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Have you ever had to make a decision with too many options or factors to consider all at once? Or perhaps you’d like to be more objective about your choices. Or maybe you need to document your decision to make it more defensible later on (“your honor, this chart shows why Grape Nehi is clearly superior to Orange”). Whatever the reason, you may find that a simple decision matrix is all you need. I’ve been using various forms of my decision matrix to make both personal and professional decisions for as long as I can remember. In recent years, I discovered that my method is very similar to portions of a Kepner-Tregoe Matrix (“KT Matrix”). If you’re interested in a much deeper understanding of their techniques, I wholeheartedly recommend The New Rational Manager by Charles H. Kepner and Benjamin B. Tregoe. It’s a fantastic book. Anyway, I’ve found myself using my decision matrix in more and more situations recently, and people have started asking for copies of the spreadsheet. I re-formatted Read More...
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Okay, "obscure" may be exaggerating a bit; perhaps "less well known" is a better way to describe these DVD picks. Like Helvetica: The Documentary , these aren't your typical Saturday night popcorn popping blockbusters. But if you have an interest in any of these subjects, they're worth checking out. First up is the excellent and extremely comprehensive, BBS: The Documentary by Jason Scott . It took Jason three years and over 200 interviews to assemble the material on the three DVDs included in this package. There's over five-and-a-half hours of content covering topics like the beginning of bulletin board systems, sysops and users, Fidonet, the ANSI Art Scene, hacking, phreaking, anarchy, cracking, and the legal battle over data compression between PKWARE and SEA. Not only did I used to write bulletin board software (for the Atari 800 and Commodore 64), but I ran a few BBS's in my time. If you grew up in this era, or if you've ever been curious about communication systems that pre-date the Read More...
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I’ve put this one off for way too long. For everyone who has sent me e-mail over the years asking how I create my wallpaper images, I’ve finally taken the time to write down my thoughts, techniques, workflow, tips, and tricks . Wow…I never realized how many steps I go through! I’m sure that I forgot a few things, and I’d be happy to revise the article with more detail. Please leave feedback, and tell me what you think. While I was at it, I added 16 new wallpaper images to the collection . You can thank Bellevue Botanical Garden and the beautiful weather we’ve been having here in the Pacific Northwest. My favorite of the new batch, though, is easily Leaf 62 which was taken in our own back yard. Enjoy! Read More...
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I was waiting for a flight out of Orange County Airport earlier this week, and after I fired up my laptop, I couldn't find any publicly available wireless networks. So, I decided to try using my Samsung BlackJack (SGH-i607) for internet connectivity, because I had remembered reading about the feature awhile back. I tried to get things working for about 10 minutes before I had to give up. I'm not a cell phone expert, but I can usually mind meld with devices and figure them out within a short period of time. Not this time. So last night, I dug in. After a few hours following forum threads across hundreds of posts, reading technical support notes, downloading drivers, and playing with configurations, I finally figured out how to properly set up and use the internet sharing feature with Windows Vista via Bluetooth. I thought I'd document the procedure here so that others don't have to go through the same painful process. As mentioned, I have a Samsung BlackJack (SGH-i607) phone that I upgraded Read More...
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I watched the stats for my wallpaper page tick past one million a few days ago. Wow! If you'd have told me when I posted my first macro photo years ago that it'd be the most popular page on my blog (by a long shot), I wouldn't have believed it. I haven't actually added up the individual downloads, but it would easily exceed one million, since I get a lot of direct links from other sites. I average a little over 4GB downloaded each day. Interestingly, more people download the widescreen versions of my wallpaper than the standard ones. I wouldn't have expected that. I receive a request almost every other day from someone who wants to use one or more of my photos for a project. I almost always say "yes," because I really enjoy seeing how the photos are featured. All I ask for is credit for the photo, a link back to my wallpaper page, and a sample or photo of the finished project. Over the years, my photos have been used: as wallpaper for Windows Vista, as a backdrop for a concert, Read More...
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In the two weeks since our MIX08 event in Las Vegas, I've been asked many times about Steve Wiebe's attempt to re-claim the Donkey Kong world record at our TAO attendee party on March 5th, 2008. So, I thought I'd document what happened "behind the scenes" for those of you who may be curious. The story really began back in September, 2007 when a few of us at Microsoft had dinner with Steve at a local restaurant here in Washington. We're all fans of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters , and our only motives were to eat some good food and meet Steve Wiebe. It honestly didn't go any deeper than that. Some time passed, and as we started to think about entertainment for our MIX08 event, Steve's name came up again. I was a member of our MIX08 core team (the group of people who organized and ran MIX08), and we reasoned that our audience—which consists of a lot of people who grew up playing classic arcade games—would love the opportunity to play some classic games and meet Read More...
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I ran across Jeff Atwood 's blog post, Typography: Where Engineers and Designers Meet , about a week ago. Like Jeff, I've been interested in fonts and typography for a long time. As a matter of fact, I used to create bitmap fonts for the TI-99/4a, Commodore 64 , and Atari 400/800. I'm sure if I dug through enough boxes I could find a pile of old graph paper with 8 pixel x 8 pixel character sets on them! Those were the days. :-) Until Jeff's post, I hadn't heard about the Helvetica film by Gary Hustwit. I immediately ordered the DVD (it's only $20), it arrived a few days later, and I watched it this morning. What a great movie! It was obvious from the moment I pressed play that this was made by someone who is passionate about the subject. From the beautiful photography to the perfect music, this film reflects the cleanliness and simplicity that is Helvetica. You do not have to be a font geek to appreciate this documentary. The film traces the history of the typeface from the 1950s when it Read More...
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A few days ago, I received the following e-mail: Help me out here. I've been reading your blog off and on for years and I can't figure out what it is you do. Your obviously involved with the PDC and MIX conferences, you send a lifesize cardboard cutout of yourself as your resume, you've made a plug-in for Illustrator and a converter for Flash files (which rock BTW), you take amazing photos, you implement seam carving in your "spare time", you write Tivo gadgets, you taught me about continuous integration with your orb article, your article on code review was mandatory reading in one of my classes, you read quite an collection of books, you seem to be pretty good at design considering you claim to be a geek, you build small arcade machines, you counted to a freakin' million, you worked with Tom Skerrit, you write music, you build medical software, and who knows what else. Don't worry, I'm not stalking you. :) I just read through your old posts cuz I couldn't remember all of this! Just what Read More...
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As many long-time readers may recall, I've been trying to foist blogging onto my friend and colleague, Thomas Lewis, for nearly three years. He's endured my chiding both online and in person; thank goodness he's one of those guys who can take my constant nagging. A couple of weeks ago, Thomas stated that he had a surprise for me and asked if I wanted to hear it then or at some point in the future. I appreciate a good surprise, so I told him that he could tell me when he was ready...turns out that time was today at lunch. He played it very well. I was sure he was about to tell me that his wife is pregnant, he had won the lottery, or that small bunnies had attacked him with sticks last night (don't ask). After drawing out the suspense for what seemed like a few minutes, he revealed that the Spider King has returned! Now, I personally believe that blogging isn't for everyone and that it should never be forced or required. But, I know a few people who have such interesting perspectives or such Read More...
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I made a very minor update to my TiVo Now Playing gadget that allows you to download recorded shows to your computer. While viewing the show details window, simply click on the title to begin the download. Because the video files are protected, you'll be prompted for a user name and password. The user name is always tivo , and the password is your media access key (check the Remember my password checkbox if you get tired of re-entering this information). If you need help configuring your gadget or finding your media access key, be sure to read my earlier TiVo Gadget for Vista post. Download the TiVo Now Playing v1.0.2 gadget (182KB). Read More...
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For awhile, I've wanted to try my hands at writing a gadget for the Windows Sidebar in Vista, but I could never come up with a project idea that was small enough to accomplish and useful enough to justify. Since we recently added two TiVo HD units to our home network, I thought it'd be handy to expose their Now Playing lists. I knew the data was available over our home network, because the TiVo Desktop software displays a lot of it. Turns out, the TiVo Developer Resources section of their site contains just enough to get going. Without going into too many details, recent versions of the TiVo software on certain units (TiVo HD and TiVo Series3 HD, I think) contain a small web server that can be issued requests. These requests are passed via the query string and return their results as XML. For example, our downstairs TiVo unit has an IP address of 192.168.1.104 (you can find the IP address of your TiVo by navigating to Messages & Settings , then Settings , then Phone & Network ). Read More...
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Can't say I ever expected to type that post title! I take a lot of digital photos, and I thought I'd share some creative resources I've discovered on the 'net either by recommendation or my own research. They offer unique services, and the quality of these four products is very high. Let's start with MOO . My colleague in crime, good friend, and non-blogger, Thomas Lewis, showed me his set of MOO MiniCards a couple of months back, and I instantly fell in love with them. MOO MiniCards are half the size of a normal business card, are printed on thick coated paper, and can be completely customized. Their online tool makes it very easy to upload and crop your digital photos (up to 100 of them!). You can add six lines of text on the flip side, and no matter where you ship them in the world, it only costs $4.99. So, for around $25 total, you can have 100 custom cards delivered to your doorstep in about a week or two (by Royal Mail ...how cool is that?). They're fun to give out and a great way Read More...
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This past Thursday evening, Ray Winninger, Jennifer Ritzinger, Arthur Yasinski, and I met Steve Wiebe for dinner at Pomegranate in Redmond, Washington. If you're not familiar with Steve, he's featured in the recent documentary, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters . My wife and I saw the movie a few weeks back at Big Picture in Redmond and loved it. Even if you're not a fan of classic video games, this is a great movie ( don't take my word for it ). Immediately after the movie, I told my wife that I'd love to find Steve and take him to dinner (he lives in the area). He seemed like a great guy in The King of Kong , and although I don't hold any current records, I have held a few in the distant past, and I figured he'd be fun to spend some time with. I happened to mention the movie to Arthur at lunch one day, and it turns out that he lives just down the street from Steve...and has seen him playing Donkey Kong in his garage many times! :-) With Arthur's help, I was in touch with Steve's Read More...
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This past week, we had an offsite brainstorming session at the new Novelty Hill • Januik winery in Woodinville to discuss our upcoming MIX08 event in Las Vegas. Jennifer Ritzinger (who still doesn't have a blog for some reason) challenged each speaker to come up with a creative way to present their topic using a single slide. Never ones to take a creative challenge lightly, my co-presenter, Thomas Lewis, and I asked ourselves: "what have we never seen in a PowerPoint presentation?" A few minutes of brainstorming later, we decided to make our slides in 3D. Not your average everyday 3D, mind you, but the kin of 3D that would require everyone to wear cheesy red and cyan anaglyphic cardboard glasses ! Like so many of the ideas that Thomas and I come up with, we never let trifles like feasibility get in the way. What fun would that be!? So, we split up our tasks, and I volunteered to figure out how to actually make the 3D idea work. Okay, I thought...first thing's first: search the internet Read More...
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I was shopping at our local Ace Hardware store this afternoon with my wife, and I saw this package of SUPERthrive™ hanging in the aisle (image shows front and back of packaging). Having recently returned from our MIX07 conference in Las Vegas and hearing so much about user experience and good design, I purchased a bottle to illustrate what I'd consider very bad design . Granted, I'm not a designer by trade, and one could argue that I was compelled to buy a product I have no need for (score one for SUPERthrive), but even with those two points against me, I think you'll agree. To start, what a mess! I'm not even sure what to read. It took me a few seconds to figure out the name of the product...certainly not a good thing. There's also no use of white space; to the contrary, the "design" seems to want to take up every available nook and cranny of the packaging. There's no sense of alignment, and even with my limited designer skills, I count at least eight different fonts (how many can you Read More...
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