Rob Kennedy's Blog

Aside from what you've heard in the news, I'm sure you've observed in your own town that the economy is down. That is, less spending, businesses failing, and/or prices rising. It's taken it's time but I've started to notice the physical effects of the down economy here where I live. Aside from the overstock of real estate properties in the market or dealerships fumbling around to make a sale, some other examples smaller examples I've observed prompted me to write this post today. The local TGIF has raised their food prices without increasing portion size. Additionally, two local restaurants have decreased portion size while keeping prices the same. On my way to one of these local establishments I noticed that all the surrounding retail spaces around it were empty. This was not the case a year ago. Black Friday wasn't so black in some places. I read that retail sales were down by almost 40% nationally. That's almost 1/2 the amount of sales made last year which is a huge hit for small stores who rely on the holidays to make up for their annual expenses. Because of this I would think we should expect to see major retail chains closing stores in 2010. Unemployment is working its way to almost 11%. That's 1 out of 10 people you know is without a job. I know at least 2 people. This will get worse because everything is connected and if I stop going to TGIF because they raise their prices they will still lose money in the long run. If I stop going to the local pizza shop because they give me less food for the money, they'll lose money too. Businesses who lose money either cut jobs or close. There's no other alternative except angel investors which are extinct. People who lose their job become another statistic. Speaking of which, I predict 14% unemployment by end of 2010. That will mean almost 1 in 5 unemployed people. I base this on the current .4% trend forming for monthly unemployment increases. Our economy will begin to retract in the coming year. There already will be less money brought into the government in taxes this year and this trend will continue in 2010. Unfortunately you will see the current leadership raise taxes or costs on the whole rather than decrease spending in order to offset this loss of revenue. This in turn will cause more harm to the economy resulting in further unemployment and further economic growth stagnation.

So what does all this mean? I have developed a sense of doing for myself over the years and I believe that I need to be sure that I will be able to continue to do for myself even if things start to go south for me or others. I think at this point if you have a job you should start preparing for not having one. That is, stop erroneous spending and start saving. I have spent a ridiculous amount of money over the past two months on going out and having fun. This helps only my short term happiness and the club's short-term bottom line. Long term I need to think about keeping myself afloat. We should all have at least 6 months worth of salary saved in an interest bearing account at a reliable (fiscally responsible) bank. I would go as far as to take 10% of this money and invest in physical gold or silver (not paper notes). Gold prices are a bit inflated right now because of the uncertainty of the dollar, but if the dollar collapses due to a global "F.U." on the USA, you will at least have some physical asset that's worth it's weight as apposed to nothing. Even if you consider this to be a "crazy survivalist" mentality, it's really not anything but common sense. It's about time I start following it.

I suggest you buy a gun. Yes, I said it. The reasoning behind this is security in knowing you will be able to defend yourself, family and property for just about all possible scenarios. If you are uncomfortable owning a gun I suggest you at least get certified or training in shooting one. You can usually do this at your local range.

I suggest you make a 3 day pack bug out bag. This is in case you need to move on short notice for any reason or emergency. Everyone should have one for weather calamities anyway.

Be prepared. I think we're still in for a bumpy ride.

 

With all the talk about global warming and how bad carbon dioxide is for us humans, I figured I'd think outside of the box today and write a little rant.

I hope trees fight back and spwan some shyamalan-esk attack on man. Not because I'm some pastly self-loathing human than wants to die by tree; oh no. I'm hoping they're really going to get tired soon of the Environmentalists and their global warming agenda and snap (pun not intended). If they do fight back, I hope they will be smart enough to decern global warming "zealots" from the global warming "truthers"; understandable though if they just say f--- it and attack us all. I mean seriously, wtf would you do if you were a tree? Humans have chopped down your brother in Montana; burned your mother alive to keep themselves warm last winter. They uprooted your family in Kentucky and turned them into decorative mulch to make room for a Walmart. They breath oxygen and think a minute trace gas called co2 is to blame for their summers getting +1 deg F warmer over the last 30 years. So now after all they have done to you, they turn on reducing the gas that keeps you and your fellow plants alive from the atmosphere! What do you think will happen? They killed your family, they took your land, and now they're taking your air. If I were a tree I'd be prep'ing a tree-jihad myself!

I guess it's a good thing for us humans trees can't fight back.

I recently saw that Sprint had finally joined the Android bandwagon and was able to procure two Android-based phones for their service. I decided to purchase the HTC Hero and thus far am pretty happy with it. Below is quick review of a 1 day use.

Software

The phone ships with the latest Android 2.0 platform as well as additional widgets and tools installed by HTC and Sprint. The operating system is pretty nice. Designed for the thumb and a touch screen, unlike Windows Mobile, it’s pretty easy to navigate the touch screen menus. The video rendering is smooth and overall I’m happy with the social networking capabilities out of the box. Facebook is integrated into the contacts so I can link numbers to Facebook accounts and have their statuses, albums, and profile pictures linked to my contacts list. Cool. I don’t do much twittering but may change that now with the built in tweet app that lets me track tweets as well as easily tweet myself. I also appreciate the built in geo-tagging and tracking on the phone. Times and weather will change based on my current GPS location. Any picture I take can be tagged with GPS information as well. The navigation is pretty good.

E-mail finally supports Exchange server as well as other standard POP and IMAP. Although this is day 1 and I have yet to master a multi-select on e-mail messages which makes filtering through spam a difficult task.

The voice recognition is good and the fact that I can go into a Google search bar, say what I’m looking for, and have it pop up a browser is bad ass.

Events from my people contacts (birthdays and anniversaries) are not integrated into the main calendar which totally sucks. I’d like to see those events there and someone just dropped the ball on that requirement.

Sprint sucks because they did not support the transfer of my contacts into this new phone so be ready to do a lot of typing. This may however be helpful in getting used to using the new screen Keyboard.

Exterior Design

The phone is a little smaller than I’d like. This does help it fit in the average pocket but makes typing on the screen pretty difficult. The blackberry-style ball is nice but I seem to only use it as a last attempt to select something when I’m having problems with the touch screen. The display is bright and changes brightness based on the amount of ambient light in the room. This can be good for saving battery life but sucks at times making the screen hard to read. Since this only Day 1 I would assume there’s an option to turn this feature off for the visually annoyed.

The fact that I have to take the back cover off to remove the SD memory card totally blows. It’s also a pain to get out without using something to pop it out.

The built in accelerometer will allow the screen to turn into a landscape mode when turned to the left only. This sucks because when I type I support the phone with my ring fingers and my left ring finger hits the audio controls on the side. These controls are pretty sensitive too. Because of this I can’t quickly type due to the possibility of hitting the volume control which interrupts the keyboard interface.  I will have to figure out a new way to support the phone but as of now it’s not intuitive.

That being said, the screen is too small to quickly type with the phone in a vertical position. the buttons are just too narrow to type with a male adult thumb. Although I can slowly peck my way through it, I would have like to have something a little wider. Not the fault of the software; it’s the width that failed here.

Hardware

Very happy with the hardware. a 5 megapixel is equivalent to my current Olympus carry camera, although the lack of a light or flash totally sucks. It does have some interesting built in features but the light would of been a big help for finding car keys. I’m sure an white screen app like those found for windows mobile and iPhone will become available for this purpose.

The phone came with a 2GB micro SD which is nice. I’ll be able to put a few 5mp pictures and videos on there as well as a healthy collection of music.

The one thing that pisses me off the most about a lot of phone companies is their insistence on changing the charger / USB connectors. Please, use a standard connector already!!!  HTC however was thoughtful enough to use a proprietary connector that will actually allow you to use standard mini-usb cables. This is a good thing since I have a million mini-usb cables, wall and car chargers already. I have yet to get access into the phone via my laptop though. Drivers installed, cable connected the device is seen but no sync, phone as modem, or access to the SD card. The “just works” scoring goes down because of this.

First Day Usage Summary

Intuitive: 8
Hardware: 9
Design: 8
Software: 8
Just Works Factor: 7

Overall: 8.0

Overall I’m pretty happy with the new phone. I have yet to dive into the software and have yet to read the manual on nifty touch screen motions. I’ll be writing a 30 day review once I get all these things mastered. Until then, if you’re in the market for an open source phone that is ready for prime time, I would suggest you consider this phone. Is it an iPhone killer? Probably not, but it certainly has room to grow into something that people will want to use for more than just texting and making calls.

Microsoft reported today that they will no longer be continuing the development or distribution of Office Accounting software package. Can’t say we didn’t see this one coming. It’s pretty obvious they were trying to get into the QuickBooks market and it just didn’t make any headway. I don’t know what it is with Microsoft these days but their marketing and reasoning behind developing products seems to be half-baked. It’s the we-can-do-it-too rather than look-what-we-can-do mantra of old. It needs to stop. What should they do with the software? Release the source. I know it’s written in C# so why not?

1. Confusing estimates with targets
   Targets are what everyone dreams of hitting. Estimates are grounded in wide-awake analysis. Which should you base your commitments on?
2. Overly optimistic schedules
   Time flies, especially when you don't schedule enough of it. Better to take the time to do it right than to find the time to do it over.
3. Unrealistic expectations
   It's natural for customers to have high hopes. Help them be realistic at the outset to prevent disappointment, dissention and Doh!
4. Wishful thinking
   Hope is not a strategy. Remove head from clouds and make your own luck with down-to-earth planning and execution.
5. Short-changed Quality Assurance
   Quality has the last word. Don't let schedule pressures result in cut corners, perfunctory testing, skipped reviews and buggy releases.
6. Excessive multi-tasking
   Switching from project to project can blow a developer's flow. Maximize productivity and quality by letting them focus, focus, focus.
7. Feature creep
   Every new requirement takes time and effort. Don't let add-ons slip into the project without adjusting schedules and targets.
8. Noisy, crowded offices
   Developers are most productive in quiet, private workspaces. Help them stay in the zone by minimizing distractions, interruptions and multi-tasking.
9. Abandonment of planning under pressure
   Schedule squeezes often result in plans being scuttled instead of revised, casting the project into the valley of Code-and-Fix.
10. Insufficient risk management
    Every project has the potential to produce its own, unique, colossal mistake. Avoid notoriety by exercising risk management early and often.

Note: These are from Construx. Definitely look them up if you're looking to better your project/development management skills.

Check out CodePlex project Riverside CMS at http://riverside.codeplex.com/

I've started more work on my ASP.net based CMS framework, formerly known as Andromeda, and BreadBox.

Wanted to let folks know I have uploaded some worksheets and the diet plan for P90X in my downloads/files section. Thanks again to beachbody for creating such a great product!

It’s been quite a long time since I’ve written on the site. I have been mostly busy tweeting on my facebook account. Not time as of late to write an update here. Not much new with me with the exception that I’m looking to move to Florida in a few months. Haven’t decided 100% on this, but I’m starting to look for a job and home in the miami/lauderdale area. Let me know if you know of a well paying position for a dude with my skills. :)

Just came across Infragistic’s Quince website and I have to say it’s pretty cool. From a developer’s perspective a lot of their UX examples are useful. Certainly recommend a developer go through and check out the site!

http://quince.infragistics.com/#/Main

So I've begun my 4-week vacation and thus far it's seemed like a weekend. I am sure once a week has passed though I will start to feel like I'm off work. I've not done much but it does feel nice to be able to not think about programming websites for a change. For instance today I went to the firing range and popped off 50 rounds. Paid my storage shed bill and now I'm back home. I am going to the gym later and I feel like having no schedule (set times) is odd...I'm sure it'll change eventually. Anyway, that's all for now. I think I'm going to be writing a lot here on this site now though.

All the more reason why I plan on buying a Playstation 3 tomorrow. Microsoft fails again.

X-bit labs - Microsoft Denies Plans for Add-On Blu-Ray Drive for Xbox 360.

Sick and tired of Windows Mobile on my Mogul. It's slow. It's designed for a stylus, not my thumb. On the plus side, I like the fact I can write applications for the phone in a very advanced development environment (e.g. Visual Studio 2008), do microsoftie stuff, etc. I haven't used an iPhone but from what I can see it has an exponential amount of more class and style over Windows Mobile. It's designed for the user's thumb to navigate. The same thing goes for Google's Android mobile platform. Although I've only used it in a virtual machine, it is a lot more intuitive for the user to use; A lot less like windows, and more like an operating system designed for a phone. That I think is the problem with Windows Mobile. It's roots are in the PDA where Windows CE was king and using a stylus to write notes was the norm. It doesn't apply to a touch-screen phone. I can't get my thumb to press the X buttons. I find it difficult to use a lot of applications where lists and buttons are so small, only a midget or stylus will be able to select them.

Some might say I should stop my complaining, since I bought a Mogul which is designed for the stylus. I say hogwash! A mobile OS with touch screen capabilities should assume the user will want to use their thumb since it's more efficient. Otherwise one has to use both hands (NO!) holding the phone and retrieving and using the stylus. Not an easy task to do while walking might I add.

Needless to say, Google seems to see the big picture with Android. I think when they release the source code for Android in Q4 of 2008, we'll see a slew of kernels and drivers being ported to the HTC lineup of phones. Unless Microsoft does a drastic update to Mobile 6.x, they will lose my loyalty and I'll be forced to move to Android. I've seen Mobile 7 screen captures, but I also see those blasted X buttons, which means Microsoft still doesn't get it.

Well I found it was about time to get a new laptop so I went on a spending spree today. Picked up a new HP DV5-1004NR. It's a pretty decent laptop for the price tag, and it certainly has some nice features included. It was mandatory I get a 64-bit cpu and I liked the AMD64 better than the Intel line. This laptop sports 4gb of memory as well so it'll give me some space to let my apps breath so to speak. Disk space is loaded, and although it comes with Vista, I've installed VirtualBox vm. I'm installing Ubuntu 8.04 right now and will be installing XP as well. Overall I'm pretty pleased with the purchase. We shall see how well this holds up.

It's no surprise that running an anti-virus program will put a performance hit on your PC. However, I was recently really getting fed up with Norton Anti-virus as it's resident programs were always bloated using up to 50mb of ram and my system had taken a significant performance hit on disk access; enough so to notice. I kept it installed though because the corporate edition was provided to me by my work (non-subscription based software) for free and it was what I was used to.

Well after waiting minutes for an application to load I flipped out and started removing applications. After ensuring my disk was defragged, files were cleaned up, etc. I noticed very little difference in performance. Why the speed slow down? I remember a speedy system when I first installed XP, I doubted that the "OS rot" was that bad. I knew it was that bastard Norton, so I searched for a free replacement. I came across Clam AV, but it looked incomplete. AVG makes a free system too, but again just anti-virus. Then I found Avast! which was rated well, claimed a large user base, and anti-malware support. I promptly uninstalled Norton and installed Avast.

After the uninstall of Norton AV the system seemed more responsive, so again there was physical proof in my mind that the problem was Norton AV. I installed Avast and after a registration, the application installed and started up. Amazingly, the noticeable system speed increase I received after uninstalling Norton AV was still there! Between three programs running in the background, Avast takes up 30mb of memory. A savings of 20mb of memory from Norton AV. It automatically has been updating itself daily, and thus far seems unobtrusive and easy to use.

If you are currently running Norton Anti-Virus, paying for a yearly subscription for it, etc. I highly suggest you uninstall it and try Avast. You may just see a significant performance increase like I did.

I've had it. I quit. I'm done. It can't be done here. I'm tired. Help!

All of the previous statements have been said by me in the past few years here at my current job as a Sr. Software Engineer at a local government contractor. Our company attrition rate has gone almost into double digits. Even the morale boosting plans of the office Olympics day (non-chargeable time of course) can't boost morale here since after the fun, employees come back to the reality that we all still work here. It's the same old story once again and it's not making things any better. In fact, things are pretty much the same since I started here almost 5 years ago. That is in my opinion why the attrition rate will remain steady in the near future. Aside from the company finally adjusting salaries to match the cost of living here (too little, too late for most), I personally feel there is still something wrong; I feel like I'm stuck in a job rut. Like I'm a mouse in a maze and I'm looking to get out; looking to find a better path, but always coming up short. Staying in one area of the maze is comforting almost because I know that part of the maze there is a "steady pay check" or what appears to be a steady amount of cheese so to speak. In fact, this whole maze blabber reminds me of the "who moved my cheese" book. I've become the mouse with the dwindling cheese pile. In fact, everyone here seems to be a mouse with a dwindling pile of cheese.

Well I'm not fearing change anymore! I'm going to embrace it!

In the standard way of doing things I wrote down what I didn't like about my current job and what I did like about it. It seemed that I liked the people but disliked the work itself. So below is a list of things I want to have in the next place I work with examples of why I want them and/or examples of what I have now.

The Environment

1. Open Air: I want to work in a place where I can see what everyone is doing within the general area whether they are at their desk or not, etc. I want it to be a relaxed environment with lots of windows. Currently, the work environment I am in is not conducive to collaboration or working together. Managers are stowed away in individual offices with doors, and each developer is located in a 7x7 cube with 5 foot tall walls. There's a "seniority complex" with management and other employees around me who think that they "deserve" to be located near the office windows as apposed to those employees with less tenure. The idea of being in an enclosed cube near a window as some sort of job perk is asinine.
2. A real Cafeteria: I want to work in a place that has or is near a real cafeteria; one where meals are prepared daily. The food is affordable (free preferred) and healthy. Currently, we have a small room called a "cafeteria", with no prepared food, only a couple of candy vending machines. Two refrigerators and three microwaves are in the kitchen area where we are to prepare our own microwave meals. Because the cafeteria is on the other side of the building, fridges are strategically placed throughout to make storing our own food easier on us, but the extremely lazy are not allowed to have their own microwave for reasons that they cause "power draining" issues.
3. Dress Code: I want to work in a place that would let me wear a t-shirt if I felt like it. Currently, we have a casual business dress code. This dress code is pretty flexible as a few of us are on the cutting edge wearing blue jeans each day. If we even thought of coming in wearing even a company-logo'ed t-shirt, we'd be pointed out as pariahs. I'm not totally complaining because I know there may be a customer walking through, but I want to work in a place where the customers don't mind the attire. A person shouldn't be judged on whether they are dressed in a suit but on the results of their work. To say a t-shirt is going to make me look like less of a business person or less reliable is old-school thought and should be abandoned.
4. Mixing of management and workers: I want to work in a place where I have access to upper management. We currently have managers who I've never met, or see only in the hallway. They will never go out of their way to ask what I'm doing to make the company profitable, nor would they attempt to go out of their way to say hello. I want to work in a company where I can eat lunch with the CEO (at least in the same room) and let him know what kind of a job I think he's doing. A CEO or boss who doesn't have time to meet with the troops at least once a week or month is a boss who's out of touch. If I were in charge, I'd want to know what my employees were thinking first hand. This may be tough to do if you have many remote offices, but the leadership of each office location should be doing the same thing to know exactly what's going on in the minds of their people. We used to have a managers luncheon but it made no sense because they would randomly choose a group of 3 to 4 people and a manager from a division they weren't even associated with, then send them all out to lunch. This was so random that it wound up being a meet and greet other employees as apposed to talking to your own managers about the company in a relaxed setting. I believe they stopped these lunches as a cost cutting tactic.
5. Embraces and acknowledges Ingenuity: I want to work in a place where research and development are the primary goals of the company. Researching and developing new ways of doing things and writing applications that implement these new ideas. Currently I work in a situation where all development being brought in is for a standardized "cookie-cutter" web-based data entry and retrieval application. The only innovation is only really made by a few of us and even then there is no money or input in allowing us to build on those innovations allowing them to grow. It's left up to us to use our own personal time to make any progress with the innovations and in turn the ideas become quickly outdated. The company is not looking to write the next killer application as they usually only spend the money they win on a contractual basis. I've only been subtly acknowledged for innovation here either through un-announced awards or e-mail letters saying "good job" from my boss. The reasoning being that others would be upset if they saw one person winning awards or being acknowledged constantly. I want everyone innovating and being awarded publicly. This furthers innovation and/or competition to achieve in the minds of those who want to be acknowledged amount their peers.
6. A "hip" culture: I want to work in a place where I'm not the youngest or the oldest person on the team. There needs to be a balance of tech-savvy individuals. I want to work with people who are smarter than me. Who are a wealth of knowledge but are friendly enough to share it with others. Ideally people with similar thoughts on business and worldly events. Who are active and have an appreciation for the outdoors. Currently, I'm surrounded by a 50-something who sounds like he's dying from some sort of lung ailment, and a 40-something who's more concerned about her kid's sports team than the work she's tasked to do. There are a few of us here who are "hip" but that's not enough to change the hearts and minds of the entire group. I need to be among like-minded individuals who are all in the know, have a grasp on what's cool/fresh, and can bring that knowledge into the work they produce.

Adoption of Technology

7. Proper Use of Security: I want to work in a place that has a IT-security department that isn't run by the gestapo. They would be knowledgeable of best security practices but wouldn't dare think of wholesale blocking all outbound traffic for all users. Currently where I work we can't do much of anything when it comes to connecting to a resource outside of the company network. Web traffic is filtered using Websense, but not fairly; in fact very disproportionately. My personal blog is blocked (in fact my server IP and all it's websites are blocked), as are several blogs that are labeled as "personal", but YouTube.com and other mind-numbing time-wasting sites are not. I want to work for a company who has faith in their employees that they will do their job because they love their job. If an employee feels that what they're doing is going to make a difference in the world, they're going to pour every ounce of time they have into it; not surf YouTube. Since I work for a Government contractor I can understand why they would want to operate at a heightened state of security; not trusting their employees to be smart enough to not visit certain sites, but that's only part of a problem. My website expresses my opinions (99% technical) and provides software tools that developers can download and use. However, my co-workers could get the same opinions and tools directly from me, so what's the point of having my website blocked? You can't force people to be productive by blocking websites (I understand blocking nefarious sites) because you usually wind up throwing the baby out with the bath water. Besides, I sit next to a woman who will talk for an average of 2 of her 8 scheduled hours a day on non-work related topics. How do you filter her to make her productive?
8. Allow a worker to work remotely: I want to work in a place where I can work from home. Maybe not 100% but at least have the option not looked down upon as being a money waster. If a company has invested correctly in the technologies allowing their employees to telecommute, then I propose they would see no difference (perhaps even a savings) in costs than if the employee was taking up a space in the corporate building. A Virtual Private Network, video conferencing, and/or video/voice/text instant messaging along with standard e-mail all would provide the equivilant capabilities of having an employee on location. The only exception would be meeting a client outside of the corporate network infrastructure... but even then a conference call could be made. Studies I have read show that employees who work from home tend to work harder and longer hours rather than the perception that they don't do any work at all. Again, if the employee's heart is in the work, they will do the work no matter where they are. Where I currently work we do have VPN and conferencing capabilities, but the managers will only allow telecommuting for those who have moved away to another state. They don't embrace the concept of having people work at home. Even if it's proven that doing so saves the company money via less power, resources, and consumables usage at the corporate office. I want a company who can appreciate these concepts, embrace them, and not be fearful that their employees are off shopping for pampers or fishing on some lake while on the clock.
9. Bleeding edge technologies: I want to work in a place where we are not only using the latest technologies but we are creating them. I want to develop code that is new, or at least is going to be integrated into something that's new. Create a product that has never been seen before or has innovations that leap over the previous versions. Currently where I work, we have slow adoption of new technologies and development concepts mainly because of developer learning curves and restrictions on the technologies we are allowed to implement for our (mainly government) clients. I don't want to have to be the one constantly pushing management to have employees learn new technologies or adopt new theories. I want to work for a company that embraces the concept that their employees need to be always learning the latest consumer trends and technologies. This allows the employees to use the latest technologies to better their own processes, capabilities, and/or development results.
10. Encourages community outreach: I want to work in a place where I'm encouraged to communicate with others and help them in using our products. A company should embrace the concepts of blogging and message forums. Currently we are prohibited from running any sort of public message forum or blog; period. I assume it's considered as a task of the marketing department, and frankly there really is no need for me to do so since the company I work for is a government contractor. I however want to work in a place where I can talk directly to the customers, get their uncoated-sugar-free feedback and let them know they're important. Having the ear of the folks creating the product they spent a fortune on is a big plus in the minds of customers. Currently, I don't even know why I'm coding a website or who is going to be using it, I just do it.

So there's a few things I would like in my next job. If anyone can comment and let me know of a place where they need an expert C#/.NET/C++ developer, I'll gladly consider their recommendation as my next (and probably final) job. As for my current company, I don't expect them to change their policies any time soon or spend the money to make the necessary upgrades in environment or technologies. They are a steady paycheck that is for sure as are most government related jobs, but remember that the pile of cheese eventually runs out.