vanderwal.net

Frustrating week

The floppy sneakernet returned this week as networking access to servers was blocked except port 80 (Web traffic). I have not used a floppy in two years and forgot how slow they were. E-mail was up then crashing. Access to the outside world via the Internet was also up and down. The ability to work easily and efficiently was shot to hell thanks to a company claiming to make an operating system, but its OS product only resembles flaky insecure software.

I was also uncovering many more undocumented features in Microsoft products, such as the save dialog causes Visio 2003 to want to crash. It took 5 minutes to diagram a small application database and 25 minutes to save and print the diagram. Outlook would intermittently hang my workstation for 5 minutes by eating all the computing resources as I clicked to move an e-mail to another folder.

On top of this I took the little green pill. This was to help reduce the itching from a rash on my arms (the rash and itching caused me to go to the doctor who said "you seem to have a rash"). The doctor warned the pill could make me drowsy, which to me translates to tired and cranky for me. I get cranky when I am tired because my mind slows, which I find very annoying. Yes, the pill helps to some degree, as does the cream for the rash.

We have been having some housework done by a contractor and his workers. It was supposed to have been seven days. We are on day 20. The workers don't really seem to know what they are doing and the workmanship is poor as the number cut corners is high. The contractor came highly recommended, but he used to do his own work with his brother-in-law as his partner. We had window frames painted, which seems to mean the window panes get cracked. This week the contractor finally agreed to fix the panes his workmen cracked. Fixing meant taking out the panes and replacing them five days later. We have had plastic food wrap and packing tape covering the holes to keep the bugs out. But being that it is humid the tape gives way and the bugs and hot air come in and cool air goes out. I came home the other night about 11pm to our garage door wide open due to a flaky garage door controller and nobody with a clue to unplug the one door and then lock it. This is the tip of the ice flow as nothing was done properly the first time.

Needless to say by today I was very cranky with the language of a sailor at sea for month or years. I was not even able to write a short coherent e-mail to explain that a PocketPC browser emulator did not actually emulate the functions of the PocketPC browser's use of CSS. It seems that the emulator ignores the external CSS when the media="all"@import attribute is used. A real PocketPC will actually render the page properly. I have been rather impressed with the browser capability in the current PocketPCs, but not enough to get one.

Site clean-up and other bits

Yes, we have done a little house keeping here by updating the links, fixing some of the "Previous Month" links in this section, fixing more non-standards snippets that have remained a bee in my bonnet (more still remain), and creating more continuity in the presentation layer. It is a continual update of design and development of the application that runs the site, but that is what makes it fun. I have been planning some of these fixes for months, but other things cropped up. I am trying to get many of these things done, as well as a long list of other items, before the baby arrives.

Yesterday's diversion was baby CPR class and baby safety, a power outage, trying to track down the contractor who was supposed to have been at the house all day finishing fixing the gutters, roof, and putting storm windows back on (along with a long list of other half done tasks).

Today I woke to a dead car battery and a dead PC. The car had a light that had been left on. The PC seems to have had the power supply die. Joy has been working on some stationary for the kid and printing cards for a small gathering at her sister's and needed to finish printing out the final cards today. I have only been using the PC for playing some older games and syching my Palm to applications that I have not ported or others have not ported to Mac as of yet. I got the car jump started by myself and ran the PC to the shop, it may become a Linux box in the near future, if Joy gets a new PC for work. I am also considering the G5 for a desktop in the Fall or Winter.

10 year anniversary but still not home

Today was the 10th anniversary of my arrival in the Washington, DC area to live. I moved to this area from San Francisco, which I was ready to leave but always ready to return to, to go to Georgetown University for a Masters in Public Policy. I initially planned to get my masters in two years then give Washington up to two more years then move on.

Well it has been a lot more than the initial three or four years I planned on. Actually this is the longest I have lived in any one geographic area. I like and have liked where I live and have lived, the streets and areas, but the Washington Area as a whole has never felt like home. (Oddly I have New York and San Francisco categories for the weblog, but no Washington.)

I have great friends in Washington, well those that are left, but I also have kept friends from previous homes via the Internet and have made friends that I think of as close in mind and focus thanks to the Internet. Actually the Internet is what made Washington a place to live for 10 years. I guess most any place could be livable with the Internet keeping a community I know and trust close by.

Another asset of the Washington area is its proximity to other cities that do feel a little more like they could be home. Baltimore, Philly, New York, and Boston are all a relatively short trip away. Europe is about as far a the West Coast and that has made the experience here enjoyable too.

I am not sure if it will be another 10 years in Washington, but who knows. We enjoy our house, even in its disruptive state of updating and repair. We really like our neighbors and neighborhood (as much as I did living in Arlington, VA too). I guess it is all up to jobs, winds, and other powers that drive us and blow us as to where the next 10 years will take me.

Updates from home

Things are finally calming down after our vacation and adventure. We have mostly unpacked from the trip, but are just starting laundry. I am just finishing digging through a huge pile of e-mail (well over 600) and flagging those I need to get back to, which should come in the next week or so.

We were able to get Joy to an orthopedist on Thursday and she is now in a removable support boot to hold the foot in place and allows for walking. She will be able to take the boot off for showers and swimming, as long as she does not push off with the foot with the fracture. Today she shed the crutches, but will be in the boot or another support device for six weeks or so, yes that means she will be out of the devices (if all goes well) one or two weeks prior to the delivery date. Joy is lucky in that the fracture did not require a cast or surgery, which could have been an option.

We only thought we were home

We had a good week at the shore, not quite relaxing enough or long enough. I have been truely enjoying The Discovery of Heaven, which reminds me of a cross between a Neil Stephenson and Milan Kundera styles with cross currents and bon mots for those who are well read in classical lit and philosophy.

We are home 15 minutes and we are off to the emergency room to have somebody's foot x-rayed from a mis-step in cruddy shoes. Yes, the misses has a small fracture in her foot and will be on crutches the next few weeks, laying down, or hobbling during her last 8 weeks of pregnancy. I will be helping her get to an othopedist tomorrow to get the final judgement on her foot.

Things are quiet here

Things will more than likely be quiet here for a week or so. I am heading out to a land with out Internet connectivity to a room with out a phone (other than the ones in my pockets). I need to decompress, read for fun, and write.

Please keep your self busy with offerings over at the links page if you wish. Good choices are InfoDesign, Zeldman, Digital Web (and DW New), Doc Searls, Curious Lee, Purse Lips Square Jaw, O'Reilly Net, and the Beeb among many other offerings.

Take care of your selves and I will try to do the same. Be sure and write.

Earl Morrough's helpful Information Architecture book

This past week I started reading Earl Morrogh's Information Architecture: An Emerging 21st Century Profession, which is a great short book that looks are communication technologies and their impact on society and how information in each is structured and each of their information architectures. It is a wonderful quick read that draws on what has come before the Web and building upon how information is structured in each of the mediums for best communication purposes.

One thing that surprised me early on in the book is I am quoted. It is odd to be reading along and find yourself quoted in a book that is bound. The quote comes from a discussion in the comments on PeterMe's site, actually it is the same discussion that sprung the void, which in turn inspired the Model of Attraction.

Baby prep and holiday prep

A busy weekend with a handful of errands and two five hour baby birthing classes. It was also the last week of the three week of post birth baby classes. We just have baby CPR left and one last prep class for a baptism and we can just wait for the baby to arrive.

Both of us are ready for the summer heat and humidity to be over and done with. Fortunately our trip to the shore is coming soon.

Speaking of the shore I am between two books for shore reading. One just arrived this week, Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch, which is a 700 plus page story that I have been intrigued with since we saw them filming the movie (only released in Europe) in Amsterdam while on our honeymoon (we saw Stephen Fry at breakfast in our hotel. The second is, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which friends have recommended and I have enjoyed his Notes from a Small Island (a walking tour of Britain). I am leaning toward Discovery of Heaven as I have devoured two rather long books the past two years and I really like having the time to sink into a good long book.

Busy busy busy

You know it is a busy and hectic day when you have to ask the person in the cube next door if you had lunch.

Your help wanted

Okay folks we need a little help here. It is time to offer names, boys names to be specific. We have a girl's name chosen for the baby arriving in October. We do not have a boy's name. Joy is leaning toward Mark(c), but it sounds too much like a politician for my taste, the kid would be running for pre-school class president. Mark does not have a less formal side. My favorite has been Alexander, but was ruled out once I brought up Zander as a nickname to be a fun kid name, but it created to much rhyming with Vander Wal. I also was pulling for my grandfather's name, Jacob, which also has been shot down.

Please help. We could be at this for the next two or three months, if we do not get it nailed down. Yes, we read the NY Times names article over the weekend, which made the problem worse somehow.

Ozzie gets the personal info cloud

Ray Ozzie (of Groove) discusses Extreme Mobility in his recent blog. Ray brings up the users desire to keep their information close to themselves in their mobile devices and synching with their own cloud.

This is the core of the "rough cloud of information" that follows the user, which stems from the Model of Attraction. Over the last few weeks I have spent much time focussing on the "person information cloud". I have a few graphics that I am still working on that will help explain the relationship between the user and information. Much of the focus of Experience Design is on cool interfaces, but completely forgets about the user and their reuse of the information. A draft of the "MoA Information Acquisition Cycle" is avaiable in PDF (76kb).

Ozzie's Groove has had some very nice features for maintaining a personal information cloud, in that it would save copies of documents to the network for downloading by others you are sharing information with. Other people can include one's self on a different machine. One very nice feature was all information stored locally or trasmitted was encrypted. This could be very helpful in a WiFi world where security models are still forming. I have not kept up with Groove as my main machine at home is a Mac and Groove is now very tightly partnered with Microsoft. Groove was one tool I was sad to lose in my transition, but I am still very happy with using an OS that just works.

Big thanks to Mike for pointing this article out.

Jeffrey and Carrie Tie the knot

While in our congratulatory mood, hats off to Jeffrey and Carrie on their marriage last weekend. These are two wonderfully kind, sweet, talented, and bright people who make their life as one. Best wishes and congratulations to them.

Sitting on the porch

We finally picked up some furniture for our sun porch this weekend (more accurately, Joy picked up). This evening we sat in the screen porch and looked out into the yard smelling Magnolia tree blossoms and looking at a rose blossom on a rose plant we did not know we had (we have a great variety of plants that keep color in the yard 9 to 10 months of the year). I brought my dinner outside and ate and took it all in. A little black beans with Sambhar (can be purchased from Terrapin Station Herb Farm topped with cheddar eaten with corn chips was perfect for the cool grey evening listening to the breeze blow through the trees and bushes.

Dineen and Mike introduce Alex

Congratulations Dineen and Mike and welcome Alex.

UPS finally delivers with no explaination

UPS finally delivered the package today after "resetting the delivery date" 6 days later so that the package was "on time" and did not have to record a problem. No there is no problem having the package near its destination the day before the scheduled delivery is promissed then sending the package 1300 miles in 13 hours and being emphatic the package only went ground. Also emphatic there is not a problem with their system as it did not find a problem with having to change the promissed delivery date. They did not find it a problem that it would take a package five days to travel the same distance it did in 13 hours. UPS did not find it a problem that their customer service would stick to their story that the 1300 mile detour rather than a 25 mile delivery was an "act of God" or a weather problem.

I did find out that UPS does not like to admit they have problems or they actually messed up. They do like saying they are not responsible once the package is in their system, as the system looks out for the package.