Aaron-Brander.com

Quoting a Project (or How Deep is that Rabbit Hole?)

Aaron Brander — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:13:29 +0000

Last year I had a few rooms in my house repainted. In order to determine which company I would use for the work, I invited them to the house to quote the work. I showed them the rooms, told them the type of paint and color I wanted, and told them when I wanted the work done by.

Each company was able to calculate the amount of paint they needed, the cost of the paint and how many people would need to work on the project in order to have it done by my deadline. Having painted a multitude of rooms before my request, they were able to imagine potential obstacles before they happened and be fairly sure that they were not missing anything in their quote.

The resulting quotes were very precise and given to me with a high degree of confidence.

Quoting a job for a new custom application is a lot like that, except that we can’t see the rooms ahead of time. In fact, we can’t see the rooms, because first we have to build them. The rooms that we see in our mind’s eye are often very different from what our client sees in their imagination.

Let’s ponder a request to build a rabbit hole. The rabbit hole needs to be 8 inches in diameter, be set in a yard full of lush, green grass, preferably under an apple tree and near a babbling brook. Beyond the tree should be a field of ripened, winter wheat; golden and dancing in the breeze.

Seems easy enough, except that getting the blossoms correct on the apple tree may take some doing. But, all in all, everything is out in the open.

That is, of course, until we build that rabbit hole and take a trip inside. Suddenly, there is a rabbit late for an important date; a grinning, invisible Cheshire cat; a hookah-smoking caterpillar, a mad hatter and an irate Queen of Hearts. And let’s not even get into the pills and potions that can change the user’s size and shape at will!

The client is completely nonplussed by our discovery. Of course the rabbit hole contained an entirely new world full of anthropomorphic creatures and nonsensical laws of physics! What other types of rabbit holes could there be?

Sounds a bit far fetched, doesn’t it? And yet, similar scenes happen in the software development world all of the time.

A problem is presented by a client in a short paragraph of needs and requirements.

A software engineer conjures up thoughts of similar software that have been built in the past as a basis for their quote.

A quote is given based on myriad undocumented assumptions and risks.

Three months later, the proud software engineer presents their creation to the client and is flummoxed as to why the client is so flabbergasted at the result!

It doesn’t have to be that way, and at MINDSCAPE, we do our best to eliminate as many doubts as we can before we begin coding.

The MINDSCAPE Process

1) Our sales team meets with a client to determine what needs to be built.

2) Our quoting committee meets to understand the client’s needs. If it’s a simple project for a client that we’ve worked with in the past, we may be comfortable enough to give a fixed price cost right then. Most times, however, we need more information before we can give a granular cost. Instead, we’ll give a large range of costs based on what we know of the project, but more importantly, based on what we think may be hiding down that rabbit hole. We’ve been down there a few times and know what sort of exotic features are lurking.

3) If the client finds that part of the range will fit their budget, we engage them for a one day, on-site (if possible) requirements gathering session. Two of our team members will sit down for an in-depth discussion about what the system needs to do, why it needs to do it and what benefits are expected.

The result of this meeting is a much better understanding of the system and leads to two courses of action.

A) If the project is manageable enough, we’ll have been able to document the vast majority of functionality and even have some rough outlines for what the different screens will need to do. This will give us enough confidence to bring back a fixed cost estimate for development.

B) If the project is very large, we’ll have a better understanding of the scope of the project, as well as potential risks. The next action is to engage in a Technical Design Document phase. Based on the on-site discussion, we’ll be able to give a better budget range and a cost for the Technical Design Document. If the more-defined scope is agreeable to the client, we’ll start on the Technical Design Document.

4) The Technical Design Document deserves its own post later on, but for now it’s enough to know that our engineers will grab their spelunking gear and head down into that rabbit hole. They will survey the landscape and draw out what it is they see. The client will give feedback during this phase to make sure that we are seeing the same thing in that rabbit hole that they are seeing.

5) Once the Technical Design Document is done, we present it to the client along with a final, fixed cost price for the development. The client can then work with us to complete the development or take our Technical Design Document to another firm for quoting. Either way, we’ve done the hard work to determine what’s down the rabbit hole; for our own sake, but also for our client’s sake and the sake of any developer that may work on the project in the future.

Even with all of this due diligence, it takes constant communication and interaction with the client to make sure the project is on course. The final scope of the project can change due to many issues (who can foresee a croquet game with flamingos as mallets and hedgehogs as balls?), but we do our best at MINDSCAPE to keep ahead of the game.

(And if you have not had the pleasure of reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, you should at least browse the Wikipedia article so that this blog post doesn’t seem completely off the wall.)

Life in the Pit (or How to Pamper your Programmers

Aaron Brander — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:20:47 +0000

The office of MINDSCAPE at Hanon McKendry is located in the heart of Downtown Grand Rapids. It’s on the sixth floor of an old building next to Van Andel Arena.

When the elevators open on the sixth floor, visitors are treated to an open floor plan, a nice reception area, a nifty coffee bar, some fancy table and chairs for informal gatherings and a half-dozen nice cubes where information workers are busily executing strategies for website success.

It’s a great place to walk into, and a great atmosphere to work in. The free soft drinks, breakfast foods and a hidden cupboard full of M&Ms and trail mix add to the lure for workers.

But there is a hidden danger, one that the programmers who used to inhabit the cubes near the reception area found out first hand.

You see, the lights are really bright and cast harsh glares on their dual monitors. Co-workers and clients bustle to-and-fro past the cubes, catching their eye and interrupting their code flow. Phones rang, impromptu meetings and parties broke out at the coffee bar and the student tours gawked at the programmers, making them feel like white collared monkeys in a zoo.

MINDSCAPE’s merger with Venux in 2010 precipitated a change. We needed more room for the programmers and the six cubes in the entrance area of the sixth floor were no longer enough.

The programmers moved down to an empty office space on the first floor, and it fits their needs much better. Take a gander at the advantages they enjoy, and see if you can figure out why it is called the Pit.

: A look at the “Pit”

1. No Lights – it’s true, this is an advantage. Fluorescent lights are harsh and being able to see your surroundings clearly only entices distraction.

2. Silence – it really is golden. The phones are used rarely, the inhabitants speak softly and everyone understands they walk on hallowed ground. Creation is happening and it is given the respect it duly deserves.

3. Privacy – it is hard to say if no one visits because they do not want to interrupt, or because it has been forgotten what office they are in, or if it’s the four digit combination lock on the door. Either way, the programmers thrive knowing they can put their heads down and get work done.

: Programming Nirvana

4. Windows – There is a lot of natural light during the summer thanks to a number of windows along edge of the office. True, it sometimes brings too much light, but being able to see outside is a pleasant reminder that there is a world beyond the 1’s and 0’s on their computer screen.

It’s nearly a programmer nirvana, although there are some drawbacks.

1. Bathroom Breaks – Here’s a recipe for disaster: put eight intense, focused programmers in an office with no bathroom on that floor and only one key to access the bathroom on the next floor up. They aren’t concerned with simple bodily needs like waste disposal, so when the need makes itself urgently known, mad dashes for the key are inevitable. Then imagine it happens at eight in the morning on an overcast day in the winter. Ahh, you see the issue. There is no light. And there happen to be a lot of chairs in the middle of the room by the conference table. And there is only one key.

2. Communication – Sometimes it’s almost like the Pit is in another country and not just a short elevator ride (or walk down the stairs) from the main office. We had some communication issues for a while, but we are learning to overcome that through repeated training sessions with both the Morlocks and the lofty denizens of the sixth floor, the Eloi. Walking through the door into the Pit is not akin to entering one of Dante’s circles. Riding the elevator up to the sixth floor and having it open to a bright, vibrant atmosphere full of smiling, intelligent, bubbly people is not at all like their nightmare of showing up to do a presentation naked. It will take continual effort, but the gap will be bridged.

(If you ask me, any blog post that manages a reference to two classics like the Time Machine and Dante’s Inferno is a success.)

Westward Bound – a writing journey

Aaron Brander — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:55:53 +0000

My wife, Denise, and I like to travel. We don’t often get to travel with our friends and family, but we love to take them with us to share in our adventures. To do that, we write about our adventures and share pictures.

Typically, it is enough to share our Travelpod site and keep that updated as we go along. But in May 2011, as we rolled across the open plains on our way to Moab, Utah, I decided that a standard travel blog was not going to be enough. You see, we really wanted to share the experience with our two nieces, Amelia and Adrianna. They are a bit too young for a cross country road trip (or we’re too old to want to travel that far with a six-year-old and a three-year-old), so I decided to write a story about them. In the story, they would take the road trip with us. In order to add a dash of adventure and daring, I set the story back in the 1870s and put them on the Oregon Trail.

With Denise’s excellent photography and book layout skills and a lot of editing help from my brother-in-law, Patrick, I was able to have it printed and ready for them in time for Christmas.

They liked it.

A lot.

I figured they might. They love books, and what’s better than reading a story about yourself?

And since they liked it, I thought a few other people might enjoy it. A few weeks of Kindle formatting later, and I published it through the Kindle Store!

Click the image to purchase!

I’d love for you to take a read. This is a book for kids, but don’t go in expecting Dr. Seuss. There are lots of words, but we offset that with over forty beautiful photographs that Denise took on our trip West.

Don’t have a Kindle? You don’t need one! Just buy it with your Amazon account, and it will ask you where you want to send it.

You can purchase without owning a Kindle!

Just choose to use the Cloud Reader. It’s actually a great way to read the book, and the photos are in full color and look amazing.

If you do read it, I would really appreciate it if you left a review on Amazon!

And if you do or don’t read it, I’d love it if you shared this article, or a link to the book on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social site.

And now, here’s a quick excerpt from the book.

Chapter 1: Running out of space

PA WAS in the barn. It seemed he was there an awful lot lately. Amelia remembered that last winter, Pa spent most of his time playing with her and building a rocking horse. He had painted the horse black. She and her little sister called it Chocolate and loved to play on it.

Ma was in the kitchen salting beef and putting it in jars and crates. Her shoulder-length, curly, auburn hair kept falling into her eyes as she worked. Usually Ma would sit with Amelia and play school with her. Amelia would answer questions like 19 + 7 or How many apples did Susy have left if she picked 10 and gave 3 away? Ma told her she was really smart. Her little sister, Adriana, would listen for a while, but then she would take Ma and Amelia’s coffee order and bustle off to her imaginary kitchen. She would return quickly to serve it before taking the pretend dishes to pretend wash them.

Even Grandma was busy in the kitchen; she had been working since before the sun was up! Grandma had short, black hair and always had a loving smile for Amelia. It sure seemed odd to Amelia that Grandma and Ma would be working so hard. The food for the winter had already been gathered and stored; Amelia had even helped this year!

Amelia was a tall, thin, red-headed girl that would turn six in the spring. Her big, beautiful, brown eyes did not miss a thing. She was always interested in what the grown-ups were doing, and she was smart enough to understand most of it. Adriana, was a pretty little girl with curly brown hair and an easy laugh. She was too intent on her jigsaw puzzle and cooking imaginary food for her dolls to notice the change in routine the last few weeks. Amelia had done her best to ignore it, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. She stood up from her math flash cards and yelled to her mother in the kitchen.

“Ma-a-a-a!” she cried. “Why aren’t you playing with us?”

Her mother’s reply was lost in the howl of the wind from the suddenly open door. Pa stood in the doorway with an excited look on his face and a letter in his hand. His usually neatly-combed brown hair was mussed from the wind and he must have knocked his small, round spectacles as he hustled inside. They were crookedly hanging to the side of his large nose.

“Carolyn! It finally came!” he yelled.

“Shut the door before we all catch the sickness,” Ma yelled back.

Pa came in with Grandpa right behind. Grandpa’s windblown, white hair was sticking straight up in the air as he ambled over to Adriana. He laughed as he grabbed Adriana under the arm pits and swung her into the air. Adriana squealed with excitement.

Ma came out of the kitchen and Pa swept her up into his arms and twirled her around.

“Aaron and Denise finally wrote from Independence, Missouri. They have purchased wagons and supplies and signed us up with a group of other pioneers heading to Oregon! We are to meet them in early May.”

“That is fine news, David! We have just about finished packing the food for the trip,” Ma said.

Amelia and Adriana both perked up at the sound of their favorite Aunt and Uncle’s names. They did not see them often because they traveled so much, but they were great fun to play with.

Amelia was happy to see her parents smile. She knew they worked very hard to put food on the table and a roof over her head. But she also felt uneasy. She didn’t know what Independence was or what a pie o’ near could be. She sat back down and listened intently to the strange and complex world of the grown-ups.

Cloudflare – protect your website

Aaron Brander — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:29:06 +0000

A month ago, I wrote about the Google Page service. The Page Service caches your static content and serves it up from their servers for faster page views.It sounds great in theory, and perhaps it will perform well in practice. Currently, it’s still in a beta period and available to only a small set of webmasters.While I was researching that article, I stumbled upon a service called Cloudflare. Cloudflare already does what the Google Page service does, but also protects your sites from known threats like spambots, can auto-minify your site’s CSS and Javascript files, hides your email address from any spambot that may get through, and a whole bunch of other cool sounding stuff.

Basically, they level the playing field for small websites. A small website no longer has to pay large sums of money to get the security and reach that giant, corporate websites get. And somehow, Cloudflare manages to do it all for free.

I immediately put my wife’s site, www.branderphoto.com, onto the service. It took only a few minutes to setup, and as long as you have access to your domain’s nameservers, it shouldn’t take longer than that. Within an hour, Cloudflare was protecting our site. It was cool to view the source on the page and see how their email protection hid email addresses.

Click for full image

I was very happy to see the threat panel. Over the last 30 days, Cloudflare intercepted 759 threat visits from 52 unique sources. I can view each threat from my dashboard. I see their IP address, what kind of threat it is, how dangerous the threat was, the country the threat came from, and what happened to it. Cloudflare maintains a list of IP addresses that are running bots and when a visitor from one of those IPs shows up, they are presented with a Captcha challenge. If the user can pass the captcha, they can gain access to the site. If it was a real person, the can leave a message as well. This helps you make sure that real people are getting to the site.

As of right now, all of the threats were real and I have not had an issue with actual users being blocked.

As an owner of a website, it’s a no brainer to run my site through Cloudflare.

I wear another hat, though. I am also the Vice President of Technology at Mindscape. Over the last few months, our bandwidth usage has gone through the roof. We have taken a number of different measures to try and curtail the rising bandwidth costs, but nothing has really taken hold.

Not long after I started using Cloudflare for branderphoto.com, I decided to start sending our images and files from our webTRAIN platform through Cloudflare. Each website on our platform serves its assets from one of four specific subdomains. So, I could essentially serve 90% of webTRAIN images by protecting those 4 subdomains with Cloudflare.

There were two things I needed to do. First, I needed to upgrade to the pro plan. It’s $20 a month for the first website, $5 for each additional pro site in your account. I needed it in order to serve a secure version of the files into the admin of our platform. I received the additional bonus of 15 minute increments on my stats, instead of 24 hours like the free sites have.

Secondly, I needed to do something about video. Cloudflare protection and video served from the protected domain don’t mix well. Embedding a YouTube video is fine, and so is serving your video from an unprotected subdomain. So, while I tested the file serving idea on a small portion of our sites, our team got to work on making sure all video passed through a “video only” subdomain.

The small subset of files went great. We were saving a GB or two of bandwidth a day.

Well, on Sunday, I deployed our teams video solution and flipped the switch on our busiest file serving subdomain. Check this out:

That’s one day of serving our files through Cloudflare across the busiest section of webTRAIN. We had averaged about 60 GB a day in bandwidth on the four previous Mondays. That single subdomain, serving files, was responsible for 25% of that bandwidth!

And check out the request numbers. 81% of the requests were served by Cloudflare and not by our server. That’s a HUGE number and big load off of our own machines!

We’ve been using Cloudflare for a month now, and have slowly put more reliance in it. Turning on our main fileserver to Cloudflare was a big step for us, and 24 hours in, it looks like the right solution for us.

Thanks Cloudflare!

Google Page Service

Aaron Brander — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:43:38 +0000

Do you feel the need, the need for speed? It’s an ongoing battle for coders and webmasters to make their page show up faster. A slow load time can cause the multi-tasking, instant-gratification-needing web generation to move on to another site before you have a chance to show them what your site is all about.

At Mindscape, we’ve made a number of optimizations to try and get our sites to load faster. We’ve re-indexed databases, compressed our many CSS files into a single file, enabled gzip compression on our server, and worked to improved our database queries. On the whole, it’s been very helpful.

Well, Google is coming to the rescue to make it even easier to have a fast page. According to this article, http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/28/google-page-speed-service/, Google will soon be rolling out a service that will make your site load faster. The idea is that you point your DNS to Google’s server, and it fetches and caches your data to serve it up using a number of performance best practices.

Sounds like a nice theory, but there are a few questions.

1) What about dynamic content? Will it handle that well?
According to Matthew Prince, from Cloudflare (more on Cloudflare later), the method they are using won’t work well with dynamic content. He linked to a blog on his site, but I was unable to view the blog post. So, we’ll have to wait and see if Google handles this well.

2) Will Google use this to influence their search result? It’s been said that your load times can influence your search ranking. So if that’s the case, and you can pay Google to have faster load times, does that create a conflict of interests. I may be naive, but I like to think that Google has good intentions and would not push this as a way to directly influence their search rankings.

3) How well does it work? I decided to try it out for myself to see. You can test their service here:
http://code.google.com/speed/pss/index.html

Click to see the full image

First, I tested www.BranderPhoto.com, my wife’s photography business. It runs on webTRAIN, Mindscape’s powerful marketing and content management system. Brander Photo is using compressed CSS, so the load time for CSS files is low, but it has a lot of big images, which can be slow.

The test was run from the California server. It certainly looks as if it helps. However, it was interesting that on the repeat visit test, the original site was faster. That tells me that our CSS compression is helping, and after having the images locally, there wasn’t much time spent waiting on files. Good job webTRAIN! See the full test here: http://goo.gl/DBVEv

On the second test, I used our current Mindscape website. It is also on webTRAIN, but never received the compressed CSS update. So, there are a lot of CSS files that need to be downloaded the first time.

Click to see the full image

Google Page Service can speed up that content by about 50%. That’s a big increase!

The full test is here: http://goo.gl/tBjZ7

It certainly appears that Google Page Service can speed up your site. I’m interested in how it will work with a dynamic site, and not just a static page.

A competitor?
I saw a lot of comments from the Cloudflare team in the comments to the original article. I checked out their website (http://www.cloudflare.com/overview.html), and I was intrigued. It seems that you can get what Google is offering, and more, for free. I did not see a way to test their performance increase, so I’ve updated one of our less used sites to point to Cloudfare in an attempt to see if it can do what it says. It will take some time for the DNS to update, so watch for a follow up article in a week or two.

I’m most intrigued by something that has been plaguing us for a while, bandwidth lost to crawlers and bots. Cloudflare says: “We also block threats and limit abusive bots and crawlers from wasting your bandwidth and server resources.”

Now that’s something I can get excited about!

Conclusion
It appears that Google’s Page Service can help speed up your website. However, you may also want to check out Cloudflare in the meantime. It also looks like both services may have trouble with sites that are dynamic or that stream video, so you’ll want to do some research or try with a low volume site, before you dive in and make the change.

Google Apps Transition – The pain you’ll feel and how to fix (some of) it

Aaron Brander — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:16:34 +0000

Google Apps for Business is a great solution for companies that want email, calendar and documents hosted in the cloud by Google. Mindscape, where I work, has used Google Apps for Business for a number of years now. It allows me to have aaron [at] mindscapesolutions.com as my email address. What it did not allow in the past was for me to access tools like Google Reader, Checkout, Picasa, and a number of other popular, ancillary services from Google.

What I could do, however, was create a second Google account using the same aaron [at] mindscapesolutions.com address. This account had to have a separate password, but as a standard Google Account, I had access to those other Google Services.

I wasn’t interested in using my work email to access those other services. So I made it even more complicated. My wife runs her own photography business, www.branderphoto.com. I use aaron [at] branderphoto.com as my personal email. It’s also a Google Apps for Business account. So, when I wanted to access Google Reader, and Checkout and Analytics and Picasa, I had to have a separate aaron [at] branderphoto.com account, with a different password, to access those accounts.

The plus side of this arrangement is that I could have aaron [at] mindscapesolutions.com signed in and accessing email, and in another tab of my browser, have aaron [at] branderphoto.com signed in and accessing email.

The down side is that I would also have another tab open, with my other aaron [at] branderphoto.com account signed in, to access Google Reader.

All in all, it was as confusing as it sounds. So, it was with much rejoicing, mixed with some trepidation, that I transitioned my Branderphoto.com account to the new Google Apps for Business model last week (http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=181867). With the new model, my branderphoto.com account will function just like a real google account and have access to all of the Google Services. So I made the switch.

I had to create a new google account to hold my secondary branderphoto.com account data. Apparently it wouldn’t just merge them together. The biggest pain here was exporting my Google Reader subscriptions and importing it to my upgraded branderphoto.com account.
Not super painful, but not as smooth as I would have liked it.

So, after reading a few blogs in my improved branderphoto.com account, I decided it was time to try clicking on a Google +1 button and see how that worked. Epic Fail.

Apparently, my improved branderphoto.com account isn’t completely a real Google Account. Services like Google Health (I don’t care), Google Power Meter (no matter to me), and Google Profiles (what!?) don’t work with Google Apps for Business users yet.

Soon after, I had a chance to try the new Google Plus service. Turns out I can’t use that with aaron [at] branderphoto.com. And now that my secondary aaron [at] branderphoto.com is no more, I would have to use some other Google account to create my Google Plus account. I have no desire to add yet another layer of complexity, so I guess I’ll be out of the Google Plus loop until my Google Apps account is fully functional.

Google Profile seems central to all that Google is trying to accomplish, so making my Apps for Business account behave like a regular Google account, but leaving out Profiles is like having an ice cream cone but leaving out the ice cream. Who wants that?

I got over the pain of not having a Google Plus account. It wasn’t that hard to do. Today, however, more pain came. My mindscapesolutions account was transitioned to the new model. Since it also acts like a regular Google account, I can no longer have my branderphoto.com and my mindscapesolutions.com account signed in at the same time! Ack! Now I have to use Google Chrome, and Internet Explorer to have keep my business and pleasure separate.

It’s a pain, but one I can deal with. However, there’s one other way to handle it. You’ll need to enable sign in to multiple accounts.

See that cool, new Google bar at the top of your site? It looks like this:

Click on your email account to open up some options:

Click on the Account Settings tab:

Click to see the full image.

Click on Edit next to the Multiple sign-in and turn it on. Click Save:

Click to see the full image

Now, you’ll need to sign out of your account and sign back in. You should see a new “Switch Accounts” button in the options area.

Click on that to see all of the accounts that have can log into. The first time, you’ll just see one account. Click the sign into another account link and log in to the new account. You’ll then be able to switch back and forth between the two in the same browser!

Oh, and apparently Google already has some help documentation up for this. So if you don’t like my screenshots, check out Google’s video: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=182343

Now, if they just get Google Profiles working….

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

Aaron Brander — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:54:25 +0000

A few years back I read a book that changed my perspective of the fantasy genre. I’ve enjoyed stories of swords, sorcery, orcs and heroic quests for a long time now. But for me, after you get past Tolkien’s seminal work, the rest of the stories tend to devolve into the same old story of an unlikely hero, a great evil, an impossible task, and eventual victory.

Now don’t get me wrong. There are any number of ways where that tried and true formula can turn into a very enjoyable book. That’s why I keep reading fantasy. Rothfuss, though, with his debut novel of The Name of the Wind, and the recent sequel, The Wise Man’s Fear, has found a way to take a sweeping epic and turn it into something infinitely more intimate.

Kvothe, our flame haired protagonist, trouper, hero and innkeeper has led an exciting, yet short life. When the book opens, we find him assuming the mantle of a mild mannered innkeeper. He works very hard to hide who he is. And who he happens to be is a legend in his own time. Everyone knows of and tells stories of Kvothe.

In an interesting storytelling device, a man named The Chronicler has tracked Kvothe down and convinced him to have his story recorded. To set the record straight, so to speak. Thus begins a masterful tale of tales. Over the course of three days, Kvothe will set down how he became a master magician, the smartest kid at the University at a time when most children have not thought of attending school yet, slayed a dragon, outsmarted a Queen of the Fae, killed a king and started a war. Yet when Kvothe tells it, you can see how a simple story can become a legend. He isn’t humanities only hope from a Dark Lord. Rather, he’s a kid driven to find an answer to a question. With an indomitable will, he makes things happen.

While I enjoy the story that Kvothe is telling, and innumerable stories that are told to him or by him to other characters during his recounting, it is not the story that draws me to these books. In the end, you can still boil this down to unlikely hero, a great evil, an impossible task, and eventual victory. Or so it seems two books into what appears to be a trilogy.

No, rather it is Rothfuss’ masterful grasp of the language and the art of telling a story. His description of Kvothe playing music can move you to tears. You will feel Kvothe’s triumphs and defeats. You will read pages of description of arcane magics and systems of science in a make believe land, and later try to replicate it yourself fully expecting it to work in our world.

One last superlative for this book. I reread the first book in 3 wonderful days. I picked up the 1000 page sequel and had it done in under a week. I typically read before bed and fall asleep within 30 minutes. Instead, hours later, I would still be reading. I had to force myself to put the book down and go to sleep lest my job suffer. And even then, I felt myself fully immersed in the world he created even when I was not reading. It’s that good.

As for Rothfuss, I am a fan of the man as much as the writing. His Worldbuilders fund raising drive has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, which he has been kind enough to match. His blog is all sorts of witty and funny. Check him out. http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com

The Name of the Wind: 4.5
The Wise Man’s Fear: 5

You need to buy this book and read it. It’s #1 on the New York Times Bestseller’s list as of today (3/21/2011)

Buy it Now at Amazon

Decision Points by George Bush

Aaron Brander — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:31:41 +0000

I find it hard to credit anything the press has to say about any person, especially someone as polarizing as the President of the United States of America. The vehemence that the political milieu generates started in this country long before the present day filled with tweets, buzz, blogs, and the twenty four hour news cycle. Back when John Adams was Vice President and the man many wanted to be King, George Washington, was the first President, political opponents and the press said any number of horrible things about Washington. Is any of that remembered now? If it is, it is usually met with scorn. Who could say something bad about Washington?

George W. Bush is not George Washington, let’s get that out in the open. I never thought he was quite the buffoon the media made him out to be, but then again, it’s hard to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to media coverage. I was looking forward to hearing from W in his own words, and in his book, Decision Points, I was not disappointed.

W. breaks his presidency, and some decisions prior to his term, into a few of the most important decisions he made, such as Day of Fire, War Footing, Afghanistan, Katrina, Iraq, and Financial Crisis. He breaks down the situation he was faced with, the possible choices, and the reason for his final decision with clarity, facts, and a humble, self deprecating humor.

If you don’t like W, I don’t think Decision Points will make you like him more. What I think it can do is help you understand the sheer volume of decisions, the heavy consequences of each choice, and the reason for his choices. W. had a lot of bad things thrown his way that he didn’t have any control over, and made the best decisions he could with the information that he had at the time. I can’t imagine any of us wanted to lead the country through 9/11, Hurrican Katrina, or the financial meltdown at the end of his presidency.

He isn’t afraid to lay the blame for a situation where he thinks it belongs, even when the blame falls to him. He readily admits the mistakes he made, but also explains why he made the choices he did. We won’t all agree with the choices he came to, but I know I can’t fault him for making the tough, unpopular calls that no one else would have made. That’s what a leader does.

I strongly recommend this book. For a guy who avoids politics, it was refreshing to see what went into the decisions that the media would so egregiously blow out of proportion. I was also happy to see that on many issues I had heard of, the end result was very positive. The positive portion is what you’ll miss if you just watch CNN.

4.5 out of 5 stars.

The Need for Mobile Sites – a counter point

Aaron Brander — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:12:41 +0000

For users of mobile phones today, a website that offers a mobile counterpart is a website that will be returned to often. For me, it’s ESPN’s mobile site. It has great navigation, easily allows me to find scores to the games I care about, let’s me watch games through a great Gamecast feature, and has all of the stories and analysis that I could want. On my previous phone, the T-Mobile G1, it was imperative to go to a mobile site. Full sites didn’t show up well on the small screen, and the the phones processor and browser technology were so outdated that it couldn’t handle anything with rich media.

Using that phone, it seemed that a mobile version of a site was a necessity.

18 months later, and a few weeks ago, I upgraded to the T-Mobile G2. This phone runs on some pretty amazing hardware. I’m pretty sure my desktop computer in college wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as my phone is now. It has a bigger screen and higher resolution than my previous phone. It also will take advantage of the new HSPA+ network from T-Mobile (if it ever comes to Grand Rapids – it will be in 100 markets by the end of 2010). That network allows phones to connect to the internet with speeds up to 14 mbps. That’s twice as fast as my connection at home!

For now, I connect through the slower 3G or through a wireless network at home or in the office. Using that speed, in conjunction with the great technology on my phone, I can now surf full websites without any issue. When I get to a site, it starts zoomed out so I can see the full page. A simple double tap on any part of the screen will zoom in to that area. If it’s an article, the text resizes nicely and I can read it easily.

Now that the phone can handle flash and video, along with the browser making smart decisions like zooming and having a lot higher resolution, visiting a full website doesn’t bother me as much as I did. And if I’m soon zooming around the internet faster on my phone than I can on my computer, what need have I for a mobile website?

Certainly the navigation on a mobile site is almost always more handy for a touch screen that a full website’s navigation. And for now, there are a lot of phones and networks that can’t handle a full website well. Mobile sites are the answer right now, and will remain that way for a few years.

But I’m starting to think that within 5 years, designing a mobile site will go the way of website design when designs for monitor resolutions of 640 x 480 were replaced with designs for resolutions of 1024 x 768.

Can you imagine what your phone will be able to do in 5 years? The technology is changing so quickly, you might be tossing your laptop and your iPad aside to just use your phone.

Summer Reading – 2010

Aaron Brander — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:11:10 +0000

It’s been a busy summer of devouring books as fast as I can; so fast that I couldn’t get a review written of each of them. So, instead, here’s a rapid fire list of what rocked and what was as dull as a rock.
Books that Rocked:

Outliers: The Story Of Success – Malcolm Gladwell
Gladwell is always an interesting read. His ability to find connections in places where they aren’t expected is uncanny. In Outliers, you will learn that where and when we are born have a large influence on our future.

Time to Hunt – Stephen Hunter
I’ve read a few of the Bob Lee Swagger novels, and this one is the best so far. Go back in time to Bob’s harrowing escapades in Vietnam, and learn why they call him “The Hammer”.

The Dresden Files

Blood Rites (The Dresden Files, Book 6) – Jim Butcher
Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, book 7) – Jim Butcher
Proven Guilty (The Dresden Files, Book 8 ) – Jim Butcher
White Night (The Dresden Files, Book 9) – Jim Butcher
Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) – Jim Butcher
Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) – Jim Butcher

Yup, it’s been a summer of Jim Butcher. I’m not surprised. Harry Dresden is a perfect lead character. He’s filled with doubt and weaknesses, but always has enough steely resolve and powerful magic to pull himself out of the tightest places. Each book is better than the last, and I can only hope that Butcher keeps kicking them out.

The Night Angel Trilogy

The Way of Shadows (The Night Angel Trilogy) – Brent Weeks
Shadow’s Edge (Night Angel Trilogy) – Brent Weeks
Beyond the Shadows – Brent Weeks

The Night Angel Trilogy was an interesting fantasy series. It focused on a young boy who wants to escape his danger our and hopeless life as an orphan. He gets himself apprenticed to the greatest assassin of the land and ends up having a drastic influence on the world while defeating a great evil. Yup, that sounds like just about every fantasy series out there. Great characters and interesting plot twists make this a worthwhile read.

The First Law

The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One) – Joe Abercrombie
Before They Are Hanged (The First Law: Book Two) – Joe Abercrombie
Last Argument of Kings (First Law: Book Three) – Joe Abercrombie

Other than the Butcher books, this was my favorite series of the summer. The story was full of intrigue and plotting, but what was interesting is that for all the machinations of man, there was a handful of demi-gods running around pulling the strings that no one really believed in. Couple that with a half dozen morally gray heroes and heroines and you’ve got a formula for a great read. Each chapter switches to a different hero’s perspective, and Abercrombie was able to make it so you instantly know which character you are with.

The State of the Union – Brad Thor
An interesting thriller that explores what would happen if Russia was playing possum and only pretended to lose the Cold War. Think Tom Clancy crossed with Dan Brown.

As interesting as rocks

Daemons are Forever (Secret Histories, Book 2) – Simon R. Green
Loved the first book for its sheer volume of fantastical creatues. The follow up fell flat for me.

The Orc King: Transitions, Book I – R.A. Salvatore
Salvatore has dozens of great books starring the dark elf, Drizzt Do’urden. As he has progressed, the books have taken on a morally preachy timbre. I love the action, but could do without the sermons.

Agincourt: A Novel – Bernard Cornwell
A book about my favorite historical battle? Count me in. I can’t remember now why this was bad or good, and I guess that’s enough to say about it. However, Cornwell typically hits the mark and I would not hesitate to recommend him.

The Red Wolf Conspiracy – Robert V. S. Redick
The whole book takes place on a boat. There’s some interesting characters, but I didn’t really get into it.

Sharpe’s Trafalgar: Richard Sharpe & the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805 (Richard Sharpe’s Adventure Series #4) – Bernard Cornwell
I really enjoy the Sharpe series, and I’m going to keep reading them. This book wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that great either.

Soldier of Rome: The Sacrovir Revolt: A Novel of the Twentieth Legion During the Rebellion of Sacrovir and Florus – James Mace
I really wanted to like this series, but it is entirely too dry for me. I guess I’ll find a different Roman era series to read.

That’s 21 books read since March, not too shabby. Luckily, most of them have been good, including 3 series: The Night Angel Trilogy, The First Law, and The Dresden Files. Get some!