*It's been rather busy for me on Ye Olde Blogsphere, it seems: I started this on 15 June 2013.
Sorry to disappoint, but this is not about the Spice Girls getting back together (the world will heave a collective sigh of relief, secure in the knowledge that this is NOT happening), and as far as I know, Vanilla Ice is not coming back, either. The title? Well, Vanilla sampled Queen, so I'm sampling Vanilla!
I thought I'd share some of my favorite I.T. related sites here.
So, what's it all about, Alfie... sorry, I'm stuck in cliches and trivia, it seems. Actually, it's more along the lines of what's I.T. been all about lately, to me? In a word, Spiceworks. I've wracked my brain about this, and at first was not sure if it was TechRepublic, How-To-Geek or CRN, but I backtracked a bit and the ad was in a Daniweb email I read recently. At the very top of the email was an ad for free help desk software. Since I know nothing about the care and feeding of help desks, I decided to give it a try. After all, my network presently has ten nodes, and more than likely it will grow.
I'm starting off with Spiceworks, because Spiceworks was the inspiration for this blog. Spiceworks has a very active user community, but what first brought me there was their help desk software. I downloaded the application but it was a very long download and after it was done, it would not run. So, I posted a question on the forums, and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly my problem was solved. I haven't spent a bunch of time on this site, but I do like it quite a bit.
Next up in my world is the granddaddy of I.T. sites, TechRepublic. I'm not sure how long they've been around, but its a long time.They have all sorts of features, discussions, and email notifications one can subscribe to. I especially like Bill Detweiler's TR Dojo feature.
When I need software, my first choice is not tucows or cnet, but rather majorgeeks . I'm not sure when I found this site or what prompted me to search here, but this is another tried-and-true site, full of good stuff.
Daniweb is a really neat I.T. help site- I was looking for an answer to a driver question and this is where the answer came from. This is also where I learned about Spiceworks.
Can't forget howtogeek .How to Geek is another email subscription I have, and they have everything a geek could want, from cartoons and trivia to practical how to information.
W3schools is the place to go if you want to learn internet code- specifically, HTML 4/5, CSS/CSS3, javaScript, Query, JSON, Ajax and ASP.NET. What I particularly like about this site is their live training sessions- you're given a window to type code, and can execute the code and see the results (and modify them) immediately.
Last but not least, there's Dream In Code . Not surprisingly, Dream In Code is a forum devoted to all things code.
There are a few other email subscriptions I have, but the listed site are the ones I visit the most. I hope this was informative and pegged your geekmeter at 11. And, if you've never pegged a VU meter, you're missing out!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
I Want To Tell You
George Harrison really doesn't get a lot of credit as far as the Beatles go... well, apart from being the reason the Beatles were deported from Germany, at least. "I Want to Tell You" finally rose to the top for today's blog title after considering a number of rain related titles.
Yesterday was the third consecutive day that I tried to cut the grass, as well as the third consecutive day that we experienced rain, and storms, so my first choice was Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again," which was appropriate. Then, another Harrison song, "Rain" came to mind. I had almost decided to use CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" when Duran Duran's "Hold Back the Rain" came to mind. Sheesh! What's a blogger to do? The thing that made the decision for me was this: I didn't start out to write about the rain, but it's pretty much what got today's post going.
I woke up unnaturally early on Tuesday morning, fifteen minutes before my 0730 alarm. I did all of the usual morning stuff, and by 0800 had my first cup of tea in hand. The weather was threatening rain, but I figured that as long as the rain was light, I would cut the grass. Rain came (but there wasn't much actual precipitation), thunder came, and then it was clear. The weather went through a few cycles like this. After my fifth cup of tea (~1300CST), I had decided I'd had enough. It was relatively dry and the grass was taunting me. I changed into my grass cutting gear and headed out.
As we had been rained out the previous day, I knew the gas tank was full. I proceeded to pull on the starter handle; I was rewarded with the handle coming off the string! I made a bigger knot which actually survived a few pulls before coming off again. Jennifer must have been watching, because she came out of the house. In the most measured and polite voice that I could muster under the circumstances, I handed the green plastic handle to her and said, "Fix it. Please." I then went to the fence and pulled down some of the ubiquitous wild morning glories.
After a few minutes she had reattached the handle and given the motor a few unsuccessful cranks. Undaunted, she went into the garage and got out Ye Olde Sparkplug Socket and removed Ye Olde Sparkplug. It was somewhat fouled, so I got a paper towel, dipped it in some gasoline, and gave it a good cleaning. She replaced Ye Olde Sparkplug, reattached the wire, and it started on the second crank. Then, I proceeded to cut the grass. The grass was higher than we usually allow it to grow, so it took around forty-five minutes to cut. It was also incredibly humid: by the time I was done, there was sweat on top of my perspiration.
I put the mower away, went inside and cleaned up. I made myself a delicious concoction of spicy seafood ramen, Progresso Tomato Basil soup and cheddar cheese and started this blog entry. I infrequently go to work in the "front half" (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) of the week, but I text or email every day to see if I'm needed. I was pleasantly surprised when the asked me to come in.
And then it rained some more. Now, about twenty-four hours later, we have flooding, flood warnings, flash flood warnings and more rain is forecast.
Whew! After all of that, what I Want To Tell You is this: I found a couple of pieces in cyberspace that I wanted to share. The first one claims that "80% is the new 100%" and other one through a finely detailed chain of events example effectively refutes the first. I think the author of the first piece might have been speaking from his own experience about growing into a more effective manager, but in the world I live in, 80% almost NEVER cuts it. In my world, when I am proofreading something which has an expiration of July 17, 2013 11:59, that isn't good enough- because sometimes my world is based in internet time, 24/7, and 11:59 not only needs to be followed by A.M. or P.M., but the time zone also needs to be specified. I could go on and on and on, but I think you get the idea.
Lastly, Jennifer and I were at the library today, pretty much intending just to drop a few things off. However, I thought we'd go up to the fourth floor to see if we could see any of the flooding. This time, there was no water. We went to the New Books shelf, and a title caught my eye. With great excitement, I grabbed R For Dummies before anyone else could! I had actually been looking for something like this for the past several months! I showed it to Jennifer, and she naturally said, "What's R?" I took a breath, gathered my thoughts and gave her the best answer I could think of: "R is the freeware version of S." I got the deer-in-the-headlights look. I eventually was able to explain that R is a language used to graphically represent statistics. It's easy enough to understand, but it's not always that easy to explain. At this point reality came crashing through the R-induced fog, and Jennifer remembered that Mr. T needed a new book to read. I had a thought that he might enjoy a nice biography of Nikolai Tesla, so I went off in search of that while she browsed the electronic catalog. Surprisingly, every one of the Tesla books missing from the shelves, so I went to check the electronic catalog to confirm this. They were indeed all checked out, the catalog confirmed, but I found a few other interesting titles. I went into the stacks and grabbed The Physics Book. It is a softcover book approximately 500 pages in length, and the pages are equally divided between text and pictures or illustrations. It covers milestones, persons and generally presents the history of physics in a very readable format. Another book that caught my eye but I did not check out was Physics for Entertainment. It was written in 1913 and apparently was a best-seller in the 1930's at one time. Curious, curious title.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 062713 0532
Yesterday was the third consecutive day that I tried to cut the grass, as well as the third consecutive day that we experienced rain, and storms, so my first choice was Eurythmics' "Here Comes the Rain Again," which was appropriate. Then, another Harrison song, "Rain" came to mind. I had almost decided to use CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain?" when Duran Duran's "Hold Back the Rain" came to mind. Sheesh! What's a blogger to do? The thing that made the decision for me was this: I didn't start out to write about the rain, but it's pretty much what got today's post going.
I woke up unnaturally early on Tuesday morning, fifteen minutes before my 0730 alarm. I did all of the usual morning stuff, and by 0800 had my first cup of tea in hand. The weather was threatening rain, but I figured that as long as the rain was light, I would cut the grass. Rain came (but there wasn't much actual precipitation), thunder came, and then it was clear. The weather went through a few cycles like this. After my fifth cup of tea (~1300CST), I had decided I'd had enough. It was relatively dry and the grass was taunting me. I changed into my grass cutting gear and headed out.
As we had been rained out the previous day, I knew the gas tank was full. I proceeded to pull on the starter handle; I was rewarded with the handle coming off the string! I made a bigger knot which actually survived a few pulls before coming off again. Jennifer must have been watching, because she came out of the house. In the most measured and polite voice that I could muster under the circumstances, I handed the green plastic handle to her and said, "Fix it. Please." I then went to the fence and pulled down some of the ubiquitous wild morning glories.
After a few minutes she had reattached the handle and given the motor a few unsuccessful cranks. Undaunted, she went into the garage and got out Ye Olde Sparkplug Socket and removed Ye Olde Sparkplug. It was somewhat fouled, so I got a paper towel, dipped it in some gasoline, and gave it a good cleaning. She replaced Ye Olde Sparkplug, reattached the wire, and it started on the second crank. Then, I proceeded to cut the grass. The grass was higher than we usually allow it to grow, so it took around forty-five minutes to cut. It was also incredibly humid: by the time I was done, there was sweat on top of my perspiration.
I put the mower away, went inside and cleaned up. I made myself a delicious concoction of spicy seafood ramen, Progresso Tomato Basil soup and cheddar cheese and started this blog entry. I infrequently go to work in the "front half" (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday) of the week, but I text or email every day to see if I'm needed. I was pleasantly surprised when the asked me to come in.
And then it rained some more. Now, about twenty-four hours later, we have flooding, flood warnings, flash flood warnings and more rain is forecast.
Whew! After all of that, what I Want To Tell You is this: I found a couple of pieces in cyberspace that I wanted to share. The first one claims that "80% is the new 100%" and other one through a finely detailed chain of events example effectively refutes the first. I think the author of the first piece might have been speaking from his own experience about growing into a more effective manager, but in the world I live in, 80% almost NEVER cuts it. In my world, when I am proofreading something which has an expiration of July 17, 2013 11:59, that isn't good enough- because sometimes my world is based in internet time, 24/7, and 11:59 not only needs to be followed by A.M. or P.M., but the time zone also needs to be specified. I could go on and on and on, but I think you get the idea.
Lastly, Jennifer and I were at the library today, pretty much intending just to drop a few things off. However, I thought we'd go up to the fourth floor to see if we could see any of the flooding. This time, there was no water. We went to the New Books shelf, and a title caught my eye. With great excitement, I grabbed R For Dummies before anyone else could! I had actually been looking for something like this for the past several months! I showed it to Jennifer, and she naturally said, "What's R?" I took a breath, gathered my thoughts and gave her the best answer I could think of: "R is the freeware version of S." I got the deer-in-the-headlights look. I eventually was able to explain that R is a language used to graphically represent statistics. It's easy enough to understand, but it's not always that easy to explain. At this point reality came crashing through the R-induced fog, and Jennifer remembered that Mr. T needed a new book to read. I had a thought that he might enjoy a nice biography of Nikolai Tesla, so I went off in search of that while she browsed the electronic catalog. Surprisingly, every one of the Tesla books missing from the shelves, so I went to check the electronic catalog to confirm this. They were indeed all checked out, the catalog confirmed, but I found a few other interesting titles. I went into the stacks and grabbed The Physics Book. It is a softcover book approximately 500 pages in length, and the pages are equally divided between text and pictures or illustrations. It covers milestones, persons and generally presents the history of physics in a very readable format. Another book that caught my eye but I did not check out was Physics for Entertainment. It was written in 1913 and apparently was a best-seller in the 1930's at one time. Curious, curious title.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 062713 0532
Monday, June 24, 2013
Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
I like the concept of leading off with an appropriate song title, a la "Here Is the News", and so I present another today. I'm fairly confident that this has all the signs of becoming a regular blog feature, so today's cut is from Queen's A Night at the Opera, which also includes the perhaps more well-known (even renowned) "Bohemian Rhapsody". While fact-checking this, I also ran across two other Queen (if we're talking Queen here, "favourite" must be spelled in Freddie and Brian's native English) favourites which I haven't heard in sometime: " '39" and "I'm in Love with My Car", both of which were on my personal heavy rotation back in the day.
So, how and why does one laze on a Sunday afternoon?
Well, for one, the temperature was predicted to be about 90F (~32C) today. As Jennifer and I are not fans of humidity or hot weather-- and these two are mates here in the Greater Chicago area-- we were pleased to see the temps pretty much sticking to the low 80's (~26-29C) with a slight breeze. There was not a hint of rain in the sky, although the forecast included a 30% chance and so we decided to do a bit of shopping.
The first stop was our local pet store. We've been doing a bit of searching for a second cat carrier, as Schwarz and Tinka need to be in a carrier when they have their annual veterinarian's exam- and the one we've been using for the past several years is just too small. We had both done a bit of looking on Amazon for something similar to the one we currently own, but nothing struck our fancy. At the store, we saw a few of the carriers which we had seen online, and decided to keep on searching.
The next stop was the Goodwill store. Sundays and Mondays, Goodwill has half-price specials, so we visit a few times per month on the weekends. Our final stop was Aldi (yes, that Aldi!) We picked up a few things, and then headed home.
I've had this "thing" laying around for a while, so long I've forgotten exactly what it is. It was part of a printer at one time, and I had thought it might be interesting to disassemble some day. Today was that day. I gathered several screwdrivers, needle-nosed pliers and a few other tools and began to disassemble the thing. I did this outside at the picnic table, as I didn't know if it had any residual toner in it. Fortunately it didn't, and after about half an hour of disconnecting, unscrewing and sweating in place, I had a pile of parts- plastic, sheet metal pieces, screws and springs. Apart from the plastic, everything went into our spare parts collection; the plastic, unfortunately, was not recyclable, so it went into the trash.
By the time I had finished, it had gotten noticeably cooler and the breeze had picked up... perfect for cutting grass!
Except that the breeze was developing into a wind, the light was fading as the clouds expanded, and it looked like the 30% prediction was going to turn into 100%. As the passing seconds became passing minutes, the clouds became darker and more ominous, and the grass seemed to heave with the mounting winds. And there was thunder... thunder, but no lightning. By this time, I had decided that the grass could wait another day. Jennifer was making what would be a supremely delicious curry by now, so I just messed around a bit on the computer. When the rain finally arrived, it was incredibly underwhelming, evaporating almost as soon as it came down. By the time the thunder had passed out of earshot, you couldn't tell there had been any precipitation whatsoever. And we ate.
And that is how we were found to be Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon. In the wonderful world of Not-So-Big-Data, all that happened was a bit more work on the Lego spreadsheet. I haven't even set a deadline for the completion of this part of the project as yet, because data entry is just one part of the Lego component of the database. I still need to design the other Lego look up tables before importing it into the database.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 0845 062413 (2)
Timehack 1725 062413 (3)
So, how and why does one laze on a Sunday afternoon?
Well, for one, the temperature was predicted to be about 90F (~32C) today. As Jennifer and I are not fans of humidity or hot weather-- and these two are mates here in the Greater Chicago area-- we were pleased to see the temps pretty much sticking to the low 80's (~26-29C) with a slight breeze. There was not a hint of rain in the sky, although the forecast included a 30% chance and so we decided to do a bit of shopping.
The first stop was our local pet store. We've been doing a bit of searching for a second cat carrier, as Schwarz and Tinka need to be in a carrier when they have their annual veterinarian's exam- and the one we've been using for the past several years is just too small. We had both done a bit of looking on Amazon for something similar to the one we currently own, but nothing struck our fancy. At the store, we saw a few of the carriers which we had seen online, and decided to keep on searching.
The next stop was the Goodwill store. Sundays and Mondays, Goodwill has half-price specials, so we visit a few times per month on the weekends. Our final stop was Aldi (yes, that Aldi!) We picked up a few things, and then headed home.
*******
I've had this "thing" laying around for a while, so long I've forgotten exactly what it is. It was part of a printer at one time, and I had thought it might be interesting to disassemble some day. Today was that day. I gathered several screwdrivers, needle-nosed pliers and a few other tools and began to disassemble the thing. I did this outside at the picnic table, as I didn't know if it had any residual toner in it. Fortunately it didn't, and after about half an hour of disconnecting, unscrewing and sweating in place, I had a pile of parts- plastic, sheet metal pieces, screws and springs. Apart from the plastic, everything went into our spare parts collection; the plastic, unfortunately, was not recyclable, so it went into the trash.
By the time I had finished, it had gotten noticeably cooler and the breeze had picked up... perfect for cutting grass!
Except that the breeze was developing into a wind, the light was fading as the clouds expanded, and it looked like the 30% prediction was going to turn into 100%. As the passing seconds became passing minutes, the clouds became darker and more ominous, and the grass seemed to heave with the mounting winds. And there was thunder... thunder, but no lightning. By this time, I had decided that the grass could wait another day. Jennifer was making what would be a supremely delicious curry by now, so I just messed around a bit on the computer. When the rain finally arrived, it was incredibly underwhelming, evaporating almost as soon as it came down. By the time the thunder had passed out of earshot, you couldn't tell there had been any precipitation whatsoever. And we ate.
And that is how we were found to be Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon. In the wonderful world of Not-So-Big-Data, all that happened was a bit more work on the Lego spreadsheet. I haven't even set a deadline for the completion of this part of the project as yet, because data entry is just one part of the Lego component of the database. I still need to design the other Lego look up tables before importing it into the database.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Timehack 0845 062413 (2)
Timehack 1725 062413 (3)
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Not in the cards, I guess
Several years ago, we picked up a nice piece of software from Nova Development called Art Explosion Greeting Card Factory. We've been very happy with it, try to keep up with new version releases, and as a result have probably purchased no more than five preprinted greeting cards in that time. Jennifer uses it fairly often, but I don't. As such, it's been a while since I made a card.
As I've told folks in real life as well as on some of the LinkedIn groups of which I'm a member, most software does so many different things that there will always be something you don't know, and the easiest way to learn software is by using it. And so it went with me yesterday- I could have asked Jennifer to make the card for me, and she probably would have. She also would probably have made a nicer card... but as toddlers often say, "I can do it MYSELF!"
Well, there's that, but more than that, I wanted to show the recipient that I could do a thing or two with graphics, layout and text. So, I sat down and began to create. In addition to not being the resident expert and not doing this very often, this was also a new version of the software which I had never used before.
I left the inside for last, as there would only be a short note and a piece of clipart there and started on the front, setting the card to landscape. I found a very nice picture on Google and pulled it in, resized it and sent it to the back. Next, I checked for the exact verbiage and put a nice quote on top as a headline, and changed the color of the font. Finally, I grabbed a few other images off of the internet and saved everything. I went back to the internet and grabbed a few nice fonts. Since I haven't done any of this in some time, I learned that I should have grabbed the fonts first. I saved my card and closed the program.
I added the fonts to the Windows fonts directory and reopened my card. Instead of my beautiful art, there were diagonal neon green and orange stripes! Feathers ruffled but undaunted, I asked Mr. T what graphics editor he preferred. I was going to use GIMP, but I recalled both he and Amanda didn't like GIMP- he suggested Paint.net. Back to the desk... download Paint.net. Redownload both images, crop the smaller one and save them as individual .jpeg's. Satisfied, I reinserted the background, cloned the smaller one a few times, positioned the clones and saved. Then, I added a bunch of text to the back cover and formatted, positioned and saved the project. This time I printed it, and closed the program.
I was pleased with the proof copy, so I opened up the Save again. Images were gone, and stripes were back. I needed to get this card off in the morning, so I got rid of the stripes, pulled the images back in and repositioned everything. I added some clipart and text to the inside, saved and printed it. I was happy with the result. Time from start to finish (including searches, downloads and installs): around five hours... but it was a fun and satisfying five hours!
Lastly, a data update. I'm in a particularly unpleasant bit of data entry right now- absolutely no copying is possible. For all you AFOL's (Adult Fans Of Lego- and yes, that's a real acronym and definition) out there, I'm in the 3005 01x01x01 elements. The ones that have printing on them. I'm not sure exactly how many I did, but it seemed like a few hundred!
That's all for now- I have a card to mail!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
As I've told folks in real life as well as on some of the LinkedIn groups of which I'm a member, most software does so many different things that there will always be something you don't know, and the easiest way to learn software is by using it. And so it went with me yesterday- I could have asked Jennifer to make the card for me, and she probably would have. She also would probably have made a nicer card... but as toddlers often say, "I can do it MYSELF!"
Well, there's that, but more than that, I wanted to show the recipient that I could do a thing or two with graphics, layout and text. So, I sat down and began to create. In addition to not being the resident expert and not doing this very often, this was also a new version of the software which I had never used before.
I left the inside for last, as there would only be a short note and a piece of clipart there and started on the front, setting the card to landscape. I found a very nice picture on Google and pulled it in, resized it and sent it to the back. Next, I checked for the exact verbiage and put a nice quote on top as a headline, and changed the color of the font. Finally, I grabbed a few other images off of the internet and saved everything. I went back to the internet and grabbed a few nice fonts. Since I haven't done any of this in some time, I learned that I should have grabbed the fonts first. I saved my card and closed the program.
I added the fonts to the Windows fonts directory and reopened my card. Instead of my beautiful art, there were diagonal neon green and orange stripes! Feathers ruffled but undaunted, I asked Mr. T what graphics editor he preferred. I was going to use GIMP, but I recalled both he and Amanda didn't like GIMP- he suggested Paint.net. Back to the desk... download Paint.net. Redownload both images, crop the smaller one and save them as individual .jpeg's. Satisfied, I reinserted the background, cloned the smaller one a few times, positioned the clones and saved. Then, I added a bunch of text to the back cover and formatted, positioned and saved the project. This time I printed it, and closed the program.
I was pleased with the proof copy, so I opened up the Save again. Images were gone, and stripes were back. I needed to get this card off in the morning, so I got rid of the stripes, pulled the images back in and repositioned everything. I added some clipart and text to the inside, saved and printed it. I was happy with the result. Time from start to finish (including searches, downloads and installs): around five hours... but it was a fun and satisfying five hours!
Lastly, a data update. I'm in a particularly unpleasant bit of data entry right now- absolutely no copying is possible. For all you AFOL's (Adult Fans Of Lego- and yes, that's a real acronym and definition) out there, I'm in the 3005 01x01x01 elements. The ones that have printing on them. I'm not sure exactly how many I did, but it seemed like a few hundred!
That's all for now- I have a card to mail!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Time to extrapolate
I really hated to do it, but I had two numbers in my tracking spreadsheet: one was actual and one was absolute.
Sorry, I'll back up a bit. I use (obviously) Google Blogger (formerly Blogspot, I think) to publish this blog. Google has made blogging very simple... so simple, even a caveman could do it. After all, even I can do it! However, being simple has its drawbacks. As an example, there's this blog. Although it mostly is not about data and data analysis, that is my tagline and the underlying theme. And apart from a few recent blogs, data and data analysis have pretty much been a feature of most of my blogs.
However, simplicity has further trade-offs, one of which is accuracy. When I first started this blog, I didn't have a vision of what it would be, what message it would communicate, or even if it was important to me- this is quite evident in the sporadic posting of the first several months. I'm still not 100% certain about the vision... today it looks like life and data. The message, though... the message is my voice. My dream.
Ever since I was a boy, a young boy, I had a dream. I had lots of dreams. I still have them. One of them was to join the military, which I did. Another was to visit Germany, which I did. Another was to write a book, which I have not done- and may never do. I can't say how many books- stories- I've started. Some were good by my standards, and held promise. Others might have been no more than treatments, basic sketches that required fleshing out. Some were a waste of paper, or storage space. After all of this, the blog has become my preferred vehicle for creative writing. In other words, I've become a content creator.
So, here I sit creating web content, hoping that anonymous internet denizens will find this content via tags, labels and catchy titles and consume it... maybe even pass it along to other internet content consumers. Here's the problem I face... well, I regard it as a problem. I'm all about numbers when it comes to certain things: Legos, blog views, etc. Google is really good at giving me realtime stats- I absolutely love this. However, they only give Top 10 historical stats, which truly stinks. So, Monday night I made a somewhat painful decision: I extrapolated data. This brings out the Dr. Sheldon Cooper in me, wanting to do unmentionable things to Google data scientists.
I extrapolated. I took the data which I had manually copied into a spreadsheet and essentially created a new reality for my data, in which numbers are essentially correct, but variances are quite possibly not. In my data, I had 1261 confirmed hits. Google reported 2566 hits, so I had a roughly 2:1 spread: I took the known good numbers as a percentage, and multilplied them against the absolute number to get an adjusted number.
And here I sit. Going forward, I will pay closer attention to the numbers.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
Sorry, I'll back up a bit. I use (obviously) Google Blogger (formerly Blogspot, I think) to publish this blog. Google has made blogging very simple... so simple, even a caveman could do it. After all, even I can do it! However, being simple has its drawbacks. As an example, there's this blog. Although it mostly is not about data and data analysis, that is my tagline and the underlying theme. And apart from a few recent blogs, data and data analysis have pretty much been a feature of most of my blogs.
However, simplicity has further trade-offs, one of which is accuracy. When I first started this blog, I didn't have a vision of what it would be, what message it would communicate, or even if it was important to me- this is quite evident in the sporadic posting of the first several months. I'm still not 100% certain about the vision... today it looks like life and data. The message, though... the message is my voice. My dream.
Ever since I was a boy, a young boy, I had a dream. I had lots of dreams. I still have them. One of them was to join the military, which I did. Another was to visit Germany, which I did. Another was to write a book, which I have not done- and may never do. I can't say how many books- stories- I've started. Some were good by my standards, and held promise. Others might have been no more than treatments, basic sketches that required fleshing out. Some were a waste of paper, or storage space. After all of this, the blog has become my preferred vehicle for creative writing. In other words, I've become a content creator.
So, here I sit creating web content, hoping that anonymous internet denizens will find this content via tags, labels and catchy titles and consume it... maybe even pass it along to other internet content consumers. Here's the problem I face... well, I regard it as a problem. I'm all about numbers when it comes to certain things: Legos, blog views, etc. Google is really good at giving me realtime stats- I absolutely love this. However, they only give Top 10 historical stats, which truly stinks. So, Monday night I made a somewhat painful decision: I extrapolated data. This brings out the Dr. Sheldon Cooper in me, wanting to do unmentionable things to Google data scientists.
I extrapolated. I took the data which I had manually copied into a spreadsheet and essentially created a new reality for my data, in which numbers are essentially correct, but variances are quite possibly not. In my data, I had 1261 confirmed hits. Google reported 2566 hits, so I had a roughly 2:1 spread: I took the known good numbers as a percentage, and multilplied them against the absolute number to get an adjusted number.
And here I sit. Going forward, I will pay closer attention to the numbers.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to,
Monday, June 17, 2013
Father's Day 2013, part deux!
One of the only movie series I've ever seen in which I thought the sequel was better than the original was Hot Shots, Part Deux! (the other being 2 Fast, 2 Furious).
So, in the spirit of some sequels being better than others, I decided to follow up my original Father's Day 2013 post with an update on how my Father's Day went. Twenty-five words or less: it was pretty nice.
I got up (with a bit of Jennifer's coaxing) and had a glass of lemon water (now a part of the signature morning routine), grabbed my Bible and headed off to The Bridge for the 0900 service. Owing to my work schedule, it was the first time I'd been there in about six weeks. I really enjoyed the service, and went home and had an epic nap. After that, Jennifer and I headed off to Pet Supplies Plus, where we did a bit of Zombie Apocalypse stocking for Schwarz and Tinka. After that, we headed over to Shop and Save to pick up a few stock up items, and headed home. Tinka was especially pleased with our purchases; I put a bag of dry food on the coffee table and she stood on it, nuzzled it and purred for ten minutes or better.
Afterwards, I was going to cut the grass, but although we had gotten a fair amount of ran on Friday and Saturday, the grass was not yet ready for mowing. So, I did my usual Facebook games while Jennifer fixed burgers and fries, and then we sat down and watched the 1967 James Coburn classic The President's Analyst. Afterwards, I got on the PS3 and ran a few Gran Turismo 5 races- I really like the game but am not particularly good at playing it! After that, Civilization V and the blog.
All in all, a pretty pleasant day- I hope yours was good as well. Data returns soon- I promise!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
So, in the spirit of some sequels being better than others, I decided to follow up my original Father's Day 2013 post with an update on how my Father's Day went. Twenty-five words or less: it was pretty nice.
I got up (with a bit of Jennifer's coaxing) and had a glass of lemon water (now a part of the signature morning routine), grabbed my Bible and headed off to The Bridge for the 0900 service. Owing to my work schedule, it was the first time I'd been there in about six weeks. I really enjoyed the service, and went home and had an epic nap. After that, Jennifer and I headed off to Pet Supplies Plus, where we did a bit of Zombie Apocalypse stocking for Schwarz and Tinka. After that, we headed over to Shop and Save to pick up a few stock up items, and headed home. Tinka was especially pleased with our purchases; I put a bag of dry food on the coffee table and she stood on it, nuzzled it and purred for ten minutes or better.
Afterwards, I was going to cut the grass, but although we had gotten a fair amount of ran on Friday and Saturday, the grass was not yet ready for mowing. So, I did my usual Facebook games while Jennifer fixed burgers and fries, and then we sat down and watched the 1967 James Coburn classic The President's Analyst. Afterwards, I got on the PS3 and ran a few Gran Turismo 5 races- I really like the game but am not particularly good at playing it! After that, Civilization V and the blog.
All in all, a pretty pleasant day- I hope yours was good as well. Data returns soon- I promise!
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Father's Day, 2013
Happy Father's Day to all of my readers who are Dads!
Having said that, though, there's a bit of family history I'd like to share (and although the word share is like salt on an open wound to me, it works here): Jennifer and I don't do what we classify as "Greeting Card Holidays". Now, don't get me wrong- Mother's Day and Father's day and Valentine's Day and even Grandparent's Day are really great ideas. But, they're optional in our book. Maybe we're weird, but we rarely even celebrate birthdays or our anniversary.
After a very cursory look at a wikipedia article, it appears that Father's Day is indeed commemorated in a large number of countries. I can't speak for other countries or cultures, but I find it interesting that Father's Day is secondary in importance to Mother's Day- at least in the United States. Mothers and fathers/husbands and wives both perform tasks which enable the family unit to exist and hopefully prosper and grow. Mother's Day was the first of the holidays because I think at the time motherhood really was underappreciated. Father's Day followed, but was a tougher sell- for whatever reason.
It is at this point that I need to say that the opinions expressed are entirely my own.
Flash forward approximately 100 years to the present day United States of America, 2013.
I think many folks have come to realize that hype has grown around holidays, and much of the original intent has been lost. Father's Day is an especially cruel joke, as marriage rates decline and more children are raised by their mothers alone. In the United States, if you're a mother, you're a hero; if you're a father, you're incompetent or worse. If you don't believe me, just look at sitcoms and commercials. Even commercials slight fathers- its not Dads, its Dads and Grads.
In any event, I did not start this blog entry to bash a holiday or Fathers; I was just curious as to how many of my regular readers lived in places which celebrate Father's Day. So Happy Father's Day to all Dads!
Having said that, though, there's a bit of family history I'd like to share (and although the word share is like salt on an open wound to me, it works here): Jennifer and I don't do what we classify as "Greeting Card Holidays". Now, don't get me wrong- Mother's Day and Father's day and Valentine's Day and even Grandparent's Day are really great ideas. But, they're optional in our book. Maybe we're weird, but we rarely even celebrate birthdays or our anniversary.
After a very cursory look at a wikipedia article, it appears that Father's Day is indeed commemorated in a large number of countries. I can't speak for other countries or cultures, but I find it interesting that Father's Day is secondary in importance to Mother's Day- at least in the United States. Mothers and fathers/husbands and wives both perform tasks which enable the family unit to exist and hopefully prosper and grow. Mother's Day was the first of the holidays because I think at the time motherhood really was underappreciated. Father's Day followed, but was a tougher sell- for whatever reason.
It is at this point that I need to say that the opinions expressed are entirely my own.
Flash forward approximately 100 years to the present day United States of America, 2013.
I think many folks have come to realize that hype has grown around holidays, and much of the original intent has been lost. Father's Day is an especially cruel joke, as marriage rates decline and more children are raised by their mothers alone. In the United States, if you're a mother, you're a hero; if you're a father, you're incompetent or worse. If you don't believe me, just look at sitcoms and commercials. Even commercials slight fathers- its not Dads, its Dads and Grads.
In any event, I did not start this blog entry to bash a holiday or Fathers; I was just curious as to how many of my regular readers lived in places which celebrate Father's Day. So Happy Father's Day to all Dads!
Thursday, June 13, 2013
A (small+polite) rant about espionage, ethics & employment
The news came out recently about a fellow named Edward Joseph Snowden as being the person responsible for leaking U.S. Government intelligence data to the media. He's already been tried in the "people's court of opinion" and in the press, where you can find him branded a traitor or a hero. I really have no opinion regarding his loyalty or patriotism as of yet, and it will take some time (indeed, if ever) for all of the facts to surface. The timing could probably be not much worse for the Obama Administration, as it struggles to confront any number of high level missteps among several agencies.
The ethics are also highly questionable, especially given that the information, whatever it may be, apparently came from the National Security Agency (NSA). And the stuff that these folks work with is just a bit more sensitive than, say, your zynga.com password. It is the stuff of which movies could be made- the kind of movies which critics say, "Wow! What a cool, fantastic plot. The writer must have really worked hard on all of those plot twists, because that could NEVER happen in real life."
Well, guess again.
The information I have about Mr. Snowden is all from the Chicago Tribune's June 13, 2012 print edition. As I've alluded, I'm not here to judge Edward Joseph Snowden's actions or motives for the disclosures/leaks. What I really am curious about is how the Central Intelligence Agency or a firm such as Booz Allen Hamilton even hired him in the first place. And this where I call Mr. Snowden's ethics into question.
Snowden apparently was a student who struggled academically in high school, eventually dropping out. He went on to obtain a GED (high school diploma equivalent) from a local community college, and I'll give him credit for earning the GED. Then, through an Army program, he was able to try out for the Special Forces without first going through Basic Training. After around four months, he was discharged from the Army- without ever having gone through Basic Training. With this less-than-stellar record, the following year he was hired by the Center for Advanced Study of Languages at the University of Maryland, which is operated by the NSA as a security specialist. From there, he was employed by the CIA, and then by Booz Hamilton. The CIA apparently awarded him a high level clearance, which was probably a major selling point in getting hired at Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Tribune described Snowden as a low level operative that made $122,000 USD per year and lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend.
Obviously, there's a lot more to the story that what I read in the paper. I am fairly convinced that I wouldn't trust Mr. Snowden with much of anything, but what really boggles the mind is this: how did he land those jobs? I've worked hard, am loyal and honest, graduated high school, am a decorated and honorably discharged veteran who held a security clearance, and not only am I looking for work, I've never made anything like the money that Mr. Snowden made at Booz Allen Hamilton in my life.
In any event, that is the end of my rant. We had some massive rain storms that came through the area last night- we were blessed with no hail, damaging winds or flooding. Timehack 1700 CST
The next blog entry will return to some exciting data stuff.
Until then,
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
The ethics are also highly questionable, especially given that the information, whatever it may be, apparently came from the National Security Agency (NSA). And the stuff that these folks work with is just a bit more sensitive than, say, your zynga.com password. It is the stuff of which movies could be made- the kind of movies which critics say, "Wow! What a cool, fantastic plot. The writer must have really worked hard on all of those plot twists, because that could NEVER happen in real life."
Well, guess again.
The information I have about Mr. Snowden is all from the Chicago Tribune's June 13, 2012 print edition. As I've alluded, I'm not here to judge Edward Joseph Snowden's actions or motives for the disclosures/leaks. What I really am curious about is how the Central Intelligence Agency or a firm such as Booz Allen Hamilton even hired him in the first place. And this where I call Mr. Snowden's ethics into question.
Snowden apparently was a student who struggled academically in high school, eventually dropping out. He went on to obtain a GED (high school diploma equivalent) from a local community college, and I'll give him credit for earning the GED. Then, through an Army program, he was able to try out for the Special Forces without first going through Basic Training. After around four months, he was discharged from the Army- without ever having gone through Basic Training. With this less-than-stellar record, the following year he was hired by the Center for Advanced Study of Languages at the University of Maryland, which is operated by the NSA as a security specialist. From there, he was employed by the CIA, and then by Booz Hamilton. The CIA apparently awarded him a high level clearance, which was probably a major selling point in getting hired at Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Tribune described Snowden as a low level operative that made $122,000 USD per year and lived in Hawaii with his girlfriend.
Obviously, there's a lot more to the story that what I read in the paper. I am fairly convinced that I wouldn't trust Mr. Snowden with much of anything, but what really boggles the mind is this: how did he land those jobs? I've worked hard, am loyal and honest, graduated high school, am a decorated and honorably discharged veteran who held a security clearance, and not only am I looking for work, I've never made anything like the money that Mr. Snowden made at Booz Allen Hamilton in my life.
In any event, that is the end of my rant. We had some massive rain storms that came through the area last night- we were blessed with no hail, damaging winds or flooding. Timehack 1700 CST
The next blog entry will return to some exciting data stuff.
Until then,
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
2100? Time for a Monster!
My job requires a certain amount of flexibility; more importantly, as a contractor I must be cognizant of time worked in a given week. And, the state of the economy being what it is, my week is typically capped at forty hours. Which is reasonable, and fine by me.
Occasionally, though, circumstances will dictate otherwise, and today was one of those circumstances.
I had a pretty simple plan for today. I had two jobs to finish, and I expected they wouldn't take more than four hours, which would leave enough daylight to cut the grass and do a bit of yardwork. After that, dinner and world domination (*more on that in a bit).
I arrived @1215, and got down to business- after all, I had a Plan. After a bit of initial difficulty, I started moving rapidly through the first of the two jobs. The door behind me opened and in walked the imaging tech that was on duty. "There's been a change to this job," he said. He put two mockups on the desk, one marked "Old" and the other "New" and began to relate how the customer came in ON SUNDAY and wanted changes made AFTER the job had started printing! He then began to describe how heads needed to be move to different RIPS, and something about blankets and the next thing I knew a Romulan Bird of Prey had blown open half the roof, and the two Romulan sisters were shimmying down ropes, obviously intent on doing no-good to Marty McFly and Indiana Jones... of course, they had not counted on Yoda who was crouched on top of one of the presses blocking their way.
"How long do you think it'll take" the imaging tech asked. "Probably two to three hours," I replied almost instinctively. "But, there's no one here that can do it. I'm on overtime as it is- let me make a phone call." This satisfied the tech, and he left me the mockups and departed.
I called the programmer but got no response. Next, I called my boss, and he said he was aware of the changes, and the imaging tech should call his boss. At which point I said that these were new changes from the customer. That phone call pretty much ended with my boss telling me to get details and get back to him. I got all of the info I needed from the pressroom supervisor and then relayed it to my boss. The twenty-five words or less answer from my boss was NO WAY.
Time for another trek to the pressroom supervisor. He called the customer service supervisor, and on speakerphone, we tossed some ideas around. The customer service supervisor finally decided he would get one of the customer service reps that is on this account team to come and get a new press layout, and would talk to my boss. The pressroom supervisor had prepress shooting new plates for the press, and making backgrounds for my department. Now that everyone had a Plan, I went back to my office and finished working on my Plan, which would be torpedoed before the next paragraph is concluded.
I finished the second job, put everything away, and was getting ready to fill out my timesheet when the phone rang. I answered it... I will NEVER learn. The pressroom supervisor asked how long it would take to reprogram. "About three hours", I replied- it's got to be some sort of autonomic reflex! Fine. I hung up and went back to getting ready to leave- my four hours were up. The phone rang again. I picked it up-again. This time it was my boss. "How late can you stay?" Hmmm, Plan vs money. I'll take the money. He said he was able to contact the programmer, who would be in ~1900-1930.
The programmer arrived at 2000; at 2100 I popped open a Monster Absolutely Zero. At this point it doesn't matter, because as Rufus said, "the clock is always running in San Dimas." My boss said take all of the overtime you need to do the job right- this is on the customer.
So I apologize for no programming, spreadsheet or exciting data updates. In the time waiting for the programmer, I got as much prep work as possible done, and then spent the remaining time researching web hosts; I think I found one that I like, but need to bounce it off Jennifer first. And speaking of Jennifer... we're supposed to get storms tomorrow, so no grass cutting or yardwork; dinner didn't happen tonight, but we may get to continue our game of Civilization V which we started yesterday. And, best of all, we're going to pick up some catfish nuggets tomorrow.
Timehack (2nd posting) 1810
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Occasionally, though, circumstances will dictate otherwise, and today was one of those circumstances.
I had a pretty simple plan for today. I had two jobs to finish, and I expected they wouldn't take more than four hours, which would leave enough daylight to cut the grass and do a bit of yardwork. After that, dinner and world domination (*more on that in a bit).
I arrived @1215, and got down to business- after all, I had a Plan. After a bit of initial difficulty, I started moving rapidly through the first of the two jobs. The door behind me opened and in walked the imaging tech that was on duty. "There's been a change to this job," he said. He put two mockups on the desk, one marked "Old" and the other "New" and began to relate how the customer came in ON SUNDAY and wanted changes made AFTER the job had started printing! He then began to describe how heads needed to be move to different RIPS, and something about blankets and the next thing I knew a Romulan Bird of Prey had blown open half the roof, and the two Romulan sisters were shimmying down ropes, obviously intent on doing no-good to Marty McFly and Indiana Jones... of course, they had not counted on Yoda who was crouched on top of one of the presses blocking their way.
"How long do you think it'll take" the imaging tech asked. "Probably two to three hours," I replied almost instinctively. "But, there's no one here that can do it. I'm on overtime as it is- let me make a phone call." This satisfied the tech, and he left me the mockups and departed.
I called the programmer but got no response. Next, I called my boss, and he said he was aware of the changes, and the imaging tech should call his boss. At which point I said that these were new changes from the customer. That phone call pretty much ended with my boss telling me to get details and get back to him. I got all of the info I needed from the pressroom supervisor and then relayed it to my boss. The twenty-five words or less answer from my boss was NO WAY.
Time for another trek to the pressroom supervisor. He called the customer service supervisor, and on speakerphone, we tossed some ideas around. The customer service supervisor finally decided he would get one of the customer service reps that is on this account team to come and get a new press layout, and would talk to my boss. The pressroom supervisor had prepress shooting new plates for the press, and making backgrounds for my department. Now that everyone had a Plan, I went back to my office and finished working on my Plan, which would be torpedoed before the next paragraph is concluded.
I finished the second job, put everything away, and was getting ready to fill out my timesheet when the phone rang. I answered it... I will NEVER learn. The pressroom supervisor asked how long it would take to reprogram. "About three hours", I replied- it's got to be some sort of autonomic reflex! Fine. I hung up and went back to getting ready to leave- my four hours were up. The phone rang again. I picked it up-again. This time it was my boss. "How late can you stay?" Hmmm, Plan vs money. I'll take the money. He said he was able to contact the programmer, who would be in ~1900-1930.
The programmer arrived at 2000; at 2100 I popped open a Monster Absolutely Zero. At this point it doesn't matter, because as Rufus said, "the clock is always running in San Dimas." My boss said take all of the overtime you need to do the job right- this is on the customer.
So I apologize for no programming, spreadsheet or exciting data updates. In the time waiting for the programmer, I got as much prep work as possible done, and then spent the remaining time researching web hosts; I think I found one that I like, but need to bounce it off Jennifer first. And speaking of Jennifer... we're supposed to get storms tomorrow, so no grass cutting or yardwork; dinner didn't happen tonight, but we may get to continue our game of Civilization V which we started yesterday. And, best of all, we're going to pick up some catfish nuggets tomorrow.
Timehack (2nd posting) 1810
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Spinning Wheel
Yup, that Blood, Sweat and Tears title pretty much describes my Thursday. And actually, the story of Thursday starts in the waning moments of Wednesday night....
So there I was, finishing the last job that I needed to get done. My mind was already set on packing up when a coworker asked if I could do one more. "Of course," I replied, instantly adding two hours to my evening/night/morning- I think an advanced degree of some sort is required to explain when I work. In any event, I ended up being the guy that turned the lights out. At 0300.
Thursday morning, I got up sans alarm around 1115, and was more or less awake. I finished my lemon juice, and then made a nice cup of tea. My idea of a nice cup is a bit on the dark side- there are areas on the ocean floor of the Marianas Trench that are lighter, I think. Thusly fortified, I checked messages on the cell phone, checked email, and over lunch had some stress relief on a few Facebook games that I like. Lunch was a couple glasses of milk with some boneless skinless chicken breast, followed by a bowl of ramen. I attempted to return a phone call to an employment agency, but ended up with voice mail. After that, a phone call to a financial institution about a document I had faxed a month earlier, and then refaxed because some information was missing.
And this is where the wheels really started losing traction....
Someone at the financial institution had made a very nice Microsoft Word form. Back in May, I had filled out the form and faxed it back. I waited a few weeks, and then called them. It turned out that they had never received the form, so I refaxed it a few weeks later, and this time I called and confirmed that they had indeed received it. Fast-forward to Thursday, and I get a call from the institution saying that a piece of information is missing- I say, "Hold on, let me pull up the form." And I do. I say to the person that all of the fields are filled out, to which she replies, "All but the social security number." We talk a bit more, and as we chat I try to put the number into the field.
However, the field does not exist. So, I write it in the small box, and fax it off. I call back in an hour, and yes, they have received it, but no, they cannot read it. Arrrrrgh! So, I write it in VERY LARGE NUMERALS in the field immediately to the right, and refax. I call, and they say they cannot use this because it has to be in the box... the really small box. Jennifer suggests making a label with our P-Touch labeler; I fax this off, call, and we are now in business.
I have done more unpleasant things, but its been a while. Adding insult to injury, during that time, I was unable to do anything noteworthy to HTML, the spreadsheet or the database. Hopefully I can get something done tomorrow- Sunday. If it rains, the grass won't get cut; if it doesn't- some yardwork will get done first, followed by some good tekkie stuff. Until then...
My timehack today is 2210CST.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
So there I was, finishing the last job that I needed to get done. My mind was already set on packing up when a coworker asked if I could do one more. "Of course," I replied, instantly adding two hours to my evening/night/morning- I think an advanced degree of some sort is required to explain when I work. In any event, I ended up being the guy that turned the lights out. At 0300.
Thursday morning, I got up sans alarm around 1115, and was more or less awake. I finished my lemon juice, and then made a nice cup of tea. My idea of a nice cup is a bit on the dark side- there are areas on the ocean floor of the Marianas Trench that are lighter, I think. Thusly fortified, I checked messages on the cell phone, checked email, and over lunch had some stress relief on a few Facebook games that I like. Lunch was a couple glasses of milk with some boneless skinless chicken breast, followed by a bowl of ramen. I attempted to return a phone call to an employment agency, but ended up with voice mail. After that, a phone call to a financial institution about a document I had faxed a month earlier, and then refaxed because some information was missing.
And this is where the wheels really started losing traction....
Someone at the financial institution had made a very nice Microsoft Word form. Back in May, I had filled out the form and faxed it back. I waited a few weeks, and then called them. It turned out that they had never received the form, so I refaxed it a few weeks later, and this time I called and confirmed that they had indeed received it. Fast-forward to Thursday, and I get a call from the institution saying that a piece of information is missing- I say, "Hold on, let me pull up the form." And I do. I say to the person that all of the fields are filled out, to which she replies, "All but the social security number." We talk a bit more, and as we chat I try to put the number into the field.
However, the field does not exist. So, I write it in the small box, and fax it off. I call back in an hour, and yes, they have received it, but no, they cannot read it. Arrrrrgh! So, I write it in VERY LARGE NUMERALS in the field immediately to the right, and refax. I call, and they say they cannot use this because it has to be in the box... the really small box. Jennifer suggests making a label with our P-Touch labeler; I fax this off, call, and we are now in business.
I have done more unpleasant things, but its been a while. Adding insult to injury, during that time, I was unable to do anything noteworthy to HTML, the spreadsheet or the database. Hopefully I can get something done tomorrow- Sunday. If it rains, the grass won't get cut; if it doesn't- some yardwork will get done first, followed by some good tekkie stuff. Until then...
My timehack today is 2210CST.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Decaf programming
Well, not really!
I know that's probably a big surprise, but I think that in addition to education, experience and creativity, caffeine is widely regarded as a necessary component of programming. Well, that's not necessarily true... I think.
I got up fairly late Sunday morning, as I had worked pretty late Saturday. We'd had a good amount of rain for the past five days, but at least one weather forecast indicated that today was going to be dry, so I had planned to cut the grass and then do some yard work. Well, that didn't happen, as not long after I got up, ... it rained. I popped open a 1.5L bottle of my preferred carbonated Polish mineral water and sat down in front of the computer. When the water was gone, tea followed. Jennifer opted for a nap, and I sat down for some quality time with w3schools. I got to playing (for the first time!) with Javascript inside of HTML5, and I had quite a lot of fun with a simple exercise. Jennifer got up, and I had her assist with something that I got stuck on, and life was just plain good. We went off to Sam's, picked up a few things, and the evening was pretty much a database and spreadsheet night. And for those who might be wondering... I do have a life. Between the data and spreadsheet, Jennifer and I had an exquisite fried chicken dinner and watched a few episodes of Eureka.
I've also started a blog timing experiment. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I've read that certain times of the day are more effective for blogging than others. In the past, I had normally posted around midnight or a bit later in my time zone (CST= -6 GMT). I think this was pretty good for European readers, but did not make my blogs immediately known to North and South American readers. So, I'm doing some experimentation, trying to ascertain what is the best time to post to blogs. I'm thinking I'll probably do a major post once to cover LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and then do Twitter posts a few times after that.
My time hack for today is 1250 CST.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
I know that's probably a big surprise, but I think that in addition to education, experience and creativity, caffeine is widely regarded as a necessary component of programming. Well, that's not necessarily true... I think.
I got up fairly late Sunday morning, as I had worked pretty late Saturday. We'd had a good amount of rain for the past five days, but at least one weather forecast indicated that today was going to be dry, so I had planned to cut the grass and then do some yard work. Well, that didn't happen, as not long after I got up, ... it rained. I popped open a 1.5L bottle of my preferred carbonated Polish mineral water and sat down in front of the computer. When the water was gone, tea followed. Jennifer opted for a nap, and I sat down for some quality time with w3schools. I got to playing (for the first time!) with Javascript inside of HTML5, and I had quite a lot of fun with a simple exercise. Jennifer got up, and I had her assist with something that I got stuck on, and life was just plain good. We went off to Sam's, picked up a few things, and the evening was pretty much a database and spreadsheet night. And for those who might be wondering... I do have a life. Between the data and spreadsheet, Jennifer and I had an exquisite fried chicken dinner and watched a few episodes of Eureka.
I've also started a blog timing experiment. I'm not sure about anyone else, but I've read that certain times of the day are more effective for blogging than others. In the past, I had normally posted around midnight or a bit later in my time zone (CST= -6 GMT). I think this was pretty good for European readers, but did not make my blogs immediately known to North and South American readers. So, I'm doing some experimentation, trying to ascertain what is the best time to post to blogs. I'm thinking I'll probably do a major post once to cover LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, and then do Twitter posts a few times after that.
My time hack for today is 1250 CST.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Not Quite 2.0
For those who have visited blog in the past, you'll notice a new look and feel to the blog; I intend for the changes to make it a little more readable. As always, your thoughts and suggestions are welcome (as well as ideas from newcomers). And as much as I would have liked to call this new look v2.0, so far all I've done is used Google's tools and images. I'm not sure if any other sites out there (Wordpress, for example) are any better or easier, but my first experience with a fairly major update to this blog was pretty painless.
For starters, there's the new background, which features a bunch of chrome dumbbells. I selected it not merely because I'm an on again, off again weightlifter, but because of the symmetry and neutral colors that shows text nicely. Speaking of text, I'm not 100% settled on any of the colors. As this is blog v1.5, the colors chosen were standard Google recommendations. When I'm ready to do this again, I think I will consult with Jennifer. And even though I'm the designated color-picker in our home, only a fool does not seek the counsel of others. I've also changed the background color of the blog to a shade of grey, which looks more readable, as well as making the area available for text slightly wider. It is my hope that these changes will result in a more enjoyable blog reading experience. I've also put solid backgrounds on the sidebars for the same reason.
I worked on both the database and the Lego spreadsheet yesterday, but don't have numbers to post. I did discover something that needs a bit of tidying up in a table, though. The Songs table, which contains nothing but song titles has a number of records that start with "The"- "The Word" (The Beatles, Yesterday... And Today). My naming convention is for articles (a, an, the) to go at the end of the record (Word, The), so I've got a small amount of fixing to do. Like many things, I found this totally by accident: I was entering a title, and before completing the entry scrolled up to check if had already been entered. And there they were. So, either tonight or tomorrow this will get fixed.
Well, one of the cats is having her illogical morning crazies, looking up longingly at the intersection of two walls near the front door, occasionally yapping- and then suddenly darting towards an imagined something-or-other.And, although I can't see the bottom of the mug just yet, my tea is nearly gone, which can only mean one thing: time to pack it up and head off to work.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
For starters, there's the new background, which features a bunch of chrome dumbbells. I selected it not merely because I'm an on again, off again weightlifter, but because of the symmetry and neutral colors that shows text nicely. Speaking of text, I'm not 100% settled on any of the colors. As this is blog v1.5, the colors chosen were standard Google recommendations. When I'm ready to do this again, I think I will consult with Jennifer. And even though I'm the designated color-picker in our home, only a fool does not seek the counsel of others. I've also changed the background color of the blog to a shade of grey, which looks more readable, as well as making the area available for text slightly wider. It is my hope that these changes will result in a more enjoyable blog reading experience. I've also put solid backgrounds on the sidebars for the same reason.
I worked on both the database and the Lego spreadsheet yesterday, but don't have numbers to post. I did discover something that needs a bit of tidying up in a table, though. The Songs table, which contains nothing but song titles has a number of records that start with "The"- "The Word" (The Beatles, Yesterday... And Today). My naming convention is for articles (a, an, the) to go at the end of the record (Word, The), so I've got a small amount of fixing to do. Like many things, I found this totally by accident: I was entering a title, and before completing the entry scrolled up to check if had already been entered. And there they were. So, either tonight or tomorrow this will get fixed.
Well, one of the cats is having her illogical morning crazies, looking up longingly at the intersection of two walls near the front door, occasionally yapping- and then suddenly darting towards an imagined something-or-other.And, although I can't see the bottom of the mug just yet, my tea is nearly gone, which can only mean one thing: time to pack it up and head off to work.
As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.
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