Burrito for 20070831

As stated before, I'm going to start compiling weekly wrap-ups, with elaboration, on my twitter posts (which are apparently called tweets) into almost useful blog posts.

Technology

First, I want to express my frustration with Twitter, because it appears to be flaky as hell. I've subscribed to several news and technology feeds and I am not getting IM notifications when they update, despite having all of my notifications enabled. Furthermore I am having problems completely removing feeds; instead I have just been disabling notifications. Boo, Twitter.

I've been working on my sister-in-law's PC over this week. I think I've finally narrowed the problem down to a hard drive failure, but it's taking a really long time to transfer all of their files so that I can reinstall Windows and all of that crap. I'm hoping that this is the last time someone asks me to work on a Windows PC for them. There are people who get paid full time salaries to work on this stuff, and I'm not one of them. I don't mind working on linux systems since I can do that remotely and they don't break very often.

Ignorance

My favorite technical bookstore, nerdbooks.com, happens to be located about 1/2 mile from work. Not only are their books always cheaper than on Amazon, but being able to walk into the store to browse and examine the merchandise is an extreme bonus. Recently, however, they've been forced to close their doors to the public because some people are "afraid of dogs", even though the two dogs in question are extremely well behaved and docile Labrador Retrievers. Nothing bothers me more than when I'm affected by the ignorance of other people. Luckily they are allowing existing customers to still enter through the side shipping entrance.

With regard to ignorance, I can't say that I'm surprised to hear this week that SAT scores are dropping. "No child left behind" my ass. I've got about 6 years to figure out how I'm going to finance at least one private school education.

School

Speaking of school, my class so far has covered no material that I'm not already extremely familiar with (depth-first tree search, queues, etc). I know at some point things will get interesting, but I'm glad things are simple for now. I should be using this lull to work on my independent development project.

Health

I've started going to the gym now that school has fired back up. I awoke at 6:00am on Wednesday to go secure a locker at the facility. I was able to procure a medium-sized locker; I wanted a large but they had only one available and The Captain was in line before me. Even if I had arrived before him I'd have surrendered my spot to him; he needs a large locker more than I do. The Smurf was mysteriously absent from the gym on both Wednesday and Friday morning.

Life Ambitions

This week's moon eclipse was fantastic even though it was way too early to be awake. Neither me nor my wife were able to get great pictures. It also got me thinking about solar eclipses, and I've determined that I must see one before I die. Unless I make a special international trip, the next most likely opportunity will be on Monday, August 21, 2017. I figure we can drive to the middle-of-nowhere Nebraska, set up a tent, and get in some great viewing / photos. Even better will be the event on Monday, May 8, 2024 in which the path of totality includes my house.

Friday

I haven't been productive since about 2:00pm today; it's been a long week and I'm out of GAFF ("Give a Fark Factor"). We had our monthly cake today , but not after we resisted their feeble attempts to move the cake up to the third floor. Our company split has been finalized (their keys are deactivated after today), yet they still had the nerve to try and steal our sugary goodness. My cake, damnit ... it's a good thing I worked out this morning. Finally going to see HP5 tonight; better late than on DVD.

Go Twitter, and Please Remember the Milk

I want to briefly place a spotlight on a couple of applications that I've recently begun to utilize. Both applications are fairly popular, with several thousand people bookmarking each on del.icio.us . Neither of these are sponsored ads, and I hope they don't read as such.

Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/ )

When I first saw Twitter, it seemed like nothing more than a MySpace with ADHD.  The Twitter home page features the public timeline, a continuous feed of what everyone is "twittering" right now. A few examples (names censored):

XXXX:  watching yankees/red sux game

XXXX:  今日も早くから仕事。外は思いのほか涼しかった。

XXXX:  A wise man once told me to go home and have a gin and tonic.

XXXX:  Time to head home...I can do no more good here!

The first impression upon me was not very high. In fact, I still don't really understand the public timeline aspect, except to show that, in fact, people really are using the service. 

The strengths of Twitter, in my opinion, are its ease access using multiple platforms (IM, SMS, Web) and integration with other services.  Through Twitter, a user can follow a particular feed from a user and receive notifications through their IM or phone instantly.  For example, I can chose to follow ESPN, and get breaking sports news through Google Talk.

Along with getting feed updates from ESPN or Woot!, I plan to use Twitter to store up random thoughts throughout the day / week, and make a compilation post to this blog whenever my twitter bubbles over. You can chose to follow Ankhorahil to see my thoughts as they happen, or simply wait for the compilation post here later.

Remember the Milk ( http://www.rememberthemilk.com/)

Remember the Milk, henceforth referred to as RTM, is an online task management system. While still in Beta, RTM feels highly polished and performs its stated purpose very well.  Users can have different categories of tasks, set priorities, and specify due dates using natural language ( e.g. "Go to the store tomorrow"). The RTM homepage is uncluttered and intuitive providing immediate access to tasks due today, tomorrow, and yesterday (or further overdue). RTM also allows for sharing between tasks and task lists, making it very useful for families and small organizations.

RTM is also highly inter-operable with other services, and this is where it has the potential to become a true "killer app". RTM provides XML and iCal feeds, as well as modules to be integrated with Google Calendar, iGoogle, Netvibes, and the OS X Dashboard. RTM can be updated through email and IM (using Twitter or IMified) and has a mobile version for web-enabled phones.

There are definitely some signs of the Beta in RTM, mostly cosmetic and other minor issues that do not affect the overall utility of the application.  I believe that these folks are heading in a good direction, and will probably be bought by Google soon. Wild speculation is why you're here, right?

Anyway, it's time to head home, have a gin and tonic, and watch the Red Sox crush the Yankees.

Beta Revisited

This is mostly a follow-up to the post here regarding beta level software with regards to a particular application at VoidSlime. In the general case, I still stand by the assertion that the term beta is overused in the current market of software applications.

However, I also want to give credit to the proprietor of the above mentioned application, VoidSlime. He? actually did read and take the time to respond to my harsh critique in a professional manner. From what I gather the website was never intended for wide distribution, and it was not expected that outsiders would be signing up. Eadz has stated that a feedback link will be provided and that possibly sign-ups will be closed until it is ready for more extensive testing or release.

Quick thoughts on my new class

This class looks like it's going to be a bit different in composition. The first thing that strikes me is the amount of "Fast Track" (undergraduate) students in the course. The combination of those students plus all of the PhD students preparing for the qualifier fill the room pretty well.

There are two students with the first name of 'Jasper' in this class. I haven't derived any conclusions from that, just an observation.

The professor that has this room before us went way late on the first day. Hopefully he can either adjust his watch or content to fit better in his given 75 minutes.

β

I want to talk a little bit about the word Beta this morning. The letter Beta (β) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet, coming immediately after Alpha (α).  According to Wikipedia, the Beta is used throughout mathematics and science, but it is the usage in reference to software releases that has caught my ire today.

It seems to me that the word beta, or the implied phrase beta testing has been completely thrown out the window in the Web 2.0 age.  I'm pretty sure that Google, with its perpetually-beta GMail, Google Calendar, and menagerie of other web services has changed the definition of the term.  It no longer means "Software that is in testing in preparation for release."  Beta now means "Released software that may not be production quality."

This is a subtle but important distinction.  The first phrase implies that the company is actively seeking to purge the bugs from their system and create a production quality program. The second is simply a CYA, removing any kind of perceived liability from the developer in case it doesn't work right.

I ran into a Type 2 beta website last night, and I am still pretty aggravated about my experience.  I have a bunch of MTG cards and I want a way to organize them electronically.  I can use the MTGO client, but it's graphical only and proprietary.  A few weeks ago I saw a link to this site, VoidSlime, which is supposed to be a trading marketplace for MTG cards. It's in Beta, of course, but I figured I would give it a shot.

During my "testing" of their site, I found a show-stopper bug: You can't have a regular card and a foil card of the same type.  They obviously are only keying on the card ID, instead of both the card ID and all of the special flags (foil, promotional, etc).  Moreover, the software doesn't tell you that it failed to add the card ... it simply adds it to the fancy Web 2.0 auto-list and keeps going. It's not until you refresh the page that you realize your cards are missing from the database.

As a developer, I understand that software has bugs, and while I was frustrated by 'losing' some of the cards I'd just input, it's not that big of a deal.  What is a big deal, however, is that there is no way to report bugs on this site.

No email address
No message boards
No "contact us" web form

Since there is no way to report feedback, it can't be in testing, and thus the word Beta on the VoidSlime home page simply means, "This software sucks. "  I would write the website owners to have them add an email address, but that is kind of paradoxical. Instead I'll just publish this post and maybe someday they'll see it.

- Anyone can write a web page but it takes someone special to build an application.