Streams of Conciousness

I’ve enjoyed having the LDS Gospel Library on my phone and tablet quite a bit, but one of my frustrations with it has been bookmarks–it’s fairly straightforward to create a bookmark, but how do you update (move) an existing bookmark for when you’re doing your daily scripture study?

Someone recently showed me how to do it. It’s really pretty simple. I created a bookmark called “Daily” and set it to where I’m at in my scripture study. Then, when I was done with my scripture study and ready to update my bookmark, I open up the bookmarks dialogue and longpress (press and hold) on the “Daily” bookmark. When I do that, I am prompted whether or not I want to update the existing bookmark, and I say yes.

So, at my house we tend to use up disk space pretty quickly, and one of the ways I’ve tried to consolidate that is by having a home server. It was really just another Windows XP box but with some file shares on it, which actually works pretty well.

About a year ago we ran out of space on our server. And we were also out of money. No problem; I had lots of old hand-me-down computers, so I gutted a number of them, ripped out their hard-drives and stuck them in our server. It was touch-and-go for a bit; and while I did eventually get it working, the phrase “held together with spit and twine” seemed rather applicable, and I knew I needed to find a better solution at some point.

Then we ran out of space again. Nuts. How do we keep running out of space? Well, we takes lots of pictures, and I’m rather paranoid about backups–we had a new external drive fail on us previously, and lost about a year’s worth of pictures. Lesson Learned: Keep at least two copies of everything you don’t want to lose, preferably three (one of them being remote).

We still weren’t quite ready to buy a new computer. Well, I was (You might be a geek if you find yourself occasionally getting on Newegg.com to spec out a computer just for fun), but my wife provided the voice of reason. So we made a compromise. We bought an external hard-drive that we could use to relieve some of the space on the server, and would get a new computer in the fall.

So, fall has come and I’ve got a new file server going. It actually took more effort to put together than I thought. I bought the parts individually, and also bought a different operating system based on a friend’s recommendation (Windows Home Server, which for an Microsoft OS is pretty cheap). I wanted to make sure I got computer hardware that would be relevant for a decent amount of time. Some of the things I was looking for were:

• Motherboard and power supply with plenty of SATA connectors (so that I had expand-ability)
• Lots of initial hard-drive space with room to grow
• RAID support
• Support for both USB 3 and SATA 3 (which provide for much higher data transfer speeds than their predecessors)

My blogroll has been getting pretty hefty–I’m going to have to trim some of them down because it is getting impossible to keep up with all the items that I come across.

One of my favorite additions recently has to be the blog from the site MakeUseOf.com. It is a site that contains countless tips, tricks, hints, guides, and tutorials on using anything computer-related.

So one of the things that I’ve started looking into is a decent way of storing and sharing family histories. I’m less interested in the dates and sources, although I do agree that those are important. I don’t think nearly enough emphasis has been placed on learning the histories and stories of our ancestors.

A couple quick examples:

1. I really don’t need a census to tell me that I have a great-grandfather. I am very certain that at one point he did exist. So what? Why do I care? Why should I care? Well, when I heard the story about how he and his father worked together for a time, something inside me resonated with that. It did so enough that when I got a chance to work with my dad professionally I jumped at the chance. I even left a solid job for one that was rather shaky (the company did go under a couple years later). But I not only love and respect my father; he is one of my best friends, and I wanted to have the same experience my great-grandfather had. Virtually everyone I talked to warned me about the dangers of working with family–you can really ruin your relationship that way, etc. But you know what? It was awesome! I loved it–it was a wonderful experience. I’m sorry it didn’t last longer.
2. Let’s say that you ask me how my day was, and I respond like this: “I woke up at 4:00 am, ate a very small breakfast. Lunch was at 12:35 pm, dinner at 6:30. I went to bed at 11:00 pm.” What have you learned about me? I’ve given you some facts, but without context it means nothing to anyone. It proves I was alive, but doesn’t show anything beyond that. In fact, that particular answer is misleading; as it implies that I get up extremely early–I did get up extremely early that day, but that was very much the exception. I’m actually known for sleeping in somewhat. You don’t know if that was a good day or a bad day, or whether it was remarkable in any way. The day I just described was June 11, 2011, when I ran the Utah Valley Marathon with two of my sisters. It was extremely hard, due to lack of both sleep and training, but still a very worthwhile (and remarkable) experience. Will my children and their children be affected in some way because they learn that I enjoyed running long distances? Probably more so than just if they know that I existed.

Now, I’ve heard my parents tell a couple remarkable stories about our ancestors, and I want to know more. I want to record those and share them. That’s where this gets a little tricky. The traditional genealogy programs out there focus very much on dates and sources–proving that this person was your ancestor. That is valuable and important. To a Mormon like myself, it’s even important for our salvation. But I believe that is only half of the equation. The Bible talks of the hearts of the children turning to their fathers. For myself I have experienced this as I have learned about them–what kind of people they were and the stories of their lives.

I want a program where the focus is on sharing stories. I want it to be collaborative. I want it to be sharable. I want it to be simple. Family History is done largely by people who are unfamiliar with computers, and even I get confused at all the buttons, options, and choices presented to me on some of the programs I’ve seen. Why is it so complex? Why is it that the only place to put histories is in the notes? And why, oh why is it that I can only upload pictures and sounds? Why not RTF documents, PDFs, videos, etc, or even text documents? Histories do not belong in the notes section. Notes belong in the notes section. Thankfully the genealogy programs seem to be improving somewhat, but the focus is still on proof and dates much more than stories and histories.

Personally, when I see a quick summary view of an ancestor, what I would like to see is:

• Their picture, if available
• birth and death (years ONLY)
• A one or two sentence summary about the person (“Cattle thief. Good with kids”).

The detailed view of the individual would have the picture, full birth and death dates and summary at the top. The main section would be their full biography. Other data (birth place, ordinances, etc). would be in an info box to the side. Sources would be at the bottom. Something along those lines.

I thought a wiki-based approach would be a good way to do what I consider to be a family history program as opposed to a genealogy program. It is collaborative, it is online, so it’s sharable. The trouble is that without some serious work, the average wiki is too complex. We don’t want the users to have to learn wikitext. They need a rich text editor. They need a simple way to attach families, individuals, pictures, movies, etc.–the process would be more like writing a blog than using PAF.

I just recently installed a wiki with the intent to try and grow it into something useful, but a friend pointed me to a few sites that are doing this kind of thing, and I’m looking into those as well as trying to do further research on additional existing functionality. So far the ones that are the most interesting to me are werelate.org and familypedia.org, although there is a lot more research to do.

I’m especially intrigued by the idea of combining family history information (including the dates and places that I’ve been ranting about) with the idea of the semantic web, making that information (and the associated stories and histories) easier to share not just by pointing people to your specific site, but allowing other sites and programs to easily find, interpret, understand, and re-share that same information.

For the short term, I’m going to research the existing products more, and decide whether to continue trying to build my own or to use an existing program (and/or assist in developing it). Part of me wants to build my own, of course, but that would be a very large undertaking, and I don’t have very much time to spare.

Do you have any family history programs you would recommend? How do you share your family stories?

My company sent me to this year’s No Fluff Just Stuff conference, and I really enjoyed it. I haven’t been to a lot of conferences, so I don’t have much to compare on, but I learned a lot of interesting things. There was a very nice range of applicability–I attended a couple classes that were theoretical pie-in-the sky kinds of topics, a number of topics that dealt with my current line of work (services) that I could start researching and using in the next few months, and a few talks that were programming techniques and tools that I started using the next time I went in to work.

It’s Just Who We Are

A coworker told me how he explained a little bit of programming culture to his wife: “I told her how we attended this software conference where the presenters–the gurus and experts… well, one of them was wearing dockers and a faded Flash Gordon T-Shirt, and another wore a black T-Shirt that said simply GEEK with a fishing vest over that.”

Another thing that I thought was kind of funny was the USB drive that we were given (containing presentation notes etc). Now I don’t want to be one to look a gift horse in the mouth…

The size certainly made it harder to lose, but I confess it’s not something I plan on putting on my key chain anytime soon. It does hold 4GB, which is decent. The bag and binder they handed out were both pretty nice though…

Is Java dying?

One of the major focuses of the conference was on JVM languages. While no one out right said, “Java sucks” (that I’m aware of), that was rather the impression that I got. The topic even came up during the Experts Panel, and the response was along the lines of, “No, we don’t hate java at all… the JVM is really cool, and there are a lot of neat languages built on it besides Java.”

Java does seem to be losing popularity. I’m not sure if there is any real merit to that, or if it is simply the fact that Java is rather old at this point and/or the fact that it is now owned by Oracle. It’s not exciting anymore, so we naturally want to find the next really neat thing.

For Further Reading

This conference also got me rather excited to learn more about my profession. Here are the books that were suggested in the classes I attended:

• Restful Web Services
• Restful Web Services Cookbook
• Rest in Practice
• Refactoring to Patterns
• Clean Code
• Working Effectively with Legacy Code
• Lean Software Development
• Pragmatic Programmer
• Continuous Integration
• Domain-Driven Design

And there were lots and lots of websites and blogs…

Just like New York City, you can find all kinds of cool things on the internet. And, just like New York City, there are all kinds of scams and tricks that you need to be aware of. Many of these things are the kind of thing that you can detect if you keep your eyes half open.

One of the more common things that happen is when you download and install a legitimate program, the installer also (quietly) asks you if you want to install something else. This is typically a toolbar for your web browser,¹ but lately another common one is McAfee Viruscan. Any time a program or website requires your email address, look for a way to disable automatic email communications like newsletters (this is often enabled by default). If it’s not required, I don’t provide it.²

As I said before, this is not uncommon when installing even legitimate programs. Again, like New York, the main key is to keep your eyes open. I have come across a couple websites that explain some of the tricks that are used:

• http://darkpatterns.org/
• http://usability4evil.wordpress.com/

I highly recommend everyone reading through both of these sites… and keep your eyes open. You don’t need to install another toolbar.

1. I use the number of toolbars installed and running on a web browser as one indicator of how computer-savvy the owner is [↩]
2. Many sites legitimately need your email address for important notifications. Look for a statement explaining how your email address will be used [↩]

So I was wandering the internet the other day and stumbled upon the Geek Code, which apparently was used to identify other online geeks to each other. Basically it is a string of letters that indicate various character traits (general clothing style, appreciation for Star Trek, and so on).

While it is indeed very outdated, I nevertheless have put together my own geek code, and here it is:

—–BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK—–
Version: 3.12
GCS d- s:– a>? C++ U— P– L+ E— W++ U?
o– K- w+ O? M V? PS-(+) PE-(+) Y+ PGP t 5?
X R !tv b++ DI+(++) D- G e++ h—- r+++ y?
——END GEEK CODE BLOCK——

…yeah, I’m not really sure the purpose either, but it was fun to do…

Enhancements to the geek code could include such things as:

• Star Wars (esp. classic vs. prequels)
• Lord of the Rings (books vs. movies)
• blog usage
• facebook usage
• youtube usage
• flash videos created
• iphone apps created
• number of email accounts
• whether you were a geek before being a geek was cool (with a qualifier indicating that while you are too young for that to be the case, you certainly would have been in that category)
• number of RSS feeds currently subscribed to
• number of podcasts currently subscribed to
• number of computers currently owned
• current WOW character level
• favorite search engine
• Big Bang Theory (TV show)
• How many Java frameworks you are proficient in
• Cell phone data plan

…And, really, there are some that should have been in there originally:

• comic books
• time spent on personal hobbies

Well, what do you think? Did I miss any?

So I’m starting to get a little more settled in at my job (programming for the LDS Church). Recently we had a company meeting and activity. The activity was very interesting–It was a “spudwood derby.” We divided up into teams, and each team was given a set of pinewood derby wheels and axles… and a potato. We had a half hour to make a usable car.

On another front, I am trying to play with music (the mood has struck again)… I’ve got one of my older computers hooked up to the digital piano and I’m trying to figure out how I can get various sound fonts working (The digital piano is pretty good, but it’s french horn is horrible and it doesn’t have a cymbal roll)… For composing I’m using Noteworthy editor. Several years ago I looked around for some notation software, and virtually everything out there was $300 or more with all the bells and whistles, but Noteworthy cost $30, which was about right considering the fact that I really don’t know what I’m doing…

I also got a new phone (LG env touch), and have really enjoyed it. I’ve started looking into apps/sites that I can create that would be useful. What I’ve got so far is a scripture lookup page–you type in the book and chapter, and it will open up that chapter on the online version of the scriptures. It’s a work in progress, but coming along nicely. If you are really that bored you can check it out at lds.jersdesk.com/scriptures

The kids are doing OK, but they’ve had colds for a good while now. My youngest has gone from happy cheerful baby to whiny clingy baby—not so fun. We still manage to enjoy them nevertheless.

I set up my Outlook Program to recieve the Daily Dilbert cartoon, which is done via RSS feed. I have really enjoyed those. It helps each day to start work with a Dilbert. Yeah, some of them are dumb, but a lot of them are hilarious.

What is an RSS Feed?

An RSS Feed is simply a standardized format for publishing information, especially if it’s frequently updated. It is used a lot by News sites, blogs, and the like. You can view an RSS Feed in a feed reader and see a headline and/or description (or a comic). I’ve attached not only Dilbert, but some of my favorite blog sites to Outlook via RSS feeds, so that when they are updated, I get a copy of the new entry in Outlook. Obviously, there’s a whole lot more to it than that (most of which I’m not familiar with), but that’s the basic idea. There are tons of different ways to view RSS Feeds. Outlook works for me, so I haven’t really looked into other methods.

How to add Dilbert RSS feeds to Outlook 2007:

1. Go to Dilbert.com and click on the RSS feed link.
2. Choose the feed you want and click on that link (I chose the “strips” link, which is the Daily Dilbert)
3. From there you can see the RSS feed along with options for adding the feed to a web reader. Look for a link that says: “View Feed xml” and click on that.
4. Copy the URL from the address bar.
5. Open Outlook.
6. There should be a folder called “RSS Feeds” Right-click on that and choose “Add new RSS feed”
7. Paste the URL into the window that pops up.
8. You will then be prompted as to whether you wanted to add the RSS feed, so you’ll have to click on “Yes” for that as well.

If you have the actuall RSS URL, then steps 4-8 can be used to add any RSS Feed to Outlook.

I mentioned that I had an mp3 player for running. One problem was that I’ve been using iTunes for some time, and my mp3 player doesn’t accept the default itunes format (.m4a). So I needed to re-copy those songs as either .wma (Windows Media format) or mp3′s.

Now, I don’t like to lose quality too much. As far as copying music to your computer is concerned, the standard metric for the song’s quality is the bit rate (how often the sound wave is sampled). In general, the higher the bit rate, the better quality the music is, but the larger the file becomes. A 64Kbps bit rate–64,000 bits/second–is a standard quality. Music that is streamed over the internet will usually be low-quality, since the smaller file-size allows for the music to be transferred faster.

So the next question is how to get high-quality mp3′s from your CD’s? Here are some freebies that I’ve looked at:

Windows Media Player can be configured to create mp3′s, and allows for high-quarlity bit rates. Windows Media Player will let you encode into mp3′s at 128, 192, 156, or 320 Kbps.

Exact Audio Copy can do similar, but adds an extra feature: Variable Bit Rate encoding (VBR). The idea behind this is that the mp3 encoder will determine what quality is needed for a given small section of the music and set the bit rate for that small section. This allows you to get high-quality music and save a little more space. The problem with this program is that the setup is more involved, rather than working out of the box.

iTunes also lets you configure your format choices, and so you can choose to have iTunes copy songs in mp3 format. I was pleased to note that they also have an option for variable bit rate (VBR) encoding, but on top of that, you can set a minimum bit rate. So when you’re copying your music to mp3, the bit rate won’t go below the threshold that you set.

Right now I’m using iTunes to copy my CD’s to mp3′s. I’m using the VBR encoding with a minimum bit rate of 192Kbps.