Richard Cowin

WagBee

I have spent a lot of time working on an application that uses some new ideas to manage information. Here are a few key points I was looking for:

• A next gen tagging mechanism
• No folders or nested containers
• Very web like - information should be connected similar to the real web or a wiki
• Ability to link to original articles - bookmarkish
• I wanted wiki like links for content - this turned out not to be necessary
• Utilization of graphical views (mind maps would be ideal)
• Support for spatial orientation like cheat sheets 
• A way of remembering information from the past when the topic was just beyond my mental reach

 

The last one really is a matter of recalling the context that I captured the information in the first place. Once I recall the context, the information that I captured quickly follows.

The idea of recalling context turned out to be pretty straight forward once the other pieces were in place. Imagine a mind map of important terms and topics where the chunks of information are actually the connectivity of these terms and topics in the mind map. Once that is is place it is easy to create a mechanism to change a mind maps to reflect any point in history.

I am pretty pleased with the outcome. I call it WagBee after the waggle dance of a bees that is used to communicate where the nectar is to the other bees. It had the hive like perspective that I was looking for.

Anyway, I through a video together of the Proof of concept and am now moving to a beta. You can view the video on wagbee.com. If it looks interesting, register and I will send you an invite to take it for a spin.

 

 

Back Again

After a long break, I am back blogging again. I may eventually move my blog, but for now, I will be here.

 

Here are some topics that I find interesting and will likely concentrate on:

• Context in learning, memory, design, and just about all things
• Learning and Creativity
• Cognitive Models
• Decision Making
• Evolution of software and all things
• Current projects
• And the relationship between all the above items

 

2007 gone and a world of change

In 2007, I was a bit off the radar. 

I had two big changes.

Switched Jobs

I switched my day job back in the summer of 2007.  I left FiveRuns to work at a startup called 7 Billion People.

FiveRuns was a great company to work with.  I had lots of fun going from scratch to a product with sales in 7 months using Ruby on Rails and javascript. I spent 18 months there and wish them all the best of luck. 

At 7 Billion People, we are also making heavy use of both Ruby on Rails and javascript.  We are getting ready to start releasing information about our products. So, I can't say much yet, but will soon.

Switched Homes

My wife and I sold our home in DFW area back in May.  We really like the Austin area and have decided to call it home for a while.  We signed a contract on a home under construction in North Austin area that should be completed in early Spring.

2006 and Back (Update)

Got back from Rails Edge last weekend and it was great.

2006 has to be my busiest year yet. This included working at a startup, bringing a product from scratch to sales within 8 months. This has involved pretty exclusive use of Ruby on Rails with javascript and it has been awesome.

I am still commuting across Texas on the weekends, but will be reducing this commute to twice a month for 2007. Hopefully give me some time to get some other things done.

I was out ill most of December and part of January, so I got a bit behind in my communications. I should be caught up soon.

Oh, and the most awesome news is that my oldest daughter (Angela) had a beautiful son (Ashton Thomas) in October. He weighed in at 4 lb. and 15 oz.. A bit of stress at first, but he is doing fine now. Pretty amazing being a grandfather.

Catching Up.

Catching my breath a bit now.  However, I still have lots of work to accomplish and I am still traveling between DFW and Austin - hope to sell my house soon.

I will try to blog a bit more, but will be spending a bit of needed quality time this month with Rico.

If I have not responded to your email yet, I will be getting to it soon.

24" iMac

Just checked Apple's site and saw their new 24" iMac . 

Very nice.  Must have some interesting stuff to announce next week if they are announcing the new iMac  now. 

TED (more on interactive display)

TED has a new video on a demo by Jeff Han from work at New York University's Media Research Lab.

Ted has nice videos of some great talks. I really like the ones done by:
Ken Robinson
Majora Carter
Daniel Dennet

Really good stuff with great content done with great style.

More on Disposable Software

Simon has an nice post on Freedom to Leave   that talks about using truly open formats to allow user to take their content with them across applications. 

This is something that I did not really talk about on my previous post, but it should be clear that these things are very important for software to be more disposable.

When we really think about making software more disposable, we really start establishing forces that influence our solution to be more open and agile.  I also think it contributes to clarity and usability when we start taking it to its next logical conclusion.

I am sure that many people are not ready to discuss software as being disposable.  They would prefer spending their time on how to make it less disposable instead of embracing its true nature.  Just think of how things would change if we started embracing the idea that it is increasingly disposable.  What would our software look like?  What would our frameworks look like?

Disposable Software

37 Signals talks a bit about  temporary software.

I really like the idea of shaping your decisions around software based on this simple fact.  I have often thought that Enterprise IT shops could learn a great deal from thinking about software as disposable.  Of course it is, but I am talking about recognizing it and shaping all their practices around achieving a better approach to developing it from that perspective.  Asking themselves "how do we develop better disposable software" and perhaps "how do we make our software more disposable".  I know this seems a bit extreme, but I wonder how it might change things:

• what would it do to the heavy handed development process?
• how about the difficulty in sunsetting software?
• what about the complexity in current solutions?
• how about the huge cost of maintaining those solutions?
• meetings?
• how about the coupling of integrated software?
• standards?
• the speed that solutions get deployed?
• the overall value to the company's bottom line?
• the feedback?

Of course I am not talking about giving up quality or integration, but simply asking whether those would truly be sacrificed by emphasizing the true nature of software. And also what forces would this create as compared to the current ones in place.

Of course this is absurd.  No large IT shop would really change to adapt any such practices that make their software more disposable or even recognize that the company would profit from its disposal.  But, what if one of these shops did?  (I can almost hear Lennon's 'Imagine' playing in the background)

Rails Conference Notes

The Rails conference was a blast last weekend.  Here are a few quick notes:

1. The people - The people at the conference were clearly high caliber passionate and friendly.
   
2. Hall way conversations - I really got the opportunity to meet and talk with lots of great people.  Thanks for the intros Glen.
3. Very informal.  This was great.  However, most everyone seemed to think that this may change in future conferences.  Hope they are wrong.
   
4. Fowler's talk emphasizing communication in software development was a great reminder that development is all about communication in all forms.  Also talked about the idea of shoot and aim (rapid feedback).
5. DHH's talk on future Rails emphasizing even more on CRUD and http restfulness was intriguing.
6. Dave Thomas had a nice talk about things that the community needed to work on to support Rails.
7. James Duncan Davidson's talk on deployment was full of practical honesty.  Mongrel sounds great - got to check it out.  Also, said he has not used Ant (that he developed plane flight) in 3 years - this might be a wake up call to all those Ant users.
8. Stuart Holloway's talk on meta-rails was very good.  Others had great talks too, but Stuart had both great style and content.
9. DSL''s got plenty of attention.  I think the investigation of DSLs will really impact the way we think of software development.
10. I am sure Paul Graham's keynote was good, but we were out eating some of Chicago's finest Pizza and missed it.

And this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Even though (or because) it was very informal, it was one of the best conferences I have been too.