To help pass the time I’ve made two videos with my little Flip Camcorder and posted them to my Youtube account.  That said, enjoy these videos!

Blizzard footage from my bedroom window

More blizzard footage, this time from my front door

"Last time there was this much excitement about a tablet, it had some commandments written on it." - Wall Street Journal

You don’t even have to ask.  I’m getting one.  The 32 gig non-3G model.  Why get 3G when I can just tether with my jailbroken iPhone?

via Mouse Cursor Affordance.

Basically, I’m looking for a software package that offers the following features:

• The ability to create “tickets” which can be used to assign individual work tasks to individual developers or groups of developers. The tickets must also be able to handle multiple iterations of changes and hold onto conversations between the developer and the requester.
• Should have the ability to support 10+ “projects”, as well as have hierarchical categorization for projects and tasks.
• Must be able to handle over 250 users.
• Must have a built-in, modifiable workflow.
• The ability to generate metrics based on input/output, open/close rate, iterations, length of ticket life, etc.
• Web-based interface.
• Must be enterprise level and hosted on-site (NOT off-site like Basecamp).

I know it seems like a lot of stuff but it’s really not. I’ve evaluated large and small packages like Jira, RightNow Web, MS Project, PVCS Tracker. We’re currently using an old version of PVCS Tracker and it’s just not cutting it. My developers didn’t like Jira, nor did my clients. RightNow Web was the closest I’ve found to what we’re looking for but our clients balked at the $40k+ price tag.

Anyone out there have some ideas?  Please post a comment if you’ve got some ideas.  Thanks!

That said, please forgive me if you have any trouble accessing my sites over the next week or so.  I’m trying to move everything over slowly and careful so the downtime is minimal.

And… if I don’t post before next week, have a great Hannukah and a Merry Christmas!

P.S. Don’t forget – you can follow me on Twitter @mexijew!

A Glock 17 9x19mm pistol

In April I purchased my first pistol, a Glock 17 (pictured right) – a .9mm pistol.  It’s one of the most reliable, highly-rated guns out there.  Several major police departments use it, or a similar Glock model (the 19 and the 23 specifically) as their standard issue sidearm.  It’s consists of a polymer frame and metal slide.  It’ll shoot underwater.  It’s not prone to jams.  This is your ideal handgun for those new to handguns and for personal and home defense.  I love my Glock.  I enjoy going to the range every other Saturday and shooting at paper targets.  It’s a great hobby and it’s really made me interested in other aspects of shooting like hunting for game and “plinking”, which is shooting at small metal targets (which make a “plink” sound when struck), typically with smaller caliber guns (like .22LR pistols and rifles).

A Walther P22 .22LR pistol

As I’ve enjoyed my Glock 17, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot other pistols at the range I go to.  They rent out guns that you can use on their range for a very minimal fee.  You basically are just paying for the ammo to shoot it and your time on the range itself.  I’ve really enjoyed shooting .22LR pistols – specifically the Ruger Mark II 22/45 model and the Walther P22 (pictured left).  The Ruger is a larger handgun with a 4.5” barrel and is considered to be one of the top plinking guns out there.  The Walther is one of the most popular .22LR semi-auto models out there.  It’s the next gun I want to purchase.

Maryland, like many states, has a seven day waiting period from when you apply to purchase a gun to when you’re approved to take said weapon home with you.  Maryland has some of the most stringent gun laws of any state.  For instance, in Pennsylvania and Virginia you can walk around with a pistol on your hip – “openly carry” – without a permit.  In Maryland, you can’t carry a handgun at all on your person unless you’ve got a Concealed Carry permit, which you can only get in one of three instances: You’re a current/former police officer, a current/former military serviceman, or you can prove that there’s a true, valid threat against your life in which carrying a handgun could be all that stands between you and certain death.  Maryland is also one of the few states that does NOT recognize out-of-state carry permits.  While I have no reason to carry a handgun on my person and don’t feel threatened in the least, I feel a bit put off about not even having the option.

It’s frustrating enough for me to not be able to get “instant gratification” and take home a firearm the day I want to, but it’s even more frustrating to know that the only place it could be useful to save my life is at home.  Don’t get me wrong – I get the reasoning for the seven day waiting period and the background checks.  It makes sense.  It keeps people from buying weapons in anger and using them immediately.  It prevents those with violent criminal records or major neurological issues from purchasing a firearm.  And I’m all about keeping the bans on assault & automatic weapons – no one has a good reason to need to personally own an automatic assault rifle.  It’s overkill for hunting AND personal protection.  I just find it frustrating that, if you’ve already purchased a handgun within, say, six months you still have to wait a week for a background check to come through.

Maybe one day Maryland will relax its gun laws a bit, but I doubt it.  I suppose I could write my congressman but we all know our political representatives don’t speak for us anymore – they speak for whichever organizations and PAC’s fill their coffers the most for the next election.  Oh well.  Here’s hoping.

Come back soon for more great discussions and debates.  Till then!

I’m usually fine to sit there and let people be wrong, but both sides of the media, along with the Republicans, have done a really good job at obfuscating one very important fact: The Obama Administration isn’t talking about changing actual healthcare – they’re talking about changing health insurance and coverage so that all Americans can have access to healthcare. A lot – a whole lot in my experience – of people don’t understand this. They think that the President is trying to take us into a clinical healthcare system and that’s just not the case. This is about insurance and coverage, not directly the actual care itself.

Yes, there are parts of what the Administration is trying to push that would change some of the actual healthcare system itself, but that’s on the administrative end. At the very core of what they’re doing is to help enable those without any health insurance at all be able to have some limited coverage so that when they need basic services they don’t have to go to a local hospital and waste taxpayer money on services that are far cheaper at a regular doctors office.

I’m not going to discuss whether what the administration is doing is right or wrong or even where I stand on the whole deal. I just wish that the media would do a better job of educating people about what’s really going on instead of really polarizing the story and leaving out important details. It just makes me cringe.

To check out that collection, head on over to my flickr account now.  Also, there’s a great preview of the wedding video from Brian & Erika’s wedding over at our friend Cheryls website – http://caslproductions.com/blog/.  Go have a look at that – it’s a great preview of what was a truly beautiful wedding.

So, what have I been doing this summer to keep myself busy?  Weddings and dealing with my house, actually.  Since June I’ve attended three weddings, with a fourth coming up this Saturday – which should be the last wedding of the summer.  Whew!  Everyone seems to be getting married this year.

Additionally, last weekend I was fortunate enough to meet up with some of my old friends from SFOL/FSF at the 31st Annual Shore Leave Star Trek convention.  While I didn’t actually attend the convention, I did browse through the dealer room and had a great lunch with my old friends.  I think next year I’ll actually stay overnight and join in the drunken debauchery (which was broadcast live and in color this year, thanks to a handy webcam someone brought!).

The house.  Mmm.  The damn house.  I won’t go through all of the pain and mental anguish that the house has put me through, but I will say that the last two weeks have been – thus far – problem free.  Hopefully it’ll go like that for a few more months.

For those actually keeping track of things, I am now fully unpacked, with the exception of the kitchen which is going to be remodeled by Sears sometime in the next few weeks.  After that I’ll be having a house warming party finally.  The office/guest room is done, complete with sleep sofa, desk, chair, computer, bookcase, and lighting fixture (which I totally forgot to buy until AFTER I’d finished putting the room together).  I’ve also hung all of the artwork I own (big thanks to my father for donating  some of his nicer pieces).

So, that’s my summer so far.  Hopefully I’ll find some way to fit a beach trip or something in.  All work and no play makes Scott a dull boy.

I’m not going to write another 1,000 word dissertation like I did from last week, but here’s a few great quotes from the article, which was titled, “Building Respect for Usability Expertise.”

The first malady here is that content owners are relying on their own opinions and preferences. The primary cure is to point out that these subject-matter experts are completely unrepresentative of the target audience on almost every possible dimension

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “Well, you’re not a subject-matter expert so you don’t understand how this data should be displayed…” I’d be able to buy everyone on my team lunch at McDonalds for two days.  I can recall an incident just a few months ago where that exact phrase was spouted at me, in front of my boss, by a client on site.  I was taken aback by the comment at the time but decide to simply let it slide and let the client do their own thing instead of rocking the boat.  Just gotta do that sometimes when contracting for the Fed.  Here’s another great quote from the article:

It’s true that “there’s always evidence to support any opinion,” but that doesn’t mean you should ignore data. After all, some data is clearly better than others.The main facts about how people read on the Web are extremely well established, and literally hundreds of studies have reproduced our original findings over the past 12 years.

The same is true for all of our usability guidelines: most have been confirmed by other independent studies. Anyone who bothers to run a study will discover the same thing, because there are no usability secrets — it’s simply a matter of looking.

Still, while most usability evidence strongly aligns, there are deviant results to be found. People who don’t know any better will stumble across such findings in a Web search and proclaim that “the experts disagree.” However true, this is not a license to ignore usability data and follow any random path.

Instead, you should weigh the evidence. On one scale, you have hundreds of studies from experts across industries and countries; they all agree on the big picture, and often document their findings with substantial reports. On the other scale, you have a few deviant postings (plus many guesses, but as previously discussed, you should disregard pundits who don’t test their theories with real people). This simple weighing exercise usually tips the scales in favor of the consensus.

I tell you, when Jakob Nielsen gets it right, he hits the nail right on the head.  This is the kind of stuff I wait on baited breaths to read more of from him.

Anyhow, enough of my babbling.  Head on over to UseIt.com now and read the article for yourself.  And hey, by the way, do you use Twitter?  If you do, you can follow me @mexijew!