Archive for Apr 2009

11 entries

Posting on code.kynetx.com

Thu Apr 30 20:52:00 2009

As we get ready to launch a limited beta program for developers to use the Kynetx platform, one of the things I wanted to get going was a place to talk about Kynetx code. So we stood up code.kynetx.com. When it's all done, there will be documentation, forums, and examples. I've been making some posts on it even though the template isn't done. So far I've posted: New feature: CSS in Globals Updating the Runtime: Annotated Search Results KRL Templates I've been enjoying writing these because it gives me a chance to write about changes and features in one
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Phantom Editor Commands

Thu Apr 30 11:44:00 2009

The other day Dave had a document up on the projector and was editing a document that we were all commenting on. He typed something new and had a bunch of text between the cursor and the end of the line that he needed to get rid of. My mind started to scream "Control K, control K, control K" over and over. My fingers would have even moved like they were on a keyboard had I not exercised much self control. Now, admittedly I'm a bit of a control freak, but I think this is pretty
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Amano Chocolate: This is Good

Sat Apr 25 13:36:00 2009

Image by QuintanaRoo via Flickr I ran into an old friend at the GOP convention this morning, Art Pollard. Art's taken up chocolate making. He did it as a hobby at first, but now he does 2000 lb batches and sells it, so it hardly qualifies as a hobby any more. He gave me some samples and I have to say it's possibly the best chocolate I've ever had. But don't take my word for it; just look at the impressive list of awards he's won at the bottom of his homepage: Amano Chocolate.
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Data Leads to Better Parking Decisions

Wed Apr 22 09:55:00 2009

The short term lot at Salt Lake City Airport has electronic display boards that tell you how many parking spots are available on each deck. That wasn't always the case. Monday when I was parking to go to RSA, I realized that in the old days my default behavior was to head straight to the top deck because there were always more spots there. The small overhead of driving up to the third deck was far better than driving around the aisle looking for a place to park. Now, with more info, my alrgorithm has changed.
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State of Utah Launches iPhone Applications

Tue Apr 14 13:47:00 2009

The State of Utah has released two iPhone applications. The first is a general Utah.gov application. The second is for reviewing professional licenses in the State. The Utah.gov app allows agency and service lookup. I preformed what was the most obvious search for me: look up the DMV. I was disappointed that searching services didn't let me see the RenewalExpress application and search on agencies just took me to the Tax Commission contact info. If I've got my phone in my hand and I search on DMV, I'm probably looking for the nearest office. Nice to see that Utah's
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Cydni Tetro on Using Scrum

Tue Apr 14 09:46:00 2009

This weeks's Technometria podcast features Cydni Tetro. Cyd is with NextPage and recently took over responsibility for managing development in addition to her product management duties. We talked for a great deal of the interview about the use of Scrum and what works and what doesn't. Of course we also got in some discussion of Twitter.
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CTO Breakfast: Venue Change and Fiber Trucks

Tue Apr 14 09:38:00 2009

This month's CTO Breakfast will be held on Friday, April 24. Our usual venue (Novell's cafeteria) is unavailable that day. Barry Bryson of UEN has generously made their conference room available to us and has offered to supply a continental breakfast. As an additional incentive to make the trek to the eastern foothills and visit the Eccles Broadcast Center, Infinera will have a demo truck at the U that day and Barry has invited CTO Breakfast attendees to visit the truck and even attend the UEN presentation if you wish. Infinera is a fairly new fiber optic equipment manufacturer
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Designing the Kynetx Rule Language

Wed Apr 8 19:13:00 2009

KRL, the Kynetx Rule Language, is a domain specific language that operates on the Kynetx Network Service (KNS). When I first started building KNS the first priority was getting a rude dog demo working that we could use to start having customer and investor conversations. Consequently, I was less than pure in some of the implementation details. For example, the conditionals in if statements were just single predicates and the declarations in the rule prolog were all one-offs. Later I went back and wrote a complete, generalized expression language that could be used in the conditionals
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Timothy Fitz on Continuous Deployment

Wed Apr 8 13:24:00 2009

This week's Technometria Podcast is an interview with Timothy Fitz on continuous deployment. I wrote about continuous deployment and Timothy's ideas in some detail a few weeks ago. Timothy's philosophy is that you should release code often. By that he means 50 times a day, if necessary. We had a good conversation and even though it was Timothy's first podcast, he comes across as an old pro.
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I'll Send You a Card: Information Cards in the Wild

Thu Apr 2 09:33:00 2009

I've been hearing about information cards for the last four years or so. For that entire time, they have been largely theoretical or, at best, used for logging into a blog or something else. I'm out to change that. A few days ago Steve Fulling was on the phone with Paul Trevethick of Parity describing a pilot project we're doing for the Locals Care organization of New Mexico. Steve said "I'll just send you the card; put it in your selector and you'll see the results in Google." That's a pretty interesting statement: "I'll just send you a card."
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Is God a Mathematician? Catching Up with TechNation

Wed Apr 1 08:31:00 2009

We've had some problem getting TechNation shows for IT Conversations since Christmas due to a variety of problems. We finally got a big batch in and now we're playing catchup. There will be a few more TechNation shows that usual over the next month or so as we get through the backlog. First up was Moira's interview with Mario Livio about his latest book Is God a Mathematician? This is classic TechNation and just a delight to listen to. Moira is a great interviewer and Mario was a great guest. And their names are anagrams. What more could you
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