deleted theory

Week 1 of Mustaches for Kids has ended with a mandatory shave.  We all met at the Clocktower pub to show off our progress and share a pint or two.

Bex captured everyone’s progress from week 1 of mustaches for kids in Ottawa, and the photos will be on the m4k website very soon.  http://www.m4kottawa.org/

I just wanted to share this picture of Jose because I think it is pretty cool…  I have uploaded mustache progress pictures of other 76design co-workers to my flickr.

long exposure at the pub, originally uploaded by Viller.

Bex, Jonny & I tried a whole new set of long exposure shots w/ LED’s while at the pub. This one of Jonny is by far the best of the bunch.

for bex’s x-wife, originally uploaded by Viller.

Earlier this year bex made a wicked card for Chris & Erin’s wedding from the silhouette of two hands in the shape of a heart. Lisa liked the outcome and asked bex for a new version as a former roommate memento. I documented the painting while watching the hills. Spencer is a tool.

A group from Germany called Lichtfaktor captures crazy photos in the dark using long exposure with light to paint over the images.  They have some great pieces, and credit to my co-workers Ben Watts & Meghan Gough at 76design who introduced me to their work and technique. Ben Watts posted some cool Lichtfaktor inspired photos on Friday, so Bex and I were dying to try. Tonight I think we got some pretty neat results.

A few more of are posted here on flickr.

People are excited about the web for different reasons.  Some people are excited by the social interaction, some simply for e-commerce, others are drawn in by exciting design, and then there are those of us who are in to the technology which brings it all together.  I admit it, I am a geek, and I am very interested in the latter.  Well, lucky for me that digg.com has started a technology category on their blog where Joe Stump and other’s give you a behind the scenes look at the technology behind digg.com.

This is not just your run of the mill LAMP installation. A distributed computing dream, I would love to have this type of hardware to play with. Or better yet, google’s hardware to play with.

I was fortunate enough to catch a tweet about the live.37signals.com webcast, and I after catching the last 30 minutes and was impressed.  These guys have solid web dev & business philosophy (but we all knew that), and they hand out some great advice.  Inspiring for designers, developers, programmers & entrepreneurs.  You can catch previous episodes at: http://www.justin.tv/signals37/archive

Our short summer is drawing to a close, but on the bright side Demo Camp Ottawa is back on September 29, 2008.  I can’t wait to see what everyone has been up to over the summer and catch up over a frosty pint. Space is limited, so be sure to pre-register.  Also, check out the site for the roster of demos.

This week I attended an open lunch and learn hosted by Ramius, and featuring Craig Fitzpatrick of devshop.  The topic was kicking the top bad habits of project management, more specifically with software development projects.  While this was a little bit of a product demo for the recently released devshop 2.0, Craig did a great job of conveying his ideas and solutions so that one could follow through regardless of the chosen management tool.   None the less, Devshop is prettly slick and I can’t wait to try it.  Craig showcased how Devshop bakes in buffers and trends for esitmation error & distractions to give an accurate, and always up to date project time-line.

While devshop is currently geared towards longer term projects (in the order of months), Craig announced that he and a team of advisers are looking at extending support for agency environments.  The key challenges being that there are many active smaller projects which developers have to deal with simultaneously, and these projects usually have a very short turnaround.  I am looking forward to hearing his thoughts and seeing the features they dream up.

As part of a Devshop 2.0 launch promo, you can sign up for a free trial account. I suggest that you check it out not only for the project managment advice, but also because it is a well designed web 2.0 app.

August Long Weekend, originally uploaded by Viller.

Rebecca and I split on a new Digital SLR. With our modest budget we picked up a Nikon D60 with a 50mm lens. We spent the next 3 days taking hundreds of pictures… so much fun. I really like the lighting on this one of Nic during his pie eating competition at the cottage.

About a month ago a friend of mine named Peter Childs wrote an insightful blog post called Learning to Code, in which Peter describes what it is like to jump into a developer’s shoes. Peter has plenty of experience working with software developers, but this is the first time that he has coded a website all by himself. He is not limited by ideas or expectations, in fact he has plenty of both. So for Peter, a simple word press & theme just wont do. He envisions web 2.0 with all the fixins & media. He has been adapting and coding his ideas for a few months, and Peter has found out that with code, the devil is in the details.

My favorite part of his post is the end where Peter states,

“Oh! And to all those programmers that I antagonized by asking “how hard can it be” when some business pressure meant a 90 degree turn in code – I apologize. I now know software happens at the level of details not concepts.”

I have worked on a few projects with Peter, and he should rest assured that he is not the only one to have suggested a 90 degree turn in code. Also, Peter should know that his revelation will offer coders insight on how our non-coding coworkers view software development. I now know to simply remind my requirement suppliers that the details are not as flexible as the concepts.

However; The point of Peter’s post is a little broader than the coder/business dynamic. Peter has shared some new found respect, and I feel that I have had an experience in which I can do the same. For the past few days I have been dedicated full time on web app QA and managing our bug system. It has been a race to the finish line, and the other developers are working very hard to deliver top quality which I must somehow measure. I realize how challenging it is to be the QA gatekeeper for a team of developers. Every feature and change requires me to race to complete a number of feature and regression tests. [And don't forget about cross browser testing.] This task takes great patience, attention span and a tedious amount of concentration. Furthermore, it doesn’t take very long to realize that programmers will loose their appreciation. It starts off warm and fuzzy as you save their behinds, but after sending a bug back for the fourth time the programmers no longer feel like sharing the love.

So, in the spirit of Peter’s post… To all those QA tester’s to whom I have passed incomplete features or have forced to regression test immediately before a deadline - I apologize. I now know that the assurance of quality stems from meticulous attention to detail and a rigourous amount of searching, testing, and reporting. You have saved my butt on more than one occasion, and the nature of software QA means that only you and I will every know about the bugs we killed immediately before release.