I've noticed lately (as a Ning Network Creator, http://somadogs.ning.com) that Ning seems touchy about tracking link clicks, and indeed any discussions about tracking. Courtesy of web.archive.org, here's an article that was on the Ning Developer networks and has since been removed. Seems innocuous enough to me. Might even be useful. In any case, the "Analytics" feature of Ning networks does allow Google, Clicky and other analytics code to be added. I for one however, cannot profile exit links to Google Adsense, hindering any decision about upgrading to Ning Premium for $24.95 a month. Oh well. Article below;  

 

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Introduction

Obviously, I'm excited that the Apple iPad launched today starts at the $499 price point. Given everything we've seen, this may be the device I next want. I was initially thinking that before I really bet on plunking down my $499 or $599 or $699 or whatever, I really did want to see file upload from Safari Mobile, and multi-tasking in the next OS, but I kept looking at the pictures, replaying the event speeches in my mind, and now I'm actually drooling.

Excuse me whilst I go off and prepare my "we have got to have one of these!" speech to my wife. Seriously though, am I going to buy one immediately they become available? No. I'll wait and see for a bit. Why? It's all about the software, and Apple just delivered the start. Not the end.

Here's a great example of what you could do with your $499 iPad, on top of the internet/email/media experience you already get; control everything in your home. Of course, this kind of app would/will work better with background multi-tasking, and I'll bet you Apple knows that. 

Here's another great blog from Stephen Fry, that fabulous erudite British comedian and actor, discussing why it's churlish and childish to dismiss the iPad, and why you should get over the name *titter, giggle* <-- 14 year old boys. The premise is simple; everything you know about computers is old. The iPad could well be the first device in recent years that changes how we interact with technology. Think of it this way; you likely had a great-grandfather who thought that cars were utterly ridiculous, overly expensive, and would never catch on; because the horse was a fine mode of transport. Look at cars now. Similarly, the iPad could change your perspective, and change your boundaries. I'll be watching this technology with interest, for sure. 

So my last post was about adding Hulu and Boxee into Windows 7 Media Center, something that works well, provided your PC does the job on streaming video (as we found out much to my brief unhappiness, mine does not, so the upgrade is in process, which is why I was only unhappy for a short time). Why do this seemingly interminable antenna exploration? I just don't watch enough tv to justify paying AT&T $1600 a year, bottom line, and many fine local channels are broadcast near where I live. Hurrah!

Want the results? Scroll to the bottom now. Want the story? Read on...

First, where am I? Well, I'm not going to tell you exactly but let's just say, hypothetically, that I live at the CalTrain station in San Francisco. (I don't, but it approximates things well enough). Here's my supposed TV signal map, courtesy of the FCC.  As you can see I live within range of many strong UHF and a couple VHF-Hi tv signals, most of which are broadcasting from Sutro Tower or San Bruno Mountain. So I've got plenty of options and the signal is strong in my area, with not too many high buildings (meaning, a few, but I don't live in a basement) between me and both broadcast locations. However, they are in 2 different directions which means for me, a highly directional antenna is out, and I need a multi-directional antenna.

On with the tests. First candidate on the block - this ugly number from RadioShack. Candidly, I'd bother reviewing this antenna if I cared about RadioShack. For me, it simply didn't work consistently. I'd get 5 strong channels, 5 wouldn't function, and others would pixelate all over the shop. The 'amplification' didn't seem to have any useful effect for me. It worked best stuck on a window right in the middle of the living room, exactly at eyeball height. Move it 4 inches up or down, left or right, and results were worse. So let's call that set of results, "middling". Needless to say, it was returned.

Second on the block - this passive Christmas-like affair from Terk. I borrowed this from a friend, and sadly for me, this one was so useless in my testing that I began to get a little desperate. Turns out it's highly directional, regardless of the marketing blurbs, so passing by with a coffee cup was enough to cause a signal dropout even on strong stations. Maybe I just didn't have the patience for such a gross contraption. Whatever.

So that's when the real research started. First up, research led me to indoor DB4/whisker designs, made from, wait for it....*ta-da*, coathanger wire. The street appeal of hacking together my own punked out DTV antenna was too much to bear, so I got started cutting up some of the 50 odd useless coathangers I found in my wardrobe. (Thanks go to my cleaners, and happily I've since found out that they recycle hangers so the other 44 are going back to where they came from imminently. Using an old shelf from Ikea (I know!) as the mount, here's the prototype result:

Very punk eh? Needless to say my prototype looked pretty crap in amongst the living room setting but more importantly the testing showed similar results to the Radioshack hokey poke. Moving on.

Next up, both loop and folded dipole affairs similar to this Happy Monkey guy. I used the same RadioShack converter as he did. I did calculate a longer length folded dipole for VHF-Hi but perhaps I misunderstand his explanation (it worked, at any rate). I didn't bother amplifying the signal as he did though, see my map above for why I just didn't think this was reasonable. Results? Middling again. These worked, but not consistently across all stations (sorry, no photos).

More research then, and on to fractal UHF DTV antenna designs. Quite frankly these fractal jobs look the shit, and are tiny compared to the 4 bay whisker above. Now we were getting into some seriously wacky stuff and I really liked the potential for a rather nifty, small DTV antenna that my jewellery loving wife could bend up for me on her wire bending jig, and had visions of it hanging discreetly in a window. I decided to prototype this one on, of all things, a corkboard. Here's another punk prototype result:

>> err, see pic 2 above <<

And the reception? Middling yet again. After several hours on this project over several days, it was time for a *facepalm*

By this time I was getting frustrated and turned to desperate measures. Pulling the box for my Hauppauge HVR950Q USB tv tuner stick out of the cupboard in order to have a poke around in it's documentation (you know I'm frustrated by something if I've gone all RTFM), I stumbled across this extendable, free monopole antenna:

Result!

In desperation I plugged it in, extended the monopole and tuned up on the tv, hoping for the best. Count me absolutely boggled as I watched the empirical results come up on the tv screen. 10% to 15% improvement in reception across the board. Reception of VHF-Hi channels quite passable. (This latter part is necessary if you're like me, relying on OTA DTV reception of NBC to watch the Winter Olympics this year).

In the end, the supplied "free monopole with capacitance cap" antenna, in all likelihood designed by a Ph.D in electromagnetics, worked the best in my situation. Not exactly a surprise, but it was a fun journey. If you live in a fringe area, you may get better results with a directional version of one of these home-made antenna designs, and if you're interested, there's an awesome boatload of info to start with on this site. For me, this project has come to an end however.

Next up; what's up with Windows 7 and streaming video, and updating my old pooter in order to actually watch stuff on Hulu without the ridiculous stutter.

 

*** Edit Jan 23rd, 2010: below. Flash-based streaming content really doesn't work if your PC isn't new enough and has enough power, duh! ***

The fine folks at Missing Remote put together some guides for these two to be integrated directly into Media Center. If you're concentrating your lounge-room (or whatever) PVR and media through a Windows 7 Media Center (or indeed a Windows Vista Media Center), these two guides are definitely for you. 

Lewis Barclay saved my @rse today. The keyboard and trackpad on my Macbook Pro recently just quit, and I'm flying to India- Pune in fact in a few hours, for the week. Problems seem to have a sense of timing, don't they? The Power button still worked and is part of the same assembly, so I was confused and messed around with software updates and 'hacks' to no avail. The 'fix'? Press down on this little flimsy cable (it's usually a little bit bubbled up and outwards) that I've circled in the shot below (which is an iPhone app - goSnap creation.)

You can access this little bubbled out cable just by removing your battery. As it happens I'd already disassembled the Macbook Pro by the time I found Lewis' short and handy little article (which is here). Here's my summary;

1. flip the battery out (after shutdown)
2. make a little ball of sticky tape, or something similar (not too big!)
3. attach it to the little bubbled cable you see here
4. gently reinsert your battery - don't force it. if it won't go, downsize the ball
5. Enjoy your now working keyboard assembly, until you can get it replaced

Thanks Lewis! Hope this helps others too.

Sent from my iPhone

Lately it seems that quite a number of my friends have been moving jobs and companies. I hear a lot about how interviews go as a result, which is interesting because I haven't been through one myself since 2002 (and that was basically "do you like working hard, and beer, and sports?" Go on, guess my answer). I also interview people myself (more on that at bottom). As a result, I've heard a lot about the recent rash of trends to attempt to figure out a candidate's analytical skills, or their general knowledge of a specific subject matter, or personality traits. I was thinking about this on my walk this morning and a couple of things occurred to me about 2 of these trends;

1. Logic and analytical games
There's a huge trend right now to asking questions about the minimum number of steps to find a ball of lower weight from a collection of 8 or 9. Or what happens if a boat is in a pond and a man in the boat throw rocks out of the boat, over the side...blah blah blah. It occurs to me that these are all great questions if you're hiring an analytical thinker, say a business analyst or a development architect. Can that business analyst figure out what happens if they create a new report that intersects sales trends with individual rep figures? (Hint; if the answer is yes, then you are shortly going to be further along the path of figuring out which of your reps need to move on right about now) That's a great question for an analyst. But what does it have to do with G&A staff? Here's what I think they illustrate; you're great at solving logic problems which might or might not be entirely relevant, OR, you were trained how to answer these questions at business school/your last 3 interviews. Are you really hiring on that basis? If so, great, then go for it. But what if you want a creative thinker? You might be worrying about floating the wrong boat on the wrong pond as it were, and I'd encourage you to think about screening differently.

2. Questions about how I would change your product (this is my personal favourite)
I've even seen this one myself of late (sure, we all browse around even if we're not looking, right? Right? You are keeping yourself informed aren't you?). If you're a product person and you fill out an application for a new role you might find yourself answering a question along the lines of "How would you change the/our product?" This really is a loaded question and poor screening technique, and here's why. I don't know your company, I don't know your product (I might know a bit, but certainly not a lot) and I don't know you. So how do I know what you're looking for? There's at least 4 categories (and likely more) that you could fit into and the lack of assumptions and other guidelines means I have no idea what you want to see in response, which might be any of the following;

a) you really do have a shitty product team and are actually looking for ideas. Some companies actually have no headcount at all. It sounds crappy and it is; but you might as well be aware that some companies are doing it.
b) you want to know if I care about your product even before coming onboard. Why does that matter? If I'm a great candidate I'll care as soon as I am onboard, but let's be clear; I'm approaching you to earn money, and that's why I'll care. Not kudos (unless maybe, you're Google and I'm fresh out of MIT).
c) You want to see that I know about Product Management, in which case the answer is that I wouldn't change your products at all. I'd start by listening a lot, and asking questions. Of you, of your customers, of your partners, of your industry analysts, of your fans, and so on.
d) your recruiters really don't know what they're doing. In which case you're just going to get random candidates from prior target companies you've communicated to those recruiters. I suggest this might not be the best way for you to get fresh perspectives and broaden your base of potential A-player candidates.

So which one of these 4 (and possibly more) are you then? Meaning, what sodding answer do you want to see? The answer I think you're going to get is that you'll screen out really good potential candidates on a weak basis. If you're flooded with candidates that might just be ok, but I suspect you can do better.

Well those are just some things I thought of. What am I looking for when I interview people? I'm looking for a personality fit, and some indication of a passion for getting things done. I should know about your background before then. As Jamie Zawinski said of success at Netscape - they had it because they found people that were happy with this statment, "you’re not here to write code; you’re here to ship products." and I want to find those kinds of people (regardless of company/industry/role). Read more about Jamie over at Joel Spolsky's blog.

I'd love to hear your comments.

I'll admit it - I have a thing for hummus. And why not? It's real food, it's minimally processed, it's a recipe from the ages (and I reasonably assume therefore relatively healthful and wholesome) and well-made; it's taste and texture, aroma, and expectations are divine. In my opinion the best hummus is the one that you enjoy the most. So what do I enjoy? Home-made hummus, and here's the recipe (roughly) that I follow;

>> http://whatdidyoueat.typepad.com/what_did_you_eat/2008/04/best-hummus.html

Ok, it differs slightly in my copy of the Cooks Illustrated book, but you get the idea. There's a very creamy texture with a warm undercurrent of tahini, a zing from the fresh lemon, balanced by good extra virgin olive oil, and a slight spice from the cayenne, complicated handily by a little fresh cilantro. Delicious.

Give it a try, it really is just 5 minutes work (once you've skinned all the chickpeas) and it's joyful to behold when made freshly. Pita chips (home-made if I have the time) are my favourite accompaniment; what's yours?

BTW, the Wikipedia article has some interesting things to say on the history of hummus. Suffice to say that variants of hummus have likely been around for centuries...like a lot of minimally processed foods that aren't well linked to modern diseases and in my mind quite possibly exercise your digestive system in ways that we evolved to cope with, this one's on my "eat regularly" list. 

Downhill in Tahoe from Paula B on Vimeo.

On the recent Labor Day long weekend, I was lucky enough to go up into the hills in South Tahoe with a buddy of mine, @jasonbillington. (Of course, we also took his and my other half, @paulabillington and @jodiekw). (Oh, and the dogs). Our purpose was to accomplish 3 things; 1. burn down the fabulous whitewater rafting tickets on Great American River that I'd won at my lovely friend Yvette's baby shower last year (I know, right? Turns out baby showers aren't that bad after all) 2. a truckload of downhill mountain biking, and 3. generally relax with our girls and our dogs.

Well you can see who's riding the downhill bike, and who's more practiced, and who didn't nearly come off his bike right about when @paulabillington started the video on her trusty JesusPhone 3G S. Meaning, @jasonbillington comes roaring down first. Then I dribble in behind. But by jove it was fun.

BTW, the seat looks that low, because it is. You just gotta do that with a cross-country bike when you're in the steeps, like a hard blue run at <name redacted> ski resort. If you're wondering what I'm riding (it's really designed for cross-country), look no further.

Seriously, do I really need to know how to make my personalized (just 'personal' wasn't good enough) news rack 2 to 3 times a day? It's bad enough that I see Guy's face, but I know it's the ghostwriters' work. Now I have to suffer this iterative loop of useless. Sorry Guy, but I enjoy the articles, with the exponentially greater exception of this one. Until Twitter lets me kill this one for you (say, by filters), we're over. Please don't take it personally.

*** Edit 9/20/2009. Oh dear, Mashable just got it too. Ghostwriters? Check. Annoyingly handsome face of someone else on every tweet? Check. Unfollow? Check. Yes, it's a personal gripe I have with promotion of an invidual over a team's work. But you know what? Anything useful from Mashable gets retweeted by several people I'm following, so here's where I'm at, for now. ***