Month: September 2007

Unique vs Shared keywords

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Hide verses Archive

Ed Kohler recently posted an article entitled Archive vs Hide on Gmail and Google Docs. In this article he talks about the different keywords Google uses to describe essentially the same functionality. This is an issue that is not unique to Google. I’ve seen the same problem across teams where I work as well as within my own work. Another similar problem I see all the time is when the same keyword is used by two different products to refer to different things. This is something that runs rampant where I work and so I’d like to provide a few tips to help avoid these problems.

  1. Publicized Usage – Whether kept internal to the company or not, nothing can help reduce multiple keywords and multiple keyword definitions than letting other teams know what keywords you’ve used and for what.
  2. Regular Collaboration – Preventing the problem is better than dealing with the aftermath, but the only way to find out if the problem exists and to come up with strategies for resolving the problem is collaborating with the other teams.
  3. Publicized Standards – if standards exist the chance for collision of keywords is greatly reduced.
  4. Namespaces – Prefixing a word keyword used on a particular project especially in the case of ID’s helps people identify exactly what that keyword is when seen outside of the project.

If you have any other thoughts or suggestions please let me know!

An art form that uses the night sky as the canvas

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Rachel and I saw Balls of Fury last night. I’d only give it Two mediocre thumbs in the middle (5/10).

Fireworks Over Canal in Pittsford

On our way home, we saw some flashes in the sky to the north and determined it was fireworks so we resolved to go find them. On our way through Pittsford we saw some more flashes and sure enough fireworks they were. When a few more went off as we were crossing the bridge we decided to stop and watch there. I’m glad we did because the reflection in the Canal of each explosion of color just added to it.

A great (random) end to a good day.

I have to apologize for the quality of the picture as I only had my pocket camera with me and it does not have good manual settings for long exposures. I’ll be sure to carry the other one from now on.

Keep it Simple Stupid

~ randyaa ~ 1 Comment

Keep it Simple Stupid (or what’s commonly know as the KISS principle) is something I picked up in my Software Engineering classes during my tour of duty at RIT. It is something I try to carry over into my every day life. That being said I’d like to share a few simple ideas I try to utilize to simplify my digital life.

Your Blog

For those of you reading this directly from the website you should have already noticed a complete redesign. This is only part of my new Zen overhaul. I have taken several points from Skellie‘s post 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog. If you’re interested in exactly what I did please check out the article. You may find some additional tips which I haven’t yet implemented as well.

Your Wallpaper
My Simple Wallpaper
A recent simplification I have made is my wallpaper. I was a fan of scenery wallpaper, most often shots that I took were my favorites, but I recently decided that this just adds to clutter. Photographic backgrounds can hide icons and can be a distraction. I created this simple background which provides a central focal point for any icons you wish to display on the desktop. I’ve provided several sizes so feel free to download it if you’d like to try it out.

Your Feeds

Chances are, if you’re like me, you subscribe to a lot of feeds. You probably also generate a lot of content on the Internet and therefor a lot of feeds (whether you realize it or not). If that’s the case why not manage both in the same place? I use Google Reader extensively and this is one of the biggest reasons why. Essentially I maintain two feeds: My Shared Items and My Content. Both are exactly what they sound like. My Shared Items is a feed in which articles, Videos, pictures and anything else i want to share will appear. I do this by utilizing Google Reader’s Shared Items feature. My Content is another feed in which any content that I produce will appear. For example, Any post on this blog, My posts on Randy and Rachel, My Comic Strips and my Youtube videos.

Your Archives

Lets face it, in this digital age chances are you have a lot of digital stuff. Stuff you want to keep. For most people this might just mean photos. For some it means photos, videos, music, software and more. To store all this and keep it organized you need a system. I have dual 250Gb SATA drives in a Raid 1 array which i use strictly for storage. On the root of this array I have the following directories:

  • Files
  • Music
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Software

Everything I need to store fits somewhere in these 5 categories. Music and Videos are broken down by genre. Files and Software are broken down by category. Photos is broken down by date. This is probably where I’m the most organized. My Photos directory contains photos dating back to the 1950s all the way up to the present. To do this I created decade directories (1950s, 1960s etc) and within that year directories(1951, 1952 etc). Finally within the years directory I list the actual albums which also have a naming convention (MM – DD – name). Because of the shear amount of photographs I store I needed a system and this has greatly simplified things for me.

KISS

Regardless of what you’re doing, when something seems like its too complicated it is. Simplify it. Do whatever it takes to reduce the clutter and the complexity in your Digital Life. I will be making this a recurring theme for this blog so let me know if you have any specific topics you’d like to know how to simplify.