Referred back to my development logs of a year ago and I can see where I was in my project back then. Whew, wouldn't want to be facing all that work again. I think I'll do another off-site backup just for safety.
But I'm thinking I'd like to get some extra value out of that work-log. A thought is to pull it into a full featured editor and run some auto-indexing on it. Haven't looked at the state of those tools lately, but I'm assuming something will use dictionary help to identify stuff that might be index worthy. Would be a good longer term developer reference for when I get the sure-to-arise questions "Why the hell did you do that!?"
It's rewarding to see that I've made so much progress. I can't help but extrapolate and wonder how much further this project has to go tho.
Researchinator relishes the coming completion of this phase...
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Knee Deep
Just in snow though. Winter arrived today in our corner of Canada. It had been a nice November, but now we're getting it. Twas nice to get out for some lunch in spite of the weather. The morning was spent learning what I had done for one complex element of my application software, so that I can hopefully make an informed decision about how some UI changes this afternoon should be implemented.
My existing code seems to partially explore the two options I've been considering. I need to think carefully through it and choose a path forward. It's not just an 'A' versus 'B' thing... it may include an 'A' and 'B' approach. I don't think there's a 'C' approach, and I don't think there is a none-of-the-above option either. I'm leaning a little more 'B' than 'A', but well, maybe not.
It's one of those kinds of days. I think the right answer is making an answer, rather than thinking too long to find the perfect outcome.
Researchinator struggles with alphabetic option selection...
My existing code seems to partially explore the two options I've been considering. I need to think carefully through it and choose a path forward. It's not just an 'A' versus 'B' thing... it may include an 'A' and 'B' approach. I don't think there's a 'C' approach, and I don't think there is a none-of-the-above option either. I'm leaning a little more 'B' than 'A', but well, maybe not.
It's one of those kinds of days. I think the right answer is making an answer, rather than thinking too long to find the perfect outcome.
Researchinator struggles with alphabetic option selection...
Monday, November 30, 2009
Alliterative Lists
Three ways to ensure your blog entries are popular
1) Cool Use lots of cool buzz words and wear sunglasses in all your avatar pictures
2) Crisp Use short words and keep it to the point
3) Clear Don't get off topic, or you will lose the people who follow you based on subject.
4) Celery Eat lots of celery.
Now is that a good list of pointers for bloggers? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps they are good points, but when I see lists like that, I always wonder how much the accuracy and efficacy of the list has been compromised to achieve the alliteration.
Perhaps Coolness, Crispness, Timeliness and Brevity were a better choice for the top three items in the list, but if the author is going for all 'C' words, it might have fallen off the table.
It gets more concerning when you see lists of 8 or 10 points all starting with the same letter. By the time you do that many, you are really searching for words with the same letter. Sure, English is pretty versatile. Instead of "Timeliness" I could perhaps say "Clock" or "Coordination" - but unless you luck out with the synonyms, it is usually clear that you're digging by that point.
Anyway that was just bugging me this morning after reading through a few blog posts purporting to guide my entrepreneurial life: success means using the letter "C" or something I guess.
Researchinator gets on to more important things, the letter 'D' perhaps...
1) Cool Use lots of cool buzz words and wear sunglasses in all your avatar pictures
2) Crisp Use short words and keep it to the point
3) Clear Don't get off topic, or you will lose the people who follow you based on subject.
4) Celery Eat lots of celery.
Now is that a good list of pointers for bloggers? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps they are good points, but when I see lists like that, I always wonder how much the accuracy and efficacy of the list has been compromised to achieve the alliteration.
Perhaps Coolness, Crispness, Timeliness and Brevity were a better choice for the top three items in the list, but if the author is going for all 'C' words, it might have fallen off the table.
It gets more concerning when you see lists of 8 or 10 points all starting with the same letter. By the time you do that many, you are really searching for words with the same letter. Sure, English is pretty versatile. Instead of "Timeliness" I could perhaps say "Clock" or "Coordination" - but unless you luck out with the synonyms, it is usually clear that you're digging by that point.
Anyway that was just bugging me this morning after reading through a few blog posts purporting to guide my entrepreneurial life: success means using the letter "C" or something I guess.
Researchinator gets on to more important things, the letter 'D' perhaps...
Friday, November 27, 2009
Five Ways to Motivate Yourself on a Lethargic Day
A cup of tea in hand and moving slowly thru the morning. The trend for blogging (this is not a trendy blog if you hadn't noticed) is to make every entry about a list. Well, just to aid in your productivity, here's my list of 5 things I like to do to make progress when I'm not being as productive as I like.
1) Luxuriate In It Think back upon the last few days, have they been productive ones? Brains work best in an environment of variety. Working consistently on the same thing in the same way is not conducive to either productivity nor happiness. If you've had a few good days, let yourself take it easy for a few hours, better yet, get away from your desk and take a walk or something that changes the view for a bit.
2) Dangle a Reward That's a reward, don't get carried away with the dangling. Set yourself a very short term goal, pick something achievable and provide yourself a reward for doing it. For example, need to write a document, and you just aren't getting started? Hold off on that next coffee and tell yourself you can have it once you've created the empty document, and the title page. Maybe crafted a very-rough-and-sure-to-be-reworked Table of Contents. Set a time for it, perhaps 20min, and be sure to both hold firm to that as well as go get the reward. You made progress, that's very uplifting to the spirit as well.
3) Make a List A big de-motivator is having several things on your plate that need to be done. Even though they might seem clear, often there is some underlying uncertainty about exactly what constitutes completion of those items, so make yourself a bulleted list and just list the things you need to do, but make the items concrete. Not "Work on analyzing the competition" but "Make a table Documenting 5 competitors and their comparative characteristics." Similarly don't list huge, long term projects, but major steps: so not "Design new Website" but instead "Sketch out 3 front page layout options for approval"
4) Relish Deadlines If you're like me, you find yourself more productive when a deadline is looming. So if your nearest deadline is weeks away, you might find yourself lethargic. Take a look at that upcoming deadline and think about some intermediate steps. Now here's the tricky part, most of us need some threat to make the deadline have the magical power. So jot down those intermediate steps and send them to someone who'd care, preferably a colleague on the same project or your supervisor. Promise to hit those intermediate steps - bingo, now your ass is on the line. You look like a twit if you don't pull it off, so work at getting there. You might just find you deliver them and meet your "real" deadline earlier than expected. Oops, raises anyone?
5) Get Feedback This is a sneaky way to trick your own brain into action. Find something you've done recently that others would know about, pick it up (if it's pick-up-able) or think of a summary statement for it in your mind then go to that person (or send an email) and ask for feedback on how you did, or even better, what could you have done to make it more successful. A co-worker is fine. Even better, pick a person you don't like. The result? You'll probably, not necessarily overtly, get defensive. That's very primal energy you're feeling, it's fight or flight. You've already ruled out flight, as you went to them without needing to. So now channel that feeling of defensive energy into your next todo list item!
There you go a five item list. Some you've heard before, but I think some will certainly be subversive new ideas for you. Now am I eligible for Twitter link-backs and angry dissenting comments?
Researchinator turns to item 2 for inspiration...
1) Luxuriate In It Think back upon the last few days, have they been productive ones? Brains work best in an environment of variety. Working consistently on the same thing in the same way is not conducive to either productivity nor happiness. If you've had a few good days, let yourself take it easy for a few hours, better yet, get away from your desk and take a walk or something that changes the view for a bit.
2) Dangle a Reward That's a reward, don't get carried away with the dangling. Set yourself a very short term goal, pick something achievable and provide yourself a reward for doing it. For example, need to write a document, and you just aren't getting started? Hold off on that next coffee and tell yourself you can have it once you've created the empty document, and the title page. Maybe crafted a very-rough-and-sure-to-be-reworked Table of Contents. Set a time for it, perhaps 20min, and be sure to both hold firm to that as well as go get the reward. You made progress, that's very uplifting to the spirit as well.
3) Make a List A big de-motivator is having several things on your plate that need to be done. Even though they might seem clear, often there is some underlying uncertainty about exactly what constitutes completion of those items, so make yourself a bulleted list and just list the things you need to do, but make the items concrete. Not "Work on analyzing the competition" but "Make a table Documenting 5 competitors and their comparative characteristics." Similarly don't list huge, long term projects, but major steps: so not "Design new Website" but instead "Sketch out 3 front page layout options for approval"
4) Relish Deadlines If you're like me, you find yourself more productive when a deadline is looming. So if your nearest deadline is weeks away, you might find yourself lethargic. Take a look at that upcoming deadline and think about some intermediate steps. Now here's the tricky part, most of us need some threat to make the deadline have the magical power. So jot down those intermediate steps and send them to someone who'd care, preferably a colleague on the same project or your supervisor. Promise to hit those intermediate steps - bingo, now your ass is on the line. You look like a twit if you don't pull it off, so work at getting there. You might just find you deliver them and meet your "real" deadline earlier than expected. Oops, raises anyone?
5) Get Feedback This is a sneaky way to trick your own brain into action. Find something you've done recently that others would know about, pick it up (if it's pick-up-able) or think of a summary statement for it in your mind then go to that person (or send an email) and ask for feedback on how you did, or even better, what could you have done to make it more successful. A co-worker is fine. Even better, pick a person you don't like. The result? You'll probably, not necessarily overtly, get defensive. That's very primal energy you're feeling, it's fight or flight. You've already ruled out flight, as you went to them without needing to. So now channel that feeling of defensive energy into your next todo list item!
There you go a five item list. Some you've heard before, but I think some will certainly be subversive new ideas for you. Now am I eligible for Twitter link-backs and angry dissenting comments?
Researchinator turns to item 2 for inspiration...
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Changing Landscape of Tools and Languages
Planning a weekend escape to the outdoors. A late autumn, not quite winter thing. Should be nice.
Meanwhile I'm shifting back and forth between python and javascript/AJAX stuff while also reading up a bit on jQuery. The latter looks interesting, some of those features appear to offer some good benefits to my stuff. Will have to plan a migration, or exploration of it anyway. For now, just raw .js and hope that continues to provide good predictable results on most browsers. The landscape of tools and languages, and development environments, and hell, just OS versions is constantly changing. Would like to do some upgrades, but need some stable time first.
Fighting a migraine this morning too, as if I needed some distraction when trying to be productive. Such is life - I'll pretend this is a simulation of raucous staff noise, and my goal is to persevere and still be productive. Yeah, that's it.
Researchinator... well... you know...
Meanwhile I'm shifting back and forth between python and javascript/AJAX stuff while also reading up a bit on jQuery. The latter looks interesting, some of those features appear to offer some good benefits to my stuff. Will have to plan a migration, or exploration of it anyway. For now, just raw .js and hope that continues to provide good predictable results on most browsers. The landscape of tools and languages, and development environments, and hell, just OS versions is constantly changing. Would like to do some upgrades, but need some stable time first.
Fighting a migraine this morning too, as if I needed some distraction when trying to be productive. Such is life - I'll pretend this is a simulation of raucous staff noise, and my goal is to persevere and still be productive. Yeah, that's it.
Researchinator... well... you know...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Exposing the Gears
Met up with my student project team this morning. They seem on track. Struggling to understand one or two concepts, but are basically getting it.
It's interesting to see this architecture through other eyes. While it all seems clear to me, I'm aware constantly that it might not seem that way to someone else, and so try to evoke that perspective where possible. Even with explaining it to someone, it's not the right level of depth until they start trying to work on elements of it from a technical implementation perspective. Then the comprehension evaluation becomes much more valid.
One might understand what their transmission does, but until you open it up an start removing gears, you're never really sure how well you understand it.
In discussing the project it always leaves me enthusiastic and pumped to see the project financed and working flat out. But I know the stats are against that ever happening. Still, I hope I can at least persevere to get it live and out in the wild on trials before I have to admit failure.
I guess that's my typical approach to life. Expect the worst, but try for the best, and hope to be proven wrong.
Researchinator totally hopes for some pleasant surprises...
It's interesting to see this architecture through other eyes. While it all seems clear to me, I'm aware constantly that it might not seem that way to someone else, and so try to evoke that perspective where possible. Even with explaining it to someone, it's not the right level of depth until they start trying to work on elements of it from a technical implementation perspective. Then the comprehension evaluation becomes much more valid.
One might understand what their transmission does, but until you open it up an start removing gears, you're never really sure how well you understand it.
In discussing the project it always leaves me enthusiastic and pumped to see the project financed and working flat out. But I know the stats are against that ever happening. Still, I hope I can at least persevere to get it live and out in the wild on trials before I have to admit failure.
I guess that's my typical approach to life. Expect the worst, but try for the best, and hope to be proven wrong.
Researchinator totally hopes for some pleasant surprises...
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