Learned the hard way

Rich Pav 13 Comments

Inscribe your e-mail address on the back of your iPod so that if you, say, accidentally drop it when you get out of the car, the person who finds it might be kind enough to return it to you.

I’m totally iPod-less, and I feel utterly naked without it. And my home PC died. Again. Luckily, I only had my system and programs on the C drive that went. On the bright side…gosh, I can’t think of one. I’m too broke to replace either of them.

OK, on the bright side, now my kids can’t fight over who gets to play on the computer.

I probably shouldn’t mention this…

Rich Pav 20 Comments

…but I need to get it out because I have no one to to talk to about it. Last week a young, beautiful, intelligent, and very capable coworker of ours took her own life. Someone I’ve worked with for years. None of us had any idea she was depressed. Her funeral was last Saturday, and her replacement started work yesterday. I think about her and her poor, grieving family a lot. She really was a wonderful person, and we all miss her, but life has to go on. She was a half-Peruvian, half-Japanese woman named Arisa, fresh out of university.

So what’s new with me?

Rich Pav 21 Comments

I’ve reverted to my natural state, a self-absorbed hermit geek trying to force myself to grow a bigger brain. See, I’ve got this anxiety problem ever since childhood. It’s rooted in the mantra, “I have to, but I can’t,” and it can be applied to many situations in life. It’s the thought pattern that stresses me out more than any other.

Our company has five websites for the six organizations–some of the for profit, others non-profit–that we run out of this office with fewer than ten employees. (My boss redefines the term “workaholic.”) I’m the IT guy. Just me. Anything more technical than browsing the web and accessing your email? That’s my job. I’m also the maintenance man, tightening screws, fixing doorknobs, and changing light bulbs because I’m also the tallest. I also get to haul out the heavy garbage.

Did I mention all our websites are also bilingual English/Japanese? That’s an extra challenge, and a big one, because there’s a technical aspect to it in addition to the comparatively simple task of keeping the contents in each language in sync with each other.

Is the stress getting through to you? Can you tell I’m stressed? I’m not done yet.

Our three main sites need to be overhauled. Site #1 was developed in 2000 in Java by the guy who had this job before me. I don’t know dick about Java, which means I can barely understand the concepts behind servlets, containers, Jakarta Struts, Tomcat configuration files… Whenever something has to get tweaked under the hood, I get that, “I have to, but I can’t” feeling, and it stresses me out. Our business model has changed since the site was developed, so the way the site fundamentally works has to be changed. Overhauled.

Site #2 is the ugliest website I’ve ever seen. It was written in Perl sometime in the mid to late 90’s. It’s my duty to humanity to tear that eyesore down and start over from scratch.

Site #3 consists of completely static HTML pages, but should be database driven with an easy-to-use backend so our non-technical staff can update it. In both Japanese and English, remember.

So the boss wants this all done like, two months ago. Oh, and site #1 (and possibly #2 and #3 also) needs a mobile interface so people can read it on their cell phones in Japanese, which means the view for phones has to be in Shift-JIS while the web version should be in UTF-8. Do you understand that? I’m the only one here who does. It’s a lonely job. Whenever I try to explain something technical to my boss or coworkers, it takes half an hour of excruciating patience on both sides.

So that’s the gist of the situation, and here’s the problem: I suck at programming. I can tweak already written code or write little snippets of code that work, but God forbid I’d ever have to figure out what they do six months later, or even worse, have to make any major changes or additions. The temptation to do things the quick and dirty way is strong–like I said, the boss wants stuff done when he tells me to do it, not half a year later. That’s reasonable, and I really do feel for him. He’s a great guy and works harder than anyone I’ve ever met. He’s got real guts. He gets things done.

Here’s my major personal issue: I feel like I’m the albatross around his neck because I want to do things right. I don’t want to paint myself into a corner or get tangled up and tied to a solution I hacked together in a rush. But I also have to deliver. I don’t get paid to just think and do research.

But that’s exactly what I’ve been doing the past few weeks (and over Golden Week), learning the very basics of Java Servlets, object oriented programming in PHP, XHTML, CSS, and researching the multitude of PHP frameworks available.

I gotta get back to work now. But I’m leaning towards using Zend Framework to redevelop our websites. I discovered it at 3am this morning (slept on the office couch) and at first glance it looks good because it has support for internationalization and localization built in instead of being an afterthought hack someone hobbled together with gettext and spit.

I wish I could use Ruby on Rails. It’s an awesome language and the available documentation is superb. But deployment of Rails a application to the web is a huge, huge, fickle bitch I wasn’t expecting to have to cross swords with. PHP on the other hand is industry standard and supported by default on 99.9% of web servers. So I’ve got to learn some serious PHP kung-fu from now just to be able to do my goddamn job. It’s not all bad, seeing as how I’m being forced to learn stuff I should already know.

So if you don’t hear from me for a while longer, at least now you know why.

P.S. I’m also the audio-visual guy. The skills I acquire in audio and video editing here get applied to work when the need arises. My boss also wants to get into multimedia in a big way, and I’m the one who has to do it, and do it right.

P.P.S. My wife resents me for not doing more to help her around the house.

The old dilemma, back again

Rich Pav 14 Comments

I have to disappear for another week or two until I get some other things done. I wish I didn’t have to, but it’s only fair to the people who depend on me. I have a todo list long enough for two or three people.

“Hello, my name is Richard and I have a time management problem.”

You know, this hobby of mine would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to do everything myself.

Apple wants our bandwidth; I want your thoughts.

Rich Pav 20 Comments

OK folks, what do you think of this? Should I start encoding/re-encoding my videos at 640×480/360? I’m thinking “no.”

Advantages: Maybe Apple will pay attention to me. Yeah, right.
Disadvantages: That’s a ton of extra bandwidth, multiplied by a few thousand viewers, and that’s just my podcast. Besides, does anyone out there in Internetland actually have an Apple TV?

Greetings from the iTunes Podcasting Team:

Apple TV is here, and podcasts are making a big move into the living room. We want all of them to look as good as possible, so we have three video formatting recommendations for you. Also note that we have just posted a revised and expanded technical spec. Finally, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is coming up. There’s a major focus on developers of content in addition to developers of software.

Recommendations for Formatting Video Podcasts

1. If you’re encoding your video podcast at 320×240, please increase the resolution to either 640×480 or 640×360 (depending on the aspect ratio of your source files). Why? Because video podcasts at this resolution look great on Apple TV and still port to video iPods. Lower resolution podcasts might also work on both platforms, but they don’t look nearly as good on a widescreen TV. As always, make sure to test any encoding changes you make to ensure device compatibility. QuickTime 7.1’s “Export to iPod” function will ensure that a video file is encoded at a width of 640 and is iPod-compatible.

2. It’s best not to create two different podcast feeds for different resolutions. By doing so, you dilute the popularity of your podcast and reduce exposure in our charts. It’s better to have one feed high in the charts than two that are lower.

3. If your source files are 16:9, stick with that aspect ratio. Don’t add letterboxing to make them 4:3. By doing so, you prevent the video from expanding to fill a 16:9 widescreen TV and instead end up with black space on all four sides. Also, your original source files should be at least 640 pixels wide.

Of course these are just recommendations. We understand that there are good reasons for 320×240 (bandwidth bills) and 720p (looks fantastic). Do whatever makes the most sense for your show. For more information on formatting video, see the recently updated spec:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html

To see a sample of excellent podcasts that also look great with Apple TV, check out the Apple TV Podcast Showcase.

Ouchie.

Rich Pav 15 Comments

I’ve been spending so much time in front of the computer lately that I messed up my back and had to stay home from work. It feels like someone used my kidneys for punching bags. When my kids came home from school this afternoon they took turns walking up and down my back in front of the TV, which made the pain at least tolerable for a few hours. Right now I’m helping myself to a big heaping glass of awamori on the rocks so I’ll be drunk enough to sleep despite the pain. (If sake is “rice wine” then awamori is “rice whiskey.” I like the flamable stuff. It exfoliates my intestines.)

Back pain has to be pretty close to the worst pain there is. It’s hard to think of anything other than how much it hurts. I can understand why some people with chronic back pain lose the will to live.

On the bright side, the next time I have a bad day I’ll be able to say to myself, “Things could be worse. At least my back doesn’t hurt.”

Time for a break

Rich Pav 1 Comment

Now that I have reached my goal of gaining some confidence in video editing, it’s time for me to slow down here and concentrate on my real job. If you’ve gotten something out of the past few week’s worth of video, I’d appreciate a donation especially because I had to buy another hard drive to hold the video.

I’ll try to put out a podcast or two this week.