Tuesday, October 25, 2005
So you want to be in movies?
It's been a hell of a night. OARBS recently released a promotional video which is essentially a 3 1/2 minute intro to our product. A principal we are working with wanted 20 copies on a CD to hand out to his colleagues, use at board meetings, et cetera.
Sure! we cried. No problem! we cried.
Sounds easy, right? Make video, put on CD, mail to guy.
For the uninitiated, let me list the things which can go wrong when you try to make a CD that is: easily distributable, looks pretty, starts automatically, and is embedded into a nice webpage.
LABELS on the CD face
a) Your label paper is not of heavy enough stock to cover up the underlying paint on the CD face. Printed colors look uneven -- some are darker than others due to the underlying paint.
b) Your labels do not cover up the innermost ring up the CD's face. You can see blue where all you should see is white.
c) You don't have a printer-quality version of the client's logo. The printed label looks fuzzy.
CD FILE FORMAT
a) ISO 9660, Joliet or HFS? Two of them are right, one of them isn't.
b) Multi-session? Finalized disc? You might be limiting which computers can play these CDs.
CD CASE
a) Spindle? Compact, cheap to mail. But then the recipients get naked CDs, which scratch easily.
b) Sleeves? Convenient for the distributor to carry around, but don't look professional.
c) Slim jewel cases? Expensive (80% of the total cost), and a pain to ship.
AUTORUN
a) Oops, did you forget to include the Autorun.inf file which causes the video to automatically launch? Abort, retry.
b) Are your clients' computers set up to enable Autorun? All drives, or just CD/DVD media? Doesn't really matter - you lose either way.
MOVIE CODEC
a) What codec are you using? Is it supported on a stock install of Windows XP? (Tip: DivX isn't.)
WEB BROWSER
a) How are you embedding the video? Is it Firefox compatible, or just IE compatible?
b) Are you compensating for the fact that the Media Player embedded control needs an extra 40 pixels of height? If not, your video will look squished.
As we are rapidly learning, nothing is as easy as it seems.
Sure! we cried. No problem! we cried.
Sounds easy, right? Make video, put on CD, mail to guy.
For the uninitiated, let me list the things which can go wrong when you try to make a CD that is: easily distributable, looks pretty, starts automatically, and is embedded into a nice webpage.
LABELS on the CD face
a) Your label paper is not of heavy enough stock to cover up the underlying paint on the CD face. Printed colors look uneven -- some are darker than others due to the underlying paint.
b) Your labels do not cover up the innermost ring up the CD's face. You can see blue where all you should see is white.
c) You don't have a printer-quality version of the client's logo. The printed label looks fuzzy.
CD FILE FORMAT
a) ISO 9660, Joliet or HFS? Two of them are right, one of them isn't.
b) Multi-session? Finalized disc? You might be limiting which computers can play these CDs.
CD CASE
a) Spindle? Compact, cheap to mail. But then the recipients get naked CDs, which scratch easily.
b) Sleeves? Convenient for the distributor to carry around, but don't look professional.
c) Slim jewel cases? Expensive (80% of the total cost), and a pain to ship.
AUTORUN
a) Oops, did you forget to include the Autorun.inf file which causes the video to automatically launch? Abort, retry.
b) Are your clients' computers set up to enable Autorun? All drives, or just CD/DVD media? Doesn't really matter - you lose either way.
MOVIE CODEC
a) What codec are you using? Is it supported on a stock install of Windows XP? (Tip: DivX isn't.)
WEB BROWSER
a) How are you embedding the video? Is it Firefox compatible, or just IE compatible?
b) Are you compensating for the fact that the Media Player embedded control needs an extra 40 pixels of height? If not, your video will look squished.
As we are rapidly learning, nothing is as easy as it seems.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Communication
There is a post at a forum I frequent.
In it, the author basically says that where he once was an eloquent speaker, after 18 months of development work, he is now a gibbering nincompoop.
Like the author of the linked post, I blame development work. It takes a talent to communicate succinctly, be it in writing or in spoken words, technical details. We therefore end up with hurried slush piles of bad technical prose which every coder learns to skim. Got a technical question? Run a couple searches on Google, scan the results, load 3 or 4 good-seeming candidates up in the background, then quickly flip through them looking for the answer. Result: Bad written communications.
Like the author, I see it happening to my oral skills as well. I am losing my outward verbal communication skills and my inward listening skills. Where I used to try multiple times to get a point across, I now find myself getting frustrated and desperate after the first failed communication. Where I used to be able to listen, I find myself trying to "scan" the incoming voices. As I mentioned in my Podcast blog, this is just not possible. Result: Bad oral communications.
What course of therapy is an effective treatment for this ADHD of the mind? If I figure it out, I'll let you know. (Hopefully not in a tersely-worded communique, but in a well-crafted and exultant essay.)
In it, the author basically says that where he once was an eloquent speaker, after 18 months of development work, he is now a gibbering nincompoop.
Like the author of the linked post, I blame development work. It takes a talent to communicate succinctly, be it in writing or in spoken words, technical details. We therefore end up with hurried slush piles of bad technical prose which every coder learns to skim. Got a technical question? Run a couple searches on Google, scan the results, load 3 or 4 good-seeming candidates up in the background, then quickly flip through them looking for the answer. Result: Bad written communications.
Like the author, I see it happening to my oral skills as well. I am losing my outward verbal communication skills and my inward listening skills. Where I used to try multiple times to get a point across, I now find myself getting frustrated and desperate after the first failed communication. Where I used to be able to listen, I find myself trying to "scan" the incoming voices. As I mentioned in my Podcast blog, this is just not possible. Result: Bad oral communications.
What course of therapy is an effective treatment for this ADHD of the mind? If I figure it out, I'll let you know. (Hopefully not in a tersely-worded communique, but in a well-crafted and exultant essay.)
Podcasting: Stop it.
Do you ever get the feeling that some things are done just because they're "cool"? There's no value in them but for the fact that they were done in the cool way. The medium is the message and all that.
Example: Today's techies are all about "podcasts", recorded audio feeds that people can download and listen to. (Presumably on their iPods.)
The RadRails project loves podcasts.
The RadRails project really shouldn't: they alread suck because they use other's free components to create their product, without appropriate attribution. This is a big no-no in the techie world. As one disgruntled contributor has mentioned, they need to "share the love". (He mentioned this in written form, not in obnoxious audio form).
The RadRails project really, really shouldn't because they can't even focus their podcasts. Whenever they release an update to their project, they write 2-3 lines in their blog, and then spend *30 surreal minutes* yammering in a podcast about life, the universe and everything. This means suffering through 30 minutes of crap about their trip to the fast food restaurant, 30 minutes of crap about how they're all tired, and maybe 1 minute of good, lucid discussion about their actual progress.
How narcissistic need you be to think we give a shit? Use text.
Text is indexable. Use text. Text is skimmable. Use text. Text encourages you to read, re-read, and re-write. Use text. And in text, I don't have to listen to three of you fighting over a goddamned microphone. Use text.
Example: Today's techies are all about "podcasts", recorded audio feeds that people can download and listen to. (Presumably on their iPods.)
The RadRails project loves podcasts.
The RadRails project really shouldn't: they alread suck because they use other's free components to create their product, without appropriate attribution. This is a big no-no in the techie world. As one disgruntled contributor has mentioned, they need to "share the love". (He mentioned this in written form, not in obnoxious audio form).
The RadRails project really, really shouldn't because they can't even focus their podcasts. Whenever they release an update to their project, they write 2-3 lines in their blog, and then spend *30 surreal minutes* yammering in a podcast about life, the universe and everything. This means suffering through 30 minutes of crap about their trip to the fast food restaurant, 30 minutes of crap about how they're all tired, and maybe 1 minute of good, lucid discussion about their actual progress.
How narcissistic need you be to think we give a shit? Use text.
Text is indexable. Use text. Text is skimmable. Use text. Text encourages you to read, re-read, and re-write. Use text. And in text, I don't have to listen to three of you fighting over a goddamned microphone. Use text.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Dusty around here...
Well, it's been almost a month since I've blogged here.
That's unfortunate and it's something I'll fix -- real soon now, I swear.
This is just a quick post to say that I'm going to be attending Bill Gates's speech here at the University of Waterloo.
Students who wanted to attend were required to submit a paragraph about why we wanted to go, and I was one of 25 SoftEng students selected out of over 200 who applied. Why?
Was it my elegant prose about the passion for computing which BillyG and I share? My forceful toadying to worldviews espoused at 1 Microsoft Way? Or the fact that I mentioned dating a beautiful mathie who loves to bake cream pies? I guess we'll never know.
That's unfortunate and it's something I'll fix -- real soon now, I swear.
This is just a quick post to say that I'm going to be attending Bill Gates's speech here at the University of Waterloo.
Students who wanted to attend were required to submit a paragraph about why we wanted to go, and I was one of 25 SoftEng students selected out of over 200 who applied. Why?
Was it my elegant prose about the passion for computing which BillyG and I share? My forceful toadying to worldviews espoused at 1 Microsoft Way? Or the fact that I mentioned dating a beautiful mathie who loves to bake cream pies? I guess we'll never know.
