roncli.com blog: March 2008

I have to say that, despite the cruddy sound quality, I really am liking this Inspiration Edit of Given Up. It's made me think about seriously doing a whole bunch of songs like this. I have a lot of music in me, and it would be wonderful to get them all out, even if it was just in a stripped down performance like this.

The biggest problem has been getting my new X-Fi to work right. Last night, I improvised by putting everything through my J-Station, and using SPDIF-In to record it all. Unfortunately, when I plugged stuff in any of the Line-In jacks, the sound was quiet and there was a ton of line noise. I'd like to get this fixed so I can properly record things as opposed to passing things through a device that wasn't designed to have things passed through it.

It annoys me, because the X-Fi is new, and I paid a good chunk of money for it. That said, I haven't done a whole lot of research on the subject, and I figure a good hour or so of Googling may find a decent resolution for my problem.

But yes, I want to do more. I'm really pleased by this performance, and it's inspired me to go back and lay something else down. Maybe this'll get me to the point where I'm actually release the full versions of these tracks, who knows?

Labels: Music

All Resolved
Posted: 2:38:00 PM 0 comments

Well, thankfully all the issues from earlier this week at work were resolved. Everyone sat down and had a nice discussion on how everyone can improve things, and even though no apologies were thrown around, they really didn't need to be. Everyone was finally on the same page, and we finally got that application working again to boot. Yay!

It really has been one of those weeks I just wish I could erase and forget about. I absolutely hate feeling stressed out, and that's been an unfortunate reality for me lately.

Moreso, I hate being angry, and I think it was pretty clear from my post early this morning that I was ready to put a hole in something. I don't recall being that mad over something in a long, long time, and it's made me wonder if the combination of events from this past week triggered greater-than-normal anger. Probably so. Fortunately, it's over.

Labels: Miscellaneous

Audiosurf and TraxSurf
Posted: 4:25:00 AM 0 comments

Check out Audiosurf when you get a free moment. It's a game that takes your MP3 music and makes "tracks" out of them that you "surf". There are various modes, but the most common is a match three puzzler where you have to pick up the right blocks at the right time to score the most points.

It's really fun. Especially for those who make music!

I've had a blast running my songs through Audiosurf, especially Cent Main Theme and Deadly Drums: Extended Mix, both of which are pretty difficult for me. You can also run other people's songs through it, and it gave me an idea...

That idea is TraxSurf. Since I already listen to all of the songs on Trax in Space, I should be able to pick out 5 songs every week that can be used towards a weekly Audiosurf competition. So I started coding it, and a lot of that code is already on the SVN. It shouldn't be too long before I have a completed web site, but as with all of my own projects lately, it seems to be taking a longer than expected to finish.

In any case, this is going to be a fun side project to work with, and hopefully it will pick up steam when it's released. I'm looking forward to it.

Labels: Coding

Rant Revisited
Posted: 3:44:00 AM 0 comments

I had the unfortunate need to read over an old rant of mine, the one about programmers and egos. I say "unfortunate", because I seem to have run smack into one rather large programmer's ego lately. And the subject matter is completely stupid, which just made me believe even more in what I wrote over two and a half years ago.

Some background. I was given a task by my boss. This basically resulted in me investigating an application that had been around the office for way longer than I've been there. The call center manager had told me they had stopped using that application entirely, and instead were doing the process manually, because the program no longer worked.

So far, no problem. I investigated the problem and found out that there was a rather annoying bug with one of the web services. There also was a security issue since they were running the application over the Intranet. The Intranet zone is too secure for that application to run, so you have to make an exception for each machine. There was also a third issue that no one really knew anything about, and no one could reproduce it for me. Whatever, I essentially ignored it.

Still no problem. I go to look into fixing the first bug, and find that the solution is checked out to the resident IT guru, so I email him explaining that I wanted to fix a bug and needed him to check it in. I also asked if he wanted me to upgrade the solution to the newer Visual Studio. He responds, saying that there are a lot of old dependencies that would make recompiling difficult. Fair enough. He also asked me what was the specific bug was.

I had something creeping into the back of my mind at this point that I was somehow getting set up for something I wasn't going to like. I simply explained to him the first bug in detail, went over the second bug, and touched lightly on the mystery bug.

Now we have a problem. "I could have told you about this in 5 minutes of my time. On both problems."

First of all, I'm thinking to myself when I read that, thank you Mr. Know-It-All for letting me know about this, what's your point? I'm also thinking to myself, how long has this application really not been working that there are known issues with it, and why was I not informed of these issues when I started investigating it?

I respond to him explaining briefly how I came to the conclusions I did, and how it didn't take much time at all to resolve.

That last reply happened Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, I skipped out of work to attend Vincent's funeral. Needless to say, I wasn't at all in the mood to deal with what I found waiting in my inbox for me Thursday morning.

He went over point by point and explained not only the specific problems, but the solutions that would need to be carried out for each. For the security issue, there was an .msi that had to be ran on each machine that was taken out of the users' startup some time ago, and that the call center was aware that the application would stop working on newer computers. For the red x issue, apparently it was a data issue, a null value was causing it. For the web service, it would not make sense to continue it as a web service because of all the dependencies, and it should be rewritten as a WCF. He also added that the call center loved the application when it was rolled out, although I have to question that, especially when one of the supervisors was quoted as saying it "never worked right".

So I got a lot of useful information out of that email. He could have stopped there and have been done with it, he provided information I was looking for to give me the ability to decide how to proceed, which in short was that we weren't going to proceed if the fix was going to take some time, which it was clear it was going to.

No. He had to pull out this gem: "You need to start communicating with me." That's his emphasis. He went on to say "you operate in a vacuum", explain how much he knows about the company, the company's code, and coding in general, and how he has this vast pool of knowledge. "Use it," he said.

All of this, of course, copied to the boss.

I was literally seething when I read that part.

Let's never mind the fact that the email I sent to him was, in fact, me communicating with him. This is the same guy I have sent countless emails to that have went unanswered. And I'm not talking about little cutesie emails that don't impact anything, I'm talking serious, major enhancements to the application I was trying to work on. I can't count the number of times I've had to read and interpret his code (he's a wonderful coder, by the way, all people should code like he does), and then write a solution that fit my needs, because I couldn't get a simple question answered. Not even an "I'll get back to you later," just no answer.

Oh, and never mind that the email stated "If I'm busy, I'll usually get back to you." I suppose "usually" was the operative word.

And I'm the one that needs to start communicating with him?

...idiot programmers... Never Wrong... must control fist of death...

One line from the original rant that rang true with this situation was about what these kind of programmers can do. "These programmers are the ones that can take a well-established team environment and wreck it in a matter of seconds. They can deflate the confidence of other members of the team by imposing a ridiculous set of standards that don't make sense."

The worst part is that over the next few working days, I need to work with him on a couple of things with my application. I wonder how he expects me to sit with him face to face and take him seriously when it is clear he doesn't take me seriously.

It's days like these that make me wish I didn't have to work. And of course, you know this coming after a funeral didn't help matters. I found the most interesting part of this whole thing was that the boss avoided me the whole day.

Of course, I did respond, but only after careful consideration as to how. I chose an approach that is apologetic for doing my best while pricking his inflated talking points with what I hope is enough truth to make him realize how ridiculous he sounds.

Good god, if you're line of work is going to be programming, don't do something like this. That is, unless you actually want to look like an ego-maniac.

Labels: Editorials

Given Up (Inspiration Edit)
Posted: 3:38:00 AM 0 comments

Louigi Verona on Trax in Space is holding an interesting "live concert" called Inspiration Live, where participants record their music live and "perform" it virtually. It will happen on April 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

Well, recently, I have been working on Given Up in Reason, an old song I tried to record and release back in the days of StudioKraft in Houston. I decided why not enter this song?

So I did. It is a Trax in Space exclusive (you'll also find Cent Credits over there as a TiS exclusive as well!), so be sure you have an account over there before checking it out.

Labels: Music

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Vincent Lau
Posted: 1:46:00 AM 0 comments

On Saturday, March 1st at 9:50 PM pacific time, Vincent Lau, known around the digital music scene as SalsaBoy and ViciousV, passed away. He was 31 years old.

Vincent is most widely known for being a co-founder of Trax in Space. From 1994 on, he designed the graphics for the website, along with all of the icons and the characters that graced the site in its prime. He also was a contributor to Digital Music Revolution, the e-magazine that spun off from Trax in Space back in 2000.

He grew up in Houston, TX, where his family still lives. He moved to San Francisco a few years back and was working for Wells Fargo. He had always had a blood condition, having to get it changed every 3 weeks. As it was explained to me, the condition "finally caught up to him". He was in the hospital once last month, and again a week ago.

There's a lot I have to be thankful for in having known Vincent. If he hadn't been working with Saurin, I'd probably have never joined up with the Trax in Space team, and I probably wouldn't be where I am right now in my career. He was a very social person, easy to make conversation with, and always knew how to have fun. One of the most unique things about him, it seemed that no matter where you went with him - New York, Las Vegas, Washington - he would always run into someone he knew.

Vincent, you will be sorely missed by many, many people. Rest well, my friend.

Labels: Miscellaneous