Ben's blog

Fireworks!

Jul 04

Ben Vaughanfamily family, kids No Comments

Tate and I went to see the Independence Day fireworks at the 57th St. beach tonight. He was so excited. He said “fireworks! fireworks! fireworks!” the whole way there. His excitement was infectious and I was excited to be out on this adventure with him.

This was the first time since we moved to Chicago that we were able to make it to see the fireworks and probably the first fireworks that Tate will remember. He didn’t sit still for much of the display, but I’m sure he’ll remember the adventure.

Aunt Gloria’s Glazed Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Jun 18

Ben VaughanRecipe, family family, home, recipe, strawberry rhubarb, yum No Comments

Happy Birthday Wife!

Jun 01

Ben Vaughanfamily family 1 Comment

To my lovely wife:

Happy birthday!

The last year brought so many great things. Here’s to the next year. May it be as great as the last.

The tyranny of the todo list

May 21

Ben Vaughanrambling busblogging, gtd, productivity, work No Comments

Such a great tool, a means to productivity; you make me better. You are always willing to carry the weight of remembering what needs to be done.

But you are always there reminding my of what I have left to do. I feel like I let you down when I have to push something down the list to do later. I feel inadequate in your presence.

Oh how I love and loathe you.

Social network burnout

May 14

Ben Vaughanrambling, tech web 1 Comment

I’ve given up on most of my social networks.  They just aren’t worth all the effort to maintain them.  Sure, there are other services out there that make updating multiple networks easier, but what’s the point?  As much as I would like to, I can’t keep up with any conversations that are happening on all those networks.

The fatigue plus the grand-daddy Facebook claiming dominion over all my personal stuff is really turning me off.

I haven’t deleted any of my accounts yet, but I certainly have pulled back my participation in the networks.

Multitasking obsessed

Mar 12

Ben Vaughanrants, tech busblogging, iphone, ui, ux No Comments

More rumors have been flying about iPhone multitasking and people have been eating them up.

People say they want to keep all sorts of things running in the background, Twitter apps, documents, music apps, etc. But there are only a few categories of apps that make sense to run in the background.

What is the purpose of leaving a document viewer* running in the background? What value is it providing while consuming resources, yet not being visible to the user?

Apps that consume or emit data on behalf of the user DO make sense to run in the background. Music playing apps, geo-location apps, IM, … are appropriate. Facebook and its bretheren aren’t. Push notifications are sufficient for them.

The other half of the multitasking question is keeping the user in control of those invisible processes The UI for this isn’t tricky. We don’t need a task viewer. Much like the number badges that push notifications use on the app icons, a backgrounded app would have another badge showing that it is still running. In addition, an app was approved to run in the background would have to have a clear way for the user to fully exit the app within the app itself.

So, let’s have some multitasking, but let’s not get carried away thinking we can background anything we want. If Apple were to allow that, the user experience would suffer and the phone would be sluggish and crashy.

*Document viewer here means anything that displays static or snap-shot data i.e. Web browser, social media viewers (Tweetie, facebook, myspace, etc. )

Changes

Feb 22

Ben Vaughanrambling family, work No Comments

Changes are coming to work. About a year ago I went through a bunch of upheaval to vet myself off the on-call and weekend duty rotation. Now it looks like I’m going to be going back to production support, a move about which I am a bit apprehensive.

I can handle being on call, if the calls are warrented. Historically, this hasn’t been the case and this will have to be one of the first things to be addressed if I go back into the on-call rotation. On the other hand, Sunday work will be particularly difficult for me and my family. Sunday is our day to worship and rest. This isn’t something that I am going to give up easily. I really don’t want to work on the weekend.

Beyond those points, I think here are plenty of good things I can contribute to the production “run” team.
– I have a healthy respect for the stability of the production envirmoment.
– I have a good set of skills and tools that help me manage a production environment.
– I understand and advocate strong change-control measures.
– I know the trading platforms very well.
– I don’t leave things unfinished. I follow through until I find an answer that satisfies me.

What i don’t have is a lot of patience for slackers and lazy people who can’t or won’t figure out the easy stuff for themselves. I’m happy to teach, but at some point the student needs to step out on their own. I can do good in this role if I can get past the crap that comes with supporting users.

Night out on the town

Feb 04

Ben Vaughanfamily adventures, family, kids 2 Comments

Megan and Jasper were in Iowa for a conference which means Tate and I got a night out on the town. We did “Donnals” for dinner, then saw “Aaaaaallllviiinn”.  It wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be.

We rode the blue line and took a bus all the way up to Western and Diversey to the theater and back.  It was quite the adventure.  Tate even fell asleep on the train on the trip home.  I think I ended up carrying him between the trains and busses most of the way home.  My back is still sore.

It was a lot of fun though and I can’t wait for Tate’s and my next adventure.

Words of a 4-year-old

Jan 13

Ben Vaughanfamily kids No Comments

My oldest boy has been experimenting with new words and phrases that he’s picked up here and there. Nothing profane, thankfully (yet).  It’s funny hearing him throw out these phrases like he understands what they mean.

Him: “Daddy, I want to watch TV”

Me: “Not right now. It’s not TV time.”

Him: “Forget about it.”

Heh.

Or, when he’s not getting what he wants:

“Dad, you’re not listening to me!”

Oh, I’m listening.  I’m just not giving in!

- Posted from my iPhone

iPhone intervention

Jan 04

Ben Vaughanrants, tech apple, background, better, iphone, notification, push 1 Comment

Dear iPhone,

I care about you very much. So much so, that I have some hard things to say. Please take these things I am writing knowing that the words come from the deepest respect and have only your best interest at heart.

To start, let’s talk about background apps. You have always said that background apps aren’t appropriate on mobile devices. You have gone on and on about how they are bad for battery and difficult to manage. And I agree, for the most part. But we both know that these clear-cut rules don’t hold true. MOST background apps aren’t appropriate for mobile devices, but there are some that do make sense. For one… streaming audio.

The iPod app is very capable, but it isn’t my only source for music. I would love to have Pandora, Last.fm, Stitcher or any other streaming audio application should be able to run in the background. The reasons why I want this are the same reasons that you resisted video on the iPod for so long: music is something I do while I do other things.

And yes, you are correct, having Facebook (or any other application) running in the background constantly polling for updates is dumb and the push notifications that you have developed is a much better solution. The “hard” work doesn’t belong on the mobile device. It belongs on the server and it should be pushed much like it is now.

This brings me to my second point. Your notifications aren’t very useful. Yes, I get the message, but I need so much more than that. The way it works right now is that the push bubble comes up in the middle of what I am doing and I have to make a decision. Do I want to drop what I’m doing to responding to the push message, or do I want to lose that push message in favor of the task that it interrupted?

I don’t appreciate the way that you force me into that difficult decision. This problem is multiplied when I get multiple notifications: I only see the most recent. It is then up to me to fish back through all my apps to see which ones might have sent me a notification. This is very bad interface design and I really need to you to work on that.

Combining these two points brings me to my final point. You really need to come up with something clever for messaging applications. A push bubble telling me that I have received an instant message is not very useful unless it gives me a way to reply to that message.

Today if I want to respond I have to switch out of whatever app I’m working in to go to my IM app and I have to stay there as long as I want to carry on my conversation. If I do this, I’ve lost my train of thought from whatever I was working on in the interrupted app. This interrupt-driven usage model really hurts your usability. I would really like to see a better way of doing IM.

And please understand… instant messaging is THE killer app for you. If it can wait, I don’t need to carry it with me.

You can’t downplay these shortcomings and expect to remain competitive. There are other phones out there just waiting for you to make some stupid decision that they can exploit to take your place at the top.

Please keep in mind that I care very deeply about you and wish only for your success. Please read these words in the loving-kindness that they are intended and use them to better yourself.

Most Sincerely,

Ben