Michael-Rollins

On Steve Jobs Passing

2011-10-05T22:39:00.000-04:00

It is an indicator of his impact on our modern life that news of Steve Jobs passing has spread like wild fire across not only the internet, but across broadcast television as well. I can think of no other instances where a person has not only impacted, but in many ways defined our modern life. At the helm of Apple, Jobs defined what personal computing was meant to be; he redefined how we listen to music; he ushered in what the modern age of mobile computing is.

His vision has shaped and defined my industry. No longer is it simply enough to have a killer device, you must have an ecosystem to go with it. Within the ecosystem he shepherded in, entire industries are taking shape. And make no mistake, while other ecosystems have arisen to challenge the Apple ecosystem, the sweet spot, the one where all of the action truly is, is still the Apple ecosystem.

My family is in no small part supported by the machine that Jobs put into motion. The industry I work in would only be a shadow of its current self had the iPhone never existed, and the iPhone was one of Jobs' babies.

I will never be a man of vision like Steve Jobs. Yet I would count it an incredible blessing to work with one whose vision is like his was. Perhaps one day I'll turn around and find that I have had the opportunity to work with someone of his vision, but such was his vision that it could not be appreciated in the moment, but only in hind-sight.

I am and will be forever grateful for the impact that Steve Jobs has had on not just my industry, but on this world. Our lives are better off having tasted the fruits of Jobs labor. The world is a much more exciting place having had the benefit of Steve Jobs' genius.

Indoctrination and the Mac App Store

2011-06-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

A couple days ago I bought my first Mac. It is a 13" MBP, all aluminum and glass, light and airy and ridiculously sexy in its design. It is hands down the nicest laptop I've ever worked on. I get why folks love these things.

Now, I've been using Apple products in the form of iPhones for several years, so this isn't my first Apple device, and there's one thing that I'm finding very compelling on this MBP that I didn't think I would: the Mac App Store. Every time I've needed some miscellaneous app, I've fired up the App Store first. Why?

I've been indoctrinated by my iPhone to always look there for my apps, and that paradigm is moving with me as I delve into this entirely different segment of Apple's products. And, while I've heard many people disparage the Mac App Store, I'm willing to bet that it's going to be a lot more successful than folks are giving it credit for.

There are a lot of people that are coming to Apple computers as their second or third Apple device. Those initial devices will almost invariably be iOS devices, and on iOS you look to the App Store to find all the killer things you need. There's now a link between Apple and App Store in people's heads, and that link will hold true as people dive into Apple computers.

So beware, all you haters. As the late adopters show up to the party, this Mac App Store thing might just take off.

Music: Ownership vs. Access

2011-05-25T15:45:00.001-04:00

I've recently signed up for two different music services, Google Music Beta and Rdio, but it was the Rdio account that really got me thinking about whether or not I needed to own my music. Up 'til recently, ownership was really the only way to go. With traditional ownership you can select the music you want to listen to, organize it into playlists and carry it with you on the go (on your smartphone or iPod).

Rdio, however, allows you to gain all of these benefits from traditional ownership. With Rdio, you can select the music you want to listen to as long as it is in Rdio's library, and Rdio has quite a hefty library. You can organize the music into play lists and if you're willing to pay for the premium account you can carry it with you on your smartphone or iPod (by either streaming or syncing). There's one big difference, though. If you stop paying for Rdio, you lose access to all of this music.

It's that exact thought, the fact that Rdio provides access, not ownership, that got me thinking: Is ownership really as important today as it was in the past?

Parity
There has been movement on the traditional ownership front as well that has brought the two (ownership and access) back to feature parity: cloud storage (aka: bit lockers). Both Amazon and Google have recently launched services that allow you to store your owned copies of music in the cloud and stream them to your devices or computer via http. The size limits are such that you can feasibly store quite a bit of music (in the 100 GB range) in the lockers. You can then access web pages or apps which will stream this music back to you. It's worth noting that this scheme has yet to be tested in court, and almost certainly will be, though both Amazon and Google maintain that since they are only streaming music the user owns, there's nothing that requires additional licensing.

Cost
While Google Music is in beta and is free for the time being, Amazon charges for the storage space, $1/GB per year. For 100GB of music, you're looking at $100/year for the service, which equates to $8.33/month. It's interesting to note, though, that Rdio charges about the same for premium access at $9.99/month. If all you want is streaming on your computer and not mobile access, then you can get the service for $4.99/month. Google Music allows you to store by the song, not the GB, and will allow you to store 20,000 songs. In practice that will equate to about 100 GB of music.

It would appear that the services are similarly priced, until you take into account the fact that you will also need to buy (as none of my dear readers would dare torrent an album, I'm sure) your own music on Amazon or Google. Depending on how much music you buy, this can incur a significant cost. As long as that music is in Rdio's library, you can just add it to your collection and listen as much as you want without incurring any additional fees.

Music Library
But, the library is the rub. As I discovered when talking about this with a friend, Rdio's library doesn't contain much of anything that you can't get from the major labels. We went through a list of bands that had only released on CD, were brand spankin' new, or were only together for a special project. None of them were in Rdio's library, though several were at least taken note of and had pages in Rdio. With Google and Amazon, all you need to do is rip those CDs and upload them and you're good to go.

Uploading
Uploading, though, can be a pain. As I write this, Google Music Manager has been eating my bandwidth for at least 24 hours to upload 2000 of 3600 songs. Amazon Cloud Drive is in much the same boat. That initial upload is a real killer. I anticipate at least another 20 hours of uploads. If I lived in Canada, that would most certainly rail my bandwidth for the month.

Conclusion
So where does that leave us? There are, of course, reasons to go with something like Cloud Drive or Google Music. You ostensibly own the music and if you decide you don't want to pay the storage fee you can keep listening past that monthly/yearly payment off of whatever it is you store that music on. As well, you can upload whatever you would like: None of the edge cases are denied you as long as you have the music in hand, so the only library limits are based on what you actually own.

But, the question of ownership vs. access comes down to one of cost of exploration in my book. With services like Rdio, I can explore and find new music to my hearts content. I pay one monthly fee for the privilege. I can pay the premium price and take that music with me on my devices, as well, without having to constantly stream. To explore said music with a service like Google Music or Amazon Cloud Drive, I would have to pay the cost of the storage plus the cost of the exploration in buying new music. In my case, that cost of exploration could get quite high. Rdio helps me keep that cost down.

In my eyes, access wins. I'll pay a marginal monthly fee to keep access to such a vast library happily, one that I can explore to my hearts content.

Edit: Changed some font colors

moo.com Card Unboxing

2011-05-05T21:17:00.000-04:00

I received a box of 50 business cards in the mail today from http://moo.com. I was so impressed with the packaging that I decided to do an unboxing video. The cards look great, as you can see in the video, and the packaging is impressive.

Couple quick insights into ordering cards from moo:

Each card can have a different image
If you're ordering from a connected service like http://about.me, then moo will include a QR code that points back to your entry on that site (for instance, my QR codes point back to http://about.me/michaelrollins)
The card creation wizard is really easy to use
My cards were a special free offer (only had to pay for shipping). They have a black advert at the bottom for moo.com. That will not be present on fully paid cards, but it's not distracting at all.

I'm impressed enough that I'm going to order more.

Nokia BH-905i Blog Review

2011-03-10T22:18:00.002-05:00

As Breaking Benjamin's "Fade Away" came roaring out of the BH-905i's for the first time, I realized that I was in possession of a very slick set of headphones. Listening to the clockwork strains of "Fade Away", I was pleased with how full the sound was, and how awesome the lows sounded. Turns out that Breaking Benjamin is an ideal band to listen to on the BH-905i's, but more on that later. First off, let's get into the what the BH-905i's are, and what they come with.

The BH in BH-905i stands for bluetooth headset, but as you can probably ascertain from this picture here, they come chock-full with wiring capabilities. The "i" indicates that they are specifically engineered to work with an iOS device. They have active noise cancellation, as well, and it does a good job of blocking out any persistent background sounds.

The BH-905i's come with a very nice foam padded leather case that zips up. Inside is a place to nest your headphones, along with a smaller bag to hold all of the various cables and plugs that come with the headphones. On the back is a small pouch for carrying any additional gear you may not be able to stow inside. All in all, it's a handy way to transport your headphones, keeping them safe and secure the whole time.

Inside, you'll find a cable for iPhone connectivity, a cable for "Nokia AV" 3-prong connectivity and a cable for slotting into a regular headphone jack. You'll also find multiple tips for 6.35mm, 3.5mm and 2.5mm. As well, there is an airline jack. There is also a splitter which splits the 3-prong "Nokia AV" cable into it's component headphone and mic jacks, allowing one to plug the BH-905i's into a computer. No one has actually sighted the kitchen sink, but rumor has that it may be present as well.

Bluetooth Performance
I tested the bluetooth functionality with my iPhone 4 running a jailbroken version of iOS 4.2.1. Sound over bluetooth was surprisingly good. The performance of the headphones left me feeling more like I was listening plugged in than over bluetooth. As a means of comparison, over bluetooth the BH-905i's sound much better than the cheap earbuds that Apple ships with all of their iDevices.

There are a set of buttons on the right earphone which control playback, allowing you to play/pause the music, skip forward and back, and turn your volume up and down. All of these worked just fine and were easy to get accustomed to without having to see the headphone. All of the controls are on the right-hand side, which makes sense if you're a righty, but I don't believe lefties will have any major problems manipulating the controls.

Over bluetooth calls, the BH-905i's do a respectable job of transmitting the sound from the person on the other end of the line. However, I found that I would have rather taken the call directly on my iPhone than on the headphones. Two things contributed to this. First, peoples voices tend to sound thin over the headphones. Second, since the headphones cover both of my ears entirely, I found that I was having a hard time hearing myself when I talked. I ended up thinking I needed to talk louder than necessary. It would be nice if some of my side of the audio was piped back into the headphones so that I could feel like I only needed to talk at a normal volume.

On the other end, the callers that I spoke with all said that I sounded great. They didn't have a hard time hearing me at all. The sound was so clear, in fact, that when I started whistling on one call, the person I was speaking with asked me to stop, as they said it was too loud. When I talked at a normal volume, though, everyone said I was coming in loud and clear.

Wired Performance

Bluetooth performance was good, but wired performance is much better (as it should be). When you plug these headphones in, you are really in for a treat... Depending on the type of music you're listening to. This is where I started to notice that the audio performance was not the same across the board.

Let's start with the (slightly) negative: mids are a bit muddy, and highs aren't quite as crisp as I would have liked them to be. In practice, though, this can be overcome with a little judicious use of a graphic equalizer. By bumping up the mids a tad and the highs a bit more, I found that I could correct for this performance issue. It's also only a problem that shows up in certain types of music.

For instance, as I mentioned above, Breaking Benjamin sounded outstanding on the BH-905i's. Nickel Creek and the Civil Wars, though, needed some adjustment. But as the latter two bands are folk and not dependent on rumbling bass and rely instead on mids and highs to convey their sound, you start to notice the sound difference. Bumping up the mids and highs took care of the problem and ultimately listening to these bands was a treat on the BH-905i's.

And that leads me to where the BH-905i's really shine: in the lows. Listening to any kind of music that relies on good lows (even low-mids) conveys a sound that is outstanding. Breaking Benjamin, Metallica, Red, all these bands sounded absolutely magical on these headphones. I found myself going to this music over and over while in possession of these beasts, hearing things in the music I had never heard before. It was truly an ear-opening experience, hearing nuances of the music I had never heard before.

Conclusion
In the end, I have to say that I'm going to be sad to part with these headphones. I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to music on them. I have heard things in the music that I've never heard before. The bluetooth connectivity is nice, but ultimately you'll probably want to be listening to these plugged in as it's the preferred way to get the best sound. Just keep in mind, though, that these are premium headphones. While the sound is outstanding, for a retail of $299 I think I would want to get more.

With that said, you can have these on Amazon for $179 new. At that price point, I feel like these may be worth it. The extra utility that is represented by doubling as a very decent communications headset is nice, doing more than just allowing you to listen to music.

Edit: Added tags
Edit 5/25/11: Added some missing words to a sentence

Video Review: Nokia BH-905i Bluetooth Stereo Headset

2011-03-02T11:53:00.001-05:00

I have recently had the privilege to review the Nokia BH-905i Bluetooth Stereo Headset through the WOMWorld project. It's quite a nice set of headphones, with lots of nifty features. Watch the review to hear more.

Final Admission of the Rock Star

2011-02-21T21:30:00.000-05:00

Well, what a wacky and wild week so far. And it's only Monday (it is Monday, right?).

Long story short, Cole started running mild fevers on Thursday night. We took him in Friday, but the fevers cleared up. Per protocol, they drew cultures. Saturday morning at 6:30 AM we got the call that the cultures grew bacteria. And not only did they grow, they grew with zest! Back to the hospital (this time through the ER) where they drew more cultures (the second set) and admitted us up to good ol' 8B.

Keep in mind that Cole has been completely asymptomatic this whole time. He's the picture of 5 year old health. With that mentality, we waltzed up to 8B.

It was a bit like walking into Cheers, and Cole was Norm. Nurses and clins would look at Cole (without recognizing him), look at me, remember me, then realize who this big boy was that was standing next to me must be. Their jaws would drop open, they'd do a double take back to Cole, then yell "COLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

At one point, I had to leave the room for about 15 minutes. I came back to find Cole, sitting on the bed with two nurses, telling them all about his plans to be a marine biologist and study at UNCW. He's been like a rock star. The floor staff all remember him, and they all love him. It does a daddy's heart good to know there's a special place where his little boy is loved so dearly.

Here's the medical low-down. Cole's line has most likely been "colonized" by a common skin bacteria (Staph epi, for those that keep track of these things). Colonized means that the bacteria has likely been living there for some time, but it's not causing Cole any trouble. It's also likely the cause of the positive culture that grew back in January. It's not really dangerous, but it's still a potential source for infection and the best way to treat it is to take his line out.

Now, quite miraculously in my mind, this line has lasted us for two years of being accessed once to twice a week. That's hard use for a port-a-cath line, and by all rights we should have had an infection well before now. But, the line lasted almost exactly as long as it needed to. I'll let you attribute that to what you will, but I know where I'll attribute that kind of providence.

So, tomorrow, Cole's line will get pulled. He'll have two more days of IV antibiotics (through a regular old IV) and then, sometime Thursday, we get to go home.

And when we go home, Cole will be well and truly finished with his cancer treatment.

Learning Android: Appcelerator's Titanium vs. Native-built Apps

2011-02-16T15:36:00.002-05:00

I have finally been able to take the time to do something I've been wanting to do for a long time: some mobile development. I decided to work on some Android apps first, as the barrier to entry is a little lower. As this was an exploratory mission, I thought I would give a few development options a try. Those development options were native Android development via Eclipse and Appcelerator's Titanium Platform.

By way of explanation, Appcelerator's Titanium Platform is a development environment that allows you to write HTML/CSS/JavaScript apps and have them compiled down to native code (Android or iOS). Titanium provides a rich framework of APIs from which to build your apps. For instance, the UI components in Titanium are analogous to the UI components in Android. The advantage to Titanium is that you can take one app and compile it down to any of the supported platforms, like Android or iOS. Since Titanium compiles down to native code, you're not running interpreted, though there are some specific wrappings that Titanium has to build in.

The app: Quotious

For my app, I had a few necessities. First, it had to be twitter-like, meaning that it was a bunch of short messages that can be displayed as a list. I also wanted the data to be served up from some external source and arrive packaged in JSON.

Based partly on these needs, and partly on an idea I got from a buddy, I decided to build an app that captured quotes. You could specify the author of the quote, the source of the quote and the quote itself. Nothing too fancy. I called it "Quotious".

In light of that, I first built out a small Jetty based server which I could run on my local. It was backed by a MongoDB database. The server simply served up the contents of the database in a RESTful manner (I really only implemented the GET). I seeded the database with a bunch of quotes from Darth Vader, as he is a worthy source of quotes all over the interwebs.

Then, I got to work building the apps.

Titanium Quotious

Titanium Quotious

I decided to delve into Titanium first, as I was most excited about that. While I can do all the Java programming anyone could ask for, I absolutely love working with JavaScript. Titanium seemed like it would be a fun experience.

From start to finish, it took me about two days to turn out the Quotious app in Titanium. Titanium offers a great example app called "Kitchen Sink" that implements examples of an incredible number of their APIs. I relied heavily on an example twitter app that comes included with Kitchen Sink, adapting it for my needs.

The Titanium implementation of Quotious doesn't have a persistent store and pulls the data over a RESTful call every time you fire up the app. In that manner, it's not very robust, but the real story here is that it was almost trivial to implement. I was able to bring all of my traditional web app skills to bear and had I really been trying I could have turned it out faster.

Native Quotious

After I was done with the Titanium version of the app, I turned my hand to a natively built implementation done in Eclipse. I quickly went through all the tutorials and found myself in an interesting position: After Hello World, there wasn't a clear path to building up my understanding. So, I turned to The Goog and found this superb implementation of a twitter app that is put together as a tutorial by Marakana.

Native Quotious

This app took me about twice as long to build, roughly 4 or 5 days. The reason, though, is significant. Titanium abstracts away much of the underlying Android structure. You are free to basically build your app as if it were a web app and not worry about the inner workings of Android. While those inner workings can only suffice to make your app stronger, they're not strictly necessary to simply build an app with Titanium.

As I worked through the Marakana example, I was enlightened about all of the various moving parts that truly make up an Android app. From the Manifest.xml to the views, from the actions to the intents, I had to actually learn what went into an Android app. This accounted for much of the increased time of development.

The native app that I developed is slightly more robust than the Titanium version. It is backed by a SQLite database. As updates are fed from the web source they are placed into the database. As those changes go in, the UI is updated and what you see on the left is what is created. In light of the database, my app will survive a loss of connectivity with grace, serving up what it has already seen and remembered in the past.

Conclusion

Let me not give the impression that Titanium is only about building web-app like Android apps. It's not. There is rich support for what makes a truly native app within Titanium. You can create and manipulate a database, you can work with actions and intents. You can do all of these things. (Update: See the first link below for some info on how to do all of these things)

But you don't have to. And therein lies what might be the most seductive thing about Titanium. You can build your app as if it is a web app, only it runs natively. You don't have to expand your skill set to understand all of the ins-and-outs of what makes up an Android app. All you have to do is take your current skill set for building JavaScript heavy web apps and port them over to your device of choice.

If developer time is your main constraint, then Titanium is likely the way to go. You can hit the ground running faster with Titanium. You don't really have to be an "app developer" to develop apps with Titanium. What's more, and something I only lightly touched on, with very little augmentation, you can port your app to an entirely different platform such as iOS. With very little, if any, changes, I can run the Titanium version of Quotious on an iOS device by simply compiling it down.

One word of caution, though: If you choose the Titanium route, don't eschew learning what really goes into an Android app. Knowing the actuals behind Android can only make you a stronger developer in the long run.

Edited: For formatting
Updated: Added pointer to first comment with additional information

Working from Home: What are Your Pro Tips?

2011-01-27T17:56:00.001-05:00

For the past month and a half, I've had the privilege of working from home.

The benefits are unquestionable: I don't commute, I simply walk up and down the stairs to go to work; I can pitch in throughout the day if my wife finds herself in a pinch; Should sudden inspiration hit me, I am mere steps away from a comfortable work environment.

But I find that there are some surprising catches that I didn't expect. For instance, now that my work and home are effectively the same place, it's harder for me to "leave work behind". Without a commute, there's no time to wind down. It's much harder to hold "meetings" as I have to work around the sleep schedules of my young children.

Another interesting side-effect is that I am finding myself working more. After the kids go to bed it's way to easy to walk upstairs and continue what I left behind earlier in the afternoon. This is time my wife and I have traditionally spent together. I also tend to "get to work" earlier, walking upstairs with coffee in hand, having spent only a few minutes walking around downstairs like a zombie til I am almost fully awake.

So, while working from home is truly an awesome thing (at least for me), I'm finding that it requires a completely different set of coping mechanisms. I wanted to toss out the question to all of you that do or have had the opportunity to work from home:

What survival skills have you developed to allow you to be more productive while working from home?

Leave your comments below, and after a bit, I'll compile these pro tips into a blog post.

The Last Dying Gasps of Cancer

2011-01-26T16:07:00.000-05:00

As many of you may know, my oldest son, Cole, was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia), a type of cancer, on November 14, 2007, just days after his second birthday. It has been a long, trying road to see him through his treatment. Much of the first year or so is covered extensively in this blog, and I invite you to peruse the archives going back to November of 2007. But there is wonderful news to report.

On January 17, 2011, Cole took his last dose of chemo. It was a monumental event, one that we had planned on celebrating with a small party of close friends who have been with us on this journey. But, alas, the party was not meant to be, at least not yet.

Cancer had one last, desperate attempt to rope us back into the land worry and concern that pervades any experience with cancer. One last dying gasp, if you will.

Our family had been sick for about a week, with each of us but Cole having a moderate cold. The two younger kids ran fevers and felt miserable, but as he has been wont to do during his whole treatment, Cole seemed to be riding it out unscathed.

Then, the Saturday before the 17th, just two days before Cole was done with chemo, it happened, he ran a fever. In peds cancer-land, if you have a fever, you earn a trip straight to the hospital. If you're lucky, it's on a weekday, during business hours, so you get to go hang out at clinic. If not (and we never were lucky) you get to go sit in the ER for hours on end.

So, Dalynn and I accessed Cole, he and I packed a bag, and off to the ER we went!

Now, Cole and I are old pros at handling these visits. You get to be that way after 3+ years. So, we came prepared with iPhone and lots of games. We got ushered back to a room quickly, got our stuff down, then turned on the TV and BOOM! Star Wars: A New Hope was on! (Epic, truly epic...)

The doctors and nurses came and went, there were x-rays taken, and then there was some distressing issues with his line. We had to de-access and re-access his port (which he hates) but things got cleared up. Since Cole wasn't running any more fevers, after about 5 hours and 4 new iPhone apps we got to go home.

A call came in the next day, Sunday, in the early afternoon: Cole has a slight touch of pneumonia, take an anti-biotic. No big deal.

Then, a couple hours later, we got the dreaded second call from CHKD: His lab cultures grew something, come back in.

Bah, a second trip to the ER! Now we're just one day from end of chemo.

So, Cole and I grab the bag we had packed and off we go.

This time, I was fairly certain that we'd be admitted and staying for a few days. Much to my surprise, we were let out a mere 4 hours later, no fevers, repeat labs, everything looked fine.

Monday, the 17th, we went to follow up with clinic and also have a GI consult. They had spotted elevated liver enzymes and Cole's liver was enlarged. Thus began our (hopefully) last medical mystery in cancer-land.

There was a lot of worrying and concern, I have to say, and Cole went the following Friday for an ultra-sound and a doppler of his liver, but I'm happy to report that the liver concerns were most likely the result of some virus, and his levels have normalized. I thought especially of our friends the Lemn's who have endured a liver transplant for their young daughter.

These things have a way of making you feel grateful for what you do have, especially when confronted with what you might lose or don't know. While it was a bit of a rude awakening and it really reminded us of darker days, back when Cole was so sick, it's almost refreshing. This is something we won't have to live with much longer.

At the end of February/beginning of March, Cole will be completely done with both chemo and anti-fungals. His port will come out and we'll be ushered from the world of "my son has cancer" to the world of "my son had cancer". What a glorious thing.

Porting Numbers from AT&T to Google Voice (Updated)

2011-01-21T11:02:00.002-05:00

Google is testing the option to port your number from your current carrier to your Google Voice account. For some, the option has shown up and then disappeared, for others, it was never there. For me, the option is still available.

However, porting a number in modern day carrier parlance signals that you are cancelling your account. According to AT&T, the contract resides on the number, and you cannot move the contract to a different number.

Therefor, if you're tied into a contract on the number you wish to port to Google Voice, then you cannot port that number without incurring any cancellation penalties that you might be subject to.

The good news is that if you do port your number, you have 59 days in which to come back without incurring the penalties. But, you have to bring the same number back.

Turns out those numbers are gold.

Update: Google has officially started rolling this out to everyone (over time). They also confirm that porting your number cancels your contract with your carrier.

Lifehacker has a nice write up on the ins-and-outs of porting your number to Google Voice, go check it out.

(Image pulled from Lifehacker)

Switching: iPhone to Android (Email)

2011-01-06T23:19:00.000-05:00

Once you're contacts are moved over, you need to move your email. Now, let's be frank: Gmail is one of the killer apps on the Android platform. Though many a BlackBerry addict may disagree, it is by far the best email client on any mobile device. It supports all of the major Gmail features: threaded conversations, labels, search, etc. The Gmail client on Android is light years beyond the native client on the iPhone, and once you get used to it, you won't want to go back.

The problem here, though, is that the Android Gmail client works with just Gmail. If you're already a Gmail/Google user, this is a non-issue for you. When you sign into your Android phone, your mail will come over automatically. You don't have to fuss or fret. It'll just be there.

If you're not a Gmail user you're faced with some decisions. Once again we come back to the crux of the Android platform: really getting the best out of Android requires a commitment to Google. So, what are your options?

Switch to Gmail
The most effective, but probably the most drastic method (if you're committed to your email provider), is to switch your email over to Google and use Gmail lock, stock and barrel. There are a lot of ways to do this. Probably the easiest is to just start using Gmail without bringing any old messages along with you. Send out the "this is my new email" message and call it a day.

However, that might not be an option for a lot of folks. History is important, and those old email messages are your history. Taking them with you might be high on your list.

If your old email provider is a POP provider, you can import your email into Gmail using the import feature. Google has a great tutorial on the subject which will walk you through importing from some common email providers. This method should really work for any POP provider, though, so even if your provider isn't on the list, don't give up, try anyway. Don't forget to check the box that you'd like to be able to send email as from that account, too. That way, you can still be seen as sending email from your old email address.

Pro Tip: You can still use your old email account through Gmail. Setting it up this way, via POP, means that Gmail becomes your mail client, just like Outlook or Thunderbird. The feature that really makes it possible is the one that allows you to select which account you're sending from. When you create a message, click on the top of the compose message window where your Gmail address is and you'll get the option to select any account that has been verified. Since Gmail is pulling your messages from your old account, and since you're sending messages as from that account, no one will know that you've changed.

Another method revolves around using your current email client (including the iPhone) to connect to Gmail via an IMAP connection. Once you do that, you can copy over any messages that you would like to keep on Gmail. Here's a tutorial from the Gmail FAQ on how to go about it. There's a second page attached to the first, linked to configuration instructions under the "Great, how do I get started?" heading. Look for the configuration methods for your primary email client. Just keep in mind, this is going to be a bit easier on a desktop.

Switching to Gmail for the Insane Over-Achiever
The above IMAP method works if you have a few hundred or so messages to copy over. But, what if you have more? A whole lot more? I found a great tutorial on setting up a local email server on your machine (looks like it's rather Windows-centric) and using that email server to move your files over via POP. This is by no means a simple process, though. Just keep in mind that this is for the advanced (and slightly crazy) user. Attempt at your own risk!

But I Love My Email Provider
So, switching to Gmail isn't for you? Don't despair, you're not completely up the creek, though you may be in for a sub-excellent email experience. If you're on Yahoo, there is a Yahoo mail app that you can place on your phone. As well, most modern Android phones ship with a native email client other than Gmail. You should be able to set up that email client to connect to your old email via POP.

Wrap Up
Moving to a new email provider can be tough, traumatic work. But in the end, it will make your life better, insofar as your Android phone is concerned. The Gmail client on Android is the best email client out there, matching all of the major Gmail features. Using it is a sheer joy, especially when you come from such an archaic email client as the native iPhone client.

But, if switching isn't in the cards for you, you will still probably have options. The great thing about Android is that there's an app for most anything. You can most likely find a good email app to work with.

Switching: iPhone to Android (Contacts)

2011-01-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

First and foremost, you need contacts. You certainly don't want to actually remember the phone number and email address of every person you know or have met in passing. That's why smartphones were originally invented! No, you probably have a whole slew of contacts stored in your iPhone.

So, how do you get your contacts out?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is situational. There are several ways to manage your contacts on an iPhone: natively; via Exchange; via third party providers like Google or Yahoo. If you're already using Google to manage your contacts on your iPhone, well, you're done. For every other option there's a bit of elbow grease involved.

Mail account type selection screen

If You Already Use Your Google Account on Your iPhone
It is important to note that there are two ways to set up your mail for Gmail on your iPhone, but only one of which allows you to sync your contacts.

If you selected "Gmail" when creating your email account on your iPhone, this does not sync your contacts with Google. You are also not getting "push" mail. You're only checking the server every 15 minutes or so for your email. If you created your Gmail mail account this way, then your contacts are being managed by other means.

Example Google Account via Exchange

However, if you get push mail, then you set up your Gmail account through the "Microsoft Exchange" option. This will give you the ability to sync your contacts.

You can check if you are syncing your contacts by going to Settings -> "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" and choosing your Gmail account (it will be named yourusername@gmail.com, most likely). Choose that account, and if Contacts is set to "on" (as pictured on the right), then your contacts are already synced with your Google account.

Pro Tip: If Google is managing your contacts, then all of your iPhone contacts will appear in your "My Contacts" group in your Gmail account. When you switch to Android, your Android phone will pull not only this group, but all of your contacts in Gmail, so you may end up with more contacts in Android than you have on the iPhone.

Native: Via iTunes
If you use the iPhone Contacts app to natively manage your contacts, then they will be synced up with the iTunes profile for your phone. Syncing your contacts into your Google account is rather easy, once you know what to do. The basic gist is that there is an option in iTunes to sync your contacts to your Google account.

Here are the how-tos from Google:

For PC
For Mac

Via Exchange
If you use Exchange to manage your contacts, email and calendar, then it's very likely that you are an enterprise user. There's no easy and straight forward way to go from Exchange to your Google account, but there is a tried-and-true method for contacts: the CSV file.

The short answer: Export your contacts from Outlook into a CSV (comma separated value) file, then import that CSV file into Gmail.

There are literally hundreds of sites which can tell you how to do each of these steps, but here's an article on c|net which walks you through the process from start to finish on Outlook 2003 and 2007. The article is from 2008 (meaning the Gmail import may be slightly different now-a-days), but should demonstrate the export process well enough:

Exporting contacts from Outlook to Gmail

Here's the Google help page for importing a CSV file into Gmail:

Importing a CSV file into Gmail

Pro Tip: Even if your iPhone is using an Exchange account for your contacts, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're connecting to an Exchange server. A lot of third party providers, for instance Google, use the Exchange format as it is a standard way to sync email, contacts and calendars on the iPhone.

Via Third Party Providers
If you use a third party provider other than Google to manage your contacts on your iPhone, then you will need to look up how to move from your third party account to your Google account. Two of the big ones are Yahoo and Hotmail. Keep in mind that this is more of a question of moving your contacts from your current provider to your Google account, not necessarily from your iPhone directly.

For moving contacts from Yahoo to your Google account, look here:

Import Yahoo contacts into Gmail (when you export, export for Microsoft Outlook, then follow the above instructions for importing a CSV file into Gmail)

To move from Hotmail to Google, look here:

Google Support on Moving from Hotmail to Gmail

For any other providers, you will need to look them up individually. A useful Google search is "export contacts from XXXXXX into Gmail", where XXXXXX is the provider you're using.

Switching: iPhone to Android

2011-01-03T22:32:00.001-05:00

In case you missed it, Android is hot. So hot, in fact, that according to Nielsen (as reported by Boy Genius Report) it's picked up the highest adoption rate in the past six months. 40.8% of all smartphones purchased in the last six months were Android phones. While iOS still has the largest consumer footprint among smartphones in the US, with 28.6% of smartphones overall being iOS devices, Android devices have pulled to within 2.8%, with 25.8% of smartphones overall being Android devices, and the rate of growth far exceeds that of iOS.

Given those figures, even if you're a current iOS ~~fanboy~~ user, it's highly likely that you've given some thought to what it would be like to switch to an Android phone. You know, just thought about it. But, how does one go about such a thing?

Switching smartphones is quite a daunting prospect, in some ways more difficult than switching computer OSes. How do you get your contacts, email and calendar transferred? What about the apps you use day in and day out? The answers may surprise you.

Before we get into the basics, though, let's talk about one of the killer, compelling reasons to use an Android phone: Google.

Most Android phones (some of the Samsung phones on Verizon being the notable exceptions) are tightly integrated with the Google experience. By tightly, I mean that your contacts, email, calendar, IMs, etc will all reside in the cloud, synced with Google's servers. This is a beautiful, beautiful thing. If your phone ever dies or you switch to another Android phone, the fact that everything is synced in the cloud means that getting it all back is as easy as signing in to your Google account on your Android phone.

While using an Android phone without a Google account is doable, why would you want to do this? Some of the true power of Android is derived from this close association with the Google services. Another way to look at it is like this: If you don't want to buy into the Google experience lock, stock and barrel, then an Android phone probably isn't for you.

It doesn't mean you have to use Google solely, there are great apps out there for things like Yahoo Mail and Messenger, for instance. But, if you don't even want to set up a Google account and use the killer Google provided apps, then maybe you should stick with your iPhone. You'll probably be a lot happier in the long run.

The blog posts in this series are designed to give a bit of a walk through on switching from your iPhone to an Android phone. We'll cover the basics, such as moving your contacts, email and calendar. We'll also delve into some of the alternatives Android provides to the iOS ecosystem, like living without iTunes, or better yet, living with iTunes and Android. We'll take a look at killer apps that you can't (and shouldn't) live without, and we'll look at shortcomings of both the iPhone and Android. Finally, in the end there will hopefully be a clear path on how to migrate from your iPhone to an Android phone.

Be forewarned, though: This is not for the faint of heart. It is not without pain and it's not as easy as pushing a button and making it go. But, in the end, you can move from your iPhone to an Android phone, and when you do, you may never look back.

Series Posts
Switching Contacts

Googler for a Day

2010-11-09T00:50:00.000-05:00

Work has brought a co-worker and I out to San Francisco to visit the Google offices here. We're attending the Google Wave Summit, getting to meet with and get to know people we have been communicating with over the Google Wave forums for months now. In support of this effort, Google is really pulling out all the stops.

One thing Google does well is support their people. The perks of working for Google are near legendary! Google is a company which truly believes that seeing to the welfare of its people will lead to a better product. So, today, I got to be a Googler for a day, and man, it was great.

As we arrived at the Google offices, I noticed people climbing the stairs from the cafeteria carrying heaping plates of fruit and other tasty but healthy morsels. Such were provided for us in out "Tech Talk" room. The Tech Talk room is meeting/class-room with telepresence capabilities. Google is live-streaming the talks over Ustream to anyone that wishes to participate remotely. The talks will be posted to YouTube later next week and they are chock-full of Wavey goodness.

As lunch arrived, we were all invited down to the cafeteria. We climbed the steps down to the second floor, walked around a corner and were ushered into a feast. Tasty treats of all varieties, from sushi to chicken breasts in sauces to sandwiches were offered up, with health labels on each denoting how good it was for you. The view out of the cafeteria overlooks the Bay Bridge (pictured to the right) out onto Treasure Island and is truly magnificent. Nice backdrop to enjoy a nice sandwich and some sushi by.

While in the cafeteria, I was struck by the feeling that I was a middle schooler getting to visit where the big kids go to school. The cafeteria was packed with Googlers, all dressed in what I'm coming to realize must be San Francisco business casual (dark jeans with a t-shirt). All of them looked determined, cool and young, and I was left feeling like a gawking kid, carrying my lunch tray, wondering where to sit. I almost bust out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Here I am, older than most of them, established with a family, feeling like I was 12. Truly a priceless experience, one to be savored for its uniqueness.

After lunch, a few of us did a little exploring and came across this priceless gem. At the head of the slide was a sign reminding anyone that took the slide down to the first floor that this was indeed a work area, please be quiet while you descend. Who on earth would think to put a slide in over the set of steps is either mad or a genius, I'm not sure which. I'm sad to say that I didn't slide down, but maybe I'll leave that for tomorrow.

So, all in all, a great first day at Google's San Francisco office. We learned a lot about Wave but even more about what it must be like to work at Google.

Drama in the Jailbreak Land: SHAtter Delayed

2010-10-18T21:39:00.002-04:00

Cross-post from JitLife.

Drama in the Jailbreak Land: SHAtter Delayed

Assimilation: A Review of iPhone 4

2010-10-18T21:38:00.000-04:00

Cross-post from JitLife

Assimilation: A Review of iPhone 4

Double Fisting It on AT&T

2010-10-18T21:36:00.001-04:00

Cross-post from JitLife.

Double Fisting It on AT&T

Shutting it Down

2010-10-18T21:28:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be shutting this blog down and moving everything over to http://michael-rollins.blogspot.com. Head on over there for the latest.

"Abusing" AT&T's System

2010-10-18T21:12:00.000-04:00

"Keep the minutes you save." That's what the commentator says at the end of this AT&T add for the A-List with Rollover minutes. But in a recent conversation I had with an AT&T rep, it turns out that's not exactly true.

Here's the situation, since activating the A-List we have been banking minutes like they're going out of style. Currently, we have more than 5 months worth of minutes banked. With two iPhones on our account, the prices are starting to creep up... Way up. So, as a means of saving some money, I figured I could downgrade our base plan for a few months while we eat away at the ridiculous number of rollover minutes we have.

Going into this, I knew that we would lose the A-List if we downgraded our base plan. If you have anything less than the 1400 minute family plan, the A-List isn't an option. However, I did not think I would be called out for attempting to "abuse" the plan structures.

When I explained to the very polite customer support rep that I would like to downgrade my base plan until I ate up the enormous store of rollover minutes that I had accrued, the rep informed me that I would only be able to carry as many minutes with me as I would get in a single month on whatever base plan I chose. So, if I chose a 700 minute plan, I would only get to keep 700 rollover minutes. In the ensuing conversation (once again, a very polite conversation), the rep told me AT&T had made the change to the rollover program when people started "abusing" it: Namely, they would bank a bunch of minutes, then downgrade their plan and live off the rollover minutes they had accrued.

Ironically, that's not the first time that I've had an AT&T customer support rep throw around the "abuse" word. Another time I called to discuss the possibilities of switching my SIM card around to other phones (one of the prime reasons for using a GSM phone), the rep I was speaking with said I needed to be careful that I didn't "abuse" the AT&T system.

When all the dust had settled with the minutes discussion, the rep had agreed to allow me to keep twice the normal amount, which would have amounted to 1400 minutes. Not many, considering the nearly 8,000 we have banked, But, I do have this to say for AT&T customer support: They're courteous and quite honestly a pleasure to talk to, going above and beyond to support me. Two times (and the irony of this is not lost on me) I have had dropped calls when talking to a rep. Both times, the rep called me back to finish the conversation. Some are better informed than others, but all of them have been earnest and sincerely seem to believe that they are there to help me make better decisions.

Drama in the Jailbreak Land: SHAtter Delayed

2010-10-11T14:50:00.000-04:00

Egos are a fact of life. They run rampant in almost everything, though it seems that the bigger the limelight, the more likely it is that an ego will jump to the front. This is surely the case in the hacking world, where egos are attached to handles that don't necessarily bear any resemblance to reality. Such is the case with the latest iOS 4.1 jailbreak.

Chronic Dev Team, a group of hackers known for developing some of the most capable jailbreaks for the iPhone, have been touting a major bootrom exploit for the latest generations of iOS devices called SHAtter. With SHAtter, which relies on an unpatchable vulnerability in the bootrom of all current generation iOS devices, jailbreaking would be guaranteed for the life of the device (source: QuickPWN). The exploit is at such a low level that it would be all but impossible for Apple to patch it with software.

The exploit was announced several days after iOS 4.1 went live with a message that the jailbreak was verified and would make its way to the wires soon. The raw jailbreak was announced with this twitpic photo on July 15, 2010. Note the version of iOS which states 4.1 along with "rooted". Eventually, this jailbreak was slated to be rolled into a package called "greenpois0n", which would be released on 10.10.10 at 10:10 am (the Geek holiday).

Drama and egos, though, are apt to ensue with something this highly touted. On October 9, 2010, one day before greenpois0n was to be released, another member of the iOS hacking community released a different bootrom exploit, rolling it into a package called limera1n. That hacker, George Francis Hotz (born October 2, 1989), aka geohot, had previously released a tethered jailbreak known as blackra1n. This release of limera1n was apparently against the express wishes of both the Chronic Dev Team and the iPhone Dev Team. In a tweet that would come out shortly after the limera1n release, some insight into the drama that must have been running amok is revealed. The tweet states:

@chronicdevteamchronic dev team
use limera1n at your own risk. it has been untested and geohot screwed over @comex who trusted him to wait.

It is worth noting that limera1n is in beta form and does not work on older devices. Further, it is rumored to not work on newer bootrom iPhone 3GS devices. Finally, it is currently only Windows based.

In the ensuing fallout, the Chronic Dev Team postponed greenpois0n, pulling the SHAtter exploit from it completely and choosing to implement the bootrom exploit which geohot used.

At issue here is that each bootrom exploit is precious. Apple can patch and remove these exploits as they iterate hardware. To release two bootrom exploits at the same time would be a waste, in that Apple could roll up both of them in the next iteration. By doing the "mature" thing, the Chronic Dev Team is at least giving potential life to SHAtter on another device, and it may serve as the means of a lifetime jailbreak on the next iteration of iOS devices.

Given the beta nature of limera1n and the timing of its release, it certainly seems as if it was released as a means of grabbing the limelight. It was also apparently an unpopular thing to do in the small community which is known for turning out solid jailbreaks. The fact that it does not work on older devices and is rumored to not work on the newer iPhone 3GS devices seems to indicate that it is an inferior jailbreak, as well, which is a true shame: It is unlikely that the SHAtter exploit will see the light of day anytime soon.

Greenpois0n will be released soon, according to the Chronic Dev Team. It may be wise to wait for their fully tested version to be made available before jumping into the hairy landscape of jailbreaking. If you can't wait, however, limera1n is available and waiting.

Sources: Chronic Dev Team twitter, geohot.us, quickpwn.com

Assimilation: A Review of iPhone 4

2010-09-17T00:28:00.000-04:00

On my birthday, September 9, I walked into an Apple store and asked to be assimilated.

It was a truly magical event. As I walked down the long hall of aluminum, surrounded by cheering Geniuses in their blue shirts, my heart beat furiously. Soon, oh so soon, I would have within my possession the grail of all phones, the beautiful and sleek iPhone 4, that phone which makes all other phones seem as pale imitations of phonedom. I approached the counter, stated my case, laid out my credentials, was judged worthy (after a slight Apple network hiccup) and proceeded out the door carrying the fabled device. The universe was right and good, a thing of majesty and beauty.

If you've never been in an Apple store, you may scoff at this account, but I tell you, this is exactly what Apple is trying to foster in their stores. A land of sleek industrial design which seeks to pull you, atom by atom, into a world where the coveted fruit of their hard work is your only goal, idolized and adored by you to the exclusion of all else. They go a long way to accomplishing that goal. Hold fast your soul should you ever tread these hallowed halls!

It's been a week since I purchased said device, so I'd like to give you my impressions.

Syncing and Upgrading

I brought my iPhone 4 to work, hooked it up to my computer and synced everything that had been on my tired and worn out iPhone 3G. Apple has really nailed it, here. It was a painless process. In less than half an hour, I was holding a device that seemed identical in OS to my iPhone 3G (besides hardware differences, mind). It was faster, sleeker, but every single piece of data had transferred. I was almost disappointed that I wouldn't have to crawl through the depths of the device to set anything up.

Design

It is truly a sleek device. When I got my iPhone 3G, i thought I had never seen a more beautiful piece of hardware, but the 4 makes the 3G/3GS design seem cheap and plasticy, utterly devoid of inspiration. This glass and aluminum idol is a thing of utter beauty to behold, I have to say. All other phones come up short, so far as I can tell, in comparison.

That's not to say that it's without flaws. Being all glass on front and back, it makes it hard to hold. Often when I'm talking, I feel the phone start sliding around in my hand. I keep having to rearrange my grip to keep it from sliding out of my fingers.

I'm also extremely nervous about it, in general. I know that the glass is hardened, but I can't help but be concerned that I'm going to shatter it. In fact, when I went into the Apple store, the geniuses at the bar were mulling over an iPhone 4 with a shattered back. These things can be broken, and I'm much more cautious about using this phone than I was about my 3G. When I used to place my 3G in my pocket, I would always put the glass against my leg, hoping to protect it to some degree. No matter how I put my iPhone 4 in my pocket, some glass is going to be exposed to the outside of my pocket.

I've also noticed some slight hairline scratches on the back of the device already. As I've stated, I've been extremely careful with it, so that just goes to drive home the point even more: despite hardened glass, it should be handled delicately.

I've already put my order in for my free case, and I can't wait for it to get here. I'll feel a bit better about things when I finally have this thing at least moderately protected. Such a shame, though, to cover up a beautiful device.

Speed

Compared to my 3G, this thing is a rocket! There is now very little lag in the OS. I can move between apps quickly and things like diving into the texting client take only a fraction of a second. On the 3G, this was a particularly onerous task, taking up to a minute to fully load. It's nice to have a usable phone again.

Antenna and Reception

I've experienced the death grip one time and one time only. My hands were slightly damp from washing them and when I held the phone in my left hand the cell radio suddenly went into searching mode. If I really squeeze down with the death grip (holding the phone in the left hand with the black bar on the lower left of the phone in the palm) I can see some signal attenuation, but by and large it has not been a problem.

I also experienced another issue I've never seen with my 3G. Over a period of about 15 minutes, while driving down the road, every call I made dropped suddenly. The person I was calling wondered just what the heck was going on, as I kept dialing and redialing them. Whether this was due to the phone or the network, I can't say, but that never happened with my 3G.

Other than those two times, the reception has been fabulous. Call clarity and quality are awesome. Folks are telling me I sound better. The noise cancelling mic is truly awesome. This is a great phone to make calls on.

Pictures and Video

The camera on this device is amazing. The stills it takes are phenomenal and with the addition of HDR photos in iOS 4.1 you can really get some amazing shots. The flash also adds a new dimension lacking in the previous models. I am starting to think that I might be able to leave my point-and-shoot behind in favor of my phone, and that's an awesome thing, indeed.

This is a silly little picture of a kids toy, but it really serves to illustrate how sharp these photos are. This was taken with the flash.

But as good as the stills are, video is even better. The 720p video this iPhone takes is smooth like butter. The details are crisp and there's almost no jelly-vision, even if your hands aren't too steady when you're filming. Add in the capability (at the premium app price of $4.99) to edit movies on the device with iMovie, and you really have an awesome deal.

Here's a movie shot with my iPhone, put together with iMovie. It's of my son's soccer practice. Such a simple little thing, but it really is an amazing to have done this on a phone. (Looks like Blogger really compressed the mess out of the movie, here's the original on YouTube)

Conclusion

This is truly an awesome device. Despite some minor complaints, it is both beautiful and functional. I will be able to leave behind both my Flip and my point-and-shoot. I can edit video on it and upload that video to YouTube without a problem from the device. It's snappy and runs iOS flawlessly. Upgrading from a previous iOS device is painless.

Truly, I can't recommend this phone more.

Double Fisting It on AT&T

2010-08-13T10:54:00.000-04:00

I have recently had to severely analyze my motivations for which phone I will get next. Included in this analysis were factors such as work getting me a development phone, would I stay with AT&T and would I leave the iPhone behind.

In answer to my last post, whether I would shift with the wind on which platform I wanted to commit to, the answer is both yes and no. When I watched WWDC I became very excited about the iPhone 4. What a gorgeous piece of hardware, and iOS has already proven to be a capable OS so I had no concerns there. In short, there was much that was attractive to me about the iPhone 4. Add in the capability to take slick 720p videos and edit them on-device and it seemed like a no-brainer.

Then, antennae-gate hit. It quite literally paralyzed me where I stood. Could it be true, the vaunted iPhone 4 was a deeply flawed device? Would simply holding the phone render it useless as a phone? The echo-chamber of the gadget media covered the story in excruciating detail.

As it turns out, it's not such a bad flaw, only showing up in low signal-strength areas. Further, Apple is giving out bumpers with every iPhone 4. The bumper mitigates the problem completely. While I can't say that I love the thought that some high-end gadget has a design flaw which necessitates a case, the benefits of having an iPhone 4 greatly out-weigh the downsides. Simply put, Apple has put out another superb machine for indoctrinating the masses and across the board all the pundits that have obtained one say it is a beautifully useful device.

So, with the iPhone 4 back in the mix as a viable alternative (meaning I couldn't simply dismiss iOS and switch to Android), which phone would I get. Ironically, work and AT&T provided the answer.

Work has agreed to the necessity of development hardware and is allowing us to choose which device we would like. We have to provide the service, should we want it, but by and large the choice of phone is ours. The development team all agreed that Android was the way to go, as it is likely our customer will have Android phones at their disposal.

Providing the service became a bit of a sticky wicket, though. Did I really want another device, one that could be taken away at any time, and have to provide at least $40/month in service for it (on Verizon or AT&T)? Did I want to switch to a lower tier provider like Sprint or T-Mobile? Heck, did I want to carry around two devices with two numbers? All of these questions came to mind, and I researched them to death.

Turns out that Sprint and T-Mobile both have great plans which roll data into the plan. On AT&T and Verizon, you have to pay ~$30 for data per smartphone and there is very little way around that. However, the savings I would get on Sprint or T-Mobile weren't that much greater than what I have now. If the answer had been that I could have my cost on my mobile bill go down $50/month, it would have been a no-brainer, but that is not the case.

Adding to the complexity is the decision I made to have both major phone OSes at my disposal. I would like to have my hand in both Android and in iOS, with an eye towards developing in both. This requirement ruled out Sprint, but due to rumors did not rule out Verizon. However, the modus operandi of AT&T provided a clear-cut answer.

AT&T is a GSM carrier. That means that the service each phone has is dependent on which SIM card is in the phone at any given time. As long as I kept my iPhone plan/SIM, which provides data, SMS and phone service, I can switch my SIM into a different phone and still have all of that service, as well as keeping the same number. It's a beautiful solution. I could get both an iPhone 4 and an Android device and, depending on the necessity of the day, switch my SIM around to carry which phone I needed.

Now, I have to find the right Android device on AT&T. A Nexus One would suffice, but I will have to go to Ebay for one of those, so I may wait around and see what percolates out in the next few months. Regardless, I believe I will be able to carry both OSes, and this makes my geeky heart very happy.

Wherever the Wind Blows

2010-05-26T21:07:00.000-04:00

Just recently I spent a couple of days watching the Google I/O 2010 keynotes live. The first half of the second keynote was dedicated solely to Android 2.2 (codename Froyo, which is short for Frozen Yogurt) and man, I'm incredibly pumped about it. Despite the fact that I don't have an Android phone, nor am I likely to get one anytime soon.

It did get me thinking, though, about whether or not I will upgrade my iPhone come June 7 when the new iPhone is released. It certainly has put a lot of hesitation in my mind. Some of that hesitation is due to my frustration with the iPhone. I recently decided that I would finally take the plunge and spring for the iPhone dev kit. I amped myself up to start writing nifty apps on the iPhone and was completely gung-ho about the whole process.

Only to find out that the only way to write apps on for the iPhone is on a Mac... This caused me much angst.

Enter Google I/O (and some Engadget reviews about the EVO and Incredible) and the wind started to shift. By the end of the second keynote, I was committed to being an Android convert (with the added bonus that I could leave AT&T far behind). However, there was a question niggling in the back of my mind: Would my lust for a new iPhone reassert itself as I avidly watch the WWDC, where Apple will launch its new iPhone?

As any good fanboy will do, I decided to seek out as much information as I could about Froyo and the current batch of devices everyone is talking about. I turned to Mashable, Engadget and Ars, reading the same stories hashed and rehashed. I downloaded all of the pertinent Engadget podcasts. I devoured this info.

And, hidden in there, I found an interesting tidbit of info: A lot of these guys which are touting Froyo as the next coming of the mobile Jesus are reluctant to release their firm grasps on their iPhones. In fact, during the Engadget show, an audience member asked a panel of Engadget editors if they would be willing to leave behind their iPhones for an Android device. The answer, across the board? "No."

Here is an interesting perspective. Has Apple done such a good job that even those that don't want to be indoctrinated are truly indoctrinated? It's quite clear that the iPhone is the phone to beat. This shows up whenever the latest, greatest phone is reviewed. The question is always, is it an iPhone killer? The answer every time so far is, "No." In short, even though the pundits are crying out for a changing of the guard, they are unlikely to get one anytime soon.

Even though the wind is blowing towards Android right now, will it be blowing that direction in two weeks? I actually doubt it. Don't get me wrong, Android is a worthy platform. I want to develop for it. It has some many things that make it ideal for our projects (more on that in another post). It has strengths which are only now being developed and which, when they come to fruition, will be amazing. But, for now, in the words of Paul Miller from Engadget, "Now is the best time to wait."

So, I leave an eye to WWDC. Will I be able to stomach another two years of AT&T and Apple (I highly doubt that Verizon will get an iPhone this time around)? Will I find some way to secure the development environment which I so crave for iPhone OS devices? An answer of yes to either of these two questions will indeed commit me to another tour of duty with an iPhone.

What Should be Next for Enterprise Mashups?

2010-03-15T22:16:00.000-04:00

My friend over at JackBe, Chris Warner, recently sent me an email asking me what the next 2 to 3 years should hold for Enterprise Mashups. JackBe, in case you don't know, is the creator of the Enterprise Mashup software Presto. We've used Presto on a project and it's a wonderfully crafted piece of software with many, many possibilities in front of it. Presto has, at its heart, the creation of mashups, those elusive but so useful beasts which give you all kinds of new-fangled views into your data.

This is a topic I've spent a little bit of time thinking about, fancying myself to be at least a passable user and creator of mashups. I'm going to change up the question a bit, though, and delve into territory that is slightly afield. So, I propose these related questions: Just what the heck are Enterprise Mashups? And, what's next for them?

Any Ol' Programmer
Let's be honest, any programmer can get out there and create a mashup with a little elbow grease. The technology is there such that, with a little bit of web service lifting and a little bit of UI know-how you can create fantastical mashups that will make everyone sit up and take notice. What's more, if you do it right, your own mashup can, in turn, become a data source for someone else to consume. It's a bit like Sir Elton John says, that whole Circle of Life thing.

But, that's just the problem, isn't it? We're not all programmers, now, are we? Not all of us even have access to programmers (or, as we like to style ourselves now-a-days, "software engineers"), so it's not like we can ask someone else to do it for us. And, most important of all, programmer time is expensive. If you do have access to a programmer and task them with spending hours creating your pet mashup, you're likely to get a whack on the wrists from the company dumby stick. So, what use are mashups to the common-day man? They're nice to look at, but not really practical beyond that.

Enter the Enterprise
No, not the ship, though that would be cool. The Enterprise is (or should be) all about putting a useful tool into the hands of someone other than an engineer. To a certain extent it's about lowering the technical barrier of entry. Any programmer should be able to put a mashup together, but that doesn't mean that they are easy. There is a lot of wiring together and hacking things up that takes place.

Enter the folks at JackBe, handing us Presto. With software like Presto it's possible for someone of a less technical bent, someone that's not a programmer, to put together a mashup that's useful. This Enterprise tool takes some of the difficulty out of the creation. And that, in a nutshell, is what the Enterprise should be about.

What's Next?
Even though products like Presto lower the barrier of entry, there is still a long way to go. Presto shines at doing the actual mashing, wiring the data together to get the new view. But, one area where Enterprise Mashup software needs to tread next is into more robust presentation of that new view.

One thing that mashups excel at is the creation of data. One thing that data desperately wants to do is be visualized. There are so many tools out there for visualizing data, but most of them have a similar dilemma to non-enterprise mashups: it takes specialized skills to use them. Enterprise Mashups need to tread here, next, lowering the barrier of entry into rich presentation of the data that mashups are so good at generating.

To Infinity...
From there, well, who knows. I'd like to see tools which are good at creating not just a good presentation but actual interaction, all done so that the common layman can create them with minimal know-how. I've blogged before about how it's important for people like analysts to be able to do at least some kind of rudimentary software development. I see that Enterprise Mashups can fill this role once they come to full maturity. It's a big area, one that needs more exploration, and I'm quite happy that I get a peek into it at the ground floor.

Wanna See Me Shave My Head?

2010-02-26T21:54:00.000-05:00

Wanna see me shave my head? I'll do it if you help fight childhood cancer with the Rollin' Reckers! We're gathering funds in support of St. Baldrick's, a charity which donates money directly to the hospitals which are doing the research in childhood cancer. St. Baldrick's is pretty simple: raise money by shaving your head.

So, I'm going to shave my head, but I need your help to do it. We're going to raise as much money as we can in order to fight off the types of cancer that Cole has. We're teaming up with Cole's best clinic buddy, Ethan.

Ethan and Cole have the same kind of cancer. They've bonded from the first time that we met Ethan in clinic (Ethan's about a year behind Cole in treatment) and now we're all getting together to kick some cancer butt!

You can donate or, better yet, you can volunteer to have your head shaved and raise money on your own! Whatever you do, come join us. The more of us that get involved means the fewer children which have to suffer through what Cole and Ethan have suffered through.

Go to our team page and click the donate button. You can do it!

Budgeting

2010-02-08T16:32:00.002-05:00

Starting in November of 2008 I took over the budget from Dalynn. For most of our marriage Dalynn and I have passed the budget back and forth. It would work like this: I would see Dalynn get stressed about our finances, attempt to take them over, bounce a few checks or make a few payments late, then hand them back to her to salvage. This happened many times, probably around 5 or 6.

The reasons that I've always struggled with money are myriad. To begin with, I'm not a person that deals with self-inflicted pain well. I always relish the idea of buckling down, but when I actually do buckle down, I don't enjoy it nearly as much. As well, I never really learned how to handle money. I grew up knowing that money had to be handled, just not how. The last, and perhaps most important reason is that I'm impulsive. I will go out and make a snap decision and the consequences be damned, I'm going to do what I want to do in spite of them! Oh, and I can easily make an excuse that "just this once" won't hurt while I'm doing that...

All of these factors have conspired throughout my life to make me terrible with money. This time, though, I've been handling our finances for over a year, and doing well. Here's how.

First off, I had to find a system that worked for me. Dalynn knows how to handle money, but her method of handling money is like a black art to me. Ironically, the method that I've chosen to handle money is akin to a black art for her. Neither of us thinks about money in quite the same way. With that in mind, I decided I would find a way that made sense to me.

I eventually found (or should I say re-found) the envelope system. I've read about it over the years but I've always felt that surely I didn't need such a simplistic system! Turns out I did, and I'm glad I finally humbled myself.

The envelope system is easy. It works like this:

Start saving your receipts. If you've never tracked your spending, you'll need to do this for about a month before you will have an idea what your spending habits look like.
Using the receipts you've saved, create categories (or envelopes) based on how you spend your money. Some examples would be things like fuel, groceries, dining out and savings.
Take a ballpark figure of what your monthly income is and divide up that income into all of the categories you've created. You can use your months worth of receipts to give you an idea of what you're spending on a given category. Once your monthly income hits zero, stop funding and instead apportion money between the categories.
When you get payed you put the money directly into the categories that you've created. So, if you get payed twice a month, each paycheck you'll be filling each category with half of it's total value.
When it comes time to spend money, you pull the money from the category which it belongs to. If you're going to go out to eat, then you would pull the money from "dining out". If you're going to go grocery shopping, then you pull the money from "groceries".
When a category runs out of money you either stop buying things that fit in that category or you borrow from another category, but you can never make a category go negative.
At regular intervals you assess whether or not a category is reasonable and move money around to reflect reality.

I chose this system due to its simplicity. It's easy to understand what I have to do when a category runs out. I stop spending or find the money somewhere else. If I maintain this discipline, I can never over-spend!

I had two goals when I started budgeting: get an iPhone and make sure we live within our means. I have now accomplished both of those goals! As a matter of fact, I was able to get my iPhone rather quickly. Making sure we live within our means took a little more time, but probably not more than six months.

The beauty of our budget became abundantly clear to me this past September. Dalynn came home from a doctor's appointment for Ava and informed me that she was going to have to go on formula. It wasn't just any formula, though. It was the most expensive formula on the market! It looked like Ava's formula was going to cost us about $250/month.

I walked around for about a day wondering how we were going to do this. Then, I turned to our budget (with many prayers, I might add). In the span of about an hour, I found out that with a little trimming in some non-essential categories (like dining out and our miscellaneous category) we were well able to fund a new category specifically for Ava with $250/month. By doing some other smart things, like shopping the formula on Amazon and being very careful about wasting it, we've been able to stretch the formula a lot farther than we initially thought.

Our budget brought us peace. There's no way we would have been able to figure out whether or not we could have afforded that kind of expense without it. What's more, now that that money is out of our budget proper we've decided to keep it that way. When Ava goes off of formula (which should be in the next month or so) we're going to keep that money separate and use it in August to send both boys to preschool. There are many other benefits besides peace of mind, but that's a pretty awesome one.

Now that we've made our budget work so that we are living within our means, we're attempting to tighten things down a little here and there so that we can do more with our money.

Social Media: Capturing Knowledge in a Self-Organized Way

2009-12-30T11:40:00.000-05:00

It's the early 80s and you sit at your terminal with a stack of papers, a document holder and a keyboard. Your mission: Enter as many of the paper forms into the terminal as possible. Exciting work, isn't it?

The problem is that this is not an inaccurate way to view data entry today. Granted, a lot of the brute force work has been done and legacy systems exist from which to pull data. Further, the forms are now entered directly into the system as opposed to copied from paper, but as regards entering novel data the situation has changed little.

The other major problem is that this type of raw entry, which is generally entering data into a form, only captures defined phenomena. The data that is being entered, especially into a form, is often classified and defined in advance. There is no elasticity to what can be captured.

This is problematic in that you must have a clear picture of what you are capturing in advance. For hard problems and complex situations you very rarely know much, if anything, in advance. If your only valid form of capturing data is via traditional predefined methods, such as forms, then your ability to capture data, and eventually knowledge, is vastly compromised.

This revelation is nothing new, of course. People have been trying to innovate data entry and knowledge capture for several decades. But, what other types of data can be captured and how?

The Army is asking this exact question, if indirectly. In reading several SBIRs the concept of capturing the knowledge inherent in soldiers heads is coming to the forefront. It is being recognized that not only do experts have valid perspectives and answers, the boots on the ground do, as well (keep in mind, this is probably not a new perspective in the military, but is one that I have seen in several SBIRs recently). Beyond that, though, they are starting to explore how to bring that knowledge into existing systems.

The how of this is a serious question. Computer systems today are clearly defined and generally purposeful to a single end. Human thought, on the other hand, is often multi-purposed and the field of understanding human thinking (philosophy) has been around for as long as humans and has yet to reach one shared conclusion on how we think. Even if we could get some Matrix-like data jack implanted into soldiers heads could we really transfer the knowledge as it is represented inside their brains into a computer system?

Perhaps we need another way of gathering data since it would seem that direct access to the human mind would avail us little. There is a new(-ish) movement which is providing an answer: social media.

Probably one of the most useful aspects of social media is how important and interesting knowledge percolates to the top. This is done in various ways. For instance, if I see an interesting tweet on Twitter, I will retweet it. If I read something worthwhile on Facebook, I may comment on it or repost it. It's this interaction with the content that causes the interesting bits to rise to the top.

The exciting thing, at least from a systems perspective, is that this is self-organizing behavior. It is through the interaction of the components of the system (here, the components are the people) that the interesting bits are being obtained. While it may be difficult to capture human thought and knowledge in its native form, it's not as difficult to capture the important pieces as they are being defined by the social system already.

Further, the nature of social media, in that it tends to interact in bite-sized, discrete pieces, means that the computer system needs not have much understanding of what it is capturing at all. The knowledge is already distilled into its core component, often with attribution, and the computer system merely need remember it. It can be stored without pre-defined labels and fields.

The thing which the computer system must crucially provide is a robust search capability. Whether this search capability is enacted after the fact, or whether there is a component of the system which searches as knowledge comes in is immaterial. As long as the system can search through the knowledge is what's important.

Eventually, this captured knowledge can be used and reused as more people interact with it. Each interaction would in essence refine the knowledge, making it more useful to the computer system and the people in general.

Toys R Us - Minutes to Midnight

2009-11-27T01:23:00.005-05:00

Linkin Park's song "Minutes to Midnight" would have been a fitting accompaniment as Dalynn and I were preparing to rush in to the Virginia Beach Toys R Us tonight at the stroke of 12 am. My heart was pumping and I was curious as to whether or not I would have to do battle to get through the door and claim our spoils.

Yes, Dalynn and I went to a midnight Black Friday event at Toys R Us, and boy, was it something!

Waiting in line was an event all in itself and quite festive. There were a ton of teenagers in line, all waiting to secure their $199 iTouch 8GB with a $50 gift card attached. There were a lot of parents mine and Dalynn's ages. There were also plenty of people missing teeth. Quite an eclectic crowd.

And the smoke! Seemed like every 5th person was puffing away, one after the other. I've never been outside and felt like I was in a pool hall before.

Then the line started to move and in we went! It was a bit like going over the drop on a roller coaster. As we rolled through the front entrance we realized that the line actually wrapped completely around the building, back to the front entrance. This is basically a strip mall, the line was ginormous!

I did not, in fact, have to do battle to claim my spoils. Being prepared to wait was more the order of the day. We waited in line outside (see above) from 10:45 til 12, then waited in line inside the store (see below) as people piled up trying to get to one thing or the other. The biggest traffic jam occurred at the electronics station and it backed traffic up to the front of the store.

The layout of the store was completely insane. Imagine the main aisles of a Toys R Us being turned into one-way streets and you might have a good approximation of what it was like. Everyone was funneled in the same direction, with people branching out to claim a prize then merging back in to the main flow. And nothing was moving quickly. You basically had one chance to grab what you wanted and then hunt for the checkout.

And hunting for checkout was the truth! Once you had claimed your spoils you had to venture against the flow of traffic, back to the middle of the store. The exact middle. From there a line ran out to the front of the store where you could pay for your spoils. I've never seen a bigger cluster in my life!

We made it out, having paid half of what we would have, to see that a rain storm had passed while we were inside. The line still wrapped around the building and people were soddenly and vainly hoping to make it inside for the real deals.

It was actually really fun! I imagine that we might do it again.

Shifts in Perspective - Addiction

2009-11-25T21:31:00.005-05:00

Addiction is an insidious thing. It worms and weasels its way in, altering how someone thinks. Because so much of it is taking place in the mind it is often not apparent to the one that is addicted how their perspective, how they see things, has been altered.

Though I am no expert here, simply having been a passenger on this boat, I see that there are two ways in which something can be addicting: physical and mental. I don't intend to address the physical portion here, but by physical I mean the way in which the body gets used to, and consequently needs, the addicting substance. It is a physiological response with physiological repercussions. Anyone who has attempted to quit smoking will have experienced physical addiction and withdrawal. The physical portion of an addiction is often most apparent to the addicted individual.

The mental aspect of addiction is often not realized until much later, if at all. As I sank deeper and deeper into my addiction I was unaware of what the substance was doing to me. I was not cognizant of the aggression and moodiness, the anti-social behavior, the sheer arrogance that I was exhibiting. Those that were around me saw it writ boldly and clearly, especially Dalynn, but these changes were happening to my mind. How I thought was being changed, I was completely unaware of the changes because I couldn't see them, it was as if I was blind to them.

Imagine, if you will, that your ability to see a color, let's say green, is changing over time. There's no one time you can point to where you can say "Here I can see green, there I can not", it just goes over time. After a while, you can be looking at green and not know it is there, or not realize that that gray color you see is actually green. So it is with addiction. Your mental self-image changes over time and you become blind to all of the changes that are taking place within you. Some of this blindness is due to your obsession with whatever you're addicted to, some of it is due to the changes that are taking place in your mind as you start to think differently. After a while, you just lose the ability to tell that anything at all has changed.

Except, there are some times where you are shocked back into a realization that something is wrong. Times of misery, times of hurt, times where you suddenly wonder how you came to this terrible, lonely place. It is during these times that a shift in perspective, how you see the world and yourself, can take place.

Truth be told for many it will probably take countless times of misery to drive home the point that something is wrong! I know it did for me. It took losing my family as Dalynn left me and took Cole with her, due to her fear of me, to drive home to me that something was wrong. But, even that wasn't enough! I had to suffer through endless days of loneliness and contemplation of the unimaginable before I realized how perversely my mind had been altered, to see how shockingly my thoughts were warped. It was like looking in a mirror after thousands of days without seeing myself and finding a wretched, wan reflection of who I thought I was.

These are times of shifts in perspective. These are saving moments, when reality can reassert itself. These are horrible moments that the Lord in all His mercy lets us experience. The worst thing that can be done for an addict is to save them from the consequences they have inflicted on themselves!

A shift in perspective need not always be a horrible thing, though it often is. It need only be a life-altering thing (as if those come along all that often). The birth of a child, for instance. During these times I think we all can step away from ourselves and introspect on to what we are, but for the addict, this time can lead to realization.

Seeing what I had become gave me the will to fight the addiction and ultimately conquer it. Self-realization, looking in a mirror, did for me what my wife had been praying so diligently for. That led me down the road to breaking the addiction and then recovering my life, piece by piece, that has brought me to where I am today. By no means complete, but in a much better place.

Had someone stepped in during that time and attempted to "rescue" me, I doubt I would be recovered today. Had I not been able to partake of the consequences of my actions I don't believe I would have ever changed. It is a terrible thing, but then again, so is addiction.

Two Years of Cancer

2009-11-11T21:20:00.002-05:00

November 12, 2009 marks the second anniversary of Cole's diagnosis of ALL (leukemia). In light of this Dalynn and I have spent the last several days preparing to post an update for this momentous yet silent event. In that time, we have spent many hours looking through pictures we have taken over the last two years. The effect it has had on me, personally, is profound.

It's amazing what you remember, and how you remember it. I don't remember Cole as looking sick. I remember him much as I see him now, vibrant, alive, talkative and energetic. In my memories, I place the Cole of now back into the settings that we were in back then. Cole chatting away in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. Cole, picking at food and talking to me on Christmas day.

The reality, especially of those first few months, is very different and much grimmer. My little boy was so sick. He was swollen to near-unrecognizability from steroids. He was so weak. He talked very little and had to have help to eat. His legs were mere sticks and if he could walk at all it was with a pitiful gait, dragging his legs almost behind him. I cannot believe that I lived through that time and have forgotten so much of the detail.

But, perhaps, it is that same forgetfulness that is a blessing. I remember that things were hard, I remember that it pushed me to my breaking point, but it's a bit like remembering facts. Oh, it has left an indelible mark on my soul, I have been forever changed by this tangle with cancer. But I don't remember these events in crystal clear detail, and thank the Lord for that.

Cole has fought long, and he has fought hard. As I have said, marrying the images of the Cole of then with the Cole of now is almost impossible, and oh, how thankful I am for that. For, you see, Cole is more than winning this fight, he is thriving in the midst of it. He is facing it with an indomitable spirit that does not even recognize that the option of surrender exists. I can see in his actions a heart that will continue to strive for life regardless of what the circumstances say. In looking back at these pictures I am amazed by what an inspiration my little boy is.

I was telling a friend the other day that I am hopeful that Cole will remember his fight. I hope that he always carries with him the realization that if he can overcome this heinous demon he can overcome anything. So much better for him to draw strength from this later in life than for him to forget.

Yet, at the same time, I can also say I hope he does forget. I hope he forgets the pain, the suffering, the terrible days of misery. I hope that he can continue to live life as a normal little boy, vibrant and fully certain of the safety and continuance of life. It would be terrible for cancer to have taken away his sense of security in his childhood. So many children lose that so young, how much better if my boy is not one of them.

For all of my hopes and aspirations, though, I must leave them, and indeed Cole, in the hands of the Lord. God will shape Cole and mold him as he grows older, into a "big boy", into an adolescent and finally into a man. I can only pray that the Lord will allow me to instill in him the values and character that will see him in good steading later in life. As a fallible man, one who is so utterly human and ultimately inconsistent I know that it will be the Lord that shapes and molds Cole, not I. Let Him make of him what He will.

Please join us on this wonderful day in saying a prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of Cole's life that the Lord has given to us. I cannot remember what life felt like before him and I hope that I never have to experience life without him. He is truly a blessed boy and I am a blessed father.

Join with us in thanking the Lord for all the good that has come out of cancer. We are a stronger, tighter family than ever before. We are each individually stronger. We have a reference on what tough times truly are and the certainty that we will make it through the tough times ahead. Most of all, pray with us that the Lord will use this to His glory, to carve a path straight to Him. What better way could Cole's illness serve the world?

Git vs. SVN (I know, right, another one?!?!)

2009-11-10T14:38:00.000-05:00

I've been endeavoring to set up a code repository (or even a document repository, if that need should arise) and have been weighing the merits of both Git and SVN.

At the very heart of the comparisons lies the manner in which Git and SVN operate. SVN is a central repository. When you "checkout" a file in SVN, you get only the most recent version. Should you need to do backwards comparisons you must communicate with the server for this. You get no history, either. SVN relies on the availability of the central repository to operate.

Git, on the other hand, is fully distributed. There is generally a "blessed repository" from which everyone will start and ultimately commit to, but when you "clone" that repository you get a full copy of it. Backing up a Git repository with many contributors is actually trivial as there are countless copies of that repository floating around.

Branching

Another major difference revolves around branching. In Git, branching is a way of life (as is the subsequent merging of branches). You want to develop a new feature? Branch on your local box and work on it there, then merge it back into your local main repository before committing back to the blessed repository.

This is not so in SVN. Branching is not done as often (nor as easily). Branching must occur in the central repository and is not a way of life. In this area Git outshines SVN.

Client Tools

One area where Git does not outshine SVN is in the client tools. SVN has been around forever (in digital terms). There are very elegant clients for SVN (such as TortoiseSVN) which allow for an incredible ease of use when working with repositories. Further, most modern IDEs have SVN repository manipulation as a core capability. There are several options for working with SVN in Eclipse, for instance, one of which is core to Eclipse itself.

Git, on the other hand, is young. The tools out there are not nearly as elegant nor are they as wide-spread. What's worse, Git is incredibly Linux centered. There are two Windows clients for Git (with the advent of JGit, that will climb to three), all of which require one to work with the command line. Some GUI projects, such as TortoiseGit, are in the works but will not be ready for prime-time for a while. The last issue here is that there is only limited integration with IDEs. With time, these situations will change, but for now it is a major draw-back to adoption by those other than the most determined.

Ease of Setup

To the end that I would like to work with both systems I decided to set up both on our Windows Server 2003 server. I chose to use Cygwin and OpenSSH, along with Gitosis (a Perl mod for Git), for Git. I used Shannon Cornish's tutorial to set things up (along with a little help from scie.nti.st on matters Gitosis). This turned out to be a rather easy and relatively painless way to go about things.

The basic gist is that you install Git when you install Cygwin then install and setup OpenSSH (by far the most difficult part). At this point you can connect to the server using SSH and clone any repository you would like. Installing Gitosis on top of things (recursively using Git, no less, which is so cool in my book) allows you to use public/private key pairs to authenticate users. You can then use Git to clone the control repository of Gitosis and admin the system remotely. Very elegant and one which doesn't require the anticipated user to have to input a password or create an account on the server.

Setting up SVN was more difficult. The differences, though, are myriad. While the above Git scheme works on SSH the method I chose to use for SVN works over HTTP/HTTPS, which has advantages all of its own. I worked off of several tutorials, but the most significant was this tutorial.

The real difficult part here is that you have to rely on Apache. It seems a bit overkill to have to install Apache and get it running in order to serve up your repository, but this is the accepted way of doing things. Once you have it running you must still log into the server to create a username/password combo for any user that wants to use the system, and you must also log in to the server in order to administer the repository.

The Best of Both Worlds

I have to say that the thing which gets me most excited about Git is the notion of branching it carries with it. I really like the thought of creating a local branch for every new feature. It seems natural to me.

On the other hand, I don't think that I want to saddle everyone else around me with command line tools and vi if they want to work with our repositories. So, can a compromise be made?

In fact, it can! Git has the wonderful ability to clone and commit to SVN repositories. The real details are outlined here by Clinton R. Nixon. In this way, I can take the pain of the command line on myself without foisting it on anyone else, but I also get all of the wonderful features Git brings with it.

Conclusion

In light of all of this, we will be hosting our repositories using SVN. However, I will be keeping an eye towards the maturity of the Git clients. If they should ever advance to the level where any "power user" can attain them, then we very well might switch.

A Thought on Environments: Portability

2009-10-07T15:18:00.000-04:00

My friend asked me yesterday what I thought of the Kindle. My response was that I was a fan of actually holding a book, feeling the paper, reading in a full fidelity mode. I spoke of how tired my eyes could become from reading on a screen all day. I made a decent case for not adopting the Kindle.

Then, on a whim, I checked out the Kindle app for the iPhone and immediately found myself sucked in.

The first thing that did it was the free availability of a book that we have all been discussing here at the office, Bertrand Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy". Turns out that it is a "classic" and Amazon offers many of the classics for free. I have now downloaded 10 free classics for my iPhone Kindle app and am well on my way to finding book reading Nirvana.

Free content put the hook in my mouth, but what set it was the concept of WhisperSync. WhisperSync is a service that Amazon offers which will sync your content between devices. Now, this is not just the raw content, this is the detailed content, the state content.

For instance, let's say that I am on page 50 of "The Problems of Philosophy" on my iPhone. Further, let us say that I have a Kindle at home on which I do the bulk of my reading. As I read on the iPhone, the Kindle app updates the state for that book. When I get home and fire up my (physical) Kindle my place in the book comes right up (in computer terms, the state is restored). No futzing around with finding my place, everything is just magically the same.

This got me thinking about the synchronicity of environments. In our research the environment you work in is of paramount importance. That environment can be unique to you, or you can share it with others. Everyone can have their own, if necessary. The environment is at least partially reflected in software.

One thing Dr. Sousa-Poza and I talk about a lot is the ability to "save" environments. Environments should be transportable and shareable. If you need to see what I see then you should be able to load up a copy of my environment, see things just as I see them with the data I've been using. What's more, your environment should be able to subsume my environment! Environments should be nestable yet discrete.

WhisperSync brings an interesting possibility to my mind. Shouldn't the environmental changes that I enact on one device translate to another device? What if I access my environment from my iPhone and then switch to my laptop or a web browser? Shouldn't the environment be exactly the same?

This necessitates two things: A place of storage (centralized or decentralized, makes no difference) that all environments have in common and the ability to capture state.

Ideally, the system would operate like this (from the 10,000 foot view):

I access my environment and make some change to its state.
That change is transmitted to the "server" which keeps track of environment state. ("server" is in quotations as a means to capture an idea. It need not be an actual server. It might be better to think of it as a state oracle)
I switch to a different device.
As I start up my environment on the new device the state is restored from the "server".
I continue my work.

Such a system would be truly powerful from a portability standpoint. I could do my work wherever I needed to be and have that work mirrored wherever I go. I could work from multiple devices and not lose a thing.

Movies Movies!

2009-09-02T09:38:00.006-04:00

Here are some videos of the boys from our trip. Both videos are from the hotel room.

First off, here is Logan singing a Jesus song. Whenever I pull out my guitar and ask him what he wants to hear, he yells "Jesus". I don't really know what song he means, so I generally play one of my Dad's, which seems to satisfy him.

Next, we have Cole performing a series of "gig moves". Gig moves were coined by Cole and Doug White together one evening. Cole was showing off his dance moves to Doug, and Doug responded by showing off his own dance moves. Somewhere in all of that, "gig move" was born.

Cole's signature gig move is one hand on the ground, one hand in the air above his back. Here, you see a "new" gig move. Cole seems quite satisfied with himself, I have to say, and well he should!

True Determination

2009-08-26T15:10:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you know someone that lives through something that redefines for you what a word means. I had one of those experiences this week.

A friend of mine, Nerissa, had to have a c-section with her first child. Her son was breach and wasn't budging. Nerissa had been completely prepared to do natural childbirth, having gone through classes to help her and her husband, Anthony, get ready. They were very disappointed when things didn't work out as planned.

After their son was born, there were some nursing complications. Namely, their son could not latch on. Nerissa was determined, though, to do what was best for her child. She decided to syringe feed her son. She syringe fed him for 4 weeks while she attempted to teach him how to latch on. After 4 weeks of nursing failure, she shifted to sometimes bottle feeding her son pumped milk and sometimes syringing him. All the while she went about the painful process of trying to teach her son how to latch on. After 12 weeks of this, her son finally overcame his complications and was able to latch on.

Fast forward the clock 2 years and Nerissa is pregnant again. Once again, she and Anthony are preparing to have a natural child birth, though this time Nerissa is categorized as higher risk VBAC. They had been preparing with the same material as last time and had literally been studying up. They were ready.

Nerissa entered pre-labor on Friday (8-21-09). Due to the discomfort of labor, she was not able to sleep as her labor progressed. She went into active labor on Sunday, when she was admitted to the hospital. All this time she had very little rest.

Upon entering the hospital, she was not allowed to eat and could only drink in sips. At this point, Nerissa was exhausted form all of the work that she had been doing, but she was only 3.5 cm dilated (where a woman needs to be close to 10 to deliver). She decided to continue on, however, in order to do what was best for her baby. She was so exhausted that she agreed to take some medicine for pain, in order to help her get some rest.

She continued on, finally receiving a low-grade epidural so that she could sleep again on Monday night. Come Tuesday morning they broke her water in order to help her progress further, faster.

By Tuesday afternoon the decision to deliver vaginally was taken from her hands, however, when she spiked a fever. Alas, Nerissa was wheeled into an operating room for her second c-section.

My family and I were intimately involved with Nerissa's latest attempt to deliver, with Dalynn helping Nerissa and Anthony in the delivery room. I even got a chance to contribute by keeping their oldest son one night so the whole family could be at the hospital. They tried and tried, striving to continue where many others would have given up.

Nerissa's latest attempt to deliver, combined with her struggles to nurse her first son, have really re-defined for me what the word determination means. In my mind determination was a thing of short time. It was OK to give up once you had said you tried.

I don't believe I'll be able to take that stance anymore. Now, determination will forever be a thing of striving til there is no option left, til you either succeed or the opportunity is completely closed in your face. That kind of determination boggles my mind, and I feel truly blessed to have my perspective changed by Nerissa.

I am happy to report that the c-section went well and that both baby and mother are recovering nicely. Their latest son is as healthy as can be and momma is already up and about. I do wish that Nerissa could have succeeded in her goal of delivering naturally, but I am so impressed that she persisted as long as she did. That's true determination.

Vacation Day 9: Water Parks and Arcades

2009-08-23T20:32:00.004-04:00

Wednesday morning we ventured out to a water park called "Wild Water and Wheels". It's one of those combo parks with go-carts and bumper boats attached. Cole especially loved it. Logan had to warm up to it as the water in the kiddie pools were a little deep for him, but he eventually did just that. The neat thing about this park is that it had at least 3 kiddie pools with different things in them. We spent time in each, but the boys had the most fun in the pool that had a kiddie slide attached. We all played and played and played til the melt-downs started happening. We trucked it back home and had lunch, then put the kids down for naps.

That afternoon we headed south of Myrtle Beach and went to Garden City. I have to admit, this turned out to be the pleasant surprise of the trip. We at first attempted to go to a place called "Crabby Mike's". It's a calabash seafood bar. It, however, was packed. We veered off and went instead to a Ryan's Steakhouse.

It's been a long time since I've been to a Ryan's and I have to say that we will probably be going back. The food was good and the people were so nice. It's a buffet style setup so you can eat til you drop. I got a decent sirloin steak along with some other tasty sides and the boys enjoyed the food they ate. Dalynn, who is on some dietary restrictions due to nursing and her gall bladder, was able to eat her fill since there was such a variety. All in all, we all came away from Ryan's very happy.

After that, we headed in to Garden City proper. Garden City is a quaint little beach village that is so typical of small beach towns. It's just far enough away from Myrtle that it's not built up and you can find some real gems there. One of those gems is where we were headed: The Garden City Pavilion.

The Garden City Pavilion is an arcade with an attached grill. It's open air and the night was very comfortable. What really sets it apart, though, is that the employees are incredibly friendly. It's not the over-solicitous friendliness you find in a lot of places, it was the good, honest friendliness that you can often find in small towns. The boys each got $5 worth of tokens and they played skee ball and a bazillion other games for tickets. Cole actually surprised me by bringing in 50 tickets with one token on a game I tried to dissuade him from playing!

The boys managed to cobble together 148 tickets and spending their tickets on loot was just an absolute blast. I used to work in an arcade, so they are near and dear to my heart and watching my boys spend their tickets with wild abandon was really a great thing for me and is something I relished.

After the tickets were spent we bounced over to the grill for some ice cream. There again we found a wonderful woman who was so friendly. The boys and I each got a big ol' scoop of ice cream on a cone and we ate with zest. Dalynn got a smoothie, but the ice cream was better! We really, truly had a great time in Garden City and I would love to go back some day.

As with everything on our trip, the water park, Ryan's and Garden City Pavilion were all provided due to Jason's House. Such an amazing time.

Vacatoin Day 8: Mirror Mirror

2009-08-18T21:50:00.004-04:00

We spent the morning in the lazy river and on the beach. It's amazing what long naps the boys are taking, it's like they're exhausted when they get in from the morning... Logan has been consistently taking 3.5 hour naps since we've been here, and Cole is pushing 3 consistently.

Of course, I say consistently but we've only been here in Myrtle Beach for 4 days now. It seems much, much longer than that. There is so much to do here! It simply boggles the mind. I wish that we could come back for this when our kids are older, it would be so much more fulfilling. As it is we are still packing in every adventure we can, but when you have to be home by around 8 and when there's a 3 hour block taken out for naps, you're kind of limited to what you can do.

The real adventure came this afternoon. After naps we headed out to Angelo's Steak and Pasta for a pasta buffet (once again, provided by Jason's House). It was good, but man, the kids were cranked up! I felt bad for the 2 couples sitting behind us and there were a few times where I was a tad embarrassed. Angelo's is a slightly upscale restaurant. Even Ava was getting in on the action, adding in periodic squeals and yells.

With dinner down we headed to the strip! Street performers and little hole-in-the-wall shops and people crammed cheek-by-jowl. There were a lot of people there.

Parking proved to be a challenge and boy, did I get lead like a lamb to the slaughter into this one. I was following the parking signs and made a "wrong" turn down a little alley. There, at the end, stood the gnarliest and most grizzled old coot I think I've ever seen wearing a yellow shirt and jeans and waving me on into a parking lot. I'm sure his name was something like Hank (pardon to all the Hanks out there). A little hand painted sign proclaimed "All day parking" for a two row dirt lot. I stopped and asked him how much, to which he pointed and said "He'll tell you."

He was pointing to his counter-part. Where Hank was rail-thin, this other guy, who we'll call Bubba (pardon to all Bubbas out there) was overly portly, wearing a sweat-soaked grey shirt and shorts. Now, in all of this, I didn't notice the hook that they had put in my mouth. I meekly rolled our van into the slot that Bubba was standing next to, rolled down my window and asked "How much?"

Bubba, looking all the world like a man who is being reasonable and even kind, replied "Ten dollars." If the man had been within biting distance I just might have bit him! Ten freaking dollars?!?! But, alas, I had taken the bait, our van was parked and my wife (bless her heart) thought it was OK to be taken advantage of in this manner. I think she said something like, "We don't have to pay for the Mirror Maze, we can afford to get ripped off this time."

Resigning all dignity and manhood, I pulled my children out of the car, made my payment to Bubba, waved to Hank, and walked on to the evenings entertainment.

That entertainment was Ripley's Mirror Maze! The picture today is from that same spot. Now, imagine with me: A dark room, cold as ice (and blessedly wonderful after the 90+ degree heat outside), 3D glasses and lots of neon light strips and mirrors. The room was layed out in a large group of triangles. A mirror (or glass) could be placed in a slot in the floor but the slot was there regardless. You would think that walking around in a bunch of mirrors would be easy, I mean, don't walk into yourself, right?

Man, you couldn't be more wrong! Since the mirrors aren't dead-on facing you, you're often getting an image of the corridor to the side of you. At one point I almost walked into a mirror thinking Dalynn was in front of me, only to hear her at the last instant behind me to the right. What's worse, some of the slots are filled with just glass! Every time you had to step through one of the triangle sides you have this sensation like you're about to walk headlong into a sliding glass door.

Cole thought it was the coolest thing ever. Logan, on the other hand, got about half-way through and started signing, "All done!" frantically. It was really completely disorienting and I imagine that for a 2 year old, with a more literal sense of the world, that's a very disturbing thing. Logan was ecstatic to get to the end and didn't want to go back in whereas Cole and I went back through 2 more times. It got easier the more you did it. You developed a sense of the space around you, it was quite strange.

After that, we moseyed on over to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. Did you know that Ripley's got its start as a clearing house for freak shows? I found that out tonight. As did Cole. Do you know what kind of imagination Cole has? At one point we stepped on a pressure plate and a mummy coffin flew open and made a whooshing sound like a big-rig's brakes releasing. Cole bolted! He headed back the way we had come and I had to chase him down in the room we had been in last and drag him physically back through the mummy room. When we hit the same pressure plate again he started screaming.

Do you know what my precious wife did? She laughed. Hysterically. For a long time.

We hustled through that museum after that, only stopping in a room that spun on it's horizontal axis. It left you with the impression that you, and not the room, were spinning. Cole didn't appreciate that very much. I had to carry both Cole and Logan through the rest of the museum after that.

Now, Ripleys ain't run by a bunch of dummies, and I got a true sense of that tonight. The exit through the aquarium (also a Ripley's establishment) was through the gift shop. Did I mention that we didn't make it out without purchasing these awful guns that light up and make lots of noises (see the attached picture)? Well this freak show museum exited through an arcade. Do you know how hard it is to get a couple of toddlers out of an arcade without spending any money? It's impossible! So, we played ski ball and the like and someone donated us all of their tickets. We got the boys the typical junk that arcades are known for and headed home.

All in all, a very good day!

Vacatoin Days 6 and 7

2009-08-17T22:40:00.004-04:00

First, today. We had a great day. This morning we went to Ripley's Aquarium (of "Ripley's Believe it or Not" fame). It was really, really cool and the boys had a blast. They have an aquarium tunnel that takes you on a moving walkway through a shark tank, which is just way too cool. Cole got a little frightened part way through but was all right by the time we left it.

Next we headed over to Hard Rock Cafe to celebrate Logan's 2nd birthday. It was the perfect place to take Logan. He loves drums and guitars and they were in serious evidence there. He kept wanting to play the drums that they have hanging on the walls and he kept asking me to play the guitars they have there. They also brought him up in front of everyone and announced it was his birthday and had the whole restaurant scream "Happy Birthday!" to him. He loved every minute.

We came home for an extended nap and then headed out to the indoor water area at the hotel next door to us. Cole loved the lazy river (which I have been hyping for a while) and Logan even went so far as to swim in the lazy river without me holding on to him (both boys have swimmies they swim with). It was a fun afternoon. Then, pizza, a little play, and bed.

So, let's talk about yesterday, which was traumatic and almost a vacation killer. Let me set the stage.

Our hotel is called "Holiday Sands". I don't know if it is associated with Holiday Inn, but that is the impression I received. We called about our room and the amenities and were told our room was a 2 bedroom with a kitchenette. We were also told that there were numerous pools and a lazy river on premises.

Now, the last hotel I stayed in was a Holiday Inn, and it was new and nice. Dalynn has also recently traveled and she had a similar experience. All of this is to say that we were expecting a new and modern building and room.

What we now have is a 30 year old building. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. It did lead to some disappointment on our part, though. I'm simply being transparent in order to set the stage and I am not at all ungrateful for what Jason's House has given us. What almost killed our vacation was the condition of the first room we were shown.

It was filthy. There was hair all over the bathroom floor, it smelled of smoke and someone had been shaking and exploding soda cans on the ceiling. The balcony smelled like an ashtray and the carpet was in pitiful condition.

We called the front desk as well as Jason's House and someone was sent up to clean, but it was too little, too late. Jason's House was told that there were no other rooms available and that we would have to make due. We decided to leave and head back to Wilmington. I was going to make a couple trips down to Myrtle Beach with the boys to do some of the attractions but we were going to cut our vacation short.

Thank the Lord for the foresight and kindheartedness of Jason's House. They had put together a bag of toys for the boys. I put the bag on the floor and told them to go at it and Dalynn and I talked. We decided to take everyone down to the front desk and see what the management could do.

Management came up with another room which we found acceptable. Thus, did we stay.

Now, the layout of the room has lead to some comedy on the part of Dalynn and I. The entire suite is two rooms with a kitchenette and bathroom splitting them. There are no doors! There are only accordion sliders. We have put the boys in the larger of the two rooms and Ava in the smaller, in hopes that one waking up and fussing will not wake everyone.

This has lead to the quite comical situation that when the kids are asleep Dalynn and I stand in the bathroom with the door shut to talk. We spent 45 minutes there this afternoon during nap time! It really is something to behold.

In light of that our days are starting and ending with the kids' sleep schedule. So, it's early nights and early mornings.

Seems that my typing is bothering both boys, so I'm going to call it a night.

Vacation Day 4: Fishin'

2009-08-15T22:51:00.005-04:00

Cole and Logan really had a good time all day. We spent the morning with Ma' Fuller. Ma Fuller's house is not, how do you say, kid friendly? She has tons of little extremely breakable nick-knacks and keeping toddler hands off of them can be a disturbingly mind-assaulting task. I came prepared and herded the boys out into the back yard with some balls. We eventually ended up on the side porch and rolled/tossed the balls back and forth. It was actually a pleasant time, despite my misgivings of how I was going to entertain them. Thank God for toys!

From there we went to Boomie's for some fishin'! We took a quick detour down to Wrightsville beach to visit a Wings and Trolly Stop, then we piled out onto the pier to the very end on the floating dock. I was videoing with one hand and attempting to keep all of my children on the dock with the other . There were a ton of boats in the water towing skiers and this made the dock bob. All told the boys were bouncing around like a bunch of druken' sailors.

The expedition started slowly, but after a bit the boys both showed hot hands, bringing in numerous fish! Cole brought in a "rare" fish called something like a "Papanou". Other than that it was all pinfish (the type of fish Cole is reeling in in the video).

Upon commencement of melt-downs we headed home and the boys slept til about 4, which is way later than they normally do. The rest of the afternoon was spent in the pool and then we went on to dinner at a nice seafood restaurant.

All in all, it was a great day!

Vacation: Day 3

2009-08-14T22:18:00.002-04:00

Wow, what a day.

The day started off bright and early as always at 6:30 am. I did get a little extra sleep, after we got the boys up and rolling, but we were all ready to roll by 7:30. It was on to the beach ASAP despite the rain and overcast. The boys were able to work out their fear of the water and after a couple hours Cole, Logan, Gary and I were all bouncing in and out of the waves on the shore. I actually had to start restraining the boys from going in too deep.

With that we moved on to the pool where Cole honed his swimmie skills and Logan got used to wearing his. We swam for about an hour and then headed in for some lunch. My brother Todd showed up and so we all had some lunch.

About 12 Logan was ready to drop and asked to go to bed, which is always so cute. "Bed. Me. Bed." Todd left shortly thereafter and Cole went down at 1. Dalynn and I grabbed a quick siesta and then Ava was up.

From that point on, the day went a little crazy. I took Ava so Dalynn could take a shower. Ava and I woke Cole up after he'd been down for about 45 minutes. Cole was up and he, Ava and I then woke up Logan. So, no one really got a sufficient nap!

I took the boys to the park and then we all piled into the van to go to a birthday party for some family friends. We went down to Wrightsville beach and the boys played, and played, and played, and played, and... Holy cow, we ran and ran til they were ready to drop. We left the beach at their normal bed time.

We all got home, they got rinsed off and now their in bed. I have a good salad to eat. Man, I'm tired. I wonder if all of this vacation will be this exhausting? If it is, it'll be fine and we'll have an awesome time.

On the Road

2009-08-12T21:44:00.002-04:00

Today we left for our week and a half family vacation. This will be the first real family vacation we've ever taken. I'm quite excited and am ready to kick my feet up a little bit and do what relaxing I can with 3 children under the age of 4.

On the right you'll see a picture of what the back of our van looked like before we left. If you can believe it we had the middle of the van completely full, too! As one friend asked, "Was there room for the kids?" Yes, on the roof. Some full coverage face masks and they were good to go. Cole wouldn't have abided bugs in the teeth...

We headed south towards the Port City! We had a stop-off in Washington, NC to see Grammy for about an hour, and then we headed on down to Wilmington, NC to spend several days with Granddaddy Gary and Gradma Ira.

The really cool part of our trip comes Sunday, though (not that half a week spent on the beach of Wilmington isn't cool). We have been blessed with a trip by an organization and ministry called Jason's House. Jason's House is in the business of giving week long trips to Myrtle Beach to the families of children with cancer.

We're being put up in a Holiday Sands on the beach with a ton of amenities. We'll be given a stack of coupons for food and attractions as well as some cash to even things out. We're being put up for a week. To say we're stoked is an understatement.

I'll be keeping you updated throughout our

An Analyst's Development Environment

2009-08-10T11:36:00.000-04:00

Here in the land of academic research we're working with a "new" take on mashups. It seems like a no-brainer to me but a lot of people have expressed interest and surprise when I explain to them what we're doing. For now let's call it an analyst's development environment (ADE).

One thing that mashups are really, really good at is taking disparate data sources and allowing "momentary" relationships in the sources to be created. This in effect creates a new data source that is a fusion of the inputs. As is often the case in fusions, this new source tends to be more than just the sum of the parts. You often come up with new views on the data as you add extra sources.

Most people stop here at the fusion stage. Once they have the new view onto the data they rely on other tools outside the scope of a mashup to do interesting things. They might pipe that data into a tool such as Fusion Charts in order to visualize it or they might pipe it into an analysis tool such as a model or sim. But, why do they need to leave the scope of the mashup to do this? What if that analysis or the creation of the Fusion Charts XML was an automated part of the mashup itself?

Mashups deal with web services primarily (though there are some nifty products out there that allow you to mash more than just web services). A web service is usually considered to be a data source. But, in practice they are much more than that. Consider all of the specialized web services provided by Google for geolocation or Amazon for looking up aspects of books. The simplest example I can give you is Google's web service which converts an address to a lat and long pair (called geocoding). With these in mind let's take a different look at web services. Let's look at them as processing units.

A processing unit has 3 criteria: it takes input; does something interesting with that input; and provides output. Processing units are the basis of modern programming. They're known as methods, functions, procedures, etc. depending on context. We can most often build bigger processing units from simpler units.

Web services fit these 3 criteria handily. You can easily provide input, they can easily do something interesting with that input and then just as easily provide output. All communication is done in a standardized protocol driven environment.

The interesting thing about web services is that we can string them together (with the right tools) rather easily into processes. That's exactly what we're doing here. Each web service is either a data source or a processing unit. Given the ability to ferry data from one web service to the next (in an easy way) it is possible to create mashups that do more than just mash data. They actually do some form of processing.

Consider what it would be like if you had a web service endpoint attached to a model? You could pre-mash your data from various sources then run it all through the model and create a new output that would be very interesting. It would be so easy.

Using Presto we recently put together a demo which worked along these lines. It made our demo come together in several weeks rather than over several months. We used Presto to access databases then ferried that data (in XML format) into a custom built web service that took said data and ran XSL transforms on it. That produced Fusion Charts XML which we then piped into our presentation layer for visualization. It was easy.

Here is a diagram of what the actual flow of the mashup was.

Here is a screen shot of the actual chart produced by the generated Fusion Charts XML.

An ADE would work in a similar way. Using provided tools which allow for ferrying of data from one endpoint to another and given a grab-bag of analysis and transformation web services an analyst could create some amazing things with little effort or technical know-how. The only developer support would be in the creation of any custom web services. It could be a very powerful tool.

The Walled Garden

2009-07-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

Let me hereby declare that I love my iPhone. It is useful and wonderful and keeps me connected all the time. I have been using it in lieu of my computer at home for quite some time now. I write emails on it, craft witty 140 character tweets on a regular basis, listen to books on iPod and even play extremely enjoyable games. It is a great experience.

I have, however, begun to chafe under the strictures placed on my iPhone by both AT&T and Apple (often in conjunction with each other).

My gripes against AT&T are especially aggravating. I pay them enough money as it is for the privilege of using my iPhone, why do I need to pay them even more in order to use my iPhone as a modem? It does not seem fair that I will have to shell out an additional $30/month to do what is freely available on other, older and less capable smart phones.

What's worse, if AT&T sees an app as competitive to it's business model, it will limit that app, or flat out deny it! Consider Skype: Skype offers free calls over the Internet to other Skype users, yet AT&T will not allow Skype to make calls over its 3G or Edge networks. They pull the undue competition card.

On the Apple front, a nifty app came to my attention recently that I thought was a truly innovative and awesome use of the iPhone. Given an iPhone 3GS (with its video capabilities, compass and GPS) an "Augmented Reality" app has been developed called TwitARound.

TwitARound looks at the tweets from Twitter in your area and plots them on a map. The AR part, though, comes when you hold your phone up. The app takes your GPS position and your bearing from the compass and lays the tweet on the screen. So, as you move in a circle with your iPhone in front of your face, you can see the actual locations on your iPhone of the tweets as they would appear if the tweets were layered over real life. It's quite awesome and I would like to see more apps like this.

However, because TwitARound accesses APIs which Apple has not, but should have, made public, it cannot be published in the iTunes store.

Apple plays the non-public API card too much. For instance, they did not make their "find my phone" APIs public so that they could charge you a monthly fee through mobileMe. There are already jailbroken apps which can do this, but since they didn't make the APIs public, you won't see legitimate apps show up in the app store.

Call me naive or non-business-savvy, but all of this seems like bad business to me. As a consumer, I want freedom. It's my device, I should be able to do with it as I choose.

So, while I love my iPhone, I chafe. Yes, I chafe.

Update: (on 7/29/09)

First off, it turns out that Apple will release the video camera APIs with iPhone OS 3.1 (per Ars here). Yay for Apple on this one. It's good to see that some of the "hidden" functionality is being exposed. Now, let's see if they expose the "find my phone" API or if they milk it for more money.

Secondly, the app denial shenanigans continue. In a story here (also on Ars) it appears that all apps relating to Google Voice are being pulled and any apps which feature Google Voice are being denied. The scuttlebutt is that AT&T is pulling the strings here. Some disagree, but my vote goes towards AT&T.

The Dark Side of Twitter

2009-07-22T10:24:00.000-04:00

I've seen a very interesting phenomenon going on in the Twitter-verse recently. It has brought to my attention that Twitter (and micro-blogging in general) can be used for reasons that are not above-board. What, pray-tell, is this dark and nefarious phenomenon?

I keep getting followed by prostitutes.

The first time it happened I just thought it was some random individual with a sick sense of self. However, the next day, another woman of the same ilk followed me, and the next day another. That's when I started getting curious (not about what the women offered, but about what was really going on).

Invariably, they all posted a provocative picture of a woman with at least one post which was anywhere from lewd to slightly suggestive. That post would have a link attached. The link takes you to some triple-X "dating" service. Within a couple of days the account is shut down (you get the "Nothing to see here, move along" message when you try to visit the account).

No doubt, for some reason I am not aware of my twitter user name has been picked up by this "dating" service and they keep following me with fake accounts, all in vain hopes of promoting their "service". It's all at least partly automated, it has to be, and there's probably one person sitting behind a desk creating profiles then running those profiles through some tool they had custom made to follow a few thousand people.

The practice, though, really brings questions to my mind about what twitter can't be used for. If it can be used for prostitute marketing, why not black-market marketing or subversive political marketing? Why even marketing at all? I once had the privilege of speaking with an individual that detailed how an anarchist group used Twitter to attempt to disrupt the RNC in Colorado.

Of course, far from being upset by all of this I tend to think of this as rather ingenious. What uses can Twitter serve? What's the most creative use any of you have seen?

Nothing Left to Do...

2009-06-01T10:02:00.004-04:00

There is a girl going through treatment with Cole named Lauren Cootes. As hard a path as we've had to walk, it pales in comparison with what Lauren and her family have had to endure. Lauren is 17, almost 18, and in her senior year of high school. She has ALL, just like Cole, but has been in the "first" stages of treatment for a year solid. In comparison, it took Cole 5 months to make it through delayed intensification, whereas Lauren has been in treatment since Mother's Day of '08 and is still not through delayed intensification.

If there is a side effect, Lauren has suffered from it. And I do mean suffered. Most recently she has been in the hospital with a blood infection that was very serious and very dangerous. I had the privilege of talking with her last night and she commented that she was in pain. Last time I had talked with her (a few weeks ago) she was in pain. I asked if it had lightened up at all, and she responded, "I'm always in pain, I'm just getting used to it."

And yet, whenever I picture Lauren in my mind I see her sweet smile. It's a tired smile and sometimes it's a little worn, but she always has a genuine smile.

Last night, while I was thinking about Lauren's latest encounter with the demons of cancer, I realized that Lauren's smile epitomizes something that we (my family and I) have been experiencing for quite some time. When everything has gone wrong, when you just can't catch a break, when nothing seems to even remotely be going your way, then you have nothing left to do... But live.

I think that's the amazing thing about living in cancer land. We see people who, day after day, are dealt the worst hand possible, yet they continue to play the game. Not only that, they continue to play the game with a smile on their faces.

Our struggle, and these people, people like Lauren, have made this scripture real to me:

Ephesians 6:13

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

We all have nothing left to do but live (or stand).

Join with Dalynn and I in prayer for Lauren and her family. They desperately need a break, a respite, anything. They have been hit so hard, so fast, for so long that I truly believe that it's becoming their normal. No one should have to live like that.

Pray with us that Lauren's sweet smile will stay on her lips and pray with us that her family will be bolstered and strengthened. Pray with us that they will have some time of rest and peace, some time where it's not in and out of the hospital. Pray with us that Lauren will be able to fully enjoy her first year at college and get to live life in the dorms. They need it, and by God, they deserve it.

A Plea for Help

2009-05-28T11:41:00.002-04:00

First, a quick update. Cole is doing well. He feels great and we have had no low blood sugars. Cole is now back on 6MP and another of his chemos, methotrexate. The plan is that he will receive his usual dose of steroids and vincristine this coming Tuesday. So, things are getting back on track.

The big news, the normalcy changing news, is that the decision has been made on how to treat Cole's fungal infection going forward. He will be getting an older anti-fungal called Ambisome (brand)/amphotericin (generic) which is very effective in treating aspergillosis (the fungal infection which Cole is believed to have). The side effects are mainly infusion toxicity (which he can be pre-medicated against) and renal damage/failure (which can be monitored). As Dr. Owen said, it is not a matter of "if" he has some kidney damage, it is a matter of "when" and to what degree. They will be monitoring him very closely.

What makes it normalcy changing is that amphotericin can only be given by IV infusion and it must be given at the hospital in order to monitor for the two major side effects. This will necessitate Cole being at the hospital twice a week for the foreseeable future (Tuesdays and Fridays). It also means that he will be accessed (via his port) from Tuesday to Friday. Given the stricture that we are not allowed to bring our children to clinic with us, we will now need child care for Logan and Ava on most Tuesdays and Fridays.

We are asking our church family and immediate friends for help with this. If we can find 6 to 8 volunteers then we can arrange it so that no one person will watch Logan and Ava more than once a month. This is obviously a lot to ask, and we do not ask it lightly, but we really have very little choice. So far, we have had 3 awesome folks offer to help us out, so if we can get 3 more, we will hit what we consider our minimum.

If you would like to help, please contact me via email or this blog.

Faith Stretched Thin

2009-05-20T15:12:00.003-04:00

My faith is stretched thin. There is very little of it left, to be frankly honest. God often seems far away, if he seems there at all. I constantly feel futility when I pray and therefor do very little of it. Having a live, vibrant faith right now is daunting and nigh on impossible.

It would be so easy, right here, right now, to throw away the faith that I have been given as a gift since it seems of such little use. After all, does something that seems of no immediate value have worth? Quite honestly, I almost did decide to throw away my faith, so frustrated was I.

I did not and will not, however. I have decided to hang on to my belief and pray that the Lord strengthens it. "Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief!" Up til this point, I had never realized that faith, and being a follower of Christ, is as much, if not more so, a decision as it is anything else. When we are hard pressed, when we are beaten down, when God seems so far away, then is the time to decide to continue to follow him. It is such a blessing that even though he seems far away to us, we have an innate immediacy to him. He may seem far from us, but we are never far from him.

Here's an update.

We were discharged a week ago and sent home on no chemo and no anti-fungals. Cole has felt awesome for the last few days and is now behaving as any normal and extremely talkative 3 year old. Gone are his constant belly pains and we have had no repeat low blood sugars.

The doctors are pretty certain that the low blood sugars were a result of the 6MP (mercaptapurine). Last Friday, we started back on them, but at a half dose. As well, we altered the time he is getting them. Previously, Cole would get his 6MP just before bed, and would not eat again til he woke up. Now, he can have a snack right after he wakes up from his nap (normally around 3) and will then get his 6MP at 5. We then eat dinner at 6 (there are food restrictions in giving 6MP).

We check his blood sugar in the morning when he wakes up and every night at 3AM. So far his blood sugars have been no lower than 71, which is awesome.

The really big thing on the horizon right now is how to continue to treat Cole's fungal infection. Our infectious disease doctor has bluntly stated that we need to have an outside consult, if not several. Cole's case is "complex and difficult" (I cannot tell you how sick I am of hearing that) and our doctor would feel more comfortable if there were more than one doctor in on his treatment. Currently, none of the treatments for his fungal infection are very palatable and we're going to be seeking that second opinion.

Please pray for wisdom for all of Cole's doctors and that we find a good alternative to treat Cole's fungal infection.

Jedi Mind Powers!

2009-05-10T23:52:00.001-04:00

I want to take a moment to thank our families. Since we've been in the hospital this time, we have painted and redecorated two rooms, taken down a huge oak in our backyard, power-washed our house and swing set, sent Dalynn on a mom's night out and dedicated our two youngest children at church. We had most of this planned for the near future, if not this weekend just past, and so we had my mom, Susie (aka: "Grammy" or "The Gramminator") and Dalynn's dad, Gary (aka: "Granddaddy Gary" or "Great Day Granddaddy") on tap to come on up under the auspices of seeing their grand-children dedicated.

Now, in all honesty, I was planning on doing the painting and curtain hanging, contrary to popular belief by He-Who-Did-All-the-Work (Gary), but it seems like whenever there's painting to be done around our house, Gary does the bulk of it. I still haven't quite figured out how that works out, but I suspect it's some form of latent Jedi mind power on my part.

Then there's the Grammy-Granddaddy effect to be taken into account. When the two of them end up in our house at the same time it becomes this mad dash to see who can accomplish the most in the shortest amount of time. One thing Dalynn and I have definitely noted is that if one of them arrives before the other, they immediately attempt to do all of the laundry before the other shows up. Gary was the first to arrive this time (by a full two days). He took that opportunity to put painting on hold and spend several hours catching all of the laundry up (he is a laundry machine, I might add). Grammy has been known to do similar things (she is also a machine). Having two people in your house hell-bent on outpacing each other in the chores that they do can really work to your favor! Once again, I believe it is some latent Jedi mind power on my part.

The power-washing came about when I found out that my cousin, Jeff Steele, is doing some power-washing on the side for a very reasonable price (if you'd like his info, let me know). Our house was in desperate need of it, so we hired him to come out and do it (and what a good job he did). He heard that I was going to sand the swing set and suggested that he could power-wash it to the same effect, so Dalynn told him to have at it. It is now ready for staining with nary a bit of elbow grease on my part! That's right, more latent Jedi mind powers.

Jeff, while he was at our house, heard tell that we wanted the gigantic (and sickly) oak in our backyard taken down. Jeff recommended someone who had taken several very large pines down for him. We called this person (Steve) and Steve said he could do it that day for the best price we had been quoted. He did, and we now have copious amounts of oak ready to be split in our back yard. Should you wish to retrieve some of it for your own personal use, please let me know, I'll let you have it for free (be forewarned, this is a Jedi mind power in use).

All of this was done while Cole and I were in the hospital. It was only made possible by our families, but it illustrates a point that I've felt for a very long time now: We cannot let cancer dictate our lives to us. We must make some concessions from time to time, but life must go on, and it will!

Cole is doing well. We had a "leave of absence" from the hospital today (Mother's Day, 2009) so we packed up the fam and headed out to our church. We had Logan and Ava dedicated (we were in the hospital last Mother's Day as well, I believe, and missed the chance to dedicate Logan then) and then spent a quiet and semi-restful afternoon at home before Cole and I had to make our appearance back here at CHKD.

Cole's AHTC test came back and it showed that he does not have adrenal suppression. This puts the spotlight on the extremely rare side effect of 6MP. We still don't know how we're going to go about addressing it if it is the 6MP side effect (or, for that matter, how we're going to confirm that it is), though. One thing about being on furlough today is that we didn't get to spend a lot of time talking with doctors about what to do from here on out.

Cole is NPO tonight and will have an endoscopy and a sygmoidoscopy tomorrow. This will hopefully rule out any major GI problems which could be causing his belly pain. The slots that we could possibly go in are 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm. I don't really want to have to keep Cole without food til 3:30 pm tomorrow, so please pray that we get slotted into the 12:30 slot. We may work a bone marrow in there, as well, for peace of mind.

Tuesday we are slated for a head MRI and a full-body CT scan, so Cole will be NPO again, but we are also supposed to be discharged Tuesday afternoon/night, so we're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sugar, Sugar Baby

2009-05-08T17:46:00.001-04:00

So, we're in the hospital again. Life has been pretty crazy these last few days.

Cole has been suffering from episodes of extremely low blood sugar for the past several months. On Thursday morning Cole's blood sugar was 36 but dropped lower to 21, even after juice and crackers. Dalynn called rescue and Cole got to take an ambulance trip to CHKD. I arrived shortly after they did (I had to stay behind to make sure Logan and Ava were situated). Thank God that Gary had come to help us paint. He always seems to be here when we need him. He's a good Granddaddy!

Thursday we spent most of the day going through test after test. Cole had an ultrasound of his gall bladder, an echo of his heart and and EEG. They admitted us in the afternoon and we came up to 8B in room 813. It has a really nice view and is a very comfortable room.

The basic gist of what's going on is that they ("they" being the doctors) believe that Cole has adrenal suppression brought on by the steroids he takes on a regular basis and a steroidal skin cream called Vanos. The adrenal gland is responsible for producing cortisol, and cortisol is involved in blood sugar management (among other things). The belief is that, since his adrenal gland isn't producing enough cortisol it's causing his blood sugars to plummet.

If it is adrenal suppression the fix is to put him on a low dose of another steroid called hydrocortisone. This will help with cortisol production and will alleviate the problems he's having.

To find out if it really is adrenal suppression they've taken Cole off almost all of his chemo and steroids in hopes of inducing a blood sugar below 40. When his blood sugar goes below 40, they can run some specialized tests which will confirm or deny the adrenal suppression theory. So far, his blood sugar has stayed well above 40...

Barring his blood sugar dropping naturally the plan is to introduce a medicine called AHTC which will stress his adrenal gland, causing it to produce as much cortisol as possible. They'll then take blood and measure the levels.

There is another theory being kicked around. Dr. Owen came across a case study of a patient with similar problems to what Cole is experiencing that was caused by another of his chemos, 6MP. It's only one report, but it's something else to consider. Right now, he's off of 6MP and no blood sugar issues. We'll see.

While we're here we're going to also take advantage of the situation to see if we can find the reasons for Cole's constant belly pain. He'll be having an upper and lower scope on Monday to take a peek at his GI tract. He'll of course be sedated for all of that.

He'll also be undergoing a head MRI on Tuesday and we're hoping to slide a full body CT in there, too. The scans will be in order to take a look at the fungal infection in hopes that we can take him off of his voraconazol. His bilirubin and liver enzymes are way up, and they believe that the voraconazol is the reason.

We're definitely here til Tuesday, so I'll try to keep you informed of any new developments.

JavaScript: Callbacks in Loops

2009-04-27T12:08:00.000-04:00

I just finished a mashup that had to be blogged about. I suffered to find this solution, and I wanted to share what I learned with the world.

In the mashup I took a twitter feed and plotted the tweets onto a map based on the location of the tweeter. Let me set the stage.

The Google Map has already been set up and the list of tweets has been obtained. It is now time to plot the tweets onto the map. This will be done within a function called addMarkers. The HTTP Geocoder that Google provides will be doing our geocoding. For more information on this service, see this.

Keep in mind that I'm doing all of this in a Presto Mashlet, and will be calling out to the HTTP Geocoder via a URLProxy call that is undocumented but available for use.

At first blush, the following approach seems appropriate. Here is an excerpt from the addMarkers function:

However, this suffers from a very serious drawback, and that drawback revolves around the scope of the function as it exists on the stack. Remember that you are calling out and receiving an asynchronous response via the callback. There's no telling where this loop will be when a callback returns, but the scope of the function is maintained on the stack until all of the callbacks have been completed.

When a callback returns, the current value of i will be used to index into tweets! Since all of these calls take time, the most common result is that i will actually be out of bounds of tweets. Recall that updating the loop variable is the last operation done in any JavaScript for loop. Once you have looped through all of your indexes you, of necessity, must set i to be out of bounds of tweets. Therefor, i will be equal with tweets.length.

The result is that you pass an undefined object into placeMarker in place of what should have been the tweet.

The next logical step is that you should create a variable to hold the value of i, like this:

var myTweet = i;
...
this.placeMarker(point, tweets[myTweet]);

However, this will fail as well!

The problem here is that myTweet is still within the scope of our addMarkers function. addMarkers will therefor have only one copy of myTweet. Once again, you end up in a situation where the loop will probably finish before any of the callbacks return. The net result this time, however, is slightly different. You will pass in a valid tweet to placeMarkers, but it will be the last tweet in every instance. You'll have the same tweet attached to all of your markers on the map, the last tweet in the list.

So, how do you remove the timing issues? This is where I suffered. I hunted and pecked out half-solutions for quite a while. Finally, I had to start thinking outside of the normal box to come up with a solution.

The whole problem revolves around all of the callbacks returning to a shared scope in the stack, that being the scope of addMarkers. Once you consider it that way, it becomes obvious that providing each callback with its own scope on the stack is what is needed. The way to do that is to have a function fire off the HTTP Geocoder request. The function will get its own spot on the stack and will have its own scope. Let addMarkers maintain the loop and call this function whenever it wants to fire off a request. Pass in the tweets and the desired value of i to be remembered.

Consider the following:

This approach will result in the correct tweet being displayed with the correct marker on the map.

Swingsets and Horse Rides

2009-04-25T19:41:00.007-04:00

There is now a gigantic swing set dominating our backyard. Lindsay Johnson was kind enough to find us a swingset on Craig's List which we purchased a couple weeks ago. Last weekend Travis Jones and I went and dismantled it. Today, Eric Johnson and Anthony Watkins helped me "man-beast" it into our backyard.

When I say "dominate", I truly mean it. As you can see in the picture to the right, it pretty much takes up all of the yard. To get by it, you have to go to the extreme left or right of the yard.

When we got it home and started moving it into the yard (a process made a bit perilous when we had to lift the tower over the fence) the boys came rushing out and had to inspect everything. We'd barely gotten it set and the monkey bars on before they were all over it. We didn't even have time to bolt the ladder and slide on before they were using them. Eric just stood there like a true champ making sure the lip of the slide didn't come off the tower platform and dump whoever was going down it on the ground.

Once we started actually bolting things in place, I believe Logan found his true calling. He would go to my toolbox, pull out a single tool, then climb up onto the swing set and start acting like he was using the tool. He'd most often climb up and get right next to me as I bolted some new piece in place. It was really quite cute.

The swing set still needs some work, though. I need to sand it and re-stain it, but it's well worth it. It's a Rainbow and they don't come cheap (unless you buy them used!).

The kids are going to get a lot of use out of it, and Dalynn and I can't wait til we can just start turning them out into the backyard and letting them go play for a few hours.

In other news, we also started Cole on some horse back riding lessons! Horse back riding was recommended by his physical therapist. It will work all of his core muscles and his leg muscles and should help strengthen him. We've really been fighting a lot of weakness and neuropathy, which has been a bit disheartening. I want to see my boy get stronger, not slowly move backwards.

We recently got him some new orthotics which will give him a lot more stability when he runs and walks. We're really hoping that it will help him get stronger. So far, they've worked wonders. The hard part has been finding shoes that they'll fit in! We have to go a size or two larger, and they have to be wide. We found that they'll fit in large Crocs, so we got him a pair of those to fill the gap til we get him some newer shoes.

All in all, things are good, though. We're all doing well and we're acclimating to having one more member in our family. Having three is certainly a whole new kind of circus (hmmm... three ring, maybe?).

I Haven't Forgotten About Y'all!

2009-04-22T15:18:00.003-04:00

I know it's been a while since I updated. I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten this blog or about y'all. It's just been pretty crazy around here for a while, now. Having 3 is nuts!

In way of quick update, all is well in the Rollins household. We are putting in a swing set this weekend for the boys and Ava is sleeping through the night. What more can you ask for?

On the leukemia front, Cole is still in remission, which is awesome and we're coming to grips with some of the side-effects. Still battling constipation and poop issues, though, which is a real bummer. Things on the sleep front are good, and Cole now gets into bed with us most nights early in the AM. That's led to a happier house all around.

Anyways, I'll put up a more in depth post soon!

Como Se Llama?

2009-04-15T09:16:00.000-04:00

Originally, I created my twitter account with the handle @jitlife. Obviously, jitlife is my blog, so I thought it made sense. After all, I want people reading my blog, right? Twitter seemed like a good pointer to my blog.

However, I started rethinking this mindset and eventually asked myself this question: Am I marketing my blog, or am I marketing me? By being @jitlife, I was marketing my blog. Therefor, I determined to change my twitter handle.

In deciding on my new twitter handle, I came up with a few criteria:

It has to be short
It has to reference me as an individual

I was going to add as 3 that it had to be clever, but the more that I thought about this, the more I realized that the first 2 are the most important, and in that order.

It has to be short as twitter only allows 140 characters. If someone is @replying to me and they have to type in a 15 character handle, well, they'll be less inclined to do so (at least from a mobile device) and they'll also have less space to say what they want to say.

That it must reference me is quite obvious once you realize that I'm marketing myself. The problem here is that all of the obvious references to me were taken! @rollins, @mrollins, @mikerollins, etc. All, gone. Most were taken and had only one or two posts, which is frustrating, but so is life.

Barring the obvious, I decided to get clever. I chose @rollinsio. Briefly, it's a silly name I call myself when I'm talking in a fake Spanish accent but it's also clever in that it could stand for Rollins I/O: perfect for twitter! It's short and it references me (rollins is prominent).

More Effective View Management in Web Pages

2009-04-13T11:14:00.000-04:00

One of the research scientists I work for and I have been going 'round and around recently about web desktops. In a web desktop you translate the traditional desktop view into a browser. For examples see Ext's web desktop and this actual web desktop OS. In question was how do you navigate between views of various applications in an efficient manner?

The good professor drew a distinction between how a traditional web application represents a set of views vs. how a desktop represents a set of views. In the traditional web application a set of views is often represented using tabs. You have a tab for each view of the application. Google has taken this idea to the extreme. Consider Google Docs. In Google Docs when you want to open a new document, you open a new tab. You can keep opening new documents (and consequently new tabs) until you have a bazilion of them, at which point navigation becomes a nightmare.

On the other hand, you have how a traditional desktop represents views: new views are organized on the "start bar" (forgive the Windows-centric frame of references) with icons. Each icon may have some text and an image to represent it. When you mouse over a given icon you get a tooltip which provides you more information.

The question then becomes how do you find a particular view when you have many views open?

In the web application you may be lucky enough to have individual titles on each tab, but barring that, you have to click on each tab and work your way through potentially all of them before you find what you want.

In a desktop, though, you often can pick out the view that you want simply by glancing at the images in the icons. At the very least, this will narrow your search down. You can then rely on the titles of the icons in question to further narrow the choices. If you're forced to, you can obtain the tooltips for each icon. Your ultimate last step is to look at each view individually. However, looking at each view individually isn't as bad as looking at each tab as you've already excluded some views out of hand because of the images, titles and tooltips. At the very least, you're certainly going to be looking through fewer views.

Quite clearly the desktop way of searching through views is more effective.

There are other factors to be considered as well. The start bar is static across all views. Being part of the default view of the OS it doesn't go away. You never (or rarely) lose your navigation between views. The same cant' be said with web applications.

Further, the start bar only shows the views that are active. If a list of all possible views is desired, you can click on the actual start button to obtain it. A traditional link list shows all possible views, not just the ones that have been accessed during the current session.

Clearly a more effective way of switching views in web applications is needed.

I propose a tool that adheres to the following rules:

Each view will be represented by an image, a title and a tooltext
A space for all active views will be set aside on the page
A list of all possible views can be called for but is not in available by default

While I'm not a proponent of recreating the desktop environment in a web browser, the above idea would be truly powerful in a web application where many views can coexist.

Building Your Professional Brand: Drink the Kool-aid

2009-04-09T09:19:00.000-04:00

Is what you have to say compelling, insightful, interesting or useful? Would you like to get this message out to others? Would you like to receive the acknowledgment of your peers for what you have to say?

If you answer yes to all of the above then you need a professional brand. A professional brand is something that marks you as uniquely you, something that points directly at you in such a way that others recognize you. It's not quite a kind of fame, but it is a way of differentiating yourself from the masses.

I've recently become interested in establishing my own professional brand and I've started looking around at ways to do that. Here are a few of the observations I've made.

You need a soapbox

You have to have some place where you can expound on your ideas to the fullest extent possible. Follow out every thought, every nuance of an argument and feel comfortable doing it. Speak your mind!

This is where your blog comes in. It is your soapbox. You can discuss whatever you like there, but the more erudite and insightful your blogs are, the more folks will come back after the first dose.

However, how do you bring people to your soapbox to partake of the Kool-aid you're doling out?

You need a megaphone

You need some forum wherein you can succinctly give out information that will draw others back to your soapbox. You need something that is light-weight and is easily consumable with a minimum of effort.

You need twitter.

140 characters is not (generally) painful to consume. You can read a tweet and in a split second decide if it's something that your interested in. Thus, if you can craft your tweets to be compelling enough for folks to be interested, then you can use twitter to announce your new blogs.

Of course, this necessitates having a following on twitter, but this is a recursive process. Your first few followers will likely be your friends or those you capture by chance. Consider, though, the phenomenon of the re-tweet. If what you have to say is compelling enough then there is a good chance those that follow you will RT your tweet to those that follow them, and on and on.

Shameless self-promotion is of value here. If you think what you have to say has value, then there's no harm in promoting it. Someone else may find it of value, too. Remember, if it's profound enough for you to blog about, then it's probably profound enough for someone else to read.

But, don't just limit your tweets to self-promotion! Tweet about things that fall in line with your brand or RT information that is compelling in and of its own right. If others begin to see you as a fount of useful information they're likely to buy into your Kool-aid.

Mark Drapeau (@cheeky_geeky) has a great blog about "Expanding Your Twitter Base". His rule of thumb is provide valuable information to others on a regular basis.

Shepherd your following

Once you have others interested in your Kool-aid, you have to take care of them. Shepherd your following by interacting with them and acknowledging them. You can do this by responding to comments on your blog or by RT'ing interesting things that your followers aim at you. The main point is that you have to be involved in as personal a way as possible. If you're involved personally then others will be more inclined to recommend you to those that they know.

Also, don't just fall off the face of the Earth for any lengthy amount of time. You have to keep the Kool-aid flowing! The more often you present new ideas and information, the more likely folks are to come back and see what the latest is. If you only post a blog once every 2 months, well, you're not going to have an easy time building a following. If, however, you are prolific poster and always provide value, you're likely to garner a larger following faster.

It's a Transforming Process!

2009-04-01T20:55:00.000-04:00

So, right now I'm working on a gadget that takes in generic info and sends out Fusion Charts XML. It's a SOAP service and there will be many service endpoints, but right now there are only 2, one for a simple, single series bar chart, and one for a multi-series "drag node chart" (think network diagram with drag able nodes).

I chose to go about it in a different manner than I've seen a lot of people use for Fusion Charts, though. The prevailing way that I've seen people create Fusion Charts XML is to take the data in on the JavaScript side and create the XML, in string format, in the JavaScript. For this approach, I have only one thing to say: Building XML in JavaScript is less than optimal (translation: it sucks).

So, I decided to go about it in the web service itself. My web service is written in Java and once you get the question into Java a few, more palatable, alternatives suggest themselves. In my web service there are 3 distinct transformations: request object to traditional object; traditional object to simplified XML; simplified XML to Fusion Charts XML.

The request object to traditional object transformation is really the beast. The inputs for the endpoints are comma-delimited strings. A lot of work goes into parsing those strings and putting them into the more traditional object. I have my inputs be comma-delimited strings so that the Presto JUMP requests can invoke them effectively. I could just as easily have one of my endpoints be a direct invocation of the more traditional object, but as I understand it, that's a bit of a bad practice.

Once I have my traditional object the easiest step occurs. In this step I use XStream to serialize the traditional object into a simplified XML. If you've never used XStream, it's very simple, very powerful and I recommend it highly.

The last step is where the real magic happens, though. Here is where I transform the simplified XML into Fusion Charts XML. I use the Saxonica XSLT engine to do the transformation and it's a matter of using the right tool for the right job (with regards to using XSLT to transform XML).

XSLT is designed to transform XML, whether it be from XML to XML or XML to some other language. You write a transformation wherein you process the source XML and then create a document in the desired format. It's really not all that hard to take the simplified XML and transform it into the Fusion Charts XML.

Once I have the Fusion Charts XML document I send it back out of the service in a special response that contains the document in string format and the name of the Fusion Chart swf file that will correctly process that document. When my response arrives at its destination all that needs to be done is input the Fusion Charts XML document into the Flash engine with the correct swf file pulled up and voila, it's all done.

I like this approach in that it moves all of the heavy lifting out of the display side (the mashlet, in my case) and into a much more suitable environment, that being a Java web service. I don't have to do endless string concatenation that is hard to debug inside of the JavaScript presentation layer. As a matter of fact, I can write all of the pieces independently of each other and then put them all together in the end. It's a nice break up of all of the work.

An acknowledgment needs to go to @angleofsight for his help in getting this whole process set up. Without his paving of the way I wouldn't be anywhere near as far along as I am right now.

Gov 2.0 Camp: Virtual Worlds

2009-03-28T10:20:00.000-04:00

Virtual Worlds is a topic that I find popping up more and more. I've always taken it with a grain of salt, though, as most of the time I hear it in relation to talk about how it'll make everything better. I shy away from that kind of talk as I know that silver bullets don't exist.

Further, my only real experience with a virtual world stems from the time that I played World of Warcraft. So, in my mind there's extra baggage attached in that I have a hard time seeing how a virtual world could be more than a game. When I entered this session, I decided to try to leave behind my baggage or, at the very least, dispel some of it.

This session was given by members of the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds. There were four panelists, but I did not, unfortunately, get their names or contacts.

As I entered this session, I had one question in mind: Are virtual worlds useful for more than just playing?

Surprisingly, there are three government agencies which are using virtual worlds in some capacity: NOAA, NASA and the CDC. All three of these agencies use virtual worlds for information delivery and training. NASA may be the least shocking example here, though, as it makes sense for them to create, say, a virtual world of Mars and then use that virtual world to train rover drivers. It's NOAA that has the most fascinating use of virtual worlds.

NOAA Islands (see towards the bottom of the page under the heading "NOAA Virtual World") is a virtual world that runs in Second Life (a very popular virtual world). In NOAA Islands, one is allowed to create their own mini-planet and then strive to create a stable weather pattern on that planet. As you add one effect, though, its repercussions are seen in other parts of the mini-planet. If you add too much rain, well, you'll flood the crops that are growing in a valley or low-lying area. If you make the world too hot, you'll melt the polar ice caps. In this way, NOAA attempts to convey the intricacies of climate to the uninitiated.

Another example of using virtual worlds in unique and non-playful ways was anecdotally related by one of the panelists. He commented on a school of engineering that he knew of that was using virtual worlds in order to prototype the buildings and structures they were designing. Specifically of use was the ability to determine if handicap access was sufficient for a given building.

However, of all the examples given, the most common example given was that of collaboration. The idea was set forth that in today's world of budget cuts and massive organizational structures which can span a country if not the globe money could be saved if, instead of collaborating face-to-face, people could collaborate virtually.

To this, I asked the question of what advantages do a virtual world provide that more traditional forms of telecommunication don't? The response was both intangible and interesting.

Basically, the consensus from the panel was that virtual worlds provide a sort of solidification of knowledge based on their immersiveness. One presenter described it as "informational bandwidth". Virtual worlds, being immersive, allow one to convey large amounts of information faster. Further, this immersiveness adds context to the memories created, making the information conveyed more "solid" or "real". The information has a better chance of sticking due to the immersive nature of a virtual world.

This concept, that the immersiveness of a virtual world added to the quality of the information that was transmitted seemed to find fertile ground in the audience. One audience member stated that "where it is is what it is", meaning that the memory of something can be tied in no small part to the place where the memory was experienced.

However, someone else asked a very probing question: Do virtual worlds limit or enhance productivity?

The answer to this was less than satisfactory, in my mind: The worlds are getting better with productivity software. Currently, many virtual worlds allow for desktop sharing and persistence of environment. But, does "getting better" mean "good enough"? In my mind, no.

So, how did this session shape my opinion on virtual worlds? Are virtual worlds useful for more than just play?

Yes, they are useful for more than just play.

First and foremost, I was highly impressed by NOAA's forward thinking in this space. So many times allowing people to just get out there and attempt something is the best way to convince them of your point. Allowing people to experiment with climate by actually creating it is ingenious and something that NOAA should be commended for.

Further, I can see how virtual worlds will soon play a huge role in training. Being able to attempt a task in a similar environment to the environment in which you will actually be performing the task is of great value. I can see how this could lead to safer working conditions in hazardous work environments, from military applications to industry.

I can also see that the advantage to prototyping is huge. Being able to put yourself into a users shoes (as in the case of testing handicap access in a building which is to be built) is of immeasurable value. If you add realistic physics to that, well, you've simply added even more value to the tool.

However, the one place I remain unconvinced is in what is probably the most important space of all (as far as widespread adoption of virtual worlds is concerned). For virtual worlds to be adopted whole-heartedly across government and industry they must facilitate the work that people do. To hear that the tools for productivity are still developing in my mind means that they are not ready yet for the main-stream.

That's not to say that virtual worlds don't have potential value in this most important space, though. Indeed, I feel that they have great potential. But, until I can see an example of where they make collaboration as easy, or near as easy, as actual collaboration is in real life I don't see that they will be widely adopted for this purpose.

With all that said, I'm going to keep my ears out, and my mind open, to this topic. I think that there is great work that can be done here and I look forward to what the researchers of today will do with this technology.

Ava Lynn Rollins

2009-03-09T15:28:00.006-04:00

Ava Lynn Rollins was born on February 28, 2009 at 2:10 AM. Dalynn's water broke around 9 PM. Christi Jones, our doula, met us at our house and we all drove to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 10 PM.

Dalynn was amazing during this labor, even though she said it was her hardest by far. Ava was posterior which made the labor all the more difficult. Thankfully, though, Dalynn didn't have any back labor like she did with Cole (who was also posterior).

This being my 3rd child, I felt much more confident in my ability to help Dalynn labor, and Christi and I made a wonderful team, even receiving a compliment from our midwife, Nel. Christi and I were able to coach Dalynn to a delivery in which she did not tear at all.

Now, lest you think I'm taking any credit here, when I say "coached" we told Dalynn what to do, but Dalynn was the one that actually did it, and she did it with such control it was truly amazing. At the end, when she was pushing and Nel would tell her to stop, Dalynn would immediately stop pushing, no matter where she was in her contraction. It's this control that I believe allowed Dalynn to deliver her second child without a tear.

One of the amazing things about this delivery (besides the sheer amazement inherent in birth itself) is that Dalynn progressed from 5 CM to 10 CM in 20 minutes. After 4 hours of hard labor, Dalynn was only 5 CM dilated and was despairing. She told Christi and I that she didn't think she could do it, as she assumed that the labor would be hours more.

Lo and behold, Dalynn had what amounted to a 20 minute contraction that resulted in Dalynn almost fully dilating and Ava crowning. Ava was born shortly thereafter. I guess the Lord does know what we can and can't endure, huh?

In case you haven't picked up on it, I am truly amazed at my wife and am in a little bit of awe of her. She was truly amazing and I felt blessed to be a part of this birth.

So, what's it like being a girl's Dad? She's certainly prettier than my sons, that's for sure! She looks like a feminine version of Cole when Cole was born. I do feel more protective of her than I do my boys, too, though not by much. However, if you stop to put it in perspective, I feel a little more protective of her as she is now, when I've only known her for a few days, whereas I've known one of my boys for over 3 years. I think that says something... It's more important to me that people find her beautiful than it was for either of my boys, too. It's probably a lot of cultural baggage, but it's what I have to work with and I don't regret having it in the first place.

The boys have reacted very differently to her. Cole thinks she is amazing. Last night he sat on the couch, holding her, giving her lots of kisses and telling us how much he loves her. He talks a lot about how he likes being an older brother, too, all of the sudden. Since Ava has arrived, he's begun to act more favorably to Logan, too, and has even become a little more protective of him. It's quite wonderful to watch.

Logan, on the other hand, would probably prefer that we send Ava back to the hospital! He started throwing these massive temper tantrums when she came home. He's never thrown big temper tantrums before. Now, he'll throw himself on the ground wailing or stomp his feet and scream. It's actually quite funny once you get over your horror.

If I'm holding Ava, Logan will give me about 10 minutes and then he starts demanding that I hold him. He's also become much more of a daddy's boy. He's always been pretty partial to me, but now it's soaring to new heights. I find the extra attention from him to be a bit overwhelming!

He's also refusing to go to Dalynn on occasion. When Dalynn and I first got home, he wouldn't go to her at all. Now, he'll get her to hold him for a minute or two, then he wants me to hold him. Bless his heart, but he's having a hard time of it.

We've had almost 3 weeks of family help, and it's been wonderful. However, next week marks the start of when we'll have all 3 all to ourselves. When I'm home, it's not that hard, but I can only imagine how hard it's going to be for Dalynn for a while as she gets used to managing 3, with one nursing. I don't know why, but 3 seems like such a larger number than 2!

I'm sure it's all a matter of perspective.

How Does the Magician Get What He Wants?

2009-02-11T13:29:00.000-05:00

As I started developing the core of the "platform" I realized that I had undertaken a huge task, a task I was not sure I could finish in any short amount of time. This caused me some angst but I figured that I would just have to move on, doing my best to develop my way out of an impossible situation. Not a fun position to be in.

Then, sometime around the end of December, a buddy of mine pointed me in the direction of a product called Presto, developed by the company JackBe. I thought that I had stumbled into my own brain on the web!

Keep in mind that the concept I was working on was that the platform would map gadgets together in such a way that we could dynamically generate them with ease, rapidly prototyping processes to see how they worked. In effect, the gadgets would be web services and the thing the platform would create would be a mashup.

As I said, I had envisioned something similar to PopFly, the ability to visually create mashups and then do something meaningful with them in our efforts to prototype processes. Presto is this and so much more.

First and foremost, Presto has a beautiful visual mashup maker called Wires. In Wires, you drag services from a palette onto your canvas and connect them. You can also drag in actions, blocks that allow you to do something with the results of other services. So, in the basic example I worked with, you have two RSS feeds. You can take the data from each feed and "merge" them (where merge is an action block) so that you effectively have one RSS feed from two. Then, you can add a filter (another action) which can take a dynamic input. In this way, you can create very complex mashups from some very basic building blocks.

If the complexity of Wires is not enough for you, however, they have a markup language for creating mashups called EMML. What you do in Wires is distilled down to EMML, but Wires doesn't offer the full capabilities of EMML (which is not to say that Wires is not fully featured, there are just some rather tricky things you can do with EMML that you can't do with Wires as they don't have a visual representation).

What's even cooler, and something that spoke to a need we had, is that each mashup is published as a service itself. So, you can include mashups in other mashups! The modularity is great.

But, you might be asking, how do you get the services in so that you can use them from the palette?

Well, Presto has a "Service Explorer" which allows you to import services from wherever they may be and "publish" them in the Presto server. However, there's a little more to it than that. Presto comes complete with a user authentication system that can be standalone or hook into LDAP or AD. When I import a service, I can assign rights to it, and only those in the appropriate groups can even see the service, or any mashup in which the service exists. You can also assign rights to mashups themselves.

So, that gave us the mashing capability that we've been looking for, but the goodies in this bag didn't end there!

What we have up to this point is a unique view of the data, but no visualization of the data. Enter the mashlet!

A mashlet is a view of the mashup in a portable and embeddable package. It is created in JavaScript. Once you've created a mashup, you can attach a mashlet to it so that others can see what the mashup provides. There are 5 prebuilt mashlet types: RSS; grid; chart; Yahoo Map; and XML. If your data fits into any of these predefined views, creating a mashlet is as simple as selecting the mashup or service, selecting the view, then publishing it. If you need a more complex view of your data you can create a mashlet by hand. The process for creating a mashlet by hand is rather well thought out and not all that hard to grasp.

Once a mashlet is published you can do one of several things with it.

The mashlets are served up from the Presto server in much the same way that any JavaScript object is. Right out of the gate, you can view a mashlet standalone, if you so choose. However, the real fun comes when you realize that you can embed mashlets into any HTML page you wish by simply including a script tag. You can also embed them in a MediaWiki, NetVibes or as a GoogleGadget. You can't ask for more flexibility. From what I understand, there are more embeddable objects coming, including things such as JSR-168 portlets.

So, from our perspective, Presto offers us 3 incredible capabilities: the ability to capture services from across the web; the ability to create mashups in an easy and visual manner; and the capability to add a face to the services and mashups we create, then embed that face wherever we need.

We've committed to Presto as the core of our platform and it puts us months, if not years, ahead of where we were.

Success!

2009-02-06T19:38:00.002-05:00

I am pleased to report that Dr. Mahafee successfully implanted a Portacath in Cole today. The surgery was not all smooth sailing but the end result was success, and that is all we can ask. Cole came through it like a champ and we couldn't be prouder of him.

One little note: When I was getting Cole ready to sit down with me while we were in the PACU, as I was bundling Cole into my arms, Cole said, "I'm tired of fighting this freaking battle!" While I don't necessarily want my 3 year old using "freaking", I can totally agree with the sentiment!

Cole's Current Treatment

2009-02-05T07:48:00.002-05:00

Here's a note from Dalynn regarding what we're doing in Cole's treatment right now.

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well! I know times are tough for so many of you right now, so I appreciate you still taking the time to read this.

Since my last email we have seen GI, surgeon, sleep specialist and our oncology doctors. Our oncologist did agree to a one time try of a steroid taper. Thank you for your prayers regarding this. We did a three day taper and Cole did not have any episodes of waking up gray, zoned and nauseated and vomiting. We monitored his blood sugars and they stayed between 60 to 80. Thank goodness. Now here comes the hard decision, to continue doing the steroid taper or not. According to the oncologist it is not an easy decision. They explained it to us this way. . .to give Cole extra steroids one time during his 3 1/2 year treatment is not a big deal, however to add more steroids every 4 weeks for the next 2 years is a much bigger decision. This is because long term usage of steroids can have side effects.

Which leads me to our next appointment, which was with the GI doctor, Dr. Kobak. Cole has been having tons of abdominal pain and many poop issues. Dr. Kobak thought one of Cole's main issues is reflux and therefore switched his Zantac to Prevacid. He basically said two of Cole's medicines were probably the main cause of this. Steroids are known to cause gastritis, as well as, methotrexate. Dr. Kobak was involved in a case of a little boy who got a methotrexate tablet lodged in his throat and it caused an ulcer. Cole takes 5 tablets of methotrexate every Tuesday night. So needless to say, we need to stay on top of keeping his stomach and intestinal lining coated. Since starting the Prevacid Cole has not been complaining as much of belly pain. Also he told us to stop Lactulose, a laxative, because it is causes gas pain, bloating and cramping. We are to give Cole a more consistant dose of Miralax and our goal is to have "Dairy Queen Soft Serve Poop" once a day. We also had an abdominal ultrasound, which showed Cole was full of poop, so we had to do a "Bowel Cleansing". We were successful and Cole definitely seems to feel better. The ultrasound also revealed Cole has osteopenia, which is bone density loss. This is due to the long term usage of steroids. (Which is why we and the doctors need wisdom regarding the steroid taper because this is just one of the side effects that can come from steroids) We started him on Viactiv twice a day to help with this.

We also met with Dr. Mahaffey, the surgeon, to discuss the possibility of reattempting to insert a permant line, a Port-a-cath, in Cole. The first line was unsucessful due to a blood clot in Cole's heart. After discussing our options with the doctor, we decieded to go for the Port-a-Cath again. It has been almost one year since we tried last time and the blood clot should be reabsorbing and not getting worse. We are scheduled for the procedure this Friday, Feb. 6th. There is no good way to look at the blood clot prior to surgery and we are doing this to prevent Cole from getting stuck 3-4 times every time we go to clinic. Our prayer is the blood clot will be gone and there will be no issue with inserting the port-a-cath!!! PLEASE PRAY!!!

Last, we saw a sleep specialist, Dr. Dubik, yesterday since Cole is not sleeping well. He spent over an hour with us just discussing Cole's case. The doctor is going to try and let all of us rest first for a couple of weeks and then try to tackle the behavior issues. We have started Cole on Ambien, not for long term, but just to get him some rest for a few weeks. We tried it for the first time last night and everyone slept till 5:30 AM. It was Amazing! We are emailing the doctor everyday with updates on how it is going and making adjustments on the time and dosage of the medicine. Please pray for us about this. Because in 4 weeks we will have a new baby, a 17 month old and a child with cancer trying to tackle sleep behavoior issues. Needless to say we need your prayers!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, so to recap on Prayer Request:
1. To do a steroid taper or not
2. Daily Dairy Queen Soft Serve Poop (did you ever think someone would ask you to pray that):)
3. Healing of osteopenia-bone density loss
4. Prevacid controls the reflux
5. Sleep and tackling sleep issues
6. This Friday, port-a-cath sx goes Awesome and there is no more blood clot!!

Thanks for all your continued prayer and support. We don't know how we would endure without you!!

dalynn

Happy New Year (and Some Frustrations)

2009-01-07T13:20:00.003-05:00

I hope that everyone had a happy New Year. It was uneventful at our house, which is all we asked for.

A lot of times, I turn to my blog out of frustration and this time is no different. It's a bit like venting, but you all get to read it instead of hear it. Here's what's bothering me this time: Cole still isn't sleeping well!

Neither Dalynn nor I have had a full nights sleep in so long I can't remember the last time I had one. The thing that's killing me is that it seems to be getting worse, not better. For instance, when we started maintenance Cole would have sleep issues for the week of steroids, then they'd calm down and he'd sleep fairly well again. Then, the sleep issues extended to the week after steroids, as well (and we're still having issues there). Now, though, for the last two months, his sleep issues have lasted almost the entire cycle! He's just barely getting into a "normal" sleep pattern again when the next round of steroids hits.

I just don't know how we're going to do it with a new baby on the way. As things stand right now, Dalynn and I alternate nights, so one of us gets some uninterrupted sleep. However, when the baby comes, it's not going to be fair to ask Dalynn to take any nights when she's going to be up with the baby, too. That leaves me to deal with Cole's sleep problems all by myself, night after night. I'd say that the only hope we have is that Ava will sleep through the night as quickly as Logan did.

Things are further frustrated by how conservative Cole's doctors are. Cole is having some real issues with coming off of steroids cold-turkey. The doctors at CHKD don't like to taper, though, so we've thought up to this point that it wasn't an option. However, on obtaining a non-official second (and third) opinion we've found out that other pediatric oncology docs don't have a problem with tapering kids off of steroids. We're going to ask them to taper Cole, and if they won't, we're probably going to go with an outside channel to taper him (using inhalers with steroids).

I'll be honest, I don't want to go outside of Cole's oncologists, but we feel that we're at a sufficient crises point that we have no other option.

Further, they won't prescribe him any kind of serious sleep aid. Now, I don't want to have to put my son on some kind of sleep medicine this young in life, but I don't know that we have much choice. We've pushed and pushed, and they finally agreed to ativan (sp) but it's only effective for 6 hours, which isn't really long enough. We haven't tried it to its fullest yet, but I don't expect huge results from it.

The depressing thing is that I was under the assumption that things would get easier the further into maintenance we got, but just the opposite has happened. It's hard to not get down in the dumps when everything looks bleak.

If I could offer up a few prayer requests, here's what they are:

That Cole would sleep better.
That the doctors would really listen to us and work with us in treating Cole's side-effects.
That Ava would be an awesome baby, that she would have no reflux and that she would sleep through the night quickly.

2008-12-26T19:20:00.005-05:00

I thought that you would all love to see the blackmail material we captured on Cole today! I was humming a silly song, and Cole started breaking it down, so we decided to capture it for posterity sake, and I think it speaks for itself!

We had a good Christmas, despite the fact both boys were sick. We thankfully didn't have to spend this Christmas in the hospital (though when Cole started running a fever, we thought we might) and we were blessed to have Gary here to celebrate it with us. Both boys got plenty of toys and goodies, let me tell you. I'm thinking we'll need to do a toy purge after all of this. Cole got a bike, and Logan got a tricycle and the fact that it was 60F on Christmas day made it all the better for bike riding.

I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the latest member of our family, Charlie the Panda. Cole recently gave up Pacy and Hair so we made a big deal about going to pick out a stuffed animal to replace them and took him to the Build-A-Bear Workshop where Charlie was born.

Now, before you ooo and aaaah over Charlie, take a moment and consider the plight of the Panda. Poor Charlie has been thrown up on 4 times already, has been dropped in the mud once and has been washed so many times that the fur covering his nose is almost completely gone. I assure you, if most Pandas are treated as roughly as Charlie is, I can understand why they are endangered.

Despite all of that, however, Charlie is well loved and has become a permanent attachment to our retinue.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas (or a wonderful Christmahanakwanza, as the case may be) and that you all have a happy New Year!

A Little Ditty for You!

2008-12-11T09:59:00.003-05:00

Dalynn, the boys and I recently went to a nifty little studio to record a holiday dance. I hope you'll agree with me that we're all very impressive dancers. It's a bit of a disco medley of some Christmas songs. I do hope that you enjoy our hard work for you all in this holiday season.

Merry Christmas!

Turkey Day and a Van

2008-12-04T10:19:00.004-05:00

Well, turkey day has come and gone, and we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to our friend Anthony's mother's house for Thanksgiving day. It was a wonderful time, and we really enjoyed it.

The food was incredible, especially the collards and the pound cake. Anthony also smoked a good turkey, my first smoked turkey, in fact. We all ate til we were stuffed and then took a goodly amount home, to boot! There were about 30 or so people there, with at least half being kids. Cole and Logan had a great time playing with all of Anthony's nieces, nephews and cousins. Cole was particularly enamored with Ms. Watkins macaroni and cheese! We took more of that home than anything else.

I also have to say that Anthony's nieces, nephews and cousins were some of the best behaved children I have ever met. There was one boy, Zack, who was about 5 or 6. He went out of his way to share toys with Cole and made sure that Cole always had an appropriately timed turn when they were sharing the same toy. I don't know that I've ever seen that particular fairness out of a child that young. He was also very affectionate, giving Cole many hugs!

I'd just like to say thank you to Ms. Watkins and all of her family and neighbors that allowed us to spend such a wonderful Thanksgiving with them. It was truly a treat!

In other big news the great van hunt is over! We bought a Honda Odyssey which is a wonderful van. It's the type of van that we wanted and we got a great deal on it. The only feature that it lacked was a DVD system in it, so we had an after-market one installed. It drives like a car, is roomy and holds everything we can put in it, seats 8 (with a seat in the middle of the middle row that you can pull out and store elsewhere) and was big enough that we could carry our Christmas tree home in it!

We traded in the Camry, so as to not have 2 car payments, which we thought was the wisest course of action. We had no desire to be car poor! So, pray that the Malibu holds out for another few years (or even another decade).

I have to say that the DVD system was well worth it. We got to use it on the trip to Ms. Watkins, which was about a 30 to 45 minute drive to Portsmouth. The boys both get a pair of headphones to wear and they were quiet as mouses. We can play the sound through the car stereo (via a built-in FM transmitter in the DVD player) if we wish, but with both boys doing so well with the headphones, and with it allowing Dalynn and I to talk while the boys are watching quietly, I don't know that we'll play it over the stereo much.

We're also, as I alluded to, set up for Christmas. It was particularly important to us to do it as early as possible this year because we never got to do it last year, what with being in the hospital the whole month of December. So, we did it the weekend after Thanksgiving. We got the tree on Friday and were finished decorating by the end of the weekend.

The only down side to things recently is that we've all been a little sick, though Cole isn't running fevers so we're hospital safe. All we really need right now is for Cole's cough to clear up and we'll all be much better.

If I don't get a chance to say it before Christmas, Merry Christmas to you all!

We Need a Map to Talk to Each Other

2008-12-03T10:10:00.000-05:00

In a conversation I was having today the question about how two gadgets would communicate with each other came up. Initially, I was thinking that two gadgets would talk through an intermediary gadget which would convert the output of one gadget into the input for the second gadget.

There are a couple major problems with this approach:

Anytime you added a gadget you would possibly have to write a whole slew of interpreter gadgets for the gadgets you wanted to give input to or take input from. At a minimum, every gadget would require at least one interpreter gadget.
The whole gadget as a web service concept breaks down when you start talking about interpreter gadgets. They do not need to reside on the web, they need to reside on the platform. Should you have a platform based gadget? Is that really worthwhile or does it break the nice clean system we've conceptualized?

In the midst of the conversation the idea of being able to do mash-ups was discussed, and this spurred me into a new area of thought regarding how gadgets could talk. Mash-ups always make me think of PopFly. If you've never played with PopFly, I highly recommend it. It's one of the coolest things to come out of Microsoft since Surface.

In PopFly, you capture two (or more) web service endpoints and then you map the fields in the endpoints together. This allows you to create dynamic mash-ups on the fly, among other things. So, let's say that I have a web service that gives me a weather report for a list of locations and I have a mapping web service (like Google Earth). I can map the location info from the weather report list onto the mapping service and create a series of push-pins on the map that will show you the weather report when you mouse over them. It's pretty nifty and very simple to use.

Why not use the mapping between web services concept for our platform?

It's a much more elegant solution. It has several advantages over the other approach I mentioned:

A mapping is much easier to generate than a complete gadget. What's more, if done right, it could be done in a UI! PopFly has demonstrated this very well.
The platform would only have to remember a mapping (which could be done in XML quite easily) for any communication between gadgets. That eliminates the problem of having platform-bound gadgets.
The mappings could be based off of the WSDLs that the web services publish. This would allow a direct mapping from the output of one gadget to the input of another. No intermediary step is needed.

I have to say, I'm quite enamored of the idea. I think that the first step is going to be creating a set of gadgets that are supposed to talk. I've already created the first gadget (a charting gadget). I can create a simple gadget that spits out a set of variables and then try to map that onto the chart gadget. I'll have to dig around the net a bit to see if I can come up with some good examples of the best way of mapping web services together.

I shall post my progress here!

Architecting Things Out

2008-11-24T10:19:00.000-05:00

I'm now going down the path of fleshing out the architecture for our project. We're working with the concept of "gadgets" coupled with a "platform" as the basis for our architecture.

A gadget is simply an object (in a conceptual sense, not a programmatic sense) which takes an input, processes that input and produces an output. The platform will coordinate the gadgets in such a way that you can string gadgets together in order to get a chain of information, or a work flow, that you like.

Those are the concepts, but how does that play out in an application?

Well, the first idea that comes to mind is a service oriented architecture. Here, the gadgets have two components: a webservice that takes the input, does the processing and then gives an output; a component that plugs into the platform, interfaces with the webservice and provides any UI. A good example of a gadget is one that takes input and provides a visualization dependent on the input.

The platform would ideally be a flexible piece of software that would allow you to "wire together" different gadgets into the work flow that you want, among other things. I'd like to take a page out of Spring's book and make the wiring together of gadgets by the platform be definable in XML. This would allow for dynamic wiring at run time which would mean you could build an "application" out of gadgets as you saw fit, ad hoc.

I like the idea of using webserivces because it provides such flexibility. It also means that you could create a gadget out of an existing web service (assuming that it was all right with you that you don't control webservice).

All in all, it's a rather web 2.0 concept that I think we're developing here, and I really like it. I'd like to get to a place where someone could wire together their own version of the application and then run it, change things and then rerun it to see if the output changed. Remember, this software is in support of research, so the ability to prototype a system is incredibly useful.

Hibernate Musings

2008-11-17T14:38:00.000-05:00

So, I'm working my way through this tutorial on hibernate. It basically takes you through creating a basic (and trivial) Hibernate project, all the way to the point where you create the database and put info into it, then take it out.

Wait, did I just say "create the database"? That I did. I think this is the coolest feature in Hibernate that I've come across so far. The work flow basically works like this: First, you create your POJO bean which will hold a record. Then, you create a mapping file which will map the properties of the bean onto a table in the database. Next, you set a special property in your hibernate.cfg.xml file (called hbm2ddl.auto) to "create". Finally, you create some utility classes that drive Hibernate.

Set up an ant task to do something (in my case, I stored a record) with the database and run it.

On start up Hibernate will create the database using the mapping files. The more mapping files you have, the more tables will be created. I still don't know if you can create multiple tables from one mapping, but the ability to create a database based off of POJO beans is some kind of powerful and is a feature that I will hopefully use to a great degree in order to get around some of my relative inexperience with database design.

1 Year

2008-11-12T08:02:00.004-05:00

Today marks the one year anniversary of when we checked into the hospital to begin Cole's treatment for ALL. In many ways, this has been the longest year of my life. But, in many ways the time has flown by.

You guys have read the long part in my blog (if you haven't, I especially recommend the beginning, around the middle of November, through mid January, that was probably the toughest time). Let me tell you about why it has been so short.

Personally, I have been stretched and moved in ways that I never thought were possible. Never did I think that I could endure something like this. The challenges have been physical as well as mental and emotional. It's required more patience of me than I thought I had, more stamina of me than I thought I had and more perseverance of me than I thought I had. In all the ways except one (Cole is still alive, praise God) this has been a true tragedy, but my, these things have a way of shaping and changing you which I do not regret.

Mine and Dalynn's marriage has also grown. We had no choice but to pull together as a team in order to ride this thing out. But, in that process, we have done more than ride it out, we have thrived. If you consider that just over two and a half years ago we were separated you begin to see how amazingly God can work things out. I feel that we are now stronger than we have ever been and being forced to pull together has a lot to do with that. She is my teammate and my partner in all that we do now. I don't often consider how I will respond to a situation, I consider how we will respond to a situation. I like where we are now, and I look forward to all the years that we have in which we can figure more of this out.

As is quite obvious, our family has continued to grow. We're now expecting our 3rd, a little girl. While we know that it will be difficult, being a team gives me confidence that we can handle the challenges that having 3 under 4 will present (and one of those in treatment for cancer). I'm also blessed with perspective now, as far as my family goes. I can often look at one of my boys and think "How blessed am I that he can walk?" Seeing either of my boys running around is a joy, and that joy has a lot to do with the perspective that cancer has brought to our lives.

I've seen Cole grow. Physically, he's about twice the size he was when he started treatment. Especially recently, he's really started to shoot up. He no longer looks like a baby, but instead looks like a little boy (much to his Grammy's lamentation). I'm also seeing his full personality emerge, and while I know that cancer will play a role in shaping that (such as making him innately more cautious than a lot of his peers), I can see how cancer has not stunted his spirit. From Cole's perspective, everything is a mystery, and the questions "Why?" and "What kind?" are going to unlock that mystery for him! I certainly hear them enough during the day to convince me of that! His cheerfulness is infective if not a little exhausting and I love the way that I can see things new through his eyes as he witnesses things for the first time.

Then there's Logan. If it can be studied, he will. If it can be climbed, all the better! If it thwarts him, he'll definitely let you know and generally in a very vocal and foot stomping manner. He's a sheer delight and I look forward to seeing his personality come out, as well. He doesn't have much to say, but he communicates loudly.

Cancer has visited this family but it has not left us distraught or destitute. It has left us stronger and more fully capable of enjoying every precious second of life. While I never would have chosen this for our family I find it satisfying that we can thrive even in the midst of all of this.

I would like to thank all of you for the support that you have offered. Having this outlet in which to express my thoughts has been invaluable, especially during the difficult times. Then there's the support both in prayer and monetarily that you have offered. Without prayer I don't believe we would be thriving and without the monetary support things would be very difficult indeed on our family. So, thank you all for all that you've done.

I'd like to leave you with this thought from Romans 8:28:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Spring!

2008-11-06T09:06:00.000-05:00

I'm reading a book right now by Rod Johnson, called "J2EE Design and Development". It's a fabulous book which conveys all kinds of refinements on the architecture of a J2EE application.

In the book, Johnson puts forth his own novel framework for managing various aspects of the application. This framework became know as Spring and can be found here.

Of particular interest to me is the MVC framework that can be used to create a thin and clean front end for your web app. After reading a bit about this in the book I went and got Spring and ran through a tutorial that helps you create a non-trivial but simple front end for an inventory system. It's all included in the Spring download, if you're interested.

So, what are the highlights? First off, anything that can be configured in XML is configured in XML, allowing for dynamic shifting of classes at run-time! Further, one of the big Spring tenants is to program to interfaces (which is simply a sound principal and one I'm finding myself adopting quickly). These two things taken together means that Spring is incredibly non-invasive. You can use the Spring framework without having to write a bunch of code aimed at the Spring framework.

Let me walk you through a request flow to give you an example of how this works in the MVC framework.

To start off with, I have set up an index.jsp that redirects to hello.htm so that you can easily enter the application. I've set up a servlet-mapping in my web.xml which intercepts any and all .htm pages and redirects them to the Spring master controller.

So, enter the Spring master controller (which I use right out of the jar). The master controller will process the request, then hand off the request to a sub-controller which you define. All of this is configured in an XML file as well. I called my application springapp, so I created an XML file called springapp-servlet.xml.

I have a bean definition in springapp-servlet.xml for /hello.htm:

<bean name="/hello.htm" class="springapp.web.InventoryController">
<property name="productManager" ref="productManager"/>
</bean>

The master controller sees the class that is attached to /hello.htm and interprets this as the sub-controller which it should forward the request to. So, off the request goes.

My InventoryController does some logic processing and data gathering (for instance, it gathers a list of items to show in the inventory view) and puts all of this into a model which, in this instance, is a Map which contains a list of Products as well as a Date object. The InventoryController forwards the model and the name of a view back to the master controller and the master controller then forwards the model to the view specified which, in this case, is a jsp called hello.jsp.

The jsp page loops through the products list (which is model.products) and displays the products.

We also have a link on hello.jsp which will take us to the price increase page (called priceincrease.jsp). This page allows you to implement a price increase by percentage over all the products.

Here's where things really get cool. Spring ships with a tag library, called form. It adds on to some normal HTML tags, such as form or input. The specific design, though, is to allow you to map a form or input back to a specific class. So, to enter in the price increase, I use an input defined by the form tag library:

<form:input path="percentage"/>

I also define a form which this input sits in:

<form:form method="post" commandName="priceIncrease">

The command name maps back to a bean in the springapp-servlet.xml file. That bean has a controller class specified (PriceIncreaseFormController) with it as well as a name (/priceincrease.htm). You see how the pattern is forming up? In that controller, there is a mapping to several things. First off is a mapping which corresponds with the commandName. This is mapped to a class (called PriceIncrease in this instance). PriceIncrease has a field called percentage. So, when the form is submitted, a new object of class PriceIncrease is created with the value in the input attached to the field percentage. PriceIncrease is considered a command, as it provides direction on what the ProductManager should do with the Products.

Further, a validator is specified for PriceIncrease and is automatically run. All of this is then passed into the PriceIncreaseFormController. The controller evaluates the results of the validator, does any processing necessary, builds a model if necessary, and then forwards everything to a view (which is hello.jsp in this case).

So, that's the basic workflow. I think it's pretty awesome that so much can be specified in XML. That gives you an amazing amount of flexibility at run-time.

All in all, I think I'm going to benefit a lot from Spring. It has more than just an MVC component. It provides an abstraction for almost every level of J2EE applications, from the database level (a JDBC abstraction) to a replacement for the EJB tier.

New Pictures of the Boys

2008-11-03T20:52:00.000-05:00

Here they are!

Cole Turns 3

2008-11-03T08:22:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, November 1, Cole turned 3!

As I write this I thank God that I'm not saying "Cole would have turned 3". Dalynn and I have been thanking the Lord for the fact that we've had one more year with our precious son.

Thank you all for your prayers and help. They have seen us through such a difficult time but days like Saturday continue to drive home to us just how blessed we are. Blessed that we can still celebrate the life of our sweet son.

I'll try to get some pictures posted soon. If you haven't seen a picture of Cole recently (and only have pictures from his initial treatment to go on) then you may thoroughly enjoy some new pictures. He looks like a typical (if somewhat chubby) 3 year old.

We had a party for Cole and invited some friends over. Unfortunately, as is normally the case with us trying to plan birthday parties (we seem to suffer from a birthday party curse), something happened that prevented a lot of folks from coming (that being that half of the folks that were supposed to come, including my mom, got sick). Despite that, though, we had a rousing good time! Cole received many fun toys and he and Rayanna (sorry if I butchered her name, Camille!) played until about 9 that night (having started at 3).

It was so much fun to see Cole interacting with another 3 year old. At one point, they were running around trying to rescue pretend animals from a pretend tiger and dragon all the while calling Diego and Dora on their cell phones. It was quite cute.

All in all, we had a really good weekend and I'm so thankful that we got to throw a party for Cole.

I'm Pushing this on You

2008-10-28T10:08:00.000-04:00

So, one of the requirements we have is to be able to alter the content of a page given a users input, where that user is either another user entirely or the main user of the given session. The aim is to impart a collaborative aspect on a given page so that anyone on the page can view the collective changes that have been made to that page.

This has brought me around to thinking about AJAX in a different manner. Normally, AJAX is used to pull info from the server. The page (or component on the page) makes a request of the server, and the server sends the response to the page/component. However, what do you do when you need to reflect changes to your model in near real time?

Well, the thought that comes to my mind is that you move to a push model. In the push model, whenever the data model changes it pushes those changes out to the view. Now, this is totally doable with AJAX, it's just a different way of thinking about things. I think it's been termed reverse AJAX.

Of course, the poor man's way of doing a push model is to actually do a pull model with automated (instead of user-requested) pulls on a short interval. The downside to this is that it can result in a ton of network traffic at the very least. Another downside is that you don't have true data coherence. You're basically taking a guess as to when the data model has changed.

So, I'm now investigating ways in which I can use a push model. I've found two promising leads: CometD and Pushlets. I might still opt for the poor man's approach, at least for now, but both of these bear investigation. When I know more, I'll post it here.

If you're interested in a good article which outlines some of the ways of going about this, check out this article here.

J2EE Survey Software: Opinio

2008-10-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

A requirement came up recently wherein we need to be able to conduct online surveys. Thinking that this was an area where I'd best be served leveraging existing software, I started searching for Java based survey tools.

I quickly found that there is a severe dearth of Java survey tools in the open source community. Most projects haven't been updated since 2005 and all of them seem cumbersome. If I am going to use something, I'm going to make sure it is easy to use and also looks good.

So, abandoning open source for the moment, I started looking at what was available in the closed source world. I quickly found a piece of software that fit my needs perfectly. Called Opinio, it is a very nicely built J2EE application that can be deployed on anything from Tomcat to JBoss (even IIS, or so they claim).

It has 3 versions: Lite, Corporate and Enterprise. The Lite version is free for use, but has a much reduced feature set. However, the reduction is in the analysis side and since we're going to be building our own analysis tools, this application fit perfectly!

My only gripe so far is that it doesn't have a great community or a good set of docs. I'm currently trying to set it up so that it will write the surveys to our SQL Server database. There are directions on the site for setting up MySql and Oracle, but no SQL Server. Once I get the issue solved, though, I may post how to do it, here.

And the Winner Is...

2008-10-22T14:40:00.000-04:00

JBoss.

First and foremost, JBoss has the best community. Documentation exists for all facets of using JBoss, from developing on it to deploying it to a production environment. Most of these docs exist in Wiki form on the JBoss.org website, but a Google search of any term prefixed by JBoss (ie: JBoss Administration) will return many, many relevant links. This in and of itself is the primary factor for using JBoss.
While GlassFish provides the latest in JEE 5, JBoss is not far behind (actually having a release candidate with JEE 5 support available). Further, we will most likely not be harnessing a lot of the JEE 5 specification. What we will be using of the JEE 5 specification, mainly JSP and Servlet are provided, along with a JAX-WS compliant stack in the form of JBossWS.
JBoss has an Eclipse plugin (as does GlassFish).
JBoss’s system requirements are lower than GlassFish’s.
While GlassFish’s admin console is very nice and very polished (specifically it’s log viewer), the lack of being able to run in a console window is constrictive to development. From a developer productivity standpoint, having to open up a web page and refresh the view to get the latest log files would be detrimental.
Hibernate, the ORM solution we will be using, is a JBoss project, and is built directly into JBoss.

The choice came down to JBoss vs. GlassFish. I never really considered Tomcat with Metro.

While I really liked GlassFish, it didn't seem as suitable for a development environment. Both of them seemed completely competent in a production environment, with each having its best features. So, it came down to which would be better to develop on.

The answer to that question is that JBoss is easier to develop on and it has the most widely available community. Those two factors weighted things to JBoss.

The Alarm Clock

2008-10-17T14:59:00.003-04:00

One of mine and Dalynn's biggest issues with Cole is that he's an extremely early riser. The child would wake up at 5:30 every morning if he could and most mornings he is up promptly at 6. I'm currently reforming my sleep patterns to get up at 5:45 am (so as to be into work at 7 am) but I still like to sleep in as much as I can, you know?

So, one of Dalynn's friends told us about using an alarm clock to teach Cole when it's OK for him to ask to get out of bed. They recommended using a clock with hands, but we opted to try it with a digital alarm clock.

Much to our amazement, it worked the first night we put Cole down with it. We covered up the minute digits so as not to confuse him. I showed him that night what a 6 was on the clock (I was pretty certain he already knew that, but I wanted to make sure) and reiterated several times that he couldn't get out of bed until he saw a 6.

The next morning Cole started crying at 5:30 but rather quickly stopped. Then, promptly at 6 am, he started crying again (that's how he asks to get out of bed). When we went to get him he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to get out of bed. I asked him later on that day if he woke up before 6, and he said that yes, he had. I asked him if he waited until it read 6, and he said he had.

After a couple of days of this, he started saying that he went back to sleep if it didn't read 6. So, this gave me an idea. After all, it could have been coincidence as he generally wakes up right at 6 most mornings anyway, so what if the clock said, oh, 5:30 when it was actually 6? Would he wake up and ask to get out of bed, or would he wait until it read 6?

Lo and behold, when I set his clock back a half hour, he waited until his clock read 6 before he asked to get out of bed. So, Dalynn is now able to sleep til after 6:30 most mornings before Cole is wanting to get out of bed, which is a nice state of affairs. That 30 minutes may not sound like a lot, but it is when you're pregnant (just so you know, I'm normally gone by then. Up til I got this new job we would each take two nights/mornings with the boys so the other could sleep in til 7:30. Now, with me out of the house by 6:30 am, I can't help out like I used to).

The real test will come next week, however. He's going back on steroids, which normally brings with it a bad bout of insomnia. I'm interested to see if he'll be able to go back to sleep when he sees that it's not 6. I don't have my hopes too high, honestly, as he's not very interested in abiding by rules when he's on steroids, but one can always dream right?

I'll let you know how it goes.

The JIT Life

2008-10-16T22:40:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to make a note here that I've started a developer's blog. To most of you, this won't mean much, hehe. It's a blog that I'm going to use to discuss the issues I come across with my job.

The address is: http://jitlife.blogspot.com

Feel free to peruse it at your leisure!

The Purpose

2008-10-16T21:49:00.000-04:00

So, this is my developer's blog. It's the "in vogue" thing for developers to do. I see them all over the place, so why shouldn't I have one, too?

I've recently changed jobs and am working on a project now that is starting from the ground. I'm also the lone developer on the project. That kind of makes it my show, to a certain degree. I'm responsible to the Customer (who shall remain nameless) and to the Company (who shall also remain nameless) I work for.

Being in on a project from the ground up is a pretty cool thing. You get to make a lot of decisions that will have a huge impact on the project months, if not years, down the line. Some of the decisions I've already made have been which language I will use: Java; what type of application it will be: a web app.

A few decisions were made for me, including which database I'll be using, which is Microsoft SQL Server. That suits me fine, as I'm going to try to take a database agnostic approach by using Hibernate. We'll see how true to that desire I can stay later on down the road.

It does have the up-side, or so I've heard, in that SQL Server is supposedly easy to administer. It certainly seems easier to administer than Oracle, the only other database I've worked with. The tools seem to be a lot more developed and "user-friendly". That's good in my book, as I don't want to spend all my time adminstering the database.

The big decision I'm working on right now is what application server I'm going to be using. I've basically narrowed it down to three choices. The first is to use Tomcat augmented with the Metro web stack that is available from the GlassFish project. The second is to use the actual GlassFish server itself (or whatever lame name Sun gives it once it's released officially). The third is to use JBoss.

I'm researching all three right now and I plan on posting here what I find and my ultimate decision.

So, back to the purpose of this blog. I'd like to document the steps that I take as I build this application. I'd like to make note of the pitfalls I fall into and how I got out of them. I'd like for this to be part history, part road-map to how to do it better in the future.

We'll see how it goes from here.

Official News About Our New Addition

2008-10-16T09:55:00.003-04:00

Well, we had our ultra-sound yesterday and we now know what we're going to have. My Mom is so thrilled she's called me 3 times in the last 24 hours and emailed me at least twice. She's already started smocking, I do believe, and is preparing to bring out the Princess clothes on demand.

In case you need more insight, we're having a girl. As Dalynn put it "... there was no hot dog but we saw a hamburger bun..."

Now, before you ask, we haven't officially chosen a name, yet. There is a strong front-runner, though, and that will probably be the name we go with. Once we finalize it, I'll post it here for you.

Having a girl is a bit frightening to me, I have to be honest. I pretty much have the boy thing wrapped up, at least up to this point. I know how to change a boy diaper, I know how to play with boys. I have no idea how to fix hair (God knows, I don't fix mine, that's for sure, and never have) or put a bow in. I think I can get the diaper changing thing relatively quickly, but what do I do when it comes time to show her how to potty on the potty? I can't just tell her to "stand and shoot"... What if I have to play Barbies or My Little Ponies? I'm certainly not up on that kind of thing. Being the oldest of 3 boys (initially) and not having lived at home when we adopted Katy, I'm a little bit behind the curve.

For all of you girl parents out there (and here, I'm specifically thinking of Lori, Becca and Sara Beth) we'll be coming for your clothes!

That's the other thing, we have boy clothes coming out of our yin-yang. Oh, and we have boy toys, too. But, nary a girl clothing is to be found in our home (and only a few girl toys...). Somehow, though, I doubt that us finding suitable hand-me-downs will deter Dalynn from stopping and shopping at every little girls department she can find! She told me one day when we were looking for some clothes for Cole before he was born, "If we ever have a girl, we're in trouble. I'll buy everything I see."

Also, I hear all the time about how daddies are crazy about their little girls. Now, I'm crazy about my boys, so to imply that there is a level of craziness yet to be attained is a little bit... overwhelming.

So, a girl seems to me to indicate Barbie-styled Pink Insanity... Yeah, that can be a little frightening!

All in all, though, I'm thrilled. I've been thinking for a while now that I'd be disappointed if we never had a little girl, simply because I'd like to see what the experience on the other side of the coin is like. I have a feeling that I'll be even happier once I get to really experience it.

Mysterious Ways

2008-10-07T10:31:00.004-04:00

I mentioned in a previous post that things were not going well with my job. In fact, I would have been laid off October 1, 2008. The beautiful part is that I started my new job October 2, 2008!

The way that things collapsed at my old job was frightening. It was through no fault of our team that we were basically fired from the contract. A lot of political wrangling went on, and we all got caught in the middle.

Because Bridgeborn is such a small company, they couldn't carry us across contracts, especially since they didn't really have anywhere to carry us too. Of our 7 person team, 2 resigned (me and another developer) and 4 were laid off.

The job that I have now, though, is nothing short of a blessing from the Lord. I'm working as a contractor to ODU in support of 2 research scientists research for a 5 year contract with DHS. I'm contracted through a company based out of northern Virginia. I'm going to keep their name confidential for now.

What I can tell you is that I got a much needed pay raise and much better benefits upon switching jobs. I also learned a lot in the negotiation process when I was negotiating for my salary.

Better yet, this new job is a fresh project and I'm free to construct the software I'll be developing as I see fit. I'm still learning about the theory that I'll be working with, so once I have some more concrete understanding of it, I'll post a brief synopsis here.

Being in on a project from the ground up is an awesome resume builder. Being involved in (or, in my case, actually making) the architecture decisions gives you such an awesome overview of what it will take to build a project. I'm researching application servers right now, and I get to choose what other software we're going to be using. It's all very cool from a very geeky perspective.

All in all, I just wanted to let all of you know that the Lord has been providing for our family in a powerful way here recently. Being without a job for 1 day would have been disastrous for us, considering Cole's cancer. We have not been without insurance at all and knowing that we'll be able to afford the mini-van we're going to have to buy is really all that we could have asked for (and is in fact what we were asking for). The reality, though, is that the Lord has provided beyond what we were asking.

I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Bridgeborn.

They supported us through a very difficult time and they supported us with class. One of the things we kept hearing while we were in the hospital is that a lot of companies will initially support a family for a few months, then quietly let the person go.

Not so with Bridgeborn. We were in the hospital for no less than 7 weeks, and they allowed me to be with my son the entire time. They provided a laptop for us so that we could communicate with the outside world and so that I could work from the hospital (which I did). They also made it known to me that I would have unlimited personal/sick leave so that I could see to Cole's treatment.

All of that combined meant that we could focus on Cole's treatment and not have to worry about whether or not I was going to lose my job at the same time. That kind of assurance is so invaluable in times of trouble.

I'm going to miss our team, and I'm going to miss the other folks at Bridgeborn, but I'm happy that the Lord provided in such an amazing way.

The Quicksilver Knight and the Air Show

2008-09-22T10:35:00.005-04:00

We had a really good weekend. Just plain and simple, it was a really good weekend.

Friday afternoon, around 6, I took Cole and Logan to the park. We're at a stage now where Cole pretty much does his own thing while I ride herd on Logan. It's not a bad place to be, and I can manage both boys with little problem over a wide area of space.

On our way home, Cole was a little disappointed to leave, so I decided to tell Cole a story about the Quicksilver Knight. Cole is the Quicksilver Knight (he was wearing a Quiksilver shirt, hehe), you see, and so I told him about all of the amazing things he had done. Like the time he rode through the forest and heard a damsel in distress. Upon investigating, he found her cornered by a dragon. He fought off the dragon and rescued the damsel.

Cole took to the idea like it was genius. All the way home, I regaled him with his exploits and reinforced in him how courageous and just the Quicksilver Knight is. Once we got home, I put a jacket on him and told him it was his Quicksilver Knight jacket, and we went back outside to see Dalynn (who was talking with some neighbors). Cole hurriedly told Mommy all about what he had done as the Quicksilver Knight. There was much posing and running around in the story-telling. It was awesome.

Later that night, Dalynn interrupted him when he was talking to me, and Cole said, "Mommy, when the Quicksilver Knight is talking, you listen!" It was rather cute, and we couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure we don't want to encourage that kind of behavior, but hey, once won't kill us (or him).

Another added benefit of Cole's new persona is that I have him convinced that all the scary monsters are afraid of the Quicksilver Knight. It's pretty cool to see him boldly walking into a dark room because he knows that the monsters won't get him, he's the Quicksilver Knight!

On Saturday, we took the boys to the NAS Oceana air show from about 10:30 am to about 1:30 pm. We went with our friends Anthony, Nerissa and Raymond. Both the boys were mesmerized by the planes and the noises. Neither were afraid of all the loud noises. We got the boys a helicopter toy (which Logan proceeded to demolish over a period of 24 hours) and a die-cast model of an F-4 Phantom II which is currently Cole's favorite possession.

That night, we went down to the ocean front to watch a dusk parachute jump. We had pizza at North End Pizza (which was good) and then headed out onto the board walk just in time to see a plane flying around that was setting off fireworks off of itself. Very cool. Then, another plane flew overhead and out jumped 5 men with boot streamers lit. They parachuted all the way down to a cleared space on the beach. We got right up in the front line of the circle and were able to watch two more waves of jumpers as they landed. It was all very cool stuff.

Sunday, we went to church and just took it easy.

Not a bad weekend to have before Cole gets chemo tomorrow.

Cult of Personality

2008-09-11T10:05:00.005-04:00

There's been a lot of "uncertainty" at work recently. Uncertainty of the type that causes one to question whether or not they will have a job after a certain date. I'm not going to go into the details much more than that, but that should give you enough of a clue what to pray for, I should hope.

All of this uncertainty has lead me to question a lot of things about myself, and I'd like to share one of those things with you. I believe the Lord uses these times in our lives, these "wake-up calls", in order to shake up our insides. After all, if things are going smoothly then what reason is there to question your core beliefs as it appears that they are obviously working (and are therefor presumed correct), right?

In all of this recent turmoil, I've come to realize that I can fall prey to the "Cult of Personality". A cult of personality is when you believe in someone beyond their ability to perform, to the point that you begin to see them as your possible "protector", or worse yet, your "savior". It's a bit like attributing God-like power to a mere mortal.

Now, we do this all the time with our country leaders. Take FDR, he had an amazing power to make people believe that he was the man that could accomplish the job. He made people believe that it was impossible for him to fail. Another good example is Obama. Something about Obama makes you want to believe that he can do all that he claims he can do (at least, I feel that way when I hear him speak, he's very persuasive). But, beyond that, you are lead down the path of believing that he, and perhaps he alone, can cure all of our country's woes.

The fact that we do it all the time doesn't make it right. In fact, it's a form of idolatry. Remember that whole "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me" thing? Yep, I'd say this qualifies.

So, how did this play out in my life? Quite simply, actually. There is a man who had shepherded our project from day one. He was our champion and stepped in to defend us when it was necessary. He is a quite larger than life kind of guy, one of those men that you instantly like because he's so brash but so compassionate. He's pretty real.

I had only met him once or twice, but I had heard story after story about his exploits on our behalf. I came to believe that he, and he alone, would protect us through any hard times that arose.

This all occurred over about a 2 year period. Within the past few months, though, I started recognizing what I had been caught up in. The Holy Spirit was talking to me about it, quite honestly. I started asking questions like, "Why do I see this man as my savior?", or "Why do I think that he is the only one that can protect us?"

Now, in my life, when it comes time to challenge a view that I have, I ask myself questions. I was actively challenging this view, and rightly so. I had started praying that the Lord would protect our project (which is the source of my income that supports our family) and I asked him to help me remove my faith in this man and place it in the Lord.

Then, about a month ago, the unthinkable happened. Our project was removed from this man's domain. We were quite literally snatched out of his hands. He rallied to our defense, but he was powerless to effect any kind of change and we were placed in someone else's domain, someone who we knew didn't wish us well. It's all very political, but the easiest way that I can describe it to you is that we were basically delivered bound and captive to our enemies, people who had wanted control over us for a long time.

To say that I felt helpless is an understatement. I was fearful and afraid of what would happen, and things only continued to get worse. They got about as bad as they could get, actually.

Then, a new man stepped in and started acting as our potential protector. We are now in his domain, and he is a man with serious clout. He took a shine to what we were doing and started down the path of acting as our protector.

Once again, I found myself being caught up in the cult of personality: "Maybe this man will save us, maybe this man will provide!"

I quickly removed my thoughts from that path, though, as I realized what it was. I once again asked the Lord to be my protector and provider.

Things still look bad, and I'm still stressed about a lot. This is not an easy time, to say the least. The potential for disaster looming in the wings is huge. My main concern is how will I provide for Cole's health care if I should lose my job? After that, how will I provide for our family at all?

No, it's not an easy time, but it is made easier by the fact that I'm not foolishly putting my trust in someone that can, and may, fail. If our project is saved then I will rightly attribute it to the Lord, and not to any man.

Something Else to be Thankful For

2008-08-27T14:04:00.002-04:00

Something else to be thankful for! Cole got to go fishing for the very first time while we were in Wilmington. Let me tell you, he's a natural. Every time he put his line in the water he pulled a fish, or sometimes two, up. Granddaddy was quite pleased with the whole event. It was also my first time fishing in about, oh, 25 years.

Now, I watch this, and I just think that in January, this was a little boy who couldn't walk...

Things to Be Thankful Over

2008-08-27T10:42:00.002-04:00

Man, it's been about a month again, but this time, I'm going to have a positive post.

Things don't seem so overwhelming as they did, which is good, and over the last month I've remembered many things that I have to be thankful for.

Before all of that, though, let me point you to the story of a little girl named Kathryn Leggett. Kathryn has a very rare form of cancer and has just been moved out of the PICU at Duke, back into a regular ward bed. If you'd like to see God at work, read over the last week or so of her Caring Bridge page. Please keep her and her family in your prayers as they face a rough road ahead of them as Kathryn recovers from a bad bout of pancreatitis.

I took last week off of work and Dalynn, the boys and I went to Wilmington. We stayed from Friday to Thursday. It was a very wild, hectic week, but we all survived.

During our stay there, Cole and I got so spend a lot of time in the pool. He learned to swim with swimmies on (the little blow-up balloons you put on kids arms), which was a lot of fun for both of us. At one point, it suddenly struck me that if Cole had a line, we wouldn't be in the pool. We wouldn't be able to go to the beach. He wouldn't even be able to take baths as much as he does (which he loves again, by the way). So, I'm thankful that Cole doesn't have a line.

While we were in Wilmington, Logan came down with rotovirus (a kind of really bad stomach virus that kids can get, but that they can pass on to adults). It's a long story on how he got it, but he did get it from Cole. When Logan got it, he ran a 104.5 fever at one point and had these really nasty green poops. But, when Cole had it, he only had the nasty green poops, not the huge fever. If he'd had the fever, we'd have been in the hospital while they tried to figure it all out, so at least one night in the emergency room, if not a full admission. I'm thankful for that, too. I'm also thankful that Dalynn and I didn't get it (although my mom did). That would have been especially tough on Dalynn with her pregnancy.

There are a lot of other things I'm thankful for, but which I can't really go into right now, unfortunately. Just know that we are all doing well, and even though we're faced with challenges daily, we overcome them daily, as well.

Discouragment

2008-07-30T10:18:00.005-04:00

Man, it's been a month since I last posted. Where does the time go?

I have to say, though, that I'm very discouraged today. I imagine that most of all my discouragement comes from worry, to be quite honest.

Here's what I'm worrying about:

Cole got chemo yesterday, so that's at least a week, probably two, of a little boy who is totally out of sorts.
We had our A/C replaced yesterday. The whole kit and caboodle.
We have to have extra work done due to the A/C being replaced (things like holes in ceilings patched and holes in walls patched).
We're going to have to get a mini-van, and with the money we're spending for the A/C would have gone directly to a mini-van.

I know I shouldn't worry, but how do you stop something like that. It takes ridiculous amounts of self-control to not worry when it's weighing so heavily on your mind. Maybe the weighing heavily part is worrying in and of itself. I'm not real sure.

What I do know is that this morning I feel pretty discouraged. The funny thing is that I'm not even worrying about the direct issues. For instance, I'm not so much worried about finding a van, I'm worried about whether or not it'll be a good one and whether or not I can prevent us from being taken advantage of. Or, barring being taken advantage of, that I'll miss some kind of deal that would have been better.

That's how I feel with the A/C, too. I don't think that we got taken advantage of. We got multiple quotes and they were all within the ballpark of each other. I think what got me there was the financing. I keep thinking that there was a better financing option.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of what I might have missed. That's what is causing my worry. Kind of silly when I think about it "logically". It's a shame that my emotions aren't logical, huh?

News News News

2008-06-30T09:43:00.003-04:00

Well, the big news on our front is that Dalynn is pregnant. Let me just say that we were doing everything we could to not become pregnant! As a matter of fact, Dalynn was going to have Mirena put in this month. Mirena is an IUD that also has a low dose of birth control. It's effective for 5 years.

That 5 years part makes me wonder at the timing of all of this. As in, this is the Lord's timing, and not our own. Both of us had been thinking, privately, that 2 was enough. We also had both stated that we didn't want a 3rd while Cole was undergoing treatment. Combine all of that with a birth control that is effective for 5 years, and perhaps we never would have had another child. It's easy to get into a frame of mind when complacency is an option.

To say that we were shocked is an understatement. I believe "floored" is more appropriate. Dalynn recovered faster than I did, though. It took me about a day to get over the shock of it all. It certainly didn't fit into any of my plans for our family right now. We certainly didn't need to borrow trouble...

But, trouble is what this baby is not, and I've come to accept that. The logistics of it all are still prone to make me feel like the bottom has dropped out from underneath me, but we have 8 more months to begin coping with all of that.

When Dalynn told Cole that "there's a baby growing in Mommy's belly", Cole responded with the statement, "A baby girl." He says "girl" like you would say "grill", it's quite cute. Logan has been vary tacit on the situation, though. We wonder if he's already lamenting the loss of his position as the baby...

Speaking of Logan, he's walking, now. And I mean, walking. He can motor around the house and has started playing chase with Cole and I. Normally, he's the chaser, as he hasn't quite figured out how to be an effective chasee. He still hasn't figured out how to stand up without something to lean on, but once he's up, he's off.

It's quite interesting to see how differently our children are developing. By this age (10.5 months) Cole was talking, but Logan isn't. I think he has a total of 4 words: "bye", "momma", "ba-ba" (bottle) and "dada". "Dada" he says very rarely. Conversely, Cole didn't walk until 13 months, while Logan has been walking for 2 weeks. So, in that regard, Logan is more advanced physically than Cole was. All the differences are quite fascinating.

Finally, discipline has become some kind of monumental feat. On the weekends, when I'm around all day, I feel like I do nothing but discipline (mainly Cole). Dalynn feels like she spends all of her time disciplining. If 5 minutes go by without me having to say something, it's quite unusual.

I think the difficult thing for us, and something we haven't figured out how to balance, is how to draw the line between being in treatment and being 2. We want to have grace if something is being caused by being in treatment. If Cole is just feeling run-down due to his chemo we don't want to drag him around the city. If he's cranky for the same reason, we would prefer to allow him to take a nap.

On the other hand if he's being demanding because he's 2, well, we want to nip that in the bud. It's just that often times, it's difficult to figure out which one is which. What makes it more difficult is that Cole is learning how to manipulate us! In the middle of being disciplined, he'll tell us, "I hurt!" or "I'm tired!". He doesn't, not really, but it's hard to be discerning enough to know when he's pulling the wool over our eyes.

I've never raised a 2 year old before, so I have no real frame of reference. I can't say for sure that raising a 2 year old in treatment for cancer is more difficult (though my hunch is that it is), but I can certainly say that raising a 2 year old in treatment for cancer is more confusing!

Disturbia

2008-06-11T20:19:00.003-04:00

I listen to this band called Disturbed. Their music is, quite ironically, rather disturbed. Lots of angst and anguish and difficult topics.

From what I have read, though, they sing from their (collective) heart. One song that has recently come out is about the lead singer walking in on his girlfriend having committed suicide. That's a tough topic, but what makes it disturbing is that the song is about him having a conversation with the devil in the immediate aftermath, and the devil is trying to convince him that he needs to take his life, as well.

The song is called Inside the Fire, and it's a good song. Most of their stuff is good, that's why it's been on my constant play list for a few weeks.

But, why am I bringing this up? It's certainly not to highlight my music as a way of proselytizing you. If I was going to do that, I certainly wouldn't start with Disturbed. I'd start somewhere much saner. Somewhere like Fuel or Breaking Benjamin.

I bring it up as a way of highlighting what my ideal mental goal used to be. By that, I mean the angst-driven way of viewing life. In my former way of viewing life the more angst or deep-gutted emotion that something in life generated, the better. I think that I thought that for an event to have some kind of meaning, it had to have some kind of (mostly) negative impact on my life.

I used to be terrified that my life would end up "normal" or, God forbid, "cheesy". Maybe a better way of saying that is that I was terrified of the mundane. And, what could be more mundane than having two kids and going to a job everyday?

But, tonight, I started thinking about my life and I have to say I find nothing mundane about it. I'm not talking about the cancer part, either. I'm honestly happier now than I can say I've ever been. I guess that I was wrong when I thought that angst was the key to happiness. Go figure.

2008-06-01T14:56:00.003-04:00

Well, it's been 2 weeks since I last posted, but this is one of those situations where no news is good news. It's so much easier to keep a regular posting regimen going when there's a lot of bad stuff (or even just some bad stuff) to report. When nothing of note is happening I consider that a good thing, especially considering the last 6 months.

I will report, however, that the great yard experiment is a success! I roto-tilled part of our backyard (about 2/3), seeded and fertilized it. I now have swaths of lush, green grass to rub my toes in. There are a few bare spots, but I've reseeded since then and that will hopefully take care of that. Having a "nice" yard is surprisingly satisfying, and I certainly take too much pride in it. But, I'll take what I can, hehe.

I've also maintained my swimming and am now up to 3/4 of a mile each time I swim. It took me two weeks to work up to 3/4 of a mile (which is 27 50 yard laps). Considering that the first time I went swimming I had to take a break to catch my breath after I was done with 4 laps, I consider what I've done to this point pretty monumental. Not only that, but two of the guys I work with are also going to start swimming, as well. Maybe we can have some kind of competition to spur us all on.

I can't say for sure if I've lost any weight yet, but I think I can tell a difference in my face and belly. It certainly seems easier to see my toes. I'm kind of disappointed that I never did take that "before" picture. I should still take one, and just make a note that it was taken at the 2.5 week mark. I also don't know what my starting weight was, nor do I know what my weight is now. For me, fitting into my clothes better will be a good indicator of success. Fitting into a waste size of 36 will be a resounding success (I wear a size 38 waste now, and that was getting a bit snug).

Logan is doing great. He took his first steps the other day, but has only repeated them once so far. I missed the first ones, but caught his second out of the corner of my eye. I expect that he's going to be a hard one to pin down once he finally gets his feet under him. He's already climbing the steps and he's quick about that. If you don't watch him, he'll zip up the steps before you can do anything about it.

Cole is also doing well. He has continued to recover his mobility skills and is now at a point again where he's running. It's not fast, but it's a definite run. He's climbing playground equipment again as well. I have to say, he made it through delayed intensification way better than I thought he would.

Tuesday sees him getting another dose of vincristine and a 5 day course of steroids, blah. It's hard to say which of those two I hate the most. Vincristine for the constipation and consequent enemas or steroids for how moody and hungry he gets. Probably the steroids. Still, 5 days is easier to deal with than 21 or 28. I will count my blessings there.

I Did It!

2008-05-16T13:42:00.004-04:00

Well, I officially started working out today.

I joined the VB Rec Centers yesterday and headed out to the pool today. I swam 1/2 a mile in about 30 minutes, which is an agonizingly slow pace, but at least I did it.

I think I can get that to a mile in 30 minutes if I really work at it. That's one of my goals for now. My other goal is to swim 30 minutes, Monday/Wednesday/Friday for a month. I think that if I can just get started, I'll keep it up. I'll be going during my lunch break and will be arriving to work a half hour early on the days that I swim. That allows 45 minutes for swimming and shower and 45 minutes for lunch.

I'll have to weigh myself somewhere, but I figure I'm around 235 lbs right now, which is close to the biggest I've ever been. I'd like to get back in the neighborhood of 200 lbs. I'll also probably take a "before" picture tonight and, if I'm not too embarrassed, when I get an "after" picture I'll post em side by side. Hopefully the "after" picture will do me better justice than I know the "before" picture will.

That's a whole lot of plans, but maybe if I blog about it, I'll stay honest. Besides, it feels good to blog about something other than cancer...

Wow...

2008-05-16T13:40:00.001-04:00

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

This is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while, but it's so COOL!

Dance Dance!

2008-05-14T21:40:00.007-04:00

Baylee and Cole have quite a career as ballroom dancers, I'm thinking.

We're sad to say that Baylee and her family are moving this weekend. They have been such a blessing to us before, but especially during, Cole's treatment. Peter is in the Navy and is being transferred. That's a pretty common story around here, but it's none the less sad for all of that.

Cole and Baylee get along so well, and play so well together. I know that Cole will miss Baylee. Cole wants to go over there every night (though that might be to play with all of Baylee's toys, hmmm...).

So, we're sad to see them go, and wish them all the best! Hopefully, we'll all be able to get together at some point and do some catching up.

It's been a while since I posted, sorry about that. Let me give you a quick update on how things are going.

Cole is doing wonderful. He's now in maintenance, which is awesome. Not to say that things can't still be difficult, but we're through the official hard parts.

Just two days ago, Cole and I went outside and he played in the court with all the other kids just like a normal 2 year old. He's walking and climbing well, dancing (as you can see) and in general is a delight to be around. He has enormous amounts of energy, let me tell you. We often wonder where he gets it from. He just goes and goes.

Logan is also doing well, though he has a little virus right now. His first teeth are peeking through and he's mobile. There's just no other way to describe it, hehe. The virus isn't really keeping him down that much. He still follows Cole and I around while we're all playing.

I think one of the funniest things about Logan is that he gets frustrated so easy, and when he's frustrated, he starts yelling. He gets frustrated when he can't open the bathroom door. He gets frustrated if you don't turn the pages of a book fast enough. He gets frustrated if you don't feed him fast enough. All of these are accompanied by a very vocal declamation of his frustration. I think he gets it from Dalynn, to be quite honest... ;)

Dalynn and I are also doing well. We're trying to plan some family trips this summer to see our extended families. Scheduling is a little difficult, as we're limited in our windows for travel. Cole gets big chemo at the beginning of every month, and that pretty much shoots the next week down. He just doesn't feel well enough to travel. So, there's really only 2.5 to 3 weeks a month that we can do something in. Hey, at least we have that, right?

We'd like to take the boys up to DC this summer, as well, to meet their great-great Grandma Steger. She's in her 90s and still lives by herself just outside of DC. When we go, we'll take the boys to see the Natural History Museum, the Air and Space Museum and the National Zoo. Logan's a little young to remember it, but we're pretty sure that Cole will love it. I can't say what excites me most, taking Cole to see dinosaur skeletons or taking Cole to see real live rocket ships...