SXSW Here I Come!

Thursday 11 Mar 2010 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Announcements, Music, Social Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

As you may have realized from the sidebar on the right hand side, I’m SXSW bound!  This will be my first time heading down to Austin, Texas and mingling with the technological, film, and musically inclined.  SXSW is somewhat of a long time dream of mine and starting tomorrow it will be fully realized.  Much of what I’m interested in both personally and professionally intersects with all of the different aspects of SXSW.

For the Film portion, I’m into seeing the movies that pull me back to my high school days.  During the late 90’s, I watched movies all of the time.  I would head to the now defunct Video Library out in Lenexa and pick up a movie 6 pack for the weekend then veg out on the couch.  After awhile, I got to the point where mainstream movies just weren’t enough.  I wanted to see the influence of great directors and actors, I wanted to see off the beaten path movies, and I wanted to tap into an underground that couldn’t otherwise be known if it weren’t for the 5,000 plus title Video Library sported.  It was an age of discovery for me.  I hope to relive that with the Film portion.

The Interactive portion is all about cutting edge technology and more importantly how it affects people.  Most people come away from this event with more than just the latest, hip social media trend.  Workshops are all over to walk through attendees on some of the best practices in development or the latest methods to integrate bleeding edge tech.  New technology will be on display as each big player brings out the best they have to offer.  This is the meeting of highly proficient minds and what spins out from that collaboration and networking can be something special.

My passion for technology and how new ideas affect people and hopefully improve their lives came from my college days.  I used to work in the only profitable division at Kansas State besides the athletic department:  the distance education department.  Because of the money we made, we got to preview and implement tech before it saw the light of mainstream.  We’re talking smartboards and video captured lectures using carts, cameras, and computers.  I always remember the impact it on the teachers utilizing that tech to help teach their content.  Hopefully,  I will see what new items (more than likely in the mobile realm) that will help people and their daily lives down in Austin.

The  Music portion speaks for itself.  Whereas the Interactive portion’s sessions usually start around 9am, the Music portion’s sessions start at 1pm.  The brunt of the showcases won’t end until the last encore song bleats out over the PA system at around 2am.  It’s all about bands and musicians coming together and sharing their voice.  On top that, they will share the methods and discuss topics on how to best use their voice.  The collective voice for SXSW will hear over 1000 bands joining in the song.

I’ve always been trying to find my voice.  Whether it’s in technology, music, or just my day to day actions.  I sport a decent amount of music equiptment that grows each day, but I’ve never found it sounding right to me.  Morever, I’ve also found it hard to share my voice with other people.  Courage will always be a hard thing for me.  I’m thinking that a chorus of over 1000 other bands may just help me join in and sing my song.  What better way to find my voice?

Half the fun of finding my voice is the path I take to get it..  That path leads me to SXSW.  Most of what I identify with will be represented in some form down in Austin.  I’m lucky enough to go down there and take part.  What do I hope to accomplish?  I want to start a new age of discovery.  I want get my hands on new technology to help others.  I want to mix with peers and jam out with them, whether it’s tech, film, or tunes.  Most of all, what I want to do on this trip is to bring back fresh inspiration and make some new friends.

This is a great opportunity for me to mix with like minded people and I’ll be bubbling up the better things from the event right here.  I’m going to do my best to document much of the road trip and the conference so be prepared for an onslaught of content.  Please feel free to share with me what you think.  If you are going down there, hit me up and let’s have some fun.  SXSW is like Mecca to me, even though I’ve never been and I don’t pray toward Austin every day.

Where’s the Buzz @?

Friday 12 Feb 2010 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Social Tags: , , , , , ,

If you haven’t noticed in your Google Inbox recently, there is a new feature that popped up in there.  It’s called Google Buzz.  What is it?  It essentially takes the best of real time update technologies and integrates in with most of Google’s core group of software.  I’m not going to break down the ins and outs of Buzz.  But what I will do is talk about two features that I find the most attractive.  One’s bringing an old favorite Google App of mine back to the forefront, the other is just stroking my ego.

So let’s start with my ego first!  Awhile ago I talked about the ‘@’ symbol and how it’s become the mainstream mode to reply to or address other people or systems in communication.  Flash forward to today.  If you notice above, the comments show the ‘@’ symbol used to address another Buzz user.  Even better, once you type the ‘@’ symbol and another letter, a dynamic list of your Buzz friends and Gmail Contacts pop up for you to choose from.  If you are a developer building a new app, especially one that hinges on social interactions, you will have to include this feature to be successful.

Okay, the next feature that changes the game is the simple integration across all of Google’s Apps and Buzz.  My Google Profile has been filled out for a couple of years and for last year I’ve been wondering why.  Buzz now pushed the Google Profile to the forefront.  More importantly for me, however, is the massive integration with Google Reader.  If you’ve been around here recently, you know my love for Google Reader.  I have friends in Gmail that use Gooogle Reader, but they never show up in Google Reader correctly when they share stories.  Buzz not only takes care of that, but also brings in Buzz users in to the Google Reader application.  This makes picking up shared items that my peers curate much, much easier.

Now, Google Buzz is not without its drawbacks.  Everyone’s been complaining about privacy, but I’m starting to get bothered by the massive drag it brings to my Gmail.  I’m an Inbox Zero cult follower and seeing new Buzz pumped in at an amazing rate is starting grate my nerves.  I hope they follow through on pushing it out as a separate app.  The folks at Google are already iterating changes, so if they are going to make a change, it will be fast.  That said, Buzz is a great addition to my set of apps from Google I use.  Not because of the app itself, but because it makes my other apps better.

Google Reader Can Send To Social Sharing

Thursday 21 Jan 2010 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Social Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I’ve been using Google Reader as my news aggregator for some time now.  Now some people might say that feed readers are dead along with RSS, but I beg to differ.  It’s the best way for me to catch up on news using a uniform interface for easy scanning.  If I want to go in depth, I can read the whole article there or open in a new tab.  I had a hard time sharing any articles I find worthy of telling others about.  The same thought leaders of today who say RSS is dead are the same ones who exclaim that Twitter is the king of up to second news.  Until the middle of last year, there was no way for me to share links in a fast and easy way plus post it to my Twitter followers.  Now I can with Google Reader’s ‘Send To’ feature.

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Quick Book Review: Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think

Tuesday 14 Jul 2009 by mike.hochanadel | 2 Comments
Filed under: Website Tags: , , , , ,

sk_dmmt

I just put down the second edition of Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” so I’m putting down some quick thoughts about the book as a whole. For those of you that don’t know, web usability is a big topic when designing, developing, and marketing a website. Steve Krug comes from a background of years of consulting in this field and put a condensed version of what he has learned in “Don’t Make Me Think.” The book is divided into 3 main sections, usability on the whole site, usability on the home page, and how to test for usability. All said Krug does a good job of summarizing what all it takes to increase website usability while leaving the door open for more exploration.

The title alone is what someone who reads this should walk away form this book. “Don’t Make Me Think” is more of a command than just a title. When people blaze through websites, they move at a pace faster than normal conversation. Where you should choose your words wisely while talking with someone (especially someone important), you don’t have the luxury of choosing words on the fly when presenting a web page to someone. It is the responsibility of the website to make it as easy as possible from the beginning to avoid any confusion. Confusion slows people down, which will lead them to other websites.

The first part of the book talks about website usability as whole. Krug breaks it down to about 6 different parts of the page where confusion can creep. Some of them made sense and some of them were gotchas I haven’t thought of. I came away with two concepts. First, keep things simple and consistent across the whole site. Second, make the site look like some version of a tabbed catalog or book. This makes more sense when developing a business site, but the concept can be used for other purposes. Essentially, a crisp clean book with easy to search and indexed tabs will make the most of what your target audience wants.

We shoot on to the second part of the book where Krug throws that out of the window and talks about the home page. Krug says that the home page can have a different look from the rest of the site because of its welcome mat mentality. To me that meant it’s the cover of the book or catalog to flip through, and then some. You need tell them what it is and how to dive deeper, but give just enough shine to lure them away from other books. Here Krug makes exceptions to the rules, making them good rules.

The last part of the book talks about how to perform duct tape usability testing. From his experience, he maps out the hardcore way to sample a user base and record interactions with a web page for top notch results. Then, much like this book, he runs over the quick and dirty way to get comparable results with just a camera and an office. All that’s really needed is to openly discern what type of natural browsing behavior someone exhibits when hitting the website the first time. I haven’t really thought about web usability testing before, so getting a glimpse of both sides of the spectrum really help in determining where I can apply usability testing to my projects.

Out of the whole book, the part where I most identify was the downright silly arguments bred from design suggestions or decisions. Believe or not, I have been privy to some absolutely ridiculous arguments. The classic examples he provides, including the ‘technical issue’ trump card, have all been played out in front of me. I may have even dealt some out myself. The point that’s made here applies to my trials and meeting tribulations. The focus of the website should be geared toward the target audience and not one’s own beliefs. The context and content should always aim for the target audience. This is where Krug uses usability test to figure out if the site works or not. Leave it up to strangers, not someone who’s had a hand in the whole development process.

Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” is a great read if you into making you website super user friendly and therefore super cool. If you have an afternoon pluck down and cull out the basics. The concepts within will help catch any low hanging fruit (which he suggests throughout the whole book) while not wasting any of your time building a site. Krug does gloss over some topics like Cascading Style Sheets, but that’s a monster topic on its own. Regardless, pick up this book if you want exposure to solid design principles, amateur or professional alike.

The Pre is in the Palm of my Hand

Saturday 4 Jul 2009 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Gadgetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

palm-pre-2

Coming in a little late than the rest of the pack is my Palm Pre review.  Hey I was too busy playing with it, er, analyzing it to the best of my abilities so I can give a fair handshake to this polished stone looking device.  We are going to cover the hardware side of things.   We are going to cover the software side of things.  Up and downs, what’s good and what’s not, and what we have to look forward to are all topics that I will cover.  Oh, yeah, the massive cell phone search ended.  I have a Palm Pre.

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Cell Phone: The Next Generation

Wednesday 3 Jun 2009 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Gadgetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

old_cell_phone

I went ghost for awhile but now I’m back with what seems like the only thing that’s been on my mind this year and that’s the cell phone search.  Since the last time I talked about this, details for the Palm Pre were announced, the iPhone OS 3.0 was annoucned, Blackberry is rolling out more product,  the OS that the G1 runs on, otherwise known as Google Android, had an upgrade, and the launch date for the Palm Pre was announced.  A deluge of information produced lays stagnant in my and we’re now going to stir things up and see what I finally decide upon.  Keeping the original specs in mind, I’ll take a look at where each phone stands and what my final decision will be now that I have the cash to burn.  After that, stay tuned for my series of articles on cellphone accessories……just kidding.

The spur in the saddle for this whole series is the Palm Pre and it’s coming out this Friday.  Some of the details that really caught my eye include multitasking, a physical keyboard, and webOS development environment.  The multitasking portion is a big deal for me because I prefer to listen to music while I’m tasking and sometimes I switch between apps while they are working or processing.   A close second is the physical keyboard.  My fingers are massively thick and they need something physical to click.  That said, the reviews point out the keys are kinda small and somewhat hard to hit the right key.  Lastly the webOS and it’s young and fertile development ground makes me drool.  All one needs to know is HTML, Javascript, and CSS to build apps for the Pre and there are system specific APIs built into the SDK to allow some tasty interactions.

I’m not completely sold on the Pre however.  The rumor mills are flaring up and the iPhone will be getting a major upgrade to an almost 1.5 times the processor speed and a bump in flash memory to 32 GB.  It also sounds like they are releasing the reigns and allowing cut and paste.  Huzzah! The big controversy for the last couple of the weeks on the iPhone point to the almost Draconian application approval process for the App Store.  It seems there are some crazy examples of questionable content approved whereas some rather tame content gets banned.  For me, the deal is how well I can move my data around in there and how easy it is to build an app on it.  But for the latter I would need to buy a Mac.

Again we’re not alone as the T-Mobile’s Google Android Phone, the G1, is still out there picking up steam.  The big news on this little device is the new release of the OS to Cupcake or version 1.5.  Among the feature highlights include a soft-keyboard, more UI polish, and video recording and playback.  I’m a confessed Google apologist.  Most of my online apps are run through Google.  They do a great job of keeping things fast and simple. I’ve yet to really play with either the SDK or the phone as much, but my Google pull tells me that I should at least give this sucker a chance.

I think for me and what I want to do on smartphones for utility and development purposes, any model of Blackberry will probably be out of the running.  I’ve heard the Storm 2 has better improvements of the Storm 1’s interface, but after playing around with my girlfriend’s Blackberry Pearl, I’m not too impressed.  There seems to be some slow load time between apps and the web browsing is pretty weak.  They do have a nice camera and the scroll ball is probably the best mobile peripheral implementation since the laptop mouse eraser head, but I’m just not sold.

What will sell me this time around comes down to the plan.  After researching all that I can on smartphones,  I can see that most of the phones pretty much have the same to offer.  Texting, picture/video, phone, data transfer, web browsing, and some sort of new keyboard implementation are all part of the common thread for these phones.  What matters most is how much the companies will charge a month and how it matches with how I want to maximize my usage on their service.  Cell phone carriers traditionally nickle and dime you to death with surchargers and fees.  Can you believe that it cost about three times as much to buy a cell ringer than it is to download the actual song?  So when I think about the phone, its features, and how much up front I will pay, I think about how I can get the best deal on the Sprint Unlimited Plan.

Sprint’s Unlimited Plan (well the 450 minute one) gives me unlimited everything, with a 5GB cap mind you, and 450 minutes of daytime talk on the phone.  I double checked my records and discovered that I only came close to the 450 limit once in the last 6 months.  The plan cost about $70 a month.  Compared to the other plans, Sprint wins hands down.  They also advertise best coverage of 3G and may have a leg up on 4G over the carriers.  Sprint’s headquarters happens to be in Kansas City, which is also where I live.  When consulting friends, they have nothing but praise for their service.

But I’m not jumping the gun just yet.  I’ve been talking up some series love on the Palm Pre and I’ve yet to get to play with the device.  The Pre comes out this Saturday and I plan on hitting up Best Buy to check it out.  Now more than likely I will hit up a T-Mobile store and an Apple or AT&T store to give a final once around on the devices.   I’m also gonna wait until WWDC to see exactly what Apple will unveil.  It’s getting real close to new phone time.  Once I get one, the next step will be to see what I can develop for on the phone.  Maybe some cell phone shopping helper app.

Cell Phone Search Update

Tuesday 17 Mar 2009 by mike.hochanadel | 2 Comments
Filed under: Gadgetry Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Old Cellphone

On St. Patrick’s Day, most of the web is teeming over the announcement of the iPhone 3.0 SDK and I figured that it was time to update my cell phone search.  It’s been a couple of months since I first talked about my search and some things have changed.  I still don’t know what to go for yet, but the last revelations from Apple, Palm, HTC, and Blackberry have helped me figure out where to aim when I finally pull the trigger.  Oh and by the way, the contract is now month to month.

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What’s left @todo

Tuesday 10 Mar 2009 by mike.hochanadel | 1 Comment
Filed under: Development, GTD Tags: , , , ,

A couple of different developments cropped up in the last couple of months that’s pulled me away from the blog.  One of them was a job change.  The company I’m working on a contract to hire basis is great and I’ve had the opportunity to learn many things in my short time there.  I do PHP programming and I had the opportunity to freshen up on PHPDoc.  PHPDoc is a documentation standard much like JavaDoc where you can comment code and drop in identifiers to help with the status of a certain function or class.  One of the identifiers is ‘@todo.’  After working with the history of the ‘@’ symbol and how it relates in context, especially with GTD,  I came to realize how much this 5 character identifier has affected my life.

The ‘@todo’ identifier states one thing clearly:  The following information is what’s left or what’s next to do.  It can be compared to the @NextAction context in GTD.  Once that action is completed, there may be another one next and subsequently a ‘@todo’ identifier with that information will be listed.  The difference between that and GTD is that it’s left in the code.  But, with a good IDE or a simple awk command, you can compile the list of @todo’s for a project thus returning it to a GTD like state.

I’m the kind of person who’s insane attention to detail will leave me always uncovering a rock or looking at a problem from all perspectives.  Some people call this being a pefectionist.  One of the major problems with being a perefectionist is that they will refine and tweak themselves into never getting anything done.  Analysis through paralysis is a common phrase for the problem.   And yes, I have that problem.

As some of you may know, a couple of years ago I hit rock bottom in paralysis and have somehow climbed my way step by step by implementing the GTD mehtod (as well as making other life changes).  The perfectionist in me still lives.  The initial mind dump and inbox organization took me about 3 days.  One of the hardest things to do while implementing the methodology was not being sure I was doing it right.  The common voice of the perfectionist.

So I’m slowly learning ot become an almost-perfectionist.  I still do my tweaks and twinges, but set a time limit before sending the product off.  Whenever I do so, there’s that voice that doubts whether or not I’ve done right.  Even when I use a time limit, it reaches out and pulls me down to make sure I double check and triple check everything.  It’s going to be with me forever.

Last month, an ‘ah-ha’ moment came.  And no I’m not talking about jumping up and singing ‘Take on Me.’   What I’m talking about is when I started brushing up on PHPDoc, I realized that the ‘@todo’ was the trademark for the perfectionist.  I can roll some code out but appease the perefectionist in me with the simple 5 letter incantonation.  The code is out and I can always come back to it to tweak and twinge.

I’ve accepted the fact that I will never be happy with my work.  I’ve also accepted that I will always find something wrong with it and attempt to fix it on the spot.  But with the ‘@todo’ action I can drop the noted fix and move on.  I feel much more relieved and am producing more now that I’ve left @todo’s not only in my code, but also in my other projects, my friends, my family, and my life.

The Monkey Tail is @ the Paradigm Shift

Wednesday 4 Mar 2009 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Media, Social Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Commercial At

While I was going through the twitter round up, I couldn’t help but notice that the semantics used to address other tweeps include the @ symbol.  That got me thinking about how the @ symbol shows up not only on some web services, but also email, blog comments, and even in the Getting Things Done methodology.  I also recalled someone saying that the German name translated to “monkey tail” instead of the widely used “commercial at.”  After some research, I discovered where the ubiquitous nature of the @ symbol symbol fits and where it potentially could grow.

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Twittering Around

Monday 16 Feb 2009 by mike.hochanadel | No Comments
Filed under: Social Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twitter

It’s been quiet the last month or so but I have been active online in another format: Twitter.  So here’s a couple of resources I’ve been using and my thoughts on them.  I grouped the sites by different actions or contexts.  The river is wide in tweet-dom so I need some tool that can help me follow like minded twitters.  Because there’s so many, I also would like to see where I rank among the them.  A couple of utilities would be nice to help manage my Twitter account.  Finally, there’s a growing set of applications for Twitter so I need a place to look up any new apps that might fit in whatever mode I am twittering around.

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