It’s a very interesting time.
More tomorrow? Maybe. It’s getting to be quite the long and annoying blog post to write.
New day starts in 6 hours. Wee!
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Consistency Fail
Well, looks like I’m going to be breaking my daily post schedule tonight.
You see, the thing is I must have written three post’s worth of content in the last hour. The problem is that I don’t feel like it’s polished enough yet to share with the world.
Of course, I run into this often: One could call it being perfectionist. But rather than go deeper into my psyche on this matter, I like to talk more about consistency.
One of the many reasons why I decided to force myself to blog everyday was to push myself into an hour or so of reflection time. And actually, not only to have reflection time, but to have some time in structuring the lessons and collecting them in a concise, clear, and coherent format.
Then I realized that… I don’t write enough code to justify my existence these days. And so, to tack onto my daily blogging shenanigans, I would like to add coding to the mix.
I’m not saying I’ll be making products every single day, but I hope to create some kind of meaningful code releases.
We’ll see how long I can last before I lose it like I did with this blog post.
But definitely, I need to give my blogging an extra hour of the day. I keep pushing it later and later during my awake hours.
But wait, I think this one counts. Judges?
15" MacBook Pro Review (2008 Late Unibody)
Yeah, it’s late (as in both when I bought the darn thing as well as in when I’m editing/writing it in the day, oh, and as in how “late” in 2008 this laptop was introduced).
(BOO. I agree.)
(Man, this kid should get some sleep.)
The Looks
It oozes teh awesome. That’s pretty much all there is to say on this.
Except, some people would be very much bothered by the screen. I haven’t had a situation yet where I felt like I would pay an extra $50 (an option on the 17″) to remove the glossy display, but I can understand the people who prefer the diffusion of the matte displays instead.
However, since the backlight is much brighter than any previous MacBook Pro versions, I can usually blast away any random light sources… and burn out my eyes in the process.
Sidenote: I rarely have my backlight set to max. One or two below the max is quite enough.
The Feel
The unibody feels amazingly sturdy. I feel like I can finally stop babying my Macbook Pro. (Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t stop doing so…)
I couldn’t believe it, but it’s even smoother than the earlier MacBook Pros. And to think that I thought those laptops were awesome. Pfft.
The Trackpad
If Apple made a bluetooth version of this trackpad, I’d buy it. I’ve opted to float my MacBook Pro next to my external screen for better ergonomics, and so I use my trackball instead.
But when I’m on the go… they weren’t kidding about getting the coefficient of friction just right. And the additional gestures are fun, too. I had my three-finger swipe down to be cmd + w. Works good for everything but… Finder.
Sidenote: They really really need to update Finder.
Comparisons to the “old” MacBook Pro
A few things come to mind immediately.
The lid can open up a few degrees more on the new unibody, for those rare occasions when I do need a few more degrees. I felt very limited with the older ones, almost to the point where I risked breaking the hinge because I would always triple check to see if it really was that limiting.
The problem with the lid now is that it has become heavier. I think it probably has something to do with the glossy screen. Whatever the reason may be, if you start angling the laptop at an angle, you’ll notice the lid starting to close up on you simply by the weight of the lid itself. However, the lid stays solid while I type away on the keyboard, so no big issues there. It just takes a tiny bit of getting used to, compared to the stiffer hinge of the older MacBook Pros.
Et Cetera
I like the fact that the CD drive is on the side: Although I rarely use it, I find that having it on the side just makes a lot more sense. (e.g. If it’s sitting on your lap, or if it’s on a mount with the rubber feet pushing against the bottom of the laptop)
I do miss the USB port on both sides. The first generation iPod shuffle and my bigger SD USB card reader is so wide that I can’t have the both of them connected at the same time. Solution to this is to just rock a USB hub and call it a day.
MiniDisplay Port? Being forced to buy yet another adaptor? And no, I wasn’t willing to buy the 24″ Cinema Display. No, I’m not that crazy.
Note to self: I really need to write that anti-fanboy post. Hmm.
One HUGE Problem: The Audio
The audio is the biggest FAIL for the MacBook Pro. I can live with a lot of the design decisions they’ve made, but the audio…
The physical 3.5mm or 1.8″ headphone jack sucks compared to the older MBP. It pops out a bit too easily compared to the older ones. But this is compounded by the fact that there is now a second or two of lag where the MacBook Pro switches from the built-in speakers to the headphones.
Right, that, and the constant hissing, as well as the R2D2 bleep blooping that happens from time to time. This has been an issue for a while, but I think it’s gotten worse with the Unibody. Yes, I can buy more things to fix this, but seriously, for a MacBook Pro, I’m expecting near perfection here. For now, I’m okay with my little volume attenuator.
That is, until I become a audiophile. I am the mouse, and my HD-555s is my cookie. I sure hope this isn’t my milk.
Conclusion
I love this thing. Heck, I’m just waiting for the day I can upgrade to the 17″. WTB moar pixels. Maybe after WWDC, I’ll buy the current 17″ model if they upgrade it.
Unless… Apple pulls out something magical. Unless. (!)
Choices
The first web application that I ever attempted and could call “completed” was JKmain Journals, an oddly named blog service. I started to look back on JKmain Journals recently, and how that project got started. After all, I keep looking back to my high school years as some freakish time when I actually did something useful outside of school.
Then I started to think about the choices, or the lack thereof, that I made in brining that project to life.
- Programming language (There’s something other than PHP? They have frameworks?)
- Relational database management system (There’s something other than MySQL? InnoDB vs MyISAM? I have a choice?)
- Source control management system (What is this?)
- Project management software
- Bug tracking software
- Testing architecture (Hah! Did you know? I wrote flawless code back then.)
- Overall documentation (Other than the sporadic one line comments to self?)
There are lots of things missing on this list, but again, this project was to scratch an itch. The pure desire was to release, release, release.
Naiveté
Maybe being naive was a good thing back then. After all, I got more done than I have ever gotten done in recent times. That’s not to say that I could have done anything useful with JKmain Journals. I don’t think I knew where I was going with it, other than the fact that I wanted a place to put up my life story.
Of course, saying that I was naive back then doesn’t mean that I’m not naive today. I was naive in the sense that I didn’t even know what to know. These days, I’m naive in the sense that I feel like I know what I need to know, but I have not tested what I do know, through the creation of a working and useable product.
Artificial Choices, Artificial Limits
Life is just filled with choices, isn’t it?
My schizophrenic self has made these choices for me. I’m fairly certain the choices I have to make in relation to the bullet points up above. I know what I want to gain from the experience of creating a product. The choices have been made by me, for me.
And to me, that was maybe quarter the battle. Now, the question is what to do with the artificial choices that I’ve made, and how flexible will I be in the future as I make up these artificial choices.
No longer are choices roadblocks. The only thing that stands between me and the code is my lack of focus. There’s a whole 75% of the battle left.
Too Much Freedom
I need to start creating limits, or I’m going to burn out very very quickly.
The Cycle
Sure, I don’t have to go to bed at any time anymore, unless I have, for some reason, scheduled a meeting at 8 in the morning. Heck, for that matter, I don’t even have to go to bed, period.
This morning was an interesting one. I went to bed at what seemed to be around 4 AM, woke up at 8:30 (leftover from my full-time position), then went to bed again sometime and woke up at 1 or so.
Sidenote: I’m not trying to do an Uberman (Polyphasic sleep) here, but I may start thinking about doing one soon.
Already, not knowing when I did something is annoying to me. It already feels like I’m not in control of time and space. (Which is already a tall order, if you ask me.)
But this brings me to my next point.
Focus
I keep trying to blog about each twist and turn in the road to awesome, but not only am I not able to do write it all down, I’m not even driving.
I hope to, from this point forward, be a little bit less perceptive about myself (the car), but instead be more preceptive about the things left ahead (the road). Not sure how I’m going to do this, but it’s something I realized as I was checking the car for the Long Road Ahead.
The billions of projects that keep getting created daily need to be whittled down and categorized into a few products. Heck, maybe it just needs to get whittled down into one. I don’t know of too many solo dev’s rocking out with multiple projects on multiple platforms/frameworks. And I’m only trying to cover iPhone (Cocoa), Mac(different, but still Cocoa), and Web (Rails).
So much time is spent on trying to figure out how to maximize something. I keep running into the fact that sometimes, there’s not to maximize.
Lists
I stopped making lists.
I stopped using the calendar.
Where are my metric methods? I don’t know.
Again, I don’t want to focus on how I got here, but what I intend to do from this point forward. I’ll probably fall back to writing down what I must do, and start creating smaller tasks in manageable chunks.
Multitasking
Not doing this again. Unless I have to, of course.
There will be times when I’ll have to juggle 18 things at once, but I really should be opting out to be tied down to one task at a time. It goes back to having a good list to go through.
Resolution
New Cycle: Eight to late. 8 AM to whenever it ends up being. Wake up at 7:30 and prep.
Focus: Continue with iPhone development until the end of the month. Restart Rails at around Railsconf (May 4th to 7th), so you can be prepared for the oodles of lovely content afterwards.
Lists: Start using lists like a madman again. iCal is good too.
Multitasking: Try not to do it. Stick to the list.
Of course, these are just ideals again. I’ll start changing them as I go, but I need some limits. Too much freedom is not always a good thing.
The Long Road Ahead
Total coincidence that I picked this title, but The Road Ahead was a book written by Bill Gates. I totally need to finish reading that. It’s not like I can’t make time to do things like that anymore. [Goes to bookcase.]
So, the game’s afoot.
Free-Man
“What does it feel like to be a free man?” was asked frequently of me this past Friday, on the last day of work.
All I could think of was this guy, and how a certain Vortigaunt would emphasize the separation between the words “free” and “man”.
So my answer to that? I’m not sure. But I guess it’s true that I do have a larger control on what I do these days. Currently, it feels good to be in more control than before. But I know that the day is going to come when I’m going to feel like I’m being tossed around by the waves… I just hope I’m prepared by that point.
The Office
In any case, this past weekend was spent preparing for the months ahead. A lot of cleaning and moving occurred at the “Office”.
Definitely a better setup than before. I’m already liking it. I don’t feel like I’m 100% done, but I’ve learned that seeking 100% completion in most things in life is a pointless pursuit.
Yeah, that’s totally a setup for another post.
Day 1, Again
Today was the first weekday since I left. Must be the freelancing I did back when I graduated from college, but it almost feels like the past year and a half was, in actuality, abnormal, and that finally I’m returning to normal.
Regardless, I don’t think the reality of my situation has fully sunk in. Heck, I’ve been continuing the Aaron Sorkin insanity of watching The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and now, Sports Night. All great shows, but I’m not being as productive as I can be. But then again, I have some ridiculous standards of how productive I can be.
I spent a couple hours toying with Tweetie for Mac, as well as discussing the pros and cons of this delightful new Twitter client. While I’m still kinda maybe considering writing a Twitter client for both the iPhone and the Mac, I have an iPhone project I’d like to get out before then.
Sidenote: Tweetero seems to be an interesting open source iPhone app using the MGTwitterEngine, and so I started toying with that also.
Blogging
I purchased two books on writing to improve my writing on here a bit. This also means that I’m going to be ramping up my blogging from here on out. I really hope to start blogging on a daily basis. I may even start blogging more than once a day, but I have to figure out how I want to juggle my time across my projects.
I’m playing with using Twitter to stay on task. I’ll report on how that has helped me in a different post.
I do feel like it’s been tough to write on this blog because of the choice I’ve taken to keep it fairly directionless, as long as I find it interesting enough to write on it. I want to change it, but I keep running into a wall when I start diversifying my content.
I mean, look at the podcast. I must have recorded at least three episode’s worth of content, but I’m a little hesitant to put it up for some reason.
Focus
Focus. If they only sold it in a liquid form, I would charge it up on the company in a heartbeat.
I feel like I have ideas and time. I even feel like I have the ambition. It’s this scatter-brainedness that I’m struggling with, especially with the lack of desire to carry anything to completion.
It’s brain crack that I’m after. And it needs to stop.
And here comes “day” #2. Because really, the days are starting to melt together already.
Saying Yes *And* No
On Monday, I saw Yes Man.
Sidenote: I considered finding a field of greens and dressing up similarly to Jim Carrey in this poster and putting a big “NO” in the background. Instead, you’re just going to have to imagine the hilariousness of said picture.
Great movie. Jim Carrey continues to be awesome in less zany roles (It’s surprising that I’m talking about the dude from Ace Ventura). Zooey Deschanel continues to be beautiful and typecasted to quirky girlfriend roles. But of course, what’s the consumption of any media without any kind of introspection as it applies to one’s own life? Exactly.
Saying Yes
I’m not sure if it’s the different albums, books, movies, and TV shows I’ve taken an interest in recently are affecting me, or if I’m picking certain ones to latch onto, but lots of media consumption these days are playing right into my desire to go “indie”. (One example: The Office. “Two Weeks” episode aired a week before when I gave my two weeks. Let’s also include the massive uptake in the consumption of indie music via eMusic as well as indie gaming.)
It’s liberating to feel that I’ve said Yes to a lot of up things in the recent years. Just like for Jim Carrey’s character, it’s definitely opened up a lot of new and interesting paths. Saying Yes to coming to UIUC for school (Screw you, name change to Illinois), saying Yes to new (and sometimes hilarious awkward) social interactions during college, saying Yes to a short period of freelancing, saying Yes to work at NCSA, and now, saying Yes to pursue my projects through HanMeta.
Saying No
But just as I realized how much the title of the movie was speaking to my ambition towards creating more life experiences, I realized how many, if not, more, times I’ll have to say No.
It’s kinda sad, really, but the truth is I don’t think I can code at the pace I would like to code (my crazy standards will always win). And maybe this will be possible with a large team of awesome people, but even then: Planting new projects is not the problem, it’s the weeding and pruning of them that tends to be more important.
Saying Yes And No
And here we are, at the conclusion of the post where I basically end up at the same place: Trying to find a happy medium between two extremes.
It’s this balancing act between the fear of stagnation and the fear of change (or, in other words, the desire for change and the desire for stability) that makes me me. This massive perception will hopefully be put to better use on something else than me proper.
I always have this problem. Or maybe is it just me telling myself I have this problem, to continually have a backup plan to cover up my failures?
You betcha this is under the “Personal” category.
Negativity
Wow, I cannot believe how useless I feel right now. And as such, I’ve decided to blog.
I think it might have something to do with day 2 of the new exercise routine. I was used to going to the gym once every two days, but I decided to go every day, trying to see how fit I can become before my membership runs out. Of course, I could just as easily resign up, but I have still chosen to work out just as hard.
These Nights Will Happen
I just have to realize that there will be nights like this, when just nothing works right. And I’ll have to take it, just like I’ll gladly take the good and awesome nights.
To tell you the truth, if I somehow could fight through this period, I know I’m going to get a second wind at around 1 or 2 AM. If I wasn’t working full-time, I would have taken a 4 hour nap before, and I would be ready to rock for another 10 hours.
Goal was to be done with this iPhone development book before I left NCSA. I still think it’s doable, but I’ll need to ramp it up here sooner than later. I just hope tomorrow night will be just a tiny bit better.
OH NOES, It's the Ice Cream Cone!
I can chill.
I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.
Two Weeks Notice
And no, it’s not that Two Weeks Notice. Geez, I don’t even like Sandra Bullock.
Currently, feeling a bit ambivalent, to say the least. But as time passes, I’m becoming more and more excited.
The Original Plan
I told my boss, earlier this year during my yearly performance evaluation, that I would be quitting before my apartment lease ran out here in Urbana, IL (which is early August of this year). I knew that I wouldn’t want to stick around too much longer. I needed then and still need a change of venue, a change of pace.
This past Thursday, I gave my two weeks.
Yes, I meant to post this on Thursday. Argh.
This fire that I’ve slowly been fueling in the past two years (emphasis on the word slowly) started flaring up these past couple of days. Maybe it was Mega64 and their crazy game-related antics (I’ll talk more about why this counts as fuel in another post). Maybe it was GDC, and seeing all those lovely IGF winners (again, more of this game-related fuel… not the Dew kind). Maybe it was all this iPhone application development that I was getting excited over. Maybe it was Rails 2.3.2 being released. Maybe it was finally starting to grasp some of the vim insanity. Maybe it was reaching that $10K in savings I wanted to hit before finally committing full-time to HanMeta.
Whatever it was, I started contemplating leaving my full-time position a bit earlier than I had planned. With each passing day this past week, the fire grew bigger and wilder. Wednesday was April Fools’, and with so many things that happened on that day (like these things) and with the penchant I have for relevant dates, I wanted to make my “two weeks notice” day special. I even told Nathan, one of my co-workers, that I was planning to give my two weeks that day.
However, I gave it another day. I went home, and talked to Jong-Sun, a friend of mine. I agreed with him that I had almost started using my full-time position as a crutch… too much of a safety net which made me easily extinguish the passion I had. “Oh, I can do this project later, I’ve got enough time. Let me just go play some games instead.” After this talk, I decided that I would quit on the 1st of May, since the 15th is the payday. It would give me a month longer of a safety net to play with.
“Don’t Quit Until The First Dollar” was the motto I kept throwing around for the past couple of months. But to tell you the truth, I’ve already made my first dollar… through the blog, a long time ago. I planned to create more content here, and again, passively chose not to. My actions (of not post more frequently enough) spoke much louder than my words (which… are also my blog posts, but you get me, right?). Why I bring this up is because it’s just another example of an excuse I’ve made up. It was a poorly defined goal, one that could have been met with creating some random iPhone app, but if there’s no business in it, was the spirit of the goal really met?
In any case, I ended up going into work the following morning, and giving my intent to resign. It felt a tiny bit spur-of-the-moment, but mostly, I felt like this was going to happen anyway. Why mess with the inevitable? My mind had been made up.
Quitting?
I feel like I got married to my company without first sorting out some huge relationship problems.
The reasoning is that if I really wanted to make a product, I would have done so regardless of my 9 to 5. Just by making this jump, I’m not guaranteed a success story. Heck, I took two days off a couple weeks ago, thereby creating a four-day weekend to do. I’m not sure what I did, but nothing too big was accomplished. I like to call that weekend what not to do with my time after I quit.
At the same time, the flipside of this argument is that I might have had my ambition crushed while working a full-time job because I wasn’t giving it my 110%. It could have been that NCSA wasn’t the perfect fit I was looking for, and that I now must create that position. Without the daily “grind” of not having the perfect job (which may or may not exist, not sure at this early stage of my life… I’m still fairly naive…), I feel like I may just be able to pull it off.
All I know is that I’m capable. It really comes down to… can you trust yourself? Can you trust yourself to actually spend the next couple of months doing something worthwhile? Can you trust yourself to build your skillset and caught up with the rest of the world (because I feel like I’ve fallen hopelessly behind)?
There’s No Time Like The Present
I’m fairly certain this is what I want to do with my life at this present time. I’ll know soon enough if this was a poor decision.
But I’m freaking 24. I’m going to be freaking 25 soon. Ugh. TWENTY FIVE. Why did it take so long to make this jump? Oh, that’s right. LIFE.
The past couple of years, since my Freshman year, I feel like I was waiting for something. At one point, it was the focus and ambition (during college). Now, I have that, or as much as I’ve had as far as I can recall. At another point, it was the capital (the past two years, after college). Now I think have this squared away. I’ll have to do some more maths in the meanwhile.
More recently, it was the right co-founder, the right people, the right location… blah blah blah. All these things that I thought were required for a great company. While important, where’s the actual product? Where’s the outcome?
I’m about 99% sure I can trust in my ability to carry out what needs to be done. The rest is just rounding error. Pfft. Be awesome instead, right?
So Plans?
Simply put, the plan right now is to stay in Urbana until my lease runs out and network as much as possible, all the while create a few profitable applications along the way. Where am I going after August? Not sure. It’s weird to not have a set direction again in my life.
The last time I was in this position was after I graduated, and couldn’t (and really didn’t want to) find a full-time job. Freelancing was fun, and it was definitely a time in my life that I won’t forget. Somehow ending up in Minneapolis for my first full-time position, then returning back to Urbana… wow, that was quite the thrill.
If HanMeta doesn’t pan out as I wanted to, I don’t think I’ll have any problem finding a job… as long as I stay on task and learn and build something.
Don’t you love Sunday night posts? I do. I was falling asleep while writing/editing. I definitely tried to tackle too many things in this post. First half is quite good, but the second half… probably could have been made into three posts easily.