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Lucas Shaffer
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Blogspot to Wordpress: BLOG HAS MOVED
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 10:42 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 26, 2010
Why You Should Go Social...No, I Mean All The Way
In the waves of online identities and our need to communicate, we are having a rebirth of society. Societies functional aspect is beginning to open the door to many avenues of being connected. I have been passing an idea back and forth in my head and it is becoming a common thread in which I revisit quite frequently.
We now have dozens and dozens of possibilities for each of us to experience. Whether you place your status into your communities or participate in geotagging mobile apps you are actively participating in the the new society.
It's not hard to imagine why some people are more into it than others. I mean, for what it's worth, its a bit revealing. I sometimes get a feeling that everyone knows a little too much. Maybe they know more than I would like them to know. I am sure this is true. But this is the exact feeling of insecurity and blinding faith that is driving the social driven communities to thrive so well. It's not so much what you are putting out there but it is more about how much people are interacting. It's a communal therapy session. Good times, sad times and middle times....all shared among friends.
Years ago you couldn't have told me that I would eventually be in touch with just about everyone I have ever met and more. I would have said something crass and levitated to an idea of virtual worlds where everyone is a mask, hiding it all to misinform. Virtual worlds failed because the real thing is much, much more interesting.
I understand why you haven't joined facebook. Heck, I even understand why you can't remember your email address. I know you don't really care about the things that I do. It's why we are friends. It's the ol', "Why do I want to tell someone what I am doing all the time?" question. It's frightful, and new. We don't like new unless it's something we can read reviews about it and get a 30 day free trial.
For the most part, participating in the online social arena is a healthy lesson in humility, honesty and altruism. Facebook would not be so successful if people didn't have their own views and their own world revolving around them. If you decide to join in the new society you must make the most of it and this may help.
When I say, "go social, and go all the way", I am merely making a suggestion to lend your hand in building the new society. I have a few ideas to get your foot in the door in a small way. Seemingly so, if you dive into the deep end you may drown in too much information and find yourself a slave to your online ego. Let's begin...
Step 1
Your first thought should be about your audiences. You should have many concerns. One of the most important is your current employer. You family and friends play lightly on your visibility and enjoy your banter but your employer is quite the opposite. Many people have lost their jobs due to excessive posts about extracurricular activities. You are ahead of the game if you already think you should keep your personal life....well.....personal. Be smart.
Step 2
Define your goal. My first experience with online communities were Beta versions of AOL in the mid 90's and all I wanted to do was learn. Many people today chose to just stay connected with family. Others use Twitter to stay ahead of breaking news. Do you want to know something? Chances are that with the right tools and the right amount of interaction you not only have the power to learn, but to participate. It's important to know what it is you want to find by immersing yourself into a new community.
Step 3
Finding the best communities. It is important you allow yourself to enjoy the communities that are already established and fun! Facebook is a great example. It is the benchmark in which most social communities compare themselves to. You can find your friends relatively easy and it will be like playing an old video game you haven't played in years. It's communicating and its fast. Go play.
Step 4
No need to be shy. You are here and you plan on staying around. Speak up and often. It's the sharing of info and news that make it a community. Be helpful and engage people.
Step 5
Relax. Social networking is easy. Your willingness to interact with others should become second nature very quickly. Don't buy into the hype where you need to be on all the time or you will miss something. Keep your personal life and do not try and replace online relationships with in person relationships. It's a new society now but personal friends are close to priceless.
Step 6
Expand who you are. It is your responsibility to be the first person to post something about YOU on the web. Google yourself. Find anything interesting? Well....you should have. The new business card should be a Google search page. No more paper squares. Maybe you don't want to be found. If so, privacy is a concern for any prevalent site. If you can't find a privacy statement then maybe the site you are using is not concerned about it at all.
Last step
Start a blog. Write about your passion. Find people who share these passions. Learn from the new structure of society and be there to help others.
I haven't made any assumptions here about who will read this but if the unassuming social media newbie runs across this entry then I wanted to give them a nudge. I am not saying it is for everyone but there are a few things to keep in mind for the uninformed user.
The biggest tip of all is to be helpful. Your online social presence is a result of your online relationships just as your in person network is a result of your personal relationships. You are in control much as in everyday life. Knowing the difference is a key to thriving in the new society.
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 11:06 PM 0 comments
Labels: best practices, communities, facebook, goals, google, lucaslshaffer, networking, new society, responsibility, social media, value content, web safety
Friday, April 9, 2010
Gus and the 1,000th Picture
I promise I haven't been avoiding my blog. I have just been letting the dust settle from baby Gus's arrival.
I am a DADDY! And a very proud one at that. It has been a bit surreal. I look at him sometimes and it seems as though I am looking at him through someone else's eyes. I feel like I am rewarded at every milestone by the surge of support from our family and friends. Gus is picking things up quickly and he surprises me every day.
Thanks go to my wife for creating such a beautiful baby in her belly! I love my family and couldn't imagine life any other way.
I would write more but I am going to grab a nap so I will share a few of the 1,000's of pictures we have already taken.
Good Night and Enjoy!
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 11:11 PM 1 comments
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
One Man Band: Memoirs Of a Lone Agile Developer
I have heard it said it many areas that our projects are a product of community. Projects begin with one person and end with another. I have not had this pleasure. On the brink of completing a transition to work with my first team I thought it fitting to profile my professional career up to this point.
I am not a pioneer, nor do I seek recognition for my work. I simply want to take you on a journey from my inception as a professional developer to recognizing that the pattern of my habits had already broken ground and is well documented as an Agile methodology. My code survives through many states, evolving over time from collections and the evolution of my skills depended on only two variables; time and output. Here is my story on how I maximized both to wrangle thousands of lines of code and reach my goals.
Break.
In my collective mind, coding is simple. I learn the rules and the understand my limitations and I can do anything within these rules. This is not much different from life. I am sure somewhere along the line, I made it my business to know the rules. I learned that within rules, I can exist to my fullest potential. The old adage, "You never know if you never ask" has been a mantra, of sorts, I live by. Code is no different. Understanding the limitations of your language and the existing operating system can create the dialog needed to build a successful application.
I had experience that most colleagues would think laughable when I began working at my first professional job, The Game Headwear. My title was Website Support Technician. I was a novice at best and my responsibilities were slim. I made excitable HTML pages with my eyes on the trending areas of client side scripting and some Flash. I didn't have to see much further than my own desktop to discover I enjoyed creating. I snapped scripts together like the Lego's I built as a child. There was an energy I captured writing scripts but nothing could prepare me for my first year at The Game. I walked in and hit the ground running. I was determined that no language was better than the other and set out on a journey that would mold me into the person I am today.
I spent a lot of time reading documentation. Immediately, I was overwhelmed and it hurt. My first "real" project was to redesign the intranet. I think about it now as such a menial task but at the time it was my first chance to prove myself as a programmer. I was done in just a few hours. Considering there was not much to work with, I constructed a few static pages together and split the time with a lunch break and by the end I had made something. It wasn't glorious and it wasn't something to share. It was informative, and by any means, my goal was complete.
After a few months of hashing out redesigns for our flagship site, I began to notice there was a much bigger picture going on behind the scenes. It wasn't familiar at the time but my new employer was doling out lots of money to a 3rd party development company in which to programming and create a order management application linked to our site. At the time, I had no idea what ColdFusion looked like and similarly knew only the academics behind server-side technology. After all, I had a degree in Computer Science centered around software development and I buffed my ego by knowing a little about a lot in tech-wise terminology. It seemed that the demand for rapid changes and workflow intervention was about to open a new window for me.
There was a moment. A brief instant where my manager mentioned we were hiring a new guy. This guy was sold to me as a mentor type person and I was thrilled with the chance to jump start my professional career by leaning on the new-hire for his expertise. I was surely going to learn from him as he began developing and managing an existing, 3rd party created, OEM.
The day finally came when he was going to show up for his first day. I was attentive and aware. It felt like I was going to get a glimpse into the teacher section of the study guide and get all the answers. I was ready.
The day passes and nothing. No one shows up. The nest day comes and goes and still nothing. Apparently, something was wrong. Well, the short story is the new guys current employer caught wind and offered him something he couldn't refuse. This meant no new guy for us. It was still just me and my manager with a pile of work. And that's when it happened...
I remember very distinctly the day when my manager brought me into his office and discussed the future of my professional career. He simply asked me, "Can you do this?" I looked at the plan and without any pause I said, "Yes." At this point, the new guys initiative to create a position had turned into an opportunity to challenge myself with new technology and development. I will admit, I was sweating when I walked out of his office and my wide eyed expression was only the beginning as I had never used ColdFusion before but I was about to get a crash course from myself.
The next 3 months were the hardest times I ever remember in my life. I worked 10-12 hours a day to push for an inconceivable deadline on a project where I had no idea what I was doing. It was tough and although I didn't see it then, it was the defining part of my work ethic and professional integrity. It changed me. I was not the same person I was before the moment my manager entrusted the responsibility of this project to me. There were times early on where I wanted to go to my manager and say, "I can't do this. I am just not there yet." I spent days just trying to figure out code snippet I would consider simple today. It was a revealing time. All the while, I was doing this alone. I was exactly alone, for instance. I had friends who were programmers who provided support; both guidance and moral support. I appreciated the help but there was no one who could look at my screen and walk me through.
Needless to say I stuck to my project and succeeded. We profiled the ColdFusion OEM at the Sales Meeting three months later and I never looked back. The high output and positive feedback began a new relationship with my manager where I had become a fledgling developer who knew no bounds and now had the gusto to tackle anything.
I was a lone, rogue developer setting up shop with my own way of doing things. Or so I thought.
3 years later I was sitting on top of several successful projects and my primary responsibility had moved from Website Support Technician to a fully fledged Software Enginner. I had literally wrapped my resume with all the leading programming skills from .NET to Actionscript to JSP to PHP to just about anything I could get my hands on. My past projects had proven to my boss that I was capable of choosing the correct tool for the job and I used that freedom liberally.
My methodology for getting things done was dirty. I gathered specifications for projects from meetings, phone calls and emails and this became the normal 1st step. I was always a phone call away if the software needed to adapt to suit a Sales Reps needs or if management needed to tweak a report. This kept me quite busy and it wasn't until I began my Master's degree that I began reading on a higher level of understanding of who and what I had become.
Apparently, my rapid engagement of project handling and code adaptation and low documentation output was already a mainstream methodology. I had a similar feeling before. I remember walking into a psychology class during my undergrad and finding out that my perspective and awareness to behavior that I regarded as my own way to decipher feelings and relationships were actual terms in a book. It is both comforting and invigorating to find that something you had become aware of was so well documented and it only pushed me to know more. I began classifying myself a an agile developer and sought after others for information and knowledge.
It's a milestone moment for my career to have the no-show new guy spin off a development career that has molded me into a strong software developer. I often mention it to others as a 'what if'. For example, what if the new guy came in and I was never asked, "Can you do this?" I don't know where I would be but I have no doubt I would be good at it. Maybe I would have just taken a longer road.
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 9:47 PM 0 comments
Friday, March 5, 2010
@Foursquare And Why It Should Succeed
I join a few sites here and there and check them out just to taste the diverse flavors the web has to offer. One of my new favorites is @foursquare. Combine all the 'dwindling' geotagging sites that are dull and uneventful and add a reward system and you have Foursquare. Include a few goal-driven perks and make it super easy to access via my Nexus One and I am all in!
Let me explain further...
I am not a big fan of geotagging my twitter updates with locations and neither do I care to float around on Latitude or Google Buzz like a balloon head with no body. I set them up, looked around then disabled them. I also had an interest in Loopt. Loopt is a popular geotagging software based around SMS and friend proximity. It also grew a bit tiresome. No matter what service you choose to show people you are at the mall, you are just at the mall. Your presence fades as the tweets and status updates flood over your modest comment and no one ever remembers you were there. Here is where Foursquare comes in.
Imagine for a second you can leave you mark at your location. In the past, you would have carved "LLS <3 WKS 2010" into the table with your dinner knife. Future visitors gawk at how you spent so much time there when they see this archaic display of territory. You are a part of that place. You are linked to it's history. OK, now imagine Foursquare as the table and your mobile device as the dinner knife.
Foursquare allows you to leave your mark via the web and even leave a comment or suggest a "To-Do" at this location. The most interesting feature is the mayorship you can acquire. A mayorship is the equivalent of being a local at one location. To gain this status at any one location you need to have checked in more than anyone else. When other's visit this location they can see that you are mayor and even connect with you. It is quite possible the mayor has left a little nugget of knowledge that you can find out about a new place. The mayor has no responsibilities as a real mayor. Its purely social and says I have been here more than you and that makes me just a little bit cooler! Well, maybe not....
Whether you are mayor or not, you still have other rewards to seek. The other aspect of this location tagging adventure is the badges. Even as I type, I know the excitement that takes over after receiving one of these coveted markers and it makes me smile. I want them all. There are some that seem impossible and take time like checking in at 50 different venues. It's tough but fun.
With all that said the only thing that is required of you is to 'check-in'. You will find areas where your local hamburger spot hasn't been added as a venue. It's OK, just take a moment and add it. Every mobile app I have seen allows for you to add venues on the fly. In some cases, it will automatically find the address and you just give the name. Besides, after you add a 'new' venue and check-in, you only need one more check-in at that location before you can claim mayor! Yes! If you obtain mayor of 10 locations at once, you get the Super Mayor badge.
What about safety? The safety concerns of alerting your public status to others that you are not home is not a good idea whether it be from Foursquare or any other site. Upon creating an account, please visit the privacy section and define the level of notification you want the world to see via Twitter or Facebook and even Foursquare. It is ready to link to all your social sites and unleash gobs of info about your whereabouts. Be careful! Be SMART!
With all the geotagging ideas out there, there seems to be something appealing about this to me. Loopt, Gowalla, Google Buzz and Google Latitude are informative but I don't get much incentive to continually interact. Every morning, I wake up, grab my phone and check-in for breakfast. Check-in when I get to work. Check-in at lunch. Check-in when I come back to work from lunch. Then, I finally check-in at home. It seems a bit much and I agree it seems exhausting but it is quite the opposite. One click....and I am checked in. The apps, which are available for any 'new' phone, auto-find venues close to you so you don't have to search. I can start to see where other sites just missed the boat on reward driven experiences.
So, next time your out-and-about, think of all the places you are passing that presently exist on Foursquare. Your city is already filling with a collection of 'local' mayors all supporting the city in a mini-marketing campaign. Users 'swarming' concerts at arenas or speaking conventions. Knowledgeable people leaving advice, or 'virtual carvings', to share with newcomers at a favorite restaurant. I believe this hierarchy of active users can push other new users to 'want' these virtual status symbols. This user competition may be the advantage that could bring Foursquare closer to center stage. And yes, I will be there; as mayor of your favorite place!
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 9:26 PM 0 comments
Labels: badges, foursquare, geotagging, google, google buzz, google latitude, internet safety, loopt, mayor, social media, social safety
Friday, February 26, 2010
Netflix: Make your decision wisely...
I am recently trying to recreate my first impression of Netflix by answering one of the many emails I receive with a free 30-day (re)trial. I was a previous member and canceled during the Netflix bloom around 2005. With the recent addition to the XBox 360, I thought I would jump back in. After all, $9 after the free trial may be worth it. We will see....
Immediately, I created my account, picked up my XBox controller and began utilizing the new streaming access control panel named "Instant Queue". This is similar to the Rental Queue basic users are comfortable with but you can watch the movies/shows instantly. What a great idea! Nope. Wrong. Not even close.
The catalog of movies looks like the pool of videos in the middle isles of a Movie Gallery. You know, the ones you wade through to get to the new releases hanging on the walls. The 1980-1990's cinema hits blend themselves into categories like Drama, Comedy and Thriller with a few more recent films, but not many. I scan and scan only to find each category holds only 100 movies. Yeah.... 100. To make things worse, I see movies I love and always remember as part of my childhood. I start remembering tag lines that still get laughs and the great 80's sobbing teenage love films that made almost every encounter with the opposite sex awkward for my generation. This is bad because even though I love these movies, I don't have time to sit through "The Neverending Story" and watch Bastian fly the winged dog creature around Fantastica in an effort find his lost memories. I want new movies and I want them now.
It never happens.
After a couple of days of perusing several hundred out-dated movies, I am beginning to realize that even the good movies that Netflix offers as New Releases are old (online). I've seen them already or they are on TNT on Sunday, already. Further digging turns up another interesting detail Netflix didn't make very clear. When I try and select my 1 DVD rental and add it to my snail mail queue. the newest releases (the DVD's that released yesterday) aren't available for me to rent either or they are just hard to find. This is a tough situation. I have nothing to rent that is recent and my Instant Queue looks like a old film strip from my childhood, or what I remember from it!
One gem does rise from the plethora of 80's and 90's movies and that is the TV show archive. It's just like the movie queue and you can hold them there for extended periods (I think!). So, what do you think is in my TV Show queue? Well, of course, "The Office", "Dexter" and freaking "Law & Order". That's about all they have that interests me. All my queued shows but one are syndicated and air for 2-3 hours a day. Not worth $9 a month.
My expectations were high, as usual, and Netflix is obviously doing what they can for a meager $9 a month. I don't blame them. This is a choice of apathy. It's a trade off between having access to things you don't really want/need and not having access to things you want/need. On the other hand, we can keep our status quo and continuing wanting the things we 'think' we need and leave Netflix for the quantity lovers. I want quality....and now.
Yeah, that sounds about right...
PS - Check out Zune. Latest everything (movies/shows/cartoons) but it costs, so be careful...
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 11:29 PM 0 comments
Labels: instant queue, netflix, rental queue, xbox, xbox 360, zune
Web Awareness: How To Protect Yourself Against The Web
We've all seen them, some of us have been unfortunate to have them. Finding yourself with a virus or malware application that will run rampant on your computer is only a click away. There are a few things you can do to give yourself the power to interact with the web and not worry about malicious attacks on your personal stash of family photos or media libraries. I have been the victim once or twice and know there is no real advice that is full proof. I will do my best to help!
These tips are provided for users who may have never thought about these type of issues and can be boring for the advanced web surfer but I will keep try and stay short and entertain as well.
First, lets set a few things straight. You are to blame. Your lack of knowledge about computers is what I want to try and drill into your mind. Nothing, short of a blatant hacker who has isolated you for some type of gain or as revenge, is done to your computer without you either acknowledging the action by clicking the mouse or hitting the enter key. Your actions are directly related to being safe on the web. Understanding this, I will give you a few things to think about next time you see a pop-up window or a 'legit' site. Giving you the knowledge to identify 'careless' tendencies and cure these bad habits on the web will keep your computer healthy. It's in your hands.
Being an adventurous soul, as most of us are, we want to see, do and read everything available on the web and there are 'other' people who want prevent this or worse, steal from us. Virus writers tend to be bored, intelligent beings that hold the idea of creating the most unstoppable bug and unleashing it on the world! In other cases, malware coders want your stats. They want your histories of web pages, your tendencies, your intimate details; all to be polled for Ad campaigns. In some cases, these bugs can cause pop-ups or other website navigation issues. In the worst case scenario failure of the computer altogether is possible.
Here is a checklist to better prepare you when using the Web.
- Know Your Sites - Your ability to observe is key. The easiest way to lead yourself astray is to not clearly identify where you are. Sure, everything looks the same and I remember this button and that button. Your familiarity with your daily sites is the most common duplicated feature for attackers to take advantage of.
My policy is to always have the URL (website address) clearly in view. If I am on eBay, I expect to see http://www.ebay.com and not http://iwanttostealyourmoney.net/ebay. Even a less obvious detail would be to find yourself looking over a URL that says http://www.ebaysite.com. You are indeed on the wrong site and need to leave this page immediately.
- Clicking Your Mouse - Your mouse and keyboard are really to blame. Some time ago, many browsers began supporting security features that prevented any action to take place on your computer without you first giving permission. This is a tricky subject. For example, how do you know when you give something permission to carry out an action on your computer? Most attackers choose this ambiguous notion to misguide users to do things they normally wouldn't do. If you have been presented with a pop-up that says, "My Site would like to do something. Please click OK or Cancel." You may find yourself unsure what is about to happen and rightly so.
As a web developer I know I can tie malicious actions to either the OK or CANCEL buttons so this is a no-brainer; close the window altogether. If you "know this site" and all is well, then go forward with your action. Otherwise, leave the browser immediately and mentally high-five yourself; you may have just saved your computer!
- Protect Yourself - It's a little late in the game to say you can't afford virus/malware protection because there are several leading edge applications that are FREE and very useful. AVG, Microsoft Security Essentials and Spyware Doctor are just a few that can help prevent the little nasties from your computer. However, anti-virus software does not protect against YOU installing something you are not 100% sure is safe. Frequently, attackers hide bugs in files that look like valid files. What to do? When it doubt, delete it out!
I am always asked by friends and family who have 'unknowingly' obtained a nasty bug and my first question is always, "What did you last install?" Ha! Don't shrug your shoulders. If you can't remember what you are installing on your computer, then you shouldn't be installing anything on your computer. Screensaver packages, background wallpaper generators and unmonitored free software (in general) are breeding grounds for new malicious software creators. This leads me to my next point!
- Researching Software - Be smart, computers are awesome tools and can do great things. Read about your software first and look for peer reviews. If you find no information, then this is usually a bad sign. No information is bad information. Good, healthy software applications have robust descriptions and reviews mainly because their writers have paraded their new vision or new tool to many people. The reviews can be numerous and whether positive or negative immediately may show signs of malicious actions and consumer complaints.
How do I research software? Google it. Again, no search results means pass by this software. Special cases include you knowing the person, or team who developed the site.
- Spam - Your email inbox is an open invitation for anyone to contact you about sex medication, narcotics, russian brides, western union scams and just about everything you don't want. It's amazing the amount of Spam that is blocked before it hits your inbox. Millions upon millions an hour get cut off before it gets to you. So, what do you do? You don't open anything unless you are expecting it or you know the sender. Everything else is white noise and should be 'Marked' as Spam for future filtering purposes.
You can also help in building trust with your friends and family by not forwarding Spam. For example, other people's ideas on "How to prevent a heart attack by coughing" or "Skyway to Heaven"(untrue explanation of Disney ride) are considered Spam. Do you ever wonder why some people never reply to these? Because they don't read them. Help all your friends, including me, by sending only pertinent messages that you expect replies to. If you are the one forwarding me emails with "FW:FW>>>FW:FW:" in the subject line I will not open. Matter of fact, the priority in which I open and respond in has now sent you to the bottom. I understand you are trying to help. I understand you want to help others but by forwarding false information you are lowering your value as an email contact and this could cause issues in the future.
- Simulated Actions - Twice today, I have already been in contacted by two people who have been duped into downloading Software to help "clean" the bugs supposedly reported. I have seen this so let me explain. Out of no where, a window pops up and the status, address and navigation toolbars are hidden and it looks like a valid Windows application. Some cogs spin and a progress bar about half way down the window shows progress. Alongside the progress bar a counter is increasing and the number is alarming. Add to the fact that beside this rising number is the term "Security Risks." Immediately, everyone is alarmed. Even me. BUT, I quickly see this is a web page designed to simulate something real so I think I am in imminent danger. How tricky is that? There are some smart people out there trying to spread their bugs.
Be careful to take your time to make decisions that could penetrate your computer. This simulated action is going around fast because it states you must make a decision or your computer will be no good anymore. That is simply not true.
- Backups, Backups, Backups - Do this today. You will eventually download and install a virus. The ideas of trickery and misleading designs are getting stronger and smarter. You will use your back up several times PER computer. Yes, you will own more than one computer and you data collection will grow as you move to each new system. It is imperative your data is transferable and backed up regularly. It's just smart. Don't let those 11 years of digital photo albums get erased by a bug that you, yourself, downloaded.
Some of these are basic ideas that can help even a novice computer user. You need to be the responsible one in the relationship. The computer will not install a virus or download a malware program by itself. Understanding that you are the gatekeeper can be a powerful tool in helping you navigate web.
Good luck out there!
Posted by Lucas Shaffer at 10:21 PM 2 comments
Labels: bad habits, common sense, decision, google, google.com, internet safety, mobile safety, pop-ups, spam, virus protection, web safety