The AppsLab » Rich Manalang

My Anti-Social Experiment

Rich Manalang — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:22:56 +0000

In an IM conversation I had with Paul this morning, I decided to embark on an experiment. I’ve decided to drop out of all things social (online) for a few weeks. This includes Twitter, Buzz, Facebook, blogging, etc. The only thing this doesn’t include is email and IM — those are essential.

My online activities can be broken down to about 95% consumption and only 5% contribution. I know… I should give back more. If I were a “Jake”, I would. The thing is, I get more value from the intertubes by consuming it. I have no real excuse for not giving back as much as I consume. Reciprocity is something I need to practice more in general.

Anyway, the big reason I’m doing this is that since last Tuesday, I’ve sunk a lot of time into futzing with Google Buzz. That’s time I’ll never get back. Meanwhile, I have yet to see the real value of Google Buzz. Before Buzz, conversations and information sharing were already fragmented. Between Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc., it has become increasingly difficult to consume information — especially for someone who spends 95% of their online time doing it.

The goal of my experiment is to figure out if I’ll miss using these social tools as a way to find new and interesting content — and, more importantly, if I’ll miss out on something I might find important. I didn’t include Google Reader in the list because out of all the tools I use online Reader is actually one that brings order to chaos… even if I have 1000+ unread postings. In the end, I’m hoping to filter out some of the noise out of my day. I spend 9-12 hours staring at a screen and would love it if there was less clutter that distracted me from actually getting things done. If I happen to miss one of these channels at the end of this experiment, I’m going to figure out what I miss and why, then I’m going to try to improve my process in order to bring order to it all. This all started because Paul sent out a link on OraTweet (Oracle’s internal version of Twitter) pointing to the “Side effects of developing for yourself” — a post about the positive consequences from solving a problem for yourself by the creator of Instapaper. Well, this is my problem… and this is the start of how I’m planning to solve it.

Am I the only one with this problem?Possibly Related Posts:

The Obligatory Google Buzz Review

Rich Manalang — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:10:43 +0000

It’s been a few days since Google Buzz was born and it’s time for an AppsLabber to review it, so here are my thoughts.

Day one

It was a lonely experience — akin to showing up to a party you knew was going to be fun, but you ended being one of the first ones there. After a few hours more people started to show up and I started to engage more by following more people since hardly any of my Gmail contacts have showed up. I broke out of my usual shell and started following people I’ve never met in meat and virtual life. I felt sort of strange, but it felt good to engage with “outsiders.” I remember feeling, “wow, Buzz is cool… it’s what I’ve been waiting for, etc.” Just like feelings I get with shinny new things, I felt “buzzed” by the thought of it all. I tried to get more friends into it as well… not sure they felt the same way I did when they joined the party.

Day two

Day two was when most people started showing up. I noticed that some of the people I started following — big names like Scoble and Rose — started to take over my stream. All of the sudden the people I was more interested in hearing from started getting dominated by those with larger voices and larger crowds hovering over them. This sucked. I don’t want to be forced into a crowd of people having a convo about stuff I didn’t care about. This is when I discovered the “mute” feature. I knew about the mute feature with Gmail and it’s cool that Buzz takes advantage of that. However, one of the things I expected Google would be good at is extracting signal from noise, Sergey claims this himself. I’ve gotten so used to Twitter’s simple pattern of showing you the most recent posts and showing trends to let users keep track of the conversations that are happening. I guess I expected something similar with Buzz, but instead Buzz forces you to pay attention to the larger conversations happening inside your circle. Google Buzz team: I don’t always want to be forced into a conversation I may or may not care about. So, I think the sorting and filtering of buzz items need to be worked out. Otherwise, my finger’s always going to be hovering over the “m” key waiting to mute items — that’s not a good pattern to encourage. By the way, the “mute” feature doesn’t work. Every time I “mute” Scoble’s postings it pops back up a few minutes later.

Day three (today)

Today, I’m starting to see real friends buzzing about. Most of them are confused — like they were forced to be a part of something they didn’t want to be a part of. Some are finding it useful. And others are just going with it, but aren’t sure what to do.

If it were me calling the shots, here’s what I’d do:

Don’t require GMail for Buzz. It should have launched as a stand-alone app with close links to Gmail and the ability to launch inside Gmail (as it does today). I find it confusing that you can use Buzz from your mobile devise in a stand-alone app, but you can’t from your desktop. One of my Google buddies did tell me to be patient when I told him about this, so maybe that’s in the works. Either way, it should have launched as a stand-alone app. The motivation for doing so means that you can capture people who don’t have and want GMail accounts, but maybe it was Google’s intention to require GMail. Also, for those that don’t think your social network should start with your inbox (I’m not one of them BTW), this would have been a good way to separate the two.
Fix the signal-to-noise algorithms. I ended up sinking lots of valuable time avoiding and muting items I was being forced to see over and over again. This is not something I expect from Google. Fix it.
All the usual patterns we’ve come to know and love from Twitter would be nice: hashtag support, search, trending, and a solid API out the gate are keys to success.
Better profile pages. I appreciate Google’s sense and discipline for spartan user interfaces, but when you give me my own page to allow me to share a piece of me to the world, I’d love it if you can allow me to add my own flair and dress it with my own unique style. It doesn’t need to be fancy… just allow me to change the background and colors around and use a better looking font. Google profiles remind me of profiles you’d see in a company directory, bleh.

Start with those. With that, here’s what I do love:

Media handling. I love that when I put a URL in, it extracts images from the site, very cool.
Longer postings. I love that I can post more than 140 characters, but the UI serves as a subtle suggestion that this isn’t a place for posting essays.
Private postings. I’m not sure why I’d post a private message that only I could see, but I do love that I can share privately to a group of people.
Shortcut keys. I love that Buzz has some of it’s siblings DNA and allows me to wade through posts using the same shortcut keys.
Aggregation of other sites. I love that Buzz follows FriendFeed’s lead on allowing users to share more than just messages but also twitter posts, blog posts, reader items, flickr images, etc. I just wish we had the ability to cross post to Twitter/Facebook… highly unlikely this will happen though and I understand.

Overall, I think Buzz is cool. The “buzz” I had on day one is gone, but I still think it’s got potential. Great job Google! Next time, however, please leave it in the oven a little longer.

Possibly Related Posts:

The Obligatory Post #oow Post

Rich Manalang — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:58:07 +0000

I need to watch what I say when I’m with Jake, else I’ll be asked to blog… what a chore

Anyway, just a few thoughts from last week’s craziness known as #oow…

Congrats to Raimonds Simanovskis for winning the coveted Oracle Developer of the Year award. Raimonds’ is known in the Ruby and Rails world for building and maintaining the Ruby Oracle adapters (oracle-enhanced, ruby-plsql, and the Oracle adapter for DataMapper). I wish I had more time to contribute to Raimonds’ work. Sounds like he’s got a few new projects planned… Ruby client for Coherence.
WebCenter sessions — I learned quite a bit about WebCenter this week. I’m particularly excited about the REST based support that WebCenter will be offering with this month’s release.
It was great to meetup (in real life) with the folks I frequently twitter/im/email with… too many to list here.

I’m not sure how this came about, but Jake and I were discussing how CS students should be required (or highly motivated) to work on open source projects as part of their coursework in college. Then I read Raimonds’ Oracle Magazine interview where he said:

“It would be good if there were more sharing,” says Simanovskis. “A lot of very good developers have created a lot of good components that could be reused, but too often they stay inside the corporate firewall.”

Too often, I work with developers who have no desire to share their work (even internally). I believe having developers participate in open source communities before starting their careers would greatly help out commercial software vendors foster an openness that can promote innovation and creativity.Possibly Related Posts:

Google Wave, the Aftermath

Rich Manalang — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:41:37 +0000

When I first saw Google Wave, it was like experiencing a messiah. For a web/tech geek, @larsras‘ and @twephanie’s 80+ min demo was a spiritual affair that I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life [in software]. I even spread the love on this blog.

After Google I/O (where Google Wave had it’s coming out party), I got a chance to kick the tires in the Google Wave sandbox. Boy was that rough — it should have been called a “wave pool” instead of a sandbox. The product was unusable after 5-10 minutes of use. With that said, I was cool with it because the Google engineers behind it are rock stars and it’ll get cleaned up… and hell, it was basically alphaware.

Fast forward to last week when Google opened up Wave to ~100k users. I thought great… it’s almost ready and most issues should be ironed out by now. Hmmm… after using it for a week, I’d say it’s got a long way to go. Yes, most of the bugs I’ve seen in the past are gone. However, there are still several things that make this product very unusable as an email alternative. First of all, whenever I use it, it spikes my browser’s memory usage by about 300-500mb on top of what was already there. So, it’s not unlikely to have Safari or Chrome (on OS X Snow Leopard) consuming ~1gb of memory. After using Google Wave, I had to cycle my browser just to free up the memory. Ok… so the browsers have to improve because of Google Wave… that’s a good thing. Nothing pushes innovation faster than an innovative product that relies on it, right?

Aside from technical issues, Google Wave’s largest hurdle is to convince people that this platform really is better. I get that Google released Wave to hackers early to crowdsource the innovation that could help propel its use. However, it’s going to be a while before most common folks really “get it.” It’s also going to require some innovative applications (extensions, robots, etc) and use patterns to push it forward. Right now, the general consensus among my circle of wave friends is that they “don’t get it.”

With that said, I’m confident that Google will pull it off. Not very many companies can do it, but they can. Everything gets reinvented at some point and email is a prime target. So, I’m sure that in another few months, my current feelings toward Wave will be different. In the meantime, if you happen to get a Wave invite, send me a wave.Possibly Related Posts:

Sudoku anyone?

Rich Manalang — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:09:26 +0000

Just testing out a collaborative sudoku gadget from Google Wave. Update: you’ll only see this if you have a Google Wave account. 7 invites left. First 7 to comment gets an invite!

Update: All my (Jake’s) invitations are gone, not sure where Rich is with his batch. Also, the Wave script seems to be borked. It’s try to render at the bottom of the page and failing. Oh well, it’s definitely a “Preview” release. More to come as we experiment with it.

Update 2: Removed the embedded Sudoku Wave because for some reason it stopped working correctly and was trying to load at the bottom of the page. Possibly Related Posts:

Time for a Tummy Tuck and a Little Botox

Rich Manalang — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:42:15 +0000

Jake and I have grown tired over our bland red, black, and white theme. I finally had a bit of time to carry out a simple redesign. Here it is. We wanted something super simple that was easy on eyes and had a nice font. To spruce it up a bit, I added some drop shadows and rounded corners (of course). And since I like to draw sometimes, I decided to draw a few icons on my iPhone using the newly released SketchBook Mobile app (highly recommended).

Like it? Think it sucks a**? Tell us (the truth) below.Possibly Related Posts:

Goodbye _why.

Rich Manalang — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:32:41 +0000

If you’ve had your hand in Ruby or Rails, you’ve probably heard of Why the Lucky Stiff (aka, _why), an online persona of a programmer who was one of the more influential Rubyists next to Yukihiro Matsumoto (creator of Ruby, aka, Matz) and David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of Rails, aka, DHH). As of this afternoon, _why’s online presence is no more. All of his sites (whytheluckystiff.net, poignantguide.net, hackety.org, shoooes.net, hacketyhack.net, tryruby.hobix.net, and others ) and accounts on Twitter and Github are gone — including all of the code, applications, and art he created over the years. This has caused the Ruby community and others to go crazy over his disappearance.

_why is the creator of some of the most widely used Ruby tools and resources like, The Poignant Guide to Ruby, Hpricot, Markaby, RedCloth, Shoes, Camping, and Try Ruby. He’s a man who lived in the Ruby community known only under the persona he created — he’s never disclosed his real name.

I’ve only been in the Ruby community since 2006, but I’ve been a consumer of _why’s work from the time I started. I found his Poignant Guide to Ruby a great introduction to the language — a fresh, artistic, and eccentric approach to teaching people how to program in Ruby. _why was passionate about teaching Ruby to others through his work.

No one really knows yet why he dropped off. Initially, a few thought his accounts were hacked and sites deleted, but now the general consensus is that he did this deliberately. No one seems to really know why, but Hacker News user fizx quoted a recent tweet before _why deleted his account:

Programming is a rather thankless. u see your works become replaced by superior ones in a year. unable to run at all in a few more.

For any artist who takes pride in his work, seeing his work replaced is pretty discouraging. Regardless of the reason, he will be missed. The body of work he created for the Ruby community is impressive. John Resig (creator of jQuery) wrote a great post about _why today that is worth reading.Possibly Related Posts:

The Enterprise Implications of Google Wave

Rich Manalang — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:55:42 +0000

Five minutes after I posted my Google Wave analysis, I ran into Dion Hinchcliffe’s excellent analysis of Google Wave. A must read for Enterprise 2.0 folks.

This is exactly what I’m envisioning happening with Google Wave in the enterprise. It will become the “glue code” for the user experience. It won’t replace existing back-end apps, but provide a much cleaner, nicer, and more productive interface for interacting with them. The biggest problem most enterprise apps pose is the lack of focus on the user experience. Google Wave provides a framework for improving that experience.Possibly Related Posts:

Google Wave: The Killer Enterprise Apps Platform?

Rich Manalang — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:19:21 +0000

Last week’s Google I/O left me feeling very optimistic for what’s to come in the world of web apps. I don’t have a whole lot to add to the coverage of Google Wave and the other cool things disclosed at I/O. However, after seeing the demo of Google Wave, I couldn’t help but think of the possibilities of the platform as it relates to the Enterprise world. Today, Jake and I were just discussing how Google Wave is actually a huge enterprise play for Google. I haven’t seen much coverage about this but if you think about it, Google has been creeping into the Enterprise for the last several years. Google Wave is most likely the platform it will use to expand that strategy.

Google Wave as it stands is a collaboration app. It ties together all forms of communication and collaboration in a nice browser based app. The biggest features of Google Wave are those that haven’t been built yet. Google Wave’s underlying platform was built for extensibility — for features that haven’t yet been thought up. Most of the features that were demonstrated are cool techie-whizzbang features that web devs and web aficionados appreciate — features like live concurrent editing. However, for average consumers, I’d argue that live concurrent editing isn’t that big a deal. Think about it… most people are so accustomed to delayed communication patterns (email and snail mail) rather than the real-time, instant feedback style of communication that we get when using instant messaging or sms. I suspect that’s not going to change for most consumers. Regardless, I love the live concurrent editing feature, but I think the Enterprise is where a feature like that will be very useful. Collaborating on documents in real-time is a great feature and one we’ve used in the past with Google Docs. Since Google Wave will allow developers to build on top of this technology, think of what type of apps you can build that utilize live concurrent editing. What if you can build a Bespin type of app inside Google Wave and make writing code a collaborative task. Those of us who practice agile development and TDD do this already, but what if we could do it in one application that allows us to easily mashup other commonly related tasks — like automatically creating bug reports and user stories in external apps, etc?

Google Wave’s extensions consist of robots and gadgets. Robots are basically participants that you can add to your wave that allow you to automate certain tasks within a wave. A robot can read the contents of a wave and then perform an action. There’s a myriad of robots you could create that will allow an enterprise worker to be more productive. Here are a few:“Expensie”

One common example that pops up whenever someone is talking about some enterprisey thing are expense reports. We could build a robot that can be used to create or append to an expense report out of web receipts you receive. All you have to do is add “Expensie” to the receipts you receive.

“Recruitie”

How about a robot that streamlines the whole recruiting process. An applicant applies for a job through some standard web based form, that form gets sent to the recruiter and a new wave is created. Now the applicant and recruiter can collaborate within the wave. But, to automate the process, the “Recruitie” (recruiting assistant) robot is added to the wave by the recruiter. This robot’s job is to schedule the candidate’s interviews with interviewers and make sure the candidate is well informed of the process. It’s also responsible for making sure that the interviewer is well informed of who the candidate is by packaging up a “file” (resume, cover letter, and automated background search results facilitated by Google search) for the interviewer to review prior to the interview. Once the interviews have taken place, the robot can solicit an evaluation and vote from each interviewer then notify the hiring manager and the recruiter of the results. Once the hiring manager makes a decision to hire or not, the “Recruitie” robot carries out the appropriate tasks. If hired, the appropriate notifications are sent to the candidate and then a new robot (“Onboardie”) is added to the wave to begin the on-boarding process for the candidate.

This may seem like a standard recruiting workflow found in other systems (including ours), however, the big difference is in where this process takes place. In this case, the wave becomes the central source of truth from beginning to end with all participants interacting within the same system. The user experience is simple, clean and very intuitive. It’s not a series of web based forms but more like a checklist that different participants engage with.

There are so many interesting examples that can be applied using the Google Wave paradigm. My head is still spinning with ideas. One thing’s for sure, we’re definitely going to kick the tires and build some of these ideas out. Let us know if you’d like to participate. Google Wave is ripe for enterprises.Possibly Related Posts:

I’m switching back to IE6 and why you should too

Rich Manalang — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:34:29 +0000

I’m finally fed up with all the standards based, open source browser, google chrome-whatchamacallit, firefox, safari bs crap. I don’t want choice in browsers anymore. Especially since my ERP apps works better in IE than in any of the other crappy browsers out there. So, today, I’m switching back to the browser who made the internet what it is today… Internet “f***ing” Explorer 6.0 SP1, baby!

I was once a user of those other browsers, but today, I’m back to using the king of all browsers, IE6. Screw all the bigots out there who keep tearing down IE’s glory. I used to be one… and feel awful about it. Today, I take everything I ever said about IE back. It’s the only browser that should ever exist.

Join me in the SaveIE6 campaign! Take back the browser!Possibly Related Posts:

Going rogue inside a big company

Rich Manalang — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:45:22 +0000

Going rogue inside a big company (a la Best Buy) – (37signals)

How can you apply Getting Real-ish ideas inside a big company? Here’s an idea: Go rogue. Pick something and do it under the radar. Create something in a few weeks that normally takes a few months. Do something in a way that works better than the status quo (or shows the promise of working better), Then you won’t need to convince anyone with words — the results will speak for themselves.

This is exactly how we accomplished building Mix and Connect at Oracle. Think of how much can be improved if those with a passion to change something actually did it.
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Which Operating System Would You Have Your Child Use?

Rich Manalang — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:58:48 +0000

Herewith a post about parenting…

This morning’s NYTimes has an article about Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu. For those of you who follow Ubuntu and Shuttleworth, the article is nothing new… just talks about Shuttleworth’s desire to displace Microsoft in the OS war. However, it did get me thinking about my history with OSes. When I started tinkering around with computers it was all about what was available. Today, there are lots of choices. Which brings to question, which OS would you impart on your children?

Most kids today will have to learn how to use a computer. Some have a natural curiosity to learn, others don’t. Either way, as a computer junkie, I have a desire impart my preferences to my kids. My kids are only 4 years old, so, they’re not at an age (in my opinion) to be tinkering with a keyboard yet. However, when the time comes, I feel a need to show them the way. Is that good or bad?

To me, choosing an OS is a very personal choice. A choice chock full of feelings about what that OS means and the people behind it. In a sense, it’s a moral choice. We make choices like this all the time. How many people do you know who have/had a preference in always “buying American”? My choice in an operating system is loaded with the same fuzzy logic.

Microsoft made close to $17B in sales off of Windows last year. My choice in avoiding Windows (where I can) isn’t because I can’t stand to see Microsoft make so much money — it’s because I can’t stand to see Microsoft make so much money on mediocre software that takes 10,000 developers over 5 years to make (Vista). Choosing Windows today is like choosing to buy an American SUV (in today’s market conditions). In my very opinionated opinion, it’s a bad choice — certainly not a choice I would allow my kids to make (well… I suppose I should be open minded enough).

Apple, the worlds latest “darling” computer/gadget company, also makes a lot of money on their operating system. However, the passion in the craft of creating something beautiful and functional shows through in their products. Apple’s OS (and other products) leave users inspired and push them to learn and become better. I don’t care what my kids end up doing in life as long as they have a passion for learning. As long as Apple continues to inspire and show their passion for their creations, I will continue to use their OS (and other products) and, hopefully, my kids will choose Apple for the same reasons.

Linux or Ubuntu Linux (to be precise) is a great OS. I’m a firm believer in open source. And like Mark Shuttleworth, I too believe that the open source process produces better stuff. This is true because the people who participate in open source projects have a passion for the products they work on — why else would you donate your free time? As a parent, I want my kids to embrace volunteerism and participate in the common good. The philosophy behind Linux and open source in general convey these principles well.

I know I over think these things compared to most people, but I think one’s choices are important — they define us. What OS would you have your kids use? If you don’t have kids, pretend you do.Possibly Related Posts:

“Looks Good, Works Well”

Rich Manalang — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:45:28 +0000

Last night, I was lucky enough to see Bill Scott (of Yahoo Design Pattern Library, YUI, OpenRico, Netflix fame) present at my local Ruby user group. He shared his thoughts about the successful design patterns that have defined today’s web. As someone who enjoys brilliantly designed “things” including web apps and sites, I found his talk very interesting.

Designing Web Interfaces

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: rich ajax)

Most (actually, all) of his talk was devoted to the consumer web. My head is almost always focused on how to take the good stuff coming from the consumer web back into the enterprise web. Bill’s ideas made me realize how little we (as enterprise web app developers) pay attention to the minute details that go into producing web apps that customers love. Bill is currently the Director of UI Engineering at Netflix. If you’re a Netflix customerfan, you’ll know that Netflix.com is a superb site. Netflix’ business depends entirely on the success of its site. Very small incremental changes could drastically affect their business. All of the changes they make to the site go through rigorous testing with real users and are carefully measured.

With the enterprise products I’ve been a part of building, we’ve spent some time on usability tests. However, they’re usually done before the product is even passed over to development. They’re usually done during the visual design phase. Once the UX teams have finalized their product designs, they’re approved and passed over to the developers to start building. However, most of the time, the product doesn’t end up matching what was designed by UX.

This process wasn’t always this way. I remember back in the PeopleSoft client-server days, most products didn’t go through any usability tests. I suppose the reasoning is that back then, most of the “ERP” apps were focused on back-end users who were trained to use the software so usability wasn’t that big of an issue. Today’s focus is in building apps that anyone can use without training. Aside from testing usability, I don’t know if we focus enough on learnability. In order for software to be easy enough for anyone to use, it needs to provide enough queues for users to be able to learn how to use it. Bill provides a lot of examples in his presentation above of how to do this.

The problem with the the visual design process in the enterprise today (as I see it) is that it doesn’t follow good software development practices like agile. Once a visual design is finalized, it’s passed on and never really iterated for improvements. Some enterprise software development cycles could take over a year or two from concept to design to build to release. Over that time, new UI patterns could have emerged as well as totally new ways to solve the same problem that the software originally sought out to solve. This is the reason why agile methodologies exists.

What Bill described as his overall process for building good looking web sites that work can be reduced down to an agile process for visual design. It doesn’t make sense to design once then move on. The process needs to be iterative. Feedback from real users with real data need to be used as a way of testing ideas and measuring success rates iteratively. I’m no expert with UX, but this process makes a lot of sense to me.

Anyone out there in Oracle UX land care to comment? Are you guys already doing this? If so, how’s it working?

BTW, Bill’s got a book coming out on this topic… added to my wishlist.Possibly Related Posts:

While we’re talking about design…

Rich Manalang — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:37:23 +0000

I’m a code geek that likes to tinker with design and illustration. My weapon of choice is Xara Xtreme. Most people in this arena choose Adobe Illustrator, but Xara works for me. It’s also faster, easier to use, lighter and cheaper. The only drawback is that it’s Windoze-ware only. Actually, there is a Linux version that’s free, but it’s currently not maintained and lacks a slew of features compared to its Windoze counterpart. So, for me, I have to run it in VMware or VirtualBox. The only reason I use a VM is because of Xara… that’s how good it is.

Anyway, I’ve been tinkering around a lot lately with some of the illustration tools. I recently stumbled upon Xara Xone and found some awesome tutorials. I decided to put a few of those techniques to work using the photo of the cup that Paul posted in the previous post. Within 10 minutes, I had this:

It’s far from being exact, but it’s pretty easy to trace an existing photo and create a vector based illustration. During OOW, I sat down with Anthony and showed him a few of these techniques. In no time, he was able to create his own avatar pretty easily.

This begs the question… why aren’t more engineers interested in creative design — aside from the reason, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body”? It’s a great way to stretch your brain if you primarily code all day. I find that it’s a nice way to do something totally different but totally useful too. I think everyone innately has some creative skills, but many people don’t bother nurturing those skills. I’ve seen some amazing art work from the kids at my boys’ preschool. If these kids (2-6 years old) can kick out amazing art, why can’t many adults do it? Is it a skill that degrades over time? Or are people just not interested in it?

Being a good developer requires creative skills. Writing beautiful code is akin to creating something that’s visually pleasing. Engaging in your creative side helps you improve those skills. Alright, enough of the preaching. Do you practice your creative muscles? If so, sound off and tell us why you like using the other side of your brain.

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Vi Rules!

Rich Manalang — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:13:06 +0000

… and you know it. I’m sure we have enough geeky readers here that know what I’m talking about. For those that don’t (you suck) — Vi, simply put, is the best damn text editor ever created.

A couple of weeks ago a poll was started on OraTweet regarding Vi vs. Emacs:

How could there even be a comparison? After all…

And for those who think TextMate is the best thing that they’ve ever installed on their macs, I say, “Vi still rules and Textmate is still €39 ≈ $57 — more than free.”

This post is nothing but a good ole fashion flamebait. As I type this, I realize that the only reason I’m posting this is because I got a little too excited when MacVim (a very cool Vim app on OS X) added support for a mvim:// URL handler — now you know what excites me. Anyway, since we’re at it… Gnome vs. KDE, Bash vs. Tcsh (or your pick)… fight back in the comments.

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AppsLab Stickers!!!

Rich Manalang — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 20:07:16 +0000

Another last minute update… at 10:56am PDT today, Jake suggested we get stickers for next week. I thought it was a fabulous idea. So, I immediately went to work at creating a sticker design. In a few minutes I cranked this out:

AppsLab sticker v1

This design was set at 1″ x 2.5″ — a perfect size to add to your laptop gallery. After calling up about 5 different sticker printers, I found a few that can have it ready by Monday. However, the one I chose can only print 2″ or above. So, I opted for a 2″ x 2″ design:

AppsLab sticker v2

So, if you’re interested in a commerative edition AppsLab sticker, hit us up next week.Possibly Related Posts:

delicious blog ” Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here

Rich Manalang — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:44:06 +0000

The best and most effective redesign I've ever seenPossibly Related Posts:

delicious blog ” Oh happy day — the new Delicious is here

Rich Manalang — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:44:06 +0000

The best and most effective redesign I've ever seenPossibly Related Posts:

OS X, Ubuntu and Other Fun Stuff… My Perspective

Rich Manalang — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:08:06 +0000

Instead of adding a comment to Jake’s post on his Ubuntu experience to-date, I thought I’d just blog my perspective.

Here’s my backstory with Apple, MSFT, Linux, and others:

Mid to late 80s: Timex Sinclair 1000… loved writing programs on cassette tapes! How many of you Web 2.0 kiddies can say that?
Early to mid 90s: had an Apple LC II from high school up to the end of college (prior to that, mucked around with the Amiga (forgot the model), Atari 400/800, and Commodore 64/VIC-20)
Right after college: OS/2 (briefly) for work, Win95 at home
‘97 to early 2k: WinNT the WinXP
2002 to 2006: tinkered with RedHat but used XP most of the time
2006 to 2007: used XP and Ubuntu equally… tried Vista but hated it
2007 to early 2008: Ubuntu 100% (on my Dell D620, same hardware as Jake’s)
Jan 2008 to May 2008: Ubuntu 100% on a MacBook Pro (3rd gen)
May 2008 to today: OS X Leopard 100%

As you can see, I’ve had my fair share with OS fun dating back to the Reagan era — before politics were important to me.

My experience is very different from Jake’s. I’m a computer hobbyist. I love tinkering with machines. I can spend hours taking something apart just to learn how something was put together. To me, Linux is a dream OS. You can shape it to your liking.

Since I started working for a living, computers have become less a hobby and more of a productivity tool. It’s actually more than a toy. Most people use it to build stuff, write documents or presentations, surf the internets, etc. in the hope that it will propel us to do things better and faster. Even though I still enjoy tinkering with computers, more than ever, I have to be productive. And in keeping with Moore’s law, the next day I need to be better and faster.

Linux is a fun OS and Ubuntu just works. However, as I’ve told Jake after I moved over to OS X I realized how much time I spent tweaking and configuring Ubuntu. This isn’t unique to Ubuntu — it’s true for all Linux distros. Ubuntu does just work out of the box and it’s got most of the software I need already installed and configured. However, because of the Linux ethos it’s just too easy to get caught up in tweaking and configuring. Luckily, I didn’t have the Compiz issues that Jake had. Compiz just worked for me on the same hardware that Jake has. Before I moved to OS X, my Ubuntu config was perfect. I was super productive with it. However, I absolutely hated one thing… suspend and hibernate support sucked *ss.

I had no real reason to move to OS X aside from my gripes with suspend and hibernate support. Although, it did seem weird to be running Ubuntu on a MacBook Pro. I suppose I was nudged to move to OS X after going to RailsConf. I’m usually not one to succumb to peer pressure, but after seeing how productive many of the Rails devs I met at RailsConf were with their Macs, I thought that maybe I should just give it a try.

The path to making the switch from Linux to OS X was a breeze. Anyone who’s spent a ton of time in Linux is very comfortable with the command line. The cool thing with OS X is that most of the software I needed was already there and the things I needed to install were pretty easy to install using MacPorts. Most of my command line tweaks (bash scripts, aliases, profiles) worked with minor edits. VPN worked seamlessly without flaws. And my graphics program, Xara, works great under VirtualBox.

The trick to succeeding with any OS transition is to make sure you’re using software that works on multiple OSes. For example, my preferred text editor is old-school VIM. It’s what I wrote my programs with in college and it’s what I still use today… and it works on any OS. For everything else, make sure the OS you’re moving to can run a virtualization app like VMWare or VirtualBox.

In the end, OS X is by no means perfect. I miss some parts of Ubuntu. Compiz kicks OS X’ *ss when it comes to eye candy. I also miss the terminal. OS X’ terminal is usable, but lags behind (and iTerm is no better). Ubuntu’s default command line config is also much better. Apple didn’t make OS X for people who spend their day on the command line. Lastly, I hate paying for software… even though I do. I’ve gotten so used to using good, free software developed by like minded folks. But even with these gripes, I’m sticking to OS X for now simply because it’s harder to tweak which in the end makes me a hell of a lot more productive. I liken it to not having network connectivity. Without access to the internet, there’s no Twitter, no IM, no email, nothing to distract you from getting stuff done… which is why I love to disconnect from time to time during the work day.Possibly Related Posts:

Ruby on Rails and BEA AquaLogic

Rich Manalang — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:09:40 +0000

About 40 minutes ago, Chris Bucchere posted a OpenWorld session proposal on Mix. His session is called “Building Web 2.0 Social Applications in Ruby on Rails using BEA AquaLogic Interaction.” The session will also cover optimizing your application for the iPhone (or iPod Touch). Anyone who is interested in Ruby on Rails on enterprise scale software (like BEA) should vote for this session. It’s a late addition and probably won’t get as many votes, hence why I’m pushing it here. While you’re at it, vote for the two other Ruby related sessions too:

Ruby/JRuby on Rails on Oracle (proposed by me) — details how to use Ruby, JRuby and Rails on an all Oracle stack using Mix as a case study
Using Ruby on Rails with Oracle E-Business Suite (proposed by Raimonds Simanovskis) — Raimonds showed Jake and me some of the Rails apps he’s been building on top of E-Business Suite — pretty cool stuff that I’m hoping we’ll be able to blog about soon.

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