All Hallowed Development

So lets talk about goals. Okay, this is not so much a conversation as a monologue. My recent goal on my 'project' was to achieve an end-to-end walk through of my system by last Friday. I'm one week past my goal, but in truth, it was a goal set about 3 weeks ago when it seemed possible. I'm pretty close, may even get there today. Pumpkin shopping might get in the way though. Yesterday I had to bail early to go buy some Halloween candy too.

A quick review. My architecture involves three pieces: an application, a server-side framework, and a client-side AJAX software element in a browser. So for the non-technical folk, let's say a program that does stuff, like MSWord or Excel, some technical program stuff that makes a website work in a certain way, and a browser-loaded web-page that does a bunch of stuff from within your computer as my ultimate target user.

This is the end-to-end piece - the idea of running that application, generating stuff that the website provides to people who are using a browser and doing so in a smooth way so that it can be done thousands of times a day.

But I'm getting close. Spates of trick-and/or-treating, poetry outbursts, musical interludes and a pair of cats that need to spend time on my desktop notwithstanding, I should get there soon. I'd really like that to be today! So let's get to it.

Weather Observance

Sun is streaming in through the window which yesterday
Was caked in snow blown horizontal in vigorous winds.
A crusty drifting shroud stretches taught across lawns and shrubs
Which the day before called like sirens to gardeners
To provide one final trim, one more going-over
Before the calendars cogs switched from colours and damp
To powder and wind.
But the hurdling
Cold iron
Train
On jetstream rails
Came down upon us
And bore tanks of moisture from the south
To the steely grey frozen air from the arctic.
And as yesterday's yesterday sun sank below the west's suburban sprawl
A crystalline blanket of deathly white
Was woven, and sewn, and laid at our feet
To a morning of somber grey, dripping, barbed wind
Though the worn brass and ivory, bolts and cogs of the calendar
Told us only crunching leaves, and gilded sunbeams, and scarlet kerchiefs
Should greet us in the fresh, sweater and cap mornings

Still, rails - though spiked to creosote timbers - always go somewhere else
And they took our rumbling tempest off to the west
Where the conspiratorial sun had set two nights ago
And where todays golden friend will wend its way soon
After it again finds the scarlet, the green, and the gold
From under the dissolving spun-sugar shrowd

Grey Here Too

I was pretty productive yesterday, even thought I didn't move the big boulder much further forward. I got to know the boulder quite well, and figure out a few good hand-holds, so that's something.

This morning has not been so good so far from a productivity point of view. Perhaps it was the forecast that took the wind out of my sails so far, but I am planning to really push forward today. But looming over the horizon is the first snow of the season - sure it will disappear in a day or so, as temperatures are still pretty good, but just the symbolism of it is tough.

So the morning started out with a quick look through email, a reply to a friend and then as I stared at my work, my brain was playing Louden Wainwright's "Grey in LA" in my head, so I needed to hear it through my ears. That achieved, I then needed to check the name of the chick mentioned in the middle - Laurie David - an Environmentalist I hadn't heard of before, probably big in LA. (I thought I had heard Maury David! Ha!) In verifying the lyrics I ended up at a site with a hilarious rendition of the song. Kudos to the guy for giving it a whirl!

It's funny, in the first few seconds, I thought "man, that piano sounds choppier than I remember it." Then the singing started and I realized it was an amateur cover. He starts out in a key that his voice isn't going to be able to handle, and gets himself deeper into the hole as the song goes along. Quite entertaining to listen knowing there are some real good Wainwright runs in there from "you won't be surprised" down to "your wet dog".

Then, I thought, hey lets find the chords and play it myself. Then I recorded it for playback fun (never to be shared with other souls, however). But that seems to have satisfied my interest in being distracted. So I'm about to jump back into real work... though I do need to go outside and drain the rain barrel which we've forgotten, and I'm afraid will freeze sometime soon, especially if packed in snow.

Sigh. The challenges of working in a home office :)

Crashes and Trying to Ignore the Shrapnel

The Stock Market ride is nuts - today it's started down, but there was expectation that it was going to drop off a cliff - as if the 40% drop in my portfolio wasn't cliffy enough. Anyway, it's down, but not as bad as expected. But the days not over yet.

The media loves this shit -they are just hyping the crap out of the negatives. Don't any of those monkeys have savings an RSP (IRA) or other retirement savings? Whose writing the copy and planning the news cycle for those outlets. They seem oblivious to what they are doing. It's a subtle thing, in choosing adjectives and focus for a story. If the markets are down sharply, and there are a mix of new indicators - they will instead call it a bloodbath, show pics of horrified looking traders, and focus on the most negative numbers. Why not temper the language, highlight that there are some good numbers (e.g. home sales weren't as bad as expected today) and move on.

I think a good 50% of any financial crisis is driven by confidence and hype issues.

Meanwhile, I'm a long way from worrying about stuff like that. So I'll keep plugging away on my project. I'd hoped to do an end-to-end trial today. Using my application for creating situational data, delivering the data to my server, and making the data available and delivering it to a browser. Right now I'm doing some substantial code cleanups for a good archive, and will see where I get today.

I should also be a good little developer and update my documentation to make absorbing real developers later a much easier process.

Researchinator ignores phone ringing with 1-866 numbers (soliciting and robots no doubt) and turns back to getting somewhere today...

Dove Rescue

Started off the morning with rescuing a dove trapped in netting above our pond. The netting keeps the leaves off, but since the leaves have dropped the pond is more attractive to birds who didn't know it was there before. I think I'll keep it on to ensure that fish-eating birds don't get a crack at them. I assume doves don't eat fish, but I did notice that no fish were around to see. Hopefully they are just hiding at the bottom due to the commotion.

So, I guess I can say it was a productive day so far, given my rescue this morning. If only that made my start-up project any more marketable!

Researchinator looks around the office for additional wildlife in trouble...

Old Green

Waning cold symptoms means a return to some level of productivity. I suppose yesterday wasn't too bad, as I did get a few things done. Progress on the software front and even outside briefly for a short walk to a store.

I was reading a bit of web content about some people's routine when they have to persevere to bang out some serious code. One fella doing mobile apps advocated an early rise, a run, some meditation, and power through code with lunch thrown in. The notable thing is that he had it very structured - which I think is a key element.

Part of my structure is to get a good breakfast and cup of tea to start the day. Try to remember to get on here for some free-form blog-thinking, and each morning involves reading a few pages of something totally un-work-related. That has been Chekhov plays for a while now. I just finished Uncle Vania, which was interesting.

Uncle Vania follows the structure of many of Chekhov's plays: a mix of classes, destitute poor and insanely bored wealthy. The wealthy are usually functionally poor - or at least they think they are. Pretty much each play ends with someone killing themselves. In UV, Vania takes a pot-shot at his brother in law, but doesn't manage to do him in.

They purge their lives of the ivory-tower professor and his luscious wife who is like siren attracting productive men to their complacent doom. But most interesting for me is the character of the doctor who is in this complacency zone, but still has some long speeches of a very modern environmental nature. Now, the destruction of the landscape happens to parallel the destruction of their productivity at the hands of the luscious Yeliena, who doesn't reciprocate anyone's interest, but still sucks them into her vortex.

The enviro speeches though are quite great, a real testament to how the 'green' perspective is nothing new. In 1890's Russia, there were people who could see the impact of industrialization and creeping farmland into the wilderness and express concern about it. Interesting stuff. Someone should co-opt that speech for a modern event and point out how long it has been an issue.

Anyway...
Researchinator is off to read a couple of pages of the next Chekhov play 'Three Sisters'.

Mid-Cold Progress

It was a short day on the R&D front yesterday! Some progress on drafting my patent document was good, but that was about all I could muster as my cold rose to a crescendo; the rhino-virus stomped all over my plans for lots of accomplishments this week. So, on one hand I'm happy that I managed to accomplish something, but on the other it's so much less than I thought. My goal for an end-to-end demo is diminished somewhat.

On a less studious front, I'm also disappointed as I recall my last late winter cold that seemed to persevere for many weeks. I was really hoping for some more late-season camping. Don't particularly want to brave the cold with a cold and make it worse.

Well let's see what I can accomplish today...

Researchinator drains the dregs of tea and turns attention to work...

Drip, Drip, Drip...

The monday morning slog - compounded by a cold and a poor night's sleep. On one hand you would assume working from a home office with limited human contact would be a good thing in terms of avoiding the perils of rampant viruses. However, my SO continues to fraternize with employed, mobile people and can thus transport such infectious agents to our abode. I must go ahead with the bubble I had planned and separate my living space with three layers of polyethylene film and a separate air supply! Only then will my precious bodily fluids be sacrosanct.

Okay, perhaps this focused project development is wearing on me a bit.

I actually have high hopes for this weeks progress. Can I pull it all together and achieve the first end-to-end demonstration of capability this week? It seems like it should be do-able.

In parallel, I'd love to get a first draft patent, and a first complete summary presentation in place. Other wanna-do's are a pro-forma financial statement, a first cut valuation, and a draft business plan doc.

Okay - sounds like a bit much for the week. But during this past weekend I was successful in accomplishing all my weekend chore goals, so who knows maybe I can keep up the achievement track record. But oh, this cold!

Well, best refill the tea-cup and push valiantly ahead in spite of it all.

Researchinator tries to keep a stiff upper lip, in spite of the drippy nose directly above it...

Casual Day

Yay, it's casual day around the office. Don't have to wear that dang tuxedo to work like I normally do. The cats are happy too, they're going around in their casual fur.

Not too productive today so far. Posted some questions on a discussion board to solve a couple of my minor programming issues.

Need to persevere to get something substantial done before lunch, which is about 4 minutes away, technically. Oh well, late lunch today, then perhaps I can get out and put some steps on my legs so that it's not a day of sitting in a chair. Such are the hazards of working from a home office.

Researchinator needs some serious cardio...

People and Places - Crucial Start-Up Decisions

During the stealthy ramp up period, an entrepreneur needs to make a many important decisions. Having been through it before, I have a bit of an insight into how to go about it, but there are no easy answers in this game.

Two of the questions that I want to touch upon briefly are a) when to start growing the team and b) when to to move into corporate digs.

On the first question, and important truth is that having the strongest people possible is always a key goal. If you read the 'Good to Great' exploration of this area, the premise there is that it is the be-all, end-all of corporate success. I'm not sure I agree with that, as I've seen successful organizations where there were some sub-optimal people in some non-critical roles. They would meet the needs of the position, though one could imagine someone more optimal excelling beyond the strict needs of the situation. A much worse situation would have been to have such roles unfilled while waiting for an optimal candidate, resulting in other people being dragged down by the missing skill-set.

In a start-up situation, the needs are all multiplied three fold. When you are doubling your staff on a monthly basis, every position is critical. By the same token, there is both a propensity for people to stretch to cover holes, as well as a need to acquire people with that ability.

Now where the question above comes in is that with each added person, there is administrative and orientation effort added to the leadership positions to absorb those people. At the wrong time, that can pull you away from progress, crucial decisions and foundation building and may mean the difference between success and failure.

My current approach is to concentrate on building the initial framework before pulling in other people, and thus hope to have some structure and some direction established before distractions and dissenting opinions start pulling at me.

On the second question, I'm still not settled. When you first get commercial space, you begin to burn cash, and keeping the burn-rate low is so important before you have funding. When you have more than one person working, space becomes more important. I've come to develop a pretty good work ethic in a home office environment, but what I've noted over the years is that many, perhaps most people find that difficult. Thus it's good to create a traditional workplace environment as early as possible, to ensure that you get the focus which might be lacking if your collaborators are in their home environment.

While on my path toward a first demonstration of product concepts though, I'm leaning toward staying in the home office and keeping costs at next to nothing. It's a fine line, though, between the easily accessible work environment here, and need for something more formal, and I'll have to be sure not to hesitate when the need becomes apparent.

For now though, my days are well defined - simply push ahead and try to progress quickly enough that the proverbial iron is still hot enough for blow or two.

Researchinator winds up for another strike...

Day Without Constraints...

Post election day, and the turmoil of the Canadian political system has not really changed much. Restructuring of some of the centrist party leadership is yet to be resolved, but at least now should be able to go ahead.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at a full day ahead of me, without much in the way of distraction expected, so I hope I can make some progress on a few fronts. I should take a couple of hours in there to advance some of the business collateral stuff, as well as progress on the software side.

And, I should get out for lunch somewhere perhaps... though the fridge contains leftovers of various sorts of which I should partake.

Researchinator turns pointy two-holed face lump to grind stone...

Propensity to Progress Today?

For maybe a week each year you get the chance to see some pretty amazing colours in the landscapes across Canada. Some years it's a bit of a let down, but this year has been spectacular. A few hundred clicks south, and they are back a few weeks in their timing, but a drive this weekend was a real highlight, during our Thanksgiving long weekend.

I thanked my computer for not crashing in the interim while I was unprotected by a RAID server to back up my data.

A long weekend is passed, and my project progressed quite well in the final days of the last week. I had to persevere through some challenging goals, knowing that come the next week, it would be hard to pick up where I left off due to brain fade over the ensuing days. So I did, and I recall some reasonable success. But, true to form, I don't recall too well what I was working on. Late morning now and I guess I've cleaned up enough other stuff, and have a few minutes before lunch, and before a doctor's appointment to look at where I am. A first day after long weekend, and an election day to boot. Something tells me progress will be small.

Researchinator says research ya later...

Small Scale Goal Setting

A strategy for successful home office work approach: when you have a success, immediately stop and savour it for a while. Good time to go get another cup of tea, I thought to myself this morning when I clicked 'run' on my software and tested a new feature and it worked cleanly as I expected.

Reward yourself with something you were contemplating doing instead of working, like getting a snack or a cup of tea.

While we all know that we need concrete goals and timelines, there are some good techniques I've found to deal with the day-to-day effort. I like to set small short term goals often. It's just before noon now, and my SO is awaiting a connecting plane from Toronto to get home. Given that we'll go get some lunch after she makes it here, I have a good short term goal to get the next element of that successful feature working before then.

A midday goal, I find, is more successful than an end-of-day goal. Why? Because if you miss it, you still have some productive time to put it in the bag. If you miss an end of day goal, you then either have to persevere (while already mentally fatigued) to get it done, or quit for the day with the failure on your mind. Neither is a very positive outcome.

So a goal for completion before my late lunch should work out. Then the end of the day work can be seen as bonus time. Or, it can be used to address another, different aspect of your project - ie multi-tasking time. I'll probably use it for more business plan editing/creation. Thus the day can end with both an R&D success, and some business development progress.

Speaking of which, if I don't get on to it, I won't have either.

Researchinator: Nose approaches grindstone.

Timing is Everything

Okay so I'm not real good with the morning thing. But my routine is holding together. One more day till the SO returns and some structure from someone other than myself returns. But I've worked a solid day not on infrastructure and setup, but rather on the project itself. Having some success, but it's all on minor stuff just now.

I've had many visits from Cat number 1. She's been up on my desk 4 times, and just returned for a fifth now. She's spread out on my notebook, so there will be no notes for a while.

Got out at lunch time for a bite. Rather than walk somewhere and lose an hour or so, I decided to ride my bike. My destination was a small mall 2.3km away, in the direction opposite from where I went for carribean food last week. It only took about 35min total, but the food selection at this place has really dropped off. Had a shawarma, which I could easily have had with a 10min walk up the street in the other direction.

Oh well, I'll stay away from that food court. I imagined a stir-fry thing a la japponaise. But it was not to be. This is a good enhancement to the work environment - alternate days out for lunch. It's more economical than an office caffeteria, and better variety too.

I need to rework my schedule sometime soon - but I'm still hoping to get through a full proof-of-concept first path in the coming days - maybe early next week. Then a flurry of documentation, some biz plan work and plan the next, bigger project steps.

A big distraction is the constant melt down of the financial markets. I've lost a good third of my investment portfolio. What a joyful way to spend your first weeks on your own without an income! Seems to me this happened last time I did this as well - anyone remember 9/11?

Researchinator seeks to make use of the last hour remaining in the day.

Don't You Hate it When...

I guess in doing support for a product, you get a lot of questions, not all of them coherent or soluable. However, that's no excuse for providing crazy responses.

I contacted a vendor about a product they sold and provided a very concise, polite, perfectly grammatical question. To use a car analogy (don't we love those) "When I turn the car on, there is a beeping sound from the dashboard. What is it" It's summarized in two brief paragraphs.

The response 2 days later is often unintelligible, and you have to wonder if they've actually read your actual question. It will be something like "You can find the jack in the trunk under the rug" or, "Unleaded gas is provided by gas stations across the country"

This often seems to happen - I have no idea how these responses are supposed to be related to the question, but presumably there is some crazy logic path.

That's my morning email checking story, for what it's worth. It's not a car, its another thing, but don't you hate it when support groups are unable to provide a coherent answer? I responded with a thanks for the effort, but it seems to have nothing to do with my question... We'll see if they just ignore me now, which seems the usual response.

Another sunny day, but cold last night. Can I actually get some work done today? Yesterday finished up with trying to get revision control (SVN) installed on my mac. Seems to have installed fine, and now I have to see if I can use it easily without messing anything up. There seems to be a bit of a cryptic behaviour happening, but I'm sure I just need to read more. I haven't used a revision control system since CVS many years ago.

I'm also thinking I need to spend a bit of time each day digging for meet-up opportunities. That whole networking thing is going to be a key element of success.

Researchinator tries to remove some of the dozens of open windows from his screen.

Bad Day in Rome?

Sunny and cool go the October days. Monday comes again. My SO is off on a biz trip, hence all elements of structure disappear from my life. I could sleep for a week and nobody would notice.

But I'm working away, diligently to make some progress. The prospect of all my research work happening without any backup or safe copies was wearing on my, so I acquired some 'network storage' to back up all my files on.

The thing is a bit flakey - it's a Buffalo Linkstation pro duo by the way. A little google bait. Occasionally it will take one of my files or directories which I've just written to the disk and rename it something like NJGHK~K instead of "contracts". Just what I want.

Hopefully I can find a way around that. For now, I've managed to load it up and I feel a bit better protected. Still about 400GB or so of space.

Getting out of the home office everyday is a must-do. It's easier with the good weather. However, I'm dealing with a migraine from a couple of days ago that echos occasionally for an hour here and there. That's a demotivator. But the exercise is also a big issue. If I don't think about it, I could find myself amassing only a few hundred steps a week.

So these are the adjustments I deal with. The biggest challenge I can see ahead is building up the appropriate team. That means I've got to network my ass off to find some people with the right skills.

Meanwhile I'm also listening to some audio from the book "Good to Great" while also watching the stock market fall apart. It's quite hilarious, as the very pompous sounding American author goes on about how well run various US banks are, throwing in pithy comments about Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae and such, as that entire industry falls apart due to bad management that not only trashed its own sector, but the entire world economy. Ha! What a juxtaposition.

Anyway, the world seems to be burning, but for now, it's sunny and cool and I'll try not to pay too much attention.

Moving and/or Shaking About Town

A very networky day so far. Lunch with an old colleague who seems is also well plugged in around the tech community. Lots of talk about ventures, and ideas and future projects. Who knows if either of us will ever do any of them.

Also met with a patent lawyer to compare notes and build a bit of a relationship for the future filing of some stuff. Seems a decent fellow, and there might be some low-cost filing opportunities in there somewhere.

Discussed also the opportunity for provisional filing. I'm aware of that approach - but it's not without its risks of course.

Then some interaction with the old corporate monster to close of some intellectual property stuff there as well. Not sure if the normal monitary stuff will come through but, if nothing else the extra item for my resume is worthwhile.

Even dropped by a bank on my way back to explore biz banking opportunities and got a freebie thumbdrive for my questions - suck-up bastards. :)

So overall, I feel like I've actually been doing stuff. Should do more yet though the day is getting later now. Next priority would be mid afternoon tea.

Researchinator ponders a broad selection of leafy delights...

Analysis of the Home-Office Challenges

Must improve me routine, I guess, as it's not really morning anymore.

Plodding ahead. Boy, I'd forgotten how tough it is to work with no other humans around... but I'll slog it out, and cat's are annoying today, either on my desk too much or meowing incessantly downstairs for extra food & attention.

Making good use of news groups and mailing lists to get programming bug help. Appears there are some UI related bugs in the system I'm using. Not too impressive. Well, for demo purposes, it should suffice. I'll need to make some big platform decisions later on.

Ordered a backup network drive (NAS). That should lighten the risk of losing my laptop or destroying my only copy of my software by accident. The added bonus I suppose is potential for external access outside my network and streaming music through iTunes perhaps!

Had a good kebab sandwich for lunch. One of the benefits of working at home is a whole new array of lunch options from low-budget make-a-sandwich to trying all the myriad of other options around. Lunches are also a good networking time, scheduling connections with other people.

Anyway, the prototype exploration continues. I'm in the tough slogging portion, with potential for much more effort. My SO is imminently going on a biz trip, so I'm going to be left without structure in my day, and could conceivably work for days straight day and night. However, this will require that I impose even more effort to find structure and exercise beyond the walk from bed to desk to kitchen to bathroom.

Researchinator yells at cats....