Enso is open

That’s it. When they made it free I hesitated but still didn’t give up my pet project, my very own command line utility. I liked the idea to shape it myself and add the commands that I like to have. But now they went open source as well..

I liked Enso since the first time I met the site and the application. I listened/read Aza in few occasions. I even attempt to buy the application after playing around the demo some time and lost fate on my own development. It was just before they went free.

Enso is one of the few softwares that I really enjoyed playing with. And also one of the few that I really felt jealous. I had two major concerns with it:High resource usage and missing development SDK. They did something on second part but I was not comfortable so far. Now I hope this move will help on both sides. I already checked out the software but only the OS X back-end is available, so I have wait some more. I might use this time to warm-up with Enso, again.

Don't Break The Chain

I am not much in favor of web applications. It might be just I couldn’t get use to the fact that actually most of my time my computer is connected. A left over feeling from my days in Turkey where I was using dial-up modems to connect and count the seconds. But also I find web applications a little bit slow and limited in a way. Limited within a web browser for example.

And yet I decided to create a category for the software I like after a web application: Don’t Break The Chain. I am not even sure if you can call this an application, a simple web site where you can mark your days. You can check the details (nothing much anyway) in their web-site.

I found the website during my daily morning read session. You know when you try to convince yourself that there’s a long day ahead and you should start doing something, but then postpone the real action to enjoy rest of the coffee. Life hacker had a post about tools to help with your new years resolutions. Having few myself I decided to have a look at it. This one and Joe’s Goals were interesting and decided to give it a try. I guess I will stick with this one since:

- I am familiar with idea from the days I was trying to quit smoking. You count the days you last smoke. Bigger the number you are less likely to smoke and start from 0 again.
- I like the feeling when I looked at the web site: let’s see how this things work… that’s all?
- There is a nice iGoogle gadget so I can face my marks frequently.
- Such tools should not stand between user and the task (valid for all software but especially for productivity tools), you should not waste your time playing with the application. There is nothing to play in this one…

… and yes, I don’t smoke anymore…

Time Tracking

I mainly worked on project based companies. There are few things I like with such companies:

* Projects last from few months to a year, a year and a half at most. They might be similar but not identical. You get to learn/experience a wide variety of things.
* Changing projects are like pressing reset button on your computer, you get fresh starts.

Beside changing the scene, resetting time to time has many benefits. You get rid of the accumulated errors from the development phase. You might know that feeling, you go home after few long nights in a row (nights connected to the mornings) have a nice shower, come back to the office next day and everything is as new as the first day.

One of the things I am struggling is about scheduling. When you need to manage a schedule for few months, it is easier. It is like you don’t need to see the girl again.

But you know, all good things have an end. Now, I work in a product based company. Although we have release schedules and it gives us a sensation of starting new it is not the same thing. Scheduling is not that girl you had your fun anymore, she remembers all the mistakes you do.

Scheduling and time tracking are closely related concepts. Once you have a schedule you will want to know where the hell you spend all your time and missed the deadline.

I started checking for time tracking utilities when I was working as a freelancer. It was mainly for billing purposes and I didn’t really care more than how many hours I worked on a certain task. After all freelancing is still project based. Current challenges require a lot more then that. So I came back to google.

There are plenty of tools available and I tried some of them. Most lack at the initial point. When you work on a certain issue you don’t really want to go through many UI elements. All you need is to start something, or pause your time and continue working.

…

I put these three dots nearly a week after I wrote the last sentence. My quest to a time tracking tool is just like this. I know I am very close to it, but it is like behind something which I can’t jump over. I have a feeling about it, but that’s it. I guess this makes it an interesting topic. I will come back to it again…

Boxes

I have something new for my therapy after a long days work: Some cutting, folding and pasting. A personal touch for presents. I made a couple of these:

Last night, thinking that I don’t have enough time my new design I decided to make something simple. I needed a protected cover for my small booklet. Being an easy project I thought I would take it easy and avoid all those mistakes I made in previous ones.

Although it seems simple enough I went through the draft design process first. I draw the expected results on a draft paper, then cutting schema and write down the measurements. Then from draft paper I moved to the actual paper draw carefully. Now, from draft to final drawing I changed the design in two points which required almost total re-drawing. I felt lucky to have the change ideas before I get to the scissors part. Ah also, I made two mistakes in measurements but fortunately I find it out before I start the final drawing. See, I managed to avoid buying a proper ruler, I have two, the ones used in construction, let’s say little house improvements. Certainly not good for fine paper.

Anyway, all these slowed down the process but I managed to come to the cutting part without loosing any paper. Folding part was also pretty straight forward, the part that I didn’t mess up much in previous ones either. When I finished the box I noticed that folding order would have been better. There is a small piece inside the box which creates a little problem when I want to put the booklet in. But it is not something I can not live with, just a reminder that it would have been better.

Google Video

Two reasons why I like google video.

1. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

2. Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Having Fun

I thought this topic deserves its own category, so here we are: is there a life before…

If somebody asks so what do you want, my automated answer would be to have fun. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have fun if you don’t have money. At least up to some amount. So let’s skip that part of discussion and focus on fun part.

To me there are two ways for having fun: You have fun while you are making something and/or you have fun with what you are doing/ what you have done. If you put those two in two ends of a line, I think by time, I am moving from one end to other. While it was fun just doing something and not really caring what will come out at the end (like my university degree) now I feel pity seeing what would come out (like my university degree). I am not at the other end yet but I hope one day.

Think a sunny day at beach. You are playing with sand and making a castle. Think that you are with friends and every now and then one starts a sand war which will end up total destruction of what you have done so far (which is not much anyway). You are going back home leaving a pile of sand behind looks like anything but castle.

Now think another beach, quieter then first one. Still a nice day with sun and sea and lots of sand just for you. You work on your big project and when you leave, you leave one of those masterpieces behind .

Now, considering that you found both of them nice, here is what is wrong with being an employee: You don’t get to choose what you are making, which beach you will be, or what you will use. But this is still OK. It is just some bigger challenge. And I believe that there are ways to affect what/where/how… Problem is you don’t get that quite nice beach. You will be on one of that public ones. People will come, watch, comment even join in some sense. But they will not be the ones from the first beach, I am sorry. At least most of the time. Not all of us are that lucky. Being an employee you can stay close to neither ends of that line. And on top of it situation is a little bit more complicated for you: You are with some people which you didn’t choose, and you are making something again you didn’t really choose. So, that’s what I call challenge my friend.

Finding your self in such mid point, you need to work your way out in both side. Finding the good in what you are doing is one challenge (which I can humbly advise try to do it good to find good in it). finding a gang is another (I will not comment on this).

I remember using the term “art” for software development, not very often but you know the times I get over excited about what I am doing. When I think about it tonight, art is on a very special point on that line. You choose to stay in that beach alone, enjoying what you are doing, while you are doing without thinking what will come out at the end and yet you come up with something good. I am far away from that point.

Is there a life before you start your own? (…)

Short after I started writing on this topic I had my aha moment. If you don’t mind I will exaggerate a little bit and call it moment of enlightenment, sort of.

I always thought starting your own is about getting rid of management. You take one barrier between you and the things you want to do. Since you know the best anyway, why you should waste time trying to convince someone else?

While I was playing with the questions what would make me happy? or what do I want? I noticed that answering them is not as easy as it seems. Either I don’t have a clear, well defined answer or answers are changing with my mood.

Playing with them, I changed the subject and got two more sets of questions. One is a lot easier to answer: What does management want/what would make them happy?. And one is a lot harder: What does your colleague want/what would make him(her) happy?. Your manager/boss is easy to predict (most of the time). (S)He wants to see that project finished while spending less and making more money. Well, maybe I over simplified it for the sake of brevity. But never mind, we will compare it with your colleague and believe me we can live with this error margin.

I should admit that I am cheating here. Although both questions seem very similar, what we understand from the first one is quite different. When it comes to your manager, you don’t actually think what makes him/her happy as a person but as a manager. And this is easy because it is mostly defined in your contract. The expectations are more or less made clear from the beginning. When it comes to you or your colleague though, it is different story. Working is mainly about earning money. But clearly what you expect from your company is not limited with it. This brings us to the beginning, almost. Almost since now we are talking about your colleague, not you. See, there is no way to know actually, even when it is about ourselves, we think or assume. Same is for your colleague. There is a big chance that what you think that (s)he wants will be quite different than what (s)he thinks that (s)he wants. And both will change now and then anyway.

Long story short, management might be a barrier with you and what you want to do, but it is an easy one. Heard about knowledge is power? It is. All you have to do is to show what you want to do is actually what they want or it will help to get what they want. Bad news is, you are not alone and this simple trick doesn’t really work with your colleagues.

Disassemling My Laptop

I know this was stupid. It was like when I decided to change the partitions on a perfectly running system. Without taking any backup of course.

My laptop (an ancient Toshiba Satellite 1905) was bothering me for long time. It’s been a while since it lost its mobility (not much battery juice left, cover refuses to close and open, and 4.5Kg doesn’t seem light to me anymore). But it is my desktop replacement after all and I didn’t feel like paying manymoney to a desktop and keeping this somewhere unused. I did all tricks to bring the screen to an OK position. My ultimate goal was to get rid of the cover and make use of LCD in someway. If I was close to my friends with necessary tools I could just tell them what to do and they would handle it. But no, I am stuck here (no offense) and I have these:

But then, I was at home, had my dinner, watched a movie, had two beer and didn’t feel like working. I just saw a web site with instructions on how to disassemble the Toshiba laptops and that was haunting me all day.

Last time when I cut and not paste the sync cable of my PDA (another ancient piece from Sony, a friend help me to make the charging directly from USB but we were not very careful about packing it back) my wife made her point and that’s why I was not brave enough to try this before. But tonight I couldn’t stop it (she was far enough). I know, it is a small step for the hardware hackers of the world, but a giant one for me:

Before you ask, this model has a detachable keyboard and I also have an extra wireless keyboard for long hours typing.

Next step is to remove the cover, turn the screen upside down on put the computer in a vertical position. But first I have to figure out a nice/secure way to position it. So much for tonight…

Ah, before I forgot, that time, I managed to change the partitions of my hard disk (the one and only and without any backup) and didn’t damage the data. At least at first time. Then, just after that (the very same night just after the first boot), I was not happy with the partition sizes and wanted to change again. That is when I lost all my data…

Is there a life before you start your own?

When you grow up in Turkey (*) you have to face several prejudgments. Starting from your choice of university to industry you work. You know, cases like just after you mention where you study you feel like you need to give an excuse. In Turkey you have to pass a national exam to enter the university and go to a department according to your score (from a long list of your choices of course). When I was studying it was quite common to hear someone saying “but it was my first choice” (meaning, it was not that I couldn’t go somewhere else but I wanted to study this). Same sort of need to explain yourself was visible for, let’s say, staying in university, choosing a state institute to work in, choosing to stay in the country… Now I kinda feel the same for choosing to work in a company instead of making the jump and moving the other side of the fence. You see/hear all those startups with a shining story: from garage to billions. Internet is full of stories with people starting their own companies and starting their own companies to give advice to start your own company… It feels like I am the only one (even this is questionable) left behind. But yet, we are many and yet for some it was our first choice.

I have been playing with this idea (to choose to be an employee) for a while. What does it mean? Why one would choose such thing (this is an easy one)? How one would be happy with it (this is the hard one)? I will try to write down my thoughts here. Who knows I might come with some answers.

* I am sure you can put other country names here as well.

Tools Development

I like developing in house tools since it brings you close to your user. And better than that, your user is yourself or your friend that you share your working hours. This is about job satisfaction, you know , to see what good is that you are doing. This is what you might feel if you are working as a tools developer.But than, it is not the tool for you anymore (as a developer), it is your target product and you just happened to be living with your customer. Good for job satisfaction but missing a tiny detail.

It is a tool for you if you are using it while working on your own product, software, model, whatever it is. Your integrated development environment for example, your simple text editor, file browser, your keyboard, your computer, you get the picture…

There is something special in developing/hacking your own tools like the early humans changing the objects so that they can better fit for their needs. Although objects are a lot more complicated now compare to early rock and wood pieces, I believe, there is still that basic satisfaction in changing them.

Adding a simple script to your build system or complete new functionality to your integrated development environment, if it is directly from your bare hands, there is something special in it.