When do you give up and start over?

I've worked on many, many projects in my career. Some of the projects I've started, some I've inherited. There comes a time in every project, not just software, but also home projects and car repairs, where I have to decide to scrap what I have and start over. This decision is never taken lightly as I'd be throwing away something that works in exchange for a clean start.

I've done this with my NotifyMail program a few times as the application was quite small, but in the process I had to drop features and probably ticked off a number of users. In all my time working on ReceiptWallet, I asked myself a number of times if it was time to scrap the code and start over. While I never completely scrapped the code, I did rewrite chunks of it as I learned more and better ways to write code.

With many of the projects I've inherited, the decision to start over has pretty much been a non-starter as the programs had existing users and I was under time pressure to get things done. Unfortunately this sometimes lead to fixing lots and lots of bugs that I didn't create and probably wouldn't have been in there if I started over.

The same type of decision has to be made with respect to cars and even a lesser extent, houses. If you keep pouring money into a car for repairs, at what point do you decide to buy a new car? Granted the cost is much higher for a new car, but over time the repairs could add up to the price of a new car, not to mention the hassle of taking a car to the mechanic.

Paperless 2.0 Released

As my loyal readers know, I sold ReceiptWallet to Mariner Software about 2 years ago and they renamed it Paperless. Yesterday, Mariner released Paperless 2.0. I couldn't keep away from the product that I started over 4 years ago, so I've been helping out with this release. This release is, in my very biased opinion, a killer upgrade. It has so many features in it, that the list on Mariner's website doesn't it to justice!

One thing that people ask me is "how should I setup my libraries in Paperless?". That's a question I have never been able to really answer and with 2.0, the question is even harder to answer. There are so many ways to customize a library that it is a solution for everyone, no matter how you want to stay organized.

If you're a Mac user, I'd definitely recommend checking about Paperless 2.0 and giving it a whirl. For people that haven't started storing documents electronically, there is no better time to start then now just as the tax season starts. I was talking to my tax guy today and was able to quickly pull up all documents I needed with just a few clicks.

Importing video into EyeTV

I use an Elgato EyeTV for my media center and it works quite well. My 3.5 year old son knows how to use it to watch his shows, so when my mom burned a DVD for him, I had to figure out how to get the video into the EyeTV to make it as easy as possible for him to watch it. As quality wasn't really my concern, I looked for any and every available option for how to import it even if it required transcoding.

After reading a post on the EyeTV forum, I started to look for a way to convert an H.264 encoded file into an MPEG Transport Stream. I generated the H.264 encoded file using Handbrake. After a bunch of futzing (hours), I found an option in VLC that transcodes the video into an MPEG TS. I did not check the Transcode video and Transcode audio check boxes, selected MPEG TS and it quickly spit out a file that the EyeTV could read. The forum post said to hold down the command key while selecting Open QuickTime movie, and then basically treat the stream as an input and record. While it records in real time, I patiently waited and the video encoded. (Yes, the quality went down a little bit, but my son doesn't care.)

While this process worked perfectly for what I wanted, it seems far too complex to just import video. I can understand that El Gato is a small company and doesn't want to make EyeTV into a generalized media center; however, it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to handle other media types.

SeaWorld hasn't gotten the privacy memo

Today my family and I visited SeaWorld as we do fairly often. As I was waiting at the parking toll booth, I heard the attendant ask a guest for his zip code while swiping his credit card. Apparently this guy and SeaWorld staff don't read the newspapers. This action is in direct violation of the recent (February 14, 2011)  California Supreme Court decision of Jessica Pineda v. Williams-Sonoma Stores, Inc. In a nutshell, merchants cannot ask for a zip code when processing a credit card transaction (with a few exceptions). The zip code can be considered personal information and is a violation of California consumer protection laws.

I mentioned this to the attendant and he said that they ask for it for a survey and also ask it for of cash visitors as well. Yeah, that's kind of the point as the zip code could be used to link the survey directly to the credit card user.

We'll see what SeaWorld has to say with the message I sent them. They better act quickly otherwise the fines could start adding up. Too bad I can't get paid for reporting the issue!