Zen and the Art of Financial Collapse
Last Friday, I twittered:
A message to panicking shareholders: look outside. The birds are still flying, the trees still standing. Nothing is different.
This was just one of the little realizations from taking a couple of days of reflection on Whidbey Island. It was interesting to read about the financial panic around the world, look at the tumbling stock prices, seeing the politicians and stock brokers' distraught faces and then look out at the water from my balcony. The seagulls didn't seem to care at all. Neither did the heron, or the trees, or the dogs running up and down the beach. Why? Because nothing has actually changed.
The companies whose value is dropping so dramatically are really the same companies they were four weeks ago. Or four months ago. For the most part, the same people go to work there and they are doing the same things. Yet, people have decided to have a nice panic. Sure, there were a bunch of greedy and either dishonest or insanely stupid people decided that it was ok to lend people more money than they could afford to pay back, but this has been going on for years. Just look at the crazy number of credit card applications that show up in every college student's mailbox. Debt has become the new patriotism. But it is really no different today than it was 6 months or a couple of years ago when things were "just fine."
The interesting thing is that the banks and others in the financial industry have decided to stop trusting each other. Now they decide to not loan money even to each other because they're afraid they might not get it back. I'm not sure where that thinking was over the past seven or so years when they were making the bad loans, but their new-found realism is causing them to start hiding their money in their industrial sized mattresses.
The fact is, though, that the core of this problem is in our minds. The vast majority of those bad mortgages will still be paid off, particularly if the people who have them can get the interest rates down to a reasonable number. A percentage of them will fail no matter what, but the actual numbers are probably not that high. This is why the government was so excited to get in and buy large quantities of them - it is a good money making opportunity if you can buy lots and lots of loans at pennies on the dollar and then end up with a 10% real default rate.
Ah, but see? I've gotten myself into playing armchair economist when the real point is this: Today is not different from yesterday. The trees are still standing, the water is still flowing and the sun will rise again in the morning. The only thing that has changed is our minds.
We just need to chill out and breathe.
I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of months working on a couple of iPhone applications including
TeeShot and
PracticeTee. Until recently, though, we were not able to talk about what it was like to write these applications, or even talk in public about the APIs used due to an NDA from Apple that applied to all developers in the program. Fortunately, Apple dropped that NDA a few days ago, so we should start seeing lots more information on the web about how to write iPhone apps and how to work around some of the issues that we run into building on a platform that is new and growing.
With that out of the way, I figured now would be a good time to post a few thoughts about what it has been like to build and deploy several versions of applications for the iPhone.
The Good
Frameworks
Building an iPhone application is remarkably similar to building a Macintosh application. One of the best things that Apple did in the creation of the iPhone SDK was to start from the Cocoa framework and then tweak some of the UI layers to be more specific to the iPhone form factor. This means that in many places, I can copy and paste code between a Macintosh application like
CourseBuilder and my iPhone application. Also, since Cocoa is such a mature environment by now, with very strong development tools, much of the underlying framework is very robust and secure. The graphics capabilities of the iPhone are outstanding, having a full networking stack and the cellular network at your disposal means applications are always connected and the fact that every iPhone comes with SQLite built in means that writing rich data applications is very simple. This is fantastic.
Tools
For the most part, the development tools are really great to work with and I don't just mean the XCode IDE. The performance monitoring tools are very strong, though sometimes a little quirky still and the iPhone emulator is really top notch. It is even useful for testing websites to see how they will look on the iPhone.
Distribution
Even with all of the complaints people have had about the iTunes App store (banning applications, slow to post updates, light reporting) it is a real game changer for there to be a distribution mechanism that automatically hits all potential customers for the application and provides both payment and download/update infrastructure as part of the deal. Services like this allow very small development shops - like just one developer - to deliver their applications to users much more simply. I worry about getting the application feature set right, making it simple and stable and Apple takes care of delivering it to customers and getting the money from them to me. This makes for two very fun days every month - reporting day and funds transfer day.
The Bad
Application Security
While the app signing features make it significantly harder for users to get your application without paying for it, they also make several parts of application development harder. Every time you build the application for a device, it must be signed before it will install or run. This process, though, is full of issues that pop up and when they do, they are extremely difficult to work through. I set up a new development machine after a hard drive failure and while I can build applications that are signed for distribution, my development certificate have never been the same since. The errors are vague in these cases and there is not much you can do to track it down.
Distribution
Yes, the iTunes Application Store is a godsend for many reasons, but waiting for weeks for an application to go from upload to release is frustrating for developers and customers. It looks like Apple has started working through the kinks in the system because my last update was much faster than the previous ones, but when developers are used to immediate updates for our websites and desktop applications (thanks
Sparkle), waiting days or weeks for an application to be released is a drag.
Customer Access
The downside of Apple handling distribution is that we lose a direct connection with our customers. While they can and often do contact us with support or feature requests, we don't have a direct way to let our customers know about upcoming features, issues to be aware of, or special offers that are available for them. The only information we get from Apple is how many people from each country have purchased the application.
The Ugly
I think one of the biggest issues is how the iTunes Application store currently makes it difficult to market our products effectively. There is currently no way to offer discounts to repeat customers or customers of business partners. There is no way to charge for major upgrades to products without effectively releasing an entirely new product. There is no way to give out free copies to reviewers or influentials without using up a very limited ad hoc device key. My product is a very seasonal product and it would be nice to be able to have a bundle with another product or service, or offer it free to users who have purchased other products or services but currently the store is too limited for such promotions. The good news is that this is a very solve-able problem.
Assuming Apple doesn't change their mind, I hope to do several more posts about writing iPhone apps in the coming weeks. Hopefully, I will even be able to compare it with writing for other platforms and frameworks.
Labels: iPhone, software development
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While we've known it for a little while, today the web site made it public. DeepRockDrive did it's last show on August 1st and is being put in mothballs for now. I still think it is a great idea and we did some amazing shows but it turns out the money can't last forever. You can still catch a number of our shows up on
YouTube though.
At least we didn't have any drummers die. One got sick, but I hear he is feeling much better now.
Labels: DeepRockDied, DeepRockDrive
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RSVP - The Ride!
We just got back from the RSVP. It was really a great time. A ton of riding and a huge challenge (at least for me) but it was really great to have been part of it.
Oh, you want details? Well, ok. :)
Day OneWe started off at around 7 am on Friday morning. The first 13 miles or so were a piece of cake along the Burke Gilman trail. This is part of the trail we did a lot of training on so it was simple, flat and familiar. Once we made a turn in Woodinville, we hit our first big hill and while it took a bit of time, I made it up with no real problem. Just one quick stop to catch my breath. Then we rode on to Snohomish.
One thing that I had noticed was that my bike made an annoying squeaking sound when I was pedaling. This was mainly annoying because it meant that some of my energy was being converted to sound instead of speed, so I was wasting effort, but it had done this before and I had just had a tune up a week before the ride, so I figured it wasn't a big deal. This will prove to be wrong much later on...
After Snohomish, we hit hte Centennial Trail bike path which was a nice path with only one annoyance - at each intersection there are large metal posts that cross the path to keep cars, motorcycles, etc from getting on, but they mean you need to stop on the bike and carefully maneuver between them. Sometimes you could go off the trail around them, but with 1400 other bikers in the same general area, they tended to get a bit backed up. Otherwise, it was a nice section of the ride.
Then we started up a gradual, but very long climb past Lake Stevens, ultimately reaching the highest point on the ride. It was interesting because there was no really steep part here, just lots and lots of climbing. It was also getting warmer so this started to really take a bunch out of me. We had a nice downhill section that followed (what goes up must come down, thank goodness) and we rolled through Arlington to meet up with our support folks at around Bryant.
Here... I bonked. I ran out of energy and found myself sitting on a low wall just staring at the ground. I couldn't really eat anything and Gatorade was just gross. The rest of the crew was ready to go on, so I took a little break and Leslie and Zach drove me to the next stop about 17 miles ahead in Mount Vernon. By the time I got there I was starting to feel better. I had one of the techs look at my bike to see if he could figure out the squeaking but it would have taken too much time to really dig in to find it. Clue #2 that there was something amiss...
After that break, though, I was ready to go again so we set out from Mount Vernon and headed into the valley. No real hills here, but we hit a big headwind, so while the ride was flat, it was a ton of work to press through the wind. Most of the crew was up ahead of me so I did this part alone but after the rest I was still feeling pretty good and we made it up to the next rendezvous spot with our fabulous support crew in Bow at the Rhododendron Cafe.
The next section was the last section of the first day - the ride up Chuckanut Drive to Bellingham. I had been dreading this through training because it was so hilly and late in the day, but it ended up being a real treat. Tony, Jason and I stuck together for this part and while it was a bunch of rolling hills, the scenery was gorgeous. Sammish Bay off to the left, lots of trees along the road and it had cooled down from earlier in the ride (and no wind!) so we just cranked up each hill and took as much as we could from the downhill segments. This turned out to be my favorite part of the whole ride. There were about seven hill segments to it, and then we entered Bellingham and had a surprisingly long ride through the streets before we got to our meeting point for the end of day one, but once there, it was great to be through with it.
We all met for a nice dinner in Bellingham and then headed back to our hotels for some sleep.
Day TwoWe started out from Bellingham at about 7:30. The first few miles of the second day are challenging only because my butt was so sore from the day before but that went away pretty quickly. I must not have had the best breakfast, though, because on the second hill out of Bellingham, I fell a bit behind the group and was on my own for the next 14 miles or so. Not all alone, of course, I would pass the occasional other bikers and be passed by the zippy group must have started a bit later than us. The destination for the first segment was Lynden, where Jason had pre-ordered an amazing banana cream pie which he called the "best in the world."
I rolled in to Lynden and we got in line for pie. I'm not much for banana cream pie, perhaps because, as Leslie points out, those are the ones you are supposed to throw in people's faces. Their chocolate caramel pie, though, was delightful and after a good amount of pie eating and bathroom breaking, we headed out for the Canadian border. The rest of our group actually left about 10 minutes before we did and that was the last we would see of them until Vancouver, but Tony, Jason and I headed up to the border and crossed at the same time as our support crew were driving through.
We were driving along 0 Ave right on the border when we had our only real accident of the trip. Tony's front tire hit my rear tire and he dumped along the road. Fortunately, he landed about as best you could when rolling at 17 miles per hour and there wasn't anyone behind him to roll over him, so we picked up the spilled bike bits and after briefly admiring his skinned knees, we continued on.
The next big challenge was "The Wall." A very steep section which I ended up having to walk up but once we were over that, it a windy stretch and then downhill into Fort Langley. We picked up more refreshments from Leslie and Zach who were waiting for us at the ferry crossing, crossed the Fraser river with them and a bunch of other bikers and then rode to a quick pit at the only real food stop of the second day.
By this point, it was quite hot. Somewhere around 90 degrees and no real cloud cover. Most of the roads from here on in are city streets and highways so the heat was a pretty big factor. We drank a lot of water. Crossing the Pitt River, I hit my gear to go into the high gear for some more flat roads and my chain fell off. Ugh. I stopped and put it back on, started going again but it was making a grinding noise now and just a couple blocks more it fell off again. Looking down, something was really wrong now. Basically, the derailleur, instead of going from gear 1 to 2 to 3 was going from 2 to 3 to dump the chain. Climbing was going to be much harder now and even in the regular gears, there was lots of grinding as I pedaled. We were still eight miles from the next pit stop and any hope of a bike tech being able to look at it so we pressed on through the streets of Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam and Port Moody.
As I was going up the last hill to the Port Moody mini-stop, I took another look down at my right pedal and noticed that there was about a 1/4" gap on the crank. Well there's yer problem right there. The whole crank had started to come apart and the gears were not where they were supposed to be. Hence the gear shifting issue and grinding. We made it to the mini-stop where the whole support crew was waiting for us having just seen off the rest of our group for the last leg of the ride into Vancouver. I found the bike tech at the stop and he took a quick look at it. Basically, the crank assembly was broken and needed to be taken apart and re-assembled. Any further riding would just make it worse.
I was done. Hardware failure.
Tony and Jason continued on to Vancouver. Leslie, Zach and I headed to our hotel in Vancouver.
My total distance for the ride was 150 miles. Even with the missing finish, it was still one heck of an accomplishment, particularly given
how the whole idea started.
Now I need to head to the bike repair store for a bit of a repair and start thinking about training for next summer's
STP.
Labels: bicycle, RSVP
Tomorrow I'll be riding in the RSVP - The Ride from Seattle to Vancouver and Party! 183 miles of joy and sweat. We've been training a lot, so I'm pretty excited about it. The only real downside is it's gonna be hot! The forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s.
Wish me luck :)
Labels: bicycle, RSVP
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That was a crazy long ride
After watching the
Mötley Crüe show at DeepRockDrive last night until 12:30 am, I got up at 6 to meet folks for a long bike ride in preparation for the
RSVP which is less than two weeks away!
We started on Novelty Hill then rode down through Carnation, Falls City, then up to Snoqualmie Falls and around North Bend before heading back down through Carnation and finishing up with the grueling 8 mile climb-from-hell that is Novelty Hill. All in all, a ride of 72.5 miles.
Clint kept saying that "hills are your friends" but I'm pretty sure we have a different definition of friend. Friends don't make friends feel like they wanna puke.
But, we got back safely, after only two flat tires and 6 hours (flat tires take time to fix, and fortunately, Clint is very good at fixing them). I'm sure once I've recovered, I will think it was a great ride. It was certainly an accomplishment!
Labels: bicycle, RSVP
My iPhone Application, TeeShot, got a great review at MacWorld.com today. 4 out of 5 mice and listed as "The best of the bunch!"
This is amazing! Lots of traffic coming into
TeeShot Live right now. I am sooo psyched to see the great feedback on TeeShot so far. Now I just need to find the time to get out and play-test version 1.5.
w00t!!!
Labels: "TeeShot Live", MacWorld, TeeShot
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Motley Crüe is playing at
DeepRockDrive on August 1st. This promises to be our biggest show yet, and our first from a venue outside of DeepRockDrive's own blue box. We will be deepcasting the sold-out show from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Sold out for people in Las Vegas, that is, but not for you!
Click now to grab your FREE ticket to the show.
How cool is that?!?
Labels: DeepRockDrive, live concerts, Motley Crüe
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Some of you know about this already, but I figure now is a good time to let everyone take a peek :)
A few weeks ago, I started building an application for the iPhone and iPod touch that lets me track my golf score while I'm out playing. The first version is done now, as is the website and blog that accompany it. The application, called TeeShot, will be available for sale through the iTunes application store on Friday - the same day that the new iPhone 3G is released.
You can check them all out at the
TeeShot Live website and at my new
Talkin' TeeShot blog.
TeeShot Live, is more than just an "about this application" website. It is the place where users go to upload and download courses and will eventually be a place where they can keep in touch with their friends who are out playing golf. Today, though, it shows off the
features of TeeShot and lets users start downloading courses (there are already over 100 courses up there).
I am really excited to see what folks think of the application and how it does at the iTunes Application Store. TeeShot costs $19.99 (less than a half dozen golf balls) so I'm hoping lots of people pick it up just to give it a try.
The cool thing is that the new iPhone 3G has a GPS receiver in it, so an upcoming version of TeeShot will use that to help golfers figure out how far they hit each shot and how far they are from the green and more!
Check it out!
Labels: "TeeShot Live", golf, iPhone, TeeShot
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At least for me- this year's batch of 4th of July fireworks photos are my best yet. Perhaps it is the Canon 1D Mark III which is new for me this year. Perhaps it is just figuring out a few more tricks in Lightroom. Either way, I am quite pleased with this year's batch of shots.
Two things that certainly helped were being invited by Megan and Anh to their gorgeous home in Seattle (thanks again!) and the clearly improved Seattle fireworks - nice new pastels this year. Sweet!
Check them out at at
SmugMug.
Labels: fireworks, Seattle
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