Category Archives: Work

A good time in life

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Things are really good right now:

  • The people at work are some of the sharpest I’ve ever had the honor to work with.
  • I still have more things to do than time to do it but that is improving daily.
  • My family is healthy (mostly) and we just love spending time together.
  • Becky and I are going to be able to spend some good time together this weekend.
  • I finally got my PS3 back at work and was able to get a new TV for it as well.
  • I really enjoyed my two most recent reads by John Eldridge: Wild at Heart and Walking with God.
  • My progression towards manager is slow but still progresses. In fact I’m being included in a trip next week to visit Insomniac (the studio that produced Spyro the Dragon, Ratchet & Clank, as well as Resistance: Fall of Man.

I have no question that I am blessed. The real question is what the Lord has in store next and if I’m paying attention enough to not ignore it.

What’s a little fire when you’re already hot?

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Becky and I are without kids this weekend and, of course, we decided to take the opportunity and go to CostCo. While purusing the normal selection of bulk items and picking up some of our standard selection of staples, Becky saw a very unexpected surprise.

We are fans of Daphnie’s Greek Cafe which is a Greek restaurant chain headquartered in San Diego (not far from my office, btw). One of the more enjoyable items they have is Fire Feta which is a really good feta cheese spread with all sorts of spicy additions. We get it every time we go there as it is quite tasty.

So, while checking out the deli section at the back of the warehouse, Becky found a 28oz container of Daphnie’s Fire Feta for $8.49. We promptly picked it up and swung by Henry’s to get some pita chips and we are good to beat the heat.

It’s too bad

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First, apologies for not blogging lately. Yes, I’ve been busy, but not so much not to be able to write. Sorry.

I’m in San Francisco this week attending Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference on behalf of my employer. They’ve done a good job with providing an IT track and this year is no different. The one thing that is different is the extensive iPhone track for all the developers and IT shops looking into producing applications for the handheld. Having seen some of the applications, there is no question that the iPhone (and iPod Touch) is a full computer.

The overlap of the two tracks pertains to the enterprise support that is forthcoming in the 2.0 release of the OS X Touch OS (what runs on the devices). Apple will be providing tools for establishing policies for an organization’s handhelds and performing security functions like remote kill (for a lost device). We don’t have any specific plans for iPhones at work, but I did want to understand how things work in case it comes up.

Unfortunately, I attended a session yesterday that pretty much ruled out iPhones for us. As an attendee I am under NDA and as such can’t go into any details, but suffice it to say there are some fundamental deficiencies in the initial enterprise support that prevents me from recommending it to my managers. Since we didn’t have any plans, nobody is going to really care. Most likely they’ll chalk it up as yet another way Apple is showing how they just don’t get enterprise customers.

I suppose it’s all for good as I wouldn’t be keen on carrying two phones.

Am I ready for this?

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Monday is the beginning of a transition for me at work. I’ve mentioned previously the group I work in which is called SAS-DEV. That particular group is made up of myself, three colleagues and our manager (who is also the manager of the larger SAS group). Monday, a fifth team member joins us and I start the process in becoming the SAS-DEV manager. I’m not sure how long it will take but the “official” (e.g., HR) designation won’t change until I am doing at least 51% of the work of a manager.

The whole thing is going to be a bit odd for me. I’m generally o.k. with the manager thing as I used to have two direct reports when I was at RedZone. The strange part, initially, is the fact that I’m going to be the manager for what up until now have been my peers. Ultimately, I feel this will work out for the best as I already know them, they know me, and we get along quite well both personally and professionally. If there was one time in my life where I can start this next step and not stress about it, it’s here with these folks. Yes, I know that each of them generally follow my blog but I am honestly not trying to suck up.

The other part that has me wondering is how things will look when everything is said and done. I don’t believe there is enough “managing” to be done to fill a whole workweek so it’ll probably be a half manager, half sys admin kinda thing. One of my friends referred to it as being a Sergeant which sounds about right. I’ve never stressed about my career and we’ll all feel our way through things as the weeks and months come.

To give you and idea of the support, Kristin was kind enough to put the following comic up in the window of my new office:


From Johnnie Moore’s Weblog

It hasn’t been the first ribbing since all this came up and I’m sure it won’t be the last. That’s just how we roll.

I can’t say I’m surprised

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In How Grand Theft Auto IV Threatens the Wii by Forbes, Brian Caufiled points out that while Grand Theft Auto IV is available for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, no version will be released for the Nintendo Wii and how Nintendo may be the loser in the equation. As the “3rd generation” consoles were being developed, Nintendo decided to emphasize the social aspects rather than raw power leaving that arms race for Sony and Microsoft. As a result, Nintendo has a unique platform in the market and is doing quite well. I don’t doubt continued success but I do question the long-term viability of unique gameplay when you don’t have much else to back it up.

Lastly, it’s worth disclosing that I work for Sony Computer Entertainment America. Does that make me biased, possibly, but I try very hard to be impartial and have been into technology for over twenty years and know how fast trends come and go.

Time will tell.

Tone deaf? No problem

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Celemony Software is a developer for audio tools and they have produced a product that I, frankly, thought wasn’t possible. If you’ve ever worked with audio or sound programs, you know the complexity of a sound wave. Sure, you can play games with it so much to affect pitch, tempo, or even compression ratio, but there was only so much that you could do. With their Direct Note Access, you are now able to manipulate the individual notes of a polyphonic track. Below is a YouTube version of their demo video or you can see a higher quality copy on their site along with other information.

I’ll have to share this info with the audio guys at work but I imagine they’ve already heard about it.