Geek Cowboy

Software Design Philosophy: Now With More Sausage

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:05:00 +0000

Complex software design is, well, complex. Especially when asked to build a tools to support your business workflow. Mainly because everyone just "knows" how to do it. But so many steps are just assumed that they are often forgotten. I have always advocated that if you really want to improve your business process there is no better way than to create an automated tool. It forces you to literally face every nuance of the process you thought you knew like the back of your hand. The philosophy outlined below is focused at the project manager level. Lead developers and their teams may employ SCRUM or other rapid development methodologies to do the actual coding.

1) Start with work flowing process. Create a Level-0 functional block diagram and Level-1 functional block diagram for each subelement of the level-0 diagrams. Identify all the actors and all the high level interactions. Write it down! Create a matrix to document the interaction between the actors. Identify which data elements need to be shared. Create test cases that you will use when it comes time to test an actual product. This becomes your functional concept.
2) Now envision which UI screens you would want. Do lots of mockups. Focus more on what fields you need, field type, arrangement, size, buttons. Less focus on the aesthetics, colors at this point.
3) Link the screens to the data and actions (from step 1) that should be available at each individual screen.
4) Link the screens and identify which action can occur between screens.
5) Identify what outputs, items to store, metrics to be measured.
6) Ensure you are developing base functionality, wait to add bells and whistles for later. Just get core requirements coded now to accomplish workflow.
7) Rapid prototype, code a little, test a little. Keep an end user of quick dial. Have someone who speaks the business side and is comfortable with technology come in early and often to give opinion and course corrections. Go from module testing to integration testing.
8) Test with real life users and data sets. Get end user feedback. Get them to gripe about everything they hate. Take notice. Document!
9) Identify issues and lessons learned from coding. Document! Strategize what should have been done differently. Identify which features you would want in next version.
10) Throw away prototype. (KEY STEP) That's right, we're using lessons learned from the first draft to start building a much better second draft. We're starting from a clean slate!
11) Design final product. using lessons learned. Again, focus on core functionality.
12) Module tests, Integration tests. User testing, gain with someone who understands the business but can stomach "how the sausage is made" and is willing to accept problems and not get distracted by insignificant details.
13) User acceptance test. People who will be using this for real. Maybe even with people who are tech adverse.
14) Provide in-person or VTC user training and user manual.
15) Launch.
16) Support.
17) Collect feedback, prioritize against "bells and whistles"
18) Iterate. Repeat Steps 11-18 for each new build or version.

21st Century Management Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:51:00 +0000

Senior leaders of any organization need to provide tools and empower subordinates with the decision making authority to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible. To that end, here 2 goals leaders need to keep in mind:

1) Be goal and milestone/deadline oriented vice a micromanager. General George Patton once said "Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." Let people have the freedom to do their work when they want, where they want, and as much as possible how the want. Let them figure out the process, you can still impose requirements on what the final product should like like and what it should explain. But let your people determine the best course to get there based on their natural skills, talents, and demands.

Furthermore I advocate for elimination of time cards. They are great 20th century industrial relic. Most office employees are salaried anyways. Take their salary divide it by the number of pay periods and be done with it. Be upfront and offer incentives for early delivery of deliverables that meet the predetermined requirements. Reward quality work and don't make people guess what it takes to be rewarded. It may sound like advocating for people to work hard only to get a bonus, and in some ways that is the new reality. With pensions and 401(k) drying up, people have no other real way to save for retirement. It is not unheard of for major tech firms to drop six-figure bonuses in an employees pocket for launching a product on time. Employers no longer reward loyalty, so you have to reward success else people jump ship. Staying with one company for an entire career is no longer reality.

2) Never do data calls. Data needed by senior leaders for strategic decision making should be simply a rollup of the process metrics that people doing the actual work do every day. Never make someone break from their work to answer data calls about work quality, it should come from automated metrics naturally reaped from the day-to-day workflow.

Metrics should evaluate the quality of work, not the quantity of work. I.T. help desks are notorious for being driven by the metric of number of service tickets closed. Not how well they helped the customer, but rather if they closed a trouble ticket within a certain time limit regardless if they solved the problem or not. That doesn't equate to happy customers. And unhappy customers means dropping profit. So you need to no find ways to measure the quality of the service you provide, not the quantity. Incentivizing customers to answer a survey (say a $5 credit or gift card for their next purchase) is a much better way of getting real feedback about the quality of the service provided.

None of this is easy, but the times are changing. You really don't have a choice but to adapt to the realities of the 21st century. Those realities often hinge on the fact we live in 24/7/365 connected world where capitalism reins supreme and is driving us to be hyper efficient and hyper adaptable because it's just too darn easy for startup to swoop in and steal your thunder and your people. Manage well!

110 Countries Can't Be Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:12:00 +0000

Folks from 110 countries have visited this blog. Yowza!

Converging Evolution of the Computer and Smartphone

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:23:00 +0000

I was recently asked where I think computer, smartphones and the rest of the digital gadgets are heading over the next 25 years. So I sat down and looked around at the various gadgets I own today. I also took a trip down memory lane to remember the devices I used to own and what current toys have replaced them. Mashing all that together and thinking what would make my life easier (yes, I know it is a first world problem, but bare with me here). In the end, it came down to the fact we have lots of devices and they overlap with other devices in many ways. But syncing them is a pain in the butt. So in the end, I believe there will only be one smart device and a lot of dumb terminals. Yes, that which is old is new again. Think...cloud. With all that swimming around in my gray matter, I have determined that in the end, the convergence will lead us to a really awesome wristwatch. But this ain't your grandpa's wristwatch. It's going to be the hub of your digital existence. I say this because it is the one device I believe you can truly always have on you. Take your iPhone squeeze down to the form factor of the iPod nano, and you get the idea. See the graphic below for more details.

Well, that's my two cents. Check back in 25 years to see if I am right.

Assembly Programming with Parallax Propeller

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:46:00 +0000

Using a Parallax Propeller microcontroller and some assembly language, we can get a nice strobing LED effect.

And now for some code, you can also grab it here.

Android Source Code Available

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:19:00 +0000

I have made my source code for my Android apps available at https://sites.google.com/site/geekcowboynet/files. Feel free to share, re-use, do whatever with.

Truth.

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:37:00 +0000

Petition for Congressional Term Limits

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:22:00 +0000

George Washington once said "The people must remain ever vigilant against tyrants masquerading as public servants."

Our forefathers saw political service as solemn duty and responsibility, but not as a career. Too often we have seen abuses of legislative power come from the long tenure of legislators in Congress and the relations they build with special interests. If we cannot have campaign finance reform then we must impose term limits to ensure that the civil liberties of the People come before preferential treatment to special interests with deep pockets no individual could ever hope to match.

Having new people in Congress every few years ensures complacency is dissolved and that more Americans have the opportunity to serve and offer their experiences to the legislative process.

Please sign the petition today at http://wh.gov/KmP

There's Gold in Them Thar Asteroids

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:59:00 +0000

I firmly believe than the best way for mankind to solve the aliments that plague us on Earth is venture out into the cosmos. Now I would love to live in the Utopian future of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek but at this point I would settle for the more realistic reality of Joss Whedon's Firefly.

Assuming capitalism continues to play dominate role in society and the reality the non-renewable resource do eventually run out (sorry drill, baby, drill folks; it's true) we need to look elsewhere. I believe that the time is ripe to expand beyond our purely scientific pursuits in space and begin to exploit the resources to enrich our all of humanity. I think the first step we ought to take is the mining of asteroids. Aside from the R&D that will be required (and the associated byproducts that will come out of it to better humanity, think DARPAnet leading to the Internet) it is just a darn cool vision that mankind is finally making the first steps to permanent presence into space.

Take for instance the asteroid Eros. It is conservatively estimated to contain 20,000 million tons of metals such as platinum, gold, and aluminum, each! Put it another way, there is more precious metals easily accessible on Eros than has ever been excavated from Earth. Think about that. We can stop mining our homeworld, let it heal, and instead exploit uninhabitable asteroids for a lot more loot.

So, are we up for it? Are we ready to seize the gold in them thar asteroids?

Hollywood is Chasing a Phantom Menace

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:53:00 +0000

I think the movie industry was so afraid of what happened to the music industry that they put too much effort in combating the illusion of mass piracy of video material. I will concede piracy of music due to much smaller file size, thus easier to share over the average Internet connection, was more of a "real problem". By chasing a phantom problem for video and not adopting to an iTunes-esque business model they were not contending with the real issue. What has really killed (and will continue to do so even more) the VIDEO entertainment industry is the fact that everyone can now produce high quality content and we all have access to a free distribution channels such as as YouTube, Vimeo, etc. Also, Hollywood focuses way to much on quantity of movies than their quality. But that's another issue altogether.

Just as the dead tree book industry is on it's last legs due to the excessive cost of distributing dead trees to brick and mortar stores, so to is the old movie distribution model. Why would any smart business person print off 1,000 of books with no real knowledge of the actual demand. eBooks are created once (all upfront cost) and then can be reproduced for free (no tail costs). Same is happening with physical media such as DVDs, CDs, and Blurays. Physical media has upfront costs, tail costs, and at best you are guessing at what the demand will be. With virtual goods you set it and forget it. Case in point, I threw together an old college thesis into an ebook and throw it up on Amazon for no reason other than morbid curiosity of the process required to go from Word Doc to an on sale eBook. Over the course of a few weeks with 0 advertising I made $10 from a paper I wrote 10 years ago. Now I sure as heck am not quitting my day job, but that's actual cash from someone who has no inspiration to be a writer, who never hired an agent or publisher, put $0 to market the "book", and spent about 30 minutes from having the idea to putting a book up to actually having it online and ready for Amazon's review. By my math, that is a 100% ROI. Spent nothing, made $10. I was able to buy a footlong Subway sandwich that week!

Back to the original point, just as it is darn simple to put a book up on Amazon, so too will it be simple to produce Hollywood-esque quality video and distribute outside the "dead cellulose" channels. Think it can't happen? Comedian Louis C.K. threw together a comedy video for $200K, bypassed all the normal distribution and made it available DRM-free, and all he asked was for $5 via PayPal. 12 days later he had made over $1,000,000. Boom baby.

So Hollywood you can keep fighting phantom piracy concerns with your overbearing and Draconian attempts (Hello ACTA, and SOPA, and PIPA, and you too DMCA) to silence people. But we will win. There is a great movie, I believe ya'll produced it, call "V for Vendetta". Check it out. Or you can join the rest of the world and innovate and recreate yourself for the 21st century. The choice is yours and it is yours to lose. Cause trust me, most people (geeks aside) don't have the patience or the bandwidth to download the amount of video you claim. Plus, is it ever good business sense to make your customers the enemy?

The Battle Is Won, The War Still Wages

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 03:10:00 +0000

SOPA/PIPA may be dead. But the fight for our rights continues. Next up is HR 1981 with the very cleverly titled "The Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011" because really, who would vote against protecting children? But just like one should never judge a book by it's cover, you shouldn't judge a bill by it's title. Here are some highlights from this article.

"Bill H.R.1981 contains legal responsibility for any Internet Service Provider to keep detailed records of "your Internet activity for 12 months, your name, the address where you live, your bank account numbers, your credit card numbers, and any IP-addresses you've been assigned."

"As Rep. James Sensenbrenner says, (R-Wisc.): "It poses numerous risks that well outweigh any benefits, and I'm not convinced it will contribute in a significant way to protecting children."

So trust me my friends, while we MAY have won the SOPA/PIPA battle, we are far from winning the civil liberties war. Protecting children from predators is of a paramount importance, even more so than protecting the financial gains of artists and their middlemen, errrr, I mean labels and studios. But again, when it comes to the Internet, you can't let lawyers craft legalese that amounts to a blunt instrument that clobbers the civil rights of those who don't break the law. I would urge those lawmakers behind HR1981 to go talk to the Facebooks, Twitter, Google, and Craigslist of the world to help craft a law that actually protects children AND still preserves our civil liberties and avoids a dystopian future, a la "1984".

Protest SOPA and PIPA

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:11:00 +0000

Be Prepared! Many websites, not just Wikipedia will be offline on January 18th to protest the deceivingly titled "Stop Online Privacy Act" or SOPA. The truth is that this act would give the U.S. Government the ability to shutdown the Internet if their corporate masters find something online that doesn't suit their fancy. In short, imagine if the Government could destroy the road to your house because you were SUSPECTED of doing something wrong; SOPA would do the something by destroying the "road" (aka DNS) to your favorite websites. Government overreach at it's worst.

The fundamental freedom of the Internet is under attack by corporate greed acting through their bought and paid for Congressmen. I would encourage everyone to contact your representatives and ask them to NOT support House Bill 3261 (SOPA) and Senate Bill 968 (PIPA). We the People will not tolerate this brazen attack on our civil liberties. To contact your Congress critter, try the links below:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

While you're at it, you can also sign a petition to demand the President to veto SOPA/PIPA should either bill be passed by Congress:

https://act.demandprogress.org/act/veto_sopa/

UPDATE: Here is the letter I am sending to my Congress critters, feel free to use and modify as needed:

Senator Cardin,

The fundamental freedom of the Internet is under attack by corporate greed under the fake guise of protecting IP. I would encourage you to speak with computer engineers, scientists, and other technologists to get the facts. House Bill 3261 (SOPA) and Senate Bill 968 (PIPA) do nothing short of destroying the free and open Internet while doing little else. We the People will not tolerate this brazen attack on our civil liberties.

The truth is that these acts would give the U.S. Government the ability to shutdown the GLOBAL Internet with little due cause. In short, imagine if the Government could destroy the road to my house because I was SUSPECTED of doing something wrong; SOPA would do the same thing by destroying the "road" (aka DNS) to Internet websites. Government overreach at it's worst.

Please do NOT support House Bill 3261 (SOPA) and Senate Bill 968 (PIPA).

Respectfully,
Michael Parks

JavaScript, HTML, XML, CSS, and PHP

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:42:00 +0000

JavaScript, HTML, XML, CSS, and PHP. Wow, that's a mouth full. But these are the programming/scripting/markup languages I intend to remaster over the year. I have been away from hardcore programming for quite some time. But I do recall the great joy in the art. So there we, I suppose this is my new year resolutions. I have WAMP and NetBeans IDE installed on the laptop. Any suggestions on a better IDE?

A Tale of Two Cities (Of Customer Support)

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:59:00 +0000

I am currently going through a process with both mine and my wife's cellphones. We are both on Verizon and she has a iPhone 4 and I have a Droid X. Actually I am on my second Droid X, and it too has recently died. Like kaput. Dead. It won't even get to the boot screen. The green LED flashes a bit then dies. The Home button on my wife's iPhone has stopped working after a software update. So I do what every red-blooded American would do, I go into the Verizon store. Oh by the way, we've been Verizon customers for over 10 years, that's called loyalty since it lasts longer than a Hollywood marriage.

I give it to the tech, he verifies my story with a battery pull, an attempted hard reset, validation of no water damage. Now, I was under the impression based on the last time that I replaced my Droid X that I was still covered by warranty on the refurb model. This apparently was not the case. Ok fine. But we are now talking about replacing my Droid X with yet another refurbished Droid X, if I pay for it. And it will get to me in about 6 days, yea, this is the week of Christmas pal, sure it will. Aside from that absurdity, come on folks, lemon laws apply. Maybe it really is just me and I have bad luck but I am tired of the getting all these lemons. So enough is enough. I am only a few months out from contract renewal, I think to myself. How about I sign off on a renewed 2-year contract (giving you, Mr. Verizon a two year guarantee on my money) and I pay another ungodly amount of money to purchase a new phone since the Droid X has been put to pasture. They can't or rather won't do. The best "offer" is to add another line for $9.99, transfer my phone number and data package to that plan and then cancel the original line when my original contract is up. Folks, making your customer jump through hoops doesn't buy you any loyalty. So here I leave to contemplate my options and give Verizon a call over the phone, maybe corporate can do something. Guess what, bingo! The young lady on the phone, after 45 minutes of back and forth, finally agrees to move my upgrade date up. I just need to go into any "corporate" Verizon Wireless store, ask to speak to the manager and the magic would be done. Great! So next day head back to the Verizon store. Guess what, they can't or won't honor that promise the customer service rep made last night. Wait, what? Your people told me they'd take care of it, now you're telling me you can't. And to top it off the in-store people can't do anything but let me call back to the phone people again. Now why in the heck would I want to do that? Even if they promised me a million dollars was waiting for me at the store, you wouldn't honor the agreement anyway. Really, this is customer service? So now I am left with the choice of no phone or buying another refurb Droid X. Grrr.... let's move on now, shall we?

Now, let's contrast this to wife's experience. She has the luxury of bypassing Verizon altogether and she went to the Apple Store. Let me see if I can make this as complicated as I can. They grabbed a brand-new iPhone off the shelf, set it up for her, and handed it to her. Yup, how's that for customer service?! Darn, that's not complicated at all. One quick check to verify no water damage was all it took. I can't think of anything else to say, except thanks Apple!

Say what you want about Apple but the bottom line is they know how to take care of the loyal customers. No games, no hoops, no crap. Google, Motorola, HTC, and Samsung take note that because of the crappy experience that wireless providers (e.g. Verizon) give to customers means I am switching to Apple, where they actually care about their customers.

Function, Not Form

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 01:31:00 +0000

When I study a problem the thing that is foremost on my mind is do I understand the problem at its most basic functional level? To get past the current form of a thing so as not be prejudiced by how things are done today in their current form. To understand the function of thing vice the form is critical to building a solution that solves the problem for tomorrow, not yesterday. To help explain what I mean consider a library. If I asked you to build a library, what would the result be? A building for sure, one with many books perhaps? Maybe some computers? Maybe a place to study or if you are even more open minded, perhaps a place to look and listen to media, music, video, etc. But I would argue that you have yet to really understand what is the essential function of a library, you have described what makes up a library, not what a library is. In this day and age I find it amazing that libraries still exist. Sure there is a niche population in every neighborhood that a traditionally defined library still and will probably always serve. But in the age of the Internet when all media can be digitized and flung around the world for zero cost, does a dead tree library make sense? In the near future Amazon Kindles will be free, the hardware will simply become a content delivery mechanism. The razor to the razor blades so to speak. However, much content is free, many works of art exist in the public domain. So where does this leave one of the most important monuments to the American community, the noble library? Simply put, it is dead. At least it is dead in the way we traditionally defined the term "library". This goes back to my first point of trying to understand the pure function of a library. In my mind's eye, a library is avenue to share knowledge. And in the interests of not totally destroying the original concept, I will concede it be an actual physical building for the public to go to. But inside, the game changes.

I believe America has been led astray when it comes to educating her populace. In primary and secondary education we have become so enamored at teaching to the test that we no longer have anyone who can think creatively and solve problems uniquely. We have taught a generation to be robots who simply rely on the concept of rote memorization as a testament to intelligence. Then in undergraduate education, we have become so damn greedy that we will create degrees (Bachelor of Arts in Leisure Study, seriously?) simply to convince our children that everyone "deserves" a degree and that they should take out huge loans, stymie their financial health before they even have job, and earn that sheepskin! Trust us, that is the American dream! In short, we have a bunch of "educated" people that cannot find themselves out of a brown paper bag.

This is where I think American libraries come in to play as we reinvent the future of the American workforce and education. Enter the idea of hackerspaces but on a much broader scale than teaching just tech. Teaching tech skills or any hands-on skills that make people productive (no, sorry PowerPoint showmanship and Excel wizardry doesn't count) coupled with personal manufacturing (think MakerBots) will be key to America's revitalization in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Back to the reality that entrepreneurship is about YOU creating something with your hands, selling physical or virtual goods, and building that into a sustainable business. Entrepreneurship is not "investing" in other people's startups, if you didn't invent it you aren't an entrepreneur, sorry. So take a look at the hackerspace link above and see the future of libraries.

Steve Job: Facilities Planner

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 17:17:00 +0000

I've been reading the Steve Jobs biography and was taken aback by how
involved he was with facilities planning. Here are some highlight:
- Inspired early on by Joseph Eichler and Frank Lloyd Wright. Eichler
from 1950-1974 built inexpensive homes with floor-to-ceiling glass
walls, open floors plans, exposed post-and-beam construction, concrete
slab floors, and lots of sliding glass doors. Jobs commented that
Eichler's homes were smart, cheap, and good. They brought clean
design and simple taste to lower-income people. They had awesome
little features like radiant heating in the floors. This inspired
Jobs to create nicely designed products for the mass market.
- He was days away from revealing the prototype Apple Store to the
board when he realized he got the design wrong by dividing up the
store by product versus the different activities you could do with an
Apple product. He said "We've only got one chance to get it right"
and even though the redesign added 4 months to the planned store
rollout; he scrapped the prototype and started again.
- Steve personally selected the sandstone for all Apple floors from a
quarry in Italy. His rules regarding the shading, veining, and purity
meant that they only pick 3% of the stone that comes out of the
quarry.
- For their New York store, they initially had 18 pieces of glass per
side. Steve wanted 4 huge panes and that was not possible at the
time. So he did what the CEO of any good consumer electronics company
would do, he had Apple build their own Autoclaves to make the glass.
His interested in glass and materials science has been a lifelong
obsession. The iPhone was the first product to use Corning's gorilla
glass, 40 years after it was invented.
- The glass spiral staircases in the New York City Apple Store were
designed by Jobs and he received two patents for the design. One was
for the all-glass treads and glass/titanium supports; the other for
the engineering system that uses a monolithic unit of glass containing
multiple glass sheets laminated together to support loads.
- His last public appearance as Apple CEO was in the role of a land
developer; proposing the new Apple HQ (aka the Spaceship) to the
Cupertino City Council. Here is the video of his presentation to the
City Council, compare those slides to a typical corporate brief!
http://youtu.be/gtuz5OmOh_M
- The most prolific facilities planning guidance he gave was the
following when designing Pixar studio. Originally the Pixar team
wanted a traditional layout for an animation studio that had multiple
buildings and bungalows for each animation team. After all they could
communicate via email and iChat. Steve VETOED that. His assertion
was "There's a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can
be developed by email and iChat. That's crazy. Creativity comes from
SPONTANEOUS meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone,
you ask what they're doing, you say 'Wow' and soon you're cooking up
all sorts of ideas." Thus, Steve saw to it that the Pixar building
was designed to promote encounters and unplanned collaborations. They
designed the building to make people get out of their offices and
mingle in the central atrium with people they may not otherwise see.
The front doors and main stairs all led to the atrium. All the
conference rooms had windows that looked out to the atrium. John
Lasseter recalled that "I kept running into people I hadn't seen in
months. I've never seen a BUILDING that promoted collaborations and
creativity as well as this one."

Re-inventing The Workplace

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 03:21:00 +0000

Computers and the Internet have undoubtedly changed our world forever and in the most fundamental ways. Email replacing faxes, video teleconferencing replacing cross-country flights, and virtual folders replacing physical ones. And even with all the amazing technology we have at our disposal, we have not really updated the physical workplace to maximize the potential of our virtual world. Here are some thoughts about re-inventing the workplace for the 21st century:

Elimination of Assigned Work Spaces. Offices and cubicles are designed to separate and isolate. Today collaboration is key and the 20th century notion of a work space not only inhibits that collaboration but also costs money. The wall of offices and cubicles take up precious floor space, thus reducing overall useful space. Unfortunately many people associate their status with the size and amenities of their office. I propose gutting offices and leaving large open spaces with clusters of desks, chairs, smartboards, and other technical amenities. And instead of assigning these spaces to a specific person or team, I would suggest leaving it to a first come, first serve basis every morning. And for larger corporations spread across a campus of buildings I envision a Foursquare-esque app that leads a team check-in and claim a space every morning. The first person would arrive, find a space, check-in and this would in turn notify the rest of the team members where they will be working today.
Telecommute. Unless you absolutely need to be at a specific physical location to do your job (e.g. security guard, scientist in a laboratory) then I recommend letting employees telecommute as much as possible.
Everyone Gets a Laptop and a Smartphone. The new workforce is mobile and constantly on the go. Even if your organization is not, sometimes disasters occur and you want your people to be able to work remotely from home or some alternate location. Today laptops are as cheap as desktops with near identical performance. There are few tasks that justify a desktop but that mainly is relegated to engineers and scientist who need to tinker with the guts of the computer. Every employee should use a laptop. As for smartphones, most organizations only provide such phones to their executives or very important people (e.g. I.T. team). And granted the monthly costs currently are high to operate a smartphone; however the smartphone is the ultimate evolution of the personal computer. Eventually every employee should be given one. Over the next 20 years smartphones or tablets with phone capability will be the de facto computer for all.
No More Expensive Video Teleconferencing Equipment. That fancy laptop, tablet, or smartphone you just bought your employees? Yea, it has all the equipment you need for teleconferencing. Just add a reliable service such as Skype or GoToMeeting and your set. Good bye expensive Polycom equipment.
Move It To The Cloud. Google Docs has got it right. Work needs to reside locally and in the cloud. The cloud provides offsite backup and collaboration. Local storage allows you to work even without connectivity. Now certainly the future will be 100% reliable high-speed Internet access that will make local storage unnecessary, but in the interim, both will do.
Metrics that Actually Measure. Ah yes, the bane of employees, metrics. In my opinion, the only valuable metrics are based on data that is generated automatically by the information system that is the backbone to a process. In other words, an employee should not have to collect and sift data at the end of the month to muster into a report and call it "metrics". An employee should never have to generate metrics, they should focus on actually accomplishing that what they are hired to do, hopefully that is work that is in direct support of product or customer support. Instead the system the employee uses should, without their direct manipulation, monitor their productivity and store that metadata behind the scenes. Their manager should be able, whenever they so desire, query that metadata and be given information (not data) about the quality of the employees work performance.

The other concept that will need to be eliminated is the idea of a standard 9am to 5pm, 40-hour work week. It is a waste of time and resources to do timecards. This will require good management skills, but manager get paid accordingly. Task your people, give them a deadline and let them figure out how to best meet the objective. Some may work best at night, others are early birds. Stop forcing everyone to be the same. In short, STOP THE 20th CENTURY THINKING!

Stateside Man Goods

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:20:00 +0000

Check this out...Stateside Man Goods. They sell care packages filled with stuff guys like! They also sell great swag, gear, and garbs that appeals to a more "manly" audience. Great for college kids or... bonus points...you can send our Troops care packages! The founder himself is U.S. Marine Corps veteran. They are at http://statesidemangoods.com Please pass this along.

Built To Be Inefficient

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:26:00 +0000

If there is one that pisses me off more than anything at work it's
when leadership in my organization pontificates about the importance
of being efficient yet won't put intp policy or pay for the tools to
allow 21st knowledge workers to actually be efficient. Now granted I
work for the government, we are naturally slow and we are privy to
sensitive information. But to argue that Ford or Google are any less
interested in the security of their intellectual property than the
government is about sensitive information, is an asinine argument. As
of October 2011 my orgnization still runs Windows XP and Internet
Exploder 7. Many useful webtools don't support Windows XP or IE7
forcing many of us to accept less than perfect work cause we don't
have access to tools others outside the government have access to.
Some very high ranking officials have access to Blackberries (iPhone
and Android be damned) and desktops are the rule, and laptops the
exception. Tablets? Ha! Oh, no webcams for video conferences, we
still rely on expensive industrial grade videoteleconfering equipment.
So when leaders talk about being efficient and don't give us the
tools to actually be efficient in the 21st century I give them 0
credibility.

Radio Merit Badge

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 18:01:00 +0000

With Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) happening next weekend (October 15-16, 2011) I will be teaching Radio merit badge at our local Fall camporee. In preparation for that, I have put together a presentation that will help me stay on track while teaching. Figure it may help others out too so I put it up on SlideShare. Attributions for the graphics and info will be coming soon.

What I Have Learned From Steve Jobs

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 03:30:00 +0000

Steve Jobs passed away this past week. Regardless of how you feel about Jobs or Apple, you can not deny that the man and the company have forever changed the world. His passing gives us a moment to pause and reflect. I eagerly await his biography due in a few weeks. In the mean time, I will retrospect based on his many speeches (available on YouTube) and the Steve Wozniak biography, iWoz.

Every now and then there comes a person who is born before his or her time. Da Vinci, Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein, Ford, Bell, Tesla, Edison, and Jobs. The vast majority of us can only appreciate the world as we can see it today, we become attached to the now and our present condition. But every now and then one of these dreamers comes along. And they change things. Not just in subtle ways. But rather in huge, earth shattering and revolutionary ways. They turn everything on its side. They disrupt the status quo. Human progress is not evolutionary, it is more aptly described as a step function. Every now and then there is a huge change that occurs overnight followed by some period of flat line, then another major, overnight change. This occurs throughout our history. Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Information Revolution.

Change pisses off a lot of people. People like big businessmen, lawyers, politicians. The type of people whose power, control and wealth lies in keeping things the way they are, the way they've always been. What I have learned from Steve Jobs is that to change the world you must be ruthless in your pursuit of change and absolutely committed to your vision.. And though Steve Jobs didn't face the religious persecution that some of the aforementioned men faced, he did face exile from his own company at the hands of men who think small and conform with the status quo. And these businessmen nearly destroyed Apple. But Steve Jobs remained committed to his dream throughout his Apple exile.

And what was this dream? Computers, digital devices? Yes, but really no. Steve once remarked in a company meeting that at it's core Apple was company that believed the people with passionate can change the world. The computer was simply the tool that Apple made to allow people to do those big things. In a sense, his revolution was about enabling others to have their own revolutions. He got the technology out of the way so people could be enabled to do big things.

Steve Jobs is what I would call the Greatest Re-Inventor mankind has ever known. Part of the Steve Jobs' genius, and make arguably separate good engineers from great ones, is the ability to connect the dots of what others have or are doing. Never waster resources in re-inventing the wheel or playing catchup. Jobs and Wozniak didn't invent the computer per se, but they made a computer that a normal human being could use. Jobs didn't create the MP3 player, he simply made one that was easy to use. He didn't invent cellphones, but he made one that could do the work of a computer and place it in your pocket. Steve once remarked the Xerox could've been the IBM or Microsoft of the computer world. Yes, the same guys that make your photocopier. See, Xerox's R&D folks actually invented the first useable graphical user interface (GUI). But the executives of Xerox couldn't see the future and they couldn't understand what their engineers had created. So basically they gave away the farm. Steve Jobs asked if he could visits Xerox's R&D shop and tin what may be the greatest business blunder ever gave away the GUI. Steve could see the future was GUI and from what he saw that day he went back to create the first Mac.

What I have learned from Steve is that too many people in this world are small-minded and can never dream of creating a better tomorrow. A lot of people are okay with mediocrity and can see only to next quarter. You must not allow yourself to be surrounded by those who embrace the status quo, or worse, want to drive mankind backwards. Don't waste your time arguing with them either, it's time you could put to better use perfecting your dream. Too many simply can't comprehend the implications of earth shattering innovations. You must have vision to change the world not just for some, but for all mankind. And your execution of your vision demands nothing less than perfection. You must not only demand perfection from yourself but also from those who you surround yourself with to bring your dream into reality. Lastly, presentation. People don't care about MIPS or megahertz, Steve once said. Any invention that fundamentally changes how we live our daily lives is no doubt a technological wonder. But it's not what people care about, what they care about is how better their life will be by embracing the change you have wrought vice the technology innovation itself. Sell the dream not the thing.

If I look out over the next 50 years and try to imagine what the world will look like, I listen to the politicians and CEOs who are bashing current innovations as being "inefficient" or a "waste of resources." And that's precisely where I bet my money. I bet against the shortsighted and narrow-minded people who can only see next quarters profits of the next election. Renewable energy. Anyone who thinks for a damn second that simply replacing foreign oil with coal or natural gas is the solution is a damn fool. The future is solar, wind, ocean, geothermal. The future is a smart electric grid. The future is electric cars that have batteries that last hundreds of miles between charges. The future is wireless Internet for everyone, with access to the Internet as a fundamental human right. The future is space exploration beyond Earth orbit. The future is mining asteroid, colonizing the moon and Mars, traveling outside our solar system. It won't be easy, and there will be setbacks along the way. But not being afraid of being wrong is another lesson learned from Jobs.

Thank you Steve Jobs not just for the toys but more importantly for demonstrating how dreams and innovators must go about changing the world.

2011 Ford Edge and myFord Touch

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:33:00 +0000

We recently traded in our 2003 Saturn Vue for a 2011 Ford Edge SEL. Though having a new car payment isn't exactly fun, the Edge does definitely feels like I am getting my monies worth. The old Saturn was as barebones as I could get it. I feel as though I upgraded from a Model T to a shuttlecraft from the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Ford hit a big rut a while back. The joke was that FORD stood for Fixed Or Repaired Daily. Well, this ain't your granddaddies Ford. The current CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally is an engineer by degree and background, and frankly it shows. The 2011 Ford Edge walks that delicate balance between form and function, sacrificing neither. First of all it looks gorgeous and rugged. It handles amazingly well, coming very close to driving like a car that should cost 2 or 3 times as much. I bought mine from Preston Ford in Hurlock, MD and had to drive almost 150 miles home. That trip only cost me about $8.50 is gas. My old Saturn would've been 3/4 of a tank or about $30 for the same trip.

But it is the tech that really seals the deal. Microsoft Sync technology, branded as myFord Touch, is embedded into the Ford Edge. I do believe it as good as the Enterprise's computer from the imaginary world of Star Trek. Except this is reality. Speak to have a vehicle health report emailed to you. Make calls and text message friends or family simply by speaking. Look up music, set temperature all using your voice. Have news, weather, stocks, traffic, sports all read back to you, and customized for your specific interests. Customize your displays, two 4-inch LCDs replace the normal driver's panel and a gorgeous 8-inch display sits in the center console. I won't waste time here explaining every little function since Ford does such as great job over that their website syncmyride.com. Suffice it to say that I highly recommend the 2011 Ford Edge from the tech perspective. Any vehicle equipped with Microsoft Sync technology is worth a look, especially the newer Touch based options. The Edge itself is a fantastic vehicle that is priced reasonably. Be warned that the Lincoln MKX is that same basic vehicle with a few "luxury" upgrades and the opportunity to pay a luxurious price. Take a look at the Ford Edge before going Lincoln because the myFord Touch technology, the real game changer, is the same in both. Save that cash and go buy a new iPod Touch or maybe an Xbox for the car. Below are some videos I took of our Edge.

Project File Hosting

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:29:00 +0000

I am now using Google Sites to host any of the source code files or other project files needed for the projects I am working on. Visit here google.com/site/geekcowboynet/files

I have added the creatrope X10 Arduino Send/Receive library. Check it out.

Lego Mindstorm Claw Machine

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 00:25:00 +0000

I mentioned earlier I volunteered to help with my daughter's school and their Lego FIRST robotics team. Today I find out that some schools have "pre-seasons" and build things like this Bluetooth claw machine. Man do I need to whip these kids in shape ;) I just hope the kids learn and that this isn't something for parents to correct their own childhoods.

Ham Radio Sites

noreply@blogger.com (Mike Parks) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:06:00 +0000

HRDLog.net: Web-based logbook.
QRZ.com: The one and only place to lookup your fellow hams,
eqsl.cc: Electronic QSL cards.
73s.org: Social network for hams.
websdr.org: Web-based Software Defined Radio. Listen to the ham bands from an Internet-based computer.
aprs.fi: Track ham radio operators who are using the Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) on top of Google Maps. Also you can use APRSdroid on your Android device to give APRS position reports and communicate via APRS packet if you don't have a traditional radio capable of APRS.
Google Hangouts: Just like hackerspaces are taking to Google Hangouts, so to are ham operators. The real fun is to mute your audio, broadcast video only and try to communicate verbally over the ham frequencies.

Where to but Ham Stuff

hamradio.com: Be sure to check out their previously owned section to grab great gear, tested out, for a fraction of the cost of new.
gigaparts.com
hamcity.com
buddipole.com: Great universal antenna package.
universal-radio.com
mfjenterprises.com
ldgelectronics.com
eham.net: Great resource to read reviews before you buy.

Other tools:

Google Earth: Check out this post to see how you can go about plotting QSOs in Google Earth.
Digipan: For digital mode transmissions. Free!
Ham Radio Deluxe: The mothership of ham radio control software...for free!