Control - Alt - Deflate

Kinect … first thoughts

2010-08-17T01:02:00.001-07:00

I had a chance to play with Microsoft’s Kinect directly this weekend and I have to say I’m pleasantly surprised and impressed.

Unlike a lot of the press surrounding the device (from a few fan sites by people who have admittedly not actually played with it, but said it “seemed like” when watching others …) there were no glitches or sluggishness.

In fact I found it if anything a bit more responsive than my Wii at home – but that could just be my imagination. What I do know is the play experience didn’t suffer from any visible lag I could tell. The interface locked on to both me and my son – and there was none of the annoying “Stand On One Foot” calibrating I found annoying with the Wii. In the time it took for the two of us to walk into the room, face it, and be given all of 20 seconds of instructions – which consisted of, “You may want to move back to give yourself more room”, the unit was ready to go.

You can see samples of our experience in the video they took of us playing. This is a short video edited down, our actual play time was a complete set on the obstacle course game… which was a combination of an obstacle course and an amusement park ride. The more you jumped the faster the platform you were on went – grabbing objects, leaning, ducking and jumping were very intuitive.

Like I said, there was no real need for an instruction manual and the system calibrated to us pretty much instantly. At the end of the game we were treated to pictures of some of our more … ahem… Classic moves, which was very reminiscent of amusement park rides that feature pictures of you screaming your head off and other wise embarrassing yourself publically.

Now, one thing I was a bit concerned about was how much room will this take to be useable in my home. The demos were in a “demo” living room in a trailer about 1/2 the size of an actual living room. I really think with a larger room the experience might be better but it was certainly usable in the cramped space we had.

How does it, over all, game+system+play experience compare to a Wii? Well obviously the graphics quality beats the Wii totally – it’s a far more sophisticated graphics engine and rendering technology so there’s a certain win for it there. Playing casual games isn’t really my thing but to be honest even though the game we played reminded me of Wii resort a bit – the feeling is much different. Perhaps it’s the lack of having to hold something or being tethered to that wireless controller, or maybe it’s just the ability for two of us to flail about like idiots next to each other without the need of floor sensors – whatever the reason, yes it’s a better experience, but it goes beyond that and I haven’t found the right words to describe it. Freedom? Seems to fit the feeling best.

I know – I know – the Wii gave us freedom. This gives us… even more freedom.

Will I buy one? My son informs me … Yes… yes we will. And when it comes to games I listen to him.

$35 Laptop in India…

2010-07-24T13:24:00.001-07:00

I’ve had a few emails about this story – which is all over about a $35 laptop made in India.

Theres a lot of misunderstanding apparently about this. First of all – it’s not a $35 Laptop. It’s a proto-type for a laptop which the people on the project have said it should cost $35, and on mass scale would drop down to $10 a laptop.

That’s all fine and good but having a bit experience around this kind of thing lets inject some reality into the Public Relations statement. I would urge caution and research before expecting to see one of these, for that price, any time soon.

Don’t get me wrong anyone who knows me knows this is a cause near and dear to me and I would totally love to see any low cost computing device in the hands of children. But this is not the first time that we’ve seen some pretty incredible claims about such technology – and it’s not even the first time that India has made some petty incredible claims about low cost devices. Last year India announced they had a 7 pound ($14 USD ) laptop in development, which – btw – this is probably the unit they were talking about. Such price shifts are pretty common in the development phase of any hardware and the fluctuations can be a few dollars or a few hundred dollars. And this is what you should keep in mind when you see a story like this.

CNN Report on $35 laptop.

This is a proto-type. Those are their words – not mine. PROTOTYPE. It’s a very finished proto-type – but it’s still just a proto-type, and that means that no – they don’t have the final costs on this device. We also don’t know how finished the device is.

It’s running … but that doesn’t always mean a lot. What’s the battery life? How durable is it? etc., etc., there’s a lot of things which might need to be worked out before all is said and done that can radically affect the price on this from a hardware view point.

There are economies of scale in production to consider, as well as the profit that manufacturers need in order to be able to produce those economies of scale. Consider similar projects to this one – and this has been a major factor in their costs. This project will most likely suffer similar issues because of the hardware costs.

Understand that the cost of something isn’t just the development of the software and the design of the product. Once you’ve made the proto-type someone has to make X,000,000 or however many of them. And these need to be available as soon as sales start happening. So the Catch-22 reality is that in order to sell X,000,000 units to get the price down to make them affordable – you have to have already SOLD X,000,000 units to get that price from the manufacturer to make them. Or… you need a manufacturer willing to take a $35 x (X,000,000) risk for you.

Now, maybe I’m wrong… and they’ve got this all dialed in. It’s most likely with a achievement such as this that when you see something this polished it’s been accounted for up to a level. But there are, and will always be cost shifts in production of anything, so I would really caution people who are hoping for a $35 laptop that they set their expectations accordingly. Doing this will insure that when the units do come out the press on them is more accurate and not a lot of negative “they promised but couldn’t deliver” posts from the blogosphere.

Tech Pundits the ‘Fox News’ of IT…

2010-07-16T16:37:00.001-07:00

(please let me know if I got the level of sensationalism right)

Headline… ”Is the Shine Off the Apple?”.
Headline… “Can Microsoft Still Compete?”
Headline… “Microsoft Bing Yahoo make gains… Should Google Worry??”

Here’s the bottom line…

Apple’s fine – and everyone still loves them, despite the whole iPhone4 antenna thing, it’s just most pundits, like Hyenas, aren’t able to bring something down on their own – so they need to rip flesh off in small chunks before going for the kill as a pack.

Microsoft’s more a player now than ever before – they just are playing on a different level than most pundits. Microsoft plays the long game, they always have. Moving pieces on the board slowly and deliberately. So don’t expect them to tip their hat.

A quick search reveals that Microsoft’s biggest strength is not as a open competitor and never has been. They wait for markets to stabilize and provide enough incentive to guarantee financial success. Then when they have enough of a market to justify going all in – they do so, it’s fast and hard - and they usually win. It’s a poker strategy they live by and this isn’t going to change any time soon.

Google (and Any Smart Company) should always worry… in this world your only as good as your last success. Google has done an amazing job for a company with one product that they don’t charge for. But they are Google. And they are very very good at understanding numbers and forecasting. If they have anything to worry about it’s that business and economics will change their model and make their cash cow obsolete. So – Microsoft and Yahoo, yeah they’re competition but Google’s greatest competition is the same thing that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates worried about… that somewhere out there is a kid in a garage with an idea.

Headline… “We really have no clue what’s going on in IT. We just put up headlines and make extreme statements to force you to read this.”

That’s my take on the state of IT reporting these days. A lot of people who have no clue how, or why the industries they report on work, or the actual motivations or directions of the companies. The “analysts” aren’t – they’re just people who spew words and make headlines. This applies to some big name bloggers out there as well as wonks – and I really wish that wasn’t the case. But from what I’ve seen of late - it’s true. And yeah, I’m pretty fired up over some of the inane and insipid attempts at “reporting” I’ve seen. They include story bits – but just as you’re about to question the facts they provide they break in with these block quotes or a sensationalist statement or image – and so you don’t question, you just get fired up.

MOST of the IT predictions out there and the so called “analysts” are worthless - or worse just do not understand the actual functions of their industry, the economics, business models, or operations of a industry that they’re supposed to be reporting on. They are often - I have found – people who’s credentials are as “technically skilled” or knowledgeable of the industry – come from having worked in non-technical areas of IT.

Here’s a good example. A few weeks ago a blogger - who shall remain nameless – went on a tirade about how Microsoft Xbox had no clue about MMO’s and how Microsoft needed to listen to the MMO creators out there if they ever wanted to make money and get their console business model remade so it would work with them.

Now, if you play MMO’s this makes sense. Let’s face it we all know about World of Warcraft right? We all know there’s some serious cash going on there. And Microsoft Xbox has had 3 major MMO’s that just… died on the vine under them. It’s like how in the heck… can this not make money for them – and they just – let this stuff slip through their fingers??? This blogger called Microsoft’s people basically inept morons who did not understand the market, dinosaurs who did not understand the money they were losing.

Yet – at the same time –- Microsoft’s Xbox Live was reported at making 1.2 Billion dollars. So, is the blogging analyst right? Is Microsoft giving up money hand over fist even though they made 1.2 billion??

Short answer… NO. Not even close. He’s just some guy who loves MMO’s and thinks that’s the best business model for every game. That’s all he plays – and he says so in the article. He’s got no knowledge of anything except maybe how to make a min/max Elf in Warcraft. Okay, so that’s an exaggeration. He claims to have dozens of years experience in IT. Which… questionably would make him older than most IT fields out there and probably having experience on Univac – But we’ll go with that anyway because his respected website posts it – So hey – it must be true right kids???

The blogger / analyst mentioned knew ONE part of the IT business. Just one. And that’s not enough to make a sweeping statement or provide analysis. It is however, enough to write a blog apparently.

But it’s not enough to actually understand how IT and Games and Technology all fit together – and they certainly didn’t know what it takes to make any kind of software come into being, let alone something as complex as operating and maintaining a Massive Multiplayer Online game. I’m not going to say I do but I do understand more of the issues here than they do, and I actually have written code and had to have it deployed globally, and actually have had to understand IT business models – unlike someone who’s big skill with it all is in knowing how to get the most DPS for your Druid.

So let me take a bash at explaining why this man (and sooo many others reporting) need to understand how to do more than write a headline.

First of all… MMO’s actually are one of the smaller gamer markets if you compare cost to make and maintain vs. FPS or a more traditional gaming system – compare the numbers you begin to see, as “big” as MMO’s are, there’s “big” and then there’s BIG. MMO’s are not BIG when it comes to over all profit… they’re just ‘big’ … when it comes to profit. Even though total income from MMO’s is around 1.5 billion world wide, the cost to keep them, maintain them, etc. is far more than a normal game. As a result that 1.5 billion isn’t PROFIT – that’s just income. If you’ve ever looked at your checkbook… you know the difference between income… and profit.

MMO’s are not single guys with a great job a small apartment and a fancy car – they’re married to their investors, who are constantly asking for them to do more with less, and their 2.4 children (users) are constantly asking them for braces, lunch money, allowance (you can just call these ‘game updates’)… that fancy car (all the hardware that runs the game) they had when they were single… well it’s now in need to be traded in for a minivan because you have too many kids and it’s going to burn a gruntload more gas.

Bottom line… MMO’s cost money. A lot of money to maintain. So even though they make a lot of money – as any parent can tell you … it’s not enough.

Here’s the reality. Bandwidth costs money, Updates to games cost money. Xbox live could – yes handle that, I mean c’mon Microsoft Live is a monthly fee.

But Microsoft didn’t create the MMO. So if the price cut comes out of Microsoft’s pocket, not the game developer, it would have to eat that cost. Not gonna happen because, let’s face it – the game now costs them more than they can make back on Xbox live. Soooo… maybe the game developer just raises the price right? Hey that’s what happens anyway right? I pay my $14.99 for my monthly game subscription, plus my $55 for the game… and yeah I’d need to pay my Xbox live fee.

Funny thing… there’s a lot of surveys of people out there on that very system… and every survey done on this subject (and there’s been man of them) show that most gamers would not go for that. In fact it’s a pretty overwhelming majority. Which… ironically gamers go out and do anyway. It appears it’s when you actually ask them if they would they say “No way in hell” but they go ahead and do it for PC’s… just not… console systems. Very strange.

Anyway, we haven’t even gotten to the issues of the special service updates, micro-transactions, why it’s necessary for a consistent development cycle for all parties working together, and other deal breakers or if the game will be “exclusive” and so on.

And yes… before anyone emails to point this out – I’m well aware of Steam – and that they have 25 million users. Now, ask how many of the actual current 2.5 million accounts of those 25 million accounts are providing income for Steam?
(*based on www.gameindustry.biz data – also be aware that Steam and Xbox Live are not the same business model, its’ confusing from a gamer view but actually take a look at what each does and you can see the difference – one is a game supplier, the other is a game provider – it’s a subtle but financially significant difference) …

You can begin to see why Microsoft’s Xbox Live system works better for Microsoft, and they’re willing to walk away from an MMO deal they’re not 110% sure of – rather than take the risk associated with it.

Why? Because of the 10 million Xbox live accounts – the majority are paying Microsoft $50 a year or more. Which explains why Xbox live made over 1.2 billion dollars last year… even though it’s not a game it basically is an MMO, and its almost as profitable as ALL of the MMO’s combined … for Microsoft. Explain to me - Why exactly does it need to change it’s business model so that it can have an MMO again?

As you can see Microsoft unless they are complete morons – are not going to monkey around with with the Xbox live business model system. Not just so they can have an MMO which may, or may not be profitable, and will most likely cost them – or a business partner a small fortune to maintain, and they will need to fight tooth an nail against established MMO’s costing more in advertising, more in – basically everything… just to say they have an MMO. That would be insane. Like… really insane.

So… how about an analysis huh? I’ve done the reading, done the research… what do I think? Will Microsoft change it?

My analysis…

Here’s my surprising answer considering everything I’ve said so far… Yes. I really think they will – and I will add, in their time. There is money in the MMO basket. But that money isn’t there technologically for a little down the road. Once the money is there for them – yeah, I really think they want to be in this game all in. It’s the market that’s holding them back.

As it becomes more profitable to open the business model up for them, and in time, it will. But they won’t pull the trigger on that decision until the numbers are there to support it. My guess is – they’re pretty close.

For one thing – the more game system back ends get into a cloud, which Microsoft is becoming very strong in – the lower the price to maintain them becomes. If handled properly – much of Xbox Live could become effectively a game provider cloud. The technical logistics for this exist – it’s the legal and business logistics that would need to be worked out. But from a technology view point – Microsoft is ready.

We’ve seen Microsoft test the waters with things like Monster Hunter, and they almost did it with Marvel Universe, and had a good test run with ShadowRun (yes the game I’;l give you was a miserable disappointment, more FPS than MMO – but the technology to support it was a success). But the market is not there yet… and as I mentioned above… Microsoft historically does not get into a market unless they know they can not just make back the investment but make money off it.

Now, if I – without being an ‘expert with dozens of years in the gaming industry’, and am just a plain old normal IT guy… can figure all of that that out with just a few minutes of searching on the internet… just imagine what a skilled blog reporter with ‘dozens of years in the gaming industry’ could do if they really set their mind to it.

Getting Called On the Future…

2010-06-06T23:55:00.001-07:00

Got a couple emails recently about some of the claims I’ve made about how soon technology is going to change. Specifically on the way that just around the corner we’ll be seeing computers that can read minds and all kinds of science fictiony stuff and do I really buy that or am I just full of … well, lets not be polite here I believe the exact expression was … “full of crap”.

So – just for those doubting Thomas’ out there who don’t believe we’ll have a computer with a Direct Neural Interface any time soon… not only is it soon it’s NOW. You can buy a somewhat primitive version of what I’ve been describing for the reasonably low price of about $150 or less.

A company call OCZ makes a Neural Interface Actuator for video games – allows you to control much of your game just using your mind. Well – actually your mind and the muscles in your head – using a lightweight headband that reads your neural activity and changes it into mouse/game movements. And – I might add the products been out there now for … about 2-3 years. It’s fairly well developed and far from a “proto-type”. So this particular form of Brain Computer Interface already exists today, and its’ mass marketed already.

How good is it?

Well for 75% of the people out there they’re going to find this to be beyond belief and the stuff of spooky science fiction. The rest of us know it’s only really a first generation level device. It doesn’t exactly connect you up to anything. Yes, there is a directly neural interface and no – it doesn’t require a chip implant to make it work. Just a headband.

So … for those wondering how close the future of the next – the really truly “next” generation of computing is - it’s here, just as I said, happening in small chunks here and there – until one day – you wake up and say, “I remember when ….”

Windows Mobile 7 Unexpected Reward

2010-03-16T11:55:00.001-07:00

Alots getting said right now about what Win 7 mobile is and isn’t.. what it can and can’t or will or won’t be. Enough that I’ll just let everyone read it themselves and make their own opinions on the subject. Announcements that came out at Mix 2010 on the dev side of the things for Win 7 are to me a whole lot more interesting.

Most are going to just gloss over a small tid-bit that’s well worth looking into because of all the things in the new Win 7 swirling controversy of Zunes and HD video and support for existing devices and what devices can and can’t work with this… is a small package called the Expression Blend Developer Kit for Windows phone.

Now I’m not going to go all fanboy and squeal like a little girl about all the glories that this will unlock – but I will go so far as to say that there’s an unexpected consequence, or even reward that may come from this – which is that Microsoft’s increasing exposure to the Expression toolset and Silverlight. Expression gives those with a designer skillset that happen to bedevelopers far greater powers and control than any other Microsoft product to date, which has been sorely lacking.

Microsoft’s history of creating anything for a designer – someone with a more visual eye and interface as opposed to the back end developer has been hit or miss at best. No one argues their IDEs for Visual Studio aren’t great, but anyone who cared as much about the aesthetics and usability of the tools they developed as they did about the code was pretty much stuck in hell.

Its a long standing rule that developers are engineers – and engineers are great at a lot of things but looks, appearances and anything involving social experiences… they really tend to lag in those skill sets. Designers on the ohter hand are very people and social conscience. Unfortunately they’ll build things if you let them that have no actual purpose other than aesthetics and drive performance and business logic right into the ground. They live in two worlds and never the twain shall meet is the theory.

Expression Blend is a bridge for those two worlds which is surprisingly easy to use – and more surprisingly – allows a very high level of access to code usually reserved for more code development IDEs. And it’s in providing a Expression Blend for the Windows Mobile 7 platform tool for free that Microsoft may unwittingly be reaping an unseen benefit.

The complete Mobile dev kit includes Expression Blend, XNA (the game development platform) and Visual Studio 2010 Express with all the Windows Mobile 7 Phone add-ins. Now, far be it from me to point out that if you’re developing an app using this it can port directly over to a lot of platforms beyond the Mobile phone market. And I’m in no way hinting that a smart developer wouldn’t care about the fact that the dev kits meant for the mobile market and use it for all of their rapid prototyping and development. (Yeah, I’d never do that.)

Anyway … here’s the links … check it out…

Expression Blend 4 Beta

Windows Phone Developer Tools

Microsoft Expression Blend Add-in Preview for Windows Phone

Microsoft Expression Blend Software Development Kit Preview for Windows Phone

So you think you do PunchOut?

2009-11-17T04:50:00.001-08:00

I’ve had – in the last week five emails from people asking for help with PunchOut eProcurement systems. One or two isn’t uncommon but five or six becomes a trend. So in an effort to reclaim my evening hours for watching House, Supernatural and helping my son with his homework (we’re doing Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird” this week)… I thought I’d round up some of the more frequently asked questions I’ve seen.

Q: What is OCI?
A: OCI is the Open Catalog Interface. It’s largely used by SAP – and yes, believe it or not can be used with cXML.

Q: What is EBD Format?
A: EBD is the EPO Bibliographic Data Format… which is a mouthful and yes – there are companies, usually those dealing with legal documents such as patents and such that sell them online. EBD in the case of SAP and Punchout however does not use this format… what you’re referring to is SAP Enterprise Buyer Data which isn’t a format it’s an application. You use this if you want to create a process for direct and indirect shopping and the shopping cart ends with the entry of the invoice.

Q: What is the difference between PunchOut, TapOut and Roundtrip?

A: Contrary to an article and paper sent out by a service consultancy a while back… PunchOut, TapOut and RoundTrip – are all the same thing using different methods (IMHO – but then I’m Old School and picky about my definitions and not trying to sell something). They’re eCommerce Shopping solutions that involve a shopping catalog “punchedout” and sent to a customer from a vendor. Ariba’s name – which is the oldest is PunchOut, Commerce One and a few others call it “RoundTrip” and Commerce One likes to use “TapOut”. Bottom line … it’s all B2B – the only difference is the methods used to get there.

I’ll toss out more later on in the week – but figured this was a start for the week since I hadn’t posted in a while.

Testing… Testing… Testing… is this thing on??

2009-09-04T21:30:00.001-07:00

Been far too long since I posted anything, and I feel like crud for that since I have been keeping up on emails and know how many people have been asking if I died or something … nope. No deaths, alien abduction, undercover spy operations or world saving. Just a ton of work and barely enough time left over to sleep let alone post anything on the blog. Since at work they seem to be a bit behind the times (and our department below the budget) I’ve had to come up with inexpensive ways to design, develop and test stuff. So in keeping with my on going mantra here on the blog of showing you how to do more with little or no cash I thought I’d share a few of the free testing and dev tools I’ve been playing with of late.

The first of which is a little beauty called the WaitN Test Recorder. It’s an awesome tool for recording and playing back tests. And it will set you back a cool bupkiss. A big Nada. Zero. Zilch. Zippo… totally free – which your boss will love. If you do any work on the web … this is your baby for testing. Combine it with the rest of the WaitN line of toys and you’re good to go for most web based tests.

Next “Thing You Gotta Have that’s Free…” in my toybox of free tools are … the Microsoft Visual Studio Express tools. Now… I know, I know, I know these are “kiddie” versions are what you’re going to tell me. Now – let me tell you… I’ve coded a ton of apps in these for work because, well, my department isn’t going to pay for a full blown MSDN Universal Subscription… heck, they probably wouldn’t pay for a copy of VS Pro… but these are FREE. And that’s free as in FREE BEER free – you pay nothing for them. All of the code that I’ve written in them is as good or better than the full blown Visual Studio. No, you don’t have all the cool features – but you have enough of them that you’re using probably one of the slickest IDEs on the market even in it’s free version it’s still light years ahead of everything else out there.

So… if you need to whip up an app quick and easy – or even a somewhat complicated application, or if you’re just starting out and want to learn a language or two… this is the way to go. Now… for those who are saying “Yeah but why can’t I get the FULL Visual Studio IDE for free?” – got a surprise for you… you can. In fact you can get that and your choice of RUBY or IronPython along with it … for free.

So… for those who don’t do VB.NET, C#, etc., and you want to try the new stuff out there… you’re going to love this – RUBY with a Visual Studio IDE. Yup… RUBY. Say no more … and it’s also free. SaphireSteel Software makes an awesome free version of it’s RUBY editor for Visual Studio, which, btw, just happens to include a copy of the Visual Studio IDE free if ya don’t happen to have one lying around, as well as RUBY, and MYSQL if you need a database. So… how’s that?

What’s that you say? You want something … to handle subversioning? (What’s subversioning you say? hmmm… Do I need to take you to an ER to have you checked for head trauma???) A subversion tool is a tool used to track versions, revisions to code, and provide a source control system for software development.

How many times have you written code… then had a brilliant Idea that was just so awesome that you didn’t back up your code… and accidentally wrote over your code? C’mon… show of hands… fess up… everyone’s done it.

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a magic fairy that would come down and allow you to see previous versions of the code you’d written – allow you to compare it or even revert back to a previsous version? As if by magic?

Well there are several tools for this… and once again… they’re FREE. The first one I wanted to talk about is called TortiseSVN. Now … straight off the box it says TortiseSVN is “A Subversion client, implemented as a windows shell extension. TortoiseSVN is a really easy to use Revision control / version control / source control software for Windows. Since it's not an integration for a specific IDE you can use it with whatever development tools you like. TortoiseSVN is free to use. You don't need to get a loan or pay a full years salary to use it. “.

There are a ton of free development tools out there that can really help your projects and give you the quality and degree of professionalism you’re looking for – that are free and that can free up your cash for other things. Which if you’re a small shop or a struggling but scrappy start up shop trying to create the next Google – you’re not forced with the choice of doing things half-way or the wrong way because it would cost you an arm and a leg.

So what’s that mean to you? It means you can now track your changes to the code. You can now auto-revert to a previous version. It means that when you screw up… and we all do… you can fix the problem faster and more efficiently – like a professional. You reduce your costs, increase your efficiency – and you provide yourself with a safety net. Good times. :D

But… but… but… what about better support for all those cool MS Visual Studio Express tools and the free Visual Studio IDE that came with your spanking new RUBY editor from SaphireSteel? You go into VS Express editions and you don’t have subversion? Well actually you do – but it’s not integrated nicely into things like you’d like. Truth is – there are some featurFor that… you want AnkhSVN.

AnkhSVN integrates directly with the Visual Studio 2008 IDE. You get the familiar looking blue / green / red check marks on the files you’re working on in the Solution Explorer. You get the very nice docking panel which provides details on files. And best of all – it’s all built in. No need to kill yourself trying to jump back and forth and open up new windows to work in.

Now… those are just a few of the toys you need to make a yourself into a professional operation for free. But … what other goodies do I have for free??? Well there is this cool tool you probably never considered… the Microsoft AdCenter Demographic Analysis tool… really. If you really need to understand why this is handy you should probably not be reading this. Demographics for a website are a key to selling it. For example – this site is meant for a very wide demographic, and this handy little gizmo gives me some proof of that. It shows that the site is very evenly distributed amongst the various demographic types it’s meant for namely the 25-35 age group. You’ll find several very use tools over at the AdCenter for web sites so be sure to check it out.

I’ve got tons more… but this should get you started for this week and keep people from asking me if I died or was kidnapped by aliens.

Doing a lot for very little…

2009-07-10T01:19:00.001-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe… I drag you back into cXML validation! Hey – put down the torture devices…. it’s not what you think! Remember a few posts back – we built a quicky validation tool?

Well had someone ask if I actually use that, and the truth is – no I don’t. The actual tool that I use is the one shown here. But all of this began as something very similar to the code you saw here. There’s a lot more exception handling – and slew of features added into it since we / I use this for all kinds of cool eCommerce tests around work.

As you can see the initial purpose of the tool remains the same, which is to validate cXML documents. With this I can load the documents into the tool – and using any of the pre-populated addresses – it is capable of process an actual file, which is to say round tripping where we begin with the PunchOut set up request and go all the way through the Purchase Order (OrderRequest) and even the POOM (PunchOutOrderMessage).

It was built completely on the free VB Express system from Microsoft so it cost literally nothing to build. Were I to sell this – I’d probably charge around $500 to $1200 depending on the added features I’ve put in there and people would I have no doubt pay that for it. (I know because I’ve been offered that much for it). So there’s no reason that with a bit of ingenuity someone looking to really add to their portfolio or even just make a few dollars can’t do this. Which is kind of the point to the exercises that I put up here.

With the economy currently in shambles for the tech industry there’s a lot of things you can do for very little cash that can reap some good rewards. You don’t have to spend $$$ or have a lot of start up cash, software or hardware. What you need is to sit down and say, “What tools need to be built?”, “What do I need to do my job better?”.

There is always a better mousetrap out there – and even if your budget is nil – all it takes is some very basic coding skills to make something that you, your department, your boss really needs.

Thats the root of it really using your skills to their best advantage. If you happen to make a really great whatever so much the better. And you’ll note I don’t use some exotic code – I use the very basic, very simple Visual Studio Express and a bit of code here and there to really create a tool I need for my job. This one was built because we didn’t have any test tools like this where I work. Once again – you see a need – you build a tool. The more you build the more indispensable you become. Don’t wait for your job to out pace you … out pace the job. Create things. Get messy. Have fun. It’s when we do this that we stand out form the crowd and get noticed.

Just some food for thought… take care until next week.

PM Work: Some Required Assembly…

2009-06-24T23:58:00.001-07:00

Haven’t had much to say about Program Management in a while so decided to talk some stuff I ran into at a recent ScrumMaster seminar.

Now I love scrum as much as anyone. You got your Chickens and you got your Pigs, and who isn’t going to love a PM method that’s got roles based around an old vaudeville sketch about farm animals right? Okay… so I love scrum as a method of project management for other reasons than that – but lets face it that is pretty bizarre.

Now, it’s all really cool to have this great method to reduce time to product, reduce costs and increase quality. And it’s all great to use agile methods. But the fact is that Scrum and Agile aren’t for every project and they’re not for every team.

They are not a one-size-fits all method of development but they’ve become very much a defacto standard for everything and used without really a lot of good reasons other than the teams involved have used them before they worked. Which is a good reason to try, but that doesn’t mean that because it worked once it’s going to work again.

My daughter has a car. It’s a great little Berretta and it’s very old. Now, I used to have a really great Turbo Capri from about the same year as her Berretta and when it gave me fits, I replaced the starter and it worked well. Unfortunately, my Daughters Berretta has a problem with it’s ECM and replacing the starter isn’t going to help it. It needs a new ECM and it won’t matter whats worked for me in the past.

So before I go into a project and decide that Scrumming it up is a good idea I need to talk to a few people.

I need to talk to the people who are going to work on it. I need to talk to the people who are going to pay for it. I need to talk to the people who are going to use it. I also need to talk about if it’s even remotely possible.

Basically before I can even decide on if I want to be in the project - I need… Project Requirements.

Which is something I’d like to toss out there as a PM and a process I’d like to talk about. When people approach you with a project you need to really understand all the requirements of the project itself.

Now, not everyone who’s a PM is in a position to pick and choose their projects. But even if you didn’t get to pick your project(s) you should do this every time you have a project dropped on you. If you’re going to drive a project then you need to know everything you can about it.

When I start a project I personally go through this. I sit down and I write up, for my own understanding in a very rough outline form, the project General Requirements.

My general requirements list is everything that are currently defined requirements that are known. This is the starting point and from there I can determine the questions I need for my other lists.

I’ll create a short Systems Analysis, and in this I’m going to include all the things I can find out about what are the specific systems requirements I can think of and find out. If the General Requirements have a preference for a particular kind of programming language or a technology – I’ll hit the internet and write up the known specifications needed for that technology so when I sit down and have meetings for the real Systems Requirements I not only can understand what I’m being told but can actually participate in the discussion. Here I’ll include anything I don’t know –all the questions that I can’t find answers for - which are just as important as what I can find out, what I can know.

Next I’ll move on the Functional Analysis and then the Design Analysis. I’ll break it down something like this:

System Analytics are about the physical properties needed to make the project happen.
- What technologies?
- What physical products will be needed?
Functional Analytics are about what it will actually take to make the project happen.
- Do we need a lot of people to create this?
  - What kind of people? Experts? Developers? Designers? Manager?
    - How many Pigs? How many Chickens?
    - Will we need Silverbacks or just Codemonkeys?
Design Analytics are about we really are trying to create.
- Is it about quality and style?
- Is it about ease of use?
- Is it about cost?
- Is it about doing something no one else has?
- Who’s the market? Who’s going to use this? Why?

And most importantly for the Project – I’m going to play the Bosses Advocate and I’m going to ask all these questions again from the business perspective. I’m going to look at the following – the Corporate Mission and Goals, The Department/Divsion Mission and Goals, and then the Teams Mission and Goals and I’m going to map all of these subjects to them. So I know as many of them as possible so that when I need to go for funds I already have the answers the boss is going to ask me.

Now – that’s what I call a PM Project Requirements Analysis. Now I won’t say every PM should do this but I can tell you that if you do you will find that as you go through these same steps again for the real thing, you will find that it will make you a better PM. Its basically gathering all the things you need for a project before hand or at least as many as you possibly can before you need them so that when you need them you’re not just ready you already have the answers.

Take the time to write this up on a simple two-three page document for every project you have. Take and use this as a blue print to feed into your Communications Plan, you need to use it to build as many of your docs as possible. Then as time goes by you need to go back to the doc and update it. Whenever possible a personal document like this should be considered a living document that you update over and over.

Like I said, I can’t say if you do this your life will be puppies and kitties and rainbows. But.I can say that if you do this – it will make your life easier and your projects easier.

Just my 2 cents.

a good POSR to validate against…. final thoughts on cXML PunchOut validation…

2009-06-24T15:52:00.001-07:00

… and another email came in asking if I had a copy of a “good” cXML example I could share.

Actually, the best cXML examples are off of www.cxml.org which has a lovely link you can download the files you need from. If you always download their latest and greatest help, examples and docs at this link: http://xml.cxml.org/current/cXML.zip

Which will get you a very cool zip file that has samples for almost any kind of cXML operation you’re looking to pull off.

Inside the zip is the examples directory – which is just piled all full of cXML goodies. And in a blog or two ago I mentioned that humorously enough if you tried to validate any of those examples against the cxml.org dtd file… it would fail.

And someone mentioned I never said why they fail other than they’re meant for very generic situations. Which is … not entirely true.

It really depends on your outlook. And if you want to see any of these files actually “validate” then you need to do one thing… change the DTD version in the DOCTYPE tag. That’s the second line in the document and it would look like…

<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.020/cXML.dtd">

So in order to make any of these work… set it back to an earlier version which we know is compliant. If for example you take the current PunchOutSetUpRequest and attempt to validate it against the DTD there’s a lot of fields which need to be implemented, and yes – you actually do have to add the appropriate Elements and Attributes under the tag to make it conform to 1.2.020 standard. This sample to be honest is actually a 1.2.008 compliant DTD file – and to verify this simply change the validation dtd url to that version.

<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.0008/cXML.dtd">

And you’ll get these results…

cXML Validated
Against the 1.2.008 DTD

cXML Validation Failed
Against the 1.2.020 DTD

So the DTD really is the lord and master and it really does matter when it comes to validation. It determines the rules by which the document is considered ‘good’, it covers how to handle whitespaces and escaped characters and all manner of things. And with each DTD you have a slightly different set of rules that are applied.

A file which validates fine against an earlier version can fail when validated against a newer set of standards. So if you fail validation with DTD errors – try validating it against an earlier version.

… and it comes in blue…

2009-06-24T09:08:00.001-07:00

Got an email from Kedra A.– a developer/admin in Austin who wanted to know … if the cXML validator I put up this weekend could be done… using WPF. Why Kedra wanted this in WPF I have no clue – but apparently all of their apps are now being done in… you got it – WPF. Kedra tried building the project by just grabbing the various functions and subs and copying them into a WPF app and she couldn’t get it to work

I told her I’d take a look at it and see why.

So here it is. Mission accomplished. All done.

Okay – I won’t be cruel .. because there are some code differences between any WPF and a normal .NET application.

Basically there are very very few things in this app that won’t work in WPF. But there are a few which, for various reasons need to be modified.

Primarilly this is the Richtextbox control and the OpenFileDialog/Showdialog, and these I found out after a bit of digging on the web … can be tricky.

So Kedra – don’t feel bad. This is intermediate level to upper level stuff and it involves a very very new (for most people) technology.

Lets take a look at the OpenFileDialog code in the original application and the wpf version here.

If you notice the OpenFileDialog in the new code needs to instantiate the OFDialog as a System.Windows.Forms OpenFileDialog instead of the default that comes with WPF. Why’d I do that?

'Set up the OpenFileDialog to get the name of the file for loading.
Dim OFDialog As New System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog
With OFDialog
    .FileName = vbNull        'Clear out previous filename
    .FileName = "*.xml"

Simple … the OFDialog that comes with System.Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog is an easier to use – and has some richer features than the one that’s baked into WPF which is Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog and has all the functionality of a sockpuppet. Okay it’s not that bad… at least not until you try to use the ShowDialog to go with it.

So that’s why… you can see I did this:

If OFDialog.ShowDialog() = System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK Then
    If .FileNames.GetUpperBound(iCount) < 1 Then
        'File selected so put it in the ComboBox

In setting the OFDialog box to the Windows.Forms.OpenFileDialog in the top snippet – I can now use the System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult and it’s various fun toys. I also wind up with a much nicer OpenFileDialogbox.

I do need to use Import System.Windows.Forms; and yes… this does mean I’m refactoring but it’s a small price on code like this which is a quicky.

But … what other differences are there that you need to be aware of?

Microsoft.Win32 RichTextboxes differ greatly from their Windows.Forms brothers. As a rule most of the WPF controls are very similar – and at the same time very different from their cousins. System.Windows.Controls.Richtextbox and System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox are close – but no cigar. If I want to change the text in a RichTextbox in WPF it’s a much different process than it’s Forms cousin. Check out the links above – and compare the code in the link below the the code in the previous post (it’s the same code – just updated for the WPF, and I removed a couple of annoyances I discussed last time).

WPF Validator Download Link

Side Note

- Kedra also wanted to thank me for doing my samples in VB.NET since its apparently hard to find code samples in VB.NET. I agree with her for some reason there’s a hundred samples out there and the conversion I also agree is pretty simple… but the fact is there are still a lot of new programmers out there who need some time with the code before their confidence is strong enough to jump into those waters. (They will get there – we all do – they just need to see shore for a bit longer while they work on their swimming.) I will continue to do as many samples as i can in VB, but will also try to put them out in C# as well.

validating PunchOut cXML - pt 2.

2009-06-21T01:02:00.001-07:00

Okay… so we covered a bit about POSRs in the last update. And we kinda covered how it fit into an eCommerce Scenario… but let’s go into that more.

PunchOutSetupRequests are issued, and as we said last time the POSR (PunchOutSetupRequest) is sent from the Buyer to the Seller. And they authenticate by sending an Identity and SharedSecret and a URL for the Seller to send a response back to.

So once the Buyer sends this authenticated message to the server, the Supplier (Seller) reads this message, authenticates the Buyrer and then sends back a URL which is the catalog of items which are for sale.

This message that is sent back is called a PunchOutSetupResponse. The Response message is usually nothing more than a “200” or “OK” message and the URL for the catalog. If the message is anything other than a “200” – that means an error occurred. “400” series errors generally mean a problem with redirections or locating urls, “500” series errors are server errors – which include the ever popular (and usually the most common) error message “500 Authentication Error”.

A series 500 error can also mean that for whatever reason the cXML you sent didn’t process. So it’s important that you have a valid cXML document to send and that’s where validation comes into things.

On the POSR, validation isn’t so difficult. It’s basically just a From, a To, a Sender with Credentials, a BrowserFormPost URL – indicating where you want the Seller to respond to … and if you want to get fancy some Extrinsic values. (We’ll talk about Extrinsics some other time since they’re a ton you can do with them – and they’re almost a discussion all their own.)

Where Validation is really important – is on the OrderRequest, also called a PunchOutOrderRequest (POOR) document. You see in the flow of things you authenticate to the Seller and then then Seller sends you are response message, which has a URL to the catalog you’re going to be shopping at.

You do your shopping – all of this is recorded – and you send this information (your order – or PO) back to the Seller in the form of a PunchOutOrderRequest (POOR). This has all the information needed to process the order.

They look like this – which is an image of an actual order request : (Warning - a lot of Scrolling Involved here if you want to see … So Be Warned)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.019/cXML.dtd">
<cXML payloadID="3223232@ariba.acme.com"
      timestamp="1999-03-12T18:39:09-08:00" xml:lang="en-US">

Below is the Header – and this isn’t really going to be much different from the POSR we created, it goes FROM the customer shown below as “Admin@acme.com”. You’ll notice (and someone did email me about this) that the “domain” listed below is “AribaNetworkUserId” and yes, you can change this. It says “AribaNetworkUserId” because this is one of the actual examples from www.cxml.org.

Anyway – you’ll also note that there’s more than one Credential Identities in the From field. Yup – you can do that too. When I have more time I’ll go into why this is a cool trick to use if your a Seller, but it’s one of those weird things that we don’t have time for today.So – moving on to the TO field, and the Sender fields – these are the same as the POSR.

<Header>
    <From>
        <Credential domain="AribaNetworkUserId">
            <Identity>admin@acme.com</Identity>
        </Credential>
        <Credential domain="AribaNetworkUserId" type="marketplace">
            <Identity>bigadmin@marketplace.org</Identity>
        </Credential>
    </From>
    <To>
        <Credential domain="DUNS">
            <Identity>942888711</Identity>
        </Credential>
    </To>
    <Sender>
        <Credential domain="AribaNetworkUserId">
            <Identity>admin@acme.com</Identity>
            <SharedSecret>abracadabra</SharedSecret>
        </Credential>
        <UserAgent>Ariba.com Network V1.0</UserAgent>
    </Sender>
</Header>

We then move to the Request tag, which says “Hey this is a Request – it’s going to have tons of info in it. From there we get down to the OrderRequestHeader. Notice the “orderID”?

Thats generally the actual P.O. ID from many of your Buyer software ERP systems (most of them actually) and right next to it – is the orderDate, also known in some software as the “createdDate”.

Next is the “type” – and it can be “new” or “edit” or even “delete”. And really that’s just the begining you see you have the ShipTo and the BillTo and the Contacts and we haven’t even begun to talk about ItemDetails – which are the actual items. A lot of these have rules to them, and there are some fields which are “optional but required”. Which means that, for example the Zip Code field is not required for a lot of software that processes the cXML… unless of course it’s got a isoCountryCode for the USA. Then it becomes required. Go ahead and take a look at this example and you can get some idea of how OrderRequests look.

This, btw, is a pretty short OrderRequest. A real one may be many many many lines of text.


    <Request deploymentMode="test">
        <OrderRequest>
             <OrderRequestHeader orderID="DO1234" orderDate="1999-03-12" type="new">
                 <Total>
                     <Money currency="USD">2.68</Money>
                 </Total>
                 <ShipTo>
                     <Address>
                         <Name xml:lang="en">Acme</Name>
                         <PostalAddress name="default">
                             <DeliverTo>Joe Smith</DeliverTo>
                             <DeliverTo>Mailstop M-543</DeliverTo>
                             <Street>123 Anystreet</Street>
                             <City>Sunnyvale</City>
                             <State>CA</State>
                             <PostalCode>90489</PostalCode>
                             <Country isoCountryCode="US">United States</Country>
                         </PostalAddress>
                     </Address>
                 </ShipTo>
                 <BillTo>
                     <Address>
                         <Name xml:lang="en">Acme</Name>
                         <PostalAddress name="default">
                             <Street>123 Anystreet</Street>
                             <City>Sunnyvale</City>
                             <State>CA</State>
                             <PostalCode>90489</PostalCode>
                             <Country isoCountryCode="US">United States</Country>
                         </PostalAddress>
                     </Address>
                 </BillTo>
                 <Tax>
                     <Money currency="USD">0.19</Money>
                     <Description xml:lang="en">CA Sales Tax</Description>
                 </Tax>
                 <Payment>
                     <PCard number="1234567890123456" expiration="1999-03-12"/>
                 </Payment>
                 <Comments xml:lang="en-US">Anything well formed in XML can go here.</Comments>
             </OrderRequestHeader>
             <ItemOut quantity="2" requestedDeliveryDate="1999-03-12">
                 <ItemID>
                     <SupplierPartID>1233244</SupplierPartID>
                 </ItemID>
                 <ItemDetail>
                    <UnitPrice>
                        <Money currency="USD">1.34</Money>
                    </UnitPrice>
                    <Description xml:lang="en">hello</Description>
                    <UnitOfMeasure>EA</UnitOfMeasure>
                    <Classification domain="SPSC">12345</Classification>
                    <ManufacturerPartID>234</ManufacturerPartID>
                    <ManufacturerName>foobar</ManufacturerName>
                    <URL>www.foo.com</URL>
                 </ItemDetail>
                 <Shipping trackingDomain="FedEx" trackingId="1234567890">
                     <Money currency="USD">2.5</Money>
                     <Description xml:lang="en-us">FedEx 2-day</Description>
                 </Shipping>
                 <Distribution>
                     <Accounting name="DistributionCharge">
                         <Segment type="G/L Account" id="23456" description="Entertainment"/>
                         <Segment type="Cost Center" id="2323" description="Western Region Sales"/>
                     </Accounting>
                     <Charge>
                         <Money currency="USD">.34</Money>
                     </Charge>
                 </Distribution>
                 <Distribution>
                     <Accounting name="DistributionCharge">
                         <Segment type="G/L Account" id="456" description="Travel"/>
                         <Segment type="Cost Center" id="23" description="Europe Implementation"/>
                     </Accounting>
                     <Charge>
                         <Money currency="USD">1</Money>
                     </Charge>
                 </Distribution>
                 <Comments xml:lang="en-US">Anything well formed in XML can go here.</Comments>
             </ItemOut>
         </OrderRequest>
    </Request>
</cXML>

Sorry for the scrolling – but if you’re interested in learning about cXML you have to get your eyeballs dirty. There’s no easy way to learn cXML Order Requests – other than looking at them. The Order Request is the actual order – the items which are being purchased. If you have to pick a place that you really need to make sure the cXML is valid this is one of the places you’re going to put at the top of the list.

So how do we know all these values and what they mean and what the options are? Well it’s actually pretty simple. Remember that 2nd line of the OrderRequest? The one identifying it as cXML? The one that if you were writing a parser for this in XML it kept failing on and you probably just deleted that line because you couldn’t get it to work right? (Yeah … I know who you are. ;-))

<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.019/cXML.dtd">

Well –that is probably the single most important document in your cXML. It’s the one that tells computers where to get a copy of the DTD that you can validate the file against. It is the line that identifies the cXML as cXML and if you have deleted this line because your XML parser threw a hissy fit when it read it … you’ve just got well formed XML and it’s worthless to send to anyone as cXML.

I’m going to go on record right now and tell you that whatever your consultant that you paid a ton of money for tells you – you have to have this line. Regardless of what your Supplier Network says or any other documentation you have says… if you are not including this line in your parse then you are not sending anyone cXML and there’s a good chance that you’re going to have errors when you connect to anyone who is cXML compliant and that’s almost everyone who adheres to this standard.

So … that is why I’m spending so much time on this subject and what a POSR is and what a POOR is and later on… what a POOM (PunchOutOrderMessage) is.

It’s also why I coded up a very short and very quick and dirty validator in the last blog update. So if you don’t have it – go back and get that and see if you can get it running.

I included the source code so you can download a copy of Visual Studio VB Express (which is free from Microsoft at this link) and take a look at how this works.

Inside this little toy you’ll see a function I’ve borrowed from Microsoft’s MSDN samples on validation with a DTD. I’ve named it cXML_validate – so it’s pretty easy to find. Let’s look at it below:

Private Function cXML_validate(ByVal value As String) As Boolean
    ' Set the validation settings.
    Dim settings As XmlReaderSettings = New XmlReaderSettings()
    settings.ProhibitDtd = False
    settings.ValidationType = ValidationType.DTD
    AddHandler settings.ValidationEventHandler, AddressOf ValidationCallBack
    cb_Success = True
    ' Create the XmlReader object.
    Try
        Dim reader As XmlReader = XmlReader.Create(value, settings)
        ' Parse the file. 
        While reader.Read()
        End While
    Catch ex As Exception
        MsgBox(ex.Message)
    End Try

    Return cb_Success

End Function

Pretty straightforward right? It creates a XMLReader, it sets the settings for the reader and it has a handler that handles the ValidationCallBack for when the validation fails, and the rest is just a very simple get the file, read through the file, and if there’s an error (aside from the validationcallback) toss it.

Now, what throws a lot of people (especially with .NET code) is that when Microsoft created the XML reader system, they assumed that it would be used for XML (silly Microsoft – what’s next? They’re going what – create an operating system that’s used for … what it’s intended.)

Anyway… the reason why this is important is that XML and cXML are NOT the same and that very lonely line we discussed earlier uses a DTD file. Now that DTD file has all the cool things in there you’ll need to validate the file. Unfortunately eons ago there was a bunch of discussions on standards. Now, some people thought that you should use a DTD file to validate a schema on an XML file and some people thought you should use a XSD file.

I’ll cut to the chase here and simplify this for you – the end result is the people that felt DTD files should be used lost. So Microsoft being part of the group that felt that XSD files should be used kind of created that as the process around which their XML parsers should be used. They did consider the use of DTD files, and because of this DTD files can be used to validate a document but you need to know how to turn that on or you’re going to get an error similar to this:

So I’ll explain to you how you turn this feature on in the code. If you look at the function above, there are two lines

settings.ProhibitDtd = False settings.

ValidationType = ValidationType.DTD

Now the first one – settings.ProhibitDtd=False, sets the fact that a DTD will be used in the reader and it’s okay and don’t give us that silly looking error. The second one of course sets the validation type to DTD file.

But there’s more because in order to do this, we need to set this property – which we do at the top of the Class, with the following property settings:

Public Property ProhibitDtd() As Boolean
     Get
         Return False
     End Get
     Set(ByVal ProhibitDtd As Boolean)
         ProhibitDtd = False
     End Set
 End Property

Yup … it’s that simple. Just create the property so that it can be returned in the code and you’re good to go. This believe it or not is something that completely throws a lot of devs who try to use the XMLReader to read a cXML and validate it, and it’s that simple to do. It would I might add, help if they explained that it’s necessary to do this, but apparently that slipped someones mind I guess.

Getting back to validation… we need to do something else that you’ll find in the code, which is set the value of the callback handler to TRUE, so it will return a FALSE if the validation call back handler is triggered. We do this because the only time it’s triggered is if there’s a validation error.

Since we’ll be needing to pass this between the Function and the Callback – we want to add the following to the Public Properties area so the value is accessible. We’ll call the value cb_Success and make it boolean, so it’s either a TRUE or FALSE, success or Failure.

Private cb_Success As Boolean

So we want the callback handler to hit, display the error, write that out for us, set itself to False and keep going. Here’s the code for the validationcallback handler:

Private Sub ValidationCallBack(ByVal sender As Object, _
                           ByVal args As ValidationEventArgs)
    'Display the validation error.  This is only called on error
    cb_Success = False
    If (args.Severity = XmlSeverityType.Warning) Then
        RichTextBox1.AppendText("No schema found to enforce validation.")
    ElseIf (args.Severity = XmlSeverityType.Error) Then
        RichTextBox1.AppendText("Validation error:  ")
    End If

    If Not (args.Exception Is Nothing) Then '  schema validation error
        RichTextBox1.AppendText("DTD Schema error (File: " + args.Exception.SourceUri + ")" + vbCrLf)
        RichTextBox1.AppendText(vbCrLf)
        RichTextBox1.AppendText(String.Format(vbLf & "Validation event ({0}, {1}):" & vbLf & "{2}",_
         args.Exception.LineNumber, args.Exception.LinePosition, args.Message) + vbCrLf)
        RichTextBox1.AppendText(args.Message.ToString + vbCrLf)
        Label1.Text = "Warning"
    End If
End Sub

Once again – it’s really straightforward – we first set the cb_Success value to False since we set it to TRUE before we started. Next we want it to check for the severity level of the validation error. If it’s a warning it generally that there’s no schema (dtd) found to enforce the validation. If this is a full blown error – well – we want the message to be of use.

So – we then tell us where we can find the DTD file, because when an error occurs reading cXML it loads up the DTD file, which means there is a good chance that we’ll see line numbers waaaaay past anything in our cXML file. If we are – then the error kicked back will be something that we can find in the DTD, which has been loaded already. (To debug these errors you’ll want to download the DTD and look for the line numbers and position from this DTD … which is why we have it pull the URI for the DTD.)

Next thing we need to do is see if we can’t pull the validation error line number and position of the error within the file (remember = some errors will report within the DTD) and finally we want it to display the error message so we have that too.

Here’s a few screen shots of actual errors you’ll see:

(Indicates that you have a malformed or incomplete DOCTYPE header tag – most likely someone removed the DTD or the entire DOCTYPE tag.)

This is kind of a confusing error message, but the gist of it is you have a Attribute or Element that is not conforming properly. You can look up a specific tag in the DTD from the line numbers provided and see how it’s expected to be set up.

The best reason I’ve found for why the error messages from the validators aren’t more clear – is because of the flexibility of XML and of the actual specifications. Microsoft often takes a bit of a bashing for error messages and code errors related to them but in fact – this is actually how the spec is designed. Humorously enough, while researching for examples for this error I ran across this in a forum posting:

Here’s a discussion with a response from Microsoft on why you see the above error:

Hello Michael,
This is not a bug in XmlValidatingReader nor it is a bug in IE6 or Firefox. The XML spec gives the parser a choice to error. See section 3.2.1 of the XML spec in Validity constraint: Proper Group/PE Nesting (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-element-content): "For interoperability, if a parameter-entity reference appears in a choice, seq, or Mixed construct, its replacement text SHOULD contain at least one non-blank character, and neither the first nor last non-blank character of the replacement text SHOULD be a connector (| or ,)."
Thanks,

-Helena Kupkova, Microsoft

And the reply:

Thank you for the reply.
As far as I can tell, the XML spec doesn't specify that it's an error to violate a constraint indicated by the keyword SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, MAY, or OPTIONAL. Thus, isn't XmlValidatingReader nonconforming when it reports that test.xml is in error?

-Michael

As you can see – the original assumption was the error was from the XMLValidatingReader code, when in fact it’s reporting exactly what it’s supposed to – and in the spec it tells us exactly what should go there for this error, namely

"For interoperability, if a parameter-entity reference appears in a choice, seq, or Mixed construct, its replacement text SHOULD contain at least one non-blank character, and neither the first nor last non-blank character of the replacement text SHOULD be a connector (| or ,)."

And as you can see from Michaels reply … a lot of confusion gets generated by who should conform to what and the use of words like “should” and “optional” … and this is why Specs should be clear. Because everyone has the right to their own opinion – and if given the chance they’ll use their opinion and do something silly with it just because they “think” it should be a certain way.

So – in this case Michael has an issue with the word “should” and Michael “should” realize that when the XML committee says you “should” do something it means yes… in this case you have to – even if it’s inconvenient and makes you write more code. Lesson: Don’t shoot the messenger – or better yet – read the specs.

These are just a few error messages that will be generated. Because we’re now working with the DTD instead of just treating this like some well formed XML with no rules or structure for processing behind it. The downside to this is we now have to actually adhere to those rules (which we have to anyway when the files got processed) and not be blind and pretend they didn’t exist.

The upside to this is – our files are far more likely to process without error, they are going to process with far more efficiency since they’re valid and don’t have to be scrubbed or massaged to get the data out of them, and they are far less likely to kick back an error and not get processed at all.

But a caveats or two about what you read here and the code provided:

- First of all – this is very simplified. You can write validators that are capable of some amazing things. Secondly it has errors in the code. Well, let’s not say errors – let’s say this is the code I had to write because the code I wrote was too close to the code I wrote for someone else… and it was late when I did it. So – some oddities in it that you can clean up – just above the Label1.test=”Warning:” in the validationcallback handler? We don’t need that line that writes the args.message to the Richtextbox1. It’s already done in the line above it.

Like I said – it was late when I wrote that and it’s hardly my best work. But it does work – so feel free to edit it change it and play with it.

This is just to get you started and I want to stress that.

- Second of all – Not the expert on this I wish I was. I’m good with the cXML, but I’m not with cXML.org or any official representative of it. I have no authority beyond being someone who works with it every day and sees a lot of problems caused by invalid cXML. In fact, almost 80% of my workload is due to cXML which will not pass validation. And these files come from some of the biggest names in the IT industry so – don’t feel bad if you don’t “get cXML” – apparently most people don’t. I know I certainly don’t and I repair their files for them.

You can study the subject of eCommerce for years and still never know it all. It’s not meant to be the final word on the subject by any means. It is literally just the beginnings of this for and should not be used to quote, refer to or otherwise say, “In this column they said…”.

Everything here is backed by the actual cXML.org documentation or the W3, or XML.org. Quoting me is silly when you have the big guns like those you can use.

- Final Caveat: One strange thing you will note…

You mayget a chuckle out of the fact that the cXML examples on cXML.org will not pass a validation using their own DTD. There are a couple of reasons why – but the basics are that they’re written for very generalized and genericized examples and not meant to pass validation.

Well I’m about ready to turn into a pumpkin… so I’m going to leave this off for now and we’ll cover more validation errors in a later post.

Until then… take care.

validating PunchOut cXML pt. 1

2009-06-20T02:00:00.001-07:00

A while back – I promised I’d write up something about a cXML validation tool… and I even showed some screen shots of one I’d been working on. Well that tool worked so well – it now belongs to where I work so I’ve had to come up with a nice simple version to show you all here that doesn’t violate any confidentialities or agreements.

I will actually build that same kind of features here … but we’re going to take it slow and easy and work our way up. So let’s start with why you need to validate cXML – and what you need to perform a validation.

This might seem obvious to a lot of us, but believe it or not you have no idea how many paid consultants I deal with that will argue with me that their cXML is valid when it’s missing even the most basic and common tags for even normal XML, let alone those specific to cXML, and then they will wonder why it is they can’t connect to your catalogs and process orders. <rolls eyes>

PunchOut cXML is really nothing more than a standard eCommerce transaction system protocol.

In the first step of a PunchOut system, a PunchOutSetUpRequest (POSR) is sent to a supplier of a product. This POSR has all the information needed to connect the two systems securely. It is made up of three data structures or tables if you will, the Header, which contains validation information. Who the POSR is From, who the POSR is sent To, who the POSR’s Sender is and their secure password.

The data structure looks something like this…

The <From> tag contains the <Identity> of who the POSR is from.

The <To> tag contains the <Identity>, usually a DUNS number of who the transaction is being sent to (the Supplier).

The <Sender> tag contains the <Credential> <Identity> and <Credential> <SharedSecret> of who the supplier is recieving the POSR from and what sort of system they sent the POSR from found in the <UserAgent> tag.

This can be somewhat confusing as the <From> and the <Sender> are not always the same. For this reason many systems you’ll deal with (Ariba, Oracle Supplier and Oracle Exchange for example) actually authenticate based not on the <Sender> <Identity> but on the <From> <Identity> and the <Sender> <SharedSecret>.

The reason for this is actually pretty logical. A Buyer, for example Acme Corporation, may utilize a 3rd party like Ariba Supplier Network or Oracle Exchange / Oracle Supplier Network to actually handle their transactions. So the Supplier will need to authenticate based on the original sender – Acme Corporation, which has established an Identity on one of these Supplier Networks. The Supplier network will replace the Identity and SharedSecret values with their own, and this is what is sent on to the Supplier. So the Supplier in a PunchOut model will need to know who the actual originator is in the transaction, not the last person to touch the transaction – in the case shown here, Ariba Supplier Network.

If the Supplier authenticates only on the Sender Field they would be exchanging credentials with the Supplier Network, and not the actual originator – Acme. So by hybridizing the systems, they authenticate using the <Identity> from the originator, and the <SharedSecret> provided by the Supplier Network (Ariba). For this reason they use the <From> <Identity> which is the orignator, or who the POSR is from.

In fact, many Supplier Networks (ASN, OSN, OEN) completely ignore the name of the <Sender><Identity> and you can put any value you like in there and it will still authenticate.

Since a POSR is a direct communication between the Originator / Buyer and the Seller / Supplier, and the Supplier Network is not yet involved – the Buyer and Seller must have agreed upon values to authenticate with, so they will generally use the <From> <Identity> and the <Sender> <SharedSecret>.

cXML rules like these seem complicated but really can be very simple, and like all simple things if you follow very basic rules it’s very easy to work with. Rule #1… if the file can’t be validated… you’re going to have problems. So make sure your files validate. To help with this I’m including a free tool written in vb.net using the free VB Express version.

I’ll get into the code for this in the next blog posting – but for now you can play around with this and get a feel for how to validate an recognize files which are good and bad against the www.cxml.org files. (Yes…. you can get the samples for all cXML transactions at… www.cxml.org. So go there and download the guide book and samples to play with this a bit.

cXML Validator Tool (Zipped Format)
cXML Validator Source Code

all burned up…

2009-04-22T23:49:00.001-07:00

Okay… so had a few minutes this weekend and my son had asked about how the demons do their warps in the tv series “Charmed”. Ironically enough … Andrew Kramer had on his blog this week a bit that’s very much like the old “staked” flame away from Buffy and Angel. So this is my way of giving and unabashed plug to Andrew and his site… and I would be really evil – if I didn’t mention he’s got all kinds of updated video tools you can buy there.

Anyway – after a bit of telling my son that these effects weren’t as hard as you might imagine led to me grabbing some old video footage… And here’s a couple examples I did in After Effects to show him how easy these effects are to do. Very fun – and surprisingly easy – they just take time. My only complaint is I really need to break down and get a better quality camera because it’s sad when the CG work has better quality than the original footage.

Now – admittedly the warping / warbling warp in on this is largely to cover the fact I was too lazy to go out and shoot any new footage so I took a bit of garbage footage lying around and used that as a quickie bit for the burn effect.

A better copy of the burn – is below. Here I’m using a simple image of a penny and you can really see how the right media really makes the effect.

So… let’s get down to how the effect layers out – and that is really the secret to making it work, a lot of layers each one over lapping the other. Now this is explained a whole lot better in one of Andrew Kramer’s tutorials and since I don’t do tutorials – and Andrew Does I’m going to refer you to him here.

The only real twists I’m adding to this is – I don’t use any pre-comp’d smoke which he does, and I’ve simplified this up a bit so we’re not using several layers that he is. Remember I’m doing this for just a very quick effect on some very grainy footage and Andrew’s outputting HD level. For a lot of work (web for example) this is good enough and it’s very quick.

So – we take a simple comp shot of just the woods – and another shot of me walking in these same woods. If you have a green screen you can do this very quick – but if you’re just using raw footage it won’t take long for you to matte the woods out – and then overlay these shots.

Now – we apply the layered burn effect which is really just a combination of linear radiant's on a texture – that is then applied with color. As this transitions across the layer it causes it to glow.

The next set of layers uses a similar radiant and glow effect on a texture – that we’ve boosted to a point where it’s pretty much a very jagged linear ramp that as we transition this across – gives the effect of it erasing or burning away what is below.

We add over this a layer of smoke and some particles that pass over it. You can see that we need to do this on a very semi-transparency to the overlapping layers that are placed over the footage. But that’s really how easy this effect is to pull off. It’s not complicated – it’s just a bit of repeating the same effect with slight variations one over the top of the other, and then applying them in a set order.

Once again – you can get a great detailed video tutorial on this over at Andrew Kramer’s VideoCopilot.net site who is pretty much the definitive guy for any After Effects effect. Any of us who do anything with video from your basic beginner to long time pros can learn a lot from him – so even if you’ve never used AE that’s the place to go if you want to learn these effects.

Make some color happen…

2009-04-14T00:25:00.001-07:00

I’m taking a breather from the next installment of eCommerce talk. Not that discussing the glories of PunchOut catalogs and on line supplier services isn’t hoot – but I needed to add a little color so I

grabbed a bit of video I had lying around and I did just that. If you take a gander at the clip here ther’s a couple tricks that are pretty easy to create some very dramatic and colorful footage out of well, kind of drab footage.

The clip here has the original footage, first – just a simple few seconds of the back yard around the house here on a typical Seattlish late afternoon. Meaning – it’s overcast and dark. And that’s not a bad thing – in fact the nice thing about it always being overcast here is that it’s easy to light a video shot, and you seldom ever have to worry about over exposing the shot. But life isn’t always about various shades of grey. Now, the original footage isn’t all that bad – there is some color there. But as you can see its a bit washed out. So one of the first fun things you can do to boost the color is to replace the sky entirely. So I did – I spent a few minutes out there on Flickr and got a very nice flaming red sunset.

¹Fun tip for Video and Design:

Which … btw – is under a creative commons license that allows it to be used. Flickr has a very nice feature that allows you to do a search for works that are under the Creative Commons – so keep that in mind. It’s under the Advanced Search settings – scroll to the bottom of the search options and check the boxes for Creative Commons reuse policies. You can even have it search for stuff that you can use commercially – which – is pretty cool. (Be even cooler if you could download actual video instead of flash videos – but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.)

Anyway, like I said, I got on on Flickr and looked around for a very very dramatic flaming red sky since I really wanted to give the shot a vibrant dramatic boost. Now the trick to doing this with a shot that’s very effective and very quick is not to roto-scope all the frames but to do a color matte. What’s a color matte? It’s really simple to do in After Effects and it’s very useful. First things first – is to duplicate the shot, and then desaturate it completely. Then hit the levels and totally boost the sky so it’s got a really almost black and white look. Then, last but not least bring in a good luma key. Drop the photo in behind it so it shows through the key – and wallah – you have a very dramatic sunset. Now, you may have noticed that it’s ALL black where it’s not colored sunset… so drop a mask across the area you want to show at the bottom and pin to that the original footage. Do a little color correction on it and you have the very dramatic scene you see here. (A little more work and we could get the little color spots out of the edging – but this was done very quickly - even still its very dramatic. Got a nice vibe to it and the colors' literally scream at you.

What it is not however … is particularly realistic. And the downside of this technique is that you really make the fine details get blocky and pixelated. So its really good for less than photo realistic effects but you need to use it wisely or it really will drown out any moments that need to be done subtley. So … how do you color it up without losing detail and without making it… blah? Color correction gel. What’s that?

Simple – the way you’d get a similar effect is to use Andrew Kramer’s free AE plugin – the Colored Gel Effect. It takes a bit of getting used to and tweaking to get just the look you want – but the results are awesome. If you look at the detail of the trees – they keep that very soft pine needle blur, and when they move in their own way they’re very … cabin on the lake. I was tempted to play around with a mask or two on the barn down there – but decided to leave it be – basking in the golden sun. You know they say that Lighting sets the mood for a shot quicker than anything – faster than sounds, faster than anything in the shot. So play around with some color, have some fun with it. I will.

The joys of being a POSR

2009-04-13T06:51:00.001-07:00

Nope… not a mis-spelling – that’s POSR, as in Punch Out Setup Request. As part of this current set of postings on cXML and the magic that is eCommerce that’s the subject dujuor. The totally awesome and completely cool … POSR.

Now, a POSR is probably the single most important part of the eCommerce step by step. It’s what authenticates and allows and online catalog to be sent to you.

Here’s what one looks like courtesy of www.cxml.org…

The first section of a POSR handles the Doctype and how to handle the document…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.020/cXML.dtd">
<cXML payloadID=1233444@ariba.com timestamp="2000-03-12T18:39:09-08:00">

Now the grey line up there has the doctype and you can put all kinds of good things in there but what I’m showing here is the most important part – the DTD. With this badboy you can write an app that will allow you to validate all your cXML and make sure it works, using some very simple XML routines and a few free tools available on the web.

TIP:
You can – also find xml validators that can read the DTD – but many will choke on this line. XML Notepad for example is designed for pretty much XML only and not cXML, and will choke. The same thing goes for some browser based viewers. If that’s all you’ve got to view xml – remove this line and you’ll find it’ll load the file fine.

Anyway, you can use the DTD to learn a lot about what’s wrong with any cXML that you’re given (or that you create) by validating it against the DTD. So if you’re not – do so. It’ll save you weeks of headaches. This is especially true if you’re dealing with SAP or some of the Oracle solutions out there that like to write their own versions of cXML, or worse let you output in any fashion you want without telling you there are rules to how cXML is processed.

<cXML DTD and Consultant Rant Begins Here>
I would say 80% of the work I’m currently doing is on telling people how to validate their cXML, and fighting with people who tell me, “But we work successfully with dozens of vendors doing it this way…”. That may be the case – but cXML has rules, and it doesn’t matter how anyone else works – if you’re outputting to cXML you follow it’s rules or you pay.

The reward for following the rules is that if you do have a valid document – cXML is as stable as a rock, and your cXML will process like cannonball from a cannon. So it is worth the effort to do it right, even if your “consultant” tells you it’s not necessary. (Clue – if your “expert” tells you it’s not necessary to follow a standard… slap them. They either don’t know how to follow the standard, have been told by a software application advertisement it’s not necessary, or something but the bottom line is – they don’t know. I’ve seen a rash of “consultants” who claim this standard or that standard isn’t needed. It usually is – and the only reason why they don’t or they won’t use the recommended DTD standard is that they assume what they’ve been told by articles or others who are not familiar with them, that a DTD is basically the same thing as an XSD schema.

They hold many things in common, and often have a degree of interchangeability – but there is a reason why a DTD and an XSD exist and we don’t just use one or the other. The subtle nuances in how they work allow them to perform different degrees of use for different types of uses. For cXML the DTD is the model you need to be using, and one of the reasons is that certain required fields within the cXML DTD file enforce rules needed to make cXML work efficiently and correctly. When consultants try to slip around these rules, or try to get loose with the rules – it may work fine on their local system, but when they try to connect to anyone else, it becomes costly and time consuming.
</End Rant>

Before move on, it’s important to point out one thing in the DTD. DTDs are versioned. Each version has it’s own requirements and rules. If you find that you’re not validating – check the version which you’re validating against – it does make often a very big difference. You can read more about each of the versions, and get copies of them at www.cxml.org.

So… let’s get back to the POSR. What this does is it handles the hand shaking between the customer who is “Punching Out” to the vendor who has the catalog of goods that they will punch out to us. Now the concept of the “PunchOut” is very simple. A customer may have a massive catalog of items, but we don’t want all of them, or we may have rules regarding certain items in the catalog. (Joe the Janitor probably isn’t allowed to buy the same things that Victor the V.P. does at a company.) This can be controlled by the catalog that is “punched out” to the customer. And all of this – begins with the POSR, where we authenticate not just the company but often the employee at the company who is requesting access to the catalog.

This is done at the header of the POSR. Here’s what a header looks like:

<Header>
        <From>
            
            <Credential domain="NetworkID">
              <Identity lastchangedTimestamp="2000-03-12T18:39:09-08:00">AN01333333333</Identity>
            </Credential>
        </From>
        <To>
            
            <Credential domain="NetworkID">
                <Identity>AN01222222222</Identity>
            </Credential>
        </To>
        <Sender>
            <Credential domain="AribaNetworkUserId">
                <Identity>admin@ariba.com</Identity>
                <SharedSecret>bce's shared secret with AN</SharedSecret>
            </Credential>
            <UserAgent>Ariba Network v20</UserAgent>
        </Sender>
    </Header>

The area you need to pay closest attention to is the one that reads “AribaNetworkUserId”, which I’m going to break from things here and point out that cXML is a standard developed by Ariba, and so – you’re going to see a lot of cheerleading for them in it. But you will probably have to change this for some eCommerce companies who… ahem… have competing products. But what you should never deviate from – is the use of a ID and SharedSecret. These will generally be supplied to you – from the vendor doing the punchout. These are the most important part of the punchout. Without them… you won’t authenticate, you won’t get a catalog and you will most definitely not pass go and collect $200.

Now if you’re familiar with earlier versions of cXML you’ll note that up in the Suppliers Identity – there’s a lastChangedTimestamp and you may not have seen that before. The truth is cXML (even with all those DTD rules) is very flexible. And you can actually put in your own Identities in this section so if your internal cXML processor needs other names to identify it – go to it. I’ve actually seen cXML where there were up to 15 Identities here. So long as the Identity that you and your vendor have agreed upon is in here amongst the others you can get pretty creative and this is a good place for you as an organization to make use of multiple identities.

The next part of a good punchout setup request is … the request itself. It contains a cookie, and if you have to do debugging something really handy… the BrowserFormPost. If you can locate this you can discover exactly here it originated from – and often this can help with network an connectivity issue resolution. So – keep track of that.

<Request>
    <ProviderSetupRequest>
        <OriginatorCookie>c546794949</OriginatorCookie>
        <BrowserFormPost>
             <URL>http://service.ariba.com/returntome</URL>
        </BrowserFormPost>
        <Followup>
             <URL>http://service.ariba.com/laterUpdates</URL>
        </Followup>
        <SelectedService>BCE.Edi</SelectedService>
        <Extrinsic name="user">
           <Identity>user234</Identity>
        </Extrinsic>
        <Extrinsic name="url">
           <URL>http://service.ariba.com/anotherurl</URL>
        </Extrinsic>
    </ProviderSetupRequest>
</Request>

Also up in there… are the extrinsics. Now I’ll let you in on a secret. Most of the stuff you see up there? Look up in the DTD – you’ll find a lot of it is not required. Remember that rant on DTDs I had up above? The DTD – will tell you exactly what fields are required and which fields are optional for cXML. Now, some vendors may have rules over and above those – but the DTD is core. It speaks – the world listens. So – check to see what you need and what you don’t need. A good rule of thumb for efficient processing is that if you don’t need to be sending it – don’t. All that does is make the systems on the vendor’s end have to read through it and figure out if it’s needed or not.

Put into a cXML document only those things you absolutely need for the best performance.

And that leaves us to the last part about the POSR… the closing tag.

</cXML>

I won’t go into a rant over tags here – but I will say that a well formed document with complete tags is essential. Don’t get sloppy. cXML is not forgiving when it comes to tags. It’s not chopped HTML where an unclosed tag will let it slide through. It may work on your system – but validate, validate, validate.

Get a tool which handles DTD validations, or roll your own. Either way – validate your stuff. If you use a tool like SAP or Oracle, find out how to get your output – even if you have to get it from the server logs and validate that. Make sure the application you’re using actually does churn out valid cXML if you’re sending it to a vendor. The time you save on that one chore – may save you weeks of arguing back and forth which of you has the problem. Don’t just assume your cXML output is good – KNOW it’s good because with the flexibility in some tools that I’ve mentioned it will actually let you create very bad cXML that no one can run no matter how forgiving their system is.

Well this is a larger post than I meant – but I’ve been behind on my postings… so seemed I should make up for it here. Next we’ll look at the PunchOutSetupResponse (the return to the POSR) – the OrderRequest and the POOM. (Yeah, yeah… I can tell you’re all shaking with anticipation.)

See you next week.

what’s been keeping me up at night…

2009-04-03T01:17:00.001-07:00

Been a bit busy… so I figured I’d give everyone a taste of the somewhat promised cXML eCommerce toy I’m working on. So here are a few screen shots. As you can see – it’s designed to load cXML or XML and perform validations. It also allows the tester to actually POST the cXML PunchOut and OrderRequests directly to the server. This retrieves complete header information. The tester can auto-generate OCI HTML web forms that can be sent to customers for their own testing.

You can also verify Authentication Tokens, Session IDs, and perform HostName / IP Address checks.

The cXML validation allows the user to validate against any of a number of DTD files, from cXML to those used by OSN or even 3rd party or local files. Anyway… that’s what has been keeping me from Posting. In the next week or so – I’ll get some code up and discuss how eCommerce procurement systems work a little more directly.

Until then… you’re just going to have use these shots and wonder. (And for the record … yes I have removed any sensitive info from these screen shots. The cXML displayed is a generic OrderRequest form.

cXML – the tool you need in your IT tool box…

2009-03-26T00:21:00.001-07:00

I probably get about four or five calls a month from recruiters asking about if I would like a job based on my knowing what the heck cXML is. It’s one of those skills that you never think about being important – until people start calling you and asking if you’d like a job because you know what the heck it is.

In the current economic state where every edge in getting a job counts – cXML is one of those tools you want to put in your tool box where you can find it. The funny thing is – it’s basically pretty easy to work with and understand.

So … what is it and how can you find out about it? Well it is a protocol – that was created by Ariba for eProcurement. Now if you don’t know what Ariba is you probably need to go back to eCommerce school and take class 101 - “How web sites sell things”. Ariba pretty much created much of the concept of B2B back in the late 90’s, in fact they were one of the first B2B companies to go public and cXML is one of the reasons for their success.

cXML isn’t just a fancy version of XML. For anyone who doesn’t know how commerce on the internet works you the customer, log into a web site, you find something you like, you click on it and an order is placed and you miraculously get your product.

What happens behind the scenes in this scenario that you don’t know is that it really works something like this You – the user – clicked on a link for a book – say on ArugulaBooks.com, and the link to that book is really just an item in a catalog, and that item was picked from the catalog and added to your “cart” the cart being your order.

But Arugula for example, doesn’t create books do they? And they’d go broke pretty quick if they had to keep copies of every one of those books you see on their site sitting in a warehouse. So what really happened is Arugula Books has probably a couple hundred or more catalogs of books from different manufacturers of books. When you clicked on that link to put the book in your cart – this really incredible story began that interacted with several different businesses.

First you and Arugula created an order on their system – that order generated an order to a book distributor – and the book distributor received that order and arranged to have it shipped with FedNext shipping directly to your house, and Arugula also sent another Invoice message to your credit card company.

All you see on your card – all you know – is you clicked on a link – and you got a book 2 days later.

But the story of cXML is the story of how all that happens. A “proper” cXML order has room for all the fields necessary for those transactions. It has in it’s header all the info needed to communicate who the company is placing the order, who the company is that’s filling that order, where it’s supposed to be delivered, how it’s supposed to be delivered, the kind of item you ordered, credit card info, heck it even knows every item by it’s UNSPSC code.

So if you can learn to read a cXML document – and you can learn what it takes to make one work with all these different systems – you pretty much have a solid chance at landing a very good very solid job.

You can find out more about cXML at some of these links … and I’ll cover more about how to read it, what rules are required to make a good cXML document – and even a tool I created to test them in the next few blogs.

.Now – I’m not going to dig in too deep but you should find the next few blogs here a good starting point for understanding this amazing and sometimes complex process.

That’s your reading assignment for this week…

Boredom leads to adventures…

2009-03-23T07:46:00.001-07:00

So I’ve been pretty bored of late. Over at work I’m working on eCommerce issues – mostly dealing with the various choices vendors have in linking to our network and they all involve XML based products. You’d be surprised how many top notch IT departments have grown so reliant on tools by Oracle and others for their procurement solutions they literally click buttons and fill in forms without knowing how their tool really works.

Not that I’m an expert on procurement (well actually I suppose technically I am) but it seems to me that any time you’ve sufficiently automated yourself to the point that you don’t know what kind of XML you’re pumping out, how it gets to the other guy and what kind of an output you need to put out… your over adapted to your technology and now dependant on it. Which is never a good thing.

So naturally – since I handle a lot of post-production troubleshooting these days… I automated things with a few tools. I’ll detail these out in a future blog since I’m pretty sure most people have never had to deal with cXML or understand the difference between it and standard XML, and I’ve encountered several “Oracle Gurus” who keep insisting that what Oracle pumps out is “XML”… it is – but not in the classical sense anyone else would expect.

So I’ve started a couple projects there to make it easier for people and those are forth coming…

I also… decided to do a bit of video fun and that… is how I fought off boredom this weekend. Did two bits you can find here

and here…

Who watched the Watchmen?

2009-03-08T00:31:00.001-08:00

I think by now everyone knows – I’m a fan of Alan Moores the Watchmen. I also think that there’s a fair chance a lot of people have seen the movie. Experienced it.

The graphic novel is a very powerful story that you either get – or you don’t. As they went to the effort of creating the world of the Watchmen on film they were so very careful to keep the detail of the visual. Zach Snyder the director – is great for those kind of details. And he did – he pegged it visually almost perfectly So where the movie works best is in replicating that world.

Where it fails is in those areas that don’t fit on film. The subtle nuances that can only come from a book. What we are left with on screen from his efforts can best be described as a visual feast – an optical orgasm – a color filled three dimensional… turd.

(If you have not seen the movie – turn back now – spoilers ahead)

I am not a purist. When I heard that the original ending wasn’t used I kind of wanted to cut Zach a break because all of the visual elements of the film were done so well in the pre-release scenes we got to see. Now I have to admit that by removing the original ending and substituting Doc Manhattan as the “big evil” that the world must fear to draw us together. Now not only didn’t this work as a plot device but there is a rule about monkeying with a classic story – if you’re going to change the plot – change it for the better. So – all of that was a waste. Zach’s attempt to provide us with the message that the only reason we’re decent humans is our fear of Dr. Manhattan (substitute “God” for Dr. Manhattan and you’ll see what Snyder was shooting for and missed) – this message almost everyone missed who wasn’t watching for Dreibergs lines at the very end.

And the hinting that – perhaps – maybe – there could be “more of the story” a … sequel? That’s just incredibly poor taste. For those who missed these hints – trust me it’s all there. It was blended carefully … hidden, almost like a subtle threat - but it’s there. Snyder sold any die hard fan out with that ending. The original, would have made far more sense. I had to ask several people if anyone else caught the supposed logic of tying the nukes to the death of the inmate Rorschach “greases” in the film.

With the supposed logic that when he died – the prison would go insane – and this somehow would be the trigger for Dr. Manhattan’s global attack. Umm… yeah… that… is a lot more believable to the world and will bring them together than being attacked by an alien life form which wipes out all of New York, and causes madness for miles around.

The film was rushed – and although visually detailed – the story was so lacking as to cause a feeling as if we, like Dr. Manhattan, are merely observers to this world and have no real emotional stake in it. And I can’t blame the actors who did amazing jobs on this. Each understood their characters so well and brought them to life adroitly – with the exception of Ozymandias. Who was, card board – a cut out of the book’s character and not a very good one at that.

If it were not for Jackie Earle Hailey’s stabilizing presence of the character Rorschach this film would not even merit discussion. It’s his complete and total ability to sell the character of Rorschach that allows the film to work even on a basic level. He’s supported of course by the other performances that are damned good, but it’s his time on screen both with the mask on and off that really sells this movie.

Even the death scene works without going over the top, and he brings to the role the sensitivity and an empathy needed for us to buy the meaning to his death. This is where the film really works – in the scenes with Rorschach. Here Snyder can wring out of the story something close to what the story really is, his attempts with Manhattan, and NiteOwl are well intended but they’re only “good”.

This is not a movie that can get away with “good”. You either have bought into the premise presented and are going along with it or you haven’t. Which frankly is where it fails and falls flat. It’s the insecurity of Snyder’s need as a director to reinforce the world he’s created that moves it from allowing us to accept it to rub it in our faces. It’s in his need to keep beating us over the head with “Hey this is an alternate 1985” or “Hey did you notice I can put yet another blue penis into this shot in spite of the fact that it wasn’t in the book… I just thought it’d be cool to show a blue man’s penis so you’d know he has not concept of or the need for clothing…”. So instead of just having these details where they belong – they become a gaudy display, they rub our noses into this world.

Instead of acceptance it becomes a struggle to accept. The actors have given us their all, the sets, the crew, all have provided us with a perfect replica of the world needed for us to fall into this reality … and then the Director has to screw it up by forcing this world on us rather than letting us see it, accept it, and not need to have storied aesthetics that add nothing and make us go “Huh? What? – Why… Wha?” and before we can digest it – have the story move on again to a moment which seems not to make any more sense than the words before. As a result … It’s a long movie that ambles all over the place trying to make a point and in trying to make so many points - it’s doubtful if it ever does.

Others may judge this film differently but to me – this was a film that needed to be made in 3 films – and to take your time. But that’s not what we got. It was pretty. It was kind of deep. But it was not… the Watchmen.

Grumblings from the field…

2009-02-16T07:22:00.001-08:00

In a bit of a hurry this morning so this’ll just be a cap up of what’s going on.

The Job Market in the Pac Norwest for software development and IT has definitely taken a blow – but there’s still a lot of work out there. I still receive about 4 or 5 job requests per week (my resume is unusual as I have job skills that are uncommon). But most of these for the last three weeks are not ones I’d really look into unless the economy is bad. The practice of sending out contact emails for positions with unrealistically low or unrealistic job requirements (usually both) for the purposes of being able to say, “We couldn’t find anyone here in the USA qualified” is still pretty rampant. I’ve seen about 6 of those in the last month. (When was the last time you saw an honest request for a Program Manager with a background as a Sr. Developer with 10 years experience for $25/hr?? Yeah – they seriously want to fill that position.)

It’s insulting and disgusting that companies will go to that length to justify hiring outside the US, and it’s more annoying that the offers come from respected legal and recruiting firms. I won’t say who I’ve seen use this the most – however you might be surprised their one of the longest and major supporters of Open Source software and similar initiatives. I’ve said it before that one of my core dislikes of the OSS community is it’s naiveté regarding the fact that their largest supporters exist because they’re too cheap to pay for software and have always felt software had no value. It becomes pretty obvious when a companies true motivations for greed and being cheap are so thinly veiled behind the cloak of “We’re one of the good guys!”.

Let’s face it – if you’re not making your money off the development of the software that people use, then you have to be making it off the process of selling it or supporting it. In a model such as that the guy on the low end of the totem pole will always be the guy who created it in the first place. They are the ones who’s efforts are not perceived as having value because it’s their efforts they place as having little or no cost associated to them. (If you’re not charging anyone for the hours it took to develop product – which is where that model places the cost recoup at – then the developers and creators are effectively valued at ‘zero cost”.)

So where do these companies place value? They place it on the management end of things and the sales end of things. The sales of the software, and over a long term the sale of the software support, or the sales of the software as a service. Bottom line – the jobs they really care about are managers and sales people. For the people who come up with the software, who spend the hundreds and thousands of man hours to code it to test it and to bring it to life? Well, they’re a necessary evil – one which if they can find anyone to do it cheaper – they will. Which is why yes… they do send out emails to people here in the USA looking for jobs, people they’ve often

laid off or let go, giving unrealistically low, or unrealistic job requirements, or in some cases just bizarre job requirements, all so they can be turned down. They can then go before the US Congress and Senate and say, “We looked for people here in the USA for these jobs – but there aren’t any who meet the qualifications! Can we go overseas and get them without losing our tax breaks???”.

The HR departments of these companies can sign up for (and line up for) classes to learn how to do this. And this doesn’t burn you up – the fact is this is not the “American Job” vs “Overseas Job” issue that drives this, and those probably hardest hit are – as incredible as this may seem – overseas wokers. Overseas, in places like Hyderabad, Beijing and the former Soviet Republics you’ll find the amount of fraud based job services there is a full blown industry not all that different than Coyote hustlers that tell immigrants they can sneak them through the American border but take their money and leave them, often with no hope of survival. Now, if you say, “Hey we’re cracking down on these bastards”, I’d like to point out – they busted 11 people and companies. 11 of them is not even a band aid on this gaping wound. 11 busts isn’t even lip service to the literally billions being spent on this. The fact is that as long as it’s profitable for these companies to treat the people who create products you use like dirt (and for many of us – that person is us) they will continue to do so.

So – hey – support the open source movement - make software free to everyone. It is after all, just someone's idea – it’s not like has value right? Anyone can do it, and with the right sales model we can recoup the loss by selling maintenance, and services. While you’re at – you may want to head down to Walmart and buy a nice coat made by children overseas to keep warm in on that unemployment line. Just some food for thought.

the tale OF ALIMONY jakobson…

2009-02-08T01:39:00.001-08:00

Several years ago, my then very small daughter, wanted a dog. I didn’t want another pet. We had too many pets then, and adding another was, well, just nuts.

So naturally – we got another dog. Not just any dog… but a 2 time loser. A dog who, as a puppy, was so unable to be house broken or trained it had been returned to the animal shelter twice. It was actually marked by animal control to be put down on site if returned again. My daughter saw her at the animal shelter on the day of her final return.

There was something between that dog, and my daughter that clicked. My daughter didn’t pick her, so much as the dog picked my daughter. Which, frankly was how that little dog’s mind worked. So it came to our home. When I was told about the dog’s history, my only request was that I got to name it. I told my wife that if we kept it the dog’s name would be “Alimony”. And if she brought home anything else it was going to be named “Child Support”. So – in part out of spite – and in part because it was cute – the dog was brought into our family and was it really was registered with the name “Alimony”, or “Allie” as we came to call her. And for most people, and for most dogs, that would be the end of the story.

But this story is a long one, the dog’s uncanny bond to my daughter was such that for a dog that was to be put to sleep for it’s unwillingness to be obedient – my daughter could get it to do seemingly anything. It would ironically become my daughter’s 4H project, and a show dog, go to State Fair and receive a blue ribbon, not once but twice, showing for my daughter. It would win many ribbons, and it would dance and come alive in front of crowded stands, never once taking it’s brown eyes off my daughter… except for those occasions when it was trying to pick a fight with dogs much larger.

It became my daughters friend, and in many ways a mentor. There is a spirit, a stubbornness, that comes with being a very small terrier. It allows them to take on animals much greater than themselves and never flinch. Genetically, her breed was meant for fighting badgers and large rats. They have, no idea that they’re little, they have an objective - and they don’t give up. Size, shape, condition, odds, none of that matters to a terrier. And they project an odd set of qualities that causes them to think they can win, and often do, against all odds.

It’s part courage, part bravery, part determination, and part just incredible stubbornness to never give up, never give in, and never think the battle is lost, or worse – not worth winning. I suppose, if dogs are like their masters – well perhaps that’s where my daughter gets that quality. You have to develop that kind of heart from somewhere, that drive. It doesn't’ come naturally to humans.

My daughter if she learned to be that way, well it was from Allie. Whose loyalty to her was incredible, and whose love, was boundless to the very end. Alimony out lived two of her younger dog peers (of course we had more dogs after we got her… this IS our house… if animal is lost, hurt, bewildered or just plain strange it winds up here… and for all my grumbling… I’ve yet to say no.). She got to be loved admired and adored by many, many people.

Admiring people aside… she had something that was the most important thing in the world to her – and that was my daughter. So despite the fact that she when given any chance would raid he garbage, or commit a dozen unspeakable acts to my things, all she had to do to get my approval was see my daughter – and wag her tail. There was a level of love there – that frankly – it wouldn’t matter what she did, for being that loving and loyal to her master… well, what’s a little garbage right? It picks right up off the floor y’know??

Allie developed some lumps a while back, in places where, well, dogs shouldn’t have them. And as she got older and older her arthritis kicked in, and on the not so good days, hopping up to lie on the bed wasn’t really something she was up to either. So, we’d help her up to her favorite places.

But she still, even on her worst days, would pop up, hop off where ever as if there wasn’t a thing wrong with her… and trot after my daughter whenever she heard her. She would grow older and more and more senile – often I’m fairly sure she had no clue who I was and I’d double the bet that she wasn’t really sure who she was, but she was cheerful about it. On several occasions we’d take her to the vet thinking maybe it was time. But it wasn’t. She still had things she wanted to do. She still had just a bit more enjoyment out of life, a few more tail wags, a few more barks, a few more French fries to steal and garbage cans to knock over.

But even the most vivacious of lives, comes to an end. Allies was very much like her entire life. It was cheerful, and full of zest, and even when you’d have thought she was gone – she heard my daughters voice, and her head came up, and her tail wagged one more time. As if to say, “I am so glad to hear your voice, and it’s okay.”, and then she laid her head back down.

Alimony’s life, was if anything, about what you could do with a life – if someone gave you the chance. She got her second chance – and she made the most of it. Doing things no one believed she could, never taking anything from anyone else, never backing down, never slowing down, never giving ground, never giving in. She was my daughters best friend, best ally, and in many ways, her best teacher about all that you need to learn to succeed in life.

She will be missed.

Some great shorts…

2009-02-03T01:18:00.001-08:00

In keeping with the last post I thought I’d share a few keepers of films I ran across while doing some research.

First up is a fun little flick called “The Seance” by Arun Vaidyanathan, which is a nice little work. Two people – very compacted dialog, good delivery and very simple but effective camera and lighting work.

Its not a film that relies on trickery or abusive visuals – it’s got a very simple story and that’s what it tells.

All in all it’s worth the 6 minutes of your life required to watch it. The only downside is that quite frankly they had such nice characters and such a good story they never finish it.

It’s really hard to pace a film down to 5 minutes and keep the quality even. This is a nice even film – which sadly is just cut 30 seconds short of the blow off for the tale. Over all this is a great little film and I can see why it was an award winner. Which… compared to my next choice makes this oscar winning material. Our next entry was a Sony Award winner. Why – I have no clue.

Burning Life… is first of all – not a film. It’s not really a documentary and it’s not really a narrative and it’s not really anything more than a guy and his girlfriend burning a small pile of his crap – sorry his life – in his backyard as some kind of protest.

He then starts to strip and there is a gratuitous use of bad filters and bad video effects for color channels and he breaks most if not all the cardinal rules of even amatuer camera work and … it’s really amazing this won an award of any kind and it just goes to show you that if you toss enough “I’m clueless” around people can, and will assume you’re some kind of artist. Hate to say it but … it is largely true.

Which… leaves us to … the gem of the post. A short film that is done soooo well you almost can see this getting the Oscar it’s been nominated for. Our Time Is Up… is funny – it’s actually way past funny. And at the same time there’s so much more going on with this film.

This film … sheesh – great – just… shut up and go watch it. All I can say is … this is what people who do short films need to set as a bar to shoot for – and let’s face it… how does that make you feel?

the stories the thing…

2009-02-02T00:03:00.001-08:00

And may Shakespeare forgive me for that unbridled paraphrasing of the immortal Hamlet in a blog title, but like so many things in life, it had to be done.

See I just got back from a weekend of rummaging through youtube, hulu and several other video outlets for amateur videos out there and I was amazed, amused and befuddled by how many really talented people there are out there making videos. I was also feeling a bit like Simon Cowell after a bender with Paula Abdul at how many talented people there were making videos that really didn’t need to be made. Kind of reminded me of my mothers sage advice that “Just because you can do something… doesn’t mean you should.”.

I began this quest because for some time now, I’ve said I wanted to get back into doing at least some small projects with film. Nothing fancy but some good stories. So … I stated out by seeing what others had done. I won’t slam anyone out there for making an amateur film. Anyone who does get to the point of where they’re actually shot something deserves props.

But I will say that before I even shoot a frame – I’m going to have a good story.

Not a good script… because there are a lot of really great scripted videos out there that, well let’s be honest here, they are not going to win any awards. Actually I’ll take that a step farther there are a lot of great videos out there that have won awards that really are almost painful to watch – and all the awards on the planet won’t change that.

What every great script / bad film out there seems to be missing is a good story. I don’t mean they aren’t well written or clever or artistic. I mean to say they have no story. A 3 minute film can have a great story. A epic length movie may have no story at all.

The story is the key. It’s what it’s about and it doesn’t matter the genre or or the words. It’s what is happening. Does it grip you? Does it make you care about the character (no matter how bad the acting is)? I mean, look at “The Happening”. Really its not bad acting on the part of Wahlberg and company and the script … well the script is horrid but where the real horror started was with the story itself. There isn’t one.

See most people will say the story is about Wahlberg and the world having to survive mother nature’s culling of the evil humans on the planet. No… that is the plot of the movie. The story – would have been about the relationship between Wahlberg and Zoe Deschanell, or the story would have been about some other character. But to say that any of that existed beyond even the most anemic form is to give credit where there is none.

A plot, and the dialogue support the story. But the story needs to stand on it’s own or everything is just window dressing. To make a great little film or a great epic film… one needs a good story or you’re just wasting video. So… before I start this little project of mine… I need a good story.

Here’s my story short list of what I need to keep in mind while I work on it.

I have a really limited budget.
(Not gonna be able to rent equipment, locations, or people.)
I have a really limited shooting schedule that is impacted by environmental conditions.
(Rains here a lot, I work a 40 hour week, and I can’t guarantee who I’ll have available.)
I have a very limited cast.
(Depending on the story – it may even only be me).
I have a very limited amount of quality equipment.
(One – two cameras, lights are very limited, going to be hand held or limited amount of boom and stationary shots.)

Now that I have that list … I can file it under “NOT IMPORTANT”. Because none of that will affect a good story. A good story … doesn’t need a budget. It doesn’t need to worry about schedules. (See: American Graffiti – for decades it held the record of dollar for dollar being the highest grossing film ever made. Lucas shot it for next to nothing, on a schedule that no one would have considered.)

And cast frankly – doesn’t matter. A great story makes up for bad acting. In fact, a great story often covers up bad acting. Limited equipment and a lack of shot choices… pfffaw. Look up the Seventh Seal some time. Look up anything by Hitchcock or Howard Hawks. Look up Treasure of the Serria Madre or the Maltese Falcon or Casa Blanca.

And then … go hit Yutube… and Hulu… and Atom… then sit down with a big cup of coffee and a empty note book, and a clear head… and think of great stories.

money for nothin…

2009-01-27T07:01:00.001-08:00

Got up this morning and saw a very disturbing story about people scamming people through Monster.com. They covered one scam – which admittedly is a pretty lame scam. but people are falling for it.

You get contacted by a firm they “hire” you but… OH NOES! You need the latest Laptop, or a company cell phone or other medium to large purchase. Don’t worry, they’ll send you a check for the expenses to get you working right away… what’s your bank account number? They need to do a wire transfer.

All of this seems somewhat reasonable. And when you’re out of work it sounds like a dream come true. Problem is that like many things that are too good to be true it is. You give them your bank account info – and they give you an empty bank account.

Now, here’s another scam they can do… in order to get you your supplies their company ONLY banks through bank _________ and you need to set up an account there. (In the example on TV the bank was Wells Fargo – but I’ve seen this scam with others.) Once you set up an account there they send a check through. You go buy the laptop and send them the receipt. Sounds pretty legit right? They did send you money all they wanted was the receipt – you got a laptop out of the deal right?

Three days later your new bank account informs you it’s waaaay overdrawn and that banking fraud is illegal. Seems that transfer got refused. You now owe the bank for the money – and the credit card company you bought the laptop through – and you btw – find out the laptop that you sent that receipt for? It’s already been returned somewhere else.

Here’s how this works – it relies on a scam that knows how banks work. So when someone gives you a wire transfer… you sit on that check until it actually clears. When dealing with someone new that asks unusual requests like these… call the bank and verify the funds. They can do this without alerting anyone, and it’s actually accepted banking behavior.

So… be careful. Watch out for Monster, HotJobs and especially Craigs List jobs … if you’re professional – verify the company with a professional web site, or make some calls. Check with better business bueau – do a bit of research.

Earlier this year I had a very legit firm that contacted me. I went through 3 rounds of interviews over the phone and got flown out to meet for a face to face interview. A great group of people. But something didn’t feel right so I did some googling and checking for sales numbers, checking for who the company was and what they’d done vs. what their PR said they wanted to do. Turned out their eyes were bigger than their pocketbooks and I was actually called by them the week before I was to start (after months of contact and planning) and they informed me they were unable to hire me.

Had I not been expecting this – financially it would have been a disaster.

So – lessons learned for everyone – Check All Future Employers out! They run a background check on you – you should be running one on them. Google., www.Zabbasearch.com , www.yahoo.com, there are dozens of ways to look up a company – look them up. Do a search on future bosses. Know who it is that is making that offer – know as much about their business as the do. It can’t hurt … and your impressive knowledge of their company may actually help you land a job.

Project Status Template deux

2009-01-21T23:40:00.001-08:00

Got a ping from someone asking if the Project Status Email Template could do …. MS Project inserts.

Indeed you can – but it is a bit tricky. As you can see from the screen shot – the end result in an email looks pretty well… cool.

Some caveats – first of all – you gotta have MS Project on the machine to insert an MS Project Object into the template. So that’s a bigge – because you’re actually inserting an MS Project Object into the email.

The other users – will not need to have MS Project installed – because the areas you have showing will become images. The same is true for excel spreadsheets and other embedded inserts.

So … how do we do this?

Real simple… first we’re going to create our template – just like in the last blog posting. But where you want to Insert the MS Project (place the cursor where you want it in the file – it’s easier than moving this later) … then click on the “Insert” tab and select “Object”.

Now – this will bring up the Object menu. Scroll down the list to Microsoft Office Project Document and Click “OK”. This will embed the object into your email template.

Once embedded – you’ll need to adjust the various values to your liking. But… what’s that you say? “Oh NOES!!! I DON’T WANT TO PUT IN ALL THAT DATA AGAIN!!”. Then don’t.

You simply open your Project Plan.. copy the rows… and then open the email template – and copy them in there. It really is that simple. You will need to adjust the viewing area displayed – the Height and Width to reflect the email but – updating it is pretty simple. And the results make you look great as you can see.

So … save yourself a ton of time, a ton of effort – and template.

You can find this file here:

http://cid-e46e5f5a0e3b5854.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Office%20Templates/Project%20Status%20Advanced.zip

Outlook Template power ACTIVATE! Form of… a Status report!

2009-01-17T23:52:00.001-08:00

I’ve been doing a lot of documentation lately, which is brain numbing at best, and time consuming at the same time. So when a boss asked if I’d need more time for a status report I naturally said, “No I should be good…”.

Now I can do that (and look really good) because of a little trade secret that almost no one I’ve met uses… the power of the outlook template. I’ll go one further and say, almost no one uses templates except those of us that seem to be in some hidden fraternity of Program Managers who share these little secrets… like templates.

I keep a template around that does all kinds of fun Project Summary things – and I’m including it here. Here’s a list of things that are built in:

Has all the people who need to be on the report – already in the "CC” line for me.
Has a current spreadsheet of the issue items (my more advanced version actually pulls the values from a Issue Tracker – which you can look into doing sometime but this has the drop downs and auto-formating for status.
Drop downs (see Sheet2 when you double click on the table – you can edit the values there)

So all I have to do – is basically load it, click on the fields I want to update and hit send. Major time saver and everyone thinks you’re like… the coolest most on top of things guy ever.

Let’s cover how this magic happens – first you need to know how to make a template from Outlook. Which… is surprisingly really easy.

All you do – is literally create an email just the way you want it In this case, I’ve put in all the elements that I want in the email I want to send out. I’ve done a couple other things as well so that it will make it easier to customize things later – like special headings.

When I need to swap my status from Green to Yellow and so on all I need to do is select the text and click on the “Format Text” tab and select the style I want.

I also want to have my CC and To fields preset with the names of everyone who will need to receive my status report. The thing to keep in mind is that this is not a “one time” message. It’s going to have certain things in it that I’ll need to do over and over. So I can create all my headings, any graphics that I’ll want to reuse, and any tables that will need to be updated. Now – if I’m going to just update some fields then I’ll probably use the Table feature of Outlook and embed a table.

If the table is going to have a lot of data that I’ll be typing in often (like names or email) then I’ll use the table feature to embed an excel spreadsheet, and on the Sheet2 page I’ll create a series of terms and names. Here I’ve put in terms for my Status types, I’ve created a range of values for percentages of completion, email addresses of those who I’ll use in my report. These ranges – I’ll use by going back to the Main Sheet – the one I want to display and use them as Drop Down Lists. The drop down list is a little used feature, but very handy for tricks like this one.

You create it by first creating a range of values somewhere either in the workbook or on the same sheet. You then select where you want to create the drop down box, and then on the Data tab (which you’ll note that you now have one in Outlook once you are in the Spreadsheet, just like you do in Excel). Clicking on this will open the Data Validation Dialog Box. Once you have this you’ll want to select “List” from the drop down list. This will bring up the options for drop down lists from the dialog box.

In the Source section – you’ll want to put in the range you created over on Sheet2. You can do this either by having named the range, or by putting in the actual range “=Sheet2!$B$3:$B$7” in the Source. Either will work, although using a named range is somewhat easier, especially if you have a lot of ranges to deal with. The end result will create a cell that has a drop down list on it. You can copy this cell as you would any other and that makes automation a bit easer.

Another thing you can do with this cell is… use Conditional Formatting Options so that if the values are within a range or if the cell contains certain text – we want it to appear a certain way (background color red – text white) or even contain specific icons or color bars. Really it’s pretty amazing how in-depth you can get with reporting features doing this. And with all of it – you just click on a value, and spreadsheet updates it on the fly. Which leaves you more time for whatever details or other information you need to add and still look like a rock star.

Now – when you’ve finished creating your email artwork of status reporting – or whatever it is you need to template out… you just… click Save As. The Save As dialog box will appear and you save it as an Outlook Template by selecting that option off the Save As Type drop down.

Now, it will save this by default in your profile. So if you want to save it for sending it for someone else to use, use Save As and select another location that’s easier to find.

If you’ve done all of this properly – you’ll now have a spiffy template all ready to use over and over again, and not have to fill in all those fields and do all that work all over. All you’ll need to do is load the template and use it.

Step Step Two – Load the Template….

To load the template – just click on “New” in Outlook and scroll down to “Choose Form…” which, ironically enough will allow you to load a form. Now there are all kinds of forms that you can pick from – and if you’ve never played with this do so – you can get really creative with forms.

But for today, we just want the form we’ve created – which is in the “User Templates in File System”. And you locat that by clicking on the drop down box at the top of the dialog, and then picking the “User Templates in File System” category, which if you’ve done this right… will bring up all the files you have saved that are templates. If you do it wrong…. it will cause an error and ninja assassins will be dispatched to your home from their secret lair beneath the Google headquarters. (Okay – I made that up… their lair is actually just south of Portland near a winery that they use as a cover.)

Anyway… you want to pick out the form you’ve created. If you’re using the one I have up as a sample here the name will be “Project Status and Summary”. So – if that’s what you’re using – click on it so it can load and you can begin being a genius.

Now when the template loads – you’ll want to fill in all the categories and in one of the screen shots above I’ve given you some clues – but you should modify this to your own liking and add the kinds of things YOU need.

The one I’m providing is just a starting point for you – in the words of the beloved Ms. Frizzle, “Get Messy! Make Mistakes! Learn!”. And one of the cool things you can learn how to do – is use embedded excel spreadsheets.

The table on the form – looks like a table until you click on it … so click on it. Because it’s really an excel spreadsheet with fun stuff you can update on the fly. So click away. But you should know that when when you click on it – it’s going to say something like this:

so ignore that and click “Yes” because what’s the point of doing all this… if we just click “No” and end it all now? We know the item that we’re loading and we also know it’s got an excel spreadsheet built into it so we know why they gave us that warning. We WANT to be able to do cool things with it, so there’s no security issue. Which should, give you some idea of the real power of a good template – since you can actually do stuff with them that requires an occasional security warning.

Now – if you play with this you’re going to note that there are drop down boxes – and there is conditional formatting on those drop down boxes. So when you enter a task name – and click on the boxes to the right of it…. you can change the values without having to type them in every time. Just grab one and click it, move on to the next… wash, rinse, repeat until done.

Here are some examples… of the stuff in them… the first set of drop downs allow you to select from various project status types – Completed, In-Progress and so on … and IF you pick one of them – it will automatically reformat it to the color scheme that corresponds to that type of status. The next is the degree of completion – which goes from 0%-100% and you get these very cool traffic light colors when you pick those.

Basically, this allows you to focus on filling in the information instead of filling in all kinds of cool formatting, setting up things every time. As time savers go – this one is definitely a keeper for anyone who has to do reports, news letters or any process that requires you fill in a lot of repeated information, terms, titles and so on.

There’s tons more you can do – this is just the tip of the iceberg, like most of the stuff I do here it’s a starting point for you. You can find out more about – and lay your hands on literally hundreds of great templates you can customize and make your own at Microsoft Office’s Template Library. Free templates for almost every Office Product are available here.

You can … of course also snag the template I used as an example from my Skydrive here:

Direct Link:
http://cid-e46e5f5a0e3b5854.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Office%20Templates/Project%20Status%20and%20Summary.zip

Until later… have fun… be productive… and someone find out when the next new Venture Brothers Episode is for me?

me zero…big bad world one…

2009-01-15T01:56:00.001-08:00

Jonathan Coulton … Big Bad World One… seems to be my theme for the week.

Posted a bit for people that need to make Word (and any other Office document) do cool stuff … provided it’s in XP. Forgot to mention that if you’re running Vista the UAC will keep it from doing a lot. (Here’s a couple fixes for that… I’ll show VBA code when I have time, in the mean time you can check out the use of the impersonateLoggedOnUser API calls here, here, or here – which I’m looking at since it uses psi and the runas for another project).

Kids are – well the kids… meaning teenagers and filled with a lot of angst at a world that doesn’t seem to play fair. Always sucks to be a teen, goes with the territory – think it may even be in the manual. Which it’d be cool if they gave you a manual when you became a teen, or an adult, or for that matter at any time. Unfortunately – the fact is there is no instruction manual for life, and if there was it’d probably be written by the same people who do the instruction manuals for IKea and O’Sullivan.

Some days, the best you can hope for is just to know who’s got your back, probably the best bit of advice I ever got from a co-worker Microsoft. “Always know who’s got your back.”, which applies in warfare, program management, and when you’re 17 and the world seems like a very very unfair place. If you know someone has your back – it doesn’t change the fact that the world is going to suck some days.

But when the chips are down… some days the only way to get through is to remember you’re not alone.

On the work front… well… I’m doing documentation. I love documentation the way Socarates loved going out for a drink with his coworkers. With any luck they’ll leave the first aid kit unlocked and I can find something to OD on. Documentation my arch nemesis is for some bizare reason something people keep having me do for them – and I really do despise it. I would rather be gutted and left as a meal for hyenas than do documentation.

It’s not that I’m bad it – I’m actually really good at it – which is why I keep having people ask for it. These docs are for a process that – isn’t well defined and I’m not allowed to define it, which gives me hives. Don’t ask me to put my name on your broken process. Grrrrrr… but… I’ve never walked on a contract… and I won’t on this one either but it is sooo tempting some days. But I may see to it the author of all my documents is listed as Nathan E. Douglas or Roderick Jaynes.

Once again… I’m trapped in a world not of my own making. Like a pair of pants from Abercrombie and Fitch life just isn’t working for me I’ve lost the receipt. Which means of course there’s no way to return it and exchange it for another.

Pretty much the best part of the week was seeing Andrew Kramer had an update to his blog – and some very cool presets for AE I’m dying to look at.

Second update was seein Tommy Z’s newborn pics… you don’t get a heck of a lot cooler than being the son of a DJ with the Initials Z.Z. (Dude… your son’s got two career choices with initials like that – Rock Star or DJ… it’s like a law or something.)

And that’s all my updates for now…

Hang in there people. The world may have us down but we’re not out… the world may seem big but we’ve got it out numbered one to five billion. Personally - I can live with those odds.

Hey - You’re only out numbered if you stop counting.

And kiddo… You know I will always have your back… . ;-)

I quit, I'm done
Cause I don't think it's gonna turn out okay
It's no fair, it's no fun
If every time it's gonna end the same way:
Me: zero, Big bad world: one

--Jonathan Coulton, Big Bad World One

Word document programming… simplified…

2009-01-12T00:28:00.001-08:00

Fixing things for people around the office is often time consuming and frankly problematic. Sometimes you don’t have administrative privileges on everyone's machine and you also don’t have time to personally go around and fix things. You write a script … but unfortunately the company email system has an apoplectic fit and refuses to send around your script.

So… you put the script on a share – or your rename it to a zip or some other file name and force everyone to rename it and then run it.

Open your Microsoft Word (I’m using 2007 for this) and let’s get to your Developer tab. Don’t have a Developer tab?? Here’s how you get one… first Open Word and click on the Office Button and select Word Options. Which will open up the Options menu screen – and off the Popular menu you can click on the check box for “Show Developer” like it shows here.

Now the cool thing is that if my directions are not that good - you can find them off the Microsoft web site here… http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101730521033.aspx – so feel free to use them. But the goal is to get a developers tab – so you can … well … develop. Now this is a quickie tip so we won’t get too involved but using the Developer tab you’re able to put into a document any VBA command you can think of so you’re not limited. There is very little you can’t do from programmatically changing things on the document to changing the registry settings.

Let’s start by typing a short description of what it is the document does, and letting the user know that it is not a standard word document – and even telling the user that they’re going to need to turn on the scripts and macros for the document to make it run.

It’s important that if you do any scripting on a word, excel or other document you inform the user they are using a document that has macros or scripted capabilities in it. Sure – you could just have it trigger an event and not warn the user but to do so is very unprofessional and it imposes a level of credibility with the user’s sense of safety and privacy. So type a short paragraph and tell them what you’re about to do before you do it.

Buttons or other mechanisms that the user can click on – that provide a kind of tactile feel let the user know this is not a standard document and that by clicking on the button something will happen.

So select a button from the legacy tool tools list – my prefered one is the standard ActiveX control Command Button that we see all the time. You can find it off the Legacy tools menu shown under the ActiveX commands. Once you’ve set your commandbutton up right – double click on it to reveal the vba code blocks.

I know… I know… this is VBA and VBA supposedly has a reduced instructions and it’s not as good as real code… and blah-blah-blah.

Yes, a lot of that is very true. VBA is not as robust as VB.net (although it’s pretty close) and it’s certainly not up to C# and nothing like the degree of power you get from unmanaged code. But the point of VBA is that the average person can – with a bit of trial and error create pretty much anything they need and for the most part there is very little that you would want to try with a document that you need the power of unmanaged code or even the power of full blown Visual Basic or C#. But if you wanted to – you very definitely can. It really all depends on what you need to do, but for this quickie we’re just going to show something simple.

So here’s a button … we’ve double clicked on it to reveal the visual basic editor – which looks like this… and I’ve dropped a little code in there which will open (silently) two command windows run the command “ipconfig /release” and “ipconfig /renew”.

Now – I’ll do one more thing here, which is to disable the button the user clicks to make sure they only click it once. Ordinarily I’d drop in some error code to check to see if the code completely properly and so on – you get the idea.

The code to turn off the button looks like this:

ThisDocument.CommandButton1.Enabled = False

And you want to do that because if you don’t disable the button – then people will keep clicking it because your code may not display any visual indicator that the code was actually executed. There are literally dozens of ways to provide feed back to the user to give them status and I really recommend you do. The number of things you can do with a document are amazing.

You can add in there code, functions, anything you really need and now it’s all self contained in a document file that should allow you to send it to people and the only thing they have to do – is enable macros for the document and click on the button.

To enable macros – if someone hasn’t gotten the standard warning asking them to enable them it looks like the one shown here – so you may want to warn people they’re going to see this and to turn it on in any emails you include the document with. Once again it’s all about trust – and if people start mistrusting your emails then you’ve got a problem. Make people know that if you do send them something with a macro or code in it … it’s okay by telling them why they got the message.

You can… of course download the code for this … here… it is of course a “docm” format – meaning that it’s clearly a word document with scripted or programmed (macros even) capabilities. But I can save this in my groups SharePoint – and even most email programs will allow it to pass to someone since it’’s very openly a macro or scripted object. Hopefully your company is one of those whose email systems do allow this since it requires the user to manually turn on the document’s macro capabilities. If yours is one this is a great time saver you can send out to a group to fix issues.

Just my 2 cents and a quickie for the week….

http://cid-e46e5f5a0e3b5854.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/VBA%20Word%20Document%20Demo/NOTE.docm

HEY… Special note… congrats to Tommy Z out there on the birth of his son Zachary Z – many many blessings to you and mom. He’s a cutie.

4D UI = The next big thing in tech for 2009

2009-01-01T10:38:00.001-08:00

To everyone out there… Happy New Year and I hope your celebrations were great. But 2009 is now here and everyone out there wants to know… what’s the next big thing?

One question someone asked me this morning was if I thought this would be the year that 3D interfaces finally took off – what with the Microsoft Surface and the iPhone and a lot of things going tactile.

Let me say this … as much as I am excited about this technology, and I am. I really, really am (even though I refuse to buy an iPhone on principals – ask me about it sometime). Even though I think tactile interface technology is needed, necessary and a great direction… it is not the next big thing to be banking on.

The next big thing (drum roll please) … is going to be 4D technology – not 3D. 3D technology – the iPhone the Surface and so on – right down to holograms and Second Life… is not the deal breaker for 90% of the users out there if they had to pick a feature for any product. Be it a phone or computer or a software application. 3D tech will not make it on the list except for those people that the only reason they are buying that tech … is that feature. Those – are not consumers. Those are sheep. If you paint a rock and tell them it’s the hottest new thing… they’ll buy it.

The next Big Must Have I’ll Die Without It technology… is in the 4D space. The temporal user interface space. It’s okay – you’re allowed to go “Wha??” and look at me as if I lost my mind.

Let me explain so it makes a bit more sense. Temporal UI space is about improving the speed and space needs of the user. It’s about connecting the users needs so it’s there before they have to click and wait – it’s about improving speed, efficiency and making it so they don’t have to expend any of their temporal real estate more than absolutely necessary.

3D is about the physical – 4D goes way beyond that. 4D is about anticipating the users needs before they need them. 4D is about knowing what device the users on – and routing their needs accordingly. Why do I have to log on to 3 different web sites for the same data? Why isn’t my computer more of a perfect major domo than a high school drop out receptionist with major insecurity issues and a fear of the phone system?

4D is about collaboration – where the files I work on are accessible to me without having to go through hoops and multiple web sites that I may – or may not – have access to if I’m mobile. www.mesh.com – is a great example of this, and to a lesser extent google’s office clones and a better extent office.live.com. (Yes I know sounds like I’m prejudiced – but the fact is anyone who’s used office and office live with the connector will not use google’s toys again. It is that big of a difference.)

4D is about making all of my work, my life, my files, my play – all available 24x7 when I need them, how I need them. That’s what improves your temporal real estate. That’s what makes you more efficient. That’s what gets you promotions and more time to play. That’s what people will pay for – thats what major corporations will pay for – and that’s why it’ll be the next big thing.

4D is the next space that not only needs to be conquered – it is the space that the greatest number of users want to have conquered. All the buzzing vibrating slide your finger tech in the world will not sell like an application that people actually have a need for – that actually saves them time or effort or energy. Cool gets you in the door. But what in the year that’s coming if you can’t eat it, sleep in it, or use it to get you where you want to go in life … it’s a niche market.

Trust me… 4D… it’s gonna be huge!

Happy New Year.

Drag and Drop richtextbox update…

2009-01-01T01:07:00.001-08:00

I almost forgot to mention a little couple details for the previous post…

First off – got an email from Jason who asked about why the code doesn’t work for him. I took a look at his code implementation and what he’s missing is something I drop in my form load area. By setting RichTextBox1.AllowDrop to TRUE (in the form load) when the form is loaded and the richtext box control is created, it allows drag and drop operations. Now I know – I know – by default the richtextbox control is supposed to have the drag and drop automatically set to allow it.

Now, oddly enough – in my research I’ve found that not all properties dialogs out there (VS2005) for the richtextbox control have the property to set for this in the properties dialog. I have confirmed – that you can set this in the code as showen below in 2005. I’m still trying to find out if this is with all richtextbox controls – or if a 3rd party addon or control is what is causing the issue.

In any case – you can set it programmatically which is what I’ve always done which is why I’m at a bit of a loss as to what the cause of this problem is. Jason’s confirmed that setting this programmatically worked for him.

Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender AsSystem.Object, ByVal e AsSystem.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
       RichTextBox1.AllowDrop =True
    End Sub

In my rush to send that out this morning I probably should have discussed – or commented the code a bit better. By default

drag’n drop files into richtext boxes (so it’s actually useful)

2008-12-31T02:21:00.001-08:00

There’s a ton of howto’s out there showing people how to do the drag and drop into a richtext box. But recently I had a job that required me not to drag the contents from one part of the form to the other but to actually drag a file (or files) into a RichTextbox control – and process them.

Which… if you’ve never tried this before drops the file as an icon you can click on and open. Not really useful if you’re trying to process files. It’s kind of annoying that even after a bit of Googling you’ll get a lot of links that let you drag the text or images or all kinds of stuff from one part of the form – to another part of the form.

Which is fine if that’s what you need. But what I needed was to be able to grab several files – of either text or xml – and then process them and display the output.

Since I can’t share my work code – here’s the training wheels version of the code for you. As you can see we process the XML and display it. It also does text so … this is fairly close to the final version – which hopefully I’ll take some time and cleanse it from any confidential use info that may be in it and share. In the mean time – here’s the actual guts of the code that makes it work.

Since I’m reallllly running behind – that’s all I can get out this week - but hopefully it’ll be of use to someone out there. As you can see – I’m calling the richtextbox dragenter event and customizing it. The first thing I do is hunt for the dataformats.filedrop type off the event handleer – this allows me to grab the filename and – load it appropriately into the richtextbox.

Anyway… to all out there – here’s the code – have an AWESOME New Year… and I’ll be back on line to annoy all as soon as I can.

Imports System
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Data
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Collections
Imports System.Windows.Forms
Imports System.Xml
Public Class Form1
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.
        RichTextBox1.AllowDrop = True
    End Sub

    Private Sub richTextBox1_DragEnter(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As DragEventArgs) Handles RichTextBox1.DragEnter

        Try
            If e.Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.FileDrop) Then
                ' Put all file names into a string array 
                'in case the user grabbed more than one file.
                Dim files As String() = CType(e.Data.GetData(DataFormats.FileDrop), String())
                Try
                    'Now we break it down - we only want text files, xml or xsd files
                    'so we trap for that if it's not one of those - we ignore it.
                    If files(0).Contains(".txt") Then
                        Dim f_stream As IO.StreamReader = FileIO.FileSystem.OpenTextFileReader(files(0))
                        RichTextBox1.Text = f_stream.ReadToEnd()
                        'Just for fun we show the name of the file and link it
                        llblFileName.Text = files(0).ToString

                        f_stream.Close()
                    ElseIf files(0).Contains(".xml") Then
                        Dim filename As String = files(0)
                        Dim reader As New XmlTextReader(files(0))
                        llblFileName.Text = files(0).ToString
                        reader.MoveToContent()
                        'Loop through the XML and display it in the richtextbox
                        Do While reader.Read
                            RichTextBox1.AppendText(reader.ReadContentAsString)
                        Loop
                        reader.Close()
                    End If
                Catch ex As Exception
                    MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
                    Return
                End Try
            End If
        Catch ex As Exception
            MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
        End Try
    End Sub

    Private Sub llblFileName_LinkClicked(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.LinkLabelLinkClickedEventArgs) Handles llblFileName.LinkClicked
        System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(llblFileName.Text)
    End Sub
End Class

Fighting Tigers in Burma…

2008-12-22T23:20:00.001-08:00

is something I’ve never done. Never really planned to do it either. In fact, it’s not even on my long range to do list. Like so many bizarre things you’re pretty sure are never going to happen – it is however – something that I am prepared to do if I am ever dropped accidentally into the back jungles of Burma with a 10 lb honey cured ham locked around my neck.

Let’s face it no one plans for something like that. Just like most people don’t plan on losing their jobs until it happens. Money’s tight and we keep hearing that there are no jobs. Read Mini-Microsoft’s latest rumors that Microsoft is going to lay off… Or you can read the same story in – frankly dozens, maybe even hundreds of web journals out there. We’re all going to lose our jobs. No one is hiring. And we should all expect to have it take up to 3 years or more before we can find work where and how we once did.

In fact if you read the dishrags you’ll put your chances of financial survival right up there with fighting tigers naked in the jungles of Burma. But that’s not reality.

I won’t say things aren’t serious – or that there aren’t going to be some serious “resource actions” at places like Microsoft – or IBM or a hundred other places out there.

But the Job Market isn’t as dead as people claim. It’s not great like it was – but it’s also not the dead zone everyone is making out. Don’t believe me? Here…

Dice… 963 new jobs in the last 7 days.

Now, I know that in my area – Hotjobs has 81 new jobs. And … Monsters got around 120 or more. And I still get between 3-9 emails a week about jobs. Many of which I can’t take due to NDAs or certain companies bizarre rules about not being able to work there for over 365 days in a row – that’s weird – but there are still jobs there for someone.

Over the last 10 years I’ve never gone more than a month or so without being able to get a job. Is it because I’m just … sooooo cool? No. It’s because I learned a long time ago that just because a job isn’t perfect it’s still a job. At the end of the day you don’t have to take it home with you, and even if it’s not “your dream job” like the ads say – it still pays bills.

So pay your bills and find something better. The bottom line is that – it’s all about survival. Just like fighting tigers. You do what you need to do and you learn new skills if you need to so that you can survive.

No, you’re not going to find a dream job in this economy. But you may – if you’re careful – find something that keeps you going until you do. Survival isn’t about surviving better than others – it’s about surviving to better your own circumstances, so that your life it’s about survival. So that it’s not waking up to a fear of your life – as you know it – suddenly vanishing.

There are reasons to be afraid, but losing your job isn’t a reason to be afraid. It’s a reason to hone your skills – sharpen your abilities. It’s a reason to become better at what you’ve been doing that you’ve ever been. It’s a reason to learn not to be afraid, not to let yourself become depressed, not to lose track of your goals.

Your goals. Not the company you work for. But yours. It’s a reason to learn about what your goals are. But it’s not a reason to panic. It’s not a reason to be afraid. There are jobs.

The economy is bad – but it’s not some nightmare. Bad economies and job cuts are cycles. If you hone those skills, keep your outlook positive, and you never stop trying to better yourself – you will always be able to find work.

That’s not me saying that – it’s my father. Because of him I’ve kept that attitude and I’ve always kept myself in work. If I didn’t have it – I’d find it. It was his gift to me. One that I have kept and that’s kept my family well.

If I can give one gift to people – to friends who are approaching this Christmas season with trepidation, with stress, with fear. It’s that you don’t have to be afraid. It really will be all right, and hang in there. We have the skills, the knowledge, the drive and the ambition to not just survive but thrive. Because we – are the people – who do not ever want to fight tigers. We have too much work surviving what is real – to give our time to fighting things and preparing for things that are not.

Just a few thoughts.

We’re not dead yet…

2008-12-10T07:23:00.001-08:00

Been a week or two since I updated so this is going to be quick before I lumber off to work. The recession isn’t as bad as it might appear. It’s bad – almost every IT company out there decided to put the breaks on a lot of hiring and dropped the expected wages they’re paying. But the jobs are still there. Nationally I just got a ping for over 35 IT Jobs that opened since December 10th – most are east coast related (NY, NH, NJ, FL) although there’s a surprising number from TX and IL that I really didn’t see coming. Most of these are Dev and Engineering – but there’s a smattering of UI designer and PM type roles.

In the NW USA we’re still seeing a remarkable amount of stuff going on – although most is at MS still around 36 jobs posted through Dice and Careerbuilder since Dec 5th. Once again – MS leads with Test positions and Dev positions, but has a nice nearly equal compliment of PM jobs.

Had someone ask me how to tell if companies are gearing up for work or completing projects based on job postings… here’s the tip: If they need more PMs than they do Developers – they’re gearing up and there’s more work coming. If they’ve got more Developer positions than PM and Test it generally means they aren’t planning they’re completing what they have on their plates. This is often cyclical so don’t read a whole lot into it.

If you want a good idea of how to predict work in an economy – check comic books. They’re a luxury item but they’re one that kids save up for – so if the kiddies have money for comics then mom & dad we can guesstimate if times are really tight. If kids buy a lot of comics – then the allowance is healthy if they buy fewer – then the allowance is down. As a result the comics industry has always been a good way to tell how hard hit families are in a financial crunch. They’re one of those trail indicators you don’t think about but watching their wake tells you the size of the destructive forces applied to children. Hate to be so cold blooded – but economics suck.

Warren Ellis sent off a ping saying the comics industry’s finally feeling the pinch – and his info seems to match up with mine. It’s not that financially the industry’s gone south yet – tons of work being done and things are being bought – but the fear of the slow down is causing less work. His recipe for digging out of holes in the comics industry is the same as mine – raise your game up a level or two.

What every business from Film & Entertainment (Web especially) to GM & FORD to Marvel Comics and Microsoft has had for the last decade has been an assumed captive market. Raise your game and create better products or you’re going to get your corporate clocks cleaned by people willing to raise their game and give customers what they want.

This isn’t the time to get conservative – this is the time to get creative. To dig deep take some risks (not financially but creatively) and come up with great product. Warren’s DOKTOR SLEEPLESS is a good example of a comic built and crafted for fans that’s selling in a market where others are slipping back.

Dr. Horrible (from Joss Whedon) is another example – built for fans it was what fans wanted. It sold beyond well (waaay past expectations) for no advertising, no budget, and not a lot of time. But the quality was there and they created a product they knew their target audience would want.

These are the kinds of products that save companies and that’s the strategy needed to pull it out and win.

That’s all for this week… back to slaving away…

Oh… and for those who haven’t seen it yet – did a new experiment with Vanishing Point in Photoshop and After Effects… it’s up on the web. A 20 minute wonder here… but always fun to play. The original here was a still photo of an alley – near canal street as I recall – a bit of adjustment, and wallah… 3D from flat using Vanishing Point in Photoshop to extract the planes for AE.

To belabor the theme of this week’s blog here … if you haven’t picked up a new skill this week you’re not raising your personal game up a notch. Find something you haven’t done before – and go do it! If you don’t someone else will. If you do – you get to choose what it is you want to learn – what it is you want to do – and you’re a lot closer to doing what you want to do in life. Remember … you can be a passenger or the guy driving the bus in your life. Do you want to be the guy who gets to tell everyone where they’re going and when they can get off or do you want to be told? The choice is up to you.

Whats wrong with Google? How the “special sauce” leaves a bad after taste.

2008-11-25T07:44:00.001-08:00

I did a search on Google yesterday off my cell phone and got back a handful of weeks, and in some cases months old results. Nothing surprising there. So I fired up my web browser – did the same search and got back a dozen fairly good results. Then I did the same thing with Live Search on both my cell and my browser.

Believe it or not – I find myself using live search more and more. Google, the old standby for so many things, has to me become a very commercialized and highly productized set of listings that don’t show me what I want when I want them. Ironically, Live (which I fully think is going to do the same thing eventually for reasons I’ll explain later) seems to be better for not giving me “canned” results.

Anyone remember the “old” internet? Back in the days when Google was that scrappy up and coming search engine that could find you anything you wanted? Back when you’d type in “Madonna and Child” and not get listings for the last 3 bad albums or porn sites and instead you’d get a link to a useful story? Back when instead of getting some Wikipedia entry that may or may not be accurate you’d get links to papers submitted and reviewed at Universities and works out there that actually had some merit? Yeah, me too.

What we get now is something that’s been shoved through Google’s “special sauce” which gave us the decent search results. This is good but the problem is that what the Goog’s been cooking up is only as good as it’s ingredients. The ingredients are being tainted like bad chili by SEO specialists. These are people that know how to get a page ranked higher – specifically on Google. Part two of this is also that once the chili is “cooked” it is also vetted by Google’s multi-billion dollar a year advertising program. So that whatever we search for is sorted in preference based on whatever advertiser has had the SEO juice to flood Googles special sauce with whatever spices are needed to make their results come higher in the list, and again by the usual “paid results get higher rankings” thing.

Don’t get me wrong – I have no issue with Google trying to make money. I have no issue with anyone trying to make money. Making money is a good thing. But you can’t make money if you’re not providing a service which people will use. Currently many people are moving away from Goog to Live and other search competitors. This is due in large part because they aren’t getting what they need from Google.

What’s the Goog doing to try to fix this problem? A lot. They’ve got people working on the Special Sauce every day to remove these SEO artificially injected ingredients. But the fact is once you go commercial you can’t go home again. Just as Microsoft’s #1 real security problem is they own 95% of the desktop market – who wants to code exploits for only 5% of the market or less? Googles search woes are owed to the fact that they’re the big dog of search. Google will be faced with these cooking marauders as long as their the top dog in search. Each time they “fix” the problem – someone will change the ingredients on it again and again.

Live being down on the list isn’t faced with this problem quite so much. They also have a different approach to the way to they deal with the problem. They have the advantage of seeing where Google’s method isn’t working so they don’t have to rework an existing model. They have created completely different models of search technology that take into account SEO modifiers that outsiders use to adjust things. It’s by no means perfect, but of late I’ve found it’s as good or better than the Goog.

Time will tell if this pays off for them, but for now, I and many others are taking advantage of their approaches to get us the information we need without the bad after taste of excessively adjusted SEO results.

Reuse and recycling work

2008-11-18T11:16:00.001-08:00

I just did a short bit on color correction in video in the previous blog, I demo’d a couple of different things you can do with the same clip to get different color corrections and other basic work with some filters that you can do quickly to get some cool effects with one very badly shot grainy clip.

Probably what I should have mentioned is … never delete your clips when you’re done. Catalog them and save them. Even the bad stuff can be often reused on other projects.

A good example is that grainy bad clip. Since I had the time this morning while waiting on a phone call – I came up with a couple new effects for that same clip. I saved them because I thought they might be useful. Each time I do that I save myself some time. I may not necessarilly use the clip again, but by adding tags to it in my catalog – the next time some one asks me if I can do a cosmic face effect – I can pull that up.

Here’s the clip….

Making it look like it should…

2008-11-15T12:45:00.001-08:00

I’ve had a few emails about getting video to look right. Shelly and a few others out there know I don’t have the best of cameras – I do almost everything on a old Sony DCR TRV280, which is just barely considered a digital camera. So – why do my quickies look different than the stuff that Shelly’s getting with her brand spankin new HD camera? Which isn’t to say her stuff isn’t good – she’s got a great eye, and chooses her shots wisely. But it does bug you when your visuals aren’t 10 times better than a 8 year old $500 camcorder.

I also generally don’t take more than 10 minutes to shoot a quickie clip and I also don’t use a lighting kit. It’s a worst case scenario – but when Shelly and I compared footage recently – mine looked better. So how did I do it? Simple. I retouch my video. It’s something I’ve always had do to – and just assumed everyone did it these days. It’s believe it or not the most common and best money maker for anyone who has a budding small video business like our friend Shelly.

With video blogs, video resumes and even local tv commercials for anyone who does video work it’s probably going to be your most common work even though it’s something that most people never think to charge for when they bid a video project. Cleaning up bad camera skills will take up most of your time.

Whether it’s removing camera shake, or getting the colors back in a face, or removing an over exposure, or just (believe it or not) removing acne - - if people know you can do that, they’ll want it and you can charge for it.

Lets face it – people prefer to have colors that don’t make them look like they’re in a zombie movie… unless they’re in… a zombie movie. In some cases, you may have people ask you to do that as well, but they’ll never ask if they don’t know that you can do it. So you’ll need a good demo of color correction and adjustment techniques that you can do. The practice of this kind of work on a variety of clips will help you get a good idea how how long it takes to do this work, and what you should be charging for it. I’m not going to go into details on how to do color correction because it will depend on the software and the hardware you have.

If you’ve got Ulead or some lower end semi-pro software the techniques will be completely different than say Adobe or Pinnacle or others. So – do a bit of searching on the web for color correction for your software. Keep in mind you’ll need to know that the colors you’re producing may be different so – practice, view the footage on different monitors, practice, practice. The steps may seem similar but there’s nothing worse than a blog that tells you to use a $5,000 piece of software that you don’t have so I won’t do that to you. But a bit of research and you’ll get what you need. I’ve seen great tutorials on everything from Movie Maker to AE, and even some very high end stuff like Lyric and others. All free – all very good.

A good example of this is that I did two versions of the demo for this blog – one in an un-named very expensive program I’m currently demoing to see if I want to buy it (I probably will) and another in the freebie Microsoft Movie Maker. I know MM inside and out – took me 10 minutes and I had a clip ready to publish that the end result is the one you see in the link below. The $5,000 program… spent 20 minutes, and the results were… less than satisfying because I really don’t know it well yet. It decided to do a number of things for me I didn’t ask it to – and the footage quality from it is … well blurry, soft, and worse than the Movie Maker stuff or if I’d just rendered it directly from another program. So – practice. Learn, practice. When you’re ready to use the big boy toys … use’em. But never show off your stuff unless it’s of a quality you want people to see.

In some cases – it’s nothing more than just loading up the footage and adjusting some color curves to get the values right for the shot. In others you’ll need to do some masking. For example the color corrected shot above – the face is color corrected with one set of curves, the background received another. Similarly in the day-for-night shot shown here I had to pull out the face and go with an almost pitch black. (I might also want to add some shadows from a 3D layer … it depends on how far you want to take it.) You get the idea.

Each of these requires a different level of color correction and adjustment. So – make sure who you’re doing this for knows that there is a big difference in price between the kind of work needed for a wedding and the kind of work needed for a network TV commercial shot. That price is how hard you have to work to make it look good. Never show someone a “miracle” shot that took you 40 hours of work, and allow them to think this is nothing more than clicking a few buttons… Miracles=expensive, basic band aids = cheap.

And if you’re looking a highly advanced techniques for color correction – you may be looking as spending as much time as you would to animate something in a full video composite. It’s a big part of your cost, and even if it is just your time when you’re running a business it’s something you have to be willing to cost out for – which we tend to forget when we’ve taken a hobby or something we enjoy and turn it into a business.

I recommend that you learn all you can about color correction, often the most subtle color corrections on a clip are the most difficult to pull off. There are a whole slew of things you need to consider – the main character of the shot will require a different lighting than anyone else (masking and overlay), the background may need to be softened or sharpened and color corrected as well (another set of masks and overlays as well as curves), will you be needed to track the masks in the shot using motion tracking – and do they need to have some shots that will be rotoscoped?

Sure – you can make it look like a million bucks, and for a good customer, client or friend – it may well be worth it. But most will not expect you to create a miracle shot. Just a good simple clean image that looks nice, gives a good flesh tone and definition.

And… It also helps if the person you’re shooting… doesn’t look like they haven’t slept since they got off a flight from Chicago two days ago because they’ve been doing all nighters writing a video camera application on the side for kids… but that’s another project, and will require I shave, eat, and maybe get some sleep. :-) Over all – your cheapest solution is of course to consider your lighting, take a white balance and shoot it so it doesn’t require correction if possible.

Consulting Tips – more notes from the field…

2008-11-04T11:57:00.001-08:00

In keeping with posts for those who want to start a consultancy – I asked consultants on several forums what they considered were “Must Haves” to be consultants.

Mind you, most of these people travel (a lot) so there’s a section here for just travel needs.

On the professional side of the house – your professional needs – you had the more common items. Business Licenses – which many states have not just a requirement that Consultants be licensed, but also they have additional State and in some cases local taxes for that profession. Some also require that you have Professional Liability Insurance as well – so check your state to make sure you have that covered.

They also reminded me of the need to actually have contracts on hand – something that when a client is ready to sign on the dotted line, you can have them sign on the dotted line. Some pointed out they need not be physical contracts – you can always print one up a at a Kinko’s. But talk to an attorney about getting a good basic contract for services that you can fill in the blanks for (generic standard form) and if you offer a specific service which requires additional language often enough, have them draft up one of those as well. No one specifically mentioned an attorney but you get the impassion it’s not a bad idea to swing by one and get their take on your business as well.

One thing they all do seem to agree on and I second – is that you find yourself an accountant, or at the very least really good accounting software and learn how to use it so you can hand that over to an accountant for taxes.

Next came another lesson I found interesting – get several bank accounts and use them for their purposes. A Business account for day-to-day business activities. A Savings fund for “rainy day” and “misc” unexpected expenses that come up. A second savings fund for taxes (you may as well earn interest on it if you have to pay it to IRS). A personal account for you – and place 10% from every check in there. That’s yours, once its in there – pretend like it doesn’t exist. Don’t touch it – don’t think about touching it – once every so often, you should take that and roll it into a 401k or other plan for your retirement.

Professional Needs

Business and Professional Licensees
Contracts (Standard form and Specific Clause)
Personal Insurance

Health
Life

Professional (Consultant) Liability Insurance
Accountant (or Good Accounting Software)

Way of calculating and handling taxes

Bank Accounts:

Business Account
Business Savings Fund 1 (Misc)
Business Savings Fund 2 (Taxes)
Personal Account Savings (Bonus/Benefits

Next, we ran into suggestions for Business Needs – specifically equipment. A good laptop and a desktop – and make sure you set aside a small budget to buy yourself a new one every 18 months was a really great tip.

Cell Phones were next. Some said Blackberries others iPhones, Win Mobile… bottom line – any good cell phone that can keep you in touch with your mail. But a very very wise consultant also tossed this one out as a great tip. For about $30 you can also get a pre-paid phone and for about $5 a month he keeps just enough minutes on it to keep it always ready. Get one – keep it and it’s charger in your luggage. If you lose or damage your regular cell – you’re never without one.

Home offices everyone had suggestions – but the most common is to have at least a quiet room you can work from and take calls.

Presence was another area people had opinions on, some said a blog was all they needed, others said they had a fully professional website. Still others just a page, a blog, and so on.

Here’s my take. For $15-45 a month you can get yourself a nice website and have your own domain and your own email address to that domain. (Office Live can even get you started for free – and move everything over to a paid site. The free site comes along with project and document repositories you can share with customers and coworkers and clients even). I personally pay about $39 a month for mine and I never use half of it’s features.

One feature I do use – and I use a lot is the Online Shared Folders. I often back up my most recent work there. Anyone who’s ever lost a laptop – had something crash and burn – knows that losing what you’re working on is harsh. Do that 1,000 miles from your back ups and at a customer site is devastating.

Skydrive is free and you get 5 gb. There are dozens of other locations out there. Windows Live Mesh is a personal savior to me. Between that and Skydrive and my Office Live folders I’ve got a good 30 gb stored in the cloud that can never be destroyed and I can access from anywhere – even an Airport Kiosk.

Your presence is who you are as a company. Put the money out and do this right.

Next… here’s a blast from the past. Business cards. Put your name, put your email, your phone and your web address on it. Nothing else. No titles. Keep it professional and simple. People do keep them – and people DO remember you when you hand them out. Simple cards like I mention here you can get from Overnight Prints or other Web printers for 250 for $10-12.

Next part of your presence is your online identity. Google yourself. If you don’t like what you see – then get rid of it. If you have a myspace page that you wouldn’t share with a customer – get rid of it. I don’t care if it is your “personal” space. Clients and customers may see it and they won’t care if the reason you were stripped to your underwear singing LaVida Loco was at a college party 10 years ago.

Scrub your own google records. Or accept that someone else will. Some people have the opposite problem you google them and there’s nothing. SO – get that website up. And while you’re at it hit the rest of the social network sites and build up a presence that speaks well of you.

We’re talking LinkedIn, Facebook, and some other professional sites. I would avoid MySpace and similar sites like the plague as in my experience they’re hard to maintain. By “maintain” – I mean this – if you go out to blogger or wordpress and create a blog (seperate from your web site) you can then use the RSS feed from that blog to actually feed your blog postings to many social websites at once.

This particular blog entry will feed Facebook, LinkedIn and 3 other sites I’m on. I post once… and I’m updating 3+ web presences. Kind of like being your own personal syndication system.

And since we’re mentinoning LinkedIn, there are now an abundance of “professional” boards out there. Xing, Ning, Ling, Ting, Ping, Pong, you name it the list goes on and on. Pick the ones you actually want to participate in and do so. Spreading yourself too thin is a mistake.

One thing you may want to do – is open a PayPal account to do on line transactions.

Many online freelancer sites work with PayPal so if you’re going to doing any work from them – I’d suggest you have one. You may want to look into some of these as they’re not bad places I’m told to get bits of side work.

I found LimeExchange, TechRepublic and Guru.com to be fairly good places. Nothing I’d survive off of – but there is work there. GetAFreelancer.com seems to be over run with competition that is questionable at best … and always willing to bid at minimum wage or lower. Just my experience – your actual mileage may vary.

Business Needs

Equipment & Supplies

Computer
Cell Phone
Cards

Office (at least a quiet room)
Presence

Website
Email
Blog(s)
Shared Folders
Cards
PayPal
Accounts with OnLine Providers

LimeExchange
TechRepublic
Guru
Others (GetAFreeLancer)

Social Networks

LinkedIn
FaceBook
(Xing,Ling,Ning,TheLadders…)

Lastly we come to Travel needs for a consultant. Every good consultant needs a passport. It’s an official 2nd form of ID, it’s needed for travel and in general it’s handy to have and kinda cool.

You may not be traveling to Brussels – but instead to the suburbs so make sure that you have a travel budget. Set aside enough cash as you build your business so that you at least have enough cash to pay for regular car maintenance for your vehicle and 1 tickets air fare to somewhere. (Use it for a vacation at the end of the year was a great tip someone mentioned.)

Get an emergency credit card – basically a card that has a very very low balance on it (paypal was suggested by one person). If you don’t like that – it was suggested that you always keep $300 cash in your suitcase. Basically the idea is always have that ready in case of an emergency.

The same goes with a spare change of professional clothes (most said they just kept them in the wrapping believe it or not). And with the rest of the back ups they also said to make sure you have spare chargers for any devices you depend on a lot.

Travel Needs

Passport
Travel Budget account (1 trips worth)
Car Service (Regular Maintenance)
Decent Luggage
Emergency Credit Card(s) ($300 limit)
1 Set of Spare Clothes (Unopened)
Backup Power / Cables for any equipment (Laptop, Cell, etc.)
Throw Away Cell Phone

Accurate Photo Retouching

2008-10-29T15:35:00.001-07:00

Everyone out there who has kids knows the pain of dealing with Senior Portraits.

Here’s a few tips from a buddy of mine over at Zone13 Photographics.

First things first… get your exposures right. Separate the main focus of the picture from the background (Photoshop is my preferred tool – but these tips apply to most tools).

Next – reduce the saturation levels in the back – and boost them in the front. We don’t want to wash out the picture – we just want it to have a nice over all tone to it.

You’ll note my daughters a bit dark in the pic, and as with everyone (including most name actresses) her skin has some blemishes. A touch of blur here, a bit of dodging tool there… now we can actually see her face, and the hives from holding an animal in the picture they took earlier are now… gone.

When retouching it’s important to remember that you’re not there to make them perfect. As much work as this may seem it’s mostly a bit of lighting. Where I did over do it – I cut out the section as a layer, and then used Opacity to let her natural skin to actually show through the blurs. And this is the difference between a retouched photo and an “accurate” retouched photo. Yes, my daughter no longer has the eyes of a raccoon, and her skin is clearer. Even though this does give her a very different appearance – it’s actually what she looks like when she’s not standing under a tree that casts shadows and uneven lighting.

Then we went through and did contrast and saturation adjustments on the fore image and the back image. Play around – and make sure you work on a copy of the original image. It’s easy to make a mistake and not all software will let you go back and fix things.

Now, if you’re time strapped – there are if you have Photoshop (and some other tools which also accept these plug-ins) some very nice plug-ins from a great company called Topaz. These can do a lot of the work for you, and my personal favorite is one called “Topaz Vivacity”. I’m a huge fan of these for the cost. I’ve probably spent enough on plug-ins for AE, Photoshop, etc., over the years to buy a small car – and hands down I go to the stuff from Topaz over and over for almost everything.

If you’re tight on time – and tight on cash they really make you look like a rock star. So – if you have Photoshop, and you have Senior Portraits coming – ask for a copy of the pics in raw format if possible from the photographer. I understand a lot of photographers now just include them as they did back in the days of “negatives”, so they shouldn’t look at you too funny if you ask.

It’s a lot cheaper for you – if you have a little artist in you – to do photo retouchings than having them do it. But try to remember these simple rules when you do photo retouching for people:

1) It’s not about cool. It’s about making someone look good.
2) Never make it too obvious it’s been retouched. Always leave a little imperfection to it.
3) Color, Contrast, details are important. Try to keep these at all costs on the main subject.
4) Remember it’s for them – not you. If they want something you really don’t like… tell them why you don’t like it nicely, but always yield to the person who has to live with the end product.

When you’re done… you may want to try several looks – each only slightly different to see what plays well with people. Each of the images below is slightly different – I’m going to let my daughter choose which one we go with. That is always the telling sign for any Accurate Retouching – if the person you’re doing the retouching for likes it.

Consultant vs. Contractor what’s the difference?

2008-10-26T10:03:00.001-07:00

Ever wonder why a Consultant charges double what a Contractor does and doesn’t even hint at looking guilty for it?

A friend of mine asked me why I had different rates for one and why they were so … out of whack. Here’s a tid bit most people do not know. If you have a family and you’re a “Consultant” you actually have to double your rate if you want to make the same as a Contractor, and it’s – believe it or not – almost 2 1/2 times to get the same benefits as a Full Time Employee.

The short answer is a Consultant has to pay for everything themselves. This includes a 19% (or higher) Federal Income Tax, a 6.5% Social Security Tax, and another 1.54% tax for Medicare. If you live in some states (like I do) there’s actually a tax you have to pay for doing business as a consultant (.0754 on every dollar), and other local taxes and business fees (add another 1.5%). So … right off the bat – your costs are waaay higher than a contractor.

The next cost you’re hit with is health care (you can verify these numbers on the links provided if you’d like). For a married man, with 2 kids you can expect to pay anywhere from $975 to $265 a month for insurance … depending on if you actually want to be covered or just like paying $275 a month for a policy that you probably can’t use. (www.ehealthinsurance.com) This by the way … does not include dental – or vision coverage under any of the plans (nope – not even the $975 a month plan). So there’s another huge of your check there.

Most consultants have to provide their own phones, and equipment too. And there’s no “auto upgrade every 3 years” as when you’re working for a corporation. So you need to set aside at budget to replace your stuff every year or so. You should – if you’re smart, put aside 10% of every check to cover equipment, phones, and misc. expenses like unexpected travel.

All of these – you get when you work for someone, and they add up quickly. A consultant who’s expected to travel needs to be able to travel on short notice, so you have to have that ability. The job won’t wait for a re-imbursement check. Which, btw, you’ll probably want to have a lawyer look over your contracts if they’re long term. A lot of times you will find that a Consultant signs away rights to a lot of things and locks himself into very expensive situations because they’re not a lawyer. (Case in point – know of one guy who signed a consulting agreement that said he’d be paid $40 a day for travel… fine when he was in the Bay area. Then they stated sending him to London twice a month…. and yes… they expected him to pay the air fare and room in England.)

So … read the fine print or get someone to do it for you – you no longer have a legal team or group travel planner to help you. And in order to keep track of all this with the IRS – you need to (if you have half a brain) hire an accountant… so 10% from every check… goes to all of that goodness.

So – here’s some fun math… a Consultant who expects to make $100,000 a year vs. a Contractor who makes $100,000 a year. Below is a an actual table of how I’d have to calculate my rate – and this is a very basic table. It doesn’t include quite a few expenses you’d usually have to do business.

Salary	$100,000

Taxes
FICA Match	$19,990
Social Security	$6,540
Medicare	$1,540
WA Business	$308

Hard Expenses
Cable/Internet	$1,800

Insurance
Business Insurance	$600
Health Insurance	$7,200

Misc. Work Expenses
Certifications, Legal, Etc.	$3,000
Books / Educational	$1,200
Computer Equipment	$2,500
Office Equipment	$500


Total	$145,178

Recommended Rate ($145,178/1440 Billable Hours)	$101

This of course brings up a couple more points for the lowly consultant to consider… “Billable Hours”.

Consultants start out with about 2080 hours in the year they can bill. From that you subtract Holidays (which though they can work, most of their clients don’t – so no billing there.). Next subtract any Sick Days you’re going to have. What you don’t think Consultants don’t get sick? Try flying on a plane packed with 150 potential flu carriers twice a week and NOT get sick.

It’ll happen – trust me, and no client wants you infecting their staff and bringing down an entire team’s worth of work for 3 days. Sick means you don’t work – it has nothing to do with “you could work” – it has to do with the client doesn’t want you there.

Next – are what I like to call “soft hours”. This is where you, have to do what every business does – determine how much time is lost to locating new clients, going to training, conferences, and the like – which are where you find the lions share of your work often. Better plan for that.

Finally – you need to consider how long it will be between assignments – and if you’re first starting out that might be a while. Every business has this as a cost. As a Consultant you’re no different than anyone else – you have to figure this as an expense of doing business. You can’t bill a client for soft time – but it’s still an expense to you. So you need to calculate that into your rate.

Here’s a rough idea of what “Billable Hours” for a year would look like for you:

Billable Hours	2080
Holidays	80
Sick Time	40
Conferences	40
Available Hours to Bill	1920
Downtime %	25%
Downtime Loss	480
Total Billable Hours	1440

Now if I was still young and single and wasn’t picky about health care, and I didn’t need a house with enough room for 3 more people … well you get the idea, I could eat many of these costs – work more hours, etc., and so on. Single people have a real advantage in being able to be consultants. Which is why you see that more than married people.

But enough soap boxing… you asked for what the difference in rate fees was between a Consultant and a Contractor? That’s it pretty much. It’s a question of working for yourself vs. working for someone else.

By and large – I prefer to work for someone else. Consulting pays well – and as you can see, if you want to be very successful at it you have to charge a pretty penny. Most businesses will pay that pretty penny because they have no attachment to you, to the job you’re doing. Once it’s completed – it’s done you go away and they would have had to pay those costs anyway if they’d hired someone. But if they hired someone for it – they’d have had to go through the headache of finding you more work.

If they hire a contracting firm – well the firm essentially has to pay all of those expenses and most businesses assume they do. What the reality is – is that most Contracting firms offer pretty much useless health care and other benefits. Often times you have to work 6 months just to get sick days or holiday pay. (In fact my last contract I was hired in late October, and so had to deal with 3 weeks of vacations for which everyone else got paid … and I didn’t right during the Xmas season.)

In essence – as a Contractor your life pretty much sucks. But there is the fact that most companies only hire a Consultant if they absolutely need that specific skill or expertise, so it’s hard to get a consistent Consulting gig. So – Contracting is more popular with companies and provides more work. Consulting provides better income and benefits – but less work. Full Time Employees of course – have the benefits of both – but that’s even harder in many cases to find work of equivalent pay.

That’s my take on it… hope that helps explain a few things.

Ina Fried, Larry Dignan, what a way to go…

2008-10-24T10:23:00.001-07:00

CNet did a few bits on Windows on the OLPC. Which is great for those of us who worked on making that happen. So… without any further adieu… here’s where you can find these gems.

I think Ina’s comments were pretty fair and right on track. Obviously – Sugar’s something that is very cute. There are criticisms that its more of a suped leap frog under Sugar – which is also unfair. Sugar, for what it’s designed for is very good. But keep in mind Sugar is not meant for taking a child much past a very early learning level. Constructionist learning is a good starting point. But to me, it’s really not a long term education solution. Apparently this concern is matched by a lot of educators and governments.

For that – you need the ability to have a unit that can allow someone to compete, match the capabilities of other students – not just in the same school but in schools all over the world, and also to provide a growth story. Okay, so the Windows interface isn’t cute – but as has been shown over and over – it is easy enough for even small kids to work with.

Larry Dignan, gives us his take on this issue here… in his blog entitled “OLPC meets XP: Does charm matter?”.

But to be honest I think they need to re-evaluate the statement “The kid-friendly programming tool Scratch is one of the few software pieces that exists in the same form on both Windows and Linux versions of the XO laptop.”.

There are actually a lot – in fact, almost every software piece you can run on one … you can run on the other. Any limitations would largely be on the hardware itself. But… you can check that out for yourself.

There’s even a full Sugar virtual machine on the OLPC Wiki site that you can download and run on Windows XP. But check out the stuff on Cnet – and find out more about this for yourself.

As for me – my last day on the project was yesterday. So I’m moving on to other things. It’s been a great project to work on and extremely rewarding. I look forward to seeing more great things about Windows on this little green box.

Some points of clarification and updates to this blog:

* I mentioned that there’s an emulator for a virtual machine of the OLPC. This is for the SUGAR based OLPC – not the Windows version. And the intent was to allow people who wanted to experience the Sugar interface to check it out for themselves. You can find out more about this here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Emulating_the_XO/Quick_Start/Windows

You can also download the CNET Podcast for this at:
http://podcast-files.cnet.com/podcast/cnet_podcast102408.mp3

Presentation Quality Levels

2008-10-20T16:10:00.001-07:00

I had a request to give people some ideas on how to demo to clients video stuff on a shoe string. Now, that’s kind of been a theme for the last few blogs so I’m guessing that “shoe string” means that a lot of people out there are looking to start small businesses on the side to help pay some bills. :-) A wise choice in this economy, and it’s always a good one.

Years ago I had my own business and I’ll never forget how hard it was to get clients to sit down and listen to your pitch. What I found is that you keep it short and sweet. Bullet points. And when it comes to looking like a professional outfit and the use of Bullet Points … PowerPoint is your buddy.

So first – understand that it doesn’t matter how good your presentation is – if there’s no facts. The one I’m showing here – has no real facts. Just flashy looks that I pulled together in about an hour or so, using existing work. So – first know what makes your product a good buy. You need to be able to show your customers how it’s going to benefit them.

Since the request was for a video business – let’s look at what you can do for them. Video isn’t just about making movies – it’s about making a business look good. Start with their brand – and understand it. As a video company you have the ability to bring a brand to the next level. Make a nice quality demo reel – and make sure it includes their logo. Keep it short – 15 to 60 seconds – no more. You’re going to give them a taste – not a meal.

Begin with your presentation slide – which just has their name on it, and the ad campaign or purpose of the presentation.

Next – open with that 15 Second clip. Let them see it – make it big. Since you can put the Video right into the PowerPoint – yes, it allows you to put the video on a slide. Do that with whatever logo, text or other info you want.

You’ll probably want to go back to this slide from time to time after the presentation so they can see it for themselves. And don’t be afraid to say – this is what you came up with on your own, you’d really want to tailor this to their ideas and expectations. In fact – ask for those suggestions directly, and make sure you take notes when they speak but keep the conversation going. You need them to become involved in the production, even though they aren’t yet.

Initial impressions from a client often give you a lot of valuable information. Even if they hate it. In some cases negative feedback is better than positive feedback. With negative feedback you can put together a list of what they want. With positive feedback it’s harder to get that list. This isn’t the time to let them bog you down though – show them how you came to those conclusions that this was a direction. Show them why they need your product. If you have numbers showing cost effectiveness, or increased views – or anything like that to support you – now is when you bring them up.

So get those numbers or facts – and distill them down to the top 3-5 reasons. Memorize these. Include them in your verbal pitch. Show them you have some idea how their business currently can benefit and that you actually looked into their business?

How? How do you get this info… Well, by doing a bit of research on the internet. Almost every business has a web site – and if they don’t their competitors do. Find out all you can about their business, and find out what it is they make money off of – cars, houses, coffee houses, hotels – know their business enough to list 3-5 ways they can benefit from what you’re offering them.

This also helps by knowing that most small businesses do not have… a brand. Branding is something big businesses talk about and small to medium businesses have but don’t know they have usually. So put up a slide that shows that you understand their brand. But make sure that you do. Are they a very small homey business? Well – then probably going with a very big uber clean steel and chrome look won’t work. But there is always something about a business that makes it that business. That’s their identity. Sometimes the problem is – they have no identity. So you need to provide them with one. Show them you understand where they’re coming from – and if possible where they want to go.

Next… do a little footwork. Go out and ask people what they think – or get some statistics that prove your point. Show your customer that what you provide or how you provide what they currently have can work for them.

By doing that footwork and research - you show that you actually did do the home work of trying to understand their business. Whatever you can get is helpful – just not too much. So use statistics, can use man-on-the-street interviews or surveys, you can do this many ways.

But don’t just say, “Hey I think your business needs…” – back it up. Show them you’re not alone in your thinking – and that you have a valid reason for it. Now – some business will tell you straight up that’s not the look, the feel, the way they want to do things.

If that’s not the direction the business wants – then dig in and find out what direction they DO want to go into. What do they think the challenges are? Where are their customers? Let them know you’d like to put something together to reflect that – that you’re really sincere about making sure you’re giving them the best you can – and making them look the best they can.

Words are great. But back it up. A lot of times people have no idea how to use a product. So show them how. Give them an idea of how you see this being used. Web Videos, TV Commercials, Word of mouth – however you see the product being used… put together a game plan because a lot of small businesses don’t have an idea how, who, what or why. They just know they need something. You’re the professional – so give them the info they need. You’re not saying', “go do this…”, you’re just suggesting these as uses. The final decision is always up to the customer.

It’s not a bad idea – to even have a demo set up. Maybe a web based player like this showing the demo you previewed….

If you have an alternate – or more – include a couple (no more than 3 if possible) to show other ways you can play it out and that you have the flexibility to really shine for them.

Like I say, keep it short – 15-60 second blips and only a few of them. I can almost 100% guarantee they will assume that your showing them the final product. Make sure they understand you’ve gone in a direction – and you want them to really help and direct you to the right direction for their business.

Sometimes they’ll suggest stuff that just… isn’t good. Find out out strongly they feel about this – see if you can compromise, but as a rule even if it’s not good… do it.

Because – and this is very hard for creative type people to understand sometimes… the customer is always right. Even when they’re wrong – the customer is always right.

Last but not least… always close with a way for them to ask for more information and give them a copy of the presentation.

I like to put all of this on a CD or a USB stick – with an Autorun file so it runs whenever it’s plugged in. To do this copy your completed PowerPoint and compile it using the PowerPoint viewer so in case they don’t have a copy of PowerPoint it will work. (Make sure you include all the videos you need on the USB.) Test it a few times on different machines to make sure it works… and you’re ready.

Now… one final point. If you’re like my friend Shelly (who asked for this) you may not have a big portfolio yet – and that is hard to over come. A good way I learned in my business when I was starting out, to get business was to offer to do it for free. Explain to them you’re starting out – you need a portfolio built, and you’re willing to do the job for free (or cost) so that you can include it in your portfolio of professional work.

Almost no business ever turns down free. So use them to build up your profile. You’d be surprised how many times I’d done work pro-bono that later they came back and asked for updates – or completely new work. Often they would show it off to other businesses – and generate work for you.

Hey … it’s worth a shot, and for a business like Shelly’s, her own effort is the biggest cost. Once you have done a “pro-bono” – a freebie. Never do them again unless it’s a charity. Remember, regardless of how it may seem somedays – you are a business.

You can download the PowerPoint Presentation above (although I’m not sure why you’d want to…) at:
PowerPoint Presentation for CoffeeCup

Streaming Media on a Budget

2008-10-18T17:23:00.001-07:00

Okay … so the last time I blogged… it was to show the differences between Silverlight and Flash for video made a difference even for someone who say … didn’t have the resources of MSNBC or a big name video production.

I did a high def video – posted it to “free” website and just let the video load into the silverlight player directly from the web. Very high quality – very low cost – very little time.

David Sayed, from the Microsoft Expression Encoder sent me a very nice ping pointing out that Microsoft actually offers Silverlight developers (and actually anyone) the ability to steam your video also – and it is also free.

So in the spirit of free (since we all like free) let’s say you’ve created a really cool video, and you want to put this out there for everyone. Go to silverlight.live.com – and sign up for an account if you don’t have one. It’ll probably take all of 5 minutes of your life.

Next – click on the handy links – upload your file… (or if you have MS Expression Encoder 2 – use the cool plug in for uploading right to the silverlight.live.com site) and you’re ready to go.

And… as you can see the results are shown above. Or you can provide a link to other applications or tools: http://silverlight.services.live.com/18150/Silverlight%20Downtown%20Demo/video.wmv

Does Silverlight make a difference?

2008-10-16T11:46:00.001-07:00

A lot is being said about Silverlight. Is it as good as Adobe Flash, is it all hype, what's the difference, and all those great questions. Now one of the things that's been hyped (a lot) is that Silverlight really allows sites like NBC or CBS to stream very high levels of quality. It's generally assumed by many critics that the standard user can't make use of this level of quality.

This side project is actually to put that theory to the test. Below is a demo reel I created in Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, and Particle Illusion. I used a photo of a street Occidental Park, Seattle - a crater from, and did a small explosion type blast. Okay - it's just below the quality of an episode of Dr. Who and I'm not going to win an Academy award - but the point is - it was also done, cradle to grave, one man, two hours effort.

The reason I went with particle generators - which btw - in I intentionally made overly large, so you can see the polygons of the particles. Under high definition conditions they'll be visible clearly. (In real footage - you'd want to tweak that down so it looks more realistic and do a better job on the blending with the actual footage.) The idea here is to compare how well it plays, and if the quality levels are noticeable.

You’ll see right away – they are. Partially because of these massive particles actually having a nice polygon shape in the SIlverlight – and just being annoying blurs in the Flash Player.

The footage was then compressed using Expression Encoder 2 - which generated a nice HD wmv file of the clip you see below. I located a very off the side "free webhosting" company and set up an account there. I didn't go with a GoDaddy or a iPowerweb (which is my preference) because I wanted to see what you get... for free.

Here's a demo reel of a HD 720p video in Sliverlight - run from HTML off a free web hosting site:

If you can see this, your browser doesn't understand IFRAME. However, we'll still link you to the file.

Now if you're playing this the first time you'll see the percentages of footage downloaded running it. This allows slow connections - and btw, this is actually hosted on a standard HTML free website I've set up. There's no media server involved - it's just a plain 15 mb wmv file downloaded through the web, and as you can see the quality doesn't suffer. Click on the full screen link - and compare this with the same clip that's running through a flash based player below. It becomes pretty obvious which offers the better quality.

Now there are those that are saying, "Yeah but the flash player re-encodes..." - which is precisely a big part of the problem. When it's re-encoded it loses a lot of the quality. Now, mind you - I don't have to use a HD 720 file - I could just as easily have settled for the same screen size in a high quality format that would have generated a file 1/2 or even 1/4 of the size for the Silverlight. Even when I did this - it wasn't a competition on visual quality.

If you're a geek - you will also note that I've intentionally put together a video clip that's got massive particle animations in it. Something that ordinarilly would cause a lot of artifacting and you'd lose the clarity of the flames and smoke. We could add in debris and camera shake and all the usual goodies. To really see the quality level - scroll over the image and switch to full screen mode. This is why you're hearing the hype over Silverlight.

Because with a bit of effort the average person can with very minimal resources and not even a streaming media server, bring a high quality (network tv level) experience to their web site, and do it very quickly. Start to finish - this project took about two hours of my time, and most of it was on getting the flames and smoke right.

Now the question is - "Do you really need that kind of quality?". Thats up to you. I suspect that those businesses that want the professional look and feel are going to ask for it. I also suspect that Flash is going to have to up it's quality levels to match - and they should be able to do so.

Personal videos, corporate films and the like - have a whole new level of play than they have had to date. You'll see amazing things over the next year or two coming, and I will openly predict that we'll be seeing more and more original Web TV shows coming our way. (Shameless plug here for Gemini Division, Dr. Horrible, and others I've written about recently.)

I'm guessing I'll probably have to put up a nice video entry here soon to really show off what I'm talkign about by "personal" video moving up to this level of play - but that's another project. Yes there will probably be a "Silverlight vs. Flash" argument on the web for sometime and we, as developers and designers we will need to deal with the issue.

For me - the choice is going to be clear. I'll provide the user the option to do both. I'll set up my web pages to detect if they have the plug-in installed and offer the option to the user to download the plugin if they want - or use flash if they don't.

You can view the full clip in it's original size at:
http://jakobson.site90.net/silverlight/downtown.html

Silverlight, Advertainment, What am I talking about?

2008-10-05T15:23:00.001-07:00

Was talking to my daughter today who mentioned she knew several people that didn't have TVs and watched most of their video entertainment on the computer. I actually know two people I work with who similarly have replaced their TV with the Internet. Where I don't see this being the trend right away, over the next few years I have no doubt more and more we'll see this.

Which ties in with some comments I've gotten from people and feedback asking what the heck I'm talking about with Silverlight and Advertainment and new media and Web 3.0.

How does it tie in? Well - let's for arguments sake remove the concept that Web 3.0 is some tetonic change in how we use the web. Let's instead go with the idea that Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are not dramatic shifts as we've seen in the media but actually a series of steps taken over a long period that culminated in something the news organizations could hang their hat on and say, "We dub thee 2.0" or whatever.

If that's the case then 2.0 was old news when Facebook and MySpace and blogging were "born" in the eyes of the masses -- and in fact - they were. Just as Google had been around for years before it was a phenomenon.

That being the case I decided to look at what people are doing and what people have been doing - and where it's all heading in my view. Here's what we're seeing...

People are using YouTube and MySpace and FaceBook and online gaming so much - that yes, TV that bastion of brain sucking numbness now has to move on to the Web to compete.

How many people are devoting their time to the internet's new media? The YouTubes and on line video content? Here's something that will make you chuckle - recent studies show there is a drop in on line pornography because users want to watch Youtube.

For the first time ever - Pornography's numbers are dropping - why? Well we're not entirely sure but it does look for all the world that the culprit is simply - we're giving people something more to do that surf the web and locate porn. In a word - content.

The higher the quality of the content - the more people are drawn away from TVs, the more are drawn away from Porn sites and the more advertisers are looking at new ways to make this all work before they lose those billions they're spending ineffectively.

Advertainment - is something we've actually seen for decades. You'd think the video game industry came up with the idea from hearing them tell the story but there's virtually no product you see in a TV or Movie that wasn't placed there.

Advertainment is just a refined version of the same concept - you place products into things without people knowing so they become a culturally significant icon and you buy them without thinking.

When we combine the Internet - and Advertainment we get completely new and very interesting ways of merging the two.

I mentioned in my last post that with the right masking - you can put anything you want on a background or a billboard or even a tv set on a live action video.

Now - here's where you bring in Silverlight - and I probably should issue a patent on this process but probably someone else already has. (If not - it's MINE! MINE I SAY!! <laughs in best Gollum voice ... then chokes>).

For a popular video distributed on line free for fans to watch the process is actually pretty simple if you have silverlight (yes - it can be done with Flash but Flash is not as good with swapping out timelines and video - IMHO). Silverlight - for me, makes it easier so it makes more sense to do it with Silverlight.

You'd first begin by designing your advertainment process. Here's how I'd do mine - I'd set it up so first and foremost we have a good video script.

If the content itself is no good - then people won't come. If they don't come - you can't get the ad dollars. So first thing is to have good content that stands on it's own. So let's assume that you have good content and people will enjoy it on it's own merit.

This is actually the mistake of Gemini Division IHMO - it's really cool, it's technically well done but the plot makes no sense and there's all the depth of a mud puddle in this show. Okay - that's not fair at all.

The mistake with Gemini is not that the content isn't good. The content is great, Rosario Dawson's always a joy and she's joined by a solid supporting cast.

The lack of support here isn't coming from the show. I went back and watched it from start to finish this evening to locate how I got the feeling that it lacked depth.

It's the abbreviated format that seems to be necessitated by the Internet. Each episodes around 5-10 minutes which is very little time for even the best writers and actors to develop a good empathy each episode.

Since we're looking at taking it all in short bursts of 5 minutes or so - there's a lot of plot that you can miss out on if you view them out of order or worse skip an episode or two. To really enjoy it you need to watch them in bursts chained, which is how they're doing the show on the www.geminidivision.com website. Go check it out and you can see how this all comes together nicely.

Fans of SciFi will go there - some will become addicted. (I just received an email while editing this from someone pointing me to a fan forum that's already speculating spoilers for the show. I love it! You know you've arrived as a TV series if you have a spoiler site with fan fiction.) The addiction, the fun of the show, will cause it to become the phenomenon they're looking for. This in turn will give the advertisers the guts to push the limits of entertainment on line I'm hoping that we'll see episodes that allow them to be longer - let the characters have more room to work per episode - that sort of thing.

Anyway - as the advertisers and the "network" get more faith in the media - we'll probably see longer episodes and the "depth" won't be a problem. In fact - the more they support the show the better the content will be, and the more people they'll grab. So this will become a self-fulfilling (and self profiting) series.

So as I said the core of any success with advertainment will be that the shows have to be GOOD.

And my snyde and childish remarks aside - Gemini Division - is very good. Definitely as good as many of the Sci-Fi offerings on network TV this season.

So you have a good show - but the way you shoot it will of course be how some of our magic - the magic I'm talking about anyway - how it happens.

You want to go through your shooting script and define your advertising areas in advance. These are the "ad-elements" - and whenever we're shooting a scene with these we want to shoot it 3 or more times over and above the usual shooting retakes.

Why? Because we'll need to shoot it once with our live action going on... probably putting a traveling green screen behind the actors (not expensive to buy - and even less expensive to make). And we want to of course shoot the "master shot". Then finally - our "ad-element" background shooting - which will allow us to matte in whatever advertising magic we need in post production.

You would then make several "ad element" shots for - well, every advertiser that you have. These shots would then be placed into a "queue" of video elements.

In a showing - it would look at the users cookie or some other preference gathering mechanism, and it would then play which ever background ad-element fits that preference mechanism while it runs the movie.

To the user - all they would see is a normal video. But to us - we're actually sandwiching video footage together and playing it in real time.

And that's really what I'm talking about doing - and what I think others will soon be trying to do. (If you should happen to make money off this process please send checks to ... :-))

Anyway... that's what I've been going on about. I think you can see the benefit of this - and how you could effectively have 1 video episode and use multiple advertisers for the same ad space. It's a highly effective cost model so thats really why I see it happening sooner than later.

When people fly... and the world doesn't look the same anymore.

2008-09-29T00:51:00.001-07:00

Got 3 video clips below...

The first - is a video set extension. Now - this was a very quickie done with a camera set on a fence post and the matte was done in about 15 minutes.

Here's a quick before and after.

Now on the left - you got the original. On the right - we have new trees, mountains and so on. Now - cool as this may be why on earth would you take the time to do this? Because with a little smarts you might do your work once and have the ability to based on a users preferences be able to change advertisements on the fly in video content for users on the web. So that instead of me just walking - it might instead be me walking past a billboard.

Or even walking someplace that you want to have the user go someday. Now the technology to do this is already here. As I pointed out this took me - what 10 minutes to do a simple matte painting. A bit more work and the content that you can create can be very clean and crisp. It's a question of putting in the amount of effort you want to put into this. Content will become more and more important as more and more people turn to the Internet for free entertainment. The better we make the content, the more people will be flocking to us.

Here's the video from that goes along with the clips above.

Now - what all can we do with content? Well just for fun ... my son asked if I could show him how to do the "Superman runs and flies off" thing from Smallville. Which is, surprisingly pretty simple to pull off. First you'll need some simple footage of someone running... then have them jump as high as they can. Once you have that, go to the frame with the highest portion of the jump. You 'll need to take that frame and copy it to a editor. You'll need to clip out just the person in mid jump and leave the background transparent.

Once you have that copy it back into your composition software. Place it on the image, at a spot after the person running is now completely out of the shot. Begin from the highest jump frame - stretch the image and begin to adjust it over the five or six frames that take the image out of the shot. Add some motion blur - and if you want to be fancy add some particle effects and a sound effect. (See video clip #2).

Tim Brenners Lee is an Idiot...

2008-09-25T08:06:00.001-07:00

Okay - he's not. He's a very smart man. But those who parrot his words as if they were some written in stone fact are leaning toward being that one guy that the village is missing - if you know what I mean. If you do - just nod your head. Good.

I recently posited a question on LinkedIn regarding Web 3.0 - and it's in fact based on an earlier blog post here - and I specifically said I would not accept answers parroting Eric Schmidt or Tim Brenners Lee. Not because I disagree with the answers - but because I wanted peoples opinions... not regurgitating up to me what you read last week.

Here's the reality - and I'm pretty sure Tim Brenners Lee would agree with me on this, if you can't come up with your own definition of something - if you can't percolate up a NEW idea - if when asked to look to the future you robotically parrot out what you read this week as ideas for something... then your problem is something that needs to be addressed. Put down the text books and learn to use your creative thinking functions because they are swiftly dying.

Having defined why I called Tim Brenners Lee an Idiot - I'll now do something rude to all of you who keep insisting that Web 3.0 is the "Semantic Web" with machines talking to each other and blah, blah, blah... yes I've seen the video clips too people. It was a great speech. Just because a man whose famous says, "This is what I think" doesn't make it so. Later on - I'll do the name dropping game. If I had a nickel for every time a smart man said something that never came true - I'd have bought the Internet from Al Gore years ago.

But - for the sake of argument - let's assume Tim is right and Web 3.0 is the "Semantic Web" where machines talk to each other and information you generate is shared safely and fluidly back and forth. Uh... people... we have that. It's called Amazon.com. I'm only half joking here. Essentially any sufficiently advanced eCommerce system does just exactly what Tim Brenners Lee has called a "Semantic Web", and many of the Intranets for global corporations have similar mechanisms that take that even farther for ticketing and asset tracking and so on. Semantic Webs? Already here. Been here for years.

If that is the case then we need to start discussing Web 4.0. Because Web 3.0 came and went already. It's been here for about 7 years that I'm aware of. In fact Google and IBM and almost any major global corporation on the planet has that very scenario running one degree or another. If you're hoping for it to become something that Joe and Jane User do - as Sir Brenners Lee discusses - it's probably not going to happen because stop and ask yourself why they'd do it.

(Sighs)

In my time I've had the pleasure of listening to lectures from some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. From Hawking (in Salt Lake City before many of you even could power up a computer) and Eric Cornell in Physics (in Boulder with his Squirt Guns) and from Cliff Stoval to, yes, Tim Brenners Lee on subjects such as the internet. These are really really brilliant men. (Told you I could do the name dropping game ... here let me bring this home now...)

As Jakob Neilsen once said to me - well okay it wasn't to me specifically, but I was in the audience ... What is it that makes someone want to do that? Do they have a need to? Or do you you have a need to prove your viewpoint? Show me the need.

Joe and Jane User have no need to personally utilize a Semantic Web. And thats why the user front end for such a beast will not come into being. The back end of it - yeah - in fact as I pointed out most places already have it to one extent or another - that will be here if it isn't already. But no - the Semantic Web is not Web 3.0, and repeating that it will isn't going to change it.

Tim Brenners Lee is a great man. Almost all of his work I've enjoyed immensely but you can't put too much into predictions. Not by me. Not by him, not by anyone. The world evolves and it evolves very quickly when we involve technology. But it's always driven by peoples needs.

When Tim defined Web 3.0 he never explained how this met anyones needs. At least not to my satisfaction. He explained how it met their needs to his justifications and it's a beautiful vision of technology but it is near sighted, it doesn't take into account that corporate infrastructures have often had these very technologies in place for nearly a decade (ever wonder how Amazon or any great eCommerce site works? Yes - that is Brenners Lee's Semantic web in Action!). So that's not web 3.0. We have Tim Brenners Lee's vision of that right now in many ways.

What we don't have and what I have been asking for... is for people to give me their definition of that.

Tim Brenners Lee is a brilliant technologist. So is - Eric Schmidt - well ... okay he's not a Tim Brenners Lee, but I'd let him rebuild my laptop - and a lot of people keep quoting him also, and refering me to links of videos by both of them.

Which ... btw ... I find incredibly ironic that they find fault with my defining video entertainment and content as not being a core component of web 3.0... by sending me links of video content.

Now, I'm not saying that I know it all. Nor to be really honest am I saying that Video content is 3.0. It's not. But user generated content in new media will be. It will be when it's self sustaining - when it pays for itself in some fashion, and when it has it's own social group followings which help sustain it not only from a fiscal point - but also from a user generated base view point.

Many years ago, a very bright, but very... odd... artist named Andy Warhol said (and I'm paraphrasing) "..In the future everyone will have 15 minutes of fame.". I would go so far as to say that Web 3.0 will allow those who have the drive - to achieve that fame.

That having "living" content - either 3D or Video or some such level of interactive visual construct which is updated, has it's own stories, it's own life - be it a personal documentary, or something like "The Guild" (my obligatory Felicia Day plug) or Dr. Horrible (my obligatory Josh Whedon plug) or even works like Doktor Sleepless (my obligatory Warren Ellis plug) will be web 3.0.

That's my take. It doesn't make me smarter than Tim Brenners Lee. But it does make me smart enough to not make him... an idiot.

Expression Suite, Adobe Suite… it’s a suite world.

2008-09-24T14:20:00.001-07:00

Sorry for posting these out of order here – but it’s been a bit hectic as I move things from the older blogs I can’t find the time to maintain. (Why I ever felt the need to break things among 4 blog sites or more I’ll never know. I’m writing it off to Warren Ellis Envy and going with that.)

So… having said that let’s discuss what’s and whys of Microsoft’s Expression suite and Adobe’s CS3 Suite because that seems to be the topic of the day for many designers and developers.

I’m not going to compare them as much as discuss their implications based on what they can do and why.

Obviously – both are designed to create and design and develop applications that are for the web and desktop to some extent although Microsoft’s Expression leans more to the desktop as well as the web. But both come from design roots.

Expressions, was originally a designer tool brought into the Microsoft fold – from it’s Expressions Designer. It, when combined with Expressions Blend and Expressions Encoder allows for some very cool applications in very swift order that work with WPF (Windows Presentation Framework) and Silverlight the new toy on the web everyones been talking about.

Now the reason why everyone keeps talking about it is because it’s supposed to be the “Flash Killer”. Which – it’s not, in fact if you look closely at what it is – it’s a lot more than just something to be used for Flash type presentations. It’s actually meant to allow a user to have most of the functionality of a full blown application – with a really slick GUI presentation system.

Flash on the other hand is designed to give you all the functionality of a really slick GUI presentation system, with a lot of things that can be done with applications. Now, you can argue with me all you like on this point – but the fact is – Flash added the ability to code more as an offshoot of it’s graphics capabilities than if it had started out with that in mind. Silverlight in many ways is more an ActiveX killer than a Flash killer because in a lot of ways apps generated in Silverlight do everything that ActiveX showed promise of, have all the power of Flash based abilities and do so with half the effort.

Now, there are things you can do in Flash that you can’t do in Silverlight and more than likely won’t be able to do for a good while. Stuff like transparent overlays, etc., which – yes you could and can and I’m sure someone will do – but not as easily as Flash does them. Silverlight however does have a heck of a leg up on Flash in one regard – it’s video capabilities are very impressive. The quality, the stability are such that it’s not a competition. Now, will Silverlight catch up to Flash in ease of use and understanding Designers? I have no clue – but I suspect it will be a bit before we see a lot there. (Mind you – this is my opinion – not my knowledge. I have no clue what the Silverlight team or the Expression has up their sleeve any more than the next bloke walking down the street who reads the trade papers. )

But this is the core of it. It’s a question of priorities and how they evolved – not a question of what they can do now, and what they obviously want to do down the road. Adobe is of the land of the designer, Microsoft is of the land of the developer. Both – are very definitely racing to one destination with their products.

Adobe Suite – has a very solid and well established Graphical core to it’s purpose. From Photoshop to Adobe After Effects – the goal is to take a project and provide all you need to produce an application that is visually stunning and does the job.

Expression Suite – of course is tied very closely (in fact you can open your Blend projects) with Visual Studio so code is it’s core. It’s meant to take an application and give it all it needs to be stunning and do the job.

But what Job is that that these tools are pointing us to?

My version of a web history lesson for designers and developers…

In the early days of both web and desktop development – Graphics meant images. Still, strong images. Like a color newspaper if you were making web pages. But Macromedia changed all of that. They created something called “Flash”. This very cool vector based animation tool that allowed people to do all kinds of very cool and very crazy web sites and applications. Flash became so over used and so overly popular that there were websites devoted to banning it from the internet because every web site seemed to need it for a while there, and the truth is – almost none did.

Eventually we learned as designers and developers that just because we “could” do something didn’t mean we “should” do it. We got control over our Flash jones – and started using it for serious work. LIttle Java scripted and Action Scripted things at first. Then more complicated things. But it to be honest lacked the punch of solid software code. ASP and JSP and Java became the word of the day and for a while it looked as though we’d see Flash relegated to being icing on a cake.

So Macromedia gave us better ActionScript and Adobe, who to be honest needed a good place to get into the web buisness as something other than “the guys that gave us Photoshop and Acrobat” bought out Macromedia. Macromedia had worked well with most Adobe tools so this wasn’t a surprise to many of us – it was to be honest pretty much expected once they’d bought Coldfusion and Dreamweaver.

What was surprising for many of us… was that Microsoft hadn’t bought them first.

Microsoft, needed to get into the graphics game had always had ASP, and ASP.NET and was gaining ground with web based application back ends. They had the desktop software development market but lets face it – they didn’t have a tool to give all that code something to do. After not acquiring Macromedia’s baby Flash – that put them in need of something that would allow them to get some bling into things. Microsoft decided to roll their own tool – and while they were at it, they decided to roll it to the direction they were looking at for tools.

Even though it’s still in it’s baby steps stage – Blend is a pretty impressive first effort. When tied into the tools (Expression Design and Visual Studio) you have a very powerful app builder. One that works as well for desktop apps as it does for web apps.

The Future… or Why the Heck All These Goofy Video Tools?

Now – what’s most interesting about the Suites from Adobe and Microsoft is very clearly one thing… video plays a big role. We don’t know why. We don’t know how – but it does. It does because right in the middle of both suites – what takes up a lot of product real estate – are tools used to edit and encode video and incorporate them into applications.

Guess what? When the two biggest hammerheads of the web shark world drop that much effort into something – they’ve already looked at the landscape and decided there is a big market for it. It’s too expensive to take up all that product real estate in a suite, unless you expect the users will be using it. Using it… a Lot. Like… big time.

So – now comes the question for all good developers and designers. What skills do these tools bring to your game? The ability to encode and incorporate video into your tools. To edit that video. To work around a moving space – and even a moving 3D space.

We as developers and designers need to understand this. We need to embrace it and start working on not just the current interfaces for users. Two Dimensional Flat interfaces – but interfaces which move. Move fluidly, and can be interchanged on the fly, and will activate other things.

Buttons that when you pass over them don’t just give you a display icon or a tool tip – but thumbnails of what the button actually is expected to do – even microtutorials in some cases. We need to re-evaluate what a button is – what is interaction? Do we need to explain something when we can just show them it as quickly as they can read it? Will web sites and applications in the future offer Video first – with an option to down load a text tutorial and FAQ as the right click – instead of the other way around like we have it today?

Suite tools – allow us to bring a project from cradle to grave. With one person having in their hands the ability to trade a lot of hats in the work flow. A lot of different job needs and different job skills. Originally, a developer – simply needed to code. They had very little need to understand graphics and UI. Designers code? Madness! But we’ve evolved and most of us can – to varying extents do both.

Flash – changed that. Developers had to now consider moving graphics interfaces, the forms we built no longer had to be square, and slide like tiles across a window. They could be any color, and any shape.

Now we are faced with new challenges and new skills to be added to our tool box. We now have to understand video – not merely motion graphics but video itself. We now have to have an understanding of how to tell a story, depth to our visuals, our vision and our content itself.

And… all of that still needs to actually fit a purpose, a need, a functional coded application requirement. Or all the coolness will give us what we had in the early abusively torrential Flash Website days of the internet. We need to be responsible and understand how such tools can work without over powering.

We’ll need to understand storyboarding that incorporates actions based on user input. We’ll need to be able to provide our video – with a technical understanding of what’s going on with the machine.

Ms. Dewey – and Left vs. Right are cool interfaces. But they’re a prototype and not the model to set the standard by. We – are who will set the standards and drive the direction. But to do that we need the skills. Adobe and Expression Suites give us the tools – we just… need to develop them.

Web 3.0 has been paid for by these fine Sponsors…

2008-09-24T12:18:00.001-07:00

or as I like to think of it…

The Future of your Job in IT

Since I moved over to the new blog site, I’ve done a couple of write ups of some basic code that involves Usability, Microsoft Expression Blend and Designer, and similar tools and I’ve made mention of Silverlight, and WPF and of all things… Adobe After Effects and even Wondertouch software’s tools lately. I’ve hinted that these are skills everyone needs in the time to come.

But a lot of these are design elements, a lot of these are video production tools and CGI tools. And Usability … how does that tie in to them? And more importantly how does all of that translate into real world work – if you’re not working for a global-mega-conglomerate with a multi-bahzillion dollar budget how often will you need those tools those skills?

I mean, c’mon I can’t really expect Joe Developer or Jane Designer out there to break out what amounts to a couple grand in software just for a simple database application right?

So here’s where I bring together some of these strange elements of design and development into something that makes sense and direction to this scattered madness.

About two months ago I began noticing a trend in Program Management and Developer recruiters in the IT industry that called me about jobs. Now, generally they ask for experience in Java or Flash for design work, and they ask about C# or C or C++ if it’s an application … sometimes they toss in WinAPI or Win32 if they are trying to sound like they know things. If it’s a Web job – it’s ASP.NET or C# and Visual Studio.

But what triggered was suddenly the number of calls for skills with WPF, for Silverlight and this caught my attention. Not one or two – but around 15 different recruiters asking for skills in these areas in 2 months. So this kind of a trend isn’t coming … it’s hit. Odds are it’s only going to get bigger.

Why? Why not just go with Flash which is the traditional standby, or GDI? Good question. So I started paying attention to what they wanted in the job requirements I was seeing. The trend is very clear – video is finally coming of age and it doesn’t matter if you’re Microsoft or IBM or Saul’s All Night Diner out on Route 4… people know that it’s on the web.

Recently a study showed that an alarming number of people are doing most of their entertainment viewing over the Internet. Movies and TV shows which last year were just “Tivo’d” are now – on demand for people. And that’s not where the entertainment trail ends. The Internet, and computers in general are finally pushing the envelope between work and play areas for games into entertainment centers. (Bill Gates should be proud – he’s only been saying this was coming for about 15 years.)

If we learned anything from Radio, TV, and the Internet – it’s that once there’s a market, people figure out how to advertise on it effectively. Recently Sci-Fi channel has had a very strange and for the most part really cheesey little known all internet series going called, “Gemini Division” starring Rosaria Dawson and Justin Hartley (who seems to be in everything on TV lately from Smallville to Supernatural to you name it – I frankly expect him to turn up on Two-and-a-Half men next week just because he’s missed that show).

Cool huh? Content that only people on the Internet – only people with a computer… get. It’s directed at a specific kind of user and that user is “US” – the geeks have finally inherited the earth!

But… Now it’s time to stop and ask… who’s paying the tax on all that real estate? I mean lets face it – uninterrupted shows with big name actors and all aimed at us – that ain’t cheap. Someone has to pay these people so … who is it? Here’s a clue… you’ll see something like this in every episode. What’s that uber cool interface on her uber cool video/internet phone of the future? Well it’s some kind of new never seen before Microsoft Mobile device interface isn’t it? Wait… how’s she locating stuff? Why… it’s Microsoft Live Search and Microsoft Live Maps.

In the time span of almost 15 seconds – Microsoft got more positive exposure with a directed audience they KNOW is interested in their product than if they’d paid for the entire show… and no – they didn’t. Because they’re not the only advertiser in the show… there are dozens. The commercials don’t interrupt the show – because they’re all through it. The commercials ARE the show.

And this isn’t the only show to do this. Let’s discuss one of my favorite shows which has been frankly over the

Made in Eureka Degree for Men

top with the whole “we’re actually a commercial” concept. In fact they came right out the first episode this season and told us that they were going to do this – right to our faces.

At the end of the first episode – they had the cast ask “Hey whats all this stuff?” as the guys from the Degree for Men came pushing in crate after crate of the product on set. The response was and yes I am paraphrasing, “You’ll be seeing a lot of changes around here, we’re going to be profitable and this is one of the first of many corporate sponsors for (Eureka).”. Which is exactly what was going on in real life – making it even more fun to see it on the show.

They not only did real Degree for Men commercials with the cast in character for spots during the shows – they’ve taken it a step farther and it’s a running gag in the show that they’ve even used to save the day with Degree for Men – able to withstand the blistering heat of the sun!

And – btw – the shows are all downloadable off the Internet. Something we’re seeing over and over all across the internet. In time – we’re likely to see content and bidding wars from sponsors for shows on the internet. Got a video blog that’s popular? Here’s $5,000 if you suck down a cola with the right brand – and only that cola. That’s where its not just heading – its already there in some parts of the net.

So where does that fit into us as developers and designers for the web and the desktop? Where do we fit into all of this?

If you think for one second that this is a fad and it’s going to die out – you’re sadly mistaken. This is now officially a multibillion dollar a year market that has just been tapped. It’s the reinvention of the Internet for the 3rd time. This is … the Web 3.0.

I’ll make the prediction that it’ll start slowly for most – initially it’s going to be people asking, “Hey I’ve got a car company – what would it take to make a TV show just around my car company… just stupid like 20 –30 second skits to put on our web page that we update every month or so??”.

That’s where it starts. And then when someone does it – someone else will say, “You know who you should talk to is Bob Jakobson <insert your name for mine here> … I saw some of his work and it’s freakin great! You bring him your video and he cleans it up and adds computer effects and drops it on your web site and the fee is pretty damn cheap.”.

The next thing you know guess what? We’re all back in the days when anyone who knew Flash and Actionscript could be guaranteed a job.

And… it’s not going to stop there. It’ll be desktop apps and sidebar widgets and you name it.

Now do you see why I’ve been going in this direction? Because it’s the only direction we have in a very uncertain economy that puts us ahead of the pack – that puts us forward. And at the end of the day that’s really what it’s about for every designer or developer out there, being able to pay the bills with our day jobs while we dream of what the future is and push one step farther into it.

So… next time – I will update you with more coolness on this front with more toys and code and fun now that we’ve established the direction. :-)