks at the end. Smaller tasks with a clear goal seem to start just fine. Tasks that are a bit more nebulous or aren't clear how to do everything end up stalling. I end up wasting time misdirecting myself so I don't have to face the fact that I don't have an immediate solution.

The Power of Five Minutes When Working Remote

Wed, 15 Jun 2016 17:46:44 +0000

Minutes can make a difference. This is something I quickly discovered early on when I started working remote.

The granularity of a usable block of time was much bigger when I worked in an office and had a 20 minute commute each way. Unconsciously I believe I felt 15 minutes was the smallest unit of time I could use to create or do something effective. Since I started working remote, I've discovered that unit of time has decreased to something even smaller which is closer to five minutes.

Fancy Word of the Day: Petrichor

Thu, 26 May 2016 14:11:04 +0000

petrichor |ˈpeˌtrīkôr|

noun

a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather. other than the petrichor emanating from the rapidly drying grass, there was not a trace of evidence that it had rained at all.

Fancy Word of the Day - Manchette

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 23:42:00 +0000

Manchettes are the paper frills that cover the ends of a rack of ribs in a crown roast.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/5328798255

How Working Remote (Probably) Saved My Life

Fri, 25 Mar 2016 20:04:40 +0000

Before Working Remote

In July 2013 I started working remote at Automattic working on the WordPress for iOS app. I was pretty happy with my life at that time and the transition to the new job was not for reasons of disliking my previous job. In fact I loved working for Red Arrow Labs in Milwaukee and it was incredibly hard leaving them. I only left Red Arrow because it felt like Automattic was my unicorn of jobs and I had stumbled upon it by sheer luck. It turns out that I really wasn't entirely happy with how things were going in my life at the time even though the job was great.

This is what 400 Automatticians in one place looks like from a drone

Wed, 02 Mar 2016 16:14:57 +0000

Watch the drone video below taken at our annual Grand Meetup in Park City, Utah October 2015:

https://videopress.com/v/MYKeey35

https://automattic.com/work-with-us/

Detecting Atrial Fibrillation with your Smart Phone

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 02:09:12 +0000

I may have mentioned this before, but I have experienced atrial fibrillation (A-fib) in the past. A-fib is an irregular heart rhythm with rapid and/or irregular heart beating. Summed up its because the electrical system with my heart gets funky once in a while causing a short-circuit on the outside of the heart. The irregular rhythm isn't the big risk - the risk is blood flow can get disrupted long enough in the heart to form blood clots.

Swizzling in AFNetworking somehow breaks iOS' NSDoubleLocalizedStrings

Fri, 22 Jan 2016 14:09:31 +0000

Tools to Help Test Localization

Apple provides some pretty slick tools to help with localization testing in your apps. I had completely forgotten about two launch parameters that make it possible to find those pesky layout problems early:

NSDoubleLocalizedStrings - Any calls made to NSLocalizedString will double the strings to simulate languages with longer words, like German.
NSShowNonLocalizedStrings - Replaces any text from NSLocalizedString that doesn't have an entry in a strings file.
AppleTextDirection - Simulates a Left to Right language.

In Xcode 7 there is an easier way to provide these options. Edit the scheme for your app, click on the Run section, then the Options tab. You'll see Application Language has two options - Double Length Pseudolanguage and Right to Left Pseudolanguage. There is also a check box for Show non-localized strings. These three options are equivalent to the launch arguments above.

Trump's Hair

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 21:05:27 +0000

I just realized today that Trump's hair reminds me of Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal.

Discing or Disking

Tue, 19 Jan 2016 01:56:26 +0000

I prefer discing.

Why? Because I can.

Thirty Days of Sweaty Moobs

Thu, 14 Jan 2016 18:15:38 +0000

I've taken on a challenge to do 30 days of cardio and weight training exercises. The challenge was put on by Jenny Ford, an avid YouTube home workout producer. So far I'm at day 11 and absolutely loving it!

The challenge consists of a mix of cardio one day and weight training the next day. There are six days of workouts and then one rest day. Generally the sixth day is more laid back doing yoga stretches. The only required equipment for the challenge are hand weights (I have 3lb, 5lb and 8lb weights), a step aerobics board or a surface to step up on, and a balance ball. None of the equipment is really required however - you can adapt any of the exercises to use soup cans for weights or just the floor if you have no board.

Teachers, Students, Learning

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 00:03:04 +0000

Sometimes the hardest part of being a teacher is figuring out what your students DON'T know. It's relatively easy to teach a subject to an entire group when you're following a prescribed curriculum. The problem comes when the teacher doesn't realize everyone is learning at a different rate or figuring out what some students may already know. Maybe the needed skill is empathy - knowing when students are lost/misdirected - and to foster less resistance to ask questions.

Sorry, Dvorak, I tried. I really tried.

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 21:06:06 +0000

Two weeks ago I made the proclamation that I'm going to try Dvorak again. Re-training the fingers didn't take much time and I was doing well the first couple of days. I found myself being more thoughtful about what I was typing and overall I think I had less hand muscle fatigue. Everything seemed honky-dory and I was just waiting for a words per minute increase with more use. Then my coworkers came back from vacation.

Sonic Energy

Sun, 10 Jan 2016 22:06:09 +0000

I love that you can add energy to anything at Sonic. I am feeling a bit run down today - still have a cold - so I juiced up a Cherry Limeaid with Energy!

From Electronic Dance to Orchestral Music

Fri, 08 Jan 2016 13:50:59 +0000

My coworker Alex reminded me of the Kickstarter project by the electronic music artist BT where he would use an orchestra in a live performance to replace most of the electronic components of his top songs. Well, the album was released! The music is great. Check out the Kickstarter campaign video below, the wrap up video, and links to the album.

Kickstarter project

Start with the power and excitement of electronic dance music (EDM), blend in the emotional and classical tones of a symphony orchestra, and the result is Electronic Opus, a first-of-its-kind, high-energy album and live concert experience arriving in March 2015.

Produced by BT and the award-winning composer and Video Games Live creator Tommy Tallarico, Electronic Opus features BT’s signature EDM hits re-imagined, re-arranged and remixed with a full orchestra.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/445474695/electronic-opus

Beard Tinsel

Wed, 06 Jan 2016 16:21:43 +0000

Those aren't grey hairs, it's beard tinsel!

How to take a (proper) selfie

Tue, 05 Jan 2016 01:48:21 +0000

A majority of the selfies I see being taken are usually taken wrong. Well, let me clarify - most selfies should never be taken. The remaining ones are taken incorrectly because people tend to look at the camera wrong. What do I mean? Take a look:

Looking at the screen

In this example I'm looking at the screen when taking the picture. It feels the most natural since I'm looking at myself and then the picture snaps my eyes looking downward. Now look at the picture when I look at the actual camera lens:

Marking Unread in Slack

Sun, 03 Jan 2016 02:01:23 +0000

We've been using Slack at Automattic for about two years now. One of the biggest challenges I had with it (and any other chat system really) is losing my place. I will frequently read activity in a room, quickly determine it is not immediately relevant, and tell myself to not forget to come back to it later. In reality I never remember and the idea is lost to the ether of my ADHD brain.

Why I am Switching to Dvorak, again

Fri, 01 Jan 2016 22:36:12 +0000

We have an internal movement at work to have people try out a new keyboard layout like Dvorak or Colemak. Why? I am not really sure other than it is something challenging to take on. I am personally doing it to learn to type with a bit more structure - my QWERTY typing is fast enough but I definitely do not use home row and I feel like it could be better.

Time Left Until Year 2016 Around the World

Thu, 31 Dec 2015 13:54:00 +0000

Interested to see when it's 2016 around the world? Check out TimeAndDate.com's awesome multi-zone countdown chart:

http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/multicountdown.html

Also their interactive map is pretty slick:

http://www.timeanddate.com/counters/newyearmap.html

Duplicated Simulators in Xcode - Quick Fix

Wed, 30 Dec 2015 18:10:18 +0000

Here's a quick script that deletes and recreated all of your iOS simulators in Xcode 7. Use it when you get the duplicated nightmare or if you just want to reset everything:

https://gist.github.com/cabeca/3ff77007204e5479f7af

The Snowman - Walking in the Air

Thu, 24 Dec 2015 14:07:52 +0000

This is a clip from the animated short, The Snowman, from 1982. This was adapted from a book written by Raymond Briggs in 1978.

I remember that winter because it had brought the heaviest snow I had ever seen. Snow had fallen steadily all night long and in the morning I woke in a room filled with light and silence, the whole world seemed to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was a magical day... and it was on that day I made the Snowman.

This is my favorite scene from the animated short.

Tater Tots Through Time

Wed, 23 Dec 2015 15:00:45 +0000

Every year at the Automattic Grand Meetup the entire company gets together in one place for a little over a week to work and have fun. Part of that meetup requires everyone to give a four minute flash talk on any subject. This year my coworker Carolyn Sonnek and I decided to team up on our flash talk.

Carolyn and I are Tater Tot experts. EXPERTS. We dug deep and found some interesting facts on Tater Tots and even a conspiracy!

The Power of Image Macros in Chats

Tue, 22 Dec 2015 21:42:33 +0000

Doesn't the image convey a lot more emotion about my disdain for the ancient real estate agent we're forced to work with?

And Justin if you're reading this, it's not you. 🙃

A Friend's Sorrow

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 02:23:00 +0000

Last week my friend Matt lost his wife Dawn. Nine days earlier they had their third child, a baby girl, Adeline. Dawn was only 42 years old.

A friend of Dawn's set up a GoFundMe site to help with the costs of Dawn's passing, Adeline's birth and for the children's future education. If you have a few spare dollars please consider sending a donation in.

Streaming Radio vs. Pandora-like Radio

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 02:18:10 +0000

I made an observation today while listening to Digitally Imported's Trance channel. There is something intangibly different about listening to a "real" radio channel versus listening to a "radio station" on Pandora. Knowing that others around the area/world are listening and experiencing the same song I am has a bit of magic behind it.

Maybe this is why I don't like Pandora as much - the music seems to have less life because its automatically selected and not something shared with others.

The Porch Project Completed

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 17:55:56 +0000

Our back porch is our favorite place to hang out when the weather is nice during the year. It is screened in and we put wood frames with plastic in them up during the winter to keep it warmer inside and to prevent snow from getting in. Part of the problem is when its warm out and raining - the water comes right inside because the plastic isn't up.

Our solution was to replace the screens with a multi-track window system. The windows are made of vinyl instead of glass so they're super lightweight but very durable.

Ella Fitzgerald Mis-pronounces Christmas

Mon, 14 Dec 2015 03:19:43 +0000

I never noticed this until today - Ella pronounces Christmas as Krist-Mus.

I can't unhear it now.

Tater Tot Merit Badge

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 21:44:05 +0000

We had a Secret Santa gift exchange at work. I got some cool things including this fantastic tater tot merit badge.

I am happy to finally have the recognition of my accomplishment.

The Little-Known Monopoly on Eye Care

Fri, 11 Dec 2015 02:21:26 +0000

Did you know there is one company that owns a bunch of eyewear, eye care, and vision insurance brands? Nearly 70% of the market in the world is owned by the Italian eyewear company, Luxxotica Group S.p.A.

They own:

Ray-Ban
Persol
Oakley

They make frames for:

Chanel
Prada
Giorgio Armani
Burberry
Versace
Dolce and Gabbana
Miu Miu
Donna Karan
Stella McCartney
Tory Burch

And they own the eyecare brands:

Lenscrafters
Sunglass Hut
Pearle Vision
Sears Optical
Target Optical
Glasses.com

It also owns EyeMed Vision Care which a majority of U.S. companies use to provide vision coverage to their employees. Seems like a bit of a conflict of interest that EyeMed only has mostly Luxxotica-owned eyecare centers as "in network" and then those stores only carry their frames.

SourceTree - Delete Multiple Branches at One Time

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 02:14:19 +0000

Do you use SourceTree to help manage your Git repos? Ever work on a bunch of pull requests and have a lot of local branches you need to delete? I found a way to delete multiple branches at one time.

Click Repository then click Branch.

Click Delete Branches.

Select the branch(es) you want to delete. Be sure not to select other than Local branches unless that's your intention.

WordPress.com Supports (RED).org

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 18:58:10 +0000

I'm proud to say that Automattic / WordPress.com is a supporter of RED.org - the foundation started by Bono and Bonny Shriver to help prevent and cure AIDS.

Red.org recently moved over to WordPress.com VIP hosting and we partnered with them on producing an official (RED) WordPress.com shirt for all Automatticians. This is definitely my favorite piece of Automattic swag :).

Changing the volume on a USB Headset on Mac OS X

Mon, 07 Dec 2015 20:24:51 +0000

Do you use a USB headset for video/audio conferencing on your Mac? Ever been frustrated that you can't really change the volume of just the headset if you keep your main audio coming through your speakers? There is a solution - use the Audio MIDI Setup app nestled in Applications/Utilities.

Look for the device that matches your USB device - sometimes it only shows the manufacturer of the USB to Analog converter if its a cheapie device.
Look for the "out" device if you're looking at changing what you hear, the "in" device for your microphone audio level.
Slide the master control to the right if its available. If master isn't selectable, slide the individual left/right channels. The individual channels don't stop at any specific points along the line so you might want to manually match up the dB (gain) value so each ear is an identical volume level.

Markdown-based Presentations

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 23:49:48 +0000

I've only spent a short amount of time with it so far but Deckset is impressing the hell out of me for creating Keynote-like presentations with Markdown syntax. I love creating minimalistic slides and I always feel like going from notes to slides loses something. Now I can create my notes with the slides being in-line with the content using a minimalistic design language in Markdown. <3

It's only available for Mac through the Apple Mac App Store at the moment.

Community College Students are NOT Inferior

Sat, 05 Dec 2015 20:02:36 +0000

A good friend of mine, Eric Knapp, is a teacher at Madison College in Madison, WI. He's an awesome teacher and has a ton of smart students come through his classes. One of his students, Kathryn Sweet, guest-posted on the Anita Borg Institute's Medium account about her experiences with being turned down for internships because she's treated as an inferior student.

Closing off internships to community college students disproportionately affects students of color, lower-income students, and students who are supporting families.

It's incredibly stupid to consider community college students as unqualified for internships. I started my college career off with a two-year degree at Milwaukee Area Technical College - an institution related to Madison College where Kathryn attends. I got a great education there and it jump-started my drive to go further with a bachelor's and master's degrees. Had I not attended MATC and gotten a job with an employer willing to pay for my tuition I may not be where I am today.

Swift Goes Open Source (Finally) - Foundation Framework too!

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 15:44:16 +0000

In case you missed it - the Swift programming language is finally Open Source!

Today we launched the open source Swift project along with the Swift.org website. We couldn’t be more excited to work together in an open community to find and fix issues, add enhancements, and bring Swift to new platforms.

But also hidden in there is the news that the Foundation Framework was open sourced but with a little interesting side note -

Peanut Butter Jelly to Start Your Day

Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:26:09 +0000

I've fallen in love with this song ever since The Jane Doze played it at our company Grand Meetup closing party.

Pinning Safari Tabs for Mental Focus

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 13:51:27 +0000

Have you heard about pinning tabs in Safari? If you have Mac OS X El Capitan then you have Safari 9 which includes tab pinning. From Apple's Support documentation:

Pin Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Gmail, or any other website you visit frequently throughout the day. Pinned Sites stay put on the left side of your tab bar so you can easily get to them at any time.

I frequently keep several tabs open on my work computer - the three Gmail instances I'm in and WordPress.com's Reader. Battling with my attention requires me to analyze my behaviors and continuously adapt to prevent problems. I recently discovered I frequently flip back over to Safari to look for the unread count in the tab titles and will derail my current thought process to read the email. My solution? Pinned tabs.

That stupid awful term - Cyber Monday

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 15:06:44 +0000

All I can think of when I hear Cyber Monday is some crappy 1980/90s movie about hacking and tech in the future.

My Favorite Screenshot Tool - SnagIt

Mon, 30 Nov 2015 02:44:58 +0000

I've been using Techsmith's SnagIt for years for taking screenshots. It started as a Windows-only product but then a Mac version came out. It's extremely simple to use and has most everything I want for a quick image including cropping, border effects, transparency, and annotations like arrows and text.

What's your favorite screenshot and annotation tool?

The lonely little cottage

Sat, 28 Nov 2015 23:00:30 +0000

My husband and I visited an area of northern Wisconsin today to look at a little cottage down the road from where my grandmother had a cottage growing up. The pictures online showed it needed some work, which we expected and planned ahead for. Sadly when we saw it in person we discovered it needed a bunch more work.

We're going to keep looking for the right place. For now the campground we're in with our travel trailer gets us the "away place" during the summer. However, while we stood outside the lonely neglected little cottage, I fell back in love with the peace, quiet, and serenity of the north woods.

Ravelry - A place for knitters & crocheters

Fri, 27 Nov 2015 23:40:58 +0000

A coworker introduced me to Ravelry.com to find new patterns and to keep track of stuff I do with knitting and crocheting. It's free and simple!

Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. The content here is all user- driven; we as a community make the site what it is. Ravelry is a great place for you to keep notes about your projects, see what other people are making, find the perfect pattern and connect with people who love to play with yarn from all over the world in our forums.

http://www.ravelry.com/about

Cannot Get Mail error with Gmail on iOS 9

Thu, 26 Nov 2015 16:53:21 +0000

I keep getting this error message on my iOS 9 device:

Cannot Get Mail - The mail server "imap.gmail.com" is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info in Mail settings.

This randomly pops up on my iPhone for only one of the two Gmail accounts I have configured. The first account is an @gmail.com account and this one is a Google Apps account.

Tater Tot Waffles

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 18:43:19 +0000

So this happened this morning:

My secret? Thaw the tots in the microwave first but don't get them too hot. Line up the tots on the waffle iron. Any tots that got too hot the microwave will be breaking apart - sprinkle those over the rest to cement them together. Close the iron and squeeze it until the form takes. It took a while for the moisture to cook out of the tots - probably 5 minutes or more.

I Nearly Passed Out Today

Tue, 24 Nov 2015 21:26:32 +0000

I had my annual blood work scheduled for today - but I couldn't get an appointment until 9:40am. Having to fast overnight and wait to well past my breakfast time was annoying. I decided to keep my schedule the same this morning sans food and coffee.

I walked and worked on my treadmill desk for a little under two hours before the appointment. I felt good, drank enough water but noticed I was hungrier than normal before leaving. I had an appointment right before my blood work elsewhere so I left the house around 9am.

Committing to a no-commit Saturday

Mon, 23 Nov 2015 13:42:36 +0000

I wasn't trying to accomplish this but it looks like I don't commit code on Saturdays all that often. I like it.

I am a geek through and through but even I need days to switch gears. Always doing the same thing all the time gets old. Saturdays are usually filled with non-tech things like knitting, visiting with family and friends, bike rides and a ton of camping in the summer. :)

Reminder to Self

Mon, 23 Nov 2015 02:01:43 +0000

Breathe in, breathe out.

https://www.doyogawithme.com/yoga_breathing

Live For Something

Sun, 22 Nov 2015 01:50:25 +0000

One of my favorite shots taken in Park City, Utah during a bike ride.

Politically Incorrect Applebee's

Fri, 20 Nov 2015 23:51:38 +0000

Probably not the best way to abbreviate "no jalapeños" on a receipt.

Leaky water filter

Thu, 19 Nov 2015 23:02:19 +0000

A new water filter arrived today. I don't think I'll try installing it.

Remember Norton Commander?

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 15:14:37 +0000

If you've been around long enough to have used Microsoft DOS as your primary operating system, you might remember Norton Commander.

Norton Commander 5.51 running on MS-DOS 5

Managing files in DOS was a pain in the butt without something even remotely graphical. I loved the two panes and simplistic navigation in folders. In fact I think Norton Commander made me better at command line stuff after I got a visualization of the file structure.

Apple TV + Infrared Remotes

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 01:20:57 +0000

I have one of the new Apple TVs and I really do enjoy it. Having been a Roku-only house its nice to be able to get to some of the things only in the Apple world. I have AirPlay on my Pioneer receiver but it doesn't work quite right all the time - but it works great on the Apple TV!

So there is one annoyance I can't get around easily. I use a Mac mini in my entertainment stand as a server, my DVR (with EyeTV & HDHomeRun tuners), a webcam server (EvoCam) and a weather station data collector. When I watch DVDS and recorded TV through EyeTV I use the "old" Apple remote. The problem? The new Apple TV responds to the infrared from the old remote!

Rdio is Shutting Down

Tue, 17 Nov 2015 00:33:43 +0000

Well, shit. Rdio was bought by Pandora and they're going to shut down the service.

Stabby. Very stabby.

Goofing around with the Imagga API

Mon, 16 Nov 2015 04:06:13 +0000

I've been goofing around with the Imagga API the past week and have been doing some fun stuff. It can take any image and analyze the colors and the subjects in it. Pretty slick!

Step 1 - Upload a photo

Step 2 - Let the API analyze the photo and come up with tags

{
"results": [
{
"image": "d487d2521bb4b948b860ce216c434230",
"tags": [
{
"confidence": 26.336145269655205,
"tag": "person"
},
{
"confidence": 26.0971845554226,
"tag": "caucasian"
},
{
"confidence": 23.54227654205335,
"tag": "adult"
},
{
"confidence": 23.28269886958777,
"tag": "happy"
},
{
"confidence": 18.875687368248368,
"tag": "clothing"
},
{
"confidence": 18.155134932273736,
"tag": "attractive"
},

Step 3 - Let the API analyze major colors in the photo

Death Is Much Like Chronic Pain

Sun, 15 Nov 2015 01:22:36 +0000

I had a moment of introspection today as I sat in a pew at a good friend's dad's funeral: Death is much like chronic pain. A few years back, on a different blog of mine, I made this statement regarding chronic pain with my cluster headaches:

And lastly, the most important lesson I’ve learned? The pain reminds us that we’re alive. Without the pain we’d go through life not understanding what a gift it is to be able to relax without pain and distractions. That pain keeps me from being a sheep, tooling around life without knowing where I came from and where I want to go.

Death sucks but it reminds us we're alive. Cherish the time you have with your living family and friends. Everything doesn't have to be a party - but ever so often have a moment of reflection and smile when you're having a good day.

Fancy-sounding term of the day: Semantic satiation

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 15:43:58 +0000

Ever have those days where you write or speak a word and the longer you stare at it or repeat it the less real it feels? There happens to be a term for that feeling - Semantic satiation.

Definition: [ source ]

Semantic satiationsemantic saturationverbal satiation

The concept of semantic satiation was described by E. Severance and M.F. Washburn in The American Journal of Psychology in 1907. The term was introduced by psychologists Leon James and Wallace E.

Repeat any word over and over and you'll experience this.

Headphones & Attention

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 01:50:33 +0000

When I worked in an office headphones were a requirement for me. I absolutely needed them to focus. I really don't use headphones all that often anymore since I started working remote 2 1/2 years ago. Listening to music over decent speakers seemed to be enough. Lately I'm discovering I missed the power behind having the sound close to your head.

The past two weeks I've been using my headphones again to help with my attention & focus in the afternoons. My mornings start with using my treadmill under my desk to walk and work. Mid-day when I find my brain wandering, I stop working and do some sort of exercise. Now in the afternoons I'm finding putting on the noise-canceling headphones gives me the boost to wrap up the work for the day.

Music for Dancing at your Standing Desk

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 21:23:18 +0000

I keep a curated playlist on Rdio of songs that are excellent for dancing at your standing desk. The playlist also works well for a particularly awesome dance party.

https://www.rdio.com/people/astralbodies/playlists/7569006/To_Dance_Shamelessly_at_a_Standing_Desk/

Enjoy! :)

Rediscovering CouchDB

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 02:38:52 +0000

I'm currently writing the materials for my presentation on Core Data & Synchronization of data for RWDevCon 2016. One of the requirements for the demonstration app is a web service that provides a REST API to sync with. One of the requirements of the talk is that I cannot rely upon an Internet connection. Every person going through the tutorial needs to be able to bring up a local web service to following along with while coding the iOS app on their machine.

Sparkly Code Princess mug

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 01:31:21 +0000

Because I've had quite a few people ask...

Get it on Zazzle.com

Preventing Apple Watch Screenshots

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 15:37:50 +0000

I posted earlier last week about how I figured out how the heck I was taking so many Apple Watch screenshots. Turns out there are multiple scenarios causing it to happen. I was thinking about turning the watch face around to move the buttons onto the other side. Something was holding me back until my friend Ellen said she turned her watch too.

https://twitter.com/designatednerd/status/663208455449260032

Swapping the watch bands was super simple. Then I went into the Apple Watch Settings app and told it the digital crown was on the left. Boom. No more accidental screenshots.

Keeping Myself Organized Using Trello

Sun, 08 Nov 2015 04:07:17 +0000

My system for helping keep my brain focused during the workday is a system of lists in a note-taking program like Evernote or Simplenote. Every time I encounter an e-mail, talk to a coworker about something, or get assigned a pull request to review I turn that into a checkbox item. If I don't get to an item in a day, those empty checkbox items get moved to the next day (or week). The system isn't without faults but it seems to work. The only issue with the checkboxes is they don't portray status of longer-running tasks.

Standing Desk Back Pain

Fri, 06 Nov 2015 20:02:27 +0000

I've been using a standing desk for over 2 1/2 years. About nine months ago I started mixing in walking on a treadmill to my daily life. I noticed something over the course of this summer - standing at my desk brought back a ton of lower back pain. I thought I had licked the back pain early on with yoga stretches to improve my hip flexor muscles. Turns out, I forgot how to stand.

Natural Language Search with Core Data

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 20:34:42 +0000

Here's a super interesting write up on how to implement a natural language search using Core Data in a Mac or iOS app. Black Pixel needed to find a way to bring a more natural way for users of the Inspirato app to search for the right vacation. Pretty cool stuff here and something I was very excited to read about with my previous experience with search technologies.

Developing Inspirato’s Search Tool

Apple Photos littered with Apple Watch screenshots

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 18:29:30 +0000

I've noticed that ever since I got my Apple Watch that my photo stream has been filled with seemingly random screenshots of my watch face. It's easy to take a screenshot - simple hit the digital crown and the side button at the same time. So why the heck am I always causing these screenshots?

Today I finally discovered the root of the issue. When I'm on a video call at my standing desk I typically put my hands in my pockets to force myself to focus on the people talking. I get seriously distracted if I don't do this. Turns out that's the exact reason for all of the photos.

Easy Mac to Mac Screen Sharing

Tue, 03 Nov 2015 15:00:00 +0000

Screen sharing over iMessage is not a terribly well-known feature of Mac OS X - but it's incredibly awesome and easy to use. The only requirements are the person needs a relatively new Mac OS X install (Yosemite or higher) and iMessage enabled on their Mac.

In Messages, find your existing conversation (or create a new one with the user).
Click the Details button up top and click it.

Find the little icon that looks like two squares with an offset between them and click it.

Select Ask to Share Screen.
The other person should get a notice and they can accept it.

Once you're sharing you are in view-only mode - you have to click the icon in the upper left to request control of their desktop.

Pretty simple! I've had some issues in the past with the notifications never coming through for screen sharing but it seems to be resolved with Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

CBS to launch Star Trek series in 2017 for a fee

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 20:01:54 +0000

CBS announced today that a totally new Star Trek series is being planned for launch in 2017.

The most interesting part of the news release is that you'll have to buy CBS' streaming service for $5.99/month to gain access to it. It's a bold move for CBS to go to a subscription-only model for a traditionally broadcast-only TV network. I think they would be better off spending the time partnering with one of the streaming providers out there like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. I can't see spending a separate charge for potentially a single show every week.

Quite possibly the worst candy ever

Mon, 02 Nov 2015 03:19:46 +0000

Candy Pumpkins. Barf.

Happy Hauntings!

Sat, 31 Oct 2015 23:50:29 +0000

IBM buying Weather Underground

Fri, 30 Oct 2015 17:20:02 +0000

IBM announced earlier this week that they're buying the Weather Channel's business to business, mobile, and cloud-based properties. One of these is my favorite place to find weather forecasts - Weather Underground.

I've been a user of Weather Underground and also uploading my house's weather station data to the site for over 13 years. I'm not sure what this news ultimately means for WU. NBC dumped money into the site a while back and modernized the user experience - although I'm not sure how much usefulness was added. I'm hoping that IBM buying the properties means a continued interest in open and crowd-sourced weather data source.

Fancy-sounding word of the day: Neologism

Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:04:13 +0000

neologism |nēˈäləˌjizəm|
noun

a newly coined word or expression.
the coining or use of new words.

This feature is temporarily unavailable

Wed, 28 Oct 2015 17:41:31 +0000

While updating a few apps today, the Apple App Store is giving me this super helpful error message.

Temporarily Unavailable - This feature is temporarily unavailable. Try again later.

I hadn't realized updating/installing apps was a feature!

Extending your Apple Watch with WiFi

Tue, 27 Oct 2015 19:43:58 +0000

WiFi on Apple Watch!?

It's not completely obvious but the Apple Watch supports WiFi networks starting in Watch OS 2.0. How does one configure WiFi to work with the Watch? It's not terribly obvious so I threw this guide together.

My Situation

My Apple Watch was not configured to work with WiFi. I have both 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks in my home. I normally do not join the 2.4GHz network because it doesn't work as well as the 5GHz. I looked at the Apple Support page on WiFi for the Apple Watch and realized my situation. Apple Watch only supports 2.4GHz networks.

Power of Mobile Apps

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 18:00:59 +0000

I've been noodling some ideas lately and I sort of rediscovered an idea I remembered I had from the past.

Most mobile app interactions are 20-30 seconds in length (at most!). It makes a lot of sense to design an experience around these types/lengths of interactions. Some interactions go beyond that length and their design should be completely different.

You know you're hitting the right area in the users' brains when you find your app is the first thing they use in the morning and/or the last thing they use before sleep. This is an incredibly powerful place to exist in someone's life.

The Compression of 400 Teammates

Thu, 22 Oct 2015 13:30:13 +0000

I work for Automattic, a 100% distributed company. We rely upon meetups with our teammates to power the social aspect of our jobs and to work on short-duration high-velocity projects. Every year we also partake in a Grand Meetup where everyone gets together in one place to work and socialize. This year we were back in Park City Utah at the Canyons Resort. Here's a wrap-up of what I did during the eight days there.

iOS 9 Good Morning & Afternoon Weirdness

Mon, 05 Oct 2015 13:18:44 +0000

I had a user write in to get some help clarifying a behavior with the Migraine Diary app I wrote on iOS 9.

The user explained that every morning she turns on her phone and Migraine Diary shows on the screen and when she opens it, it tells her Good Morning. The little icon sounded like Continuation or App Suggestions neither of which Migraine Diary supports. I asked for a screenshot and got this:

One Year and 1000 Miles

Sun, 04 Oct 2015 20:08:51 +0000

It has been a great bicycling season this year! Last year I logged 641 miles and today I just broke 1,000 miles.I wasn't necessarily trying for the distance but rather keeping it part of my regular schedule to not make it feel like exercise or something I HAD to do. Exercise is a huge part of my system to help combat the problems of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) and bicycling makes it fun too.I am tolerating the colder weather with some different clothes but I suspect I'll be hanging the bike up for the year soon. Somewhat sad but it gives me something to look forward to in spring! :)So I'm celebrating the number 1,000 only because I am proud I stuck to my goals and had fun doing it!

iPhone 6 Plus Screen Backlight Issue

Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:53:55 +0000

I've noticed an issue I've been having with my iPhone 6 Plus a couple weeks ago. After the phone has been in my pocket for an indeterminate amount of time, I would randomly be unable to light the screen back up. The phone would come out of sleep, I could swipe to unlock (or use Voice Over) and I could see the backlight come on. The problem was the screen itself was just black - nothing to show. Rebooting sometimes fixed this. It was especially annoying when trying to board a plane and then being unable to bring up the boarding pass.

Culture vs. Culture

Mon, 24 Aug 2015 19:40:28 +0000

Today I was musing about company culture. Most tech job postings these days mention "our culture" and tend to interview for you to be a culture fit. Sometimes I really wonder if they're confusing culture vs. culture:

culture |ˈkəlCHər|

The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively: 20th century popular culture.
The cultivation of bacteria, tissue cells, etc., in an artificial medium containing nutrients.

Source: Oxford Dictionaries

Forcing a culture on new employees tends to lend itself to definition #2. Finding new employees that fit into what is perceived as the #1 definition actually means your culture is artificial. Exposing your human intellectual manifestations to your candidates and letting them determine if they want to contribute to that culture seems to be the right move.

The Fear of Missing Out

Wed, 12 Aug 2015 19:59:51 +0000

Working for a 100% distributed company presents a number of benefits as well as challenges. One of those challenges is the fear of missing out or FoMO. It is a real thing.

The Fear of Missing Out is the emotional stress we can experience when we feel like things that should be important to us are occurring without our observance or involvement. Social media plays an important role in this as we experience other people's involvement in activities that portray a perceived positive impact on their well-being. Even though we know that the world isn't as rosy as is portrayed through these sites, we feel a tinge of jealous a number of times.

My House is a Dog Bed Container

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:00:39 +0000

I made the realization today that my house is merely a container for dog beds. At least 11 designated areas (designated by the dogs) are pictured here. I think there are more beds than pieces of furniture in the house.

Missing my DSLR Camera

Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:49:12 +0000

I love photography. My love for taking photos is an ebb and flow. I'm not sure what exactly affects the arbitrary direction of those currents other than the nature of my brain. I still take a fair number of photos but sadly they're only with my iPhone 6 Plus as of late.

I have a fair amount of camera gear, centered around my Canon 40D from a few years back. I was seriously proud when I bought that digital SLR. I also have a number of pieces of studio lighting equipment and related paraphernalia. I enjoy the whole concept of being a full time photographer - but for some reason I just peter out and lose interest. I've been pondering why lately and this is sort of my mental dump on the subject.

UIKit Dynamics - Turning on Debug Mode

Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:08:18 +0000

In iOS 9 Apple has introduced a number of new shiny things for UIKit Dynamics. One of them is UIFieldBehavior which describes magnetic, electrical and spring fields of influence. Fields are hard to debug (even in real life!) so Apple decided to provide a debug mode on UIDynamicAnimator. The trick is the debug mode isn't published in the headers. Why? Who knows. They mentioned it quite plainly at WWDC 2015 and said you have to turn it on in the LLDB debugger.

Biggest Lie To Your ADHD Self

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:35:54 +0000

Most of my journey the past couple of years with coping with attention problems is increasing my self-awareness. I am my own obstacle and I must hack my own consciousness to work the way I need it to.

It's easy to slip into old habits and totally forget the tools you've put in place. All it takes is one of those well-known "ooh shiny" moments and you're off track for an hour reading about nuclear testing instead of solving the problem for work.

Limiting Data While Tethering on a Mac

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 17:19:27 +0000

Using Too Much Data

Being a remote worker, I tend to work at home a lot. I also like to roam around to coffee shops and coworking spots on occasion in addition to traveling to meet up with my coworkers. This means I tend to tether quite often and use mobile data.

One of the biggest annoyances I have with Mac OS X is that in 2015 it isn't aware of tethered vs. (relatively) unmetered connections. I wish there was a mode in Mac OS X that would intelligently back off autoupdates, file sync, and other expensive data operations while on specific connections. This includes when you're tethered to your iOS device using the iCloud automatic tethering option and WiFi access points you've specified as being metered connections.

The Downside to Treadmill Desks

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 13:00:29 +0000

Just Published

The New York Times just published an article on their Well Blog entitled "The Downside of Treadmill Desks". It's an interesting read.

The article mentions a study performed by two groups at the Brigham Young University in Utah and published to the PLoS One Journal in April. After studying 75 individuals it was determined that while there is a significant positive health impact on using a treadmill desk, productivity and cognition decreased.

Is your Apple Watch Digital Crown sticking?

Sat, 30 May 2015 18:31:53 +0000

I noticed a couple days ago that the Digital Crown on my Apple Watch wasn't turning quite as easily as it had when I got it. Of course I immediately thought it was a defect since it visually looked clean. Turns out it was needing a bit of maintenance.

I use a treadmill desk and even with the 3mph speed I sweat a bit. The Watch was designed to handle fitness scenarios but apparently it can get gunked up without some maintenance. Simply wiping down the exterior is not enough.

Apple Watch Sport Ion-X Glass Easily Scratched

Fri, 22 May 2015 13:00:40 +0000

I committed an act of such shame that I have a hard time even talking about.

Okay it wasn't that horrible and I knew this was going to happen eventually - just not on day two. I scratched the display of my Apple Watch Sport edition.

I thought I was babying the thing. I was taking it off when I knew it could get damaged but somehow I managed to still scratch it. I called Apple and talked to a super nice tech on the AppleCare team. I e-mailed him photos and he forwarded them onto engineering. I got a call back and was simply told, it's cosmetic damage.

Demoing a fix or feature is better with music

Wed, 20 May 2015 14:26:43 +0000

I am implementing a new feature for WordPress for iOS in the site stats and needed to demo the implementation for my coworkers. By accident I recorded my computer audio and gave the demo accompanying music. I liked this so when I recorded the next change I did it again.

[wpvideo ri5olTYQ]

I think I'll continue with this :).

How do you tie your shoes?

Mon, 11 May 2015 18:20:19 +0000

A coworker of mine posted this video today about what that extra pair of holes is for on your running shoes:

That reminded me of this site. My mind was completely blown when I saw just how many ways you can tie your shoes.

Ian's Shoelace Site

My Signal-to-Noise Ratio

Tue, 05 May 2015 17:34:57 +0000

I've mentioned before on this site and other places that I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and that I've been doing a lot to manage it. I didn't really connect the dots until I started working remote for Automattic almost two years ago. It's a continual process for me and I'm continuing to make adjustments over time to combat it. I have good days and I have bad days.

Even Apple Leaves TODOs in Production Code

Wed, 22 Apr 2015 16:05:45 +0000

My credit card got charged today for my Apple Watch which wasn't supposed to ship until June. I was so excited that I tweeted the shipping notification to sarcastically note the availability in June still.

Copying that text into a tweet, I actually got:

Preparing for Shipment TODO: Pull info bubble content div up to the order list level (only need 1 per page) and refactor info bubbles into single conditional & span based on group status type OR alternatively, refactor to single info bubble per delivery group based on status shipped shipped Available to ship: June

The Message Just Isn't Getting Through

Mon, 06 Apr 2015 16:57:41 +0000

Pro Tip: If your product involves transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves, make sure you have a kick ass signal wherever your big ass banner advertisements are.

I also tweeted about it and the US Cellular support reps, while friendly, just don't get it.

https://twitter.com/USCellularCares/status/585119706962665472

Apple at 9:41am

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 14:41:08 +0000

In my post on using QuickTime to record an iOS device I mentioned the carrier and time are fixed at simple dots and 9:41am. Why 9:41am? Well I knew there was a reason behind it and did a quick search to review the reason.

January 9th 2007 .. iPhone announcement day .. 9:41am:

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-steve-jobs-keynote/

The Best Apology Letter Ever

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 16:19:45 +0000

I got this from Cards Against Humanity today - they accidentally messed up my order and had to apologize in their own style.

Dear valued Cards Against Humanity customer,

We fucked up.

Your order is on its way, but we had a warehousing issue. If you ordered a 2014 Holiday Pack, you'll receive a Science Pack. If you ordered a Science Pack, you'll receive a 2014 Holiday Pack. Oops!

Recording Your iOS Device with QuickTime Player

Thu, 02 Apr 2015 12:35:51 +0000

The Task

You need to record your iPhone or iPad's screen to show someone a bug or demo a feature to your customers. In the past the only method available was to use a program like Reflector to emulate an AirPlay/Apple TV and then record on your machine. This works fairly decently although the quality over WiFi isn't very good leaving you with a less-than-crisp recording. Reflector also isn't free which makes it difficult for users in the wild to record bugs.

Getting Burned Out

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 13:13:41 +0000

It's In Our Nature

The human body seems to have a natural instinct to burn itself out. We find something we like and want to continue receiving those brain signals so we keep on doing the thing. Eventually our brain grows weary and sometimes our body too. My scientific analysis has some gaps but you get the idea. We like to put blinders on until we feel pain that something is no longer fun.

Creating your Verse in the Play that is Life

Sun, 29 Mar 2015 15:41:08 +0000

I've recently become a fan of Walt Whitman's poem from 1892 entitled "O Me! O Life!". I've heard the poem in the past but it has never resonated with me until hearing Daniel Steinberg, an iOS developer and trainer, used it in his keynote at CocoaConf Chicago.

O Me! O Life!

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring, Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish, Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d, Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me, Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined, The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Walking While Working - Another Step For Focus

Tue, 24 Feb 2015 15:14:55 +0000

Walking While You Work

I'm not going to link to any articles or research about the benefits of walking while you work. I've been standing at my desk since I started working at home and to me this is the next progression. I have ADHD and I'm always trying to find ways to hack my brain. I decided to get in on the treadmill desk game.

The First Steps

A couple months back I ended up buying a cheapie treadmill on Amazon to experiment with walking while working. I used it a couple of times with some success but I ultimately felt it didn't provide much help for my focus. I kept doing research to determine what the issue was and spent time observing myself during a walking session with it. I was surprised it wasn't obvious why I didn't like this experiment.

Things With Wheels Flash Talk

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:51:25 +0000

Every year at Automattic we get together at what we call the Grand Meetup. Everyone is expected to give a four minute flash talk on any subject - literally any subject. Last year I described a funny story about a boss stealing my iPhone. This year I combined another funny story with some personal philosophies.

Last summer I posted about how Things With Wheels Are Meant To Move and that paired well with my tweets about my philosophy on systems. This flash talk is an amalgamation of those two posts.

Don't turn off target !!

Mon, 22 Dec 2014 13:40:37 +0000

This has to be the most useless and scary software update screens to date that I've seen.

Don't get me wrong, I like Android and I'm getting back into developing software for it and iOS isn't blameless in the shit-UX department. I couldn't pass up this example of a super important interaction that is done so poorly.

Even though I'm familiar enough to what a "target" is in this context, I'm still confused by the screen. I'm uploading TO the device, not downloading FROM the device. According to this warning, I'm safe to turn off my computer and unplug the USB. The block of text in the upper left, while useful to a developer, is super scary for a user. If they're lucky to be blessed with 20/20 vision it's still pretty useless information.

Core Data by Tutorials

Thu, 18 Dec 2014 17:21:31 +0000

It is very surreal to see your name on a printed book.

Surviving with Apple Pay

Tue, 16 Dec 2014 01:52:41 +0000

We've all done it - left your wallet at home and you're in a dire need for money, groceries, gas, etc. How do you get by if you can't get your wallet with your ID in short order?

I was thinking about this problem and thought of a simple solution. Go to a merchant that accepts Apple Pay and sells general gift cards. A place like Walgreens sells gift cards for restaurants, gas stations and other merchants. They even sell Visa and MasterCard gift cards (with an activation fee). Walgreens also typically sells transit passes for buses and trains.

I Connected My Standing Desk to Evernote

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 15:06:05 +0000

I've been using an UpDesk since I started working from home in July 2013. I typically try to stand over half of the day being careful to not hurt my lower back with multiple days of standing fatigue. I do plenty of stretches and general movement while standing as well - but I do like to sit in my fancy Herman Miller Aeron chair once in a while. Having the motorized desk is awesome for this because I can change the configuration of my workspace based upon my mood, attention momentum and other variables. I noticed after some time, however, that I didn't have a really good understanding of how often I switched configurations and generally how long I could stand.

Oh My Zsh Error About Battery

Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:11:29 +0000

I recently got a new work computer and instead of using Time Machine to restore, I decided to install everything fresh. I installed Oh My Zsh (which is fantastic by the way) which I used on my previous machine. My favorite theme is Candy Kingdom. After switching and relaunching Terminal I noticed the following error after every command prompt display:

zsh: command not found: battery_time_remaining

Turns out it was a simple problem - I had to enable the battery plugin in my ~/.zshrc config file:

Providing Emergency Contacts with iOS 8

Mon, 03 Nov 2014 15:21:31 +0000

The Problem

Something that has been missing on iOS for a long time is a reliable way to provide emergency contact information. Imagine you're out and about and you end up having an accident or have an acute attack from a known medical condition you have. We all tend to carry our mobile phones with us. Most emergency personnel are trained to review personal data in your wallet/purse and now mobile phones. The issue is most of us have a lock code on our devices, preventing access to potential life-saving communication with a loved one about your medical condition.

Stabby

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 19:00:38 +0000

I love the word "stabby". It typically means, if you're feeling stabby, that you would like to stab someone or something because of your current emotional state. Stabby can also describe the state of a thing - like "pairing bluetooth headsets is stabby" because it's a pain in the ass.

I've tried to pass around the Theory of Stabby to my coworkers at previous jobs and at Automattic. It's definitely been a successful campaign because we managed to get a stabby emoticon added to our chat system, Slack.

My Reaction to Tim Cook's Coming Out

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 13:04:38 +0000

It's definitely not any surprise to me that Tim Cook is gay. When he became CEO of Apple and after Steve Jobs' death it was talked about. I was surprised for a brief moment upon that initial discovery but was happy to see Apple embracing diversity at all levels.

Today Tim Cook came out publicly as gay in hopes to inspire others to be themselves and accept others too.

What I'm really surprised and delighted to see are the reactions from other developers in the Apple/Mac/iOS community:

Blogging U.’s Photo 101 Course: Post a Photo a Day

Thu, 30 Oct 2014 11:22:08 +0000

WordPress.com's Daily Post is holding an online photo blogging course called Photo 101. It starts Monday, November 3rd and it goes through November 28th. Each day a topic is presented and it's your challenge to post a photo that is your interpretation of the topic. Along with the topic are tips and tricks for you to learn. Posts are tagged so they're visible on the WordPress.com Reader. WordPress.com-hosted sites and self-hosted sites are both encouraged to join in!

Core Data Object IDs can change

Wed, 22 Oct 2014 14:17:22 +0000

I thought I knew a lot about Core Data with having used it a lot over the past years. Today, I learned something new that I feel like I should have known for a long time. NSManagedObjectIDs can change. Seriously.

If you want a different notion of identity, you can just add an UUID string as an attribute to your entity. A separate mapping table is not recommend. The 2 apps should agree to use the same UUIDs for the same identities.

Ref: https://devforums.apple.com/message/480640#480640

Anxious

Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:48:48 +0000

UPS is delivering my iPhone 6 Plus today.

Code Dependent

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 14:10:05 +0000

Plus using dependency managers like CocoaPods tends to get unwieldily the larger your team gets. Not only do you have to worry about the libraries as dependencies but now you have to worry about the versioning of the dependency manager. Oy!

2014 Automattic Grand Meetup

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 00:22:36 +0000

At Automattic we all are a distributed workforce - we all work from all over the world. Every few months we meet up with our teammates and work on projects designed to be started and finished within the week. Once a year the entire company gets together in one place and we affectionally dub it the "Grand Meetup" (abbreviated GM). This year, we all met up in Park City, Utah USA at the Grand Summit Canyons Resort.

Mac OS X Server Time Machine Volume Filling Too Fast

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 12:56:34 +0000

I've been noticing on my Mac OS X Mavericks 10.8 Server I have running in a data center has been filling up its Time Machine volume way too quickly. The backups are continually huge and only about a week fits on the second hard drive inside of the Mac mini. Every time the machine backed up it was taking up so much room that previous backups had to be deleted.

Long-Running MacBook Pro

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 13:20:29 +0000

I've noticed a trend lately - I never shut down my MacBook Pro(s) any more. Ever since Power Nap came out I tend to just leave my machines running all the time, even if they're on battery. Even with boot times being so fast on the SSD retina MBP I just like the fact I can leave everything be.

Asynchronous unit testing Core Data with Xcode 6

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:52:11 +0000

The WordPress for iOS project had a number of unit tests using Core Data and a custom asynchronous test helper. The helper used a semaphore in a global scope and a bit of method swizzling to give a wait/notify mechanism. The problem with this solution was the global semaphore and poorly written tests causing a conflict. Tests would call the ending wait and previous tests running Core Data would fire off notifies causing a mismatch between the original test and the recipient of the message to pass by the current semaphore.

Things With Wheels Are Meant to Move, No?

Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:05:56 +0000

I met some fellow coworkers at Hudson Business Lounge downtown Milwaukee today on a $25 day pass. I've been a member in the past but haven't been there in over a year. I sat down and realized that the four of us wouldn't fit at the table because of that awkward power outlet under the one chair. I decided to move the table so that it was centered between the chairs.

Systems Philosophy

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 20:24:50 +0000

I was apparently feeling philosophical the other day and posted two tweets about dealing with systems architecture. They generally apply to life as well, so I'm posting them here on my blog so I don't forget them.

Just because something was done a certain way, doesn't mean it was done right and even if it was done right at the time it may be wrong now.

https://twitter.com/astralbodies/status/488786577360171008

Wax on, wax off.

https://twitter.com/astralbodies/status/488786693999558656

One Year at Automattic

Tue, 22 Jul 2014 13:30:40 +0000

Today marks my one year anniversary with Automattic. I work with some awesome people and it's been a rewarding first year. I've had challenges to face (my attention for one), fun speaking at conferences, shipped a number of improvements and new features of WordPress for iOS, and learned a ton of new things. I'm excited to experience my next year here!

Authentication improvements for testing your apps

Mon, 14 Jul 2014 14:59:49 +0000

Developers interested in contributing to the WordPress mobile apps can now connect to WordPress.com with their own account. More details to follow on how to set up the individual projects.

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks Calendar + Google Sync Problems

Thu, 05 Jun 2014 15:23:24 +0000

On occasion my Calendar on Mavericks gets hosed when syncing with Google. If I look in the console, I see errors like the following mentioning "An error exists on principal":

6/5/14 10:05:00.337 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [iCloud]] 6/5/14 10:05:00.338 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [Time Off]] 6/5/14 10:05:00.340 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [Events]] 6/5/14 10:05:00.341 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [Launch]] 6/5/14 10:05:00.341 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [Conferences]] 6/5/14 10:05:00.342 AM Calendar[59555]: [com.apple.calendar.ui.log] [An error exists on principal: [Some Team]]

Nerdy Fitness Progress

Thu, 29 May 2014 13:12:14 +0000

I posted a while back about what I've been doing to lose weight.

I was my heaviest last year around September 2013 at 277lb (125kg). I started on my ADD meds around October and stopped taking a medication for my cluster headaches that was causing weight gain as well. You can see the drop but then around end of January I came off the meds. The weight hopped back up for a bit but I dug deep and kept my exercise a bit more regular. So far I'm down 40lb! I don't really have any goal in mind other than to reach at least 235lb which the lightest I've been for the past five years.

Look Up & Unplug

Tue, 06 May 2014 12:21:08 +0000

This is probably one of the best videos I've seen promoting the need for us as humans to reconnect with each other. I work for a distributed company and I call tell you, we realize the importance of face to face interaction. Also we need to make sure we're connecting not just to our friends, family and other humans but also our pets. It's so easy to ignore them when you're tied into an electronic device all day long. They need love too :).

Tokyo Mobile Meetup January 2014

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:58:09 +0000

In January 2014, the Mobile Team at Automattic met in Tokyo Japan for our quarterly face to face meetup. Here are some of the pictures I took from the meetup. It was a great experience and I would definitely go back to Japan!

Using Screenhero for Pair Programming Remotely

Tue, 29 Apr 2014 20:11:38 +0000

Before coming to work for Automattic, I pair programmed a lot. Developers who pair learn from each other in a symbiotic sort of manner. It's definitely a good way to get a project off to a fast start and to come to consensus on design and intent. Once I started working at Automattic, I realized pair programming is less of a reality since we're all in disparate locations across the globe. We tend to use code reviews as our way of pairing together on code and making sure the design we discussed in chat came through properly. We've also done screen sharing but never really felt it was effective.

The Non-Linear Nature of Progress

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 14:07:52 +0000

My friend Marty gave a nugget of wisdom today that I thought I'd share. I mentioned how I've been doing good at losing weight but this past weekend I cut loose a little with family over. I intended on relaxing the calorie count so I don't feel guilty at all. His quote though, brought things into perspective.

Progress is never a straight line. You just need to re-focus this week.

Progress really never is linear. Looking at all of the metrics I've been capturing relating to my progress with improving my health that is certainly the case.

Live Storm Chasing App

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 02:23:43 +0000

Enjoy chasing storms from your couch like me? There's a great app called "TVNweather Live Storm Chasing" that I've been using to watch live streams from actual storm chasers out in the field. You'll see names like Reed Timmer (TornadoVideos.net) and the team running the Dominator 2.

TVNweather Live Storm Chasing for iOS

The app itself needs some work with stability, but the collection of active streams is incredibly handy and fun to watch. An Android version is coming soon as well. Until then you can also watch on their site at http://tvnweather.com/live.

Grilling Season with my Range Thermometer

Sat, 26 Apr 2014 23:58:21 +0000

It's grilling season again (finally) here in Wisconsin. I got my Range iOS-enabled thermometer over the winter season and only used it once with a ham. I used it today with grilling burgers, brats and steak and really enjoyed it.

The Range thermometer is really fast at responding to temperature change. The problem I always have with even the best analog thermometers is that once they reach a high temperature, it's hard to test temperature of meat that may be a little bit colder. I can move the Range thermometer around from each thing on the grill and not have to wait for it to reset.

On the Importance of Glue

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 19:51:58 +0000

Glue is the thing that ... well ... glues everything together. You don't see glue (if the product is made right) but it plays an important role in the overall satisfaction with the product. If you buy a bird house that has bad gluing technique or not enough glue, you will be upset when the first bird flattens the house.

The same hold trues for mobile apps as well as web and desktop applications. For sake of this discussion, I'm limiting myself to mobile apps and mentioning some specific iOS technologies.

If you run Unit Tests in Xcode

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 21:31:18 +0000

If you run unit tests inside of Xcode, you may wish to turn on the behavior to show the test results after they run.

Go to Preferences in Xcode.
Click on the Behaviors tab.
Click on Succeeds.
Check the box shown and select "Show" then "Test Navigator".
Repeat step 4 for Fails as well.

Now when your tests finish (failed or succeeded) you'll see the pretty green or red marks.

Apple's Public Mailing Lists

Wed, 23 Apr 2014 15:00:21 +0000

You may not be aware but Apple has a pretty extensive set of public e-mail discussion lists.

https://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo

There are topics ranging from fundamental Objective-C issues through to development for their various desktop applications. Some of the lists are quite chatty but you can subscribe in digest format to get a daily e-mail instead of each individual message. This is a great way to reach engineers working on the piece you're interested in and is a quite interesting place to lurk.

How to Make Me Instantly Unsubscribe

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:18:00 +0000

This is a pretty definite way of making me unsubscribe from your marketing emails.

Dark & Stormy Cocktail

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:09:35 +0000

Ever since I visited House of Shields downtown San Francisco, the cocktail called a Dark & Stormy has been one of my favorites. HoS makes their own variation of it, one part using a ginger syrup that they make themselves. I ended up finding a decent combination of ingredients locally that I prefer from HoS' recipe. Most Dark & Stormy recipes will indicate to use Gosling's Black Seal rum which can be hard to obtain. Gosling's also makes a ginger beer which is the staple used in a Dark & Stormy. I found a zippier ginger beer and a tasty alternative to Black Seal.

Those Judgmental Baristas

Sun, 20 Apr 2014 15:00:07 +0000

I've noticed that when I've achieved a free drink at Starbucks, I tend to add on things I normally wouldn't. Sometimes the baristas like to make a special comment about it as well which makes me feel guilty about ordering literally "anything I want."

You know what, f**k that.

I've purchased 12 drinks to get one free. It's one of the reasons I continue to patronize Starbucks because I feel like that 12th drink is nice to get. I don't go very often any more so when I do get the free one, I like to take advantage of their offer. Hell, I've dropped probably $60 by then!

You Know You've Lost Your Mind When...

Sat, 19 Apr 2014 15:00:58 +0000

You know you've lost your mind when you trip a little and the recovery move resembles a move from your step aerobics routine and you hear the instructor say:

"Now, funky push!"

Agility Not Agile Development

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 14:29:14 +0000

Dave Thomas has a really excellent post about how it's time to kill Agile. It's a very well thought out post and it embodies a lot of my concerns with the movement. I have a few insights to add to his perspective.

I was a software engineer consultant for over five years. The Java and open-source community had adopted Agile and implementations like Scrum and XP fairly quickly. It made us find the way to get software that was good out the door in a timely fashion. It made us not sit on our asses collecting requirements for months before any real work was done. I worked on a very successful search project at a Fortune 500 company following Agile methods loosely based on Scrum. I still believe to this day the level of success was due to the project being in "skunkworks" and therefore having a simplified budget and leaving us in control of the moving parts. Once that project got into a normal budgeting process, innovation floundered.

Stop Being Lazy with Accessibility

Thu, 17 Apr 2014 16:52:10 +0000

I'm making a pledge as a software developer to think of accessibility with every change I make. My first step was to turn on iOS' VoiceOver and test everything I'm working on with it. In the first five minutes of using it, I've discovered so many necessary improvements to make the app even useful for someone who has trouble seeing. There are many more accessibility tools than VoiceOver (like Dynamic Type) that should also be on your list to try. Baby steps.

Home Hacks - DC Blower Motor

Wed, 16 Apr 2014 13:10:26 +0000

A couple days ago we had to replace the air conditioning condenser and evaporator units in our home's central air system. The unit was 21 years old and was leaking coolant slowly throughout the last summer. It was just time. The new unit is much more efficient, handles more air, and should be quieter even though it's physically larger.

We had been talking about another item in our furnace and that was replacing the A/C motor with a D/C motor. The A/C motor is called a PSC or permanent split capacitor motor and they are largely inefficient over time. The Nest Thermostat allows you to schedule your fan to be on for time periods in the day. We've been running our fan for 15 minutes every hour during the daytime to keep air circulating to reduce warm/cool spots and to help reduce dust. Running the fan that much with a standard PSC blower is expensive and taxing on the motor itself.

Mounting Wires Under a Standing Desk

Tue, 15 Apr 2014 12:30:30 +0000

I purchased an UpDesk PowerUp Series I (original) last year and love it. I got the standard maple-colored desk top and am very happy with the density of the wood, quality laminate and curved front edge. The one thing I was not very satisfied with was the mounting option given for the clasps keeping the wiring under it from hanging. I was given a good amount of these self-adhesive twist plastic cable ties:

On Aging Content - The Long Process of Conversion

Mon, 14 Apr 2014 12:30:45 +0000

We bought our first house in June 2001 and moved to our new home in January 2013. In that 12 years (plus the five years in apartments) we've create a crap ton of content. That content is in the form of home video and movies on VCR tapes, photographs, negatives and all of the digital files stored on CDs, DVDs, and hard drives. I realized that some of that content is on aging media (VCR tapes and IDE hard drives) and needs to be moved to newer storage to prevent inaccessibility. We all have a responsibility of archiving that content so that our future selves and generations have access to it for historical and entertainment purposes. We all must become archivists.

Why I Use VPN on My Mobile Devices

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 17:09:12 +0000

I'm not terribly paranoid about online security compared to some. I do take some extra precautions when doing things online that involves financial data and logging into accounts. Here are a few rules I follow internally when out and about:

Public WiFi should only be used when cellular data isn't sufficient or available
Always ask what the SSID (network name) is when using public WiFi at a coffee shop - don't assume you've picked the right one
Never ever do anything with financial information (banks, credit cards including purchases)
Never create new accounts over public WiFi
Wired and "protected" WiFi at hotels is just as unsafe as public WiFi
Use a VPN (virtual private network) to a trusted destination when using a public Internet connection
Secure your home WiFi with a strong password and WPA2-PSK encryption

A virtual private network connection lets you create a safe connection from where you are to where the VPN server resides. Depending on the VPN configuration it may allow you to go back out to the Internet from there or you may be limited to local connections only on the server side. In the case of how I use VPN, I connect to a home server which effectively makes someone in the coffee shop I'm at unable to see my online activity.

Android Emoji Isn't What You Expect

Sun, 13 Apr 2014 02:54:04 +0000

Public Service Announcement - Be careful who you send emoji characters to via text message - they may not be getting the output you expect!

I was at a friend's house and she showed me her phone after getting a bunch of cryptic messages from an iOS user. I realized emoji doesn't necessarily render correctly on Android phones. Apparently KitKat fixes this to some success, however, she can't upgrade to that OS quite yet. Google Hangouts as her SMS application helped some but only to send. She still receives the malformed UTF-16 characters.

Verizon Wireless & Voice over 3G/LTE

Fri, 11 Apr 2014 12:30:29 +0000

A few years back I switched to Verizon Wireless here in the States which is a predominately CDMA-based carrier with a fairly large LTE 4G network. Previously I was on AT&T which is a traditional GSM network with a LTE 4G network as well. I left AT&T because their footprint where I spend most of my summer is quite poor and results in the inability to work remotely there or even enjoy streaming radio.

I like Shiny Things

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 11:56:59 +0000

Last week I was having a discussion with my coworkers about how I think someone should feel when viewing/interacting with their site stats in the WordPress world. I made a list of things I'd expect and one of them I wrote down was definitely inspired by my personality:

https://twitter.com/gregibrown/status/452133773727899648

I do really like shiny things. Okay maybe part of it is attention-related but in general I like things that stand out. Why have stuff that's dull and drab when it perform the same function but LOOK AWESOME?

Mavericks USB Hub Oddities

Wed, 09 Apr 2014 14:02:05 +0000

I have the strangest glitch happening with Mac OS X Mavericks and I can't find anyone else describing the same issue. I have a D-Link DUB-H7 USB 2.0 hub connected to my Thunderbolt Display which is in turn connected to my retina 15" MacBook Pro.

If I cold boot with this hub connected to my Thunderbolt Display, both the USB external keyboard (not connected to the hub) and the built-in keyboard have a number of keys that do not function. I, J, M and a few others I know of offhand that don't work. As soon as I disconnect the hub, both keyboards work perfectly. Also, after I log into Mavericks, the keyboards work fine regardless of the hub being connected or not.

Stand for MacBook Pro When It's Closed

Tue, 08 Apr 2014 21:37:59 +0000

I've been using my MacBook Pro with the lid closed and only the external Thunderbolt Display. I'm finding it helps keep focus on the task I'm working on. I didn't want to waste room on my desk with the Griffin laptop stand, so I moved to a BookArc which is working great!

http://www.twelvesouth.com/product/bookarc-for-macbook-pro-retina

How I Got Well Played Revenge

Mon, 07 Apr 2014 12:30:13 +0000

Last fall I gave a four minute flash talk at our company meetup. Everyone is required to give one and it can be on any topic. I chose to tell a story about how I got revenge on my boss.

[wpvideo k15SG13b]

Change Your Organization

Sun, 06 Apr 2014 13:50:42 +0000

Martin Fowler coined one of my favorite phrases while on a panel at the XP 2000 Conference regarding change and if your employer isn't willing to change:

If you can't change your organization, change your organization!

I don't think much of eXtreme Programming but I think the phrase itself applies itself to many things in life. Whenever someone asks me for advice about their jobs or careers I usually bring this phrase up at some point. The idea is, if you don't like what you're doing and your company isn't willing to invest in you or your ideas, then go somewhere else. I just like how elegantly short the quote is!

My Attention So Far

Sat, 05 Apr 2014 15:27:04 +0000

In the recent past I blogged about my trials and tribulations with my experiences with ADHD working at Automattic. I figured it was time to give a follow up on how things are going!

Back in October last year I started on a medication called Vyvanse to help me cope with the problems that ADHD had been presenting. My ultimate goal with the medication trial was to keep it just that - a trial. I've lived with the spastic brain patterns all my life and I just wanted a few months of clarity so I knew what to work towards. Late February, I decided to take myself off the medication.

Software I Use Every Day

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 19:07:25 +0000

In the spirit of yesterday's post, I'm going to list out what I use every day in terms of software. This isn't exhaustive but it's pretty darn close.

General Utilities

1Password - Probably the best password manager out there combined with mobile apps
Cloudup - quick way to share images, videos, text (ask me for a referral code)
Coffitivity - coffeehouse sounds to help boost productivity
Cyberduck - SFTP client
DaisyDisk - finding where all my space has gone
Dropbox
Evernote - where I keep my larger notes, graphics, PDF files
Parallels Desktop - for the occasional booting of old Mac OS & Windows VMs
Radium - menu bar radio streaming
Rdio - monthly subscription-based song streaming
RescueTime - track my app usage to determine if I'm distracted
Simplenote - for my quick note taking needs
Skype - sadly yes
Slack - communication for our team - web socket-based system like HipChat but better

Graphics

Adobe Photoshop CC - go-to app for image editing
Aperture (more for personal use)
Balsamiq Mockups - easy mockups
Bartender - organize your menu bar extras area
Camtasia 2 - screen casts
Color Picker
Join.me - easy screen sharing - I use it more for helping people fix computer problems remotely
Pixelmator
SnagIt

Development - General

Base - for digging around SQLite files; especially handy debugging Core Data
Charles - proxying application for testing remote calls
HockeyApp - binary distribution for testing
Kaleidoscope - arguably the most beautiful diff tool - ignore whitespace is still not a feature :(
PHPStorm - for when I have to get into WordPress and WordPress.com API coding
TextMate - Still my favorite text editor
Textual - Mac IRC client

Development - iOS

AppCode - alternative IDE for Objective-C - I switch between Xcode and here for specific reasons (future post?)
iExplorer - could not live without the ability to dig around device filesystems
PaintCode - easiest way to get Core Graphics code from images or hand-drawn UI elements
Reflector - transmit your iOS device screen to your computer for recording
Spark Inspector - interactively debug your UIView layers & NSNotificationCenter calls
Xcode
xScope - helpful UI tools for your Mac

Development - Android

Android Studio
Genymotion - Android VM manager - lurv

New Host

Fri, 04 Apr 2014 12:05:07 +0000

I've moved my blog over to WordPress.com from my self-hosted server. I had to change the domain name to http://astralbodi.es because my old WordPress site had a funky permalink structure to match how my post links were with Octopress. So, for now, astralbodies.net will redirect to astralbodi.es and maintain any links over to the posts. Please let me know if you see any weird glitches, missing text, etc.

My Desk Setup

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 05:55:38 +0000

I always like seeing people's desk setups so I figured I would post mine. I didn't pretty everything up for the photo.

UpDesk v1
Retina MacBook Pro 15" + Thunderbolt Display
iPad Air, iPod touch 5th gen, iPhone 4 + personal iPhone 5s taking the photo
Wired Apple keyboard (I like the number keypad)
Magic Mouse
Creative GigaWorks T20 speakers
Vornado "Zippi" Fan
Griffin Elevator stand
Some crappy corner monitor stand from Amazon
The trippy light fixture is to help me with my attention span - it does help! - Homedics Mood Wave

[Edit] A few additional items from conversations on Twitter and alike:

Xcode Presentation Mode

Thu, 03 Apr 2014 01:59:27 +0000

Giving a presentation with Xcode on screen? Don't forget about Presentation mode in Fonts & Colors!

It doesn't help with the text size in the navigator but at least everyone will see your code nice and clear!

Checking in CocoaPods files

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 19:53:25 +0000

I've gone back and forth on the debate with whether or not we should be checking in the dependencies for a project supplied by CocoaPods. In the past I felt it was best to only check in the Podfile and maybe the lock file. I believe I've finally made a decision with recent experiences and my development practices with Git.

I'm checking in the whole effing workspace.

Why?

Every branch, especially master, should be compilable and archivable up to a point.
- Caveat 1: Xcode is a piece of shit sometimes and will break things because it can between versions.
- Caveat 2: Provisioning Profiles.
CocoaPods is a well-maintained tool, however, Specs are a crap-shoot.
- Specs can disappear.
- Specs can be unofficially maintained.
- Specs can be wrong.
Checking in your Pods directory ensures the best possible snapshot of the pre-binary code.
- Forcing a pod install every time someone checks out code doesn't ensure the same state of code is maintained for testing bugs in previous versions.
- You may decide to drop Pods support and forget how to use it.
- Wouldn't it be nice to do diffs on your dependency classes?
Xcode Bots doesn't work well enough yet with CocoaPods for me to want to install Pods every build
- I'm also not sold on Xcode Bots itself - it's quite unreliable and likes to smoke my server's CPU.
- CocoaPods needs to not be a hinderance - its pretty innocuous when the risky work (installing Pods) is done and checked in.

That sums up my thoughts. I primarily work on WordPress for iOS which is a heavily forked and contributed to repository. I don't think the project could be a success with the amount of branching and pull requests performed if we didn't check in the Pods directory.

iOS Background Refresh & Force Killing

Mon, 31 Mar 2014 15:30:36 +0000

If you've done any work with background refresh (application:didReceiveRemoteNotification:fetchCompletionHandler:) on iOS 7 you know that it can be a pain to debug your code with. Some things I've discovered:

Background refresh will start your app if it's not running.
If you force-quit an application, it's not eligible to be started by a push notification. Restarting the app or rebooting is the only way to again receive background push wakes.
You can't really debug wake by push other than with logging.
Touching UI code in application:willFinishLaunchingWithOptions: is risky with background push since it fires but didFinishLaunchingWithOptions won't if it's immediately backgrounded. If you're using UIStateRestoration, make sure you're limiting UI code in willFinishLaunchingWithOptions to setting up the root view controller.
Don't arbitrarily reset the badge count when your app is presented - you should really reset the badge count when the notification is viewed/considered no longer relevant.
Update your push service to send "all clear" or zero count badges when things are read via other instances of your app (web, other iOS device, Android too). Your users will thank you that they're cleared everywhere.

Take a look at Apple's documentation on app lifecycle - there is an excellent set of graphics to demonstrate where things hook in.

Nerdy Fitness

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 12:15:57 +0000

Nerds are notorious for being the most disinterested in staying fit - well at least our stereotype. I've definitely yo-yoed in weight over the years, being at my best weight about three years ago. Job and other life changes got me distracted and I ended up 40lb heavier in a relatively short amount of time.

When I started working at home, I decided change was in order to make me a bit more aware of myself. I ended up getting a standing desk and a really great Herman Miller chair as part of my office setup when I started at Automattic. Standing throughout the day, and sitting at strategic points of fatigue and after exercise, has made a significant difference in my attention levels and I believe my overall health.

CocoaConf Chicago - Advanced Core Data

Sat, 08 Mar 2014 13:42:37 +0000

I was lucky enough to be able to speak at CocoaConf Chicago 2014 about some more advanced Core Data topics. The bulk of the talk surrounded concurrency and data model migrations but I did touch on a number of other things. Sadly the session wasn't recorded, but I am considering recording a screencast if there is enough interest.

[slideshare id=32054049&doc=advancedcoredata-140307170729-phpapp01]

Working at Automattic

Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:42:49 +0000

Some people have asked me what it's like working for Automattic. Every employee of Automattic has a different perspective on what it means to work here. Here are a few things I feel are important to me.

Work Wherever, Whenever

Automattic is a completely distributed company. We have a headquarters in San Francisco, CA USA but only a small percentage of us work out that office. Most of us work from home, some of us work on the road, others work from a coworking space. Sometimes it's nice being able to change your location once in a while - I pretty much like working from my home office. I like working a regular day, usually 7am - 4pm my local time and I fit some sort of exercise routine in there half way through. We have flexibility to make our own hours and take the time off we need to. We're adults and we're treated as such.

Fix ScanSnap on Mac not opening Evernote properly

Fri, 27 Dec 2013 21:20:58 +0000

Do you have a ScanSnap scanner on your Mac and scan things to Evernote? You notice that if you have Evernote running, ScanSnap can't launch Evernote properly? You might get an error message like the following:

Failed to start up Evernote for Mac.Make sure that the selected application is installed correctly.

Turns out Evernote is broken. EvernoteHelper.app is an embedded application that runs while Evernote is running (or while it's in the background) and if you're set to English, its name is the same as the main Evernote application. Technically, the CFBundleName is being overridden in the InfoPlist.strings file. You can verify this by running /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app and seeing:

Cable companies: Please, take my money!

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 15:57:44 +0000

I cut the cord two years ago from cable TV but am interested in using apps for the iPad and Roku to watch live cable TV. I called Time Warner Cable today to ask them if they offered a cable TV package that wouldn't require a physical installation. TL;DR - using the TWC TV apps (iPad, Android tablet, Roku) requires a physical install.

My Situation

Most of the summer (April - October) I'm not home on the weekends as we have a seasonal spot at a campground about 3 hours away from home. We ended up cutting cable two years ago and don't really miss it for what we used of it. At one time I ran a MythTV server with two tuner cards, and it worked well. I have since moved to two dual-tuner HDHomeRun units with Elgato's EyeTV running on a Mac mini. It works well enough and it allows me to stream and download any recorded content to my iPad/iPhone. I can even watch live remotely and not pay anything extra.

NSNotificationCenter Block-based Observer

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 15:22:37 +0000

Back in iOS 4, a nifty block-based observer method was added to NSNotificationCenter:

(id)addObserverForName:(NSString *)name object:(id)obj queue:(NSOperationQueue *)queue usingBlock:(void (^)(NSNotification *))block;

Super convenient, right? I love using blocks to pass simple callbacks to controllers instead of creating a delegate protocol. There is a catch with this method, and it's not terribly obvious unless you're looking closely. The method returns (id) - according to Apple's documentation the return object is "An opaque object to act as the observer". What does this mean?

Paying Attention at Automattic

Thu, 31 Oct 2013 13:48:44 +0000

All of my teen and adult life I realized that I perceive the world a little differently than most. I’d like to think I’m a smart guy but I never did very well in high school on exams especially for topics that weren’t science/math/computer related. I couldn’t read textbooks very well; my eyes would gloss over the details and I’d realize after reading a page I retained none of it. I hated research papers the most. In my early teens I discovered electronic music (at the time everything was called techno) and I realized listening to it while doing homework would keep that part of my brain busy so I could somewhat focus. I never put a name to the condition and just moved forward.

iPhreaks Show - Guest Panelist

Thu, 19 Sep 2013 13:50:42 +0000

I had the awesome privilege of being a guest panelist on the iPhreaks podcast talking about scalable cloud apps to back your mobile phone apps. We talked mostly about Parse but we did also discuss a lot of new service offerings like Microsoft Azure, Simperium, and a few others. It was fun and unscripted for sure.

http://iphreaksshow.com/021-iphreaks-show-scalable-cloud-applications-with-aaron-douglas/

Take a listen and make sure to subscribe to their podcast if you're even remotely interested in Mac and iOS development!

Apple App Store Deprecated Version Nightmare

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 13:49:56 +0000

At first glance this news seems awesome for consumers:

Apple offering 'last compatible version' of iOS apps for older hardware

Finally my old iPhone 3G can download apps that I purchased after iOS 4 became obsolete! This should have been communicated to us as developers and the revenue channel for Apple.

Developers, on the other hand, should be ready for an onslaught of support requests they can do absolutely nothing about. We've assumed, since the beginning of Apple App Store time, that old versions were not installable by devices unless they pulled a backup IPA and installed it manually. We know this happens fairly rarely. Some of us put checks in the app to notify users of new versions in the App Store, but did we prevent the app from functioning? Probably not.

Manual note-taking epiphany

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 16:10:44 +0000

I've never been able to put in words the reason why I am attached to using written notes over my iPad until today.

I was sitting in a talk today by Rob Martin when I had an epiphany. When I'm holding my opened notebook, the crisp clean chunky feel of unused pages on the right feels like raw potential. The pages on the left, roughened from notes written on them, feels like accomplishment.

Going Down the Core Data Rabbit Hole

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 02:18:14 +0000

I gave a talk today at That Conference in Wisconsin Dells, WI USA. I'm posting my slides here so that others who didn't have the chance to go can peruse them. Hit me up with any questions or if you'd like to have audio to go with it. I'd have to record it, but would love to do so if there is a desire.

Cheers!

GitHub: https://github.com/astralbodies/CoreDataRabbitHole

[slideshare id=25224548&style=max-width: 427px; border: 1px solid #CCC; border-width: 1px 1px 0; margin-bottom: 5px;&sc=no]

Migrated back to WordPress

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:10:06 +0000

I've been using Octopress for over year and I really enjoyed it. You have to love the command line, understand Git, and know your stuff when something breaks. Oh, and it will break. A lot. But when you fix it, you get that satisfaction that you're a geek and you got it.

I was kind of done with the shit breaking. (That and I got a job with Automattic)

So now I'm back to WordPress. Luckily I had kept my WordPress site around that I migrated from to Octopress. I found that Octopress, because it was a simple type and post software, made me blog a lot less. A LOT less. That benefited me because I was able to copy and paste the 12 or so blogs I made into WordPress. I made sure the titles were the same, the date published matched, and I copied the tags. I had to install a GitHub Gist plugin because I used a lot of Gists in my posts now. I also had to manually upload images from my posts into the blog.

Diversity in Developers

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:58:09 +0000

I had an excellent weekend at CocoaConf Chicago meeting interesting people and reconnecting with many as well.

One of the subjects that was brought up in Brittany Tarvin's Friday Keynote talk was that of women in the technology field. I had the pleasure of meeting Brittany at SecondConf and it was great to see her challenge to encourage women (and girls) to be software engineers brought to CocoaConf. Her talk stirred a lot of discussion, especially in the reverse panel discussion Saturday. The overwhelmingly positive response to her message was inspiring. Nowhere before have I experienced such open-minded discussions and outright admittance that we can all do more for women and other minorities in the tech field.

Scrolling to hidden table view cells

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 15:57:04 +0000

I'm currently using BSKeyboardControls to add that fancy Next/Previous/Done buttons to the top of the keyboard on the iPad. I have noticed, however, that while scrolling through the fields in a UITableView, the cursor would sometimes disappear and the keyboard would be detached (typing does nothing).

I threw some logging together and make a discovery - scrolling to a UITableViewCell far off the screen that is UIView.hidden == YES doesn't allow subviews to receive the becomeFirstResponder message.

Adding the fancy search magnifying glass to your UITableView

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 14:55:03 +0000

So you're working on a search screen or popover with UITableViewController and you're wondering how to get that fancy search magnifying glass in your search results, right?

In my example, I have my table view sourced by a simple array of data. This may not be the case for you, but you get the idea from the example. Simply add the constant UITableViewIndexSearch as the first section header title - UITableView will understand to replace the {search} text from that constant with the locale-specific image indicating search.

Bringing in your own hardware to work

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:54:19 +0000

As a consultant, I have to move around to various companies as part of my job. Sometimes I am able to stay with the same client for months, sometimes weeks. The one thing that continues to be an issue wherever I go is the availability of a suitable development environment for me to start working on day one. I typically bring in my own laptop so that I can get started as quickly as possible. This is only if the client allows it.

Spring 3.1's PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:52:37 +0000

Spring 3.1 brought a lot of good changes to the framework but with any version change, behaviors can be different. Spring does a good job documenting most of this API changes but there is one that I apparently missed or underestimated the impact of.

Property files can be "imported" into the Spring context so that the values can be inserted into configuration using ${ } with the property value inside of the brackets. This is a handy feature that I use frequently in my Spring projects. The PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer has been replaced by PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer in Spring 3.1. One minor difference between them is the latter has the ability to read @Value annotations for direct injection of property values. The other side effect is that the 3.1 class puts system properties ahead of your property file's values. 3.0, on the other hand, let your property file win if a name matched one as a system parameter.

Maven & Eclipse target folder + validation stabbyness

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:45:07 +0000

Does using Maven with Eclipse make you stabby when you spend an hour waiting for Eclipse to finish validating files? You may not realize it, but Eclipse is indexing/validating files inside of your project's target folders! Yes kids, this is annoying and time consuming. The target folders also end up showing results in the "Open Type" and "Open Resource" windows. I'm sure we've all experienced the duplicate results when searching for a class or resource.

Resizing a UITextView automatically with the keyboard

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:34:11 +0000

One of the biggest UI no-nos you can perform in iOS is creating a UITextView that assumes the size of the keyboard on the screen before the keyboard even shows up. You should be dynamically resizing your text views by looking at the dimensions of the keyboard, and not assuming you know the dimensions.

Why? Try enabling a Japanese keyboard and see how your app performs. You'll notice that the keyboard is taller than the English keyboard - it's to give room to a typeahead area for creating the glyphs. Now how does your app behave?

Fixing Layer Transparency Issues in Xcode

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:23:18 +0000

If you're looking to get higher frame rates and general application performance tweaks from your iOS application, you may need to take a look at transparent settings on your subviews. Any time you set a subview to be transparent, the OS has to blend multiple layers together to figure out the end flattened result. This blending takes CPU cycles and can impact performance of your app - especially in something as simple as a UITableViewCell.

Google Data API

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:19:01 +0000

I've started to mess around with the Google Data APIs recently to help support my Migraine Diary iOS application. Specifically I want users to be able to export their journal entries into a Google Spreadsheet rather than just a plain CSV file. I am using the Objective-C client that Google built and have come across a number of issues or gotchas.

The Objective-C client is badly documented - a number of Google Data API calls have zero examples and translating REST calls into Objective-C classes is a challenge.
OpenAuth 2 is surprisingly easy to use
Google provides very little troubleshooting assistance even with their client
Objective-C is very new compared to the Python, .NET and Java clients

That being said, I am making progress. I'll most likely share my finalized code to create a simple spreadsheet here so others have a jumping off point.

Adium always presenting Apple Quarantine Message

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:01:12 +0000

I've been getting a warning dialog on my Mac (Lion 10.7) when opening Adium. It recently updated to the newest beta and is presenting the following quarantine message every time I open it -

“Adium.app” is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?

Every other time I have gotten the quarantine message, it clears itself after the first launch. This time it did not. I found a quick and easy way to remove the quarantine extended file attribute:

Missing AccessibilitySettingsLoader bundle with iOS 5.0.1 debugging

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:15:53 +0000

After upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS 5.0.1, Xcode has been giving me the following error message when debugging my Migraine Diary app remotely:

warning: Unable to read symbols for /Users/aaron/Library/Developer/Xcode/iOS DeviceSupport/5.0.1 (9A405)/Symbols/System/Library/AccessibilityBundles/AccessibilitySettingsLoader.bundle/AccessibilitySettingsLoader (file not found). warning: No copy of AccessibilitySettingsLoader.bundle/AccessibilitySettingsLoader found locally, reading from memory on remote device. This may slow down the debug session.

I tried deleting the directory and having Xcode pull down the symbols off of the phone again. No success. I ended up copying the contents of the main SDK bundles into the one in my local library. Solved it. Not sure if this is the right solution but it works. I vaguely remember this happening last time Apple released a small point release.

iOS Basics: nil vs NULL vs NSNull

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:43:28 +0000

Yes, there are three ways to represent a null value in Objective-C.

NULL = Absence of a value with C-style pointers
nil = Absence of value with Objective-C object variables
NSNull = A nil boxed as an object for storage in a collection

If you try adding nil to a NSDictionary or NSArray, you will find out it doesn't perform as expected. If you absolutely need to store a null value in a collection, you can use NSNull to represent the lack of a value. For example:

iOS - Customize Table View Cells

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:02:48 +0000

Ever wanted to have alternated colors on your table view cells? If so, you've probably done something inside of cellForRowAtIndexPath and applied a background color to your cell there.

Would you be surprised to know that's completely wrong? Yup. Wrong. WRONG WRONG WRONG.

I didn't know this, but any styles applied to cells based on state or whatever should really be in willDisplayCell - NOT when you configure the cell itself! Per Apple's documentation for the Table View delegate -

iOS - Pull App Version From Bundle Configuration

Thu, 07 Jul 2011 13:46:42 +0000

We all like to put the current application version number in an "about" screen somewhere for users to reference. It's a pain, however, to have to update that screen every time we do a release as well as the version in the target configuration for the bundle. So why not pull the version number from the bundle? Here's how to do it:
NSString version = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] objectForKey:(NSString)kCFBundleVersionKey];

NSString *version = [[[NSBundle mainBundle] infoDictionary] objectForKey:@"CFBundleShortVersionString"];

Time Warner Cable Power / SNR Acceptable Values

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:20:03 +0000

I recently upgraded my Time Warner Cable RoadRunner service to the RoadRunner Extreme 30Mbps down / 5Mbps up service. Part of that service upgrade required a new modem to be installed and a technician to come out to validate line quality values. Turns out, I could have done a self install myself and saved the $30 but I wasn't given that option even after asking.

In any case, while the technician was at my house I noticed on his computer screen power levels and signal to noise (SNR) levels for my modem. Right next to it were the acceptable ranges that Time Warner allows. I asked if I could take a picture of his screen, which he refused, but allowed me to record the values. Here I present them to you for your reference with my values in parenthesis.

iTunes Connect - Invalid Binary

Thu, 26 May 2011 13:11:51 +0000

I spent the past week pulling out my hair trying to submit an update for Centare's EyeOnWeather application to iTunes Connect. I kept getting a reject from the system and all I got for an error message was "Invalid Binary." THANKS, THAT'S SOOPER.

Eventually I ended up attempting to contact iTunes Connect Support for further details. I thought it might have been missing icons, malformed Info.plist, something. I haven't changed anything in the project drastically with how it builds, so I was at a loss. Turns out, I was picking the wrong provisioning profile in my setup. Man I felt stupid. Ends up that I'm not crazy - Apple's documentation on how to set up your project for building still only references Xcode 3. Awesome for the rest of the world using Xcode 4. Here are some tips I got from Apple iTunes Connect support for pulling in information to submit to their developer team:

UITextView having rounded corners

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 01:35:49 +0000

I've been using a UITextView in an app and realized that it didn't have any rounded edges like the default behavior exhibited by the built-in iOS apps. For example in the calendar app, setting the Notes field shows:

Inside of Apple's Human Interface guidelines it specifically states "A text view is a rounded rectangle of any height. A text view supports scrolling when the content is too large to fit inside its bounds." Adding a UITextView to a view shows square corners by default. So how the hell do you get rounded corners? Interface Builder doesn't show anything about corners. Seems like the only way to get this behavior is by doing the following in code:

Xcode 4 - Problem submitting App with Static Library

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 01:12:16 +0000

I'm submitting a new version of my Migraine Diary App to the App Store and was running into problems with Xcode 4 giving me the following error: "[Your App Name] does not contain a single-bundle application or contains multiple products. Please select another archive, or adjust your scheme to create a single-bundle application."

There is an issue or maybe it's an intentional design thing with Xcode 4 and how it handles statically built libraries being included in your project. I'm specifically using Core Plot and it's instruction set hasn't been updated for Xcode 4 yet. Here are the things I had to do to get Core Plot to bundle correctly with my App to submit it:

iOS Basics - UINavigation Controller & Back Button Text

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:16:09 +0000

I've brought an old project out of the moth balls recently, the Migraine Diary application I wrote as part of my master's thesis. It was my first "real" iPhone app and I call tell I didn't know what I was doing entirely looking through the code. What this has forced me to do, however, is re-learn some of the basics of iOS development and of Apple design patterns. I have been spending some time back in the Apple developer documentation and will probably be posting some of the gotchas that tripped me up two years ago and I'm solving now with the better, more elegant solution.

iPhone Emoji in Adium

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:38:22 +0000

Have you enabled Emoji on your iPhone to use emoticon-like characters like 13 year-old Japanese girls? Well if you have, you've noticed that sending those characters in e-mail and IM to non-iPhone users ends up in little boxes of unreadable gibberish if you're lucky or whitespace. Most people understand the concept of Unicode if you're a geek. Someone like my mom doesn't always remember that Emoji being sent over IM, while she's on her own iPhone, isn't going to be readable when I'm on my Mac.

Mac OS X - Adding a loopback alias

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:13:33 +0000

I do a lot of local web development on my MacBook Pro. Frequently I had multiple tiers of servers running - a Jetty instance running the web tier and a JBoss/EJB server doing the business tier behind it. The problem is JBoss opens up so many ports on a particular network adapter and trying to get JBoss and Jetty to share a single IP is a nightmare. So the easier way is to just create a new IP or alias your localhost (127.0.0.1) into something like 127.0.0.2. When you start up Jetty, you pass in the binding IP of .2 and then JBoss and Jetty place nice with each other.

How Evernote Won My Time Warner Battle

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:10:38 +0000

If you don't know what Evernote is, I'll quickly summarize it for you. Evernote is a cloud-based service that is accessible through the means of a web site, mobile and computer application and various other APIs. The point of Evernote is that if you ever find something you want to remember - a piece of text, web page, a PDF, an image, recipe, sound bite, anything, you put it into Evernote. Their service indexes it to make it searchable and then you forget about it until you want to find it later in life. It's more than that but you have to discover how it's useful to you.

CDMA / Verizon iPhone

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:58:15 +0000

There has been quite a bit of press about the upcoming Verizon / CDMA iPhone. I'm happy to hear that AT&T will finally lose the monopoly on the iPhone in the United States, but I'm disappointed that nothing has come out yet about T-Mobile carrying the GMS version of the phone. AT&T needs the competition to spread out the massive amount of users onto another network because frankly, they can't handle the amount of growth they've experienced. The iPhone is a great device, and I've had nothing but a positive experience for the most part with AT&T.

Hibernate 3.6.0.Final + PostgreSQL + CLOBs

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:44:55 +0000

I recently upgraded a project I'm working on to Hibernate 3.6.0.Final from 3.5.6 and realized that one of my entities that had a CLOB (character large object) was pooping out. I was getting an exception stack track similar to:

Caused by: org.postgresql.util.PSQLException: Bad value for type long : <table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="productDetailLineItems"><thead><tr><td rowspan="2"><input type="hidden" name="productGroupId" id="productGroupId" value="101111"/>Item Number</td><td rowspan="2">Motor HP</td><td rowspan="2">Price</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><form method="post" id="4581000" name="4581000" action><td>4581000</td><td><span style="fraction"><sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></span></td><td><input type="button" onclick="javascript:addToCart('4581000');" value="$prc4581000" /></td></form></tr></tbody></table>at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.toLong(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:2690) [:]at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.getLong(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:1995) [:]at org.postgresql.jdbc3.Jdbc3ResultSet.getClob(Jdbc3ResultSet.java:44) [:]at org.postgresql.jdbc2.AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.getClob(AbstractJdbc2ResultSet.java:373) [:]at org.jboss.resource.adapter.jdbc.WrappedResultSet.getClob(WrappedResultSet.java:516) [:6.0.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.ClobTypeDescriptor$2.doExtract(ClobTypeDescriptor.java:70) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicExtractor.extract(BasicExtractor.java:64) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:253) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:249) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.nullSafeGet(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:229) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.type.AbstractStandardBasicType.hydrate(AbstractStandardBasicType.java:330) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.persister.entity.AbstractEntityPersister.hydrate(AbstractEntityPersister.java:2265) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.loadFromResultSet(Loader.java:1527) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.instanceNotYetLoaded(Loader.java:1455) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.getRow(Loader.java:1355) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.getRowFromResultSet(Loader.java:611) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQuery(Loader.java:829) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.doQueryAndInitializeNonLazyCollections(Loader.java:274) [:3.6.0.Final]at org.hibernate.loader.Loader.loadEntity(Loader.java:2037) [:3.6.0.Final]... 167 more

Contact Me

Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:33:19 +0000

You can find me on Twitter or you can contact me via the form below.

[contact-form][contact-field label='Name' type='name' required='1'/][contact-field label='Email' type='email' required='1'/][contact-field label='Comment' type='textarea' required='1'/][/contact-form]

Installing MySQL 5.5.8 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:17:30 +0000

Installing MySQL should be a no brainer on any operating system, especially with how mature of a product it is. Apparently that assumption is incorrect. I tried installing the most recent GA release of MySQL on my new Snow Leopard machine, and found I couldn't start the blasted server. I've become lazy the older I get - I don't want to screw around with shell scripts, hacking this tweaking that. If I'm provided a Mac-based installer I WANT IT TO WORK. So, if you're like me and are frustrated as all hell with not being able to get MySQL to start via System Preferences after installing the 64-bit version (maybe 32-bit as well), do the following:

Flush THIS Hibernate!

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:25:41 +0000

I've been working with Hibernate 3.3.2 and Hibernate Search 3.1 for the past few months. We finally got to a point in our project where we are sucking in mass amounts of data into our application from a large business application via JMS. Suddenly, I'm getting the following errors during persistence:

org.hibernate.AssertionFailure: collection [ class name here ] was not processed by flush()

I tried changing the owning side of the collection, made a join table, and nothing helped. The error started when I added an @IndexEmbedded annotation to the collection, and I discovered I was missing the @ContainedIn annotation in the collection entity. That didn't fix it. After weeks of doing little tweaks, breaking, fixing, breaking, fixing, I finally discovered the problem. I was using an older manual for Hibernate Search (3.0 specifically) and I had the following configuration parameter pushed into my SessionFactory:

Eclipse & Properties Files / ResourceBundles Editor

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:29:12 +0000

The current project I'm on is pretty heavy into internationalization aka i18n. I found a pretty decent resource bundle editor for Eclipse that makes creating synchronized files across all languages much simpler.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/eclipse-rbe

It installs in a snap and provides a simple, yet powerful, interface for a bundle.

Mac Screen Sharing (VNC) & White Screen

Sun, 02 May 2010 14:10:32 +0000

I've had problems connecting to my Ubuntu 9.10 server via Mac OS' built-in VNC client, "Screen Sharing". Frequently when I connect, I get a white screen with no indication that the connection is working. If I type characters or click the mouse, it does actually send those events to the remote side. My only option was to use Chicken of the VNC (which sucks) to connect to my server. Finally, I did some digging and found the solution/workaround.

Spring 3.0 + Hibernate 3.3.2 + JBoss Cache 2 + JTA = Fail

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 00:19:40 +0000

I've spent the past two days trying to get a distributed secondary Hibernate cache working with a Spring 3 application. The application is web-based running on JBoss 5.1 so I figured the best approach would be to use JBoss Cache, since it's automatically configured and available in JNDI when you use the "all" configuration.

Hibernate 3.3.2 is configured inside of Spring using the Annotation-based session factory bean. Because I'm using JTA to manage transactions and Hibernate's current session, I need to make sure that the secondary cache, whatever I choose, is aware of the transaction manager. I originally had EHCache 2.0.1 hooked into Hibernate via Hibernate configuration parameters passed into Spring's bean. I was not setting the cache factory parameter on this bean. Everything works fine in this configuration and it recognizes the JTA transactions.

iPhone Migraine Diary

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:35:05 +0000

I may have mentioned it before, but I created a Migraine Diary application for the iPhone as my master's captone/thesis project. The school year finished out for me and I submitted the application to Apple on the 29th. Two days - TWO DAYS - later they approved it and it's listed in iTunes!

Head on over to Net Workz LLC to find the app.

I still have a lot of work left to do before I'm really happy with it. Help screens, more graphing, and encryption are two things I really need to get out there. Until then, enjoy!

Xcode WTF are you doing?!

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:36:02 +0000

I didn't start developing in Xcode "for real" until this year but I've played around with Xcode for a number of years. Over that time, I've screwed around with settings and changed defaults. It got to the point where following screen shot examples weren't matching up, #pramga marks in my code weren't showing up correctly in the code editor method drop down list and on and on. Perusing through Xcode Workspace Guide, I found this handy little suggestion from Apple:
To reset Xcode to its factory settings for the logged-in user, run these commands in Terminal:

Google Voice voicemail for your cell

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:08:09 +0000

Google just announced today (or yesterday?) that you can now have Google Voice's voicemail replace your cell phone's voicemail.

http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-voice-with-your-existing-number.html

What this means is you can now have all of your voicemails handled by one service provider. This feature only works with cell phones (most US carriers supported) but not landlines, VoIP or SIP phones yet.

I switched my iPhone voicemail over to Google Voice today for a trial period. I'll see if I like it and report back. My first attempt wasn't perfect - it took nearly four additional rings after I ignored a test call for Google Voice to pick up. A total of eight rings is way too much for most callers to wait to leave a message.

Xcode 3.2.1

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:41:59 +0000

Xcode 3.2.1 was released today and is available for download with iPhone SDK 3.1.2. This release is mainly a bug fix release and I've confirmed it does fix the Unit Testing issue I reported earlier.

Xcode & Snow Leopard - Logical unit tests hanging

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 01:41:17 +0000

I haven't written unit tests before in Xcode. I started to read Apple's article on unit testing with iPhone development because I wanted to follow sound development principles with an agile approach. Not long into the guide, I got stuck. Literally. Using Xcode 3.2 on Snow Leopard caused Xcode to lock/hang during the build of the logical unit test. Same results after iPhone SDK 3.1 came out. I couldn't find anything online either except a few people experiencing the same issue. In the system console (not Xcode console) I was seeing:

Software Project Management Plan Template

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:58:14 +0000

I'm currently using Scrum in my school capstone project. The advisor, however, designed the deliverables around the Unified Process and still expects some things like a Software Project Management Plan (SPMP). While it's a little late in the game, I've decided to fill one out and hope that maybe it'll help weed out some requirements I didn't document well in my backlogs.

First task - find a template. An SPMP is usually based off of IEEE's standard 1058-1998, which costs more than a hundred dollars to get a copy of. I'm not paying $100+ to get a 200KB document. I've seen example around the Internet of a SPMP but nothing that was formatted well in Word or handled copying and pasting into Word. I spent some time doing more digging and found this wonderful site -

Xcode SCM & build directory

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:23:25 +0000

Xcode has a build directory inside of your project, which you shouldn't be including in your source code management repository. Simply said, those files change so much and are "discardable". There is no way to easily exclude this directory from your repository. The accepted way to fix this (after some digging) is to simply move the build directory for Xcode to a temporary folder.

To move the build directory, click on the Xcode menu in your menu bar, and click on Preferences. Change the folder under "Building" to a temporary folder. I created a tmp directory in my user folder.

Stealing Music

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:20:27 +0000

I admit, back in the day I stole a lot of music with peer to peer sharing programs like Napster and WinMX. I stopped after I realized that most times the MP3s I was getting were subpar and the metadata associated with them was crap. I spent more time fixing artist names, track numbers, etc than I did listening to the actual music. Enter buying a Mac and having iTunes and I've tried to go legal for all my music.

Two Weeks with Google Voice

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:33:09 +0000

I finally got my Google Voice fka GrandCentral invite last week. I have to admit, I got really giddy like a kid getting candy when I saw the invite come through e-mail. So, I signed up, put my phone numbers in and have had two weeks to try it out. The verdict so far? It still needs some work but I love it simply because its free and super convenient.

Thoughts on the iPhone 3GS

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:53:41 +0000

Everyone is giving their two cents about the iPhone 3GS. I'm excited to see that Apple is releasing a faster phone that still feels like the first generation iPhone. Developers are used to a specific screen size for instance. Drastically changing the environment will create the discord other cell phone manufacturers feel when it comes to 3rd party applications.

I do suspect, however, that next year will bring drastic change to the iPhone. Apple is still getting to where they really wanted the 1st generation iPhone to be. They realized that its easy to make their own hardware and software, but its hard when dealing with so many third parties. Cell phone carriers like AT&T stand in the way of real progress. Why doesn't Apple follow suit with Virgin and create their own private label cell phone company? I suspect that would give them a lot more flexibility in pricing and give them the ability to put whatever carrier they want behind the name.

Loading a UIImage from a bundle

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:33:36 +0000

I've been scratching my freaking head for an hour trying to figure out how to load an image from my application's bundle. Doing this in Interface Builder is easy as pie, but not so straightforward.

[UIImage imageWithContentsOfFile:[[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"thefilename" ofType:@"jpg"]];

Easy, isn't it?

Google App Engine & Java

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:46:12 +0000

So I've spent a few days going over Google App Engine for Java. So far, I have to say, I'm impressed. Google has created a really cool service that lets anyone write a Java web application and host it on their multitude of servers. This is all for free, I might add. You have to be aware of a number of limitations including no threading and you're limited to their data store for persistence. Once you get over that, you'll see the advantage of it:

Microsoft WCF Web Services & Java

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:43:16 +0000

I spent a good 50+ hours on trying to consume a Microsoft WCF secure web service with a Java solution. I tried Spring Web Services, Axis2, and looked at Metro/Tango and decided Axis2 was the "easiest" solution. The web service I'm connecting to implements WS-Security, WS-SecureConversation, WS-Policy, WS-Trust and WS-Addressing (at least) and it's provided through a .NET 3.5 WCF endpoint.

It doesn't work.

Axis2 can't handle SpNego which is a WCF closed protocol allowing two WCF machines to negotiate the credentials between them. The client has spent way too much money paying me to continue to figure out a Java solution, so I wrote a .NET 3.5 C# client. Took me literally five lines of code and it's working. That's great for .NET developers but a whole lotta horse shit for the rest of the world. I'm hoping Axis2's Rampart module is updated to play nice with WS-SecureConversation and a .NET WCF web service. Until then, I'm using the .NET client to download the data and I'm storing the SOAP body into a database table. On the Java side, I'm still using JAXB2 to unmarshall the data into Java objects and process it through our existing persistence framework.

When YOU are on the Internet

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:18:44 +0000

I've never been one to give a shit about what of "me" is online. I have blog(s), am on Twitter and many other social networking services. Up until now, I've pretty much said my mind and didn't care about the audience. I made a judgment call error a while back on Twitter, and now I'm correcting the issue.

The question comes to be, how does one split yourself from your professional life online from your personal life? To be honest, it's fairly difficult if not impossible if you're trying to keep your identity at all the same between the two. For instance, I originally signed up with Twitter to broadcast things to my friends. A friend of mine got interested as well, and we started following each other. Then, I started working for the same employer and soon coworkers found my profile through my friend. I have always tried to keep some level of anonymity but when my real picture was plastered on my twitter profile, it was hard to hide the fact it was me.

Getting Macs to play with Ubuntu

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:21:54 +0000

I'm a fan of Unix operating systems in general. That's what got me interested in switching to Mac OS X because it's Unix-based. It was inevitable that I would eventually get a server-class machine again that wasn't Mac-based. The new Dell machine that I have running has Ubuntu 8.10 - a Debian-based machine which is something I'm new too.

I wanted to set up the Ubuntu machine to share files with the Macs on my network but not by using the crappy Samba protocol or even NFS. I know both are troublesome and not as speedy on a Mac. My only other choice was to get AFP working on the Ubuntu server and to my delight, packages exist for this. Netatalk is an Appletalk daemon and Avahi is a Bonjour zeroconf equivalent. Installing those packages and starting the services didn't do it for me. Leopard was having issues with the cleartext passwords being passed to AFPD so I went nowhere.

Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:34:30 +0000

The SANS Institute released a report on the top 25 most dangerous programming errors in the industry on January 12th, 2009. Items such as SQL injection, Cross-Site-Scripting problems and input validation top the list. The issue brought up isn't necessarily the errors themselves but rather the education of programmers and software engineers to be aware of the problems and include testing to find them. Most programmers coming out of college today aren't specifically taught what is considered a bad programming error. Becoming familiar with the list and learning more about the errors you don't understand will make you a better and safer programmer.

An idea for a college course :: Unit Testing

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 04:27:35 +0000

After spending a significant amount of time this week on writing JUnit tests for a Spring Web app, I've come to a conclusion. College courses, even in the grad classes I am taking don't spend enough time on the concepts behind unit tests. Granted JUnit and NUnit has been covered in the classes I've had but really only the testing framework is discussed.

Test-driven development (TDD) teaches us how to write a test first, make it fail, stub out your methods, and then code until your test passes. The practicality of TDD in the real world is limited because a requirement is to have your system well designed up front. Getting to a point where you'll know method names ahead of time means you've spent a significant amount of time thinking about the design and analyzing that design.

JUnit Testing

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:58:59 +0000

I'd like to point out that writing JUnit tests after the fact is a pain in the ass. I like to think I know enough about software engineering to develop software that has high cohesion and limited coupling. Not following test-driven development allows me to forget some of those simple rules and now writing EasyMocks is killing me.

Springs of a Different Color

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:24:39 +0000

So I spent most of the past few months learning the bleeding edge of the Spring Framework, 2.5.x. The training I went to covered this version, the books I had covered the same. My first assignment? Using Spring 2.0 and Web Flow 1. Talk about crushed. Now I have to unlearn everything and go back to a previous version. This happens a lot, from what I've seen. Companies aren't willing to upgrade because of fear of stuff breaking; but they'll write shit loads of work-around code to keep old solutions working. That eventually bites them in the ass when the product they're on goes off support and they're forced to do a huge conversion.

Domain-Driven Design

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:44:10 +0000

In my Thursday night graduate class, Enterprise Data Modeling, we're working through Eric Evans' book, Domain-Drive Design. The book is taking us through the concept of designing an application based on the domain, or business use, rather than through UML and directly with objects. So far, it's pretty dry but the concepts are very clear and relative to my world.

I'm only on chapter 3 but already the concept of a ubiquitous language is a solidification of what I've tried to do since the beginning of my career with computers. I've always known, maybe not so consciously, that business users and developers typically live on different levels. In the past, I've been the one the users come to for help because I don't throw up the typical IT wall in front of them. This book explains why developers suck at obtaining requirements and why end users don't give two shits about developers. Developing a vocabulary and language that BOTH parties can speak about a domain is key.

My Blog, Revisited

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:55:29 +0000

I started this blog a while back but it was lost in the ether. An upgrade of Rails and a few attempts at fixing it caused it to go poof. Alas, I'm ready to start this blog again.

What is it for? Well, a bunch of things. I'm going to post anything here that I think is geeky. This could include software development, gadgets, tips and tricks, whatever. I have no idea of what is going to end up here but I have ideas often enough that never get recorded.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Who are you?

My name is Aaron Douglas and I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States. I’m in my 40s and have been a geek my entire life. MY ENTIRE LIFE. I’ve been with my partner for way over half of it so he knows all about the geek in me.

I love learning new things, and that will never stop. It’s my goal to always know how something works.