Math.random()

Silverlight Mobile Demo at MIX 08

2008-03-05T20:31:16Z

A project I just finished with Stimulant was demoed today in front of a jillion people at MIX 08 in Vegas. The project is a prototype of a mobile social networking application -- sort of like Dodgeball, if Dodgeball had a UI.

Better quality here. Watch for the big shot of 2z and I.

Most expensive cup of tea ever.

2008-02-14T03:15:13Z

First post from a new 15" MacBook Pro.

I was working from a client's office today when I dumped an entire cup of tea into my laptop. I headed straight for the emergency room and was told that the recommended course of action was to let it dry for three weeks before turning it on. Not an option.

So now I have a new machine which is pretty much the same as my old machine, only ever-so-slightly better. I have a Time Machine backup of the old one, but am choosing to start from scratch anyway. Luckily everything important is either backed up, stored on another machine, or checked into source control.

Office Space

2008-02-08T21:00:17Z

In an hour I'm signing a lease on an office on Broadway. Then I will have a celebratory cocktail with my new office mates Marcel, Josh, and Marie. We have a 500sq ft space and another 300sq ft across the hall for meetings and such. Assuming we can all tolerate one another, I think it'll be pretty great.

Now to find a new desk, chair, and monitor...

v-moda vibe duo

2008-01-31T22:07:43Z

For those looking for good replacement headphones for iPhone, check out the v-moda vibe duo (more). Mine just showed up. Looks great, sounds great, and includes the mic and button from the stock apple ones.

PMCS?

2008-01-24T07:22:39Z

Why hasn't the PMBA reading list concept been extended to other fields? I want a personal computer science degree.

Baby's first Silverlight project

2007-10-18T05:24:47Z

My first Silverlight project launched a few minutes ago. It's an interface to a database of other Silverlight applications, searchable by category, region, and keyword. There's even a tag cloud, so you know it's awesome.

Silverlight is Microsoft's competitor to Flash, so you'll need that plugin to view it.

I was responsible for all of the front-end code (JavaScript), with some help from Darren. Everything else was handled by StepChange.

The eternal question

2007-09-19T01:02:20Z

View Poll: The eternal question

My other birthday is coming up

2007-09-13T09:13:23Z

So, endquote the web site turns ten years old in about a month. I'm wondering what the traditional celebration is for such a thing. I suppose it would be more interesting if I were doing a bit more with it.

Endquote the handle/username has been around for probably a couple years longer than that. If you squint just right, I've been going by that name for nearly half my life? Geez. The story of how it came about is still on my MeFi profile (user number 199!).

Maybe someday it will be some kind of global entity, but for now it's a comfortable nickname.

SF 11/07

2007-09-11T07:36:32Z

I spent most of last week in San Francisco with iamdonte and twozdai at interimlover's pad, with the impetus of an Underworld concert and the excuse of client meetings. My social life is completely tax-deductible. Some stuff happened:

Spent $1 gambling in Reno on the layover.
Started in SF with a really tasty burrito consumed on a street corner because the restaurant closed the minute we walked in.
Spent enough money at SF's premier lifestyle boutique to become a preferred customer for life. (But getting jeans that fit is priceless.)
Ate too much sushi.
Spent a day at Obscura talking about projects in pretty much the coolest offices ever, with pretty much the craziest tech people ever.
Accidentally attended the OQO Model 02 launch party. Sadly, scwhag did not include an OQO Model 02.
Dinner at Farmer Brown followed by drinks at Absinthe, including the infamous Burning Manhattan.
Friends (including Liz) at Elbo Room, followed by the delightful Eats Tapes at Rickshaw Stop.
Really tasty pizza.
The Underworld show, featuring toobs.
Met Paul Oakenfold, we are now totally best buddies.
Temple grand opening with Derrick Carter.
Best brunch ever? Quite possibly.
Photobooth recon and Claude von Stroke at Shine.
Afterparty til dawn in the middle of nowhere, ride home from a stranger whose name I never really got.
Brunch at Home for linaeri's birthday, followed by lucky cocktails.
A rush to the airport on no sleep, followed by a gracious ride in the sidspencer taxi cab.

Parallels vs VMWare Fusion

2007-08-30T16:52:32Z

I ran across this comparison of Parallels and VMWare Fusion (two apps for running Windows on your Intel Mac) and was surprised to find that VMWare was supposedly so much faster. So I installed the trial and it totally is. My Mac apps are actually still responsive while running Windows, and running Windows full-screen in Fusion is almost as good as running it natively in Boot Camp.

So if you haven't bought either yet, my vote goes to Fusion.

Braeburn dinner party v1

2007-08-22T19:00:37Z

Had a party of twelve at my place for dinner last night. 2z brought over some of her recent work, I made some very boring stir-fry, other people made more interesting things. Wii was played on an 8ft screen and I ate two dessert courses. So I'd say it went pretty well.

It would be fun to do it regularly with varying guest lists. Aside from the setup/cleanup, it's not that much work to do really.

Trying out Noonhat

2007-08-20T16:39:26Z

So I'm going to have lunch with a stranger on Fri. This should be interesting.

The world's just against me today.

2007-08-17T19:41:31Z

iPhone is somewhat broken. Parties can only hear each other during a phone call if the speakerphone is on. A loaner is on its way so I can send it in for repair. I wonder if I'll get an official Apple paper clip.

Add to this crap which meant no email all morning, it's been a technically frustrating day.

Dogcrab wedding wrapup

2007-08-07T07:59:48Z

Pool Party
Originally uploaded by +Russ

I've been to three really amazing parties this year: McLeod NYE, the Pixel wedding, and now the Dog and Crab wedding this past weekend in San Francisco. It took place at the Phoenix Hotel (think Jupiter, but larger, and with a pool) and began on Fri night, and didn't end til about noon on Sun.

On Fri, 2z and I met up with some folks at Olive, intending to have a little meetup of non-wedding-related SF folks before the event proper. Except oops, I Dodgeballed, so the party got a little larger. Got to spend some quality time with linaeri and her lady, as well as Liz and interimlover, who found some things to talk about.

Back to the hotel after that, by which time it seemed most folks had checked in and the pre-party had begun in earnest. My dearest SF friend Michael (the only SF resident without a good URL to put around his name) joined up to crash the party, and fit in just fine. There was much drinking and sabering of champagne, with the night ending in an extremely heated discussion about the proper technique with which to frost a Lego-shaped cake.

The actual event was on Sat, and started promptly with some amazing catering and the four Ms: mimosas, mojitos, margaritas, and mai tais. All that plus the huge Seattle contingent of frequently and not-so-frequently seen friends made it qualify as the best party ever in my book, but there was still a long way to go.

Shortly after everyone had sufficiently stuffed themselves with BBQ, a couple of people got married. It was a lovely ceremony including lots of family and jumping of brooms and breaking of glass. And then, basically, all hell broke loose. The Extra Action Marching Band swept in and took over the show.

Not only were they proper musicians, they were also hot, sexy, and willing to get naked. They were clearly the instigators of the tipping point that took the party from tear-jerking wedding ceremony to girls-gone-wild highlight reel in about thirty minutes. In a fantastic triptych, I myself ditched the iPhone, counted to three, and ruined some expensive clothes.

The DJ started up with some karaoke-friendly hits, the keg was moved poolside, and everyone pretty much lost their shit. And, you know, that went on for a while.

Then as things were beginning to consider getting civil again, the crepe stand popped up. Shortly after that, I was freshened up and watching performers on stilts play soccer while eating hors d'oeuvres made up of duck and radishes delivered by wandering waiters. And then I was in the sexy nightclub attached to the hotel, drinking for free and hanging with giraffes. The night just got progressively more surreal.

Then, all the really debaucherous and off-the-record stuff happened, but I was pretty much headed to bed by that point, and am only now hearing the stories of the dawn hours.

The accommodations continued through Sun morning, with bagels, lox, and a table full of bloody mary ingredients. After the meal, some "did you see what so-and-so did" conversations, and concerns about the newly-murky pool ("I think there's about nine pounds of foundation in that pool now."), most folks trailed off in a series of taxis back to the airport.

I came down to SF expecting awesome, and ended up having probably the best weekend in recent memory that didn't involve international travel. Many thanks to Steve and Ryan, and I hope the hotel didn't bill you too much for the cleanup.

Party Games

2007-08-03T07:04:41Z

Friends, please consider playing these games at your next party.

How to play: Bunnies (rules)

How to play: Little Sally

You get what you do

2007-07-20T21:25:37Z

Summer reading
Originally uploaded by endquote

It's looking like I'm going to be doing a few Flex projects for Second Story over the next few months, and possibly through the end of the year. The projects are interesting with lots of opportunity to learn and a good company to work with. It also means I'll have to make regular trips to Portland, oh darn.

There are other potential projects floating about as well, but we'll see what lands.

Whenever I'm not working on that, I plan to be getting up on the whole C#/WPF/Silverlight thing. Multitouch is headed that way whether I like it or not, and I want to be on the train.

Exciting times. Since finishing up a rash of projects of varying awesomeness, I've been focusing on only accepting projects that are going to teach me things and push my skills to the next level. You get what you do, and I want to want to do what I get.

To Maupin we will go.

2007-07-20T20:10:19Z

I'm going for a bit of a drive this weekend, but Fit went in for his first service yesterday and is prepared. He checked out fine, other than a dangerously-low wiper fluid level.

The Maupin area offers a refreshing retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. A small town pace in an area filled with unspoiled desert beauty will set your visit in the right frame of mind. Recognized for superb white water excitement and world-class wild trout and steelhead fishing, Maupin is your headquarters for outdoor recreation.

I'm going rafting with 2z and some other people, potentially in the rain. Should be fun. Or deadly. We'll see.

First pic of the next-gen iPhone

2007-07-18T05:42:55Z

iPhone most definitely does not suck

2007-07-17T08:57:11Z

I haven't had a lot to say about iPhone, because I sort of assume everyone's read everything there is to know about it already. There are lots of things you can't do with it, like load your own ringtones (surely for sale from iTunes soon), do anything interesting with Bluetooth*, send picture messages, or play a single game (no, not even Snake). I want to say it's a phone for adults that have actual things to do rather than goof around with unnecessary features, but then I look at it and note that the icon for getting videos of skateboarding bulldogs is right next to the one to check up on your stock prices, so there goes that theory.

It's definitely crazy sexy, super-responsive, and easy to figure out. It's also got the best web browsing on a mobile device ever (even without 3G) and the only mobile mail client that doesn't make me want to shoot myself in the face. And if you're a Mac person already, it's the first phone ever to properly sync up with your contacts/mail/bookmarks etc. And it's a pretty kickass iPod as well (aside from the fact that you have to destroy your headphones to plug them in).

I also love how the only catastrophic bug I've heard of so far is that sometimes it says the battery is less charged than it really is. Not bad. Basically I'm loving it so far, but am looking forward to whatever features and refinements come along in the future.

If you've got one, Leaflets is a cool website for it. Telekenisis is also awesome (like Clicker++), but very early in development.

* My mom was totally stoked to check out my phone until she said "Let me bluetooth you a video I took on my Treo" and I was like "Um, you can't do that on an iPhone." Then she was over it. Does anyone else's mom use the word bluetooth as a verb?

Get on the bus

2007-07-10T15:38:11Z

I'm off to spend the day with the Adobe OnAIR bus tour. I expect it to be a day-long firehose of Kool-Aid about the new platform. There will be an Ignite event this evening as part of it if you're into that, but I expect I'll be out of nerd-juice by then.

Delivered

2007-07-06T18:09:06Z

iPhone (just "iPhone", not "the iPhone") showed up this morning, delivered very early by an extra-cheery Fedex guy. Actually I think it came yesterday morning, but I was still asleep. I wonder if Apple insisted on good service out of Fedex for the launch.

Activation and syncing went okay. The number transfer hasn't been instant, but it's sort of working -- I can call out on the new phone, but incoming calls still go to the old one.

It's kind of a drag that I've already read about every feature on the thing, so now there's no surprises. However yes, it's big in terms of height/width and the keyboard is weird, but goddamn there's a pretty screen on the thing.

Gruber's review is probably the most informative I've seen without being 100pgs long, if you're looking for that sort of thing. I'll probably rant about it more as I use it. For now I've gotta put it down and get to work...

Obsessive-compulsive iTunes sorting

2007-07-04T03:13:39Z

AppleScript is a weird language.

property my_title : "Remove word from artist sort order"
tell application "iTunes"
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to " "
	set track_list to selection of front browser window
	set sort_prefix to text returned of (display dialog "Enter word to omit from sort order, for example \"DJ\" or \"MC\"." default answer "")
	repeat with this_track in track_list
		set this_artist to this_track's artist as string
		if word 1 of this_artist is sort_prefix then
			tell this_track to set sort artist to (words 2 thru end of this_artist as string) & ", " & sort_prefix
		end if
		set this_album_artist to this_track's album artist as string
		if word 1 of this_album_artist is sort_prefix then
			tell this_track to set sort album artist to (words 2 thru end of this_album_artist as string) & ", " & sort_prefix
		end if
	end repeat
	display dialog "Done!" buttons {"Sweet!"}
end tell

Now "DJ Yoda" is in the Y section of the iTunes library, "DJ Shadow" is in the S section, and "MC 900 Ft Jesus" is sorted with the numbers. This is what iTunes does with artists beginning with "A" and "The" anyway, but there is no way to add new prefixes. There are many scripts to do other things here, but I couldn't find anything to do this.

(If you want to try it on your library, download this file to ~/Library/iTunes/scripts, select the tracks you want to mess with in iTunes, and pick the script from the scripts menu. Warning, may cause your computer to burst into flames, do no blame me if your cat dies, etc.)

Ships by: 2-4 WEEKS

2007-06-30T03:14:08Z

I wasn't planning to stand in line for it today, and couldn't have anyway since some work stuff blew up. So at 6p I hit the web store and after dealing with it crashing a couple of times, got my order through. We'll see how it goes.

Native Words, Native Warriors

2007-06-25T19:03:28Z

My project for the National Museum of the American Indian launched today. You can check it out here.

During World War I and World War II, hundreds of American Indians joined the United States armed forces and used words from their traditional tribal languages as weapons. The United States military asked them to develop secret battle communications based on their languages—and America’s enemies never deciphered the coded messages they sent. “Code Talkers,” as they came to be known after World War II, are twentieth-century American Indian warriors and heroes who significantly aided the victories of the United States and its allies.

The project is a companion to a traveling NMAI exhibition and was produced by Cortina, designed by Belle & Wissell, and developed by yours truly. It's a Flash 8 project made up of 49 slide totaling 35 minutes in length. 172 images and 144 audio files are defined in 200KB of XML and played back though a custom media player. All of the content is also available as HTML. It took about nine months to produce.

Zoom zoom.

2007-06-21T18:37:08Z

BMW performance driving school? Sweet, sign me up. Wait, it's $3000 for a 2-day class and you have to go to South Carolina to take it? Maybe not...