theKiesch

Interesting…

Say what you want about Flash and the web in regards to usability, accessibility, and anything else. It’s still pretty freakin’ cool when it’s used right.

After recently working on a Flash project for a customer, I started really thinking about getting back into it for games. That is probably one area where Flash will still win is in game development. I’ve always had ideas to build a game engine in Flash and use PHP to build dynamic XML files that would load levels and assets to use such as backgrounds, items, story, etc.

Well now that I’m using Rails a lot more, and it’s a lot easier to build XML with the Rails framework, I think I might start tinkering with the idea again.

I’ve checked out several books on ActionScript 3.0 but hadn’t really found anything yet. Most of the books were also on using Flex, which is definitely something I want to look into, but haven’t had the time and Flash is just what I’m familiar with right now.

I decided to check the local bookstore and ended up coming home with Gary Rosenzweig’s book. Scanning through the chapters, it looked fairly basic compared to previous Flash game books I have read, but trying to learn AS3, I decided to go ahead and check out out.

I was glad I did. This has been a great introduction to AS3 for me. In just the first chapter, the examples have you dynamically creating objects and placing them on the stage, and the second chapter had some very informative information on many of the basics. After that, most of the chapters walk through building complete games from scratch.

I’m very excited and inspired and hope to finish the book this week. Todd may live again!

I had written about blogging from TextMate on an older version of theKiesch and recently found a backup of older articles. I thought it would make a good permanent article on here so I am re-posting with a few cool things I’ve picked up after using it a while.

TextMate has been an unofficial standard for Rails developers for quite some time. With all of the shortcuts and snippets, I sometimes don’t know how I would survive without it. But there are tons of other uses for this simple-yet-powerful text editor.

Allan Odgaard posted a screencast almost two years ago about using the editor to write blog posts. It shows anyone how to get everything set up to start. I’ve been using it almost exclusively to write my blog posts every since I had seen this.

I can add images like the following one by just dragging the image onto the textarea.

It automatically adds alt tags using a human readable version of the filename.

Another thing I really like is that if I have a url currently in my clipboard, I can select a section of text and my pressing ctrl+shift+l it will take the text and wrap it in an “a” tag with a link to the current site on the clipboard. Not only that, but it adds a title tag to your link with the web page’s title.

While on my 30 streak of posting every day, I’ve also been post-dating the articles so I can write them ahead of time. I can simple add Date: 2008-05-13 to the meta information at the top and it will hold off until that date.

One of the problems I had before though was that I couldn’t post tags. I was using the ultimate tag warrior plugin and since that wasn’t a built in feature of WordPress I had to still sign in and add tags, but after 2.3, you can by specifying the Keywords in the meta information as well.

Sometimes it’s easier to write when I have no other distractions. There is also an OSX plugin that lets you make any application full screen without the title bar showing. You can get the Megazoomer plugin for free and just press command-enter to enter full-screen mode.

One of the only things I haven’t yet figured out how to do is assign custom fields. A lot of the magazine style themes using custom fields to assign images with a post, so if you have one of these said themes you may still have to set that manually, but once it is posted you’ll be able to use TextMate to edit the posts later on.

It’s hard to believe that not too long ago, email was something I just didn’t get. It was about as important to me as the “junk drawer” in our kitchen where we kept the twisty ties and the large collection of used batteries that don’t work anymore. It was where I wasted time deleting forwards and viagra ads. If someone really needed me… they could call.

Today things are much different. Email is one of my lifelines. When I know something important is coming in, I find myself obsessively hovering over the “check mail” button. click. click. click. My email client always open and I try my best to respond to any that require action in about 5 minutes.

The transition between then and now was a bumpy road. My disregard for the importance of email just didn’t fit with customers’ plans as I started to get more freelance work. I figured, if they sent a message by email, it must not be very important. And so, it was not uncommon for me to wait days, or even weeks to respond. The more I realized that this was not the case, the more I was also sucked into this lifestyle of depending on email as a major part of communication. But as my inbox grew, things became very disorganized. I couldn’t remember if there was an email I needed to respond to, and couldn’t keep track of the ones I had responded to.

It was around the end of last year when I first heard about “Inbox Zero”. Merlin Mann of 43 Folders had given a talk at Google on better ways to manage your email. I knew my current system (of doing nothing and letting things collect in the inbox) wasn’t working, so without watching Merlin’s talk, I just assumed what I needed to do by the title.

I knew that Merlin was really big on Getting Things Done. Anyone that isn’t familiar with GTD, it’s basically all about developing a trusted system of keeping your mental inbox clear. You take all of the “stuff” and put it somewhere else, whether it be on paper or in some sort of todo application on your computer, therefore freeing up the worry and stress in your mind. So, my first assumption about Inbox Zero was correct. All of the emails in my inbox represented tasks, and if they were completed, then they did not need to be there, cluttering up my other emails.

It was the next assumption I made about Inbox Zero that really killed me. I figured getting the emails out of the inbox meant taking every single email and either deleting it or figuring out a folder system to keep everything neatly organized in. Well, 6,000 emails and 4-5 hours later, my inbox was empty. It felt great, but it didn’t last long. Every time I had a few new emails, I had to stop and think: What folder should I put this in? It became very time consuming, and if I didn’t already have a folder that the current email fit in, I had to stop what I was doing and create one. It really took my attention from what I needed to do and was not very agile. I was constantly trying to come up with a better schema of folders so that I could file everything properly. After coming up with a better way, it meant going through all of my emails again and re-organizing. I think I lasted all but one week on this system and then got tired.

A couple months later, my inbox was back up to 700 emails or so that I’d kept. Occasionally I put things in folders but for the most part I was just let it keep filling up. My organization problems began to creep up again, so I decided to give Inbox Zero another try. This time I actually watched Merlin’s talk to see if there was anything I was missing.

Sure enough, there was! He described almost exactly what I was doing with the folder system, and talked about the problems associated with that. You really only need one folder. I’ve labeled mine Archive, and put everything in it once it’s “complete”. Search features are sophisticated enough to not need multiple folders. I can search who an email was from, who it was to, what’s in the subject or even search by message content. There hasn’t been an email that I haven’t been able to find by just searching. I’ve been using this system of keeping up with everything for a while. Out of sight, out of mind is what really helps me feel good about what I’m not doing, just because I’ll always be able to come back to my emails and pick right up where I left off.

If you want to check out Merlin’s talk on Inbox Zero you can check it out on google video.

This is review is Spoiler Free!

Skeptical is the best word I can think of to describe my thoughts while entering the theatre this weekend. While I admit I wasn’t a big follower of the show, when I was able to catch Speed Racer on TV, it was a favorite of mine growing up. There was just something about the quirky humor and the still images of Speed in his car as the backgrounds whizzed by that always caught my attention.

This tv show-turned-movie created by anyone would be enough to bring on a little doubt, but knowing that it was re-thought by the Wachowski Brothers brought on even more speculation. What would it be like? Although I really enjoyed The Matrix (the first one) and V for Vendetta, “family” just isn’t a word that would come to mind.

As the movie tried to make a big start, I was a little worried. Scenes cut back and forth from Speed’s childhood, one of his first big races, and scenes of his older brother Rex leaving the family to race on his own. It started feeling forced and I was also concerned that all of the special effect cards were being laid out on the table right away.

There was definitely more to it though. One of the ingredients that made Speed Racer different from a lot of the other cartoons was the interaction between him and the rest of the family, almost like the Partridge Family of racing. The movie did not disappoint in this area and they remembered to give it a lot of heart. In fact, it was most of the scenes with his family that seemed to be taken right out of the show itself. I especially felt this way when watching Spritle and his pet chimpanzee Chim Chim.

While some of the effects and the directing style might come across as silly to anyone not familiar with the TV series, I really appreciated the attention to detail and the effort put into giving it a real cartoon feel. It was also neat to watch the Mach 5 speed through all of the zany twists and turns throughout each race, giving a “virtual roller coaster” feel at times.

The choice in cast was excellent. Not being a fan of John Goodman, I can still say that I thought he did an excellent job of playing Pops. I also thought Emile Hirsch did a great job of capturing the static anime-like facial expressions of Speed from the cartoon (hmm… maybe that doesn’t say much for his acting skills.) Matthew Fox did an okay job as Racer X but it almost seemed like the heavy voice he was using didn’t even convince himself. Towards the beginning of his character being introduced into the film, he almost seemed to smirk like he was trying to stifle a few laughs as he spoke.

Overall the movie was very entertaining and I would definitely recommend it to any fans of the show. I was a little disappointed when half of the family died at the end. (by the way, totally just kidding )

Everything starts fairly subtle. Things changed so slowly that I didn’t notice how tired I was getting after walking from my car to my front door. I didn’t notice that I was having trouble breathing when walking up a flight of stairs. I didn’t notice that I had gained almost 40 pounds in the last 4 years!

Well about three months ago, I began to notice. I put my foot down though and made a decision to change.

What I’ve been doing has worked surprisingly well! On average I have lost about 10 pounds every 3 weeks (actually it might have been more had it not been for a little vacation my wife and I took in between.) I haven’t had to exercise or starve myself either, although the exercise probably wouldn’t hurt.

Here is a list of things that I have done to get the weight off. No gimmicks. No pills. Just a little knowledge about how my metabolism works and a little self-control:

1. Little to no breads

   I’m not talking about the Atkins diet here, but if you don’t have a very active lifestyle, the carbs don’t help. They’ll sit there and eventually turn into fat.

2. Shake it up!

   Your metabolism has a mind of it’s own. It’s “goal” is to maintain your weight, so if you eat the same thing all of the time it will adjust itself accordingly. If you eat a lot of protein, switch it up with vegetables and fruit. You’re going to “trick” your body since it won’t know what’s coming, and eventually start shedding those pounds.

3. Eat 4 times a day

   Lot’s of people who work early mornings find it hard to have breakfast. This is very important! If you find it hard to make time, take and apple or orange with you on the drive to work. Meals should be at least 2 1/2 hours apart. Make sure to keep it balanced as far as portions go, and try to have your last meal before 8pm.

4. Eat fruit only one day a week

   This goes along with #2 kind of. Any skinned fruits will work (oranges, apples, grapes). No bananas.

5. Eat slow

   It can take as much as 15 minutes for your body to realize that it’s had enough. If you eat fast, your body will be telling you that it’s full after it’s too late. Do your best to make your meals last about 30 minutes. If you can’t do that, it’s better to stop early than to eat too much. Just try to be in tune with your body as much as possible. The more you do, the easier it becomes to know when you’ll be full ahead of time.

6. Stop when satisfied, not full

   The difference between being satisfied and full are big when trying to lose weight. A good way to decide is by asking yourself “will this be enough to keep me from being hungry before the next meal?”

7. Take breaks

   I really can’t stress how important this rule is! Right now I’m keeping up with the diet and taking about 1 or 2 days on the weekend to splurge. Not only does it help with #2 but it will also help you keep your sanity! It’s the one factor that has kept me going for 3 months. It is still important to maintain portions though. You don’t want to gain all of your weight back every weekend. You might want to still play by #6 to decide when to stop eating.

Here is a list of some of the foods I’ve been eating:

• Proteins
  • bacon
  • eggs
  • chicken
  • sliced ham
  • roast beef
  • tuna
• Fruits
  • apples
  • oranges
  • grapes
  • grapefruit
  • strawberries
  • fruit salad (with lite whipped topping)
• Vegetables
  • green beans
  • carrots
  • celery
  • baked beans (vegetable?)
  • salad
  • spinach
• Dairy
  • sliced cheese
  • low fat milk
  • low fat frozen yogurt

So far my only regret is that I didn’t start this sooner. At my current rate of weight loss, I will have lost 50 pounds by June. Once I reach my total weight loss goal, I’ll be posting another surprise I’ve been working on.

And if you don’t believe me:

Every time I put up a new blog post, I’m faced with a tough decision.

I don’t know what category to use. Should I make a new one? Is there one already created that would fit this post? The one thing I do know is that I spend entirely too much time thinking about it. Categories are great if you have several broad topics to post about but for me, I’m posting about a lot of random little things. They can be anything from web development to a review of my newest toothbrush. I think categories are just too confusing.

Lucky for me there is another alternative: Tags. Now I can just quickly post whatever I want, add a few keywords and not worry about it cluttering up the site. I’ve taken all of the current articles and moved them to a “General” category and will just use tags as the main taxonomy for theKiesch.

This will also work better for my new theme which I’ve started working on. I’m pretty excited about it cause it’s gonna rock your face off!

A while back, I was singing for a band called Difuzhan. Like everyone else in the band (and I’m sure this goes with almost everyone’s first band) I was very naive. We were gonna get big! We were gonna travel the world and be the best band anyone had ever heard! I even thought to myself about how everyone else does say this but we were different! (just like everyone else )

The band did start to grow. We had lots of friends that followed us and we met a lot of new people as well. Towards the end, we were actually starting to plays shows on a regular basis (by regular I mean maybe once or twice a month). It wasn’t uncommon for about 30-50 people to come see us on any given night we played.

Now in our minds, this was nowhere near where we wanted to be. Hell, we were rockstars after all… We just figured we hadn’t met the right people or been noticed by the right record label, that’s all. This attitude showed! Instead of friends, they were fans. Things became a lot less personal, despite the fact that all of these people were paying as much as $12 each to come see us play. I always took that for granted because in my selfish mind they were just stepping stones on my way to the top.

Thirty people might not sound like a lot of people, but think about it. How many friends would you have to ask to come see you, and pay money for it before you get to 30? I have problems getting people over to my house for free sometimes! That is 30 people that took their time to drive downtown, pay for parking in most cases on top of paying for admission to the club we were playing at. I would call that a success!

Now come back to the present. I’m just now coming out of the same pattern of naivety. I’m working as a web developer and was determined that I was going to build the next Facebook or YouTube. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of startups trying to do the same thing, but I’m different. I’m special, and they’re not.

I’m a rockstar with nothing to show for it all over again!

I occasionally think back to the “band days” and wonder about how things would be different, had my attitude changed. What if I had seen our successes and been thankful? What if I had spent the time to give every single person coming to see us the appreciation they deserved?

In all reality, my chances of being “big” at anything are 1 in 100,000; at least by most people’s standards. In some cases the odds are even lower than that!

I don’t need tons of money. I don’t need to be a rockstar. Just making a living doing something you love is much more achievable and a lot of people lose sight of that in hopes of “making it”. David Heinemeier Hansson recently gave a talk on the secret to making money online. He simply shows that having only 400 customers paying about $40 a month is almost $200,000 a year in profits. For me, that’s a lot of money. Would tons of people know about my website / product / company? Four hundred isn’t a lot by most standards, but I would definitely call that successful.

Despite sending me bad equipment and a few other hiccups along the way, the level of support I’ve received from AT&T has been pretty awesome. I recently had to switch from cable to DSL and am still waiting on my service to be activated but even at this point I’m impressed.

My wife and I use our cell phones all of the time and there really hasn’t been a need for an actual land line. That has been the primary reason for using cable instead of DSL. Now that we can’t use our cable service anymore though, I decided that it would be cheaper to suck it up and get a phone line just so that we can have a connection at home. Well, as it turns out, AT&T have a new metered service that they are testing out. I don’t know exactly what it is or how it works yet, but long story short, we don’t need a land line so it will be a little cheaper.

My service should have been activated almost 2 days ago and the day after it was supposedly set up, I got a call from an AT&T employee here in Dallas informing me that we were one of the test customers on a new service. He said it was showing that we hadn’t transferred any data and was wondering if everything was okay. I was caught off guard a little bit by the fact that they were be proactive about getting me set up. After stumbling over my words a little bit I finally explained that we were given faulty equipment and that the telephone support wouldn’t even speak with me about the modem until after my activation date.

He seemed a little upset and asked that I not even call customer care anymore and to just call him if we had any further issues. He also said he would take care of everything, and get me a new modem if I found that the one I received actually was bad.

Yesterday morning it was in fact not working still. I gave him a call and instead of having to wait on a new modem being shipped, he drove to my workplace to personally bring me a new one. He gave me his cell number as well and said that I was to call him if I had any problems.

wow!

I would have never expected that. So, while I still have not been able to connect to the internet at home, I feel at ease knowing that someone cares.

Sometime last year I received a letter from the property management at my apartment complex saying that they’ve done an audit and found that I was not subscribed to my cable TV service through them, and that they were going to shut it off. Well, I wasn’t expecting cable TV. My wife and I don’t even watch television, but I was signed up for cable internet. Before making a fuss about my internet getting shut off for no reason I decided to wait and see what happens. Sure enough, the day they said it would be shut off, I stopped receiving internet connection.

I called up to the office and was basically told that I had to sign up for their partner’s cable TV service in order to get a connection. I don’t think so. I’m not going to pay an extra $40 a month just so they will leave my connection open and I can pay someone else for my internet.

I started calling my ISP. At first I was asking about the deal they have set up with my apartment complex. Either no one knew what I was talking about or “couldn’t say” what was going on. I gave up and decided to try a different approach. I’m going to play stupid and pretend like I don’t know the cable TV and my internet goes through the same line. So I called them and just told them that I wasn’t able to connect. Nothing more. I went through the whole schpeel of turning my computer off and back on, power cycling the modem and router as well until they decided that there was nothing they could do except for send a repair person out.

I patiently waited for a few days until someone could come out and run all of their tests to tell me what I basically already knew: the line is dead. He went outside for a few minutes and viola! my internet is back on.

I was fine for 6 months, until there was another audit and I received the same letter again. It was like deja vu. I did the exact same thing: played stupid and called in to service, they went through all their troubleshooting steps, and scheduled a service call when they couldn’t fix it from their end. The service guy went outside for a few minutes and my internet was back on.

I basically considered the patience I had to endure every 6 months an ok alternative to having to pay the extra cable fees my apartment wanted to charge. Until they got smart that is… two weeks ago I received a different letter. They basically said that I was in breech of my contract with them and I had 14 days to correct the problem or leave. wow! Well, I gave the office another call, and this time they actually pretended to listen. They gave me the number to the corporate office and they thought there might be a filter that can be put on the cable line to make sure I’m not getting TV channels. A few days later I get a call from them saying that there actually isn’t a filter and that the same rules that apply to everyone else apply to me as well.

The rest of the details do not matter so much. Basically my cable ISP has lost a customer because of a reseller deal with my apartment (I believe most apartments make the same sort of deal so they can offer free cable as one of the perks).

As for me, I’ve switched to DSL. It turns out that even with having to get a phone line it ended up being cheaper. But I’m still very upset that the company who managers our property would rather us be unhappy and make a few extra bucks on the side.