Curtis Howell

Yesterday as I walked to campus to give a presentation, I was thinking about what I need in my life to be more successful.  I decided I should make a living document of my wish list for future reference for me and the generous gift givers in my life (read: mom+dad). Here we go.

• Bag.

Just about every week I find myself walking to campus with a suit on and wearing a backpack. This is an awkward combination as the suit gets rumpled by the back pack but I don’t have any other ways to carry my computer and a notebook.  I don’t want a Timbuk2 bag like half of Seattle uses (and my sister).  Although the functionality would serve my purpose, I think I would need a fixed-gear bike and large, black-rimmed glasses to rock the Timbuk2.  But I don’t know where that leaves me. I don’t want a full blown brief case because I am not ready to concede to that level of grownup-ness.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

• Suit.

As I mentioned above, I wear a suit often to events at school.  I have one suit and one sport coat, but I need (read: want) a couple more.  If I need to wear a suit two days in a  row and it gets dirty on the first day, I’m pretty much out of luck

• Shoes.

I could always use more dress shoes.  Also, I need to get some regular shoes to wear to school. It’s been a while since the last time I went shoe shopping

• Computer.

This one has much less precedence than the items listed above but I will include it for the sake of completeness.  I love my Dell, but I really want a 15″ Mac Book Pro to complement it.  1.they’re sexy,2.I want to learn to program in Objective-C for the iPhone this summer and I need an Intel-powered Mac to do so and 3.I enjoy learning new systems and have been sheltered from Apple computers my entire life

For Mina Yoo’s entrepreneurship 370 class, our group chose to do a study of Twenty20, a local company that makes wearable action sports cameras. Their products are becoming more popular and can often be seen in use on the slopes. Marc Barros, co-founder of the company, was kind enough to meet with us to answer some questions and agreed to let us use 2 of their ContourHD cameras for a month. We had a lot of fun using the cameras and getting footage to use in our presentation.

The cameras are very easy to use. The whole top of the camera is a sliding switch which makes it easy to toggle recording with thick ski gloves on. The laser alignment system allows you to twist the lens so it is horizontal relative to the ground. We were very impressed with the video quality, as it exceeded our expectations for the size of the camera.

Twenty20 lent us an attachment to use on bicycle handlebars but unfortunately, my road bike handle bars are far too thick to work with the device.

We used the goggle attachment as well as the flat surface mount and found both to work equally well. I have heard from someone in a lift line that the goggle mount produced sub-par results because the goggle strap would move and flex when he skied, and thus the video was shaky. However, my goggle strap was tight but comfortable and the video seemed to be steady relative to my helmet.

The camera connects to a computer using a standard mini-USB cable and shows up as removable storage. It is as simple as drag and drop from there.

The build quality was very solid. The camera is built of aluminum and has a solid feel to it. I was never concerned with hurting the cameras because I felt they could take a good beating if I were to fall.

The usability of this camera is so simple, I can’t imagine the competing GoPro Hero could be a better option for the average action sports enthusiast looking to share his/her adventures. I would strongly recommend this product to anyone looking for a quality, simple solution to shoot POV HD vidio.

This week we had an interesting speaker come in to ENTRE 370 and I thought I’d share some notes. Paul Anderson has worked for Amazon and Microsoft in Human Resources and now owns his own career development firm, ProLango.  He gave a very good talk on Monday; in my opinion, the best speaker we have had all quarter.

Goal setting

All successful people can answer in great detail:

• What do I want?
• Why do I want it?
• How will I attain my goals?
• Whom do I need to know to attain these goals? (Or as Jack Rhodes would say, who needs to know me)

Goals should be

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Towards/ Timeline (include specific dates for milestones)

People are happy when they can align their goals with their core values

Building relationships

Steps to take when meeting a recruiter, potential employer, or anyone that you want to add to your network:

1. Build rapport (they like and trust you)
2. Ask questions
3. Find a need (What’s in it for them?)
4. Link you offer with their needs
5. Close the deal and handle objections

Then he expanded on building rapport.  Paul’s theory (and apparently it’s scientifically backed) states that you will connect with others subconsciously by mirroring their physical and tonal traits.

1. Physical Traits
   • Body language
   • Posture
   • Gestures
   • Facial Expressions
2. Tonality
   • Volume
   • Rate

Apple announced its “latest creation” today and I have to say, I am not excited as I thought I would be.  I have been warming up to the idea of netbooks but I am not embracing this technology at the onset.

Steve said today in his keynote:

“…the problem is that netbooks aren’t better than anything!”

I tend to disagree with this statement.  I think netbooks are great for bringing to class and taking notes, especially for those who have primary machines 15″ and larger.  However, I don’t see what problem Mr. Jobs’s new device solves. To me, it does a mediocre job of viewing photos and videos. It can not run multiple applications at the same time so it is not comparable to a notebook or even netbook as far as productivity goes. They built a new storefront to purchase e-books from the device but who wants to read a book on a backlit display?

It seems to me that Steve and company have a very advanced technology in their multi-touch hardware and iPhone software and decided to try to apply the tech to a new market.  I just don’t believe this device does an adequate job of solving any problems.  At school today there was a lot of talk about the device. One student told me he was going to get it to take notes at school.  1) the iPad has no pen input because of the capacitive touch screen so it really has no better note taking capabilities past text entry on the virtual keyboard. 2) if the device were sitting on a desk during a lecture, it would be much more ergonomic to look at a vertical laptop screen then looking down at a surface perpendicular to the desk while typing. 3) with the virtual keyboard in landscape mode you lose a ton of screen real estate. 4) it does not support flash, which means it won’t be able to display some of the web’s most dynamic content such as Hulu. 5) it has no multitasking, need I say more? I’m sure they will sell some of these iPads to the hard core mac fans that will buy anything with an Apple logo on it but past the enthusiasts, I really don’t see this device taking off, save a few niche applications of the technology (restaurant menus?).  Me? I’ve still got my eyes focused on Asus and their eee t91 and soon to launch t101 multi-touch tablet netbooks. A much better value for a device with so many more uses.

Aaron and I were working on tuning the death board this week and we (he) discovered that the propeller was installed backwards! We fired it up and took it to the street for a ride. We got it up to 17 mph on flat ground and 21 mph down a hill. Under the current conditions, the death board now goes faster than I feel comfortable! Next step is to tighten the skateboard trucks and fine-tune the engine. A big step forward in the death board saga, here is a raw video shot today.

It’s been a while, but the engine-powered skateboard I started working on at the end of summer runs great! I clocked it with the GPS in my iPhone, and it currently tops out at 10.2mph on flat ground. It has a much smoother ride than I had expected; I surprisingly felt rather safe riding it. Check out the engine detail after the break.

I think I will be able to milk a lot more speed out of her with a different prop size, possibly one with more pitch, but I am waiting until Kyle Nordby helps me tune the engine. It currently is powered by a O.S. BGX-1 glow fuel engine turning a Master Airscrew 20×10 pusher prop.  It’s been a lot of fun putting together and I look forward to improving on it in the future. One idea is to mount the engine on a mountain board so I would have the ability to break, but I am unsure what effect this change would have on the overall speed.

I taught my first section of CSE 142 today and I was trying to come up with a creative ice breaker to start the class. Micah and I searched Google but didn’t really find anything out of the ordinary. Then I came up with a killer idea. Try it out and let me know how it goes!

1. Pass out sticky notes, index cards or something similar.
2. Participants write a question on the card, then hand them in.
3. Facilitator shuffles the cards, then passes them back out to the participants.
4. Go around the room, each person says their name and answers the question on the card.

I thought it went really well, although the questions the students wrote were pretty tame and appropriate.

We had a need to keep track of when users were logging into our system. We use this data for sales, marketing and auditing the value of our site. The session logging is an extension of my previous post, Password-Protecting pages with goDaddy, PHP and mySQL server.

Create Another Table

Using the same steps as in the previous article, go into the mySQL database management page on goDaddy and create a table called logins with 3 fields in your existing database. Create the fields as follows:

Field ## Type ## Length/Values ## Collation
uid ## int ## 30
username ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci
timestamp## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci


Switch login.php File

Once again, the login.php file is stored on this web site as a .txt file. This file has an additional 7 lines of code (including comments) from the original login.php file, starting with “#update login log”. Go To Modified login.txt

I host several domains with GoDaddy, and while they offer cheap prices, they also offer cheap service and features. Last week I needed to password protect some content. First, I tried to protect folders with htaccess and htpasswd files, but I could not get it to work. Several forums suggested GoDaddy hosting is not compatible with htaccess, so I went with the PHP-mySQL route instead. (note: here is a tutorial from GoDaddy for automating the htaccess process, which looks less-professional than the PHP solution because of the htaccess’s popup dialog box: GoDaddy Instructions). Credit to Ethan Nordness for the PHP code.

Step 1: Create a new mySQL Database

GoDaddy hosting gives you access to 10 mySQL servers for free with your account. Log into GoDaddy, click on Hosting, then Manage Account. Select Databases and click on MySQL. Then in the nav bar, Create Database. Be sure to save your record your database name, password, etc, as you will be using them later. Once your database is set up, click on Manage via phpMyAdmin. First, create a new table in your database. Then, add 4 fields with the following properties (leave all other properties as they are):


Field ## Type ## Length/Values ## Collation
uid ## int ## 30
username ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci
password ## varchar ## 50 ## utf8_general_ci
creation ## varchar ## 30 ## utf8_general_ci


Step 2: Create User(s)

Select the table you made and click on the “Insert” tab at the top of the page. It is important that the Uid field is given a unique value. Passwords are case sensitive, Usernames are not, and Creation is for your own use/reference.

Step 3: Implement Code

The 3 code files are stored at .txt files for ease of making them available on the web, but all 3 should be .php files in your implementation.

login.php When users go to a page that implements the password protection, they are redirected here. Keep in mind that All the pages should/can be customized with HTML to match your website’s theme and layout.

Go To login.txt

auth.php The filename of this PHP file can be changed. For example, in our implementation, we call this file index.php so our users do not see the file name in the URL. Simply copy this bit of code to the top of any page you want password-protected and save the file as .php. Through initial testing, the password-protected pages need to be in sub folders of the location of the login.php file (or they could be in the same folder).

Go To auth.txt

logout.php Direct users to this page to end their current session.

Go To logout.txt

Further, tracking logins requires only a small code tweak, discussed here

Enjoy!

I saw the most bizarre thing on Saturday while we were eating lunch on HWY 101 after some surfing. Luckily we were able to get out of the restaurant and catch up to the speedsters to snap this pic. If you look closely, the lady has a prosthetic leg, but the best part is she keeps it in the surfboard rack on the bicycle! Also, the fact that her running shoe is laced up and ready to go is just grand.