I (pretty randomly) came across an awesome series of Photoshop tutorials on deviantart.com (good place to wander around if you're in a creative funk).

I haven't done any heavy Photoshop artwork in quite a while now, regardless, my technique never turned out results as good as hers.  Very nice work and nicely put together tutorials.

Makes me want to plug in my (severely) underused Wacom and work on some backlogged sketches.  Gah!  Can't make up my mind.  Am I a software developer, or an artist?

This pretty much sums up how I've been feeling every-freaking-day for the last few weeks/months:

I've never been more unsure about everything in the entire universe. I no longer comprehend what is important in the essence of everything. All knowledge and understanding I have aquired now all just seems meaningless and empty. I feel I am completely hopeless. My mind revolves so much around school and stale concrete fact. I don't really have a life. Right now I am just existing, going day to day with what seems like essentially no purpose or direction. I can't find my foundation for thought or reason or action. This is the worst feeling I have ever had in my entire life. Nothing is important, which in itself is sigificant for some reason. I think. I don't know. I feel so overwhelmed. I feel like I'm trying to wrap my head around life. Do you know what all is in life? A whole fucking lot. And my mind feels obligated to figure out every fucking bit of it at the same time. I feel like I'm trying to wrap a rubber band around a dumptruck. I'll either stay frustrated like this, or I'll somehow keep trying to stretch until it snaps.

In my case, I don't think I can even recall a particular point in time when this happened. It feels like I've been in this kind of funk forever.  I envy people, like my wife, who (at least on the surface) seem to have figured out exactly what life is about, what is important to them, what their goals are, and what they have to do to get there.  I think it's healthy to have goals; it gives you purpose and meaning in every action that you do.  Problem is, I just can't seem to solidify mine.

:Sigh:

For those of you who are curious, this is what my (tiny) "office" space looks like.

I finished my first "workshop" article!

Had a bit of free time and decided to finish it as it's something that I've been meaning to do for quite a while now.

As an aside, the "workshop" series of articles are meant to be my gesture of giving back to the community from which I've taken so much.  I know I've found tons of useful blog posts and articles online that have helped me greatly in the past, so I feel that it's only fair that I give back a bit.   I don't claim to be some guru or know all of the answers, but my hope is that the information that I provide in these articles can help someone out there get their job done more easily.  I'm also aware that someone out there may have already done something like this, but my own experience tells me that it's always helpful to work with various sources to gain different insights.

Now onto the article!

In March, I worked on creating a SQL Server DTS package to import data from various data files.  One aspect that grew tiring really fast was having to manually change the paths of the source data files each time I moved the package from one environment to another (or even from my machine to Kent's).  We had 6 datafiles at the time (early testing/development phase) in addition to various other settings that were environment dependent like mail server addresses and database logins.  I was simply too lazy to keep fiddling with the settings in DTS every time I had to send the package to the client or to Kent.

The solution I came up with makes use of DTS global variables, the powerful "Dynamic Properties Task" task, and some simple VBScript.

Still interested?  Then read the full article.

Feel free to leave comments, questions, and criticisms in this thread

Came across this article via Ars.

If you didn't know, I'm a huge fan of the cepholopod class of animals.  The giant squid is one of those rare beasts that we know exists via dead specimens that we've found, but have yet to observe, live, in the wild.

So this is a very cool discovery!

As I was browsing through the forums at Arstechnica, I came across a post titled "Alternatives to outsourcing?".

Being an IT consultant, this immediately caught my attention.

I read in Time, a while back, that a few companies were experimenting with insourcing, or the idea of setting up shop in areas of the US where the cost of living is low.

As the Net has spread and the amount of bandwidth has increased, to me, physical location is becoming less and less important as communication via the Net has become more accessible.  From video chat to VoIP, the reality of a truly distributed team unit is getting ever closer to reality.  Hopefully, WiMax will get us over that next hurdle of "the last mile" and truly network the entire nation.

What kind of strikes me as odd is that, even though most (probably every) software developer or IT consultant has a broadband connection, why I still have to show up at the office every day.  To be honest, for the 9 months that I've worked here, a total of 4 of those months were spent on "The Bench" (some refer to it as "The Beach").  I know some people that can't work at home due to the inability to focus or other distractions like spouses or children, but that's not the case with me and I'd happily and productively (somehow this doesn't seem like proper grammar) work from home.  It wouldn't be so bad if I could show up in jeans and a dress shirt, which I did for the first few months, but now we have this silly business casual dress code (yes, I'm being picky), and I have to wear khakis.  Tucked.  Blah!

Okay, back on topic .  To be honest, I could do my job just as well from my fictional house in rural Georgia or South Dakota, provided I have a broadband connection.  And I'd rather be doing that than living in Jersey.  Traffic congestion is horrible and I think it lessens my lifespan by 20 minutes each day (the amount of extra time it takes me to get to work due to traffic).  For the price of a small townhouse in Jersey, I could build a huge, 4 bedroom castle in Kansas.  In fact, Kansas offers free residential land to encourage people to move out there.  Not only that, they offer free commercial land and lots of monetary incentives to set up shop out there.

So the question stands, what's wrong with insourcing and why don't we see more of it?  Certainly, while it's not as cheap as outsourcing/offshoring, I think it's a better investment in the long run considering the state of our economy and the good press it can bring a company willing to invest in the American people.

There has to be other people out there like me.

I have issues.  Many issues.  We all do.  Perhaps the one that gets to me the most is that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to certain things, like designing software.  It's a curse, because I try to be perfect from the beginning and it adds to the inertia of getting the project started in the first place; getting that first, crucial prototype out the door is the key first step to any project.

This is an issue that I've had for a quite a while now and I know that software is supposed to be imperfect.  Particularly when you undertake to create something new, no one knows what it's supposed to look like; no one knows, 100%, what it's supposed to do.  Certainly, there is an idea of what problem a particular piece of software should solve with version 1, but I'm always trying to figure out what it's supposed to do in version 2, before version 0.1 is even complete.  Therein lies the problem.  My psyche forces me to understand the problem and solution completely before I can really start to make it a reality.

I have a pile of papers scattered around my desk at home and my desk at work with various projects that I've doodled or half started, but couldn't think through completely either due to waning interest or lack of time.  In all cases, I get stuck trying to see the whole picture before I've arrived at the destination.

As a developer, I know the importance of prototyping and building simple proof-of-concepts.  If fact, I do this often in my professional life.  But as soon as I start working on any type of personal project, this perfectionist drive just kicks in and immobilizes me from the get-go :-(

I can't be the only one that suffers from this afflictive emotion.  How do other developers deal with it?

One way is to work with others.  A couple of months back, I worked on a project with a friend I met while working at ITT, Blake Dubin.  It was great working with him as he had a vision of exactly what this tool needed to do, which relieved me from over-analyzing the requirements of the tool.  In addition, it helps that he prodded me to get the work done Yeah, the code was a bit sloppy, but it was done in under 15-18 hours and it's really pretty cool to boot.

The problem is that in my day-to-day life, I rarely deal with other developers/managers that I feel are as interested in building these things as I am.  One of the big problems is that I'm surrounded by slightly older developers.  That in itself is not so bad, as there is always something to be learned from experience in the industry, but the problem is, they're not old enough that they can kinda shake off the responsibilities of family life yet.  These guys are in their late 20's and 30's, so they have to, rightfully, place family ahead of self, especially since they have very young kids, which leaves them with little free time to work on anything else.

I have a few friends who are developers as well.  My college roommate, Joe, lives right around the corner from me.  But he's absorbed by World of Warcraft.  The man is practically glued to his computer desk.  In addition, he doesn't have the same passion for creating random pieces of software (I think he'll end up in management in a few years).

I'm sure this problem is not restricted to just software development.  So how do you guys deal with this?  It's even more annoying that I realize that this is a problem that I have, and yet I'm unwilling or unable to resolve it by myself.

Quite a long weekend.

It culminated on Sunday with the lecture given by the Dalai Lama at my alma mater, Rutgers.

I also attended a wedding the same night; quite a spectrum of events to absorb in one day.

I would like to preface by stating that I am an atheist.  I am attracted to Buddhism not for the spiritual/religious aspect of it, but rather the philosophical/moral aspect and the message of the Dalai Lama, one of peace, compassion, acceptance, and altruism without exception.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect from this lecture; I wasn't sure why I plopped down $30 for the tickets.  I was first formally introduced to Buddhism in my Chinese Civ. class by a Dr. Peter Li (who, in retrospect, reminds me a lot of the Dalai Lama in mannerisms, speech, and approach).  As I mentioned, I'm an atheist and thus, Buddhism, to me, is not so much a religion as it is a philosophy of living.

Having been removed from that academic environment, I've been slacking in terms of my continued studies of Buddhism.  To that effect, I wasn't sure that there would be any purpose or value in going to this event.  Was it just to satisfy my ego?  Bragging rights?  I don't know, but I felt that I had to go, being that this might be a <cliché>once in a lifetime chance</cliché>.

The day began early for us as we took the scenic route to Rutgers (really scenic).  As we waited in the stadium, I found that I was quite surprised at the number of people that showed up (I'm not quite sure why, as I knew that the lecture was sold out).  It's an awesome sight to see so many people congregate in one place for a non-sporting event.  What struck Sandy and I the most was the incredible diversity of the group that was present.  In our day to day lives, I think that most people rarely deal with such a diverse population (be it your classroom or you workplace).

Aside: The population of Rutgers, and New Jersey in general, is incredibly diverse.  I recall sitting outside, waiting for my classes to start and watching as people of all races, cultural backgrounds, and religious beliefs passed by.  What's amazing is the level of acceptance demonstrated by everyone.  I mean, yeah, we had our share of bad apples (I recall some anti-semetic graffiti), but for the most part, the Rutgers student body is bountiful in its cultural and racial differences.

It was simply amazing to witness the event; as 10:40 arrived, the entire crowd of thousands of people sat in silence, focused completely on the presence of a single man.  The Dalai Lama himself is a simple man of simple words and simple ways.  He began by addressing the crowd in Tiebetan and had a translator translate his greeting.

For the remainder of the lecture, the Dalai Lama addressed us in English, only turning to his translator for a few terms here and there.  The lecture had a very informal feel to it.  In speech and mannerisms, we, his audience, were just as "old acquaintances".  I half expected a much more formal, more serious tone to his lecture.  Okay, actually, I fully expected it to be a very stale lecture.  To my surprise, the entire stadium would occasionally erupt with warm laughter as the Dalai Lama made small jokes throughout his speech.

The subject of the lecture itself contained nothing earth shattering (I won't bore you with a transcript of what was said, you can catch that from the videos); nothing that you or I haven't thought of before.  In fact, when Igor asked me what I had learned from the lecture, I struggled to figure out what exactly moved me so much? Why should it matter that these views were being conveyed to us by this man?  I thought deeply about this after the lecture and today as well and I think the reason it was such a moving speech (yes, I teared up at one point) was the absolute conviction with which he delivered his message; one full of compassion, understanding, acceptance, and altruism.  The very embodiment of the Buddhist philosophy.  Yes, I found myself moved to tears as I sat there listening to his views, in complete silence, along with 40,000 of my brothers and sisters.

What made the entire experience even more enriching is that you can only truly realize how down-to-earth and "everyman" the Dalai Lama is if you see him, observe his mannerisms, and listen to his speech.  He made it plain and clear that he is just like everyone of us and no different.  He has his moments when he suffers from afflictive emotions such as anger and jealousy.  He doesn't claim to know all of the answers; in fact, he states the opposite quite frankly.  When asked about this thoughts about the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, he offered his views, but added a footnote that since his history of the region and the background of the two groups was insufficient, he was incapable of providing us with The Answer. 

The appeal of his message, and of Buddhism as a whole, I think, is the idea that there is hope for humanity.  No, there is hope for all sentient beings to live in peace and contentment.  And the solution lies not in some mystical god who works in mysterious ways, not in some relic, not in some religion, but in each of us.  The fate of this Earth lies in our own hands and we can only truly achieve peace through education, self cultivation (be it spiritual or otherwise),  compassion, and shedding our ignorance inherent in perception (as opposed to reality).

Igor asked whether I felt that this was a religious experience or an intellectual experience.  In reality, it was neither.  It was a humanistic experience that occurs but rarely in our lifetimes.

I highly recommend watching the video recap of the lecture (linked off of the Rutgers site above).  And if you should ever get the chance to see him in person, even if you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Black, Caucasian, Americn Indian, or Martian , I can only advise that you do not miss the chance as he is truly an extraordinary human being, whether he thinks so or not.

Over the weekend, I was looking for some nice .Net based, open source web based photo gallery applications.

There are only a small handful of such products, including nGallery and Community Server (which uses nGallery).

On the other hand, one of the slickest and most feature rich web based photo management apps, Alex King's Photos 4.1, is built on PHP and MySQL.  While Alex mentions that it's not a gallery app, it's simple to imagine that it could be with only a few small modifications.

In general, the entire .Net culture of create-and-profit is disheartening, considering the wide open community built around alternative technologies like PHP, MySQL, Perl, and so on.  Part of this is Microsoft's fault for not releasing free, full featured tools necessary to build the applications.  Yes, you could build ASP.Net web apps using only the SDK and command line tools, but then you increase the barrier of entry by relegating the technology to only the diehard nerds.

My hope is that, with the release of the Express line of tools and new development frameworks (like Atlas), we will see more open source tools that don't suck in the next .Net generation.

I'm currently debating on whether it's worth my time creating a web based photo management/gallery application (that doesn't suck) using .Net 2.0 and Atlas or WPF/E, which would limit the availability.  Any votes?

On a related note, this month's Wired mag contains an interview with Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly publishing fame).  As summarized by Stephen Levy, the "new Net" is built upon "a philosophy of participation and sharing and a sense that collective action will inevitabley accrue to the greater good." 

When asked to identify his passion with only three words, O'Reilly responded: "Harnessing collective intelligence."  I like to think that Microsoft is catching on and will truly lead us into the pack rather than away from the pack like the lone wolf that is sure to struggle without the support of his pack.  The vision that I see coming out of Redmond with this new generation of technologies is very promising in that respect.  And for that, we should be greatful and excited.  I hope that many of the incredibly talented developers out there who've traditionally shunned Microsoft technologies will give them a shot this time around.  There's just some really incredible free tools on the horizon that will enable developers to create the next generation of web based tools.

I've been in a rather long debate with my co-worker, Igor, about the American public education system. 

Igor, being the father of a 9 year old and me, being the husband of a fourth grade school teacher.  This is not to mention the fact that I'm only 6 years removed from high school.  So we both have very strong feelings on this subject and justifications for what we believe.

While Igor and I agree that the American public educational system is not working the way it should and that the American public, in general, undervalues the importance of education ("it is not a first class occupation"), we have a few disagreements on certain areas.  One contention that Igor has is that he sees the trend of integration of all levels of students into one classroom as being a negative one.  He offers that kids should be broken out into different classes based on their proven academic performance.  In other words, they should be tested, prodded, and sorted until we have a clear representation of who's the smartest and who has no hope. 

He proposed the idea that what we are really dealing with is a linear programming problem.  Given that you only have n amount of resources and given a model (a set of equations) for the amount of returns you would get by investing in given class (x₁, x₂, x₃,...x_n), you should obviously invest the most in the students that give the highest returns.  Certainly, as a public educational system, we can't deny the lower level students.  But in Igor's view, new books should go to the best students.  The best teachers should be allotted to the highest level students.  To the rest, we hold their hands and help them through high school and just hand them a piece of paper if they should make it.

A parallel debate that we've had is whether it is okay to sacrifice a few for the greater good of the whole.  In discussing the Three Gorges Dam in China, Igor said that it was unacceptable to force the farmers and villagers at the site of dam (and upstream of the dam) to move from their homes.  According to Wikipedia, up to as many as 1.9 million people will eventually be displaced.  Igor is one of those guys that invoke's Hitler any time you try to have a discussion with him His argument being that Hitler had convinced the German people that the sacrifice of the Jews was acceptable for the greater good of the Aryan race (or something like that).  His view is that you can never accept sacrificing the rights of the few for the whole.

In the case of China, I don't think Igor's analogy is very good.  To begin with, to my knowledge, people are not being killed by the millions if they refuse to evacuate.  In addition, there is a tangible benefit to everyone, mainly better flood control (which causes billions of dollars of damage to property and crops, thousands of lost lives, and millions of displaced people anyways), an abundant source of clean, cheap electricity (necessary for a developing nation),  and you can even consider tourism to the region to be a source of income for the otherwise rural population.  All this for the sacrifice of displacing (not murdering or exterminating) a mere .01% of the population.  But to me, this is a necessary sacrifice for a population that is nearly 800 times (1.5 billion) the displaced population.  China needs the cheap, clean electricity.  China needs to have control over that fertile land around the river for the sake of improving industry and agriculture.  Certainly, there are unanswered questions regarding the long term viability of the dam including the effects of soot build up, but to me, the benefits far outweigh the negatives and justifies the government's right of the displacement of those people.

(I could spend forever writing on the topic of above, including how emminent domain helped build our transportation network that was essential to the growth of the United States as a nation.  However, that is a post for another day.)

So you see, Igor counters that integration, in the hopes of giving all students a chance to succeed in the same environment, sacrifices the good of a few, the brightest students, for the better of the whole, all of the other students.  He feels that the best teachers and the best materials should go to the smartest kids, namely his.

Of course it's a totally ridiculous statement.  It's like saying that, given 10 obese children, eight of which are dangerously so, a weight loss counselor should focus most of her efforts on the two that are not dangerously obese.  Instead of working with them simultaneously so that the somewhat obese children can help the dangerously obese children in coping and developing good eating habits, we should seperate them and create a counseling group for the somewhat obese kids and one for the dangerously obese kids.  Then we assign our best diet and weight loss counselor to the somewhat obese kids.  Since these kids have the best chance of attaining a normal weight, we'll also put our best chefs on their meal staff so they get the best tasting, low fat, ultra-healthy meals.  In addition, we'll apportion most of the time in the exercise room, of which we only have one, to these kids since if they get enough exercise, they'll have a better chance of attaining a normal weight.  On the other hand, since most of our finite resources are going towards the slightly obese children, there aren't enough for the majority of the kids, the dangerously obese kids, the kids that need the most help.  Instead, we assign a mediocre counselor to the dangerously obese kids and underfund her as well.  Since our best/most skilled chefs are preparing courses for the slightly obese children, our most obese children end up with a menu that's not so appetizing, which in turn, causes them to regress and try to sneak in Twinkies.  Since the exercise room is scheduled for the slighly obese kids most of the time, the dangerously obese kids don't get to spend enough time exercising.  Of course this is an absolutely ludicrous idea; it's clear that the most help should go into the dangerously obese kids in this situation and that having both types of kids in the same group can have a positive effect.  Why should it be any different with our school system?

What Igor doesn't see is how this is, in reality, the sacrifice of many for the good of a few, which, in my opinion, is even more unacceptable than sacrificing a few for the greater good of the whole.

To further aggrevate the situation, the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment showed that people are easily absorbed into the roles and labels with which they are assigned.  After the experiment was ended abruptly, as both "prisoners" and "gaurds" groups were falling too deeply into their assigned roles, it was concluded that:

"the results of the experiment are said to support situational attributions of behavior rather than dispositional attribution. In other words, it seemed to entail that the situation caused the participants' behavior rather than anything inherent in their individual personalities"

In addition to this, it is important to note that:

"The group was divided in half at random into an equal group of 'prisoners' and 'guards'.  Interestingly, prisoners later said they thought the guards had been chosen for their larger physical size, but in reality they had been picked by a fair coin toss and there was no objective difference in stature between the two groups."

What does this mean?  If you segregate kids into honors and regular course levels, you are inherently and implicitly labeling them as being either "smart" or "stupid".  I bolded the last sentence because it shows that people have the tendency, then, to develop an inferiority complex (or rather project superiority upon another group), even if the decision on who goes to the "smart" and "stupid" groups is a completely arbitrary one.

I've been following a program on one of the public broadcasting channels in our area titled The College Track.  You can see it right on in the subtitle of this series: "America's Sorting Machine"; this is what our current educational system is.  Whether Igor likes it or not, this country is made of people of all walks of life, all races, all different types of cultural backgrounds, and all types of values.   As we move forward, to succeed as a country, we need to improve the educational level of everyone.  The proposal that we dedicate our best resources to the few that we think can acheive great academic feats is a proposal to essentially sacrifice the chances of those we think are inferior, academically.

In looking back at my own life, I can see how this panned out.  Igor likes to rag on me about my 1400 SAT score (650v/750m; 90^th and 98^th percentile, respectively) whereas his "hopeless" daughter got a 1460.  He rags on me because, according to my demographics, I should have gotten much higher.  I like to inform him that my sister did indeed get a 1580 (combined highest) and attended Wharton (not that I seriously place a lot of value in this school as it was academically worthless in my opinion, but Igor is one of those guys that believes in names and prestige).

This morning, as I was discussing this with my wife, I finally realized one major factor in why, given that both my sister and I are of roughly equal intelligence levels, I would do so "poorly" on the SATs.  At this point, I need to preface this with the fact that I think the SAT is worthless as a method of measuring a student's capabilities, but that's a matter for another post.

In any case, when we first moved to East Brunswick from Bogota (New Jersey, not Colombia), I was in the 8^th grade and she was in the 6^th.  Because the East Brunswick school system had no idea how I would perform in their curriculum, even though my grades from Bogota were all excellent, I was placed in average level courses as a process of the sorting system.  At the grade school level, where my sister started, this has less of an effect as the kids are essentially all in the same class anyways.  Essentially, she had a chance to use the sorting machine to her advantage by virtue of a longer sorting process.

On the other hand, I can recall my first day of high school chem.  Regular chem.  By all accounts, I did not feel that I belonged in regular chem.  I looked at our textbooks and at the stack of brand new books that were being allotted to the honors chem class and a fire just burned inside of me.  I felt that I deserved those books as much as those other kids.  (Eventually, I did convince the administration to put me into chem. honors).

When you first sign up at Amazon, Amazon has no idea of what type of music you're interested in.  But as time passes and you buy more CDs, their software analyzes your purchases and the purchases of others that purchased the same items that you did and uses this data to build a prediction model of what you'll probably like.  It takes time for this process to work.  If your first CD is a Britney Spears CD for your 12 y/o sister (fictional), then Amazon's algorithm assumes that you'll have similar tastes to other 12 y/o females and recommend music along the lines of Mrs. Spears-Federline (luckily, you can uncheck what you don't want to use for generating recommendations ).  However, given enough time and purchases, the model becomes increasingly more accurate and actually mirrors your taste in music.  You'll log on and find that Amazon will recommend many of the CDs that you already own and artists that you're interested in.  The key is that it takes time for the process of sorting to work.  And the pivotal time in the process, in regards to education, is the time before high school as students become more annonymous and harder to sort properly in a large population.

Whereas my sister had a window of three years, I only had a window of one.  Thus I initially ended up in the "normal" classes for a few years and had to have my mom intervene with my guidance counselors to get me to the higher level classes (at the beginning at least).  I had a shorter window to claw my way through the machinery and prove to the system that I was capable (by the time I graduated, I had taken three AP courses and received a total of 12 college credits for successfully passing the exams and I was A/B+ student).

In the Han Fei Tzu, the Prince of Han writes:

"There is not one naturally straight arrow or naturally round piece of wood in a hundred generations, and yet in every generation, people ride carriages and shoot birds.  Why?  Because of the application of the methods of straightening and bending.  Although there is a naturally straight arrow or a naturally round piece of wood [once in a hundred generations] which does not depend on any straightening or bending, the skilled workman does not value it.  Why?  Because it is not just one person who wishes to ride and not just one shot that the archer wishes to shoot.  Similarly, the enlightened ruler does not value people who are naturally good and who do not depend on reward and punishment.  Why?  Because the laws of the state must not be neglected and the government is not for only one man.  Therefore, the ruler who has the technique does not follow the good that happens by chance, but practices the way of necessity."^*

As we move towards a future that will increasingly depend on a skilled, highly educated population, it is becoming more and more unacceptable to create this type of class rift and leave behind the many for the few.  Why?  Because it is not only a few jobs that will require highly skilled, highly educated workers; most jobs in the coming decades will require education beyond the high school level as we see our manufacturing jobs offshored.  There are only a few students that are naturally talented and require little assistance to succeed.  But to allot more of the public's resources to the few while relegating the rest to an "average" experience, we are placing value on the naturally round piece of wood instead of honing our ability to shape wood so that all may benefit.

^* Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, 1963, p.253