Interesting on Cloudmanic Labs

When Threesomes Go Bad

Fri, 18 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

At Cloudmanic we have built 3 products that enhanced another company's platform. Two of them are in the bitbucket and the third, Photomanic, is lightly maintained and we have no plans to expand the offering. The secret to so little success is to build with third party applications is that when you build on someone else's platform you are not in charge — the platform provider is.

The Rise and Fall of Third Party APIs

I have been around the block a few times so I have seen the pattern I am about to describe again and again. A young, perky company tries to get noticed, bending over backwards to make developing on its platform easy and enticing to outside developers. Until one day the company grows up to the point that it can justify making changes ostensibly for the greater good. Said changes often include discontinuing parts of the company's API, changing the terms of service, and new-found zeal for micromanaging the applications built on the company's platform. As a developer you suddenly go from feeling like a partner contributing to a community to a flunky of the platform provider.

How My Love Affair With Evernote Came to an End

All 3 of the products Cloudmanic built on a third party platform were based on Evernote. Because good software applications take a lot of time to build, when we started developing the first product, Evermanic, we discussed our intentions with the Evernote team. We were assured that Evernote would help market the finished app and that we were building within the company's terms of service. In other words, we were partners. And after months of work and tens of thousands of dollars in expenses, we were ready to take our partnership to the next level, to be part of the company's app marketplace.

Can You Hear Me Now?

Thu, 06 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Are you marketing yourself and your business to the fullest? You probably have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and an Instagram feed. You're LinkedIn and no stranger to Reddit, Flickr, Tumblr, and other spelling-challenged social networking services. You probably even have your own website. You've got it covered right? Not so fast: if you're not podcasting, you might be missing out. Podcasting is more than the latest and greatest craze — the benefits are many and podcasts are easy and inexpensive to create.

Podcasting strengthens your connection with your audience over time by establishing your voice — both literally and metaphorically — as a familiar and anticipated beacon amidst all the noise. As you share your enthusiasm and expertise on your podcast topic, you can market your products and services to the very audience that might actually care — and successful podcasters attract advertising that generates income. Additionally, podcasting furthers your skills as a speaker and moderator, and interviewing others is a great way to network and produce content ideas.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus in the Year 2020

Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Predicting the future in writing has never been my thing — that's what talking heads in the media get paid to do. But today I am allowing myself to make a prediction about how Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus will be used in 2020. It will be fun — and 6 years from now we can look back and see if I was even close to right. I am prompted to make this prediction as I try to figure out when, where, and how I should use these services because today there seems to be a lot of overlap. Here goes...

Facebook — The same, more or less. Facebook will continue to be the place to connect with our friends. It will be the digital coffee shop where we gather, communicate, and share with people we know from the real (nondigital) world.

Twitter — The cocktail party for the masses. Twitter will be the place where people who might not know each other exchange ideas. A place for both celebrities and regular Joes. There will be less "look at what I ate today" and more real-time, meaningful dialog between strangers. Also, Twitter will be the place where news breaks (which will then be chronicled in depth on Google Plus).

Escaping Mediocrity

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I can think of at least 10 friends who have spent years counting the days (and hours, minutes, seconds) until retirement. Most of them are fixated on retirement because they hate their job and see no other way out. They are trapped in mediocrity. That way of life is not for me — time is the ultimate nonrenewable resource, and I believe that every moment spent in mediocrity is a waste.

For this reason I would be happy if my tombstone says He Did What He Wanted, When He Wanted, How He Wanted. Not because I am a selfish dick — I live my life this way to avoid falling into the trap of mediocrity. If anything — be it a job, a task, a friend, a surrounding — is unpleasant for very long I make a change. I have trained myself not to fear change because change is often the solution to (rather than the cause of) life's problems. For example:

I stopped doing yardwork. I hated the endless cycle of cutting the grass only to have it grow back — yet I enjoy having a nice yard. So I decided to have my cake and eat it too by hiring someone else to do the yardwork. The operative word being "hire" meant that I had to free up funds by reviewing the family budget and making some cuts. It turns out I do not need collision insurance on my 1994 Jeep, and I discovered that we were overpaying $50 a month for cell phone usage. Bam! Problem solved.
I put an end to disruptive phone calls. Apparently Phil Libin was reading my mind when he said, "I don't like it when people call me without a prearrangement via text or email. It's extremely unlikely that I'll be able to talk at exactly the time someone arbitrarily decides to call me, so it's more efficient and more polite to send a text or email first." Hear, hear. About a year ago I changed my voicemail greeting, instructing would-be callers to email me. People have learned to respect this request and communicate on my terms.

The Main Street Entrepreneur

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The word entrepreneur has been bothering me lately (yes, I know, #firstworldproblems). I have spent almost half of my working life in the tech startup world and the other half in the main street small business world. The tech startup world defines entrepreneurs as individuals with a bright idea who raise money from investors and try to make it big. This type of entrepreneur typically gives up a job at a company like Google to run their own show. But are they really running their own show? I say they are merely trading their managers at Google for managers in the guise of investors and board members. The truth is, a tech startup entrepreneur is not his (or her) own boss. Though the potential payoff for succeeding is enormous, the risks are also great and the tech startup entrepreneur gives up many of the freedoms a main street small business entrepreneur enjoys.

When I was growing up my dad was a main street entrepreneur. He ran his own insurance company in addition to some side businesses. He was his own boss. He attended every one of my soccer games, never missed a parent-teacher conference, and was always there to say goodbye to me as I trucked off to school. And he took our family on several weeks' worth of vacations every year. He was present, happy, and in control of his own life.

I am not at all suggesting that a main street entrepreneur does not work hard. My dad sure did — but he was in charge of when, how, and what he worked on. It's not news that we all have days when we do not want to be at work. You might be tired from the night before or distracted by something else, but if you are not your own boss you probably have to just sit there and chug through the day. The main street entrepreneur does not. He can focus on that something else and take care of work when the time is right. He is not lazy — he simply has more options.

Why Are We Busy All the Time?

Wed, 28 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Almost daily I talk to someone who claims to be slammed. Swamped. Super busy. I hope these people are just exaggerating and not actually missing out on life. Because time is the one resource we can't get more of, in recent years I have focused on making sure life does not pass me by because I am busy. And if I am busy, it better be worth it. Below are some strategies I use to avoid common time drains.

Paper Bills

Mail-in forms are a time drain. For me every paper bill represents 10 to 20 minutes of time. I need to get it from the mailbox, open it, review it, scan it, pay it, record the payment, and then dispose of it. For a business owner like me paper bills can add up to days of lost productivity each month.

Like most people I opt for paperless billing and automatic payments whenever possible. And that's the catch: many companies do not yet offer those options. If digital billing and payment options are not available I often try to pay a year in advance to minimize bill paying to a yearly event.

Paper Checks

You might laugh, but receiving a paper check in the mail causes me a great deal of anguish. As a business owner I receive paper checks several times a week. Presuming that each check takes about 30 minutes to process and deposit, which involves a trip to the bank, I lose a great deal of time and money per check.

I avoid receiving paper checks at all costs. I push for payment via direct deposit, which is more secure and faster for everyone involved. Even payment by credit card, which takes a 3% bite, is preferable to paper checks that can cost even more to cash. Going forward I am considering charging a fee for processing paper checks. I am also considering requiring payment in Bitcoin.

Know Your Consumer Rights: Credit Card Minimums and Fees

Wed, 16 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I hate cash. I think most people do. Life is much simpler in a paperless world. But I don't love plastic, either — I am looking forward to Bitcoin taking over the world. Until Bitcoin is a household name, however, credit and debit cards are the next best thing. With a few caveats: some merchants only accept credit cards for values greater than a certain amount. And some merchants charge you a fee for using your credit card (it might not hurt, but it does sting). What many of these merchants do not know is that they are in violation of the law and credit card network rules.

Minimum Purchase Maximum

Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which went into effect in 2010, merchants that accept credit cards can legally impose a $10 minimum on credit card charges. However, they must impose it on all cards (not just American Express, for example). For more information check out the article Merchants May Require Up to $10 Minimum Credit Card Purchase. And the next time you encounter a minimum of more than $10 raise a stink with the merchant. I do.

Checkout Fee Limits

In 2013 the credit card networks set a limit to the checkout fee a merchant can charge. Has a merchant ever charged you 50 cents for using your credit card to buy a soda? Unless you were buying a $12 soda, that charge was against the rules. The limit to how much a merchant can charge is typically around 4% (0% in at least 10 states). For more information read this great article: Checkout Fee: Charging Credit Card Fees to Customers. Don't let merchants overcharge you for using your credit card.

The Power of Saying Yes, the Wisdom of Saying No

Thu, 10 Apr 2014 00:00:00 +0000

You will get more out of life by saying yes. Not saying yes (i.e., saying no) is often rooted in fear. Perhaps you are afraid of failure. Or financial ruin, burnout, injury, insanity... It's a clusterfuck out there, and saying yes could be asking for a big bowl of trouble. But have you ever admired someone who seems truly unbounded? Someone who eagerly accepts offers you wouldn't even consider? Someone who confidently launches farfetched schemes? Free from the burden of doubt and worry, these people seem to be able to improvise their way through any situation. Who are these yea-sayers and have they really transcended their limits and stepped into the flow of abundance? Or have they just stepped in it?

Because as any naysayer knows, if you say yes all the time you will get too much out of life. Saying yes is like asking to be spammed. You will end up doing things you don't want to do. If not actual disaster, you at least run the risk of disappointment, boredom, and annoyance. It's ok to say no. Life will go on. Sure, there's a lot of pressure — both external and internal — to say yes. People like it when you like the things they like and do the things they do. And there's your own fear of missing out, fueled by the constant view of the other side of the fence afforded by carefully edited Facebook and Instagram posts. But it's ok to say no if you're not truly motivated by the opportunity. It's ok to say no if saying yes would cause you great inconvenience. It's ok to say no without a detailed excuse.

Take This Checklist and Shove It

Wed, 19 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Not so fast. Checklists save lives. And limbs — literally. The next time you are laying on an operating table, you should hope your doctor doesn't have the same bad attitude toward checklists you had before reading this post because studies show that when surgical teams use checklists, deaths decrease by 40% and complications decrease by more than 30%. Those impressive numbers are the reason you should learn to love checklists regardless of your vocation.

I know, checklists are boring. They may be the nerdiest way to increase your efficiency and reduce costly and time-consuming errors. A sexy robot would be so much cooler, but a checklist is way easier to produce. Trust me. But before the how, let's take a look at the why, which is dead simple: No matter how good you are at what you do, a checklist will improve your outcomes. Checklists serve to document essential processes. They ensure consistency and promote accountability. Even the act of creating checklists can be beneficial, leading to the improvement of policies and procedures and encouraging collaborative dialogue among team members.

I've been a hard-core list maker for a long time, but I'm a recent checklist maker. A while back I was browbeaten into creating a checklist for a complex business process. I thought a checklist was unnecessary. More to the point, I was pretty sure nobody in their right mind would want to use the 11-page end result. I had better uses for my time than creating a tool that could only expect to suffer the humiliation of being ignored, like the spork. But the checklist was effective. People appreciated having a roadmap to their final destination, and they actually liked using it. So I became a convert.

Digital Currency (Bitcoin) Is Pretty Freaking Exciting

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Just a month into 2014, we are in the age of instant. Communication is instant. Amazon is getting close to delivering products to our homes via drones. And in the not-too-distant future, homes will have 3D printers to instantly produce products. The waiting times for just about everything are decreasing daily with one big exception: money transfers. It drives me completely nuts that the fastest way to transfer money from an account at one bank to an account at another is to withdraw cash and physically carry it to the receiving bank. As a business person I have to do this almost weekly. Yes, transfers by wire and Automated Clearing House (ACH) are options, but wire transfers are expensive and time consuming to set up and ACH takes days, not hours. And the United States has been frustratingly slow to address the situation — other countries have had instant transfers for more than a decade.

Frankly, I have given up waiting. I need a banking system that is in real time. I need a way send and receive money instantly and globally. Bitcoin has been hyped as a speculative investment opportunity and a means of online money laundering, but the bigger story is the possible shift away from centralized, government-backed currencies to a global digital currency that allows for cheaper, faster, and easier movement of money around the world. To oversimplify, a bitcoin is nothing more than a unique serial number that is protected by the power of cryptography. When I make a purchase using bitcoin, I am transferring this unique serial number to the seller in exchange for a good or service — just like when I hand a dollar bill to someone, who accepts it as value. Bitcoin is essentially the dollar going paperless, but offering the same relative anonymity and freedom as cash.

Thinking Outside Thinking Outside the Box

Tue, 21 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The phrase "thinking outside the box" has long been a source of consternation rather than inspiration for me. Why do we use a trope to describe thinking that is supposed to be unconventional? It just seems wrong. I get that clichés summarily, if unoriginally, convey complex ideas so when I hear them I generally grimace inwardly and look the other way. But this one seems strangely self-defeating.

I don't remember being aware of "thinking outside the box" until the saying was suddenly everywhere. (Its use seems to have peaked, but clichés are notoriously tenacious.) Curious, I did a little research into its origins and discovered that "thinking outside the box" is worse than a mere example of the absence of the very creativity the phrase is ostensibly deployed to spark — or, incongruously, announce. The real crime is that it's misleading: there is no box. We're focused on thinking outside a box that doesn't even exist.

Sometimes Instant Isn't So Gratifying

Thu, 19 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I am a pretty instant guy. In fact, I go quite batty when something that should be instant is not. Nowadays, thanks to the internet we have instant information and communication. Anything we want to know right now we can discover simply by visiting google.com. And we can tell our friends about it right away. But recently I have realized that there is a situation in my life where instant is not good. Where instant is a distraction and a detriment. And so, I turn instant off when reading books.

No Rest for the Small Business Owner

Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Summer is winding down. The light is shifting and a hint of autumn wafts on the breeze. If you haven't taken a summer vacation yet, odds are you are a small business owner. Sure, you can work on your laptop outside in the dog days and cut back your hours, but those small concessions to the season do not yield the same benefits as taking a true break. One of the drawbacks of being your own boss is that the demarcation between work and the rest of your life becomes hazy: the dreaded schedule creep. Somehow the clear advantages of being able to match your work style to your natural circadian rhythms (I'm looking at you, night owls) and accommodate the inevitable tasks that need to be completed during standard business hours are offset by a tendency for work to expand to fill all of the nooks and crannies of available time. And with the intertwining of social media and enterprise it's hard to tell what's work and what's not anymore.

Does it even matter? Common sense suggests that it does, and research confirms it. But that doesn't mean it's easy for the small business owner to close up shop, hop in the roadster, and head for the hills. At least, not to any vacation destination that doesn't have high-speed internet access. Part of the problem is that the demands of your business don't stop just because you're on vacation, and many entrepreneurs don't have anyone to cover for them. But for many, those facts obscure a deeper, darker truth: they can't get into vacation mode. Much ink has been spilled over our collective inability to unplug, and groups like Digital Detox, based in Oakland, California, have formed to lend support to the tech-tethered seeking to break the habit.

Go Ahead, Just Stand There

Thu, 06 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

It turns out that if you do it right, just standing there can be pretty powerful. Think Wonder Woman: chest open but not puffed, legs apart, head level, one or both hands on the hips. Assume that stance and your body will release hormones that make you feel confident and calm. It's sort of like putting the proverbial cart before the horse: instead of allowing your posture to merely reflect your emotions, you can use it to elevate your mood and generate the self-confidence you need to navigate stressful situations. Because even born leaders like yourself have off days.

Striking a super hero pose might sound silly now, but it can save your bacon the next time you have to pitch an idea to a difficult client, deliver negative feedback to a coworker, or plead your sorry case to a judge. Social science researchers at preeminent business schools (like Harvard) have identified the primary hormones associated with so-called expansive postures as testosterone, which correlates with dominance and a willingness to take risks, and cortisol, which is related to stress. When you gotta deliver, you want your testosterone high and your cortisol low.

The physiological effects of holding a commanding pose for just two minutes last about 20, but the benefits of fine tuning your posture in general are immeasurable. Your mother always said to stand up straight, and she was so right. Your carriage changes your self-perception and influences how favorably others perceive and respond to you. Adopt an expansive posture and you will seem more credible and attractive. But overdo it by going all stiff or alpha primate and you will have exactly the opposite effect.

Taylor Swift Is Dead To Me

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

If you follow my writing at all, you will notice there seems to be an ongoing theme of conversation around building great user-focused products. I typically dive deep into building software products, exploring how to build something that will truly ignite your users. Often you do this by putting your users' needs above all else. So it hit me hard when recently, I was let down by a person/brand that I really admire — Taylor Swift — as she did not ignite me as a "user" of her products.

Yes, I am a Taylor Swift fan. I like her music, but I also really like her as a person. I think she is authentic. She has been pretty true to herself and her fans since she got her start. Comparing Taylor Swift to Lady Gaga is night and day. With Taylor, what you see is what you get. She has always brought a "keep it real" approach to her music and her brand.

37signals Is Nailing It Today

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This is especially true if you subscribe to the ridiculous Church of 80-character Lines.
— David Heinemeier Hansson

Always remember: A program IS NOT communication between a human and the machine. It's a communication between a developer and the next developer.
— Don Schenck

I have learned an important principle: simple things work, often to our dumbfounded surprise, for we tend to distrust the simple and strive for the complex.
— Richard Cracroft, Our Trek Through the Wilderness

Normally, I would consider the act of simply summarizing and reposting someone else's blog post sort of wasteful. That is what twitter is for. I guess these three quotes really match the philosophies and beliefs we have at Cloudmanic. I could not help but share as we have already written about some of this stuff in the past. Check out Coding Should Be Like Writing A Book and Software Design: The Come Back Later Problem.

Check out the two 37signals posts (and the comments) that I am referencing below.

Clarity over brevity in variable and method names

I Have Learned an Important Principle Simple

New Year's Resolutions Are Garbage; Setting Goals Is Not

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It was probably a decade ago, in the midst of my angst ridden teen years, that I decided New Year's Resolutions were a load of crap.

My own personal case study has proven me correct: January 1st means a month of fighting to get on a treadmill at the gym. All the people who hate to work out, but resolve to go every day because HEY! NEW YEAR? NEW YOU! Time to flatten those abs and tighten that ass, right? No more carbs or chocolate, RIGHT?

Wrong.

"Diets" are always the new black in a new year. At least until February when the gym clears out again.

So yeah, I gave up trying to be "better" every new year. And who could blame me with all that Y2K (and now 2012) end-of-the-world stuff? Why not just party like it's 1999? Live fast, die young. Mr James Dean said so.

But that doesn't really work either. I don't really believe that I will live to see the world end. And I don't really care to die young.

So my mantra the last few years has simply been: Outdo Yourself. Basically, have a better year than the last. Do something different. Fly by the seat of your pants. Whatever the cost, go do interesting shit so you have something to put in your memoir. Or at least a great Facebook status to make your friends jealous.

It's been an interesting few years: in 2009 I was art directing a magazine in NYC and working myself to the ground. A layoff at the end of the year turned 2010 into a tour of South America and part of the US. 2011 I decided to give the deuces to my beloved Brooklyn and try out a low key west coast lifestyle.

That brings us to 2012. The ghost of Christmas future.

I had a few vague ideas of what this next year should accomplish, but it wasn't until this fine gentleman pointed me in the direction of this outrageous lady's blog post that I discovered I could indeed make resolutions. In the form of specific and attainable goals. In a way that gives me time as opposed to the First Of The Year Cold Turkey Syndrome.

Basically you pick a word for the year, choose 9 "life buckets", 3 goals for each, and write down an action step for each goal at the beginning of every month. If you don't do it, ask yourself why not? Maybe you didn't want to do it in the first place. Reevaluate. Carry on.

My word for the year? Those of you who know me outside of the interwebs will probably get a fantastic laugh. Patience. She of the instant-gratification-let's-hop-on-the-next-train-out-of-town-I-wanted-that-done-yesterday persona has chosen the word "patience."

Why this particular word? Because I feel like I run around with my head cut off most of the time. Because when I don't get something I want within 10 seconds, I get over it and move on to the next. If there are more than 2 people in line for coffee, I turn on my heel and walk out the door.

And I live in a town with serious slacker mentality. You'd have thunk some of it would have worn on me by now. You'd have been mistaken. Apparently you can take the girl out of the rat race, but the rat race stays severely embedded into her system.

At any rate, I'm hoping that this methodology brings more focus and attention to everything I do. Instead of walking out the door sans caffeine fix, why not take the time to snap some shots on the good old iPhone as a location reference for future photos shoots? Or use that time to simply be, well ummmm, patient?

I live in Rose City and I rarely stop to smell the damn roses. Here's hoping I understand the idea of Patience a little better by 2013.

The Joker Test

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 00:00:00 +0000

When someone reaches out to our company trying to get something from us, such as a job, or to sell us something, I always apply what I call the "Joker Test". All our products are free in at least a basic way, and it takes less than 30 seconds to sign up for an account. Our products are what define us. Every decision we make is going to be in terms of how we can make our products better for our customers. So why the heck would someone not take the time to learn a little about what we do before reaching out to us?

The "Joker Test" is simply a quick search to find out if the person reaching out has created an account and engaged with our product at least a bit. If the results are positive, the person passes my first screen.

It takes very little time to understand us; with very little effort you can discover how we tick. Your proposal to us will be so much more valuable and our willingness to give you the time of day will be much higher if you just do some research before picking up the phone or sending us an email. Or you may choose to be a Joker.

Northwest road trip 2: Attack of the mountains

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Never turn your back on a mountain.

Note: Earlier this summer, my husband and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar dilemma: we both had a chunk of vacation time we needed to use immediately. The situation called for an epic road trip across the wilds of Washington, Canada and Montana. More background in earlier post: Northwest road trip, part I: Ghosts and vampires

While Olympic National Park is home to the majestically named Olympic mountain range, it didn't prepare us for the peaks of British Columbia. The first attack came just after we left Vancouver. We wound our way north along the famous Sea-to-Sky Highway, admiring views of water and forest, and when we came to a sign for a waterfall at a provincial park (kind of like a state park here), we turned off the road. Our reward was the sight of Shannon Falls' 1,000-plus-foot cascade.

That should have taught us something. But instead, when just down the road we came upon a scenic viewpoint sign with a little mountain graphic on it, we hardly noticed.

"Stop?" my husband asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

"Nah," I said from the passenger seat. We hadn't been driving very long; we'd just stopped at the waterfall; plus, I figured we weren't going to get a dramatically better view of the distant peaks than what we could see out our car window.

We zipped by the turnoff. A moment later, we went around a corner.

"Oh my God! Wow! Holy — ! Wow!"

Giant, glacier-covered mountains loomed to the west. They were so big, and so unexpected; it felt like they were nearly on top of us. I grabbed for the camera and got off a few through-the-window shots while my husband tried to keep from driving us off the road.

Honey, there's a mountain at the window.

And thus we learned our first lesson of Canada: When they tell you there's something to look at, they really mean it.

From there, the sights only got bigger and more impressive. Any bend could yield a breathtaking vista. We expected that in the national parks, but realized the whole freaking province was stunning. We even started joking each time we neared a provincial park: "Oh, it's just a provincial park. It's probably something like Yellowstone, only twice as big with five times as many geysers."

Just another amazing, giant mountain in Canada.

Of course, once we did reach the national parks and the Rocky Mountains, the alpine attacks only became more frequent. I finally stopped taking photos of mountains. Partly, it was because they were literally everywhere I looked. But also, I knew their grandeur wouldn't have the same power when I was home, looking at them on a computer screen, instead of staring up at them from an avalanche zone.

Northwest road trip, part I: Ghosts and vampires

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Note: Earlier this summer, my husband and I unexpectedly found ourselves needing to use a chunk of vacation time. The situation called for an epic road trip across the wilds of Washington, Canada and Montana. Here, in four parts, are the highlights.

Olympic National Park is only a few hours from our Oregon home, yet until this summer, we'd never been. Did we think that it was too far? That it wouldn't be worth it? Whatever the reason, we were repentant even before we actually entered the park boundaries. All it took was a glimpse of snow-capped peaks beckoning in the distance and we realized the error of our ways.

First look at Olympic's mountains. Yes, this was taken through a windshield.

These days, the damp and beautiful Olympic Peninsula might be better known as the home of the Twilight series than the home of a national park (and if you're not familiar with Twilight, skip to the next section). Nowhere was that more evident than Forks, the little town Stephenie Meyer implausibly turned into a stop on every teenage girl's bucket list. Groups posed at the "Forks Welcomes You" sign, the high school, the hospital. As we waited at a stoplight, a girl in a Twilight shirt and a middle-aged woman, presumably her mother, clutching a Twilight map, crossed the street in front of us.

First Beach, on the La Push reservation, was similarly populated — except here, werewolves, not vampires, decorated signs (again, this is a Twilight reference, apologies). It was impossible not to mock things like Jacob Black's Fireworks Stand, but my laughter faded when we reached the coast. All those times Bella complains about the backwaters of Forks and La Push, she neglects to mention part of it is in a national park — it's freaking beautiful.

First Beach. No bare-chested would-be werewolves sighted.

Of course, many of the beachgoers had obviously been drawn there by Meyer. I saw a man pick up his teenage daughter, who had a leg in a cast, and carry her down to the beach. Now that, I thought, is love.

We spent a few days exploring the beaches, forests and mountains, but as alluring as the idea of sexy vampires and sexier werewolves were, we had many miles left to go. A ferry ride across the choppy Puget Sound later, we were across the border in Victoria.

I was ready to stand on solid ground, but not ready to let go of the feeling of mystery we'd had in Olympic. As the sun started its downward slide, we plastered stickers on our chests and joined a large group of people for a Ghostly Walk. Two guides traded off telling us about macabre incidents in Victoria's past, from gruesome murders to horrific car crashes, and the spirits that couldn't seem to let go. Cheesy? Perhaps. But it was also a surprisingly good time. Even if the supernatural had been left out, it still would have been a fascinating tour of the seedier parts of the city's history.

Where's the Over-Communication Line

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

When working remotely, it's important to update people. Since you're not in an office and people can't see what you're doing, you have to let people know that you are in fact, working on the assigned task.

While communication is important, where is the line between communicating what needs to be communicated and over-communicating? And how do you draw that line?

Not Everybody Needs to Know Every Little Thing

When working with a team, you don't need to update the entire team on every little thing. Before you send an update, think about who is involved and who needs to know. Send it only to those people. If Task X is being done on Thursday instead of Wednesday and it doesn't affect Bob in any way shape or form, there's no reason to email Bob, is there?

Send Regular Status Updates — When Needed

Status updates are a good thing, until you start to over-do them. When you start on a project, discuss with your client, your boss, or your team how often they would like updates. This sets clear update expectations and helps to prevent over or under updating.

If you didn't start off setting expectations, and how you're updating is working, then by all means, keep doing what you're doing. However, if you find that it's not working — maybe one of you is constantly trying to get in contact with the other — it might be a good time to establish those parameters now. Better late than never.

Make Use of the Proper Communication Channels

As we mentioned before, using the appropriate form of communication is important. If you have a question about a task assigned to you through a project management system, comment directly on the task in the system. Using the proper communication channels ensures that you get a timely response as efficiently as possible.

Know When to Pick Up the Phone

Ever end up in one of those email threads that could have been handled through a 10-minute phone call, but instead turned into 30 emails? Recognize when emails are heading that way and pick up the phone, hop on Skype, or send an IM. Sometimes you just need real-time communication.

How do you update without over-updating?

Hating on H2O

Sun, 17 Jul 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Not too long ago, before it (thankfully) fell out of fashion, bottled water was all the rage. It was common knowledge that the more you paid, the better it was. A few years ago, you couldn't go 5 minutes without catching a glimpse of someone with a brightly colored Nalgene bottle. These days, everyone has a BPA-free aluminum water bottle or four, perfect for filling at the tap, which is now trendy. Whatever the container, the thing that made all these accessories valuable was what went in them: Water.

To which I say, "not thirsty."

I'm something of an anomaly, apparently: I don't like water.

I mean, I love it when I've been exercising and my throat is dry and the water is cold. Times like that, it's the only thing I want to drink. But keeping a bottle with me at all times? No. Grabbing a glass as I pass through the kitchen? Why, when there are tastier options — like soda or wine — at hand?

I may be weird, but I'm not unique. I stumbled into a conversation with a friend a year or so ago in which he was complaining about not liking water. It was exciting to find someone who shared my antipathy towards perhaps the most precious natural resource. Water's just so… boring, we agreed.

For whatever reason, I just don't like the taste (and yes, I see the irony of that statement). Water is healthy, of course, but I figured calorie-free diet soda was OK. So I was dismayed to see this article about a study that suggests diet soda might not be OK after all.

The study found a link between diet soda and a larger waist size. And by "larger," we're talking 70 percent greater than people who didn't drink diet soda. It's even worse news for people who had two or more diet sodas a day: Their waists were 500 percent bigger.

The research also delved into health consequences of artificial sweeteners, but I'm a vain person and the waist-size data grabbed my attention more — maybe 500 percent more — than the health stuff. Yowza.

So I'm embarking on a quest to find alternatives to both water and diet soda. Most juice has a high amount of sugar; milk has lots of calories; and alcoholic beverages are clearly not suitable for on-the-job consumption (not my job, anyway). I was intrigued to read about the backstory of Hint, which was created by a woman who was addicted to Diet Coke but didn't like water (perhaps we were separated at birth). It's not available in my city yet, but I plan to track it down and test it out. I'm also planning to do some of my own flavored-water creations.

If you've got wet-your-whistle suggestions, fire away. I promise to give them a try, at least until someone says they'll make my waist way bigger than my aqua-chugging friends.

Confessions of a webcam addict

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

I had a Firefox browser open the other day when a coworker walked into my office. I jumped, simultaneously clicking a different browser tab to hide what I'd been viewing.

"What's up?" my colleague asked.

"Not much," I said, my guilty mouse finger searching for a work-related document to maximize on the screen.

She'd caught me in a distracted moment. It happens more often than I'd like to admit — one second I'm looking at something absolutely work-related, and then a few clicks later, I'm somewhere else entirely. My computer screen, unfortunately, faces the door to my office, so the scene described above isn't exactly rare. I think my coworkers suspect.

My confession: I like to look at webcams. Especially when there's lots of action: storms, sunrises, wildlife.

This confession either makes me boring as hell or a bona fide freak. But the truth is, if there's a camera is monitoring scenery or traffic, I want to see it.

I think this, er, hobby, started after a visit to Glacier National Park a few summers ago. Glacier has an impressive array of webcams that can help you monitor the weather for your trip, or help you prolong your visit after you've returned home. The site quickly became a fixture of my daily routine. Leaves turned color; snow fell; water froze. It was beautiful.

I started branching out. Glacier leads the pack, but there are other national parks with cams, and I checked on those. My local coffee shop has a webcam so you can check the line. I used to live in upstate New York, and in the fall I wistfully searched out foliage cams. Any car ride over a mountain pass was preceded by a check of the ODOT site.

Then I found the mother lode, the jackpot, the URL that was to a webcam aficionado like me what Kulminator is to a beer lover: The FAA aviation cameras of Alaska.

These are traffic cams, but not for street traffic. They're meant to show pilots the conditions at Alaska's numerous small airports. Because of that, they don't record freeways or interchanges, but mountain passes and tundras. Each location has multiple cameras pointing different directions. And the best part: You can watch time-lapse sequences. So, for instance, you can see the sun rise over Anchorage, the moon set over Kasigluk and the tides change at Hawk Inlet. I continually hope to see wildlife wander into view, maybe caribou in Tuntutuliak or bear in Valdez.

If I sound like I know where these places are in relation to each other, or any other point north of British Columbia, I don't. I've never been to Alaska. But through these small, low-resolution images, I get to see crimson alpenglow on snowy peaks and ships cross misty, moody bays.

Maybe someday I'll take a trip to Alaska. I'd like to. But the idea brings on a small worry, a fear that I try not to think about too much. I don't want to know what this misgiving says about me, or my habit. It's probably something all webcam viewers wonder about, which, in my case, is a bit disturbing. But here it is: Could reality live up to the wondrous pictures on my computer screen I've consumed so intently? Or would it disappoint, turn out to be different from my expectations, and frankly, uncomfortable?

If I ever find out, I'll be sure to visit at least one aviation webcam location. I'll be the fuzzy figure running back and forth (to ensure I appear in the frame), with goggles over my face. I might someday be ready to visit Alaska, but out my secret shame to friends and coworkers? No way.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a tab to check.

Required reading

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Banned Books Week is not taking place right now.

It happens in the fall, and librarians everywhere welcome it with a twisted glee. They can be quite the rebels, those librarians. If you don't believe me, read how librarians kept "Stupid White Men" from becoming pulp (regardless of your feelings on Michael Moore, trust me, the story's a good one). But back to Banned Books Week: Librarians celebrate it, making displays of all the books that have been banned or challenged. They relish in showing how some of the most popular books in history, even accepted masterpieces, have been deemed by some to be unfit for human consumption.

Not surprisingly, many of the books on the list were written for young audiences. Deciding at what age certain themes and language become appropriate is tricky enough on a case-by-case basis, never mind trying to apply standards to an entire generation.

I was lucky. As the offspring of one of those subversive librarians, I was not allowed to see R-rated movies until I was in high school — but I could read whatever I wanted. When I bothered to think about this parenting strategy, I realized it may have been lacking in logic. I could read Stephen King books at age 10, but not see the (typically underwhelming) movies based on those books until I was practically driving? Yeah.

But maybe there was some logic behind it. After all, I read voraciously then and still do today. Whenever I see "banned books" lists, I'm stunned by how many of my personal favorites are there. The very titles that infected my imagination and infiltrated my views of the world are repulsive to some. Perhaps it's that the books that have the most ingenuity, the ones that can most radically change our perceptions, are just too frightening for some. For me, and scores of others (many of these books are award-winners), that's what makes them magnificent.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my very favorite banned books, with brief commentary:

The Bridge to Terabithia

I remember wanting to inhabit this book. I remember crying at the end. Mostly, I remember reading it over and over again.

Lolita

It's not a love story. It is, however, an amazing accomplishment of character and language.

The Giver

Just after college, I worked in a school as part of a volunteer committee. One day the other volunteers — all mothers of high schoolers — were discussing "The Giver," a required book in one of the English classes. "I love that book!" I gushed. The mothers looked at me like I'd just said I loved burning small children with a branding iron. Turns out, they didn't share my adoration. One mother claimed her high school daughter had had nightmares for months after reading it (I read it in fifth grade, but okay). Another pursed her lips and shook her head. A few years later, the same school drew national media attention when a parent (not one of the mothers I knew) refused to return a book to the school library, deeming it so offensive it should be burned.

Twilight

Yeah, yeah, I know. The writing isn't great, and maybe they should be banned for overuse of the word "smoldering," but Stephanie Meyer is a genius at plotting. To those who would ban it, I can only summon a South-Park like "come on." The kids are actually entirely well-behaved: They don't drink, swear, do drugs or have sex before marriage. So they do lie — but only to save the lives of their loved ones and battle evil forces. People have a problem with that?

A Wrinkle in Time

The first time I tried to read this book, I found it boring and put it down. I guess I was naturally (albeit subconsciously) deciding what was too mature for me. A year or two later, I picked it up again and I don't think I closed it until I was finished. I went on to read every Madeline L'Engle book I could find.

Waiting on the Fourth of July

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Here in the Pacific Northwest, this time of year can be a little depressing. More often than not, it's raining, and the brief appearances by the sun serve mostly to remind us how little we've seen it. It's exactly how people think of the Pacific Northwest: Gray, wet and cool.

Fortunately, we're creeping ever closer to summer, which is anything but gray, wet or cool. People from other parts of the country tend to be unaware of what a summer in Oregon or Washington is like. I could give you the climate data, but it's much easier to simply say it's glorious.

Rain? No. Sun? All day. Temps? Warm, but generally below anything starting with a 9. Excepting higher elevations, there aren't even many thunderstorms (a plus or minus, depending on your preference). Like the residents of the PNW, July, August and September are very accommodating.

But note that June does not make that list. June is not a favorite month in these parts. The month that sounds like a nice older woman is actually quite a cruel mistress, offering any number of warm, sunny days, but also dishing out punishment in the form of rain, wind or hail. Woe is the school child who thinks the end of the school year equates to summer weather, or the bride who thinks the official change of the season means her outdoor wedding will be mild and precipitation-free. June offers enough heat to convince us to put away our sweaters and flannel (it's true, some of us do still wear it) in favor of tank tops and sandals, then it breaks our spirits with weather left over from the stunted month of February.

Hang around the west side of Oregon long enough, and you'll learn the unofficial start date of summer: July 4. That, the old-timers say, is when you can count on the rain and clouds to be gone. After July 4, you can plan a barbecue, a river float or a picnic without fear of forgetting a raincoat. And I have to say that in the six years I've been living here, I've found this local adage to be true.