Author: Scott Gruby

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Cycling class

I’ve been going to a cycling class 2-3 days a week for about 2 years now, not to learn to cycle (obviously), but to stay in shape. Over that time, I’ve had a number of instructors at 2 different facilities ranging from the instructor that thought it was a Latino dance class (based on the music she was playing) to the instructors you can tell have done real cycle training. This morning I went to the gym, happy as a clam as I just fixed 2 serious code bugs, and see an instructor named Wendy teaching the class. She isn’t the normal instructor and I’ve had her as a cycle instructor before. Actually, she is the reason I no longer goto Sunday classes; she took over the Sunday class from another instructor. I find that she is loud, annoying, and not very competent at teaching. The commands she yells out (you can hear her half way across the gym) are sometimes helpful, but sometimes plain stupid. She keeps saying “Gear up” and “Gear down”. I think the reason this annoys me so much is that it is so inaccurate. The stationary bicycles are all based on resistance as they have a belt that goes around the wheel and pushing the lever “up” adds more resistance. I suspect she learned those words at a training class and keeps using them, but really doesn’t have a clue that the bicycles don’t have gears.

So, I stayed for about 30 minutes and walked out. I started getting a headache. I normally enjoy class as it gives me time to think and gives me a good workout.

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Crashes, crashes, crashes

One thing I really hate about releasing software is that no matter how much testing you do, it is bound to crash on users. Now the problem is, how can I reproduce the crashes and fix the issues? Users swear they can reproduce the issues, but I usually can’t no matter how much I stand on my head and type with my feet. There must be a better way to extract data from customers and troubleshoot issues.

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The Mothership called

No, I’m not talking about aliens, I’m talking about Apple Computer. I got a cold call from a researcher at Apple who saw my resumé on Linked In. (I’ve thought that Linked In was kind of a joke, but now I might reconsider.) Apparently my resumé looked interesting for a couple of positions. Unfortunately the big sticking point is my unwillingness to leave San Diego and move to Cupertino. I know my in-laws would love for us to move, but it just isn’t happening. I got a follow up call from an Apple recruiter as they’re looking for people that do human interface. Now, if I was willing to move, I could possibly get a job there. The recruiter will pass my name along to the group that does contract hiring, so who knows, maybe I can become a contractor.

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Does anyone still smoke?

I was happily jogging on a treadmill at the gym today when this women gets on the treadmill next to me and it starts smelling like a chimney. Has she not read that smoking will kill her? Besides the kill her part, how about the bad smelling clothing and the funny looks people give you when they smell you? When I was in college I took bowling with a friend of mine (hey, it was $2.50 for 3 games of bowling…couldn’t beat that). Basically before we went, we changed into almost disposable clothing as the smoke filled alley made our clothes smell awful. Luckily smoking isn’t allowed in bowling alleys any more. Speaking of bowling, I need to do that again.

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iPod Nano

I received an iPod Nano yesterday and must say that it’s a pretty cool little device. The display is readable (however, the font is a little fuzzy) and the weight is amazing. Due to the small size, Apple sort of has you buy accessories…how can I hold this when I goto the gym? Had to plunk down $30 on an armband. The armband is just a piece of neoprene with some Velcro. I actually thought of using some duct tape and a plastic bag to fashion my own armband, but used by better judgement to spend the money on something that is proven to work.

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Missing Sync for Palm OS 5 Shipped!

For the last 6 or 7 months, I’ve been working on Missing Sync for Palm OS. We have finally shipped and it is a big relief. I acted not only as the lead engineer, but as product manager due to others at Mark/Space being quite busy. Needless to say, at times, I’ve been overwhelmed taking on two major roles. I think that this product has killer features. It has much better syncing support for Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks, as well as the features I worked on: overhauled UI, auto sync vs sharing detection, iTunes conduit, folder sync conduit, iPhoto to handheld, as well as a number of bug fixes. If you’re a Macintosh and Palm OS user, I highly recommend you purchase or upgrade! If you’re on the fence about upgrading or purchasing, trust me, it is well worth the money as it is leaps and bounds better than Palm’s HotSync Manager, Apple’s iSync Palm Conduit and even Missing Sync for Palm OS 4.

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Election time is always a fun time of the year

I sure do love receiving the phone calls (luckily to a voicemail only number) and the printed junk telling me what to vote for in the upcoming election. Luckily I don’t have to sit through the TV commercials as we skip through them on TiVo. One of the interesting pieces of junk mail we received today had Mac OS X written all over it. They modified the Finder’s Go menu and added Uncover->The Hidden Agenda. Very slick looking and then they used Safari for the web browser pictured in the ad.

The one proposition that annoys me the post, is Proposition 74 (these are California propositions that Governor Terminator got on the ballot). It changes teacher tenure which on the surface sounds like a good idea, but it really doesn’t solve the problem of getting rid of bad teachers. Furthermore, it is retroactive. My wife is in her third year teaching and was granted tenure this year. If the measure passes, they strip the tenure from her and she is on probation for another 3 years. That really sucks. It is hard enough to find good teachers that are passionate about there work, now to make it even harder to become a permanent teacher and easier to get fired, who is really going to want to become a teacher? It sure isn’t for the money. If you’re a California voter, at least vote NO on 74. (I don’t know enough about the other propositions to make an informed decision, but if Arnold is behind them, they’re probably bad.)

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Daylight savings time

I hate the change back to standard time as it gets dark so much earlier and kind of cuts my days short. However, what is even worse than the change is having to deal with daylight savings time as a software developer. Most of the software I deal with lately is synchronization and each device handles daylight savings time differently which results in major headaches. Too bad it isn’t all standardized to make life easy. Oh well, these issues keep me employed.

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The fix to a broken heater

In one room of our house, which was an addition to the main house, we have an electric, in-wall heater. We never really cared about using it as we haven’t had guests in the winter. Well this morning I turned it on to see what would happen as my in-laws are coming for Thanksgiving. The heater turned on for about 30 seconds and then shut off. I fiddled with the knob and it worked for another 30 seconds. So, being the good engineer I am, I shut off the circuit breaker, and disassembled it so that I can get the parts tomorrow. I had the main piece (the thermostat) on the counter (it’s a 30 year old heater, so it is pretty simple) and explained to my wife how it works. See tells me to try moving the thermocouple away from the heater (it was sitting in front of the heating element). I didn’t really think it would make a difference, but said OK, put it back together, moved the thermocouple, turned on the circuit breaker and gave it a whirl. Well, it worked and the room started heating up (slowly, but surely). I’m not sure why I didn’t think of that “fix” as I’m an engineer and knew exactly how the system worked. So simple and my wife proved that it doesn’t take an engineer to solve a problem.

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San Diego Union Tribune – Not worth the paper it’s printed on

I’ve lived in a number of cities and had the opportunity to read newspapers daily in some of the cities. The more I read the San Diego Union Tribune, the more I believe it is one of the worst papers I’ve ever read (even worse than USA Today). For starters, they put editorials on the front page; I learned when I was on the high school newspaper that editorials shouldn’t go on the front page. Second, they put stories that are fluff stories on the front page. A few months ago, there was an article about Rejection Hotline on the front page even though nothing was new about it. This morning’s paper (Sunday) had an article about the city attorney. While the article, itself, was OK, it wasn’t breaking news as it followed the city attorney through a typical day and mentioned that it was done in September.

Furthermore, the newspaper has frequent mistakes, such as an article today that said: “…a member of the SDSU homecoming court who road in the parade in a white convertible.” I almost busted out laughing at this mistake. Does anyone proofread there? Granted spell check wouldn’t catch it, but reading it would. The newspaper uses a lot of wire reports and most of the real news isn’t from their own reporters. While this isn’t really a bad thing, I got most of the same information on the news with the same twist the evening before.

I haven’t mentioned that the Republican bias is seen throughout the paper. It is very disturbing to have to wade through the bias and poor writing to get information out of the paper. Last year, they put a grotesque picture on the front page which was completely unnecessary and in poor taste. We almost cancelled out subscription then, but my wife likes the Sunday paper and likes certain sections during the week. At this point, I say that the only reason we keep getting the paper is so that the dog has something to do in the morning as his job is to run outside and retrieve the paper (yes, he actually does it, except for Sunday because the paper is too big).

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