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At New England GiveCamp This Weekend

New England GiveCamp 2010So I’ve got my assignment for New England GiveCamp, and by this time Friday I’ll be clacking away on my laptop, alongside some 100 other computer programmers, graphic designers and other volunteers at Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center.

That’s right, NERD. Silly acronym, absolutely awesome building right on the MIT campus in Cambridge, at Memorial Drive and Main Street.

According to the coordinators, I’ll be working on a project for the Goshen Land Trust, helping them integrate Quickbooks, Giftworks and Excel. They also want to talk about social media.

This charity is after my own heart: They preserve open and green spaces in Goshen, Conn. I am a sincere believer in open space / green belt concept — that is, ensuring every community has fields, woods and otherwise undeveloped land — is valuable; the bigger the community, the more important open space becomes.

Of course, one would expect that; I do live in Maine and I was raised on hunting and fishing.

I also live next to a playground that is essentially a pool, basketball court, swing set and large, open field; and every day, from the first time the thermometer tops 50° to the first snowfall, that playground is full of people from all walks of life, enjoying fresh air and exercise.

Is this project the most exciting thing I’ve ever been asked to do? No, it is not. Is it the most challenging thing I’ve ever been asked to do? Again, no. And I’m not entirely sure it’s going to take all weekend to do it. I’m not even sure it’s going to take past lunch on Saturday.

But I was reminded by my project leader that the object of the camp is to help out people who need it, even if what they need isn’t the next Facebook. And I’ve also been promised that there will be plenty for me to do, even if we finish early.

I was planning on staying at NERD this weekend, since they offered, and they have showers, and hotels anywhere in or near Cambridge aren’t exactly cheap.

But then I found out they have three showers for guys, and there are 50+ people planning on staying at NERD, almost all of them men.

Believe me, I’ve roughed it. I’ve spent several nights camping with others during winter, when washing wasn’t an option. I’ve been elbow-deep in ruptured game-animal entrails on many occasions. Stench and grime isn’t a problem for me.

But there is no way I am getting into a shower that’s been immediately used by at least 10 people before me. That’s simply unsanitary. I don’t care how clean and healthy everyone at this thing is; showering like that is begging to get ill.

Anyway, time and circumstances allowing, I plan to blog, or at least tweet, over the weekend. Stay tuned.

All links in this post on delicious: http://delicious.com/dougvdotcom/at-new-england-givecamp-this-weekend

Posted Thursday, June 10, 2010, 9:13 PM »  Filed under Musings »  Tagged , , , ,
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It’s All Chinese To Me: Reader Has Google Translate Built-In

I really like Google Reader; one of its great features is its recommendations. As long as you choose to “like” articles and media on a fairly consistent basis, Reader can do a very good job of finding new content and sources (provided, that is, they come from a Feedburner RSS feed).

Because Google expected me to have at least a modicum of Internet savvy — perhaps from the nature of the things I “like” and share — Reader occasionally sends along to me tweets written in Chinese.

A tweet written in Chinese

Google Reader suggests a tweet, but it's all Chinese to me. Note the "not interested" tick is checked. That's because I failed to RTFM.

According to Google Translate, the tweet above reads:

RT @ aiww: Ha, yes. RT @ luanmazi: Republic of the “unsung heroes” bei RT @ june197433: “China’s Internet status” throughout the White Paper did not mention GFW, Fang Bin-Xing Academy of Engineering uncomfortable it? Http://aa.cx/r85 @ aiww

That’s clear enough: China doesn’t mention, in its recent statement on the Internet, the school where China’s infamous firewall was developed.

As the “not interested” tick indicates, previously I had been marking these Chinese tweets to disappear, but I’ve been getting 2-3 per week, despite my attempt to indicate I can’t read Chinese. It’s time-consuming to copy and paste these tweets into Translate; I already waste enough time on Reader, Twitter and Facebook.

Which sent me on a quest to find a way to translate Reader posts inline.

Being a typical programmer, my initial thought was a $10 solution to a 50-cent problem: I could use the Reader and Translate APIs to do on-the-fly translations. That, however, was quickly dismissed as a gross impracticality.

I could find, or write, a Greasemonkey script to do the translation. I did find a Greasemonkey script that translates tweets on the Twitter Web page itself. I installed that and it works great, from a technical standpoint; but the Engrish it generates is, shall we say, rough.

A Twitter translation by Google: Wait, what?

A Twitter translation by Google, from Japanese to English: Wait, what?

So I was resigned to having to live with a choice between no translation or bad translations. Until I decided to STFW one more time, and found the solution: Google has already handled translation for me. As in, translation is just a button click away.

Google Reader translation option

Oh, you mean I should click *that* button. Why didn't you say so?

Proving, once again, it’s important to read the manual.

All links in this post on delicious: http://delicious.com/dougvdotcom/its-all-chinese-to-me-reader-has-google-translate-built-in

Posted Thursday, June 10, 2010, 10:43 AM »  Filed under Musings »  Tagged , , , , , , , ,
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Social Media, Real-World Friends, A Thick Skin And A Sensible Strategy

Just a short while ago, my Facebook Wall had this series of notes from The Economist:

Facebook The Economist Message 1

Facebook The Economist Message 2

Facebook The Economist Message 3

What’s remarkable in this exchange is the degree of openness involved and the ability to accept a contrary opinion without changing their course of action. In short, it’s how social media is supposed to work; and it’s evidence of why social media isn’t right for everyone.

Continue reading ‘Social Media, Real-World Friends, A Thick Skin And A Sensible Strategy’ »

Posted Friday, May 28, 2010, 5:08 PM »  Filed under Musings »  Tagged , , , , , , , ,
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My Glee-ful Piracy And The New Media Mistakes Of The Old Media

GleeI’m a late-blooming gleek. But I’ve caught “Glee” fever something awful — thanks, in little to no part, to the Fox network.

For those not initiated, “Glee” is a musical comedy series that, in the words of the New York Daily News, “dresses like ‘High School Musical’ and has the heart of ‘Porky’s.’” I’d add that in addition to being “cynical, sweet and inestimably funny,” “Glee” may be the most perfectly cast television show ever, and about as well-written, directed, produced and inspired as is possible for broadcast television.

It’s not perfect, but of 20 episodes aired so far, I’d call one or two “OK,” one or two “pretty good,” one or two “masterpieces” and the rest “outstanding.”

I came to “Glee” late thanks in large part to the fact it ran opposite “NOVA” on PBS. That’s why I missed the pilot and second episode, anyway; I have a Series 1 Tivo and one TV, so I can only watch one thing at once, which is fine since I don’t watch much TV;.

I caught part of Episode 3, “Acafellas,” about a third of the way through its original broadcast and wasn’t particularly impressed (it’s one of the “OK” episodes). So I simply ignored “Glee” after that.

It’s how I came to appreciate the series, in the middle of Season 1.5, that spurs me to post: I had to come to it accidentally, thanks to Fox’s half-witted online strategy, and struggle against Fox mightily in order to become an addict.

The Happy Accident

Among my eclectic YouTube tastes are marching bands. I love them; they play into my prejudices so nicely. I like systems and orderly flow. I like precision. I like music, especially that performed on analog instruments. I like creativity. I like passion and performance. A marching band brings all those things together in one place.

Take, as example, one of my favorite marching band performances, from Nishihara High School in Japan:

Simply amazing.

Continue reading ‘My Glee-ful Piracy And The New Media Mistakes Of The Old Media’ »

Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 9:34 PM »  Filed under Musings »  Tagged , , , , , , ,
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Designers And Developers: Donate Your Time, Talent At New England GiveCamp, June 11-13, 2010

One of the things I found out about at Tuesday’s MSDN Northeast Roadshow stop in Augusta is the first New England GiveCamp, June 11-13 at Microsoft’s Northeast Research and Development center in Cambridge, MA.

New England GiveCampI’m attending, and I’d urge you to do so.

A GiveCamp is basically a gathering of developers, DBAs, project managers, designers and other IT folks in a given place, to donate their time and skills to charitable projects.

In the case of the New England GiveCamp, typical projects include upgrading Access databases, or converting Excel spreadsheets to Access; integrating open-source tools, such as Joomla, Drupal and Django, into existing Web sites; adding various gizmos to and tuning up existing Web sites; and several requests to spruce up the look of various types of collateral.

I believe the biggest mistake you could make in deciding whether to participate is thinking that you don’t have the kind of skills needed. From what’s been said at the GiveCamp’s Web site, there’s going to be plenty to do, whether you’re Linus Torvalds or Linus Van Pelt.

I think this goes doubly for graphic designers. Trust me, if you are an artistic person, no matter how little you think of your work, your worst effort is 10 times better than the best design ever produced by a programmer. I am speaking from extensive personal experience here. We’re the people who gave the Internet Comic Sans, animated GIFs and the <marquee> tag, remember. Please, save us from ourselves.

As the Northeast GiveCamp put it, “If you have the passion, we’ll find a place for you.”

In addition to the technical work on site, there are a myriad other volunteer opportunities both before and during the event, including registration, sponsor solicitation, organizing the development teams and matching them to non-profit organizations, handling logistics for food and snacks, and others we’ll discover along this journey!

Continue reading ‘Designers And Developers: Donate Your Time, Talent At New England GiveCamp, June 11-13, 2010’ »

Posted Thursday, May 13, 2010, 8:49 PM »  Filed under Musings, Programming »  Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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MSDN Northeast Roadshow, Augusta, ME, May 11, 2010 Recap

After the nearly complete disappointment of Launch 2010 Boston, I had given serious thought to not going to the MSDN Northeast Roadshow stop in Augusta, ME on Tuesday, May 11. I figured it would be little more than a regurgitation of what happened at last month’s event.

I’m glad I decided to go. What a huge difference.

In  half the time, Jim O’Neil and Chris Bowen provided immeasurably more valuable and interesting information about Visual Studio 2010 and changes to Silverlight, multithreading, ASP.NET and an overview of Windows Phone 7. Here’s a recap.

MSDN Northeast Roadshow, May 11, 2010, Augusta, ME

Jim O'Neil describes Silverlight 4's new video / webcam support features.

Silverlight 4: Lately, listening to Microsoft describe a new Web technology brings to mind the phrase “a day late and a dollar short.” That’s certainly the case with Silverlight 4.

Admittedly, Microsoft has shifted the emphasis behind Silverlight to be less a clone of Flash and more an extension to the Web of Windows Presentation Foundation. But the “new features” O’Neil described on Tuesday were very much old technologies for Flash, and pretty much obsolete tech given HTML5.

Specifically, Silverlight 4 supports Web cams and microphones; TCP/UDP; printing; and a multiple-trust-level model that includes access to the file system, cross-domain requests and COM integration. Additionally, the XAML one writes to render Silverlight, while still different from WPF XAML, is a lot more like WPF.

Silverlight is, therefore, weaker than Flash and stronger than it at the same time. But it seems mostly moot, given that Flash itself is falling out of favor in response to the HTML5 specification’s API support for audio, video and other complex objects. Admittedly, there are things one can do in Silverlight — namely, presenting stored data and integrating existing COM components, such as text-to-speech or an interface to a proprietary business object / program — that one cannot do directly in HTML5.

That seems to me more likely to matter when making a corporate intranet or the like. I didn’t see much hope for Silverlight when it was introduced in 2007, and I still don’t see a future for it.

Continue reading ‘MSDN Northeast Roadshow, Augusta, ME, May 11, 2010 Recap’ »

Posted Wednesday, May 12, 2010, 4:23 PM »  Filed under Musings » 
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