Road Trip Entertainment

Sunday of last week I found out one of my close friends was driving to South Carolina to help his son move. He had planned to drive his pickup truck and tow his trailer. Unfortunately the truck blew its turbo and he resorted to towing a smaller trailer with his Jeep Gladiator. When his wife told me the story I felt bad for my buddy and offered to catch a flight to Atlanta and drive home with him. I didn't expect him to take me up on the offer but he did. I cashed in enough frequent flyer miles for a round trip to Hawaii and used it for a one-way ticket east. Tuesday evening at 10pm, my buddy Brett picked me up and we started the 30-hour drive back to Salt Lake City.

Brett has always been a fan of satellite radio and so I knew it would be a feature in his 4-month-old Gladiator. In addition, he had two 8GB flash drives plugged into the vehicle's media center USB slots. Both filled with countless hours of music. We also had endless streaming possibilities as Brett has an unlimited data plan and he is not afraid to hot-spot his phone.

My wife's Jeep came with satellite radio and I have a few channels I like to listen to. Brett's satellite radio has an additional feature where it keeps the previous hour's broadcast of all his presets in memory. That means we could start listening to a channel and then rewind for an hour. When we came to a song we didn't like, we could jump over it. When we caught up to the current broadcast, we just had to switch channels to another preset and do the same thing. Talk about an important upgrade. It has me rethinking the relevance of satellite radio. It also turned out to be our preferred method of entertainment.

While we could have taken the quick trip home, we wanted to experience a different route than Brett took all the way to South Carolina. Instead of coming back on I-70, we opted to use I-40 through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Then I told Brett we could add 19 minutes to our route and drive through Wolf Creek Pass which was made famous by the C. W. McCall song of the same name. Brett thought that well worth the trip and so we made a slight detour through Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. As we got to the beginning of the pass, we started listening to the entire album that contained the song as Brett had it on one of his flash drives. It didn't take long to get to the top of the pass and Brett turned on his phone's camera held tight in a cradle so we could stream the downhill portion to his Facebook account while listening to the song. The song only takes a third of the time as actually driving the pass so we listened to the song 3 times before getting to Pagosa Springs.

We had a great time on the trip and with all of the entertainment possibilities, the drive went really quickly. Of course 75 MPH speed limits helped move things along too. I don't know how we did road trips back in the 1980's with regular FM radio and tortoise-like speed limits.

Chromebook vs. Laptop

Yesterday I returned from a week-long trip to visit my son in Ohio. I still have not found a full-time job and so I am looking. As I don't have a laptop from my employer that I would normally use on such a trip, I took my Chromebook and used it instead. I have to say that I would have preferred a laptop but the Chromebook did well and met all of my needs.

I really had only two use cases for a computer on my trip: reading e-mail and applying to jobs. For reading e-mail, there is no real difference between a laptop and a Chromebook. I use a browser to access my e-mail and it works the same on both devices.

I wasn't sure I would be able to apply for jobs as easily on my Chromebook. Before leaving on my trip, I uploaded a copy of my resume to my Google Drive so I could access it on the road. I probably should have also uploaded a sample cover letter but forgot. My job search on the road consisted of going through new job postings that appeared in my e-mail and applying to the ones that I am qualified to fill and find  interesting.

Those that have had to search for a new job know that it is best to tailor your resume for each posting. I could modify the resume in Google Drive using Google Docs. Then when it came time to upload the job-specific resume, I told the job application website that I would upload it from a file. In ChromeOS, there is an option to use a Google Drive file just as if it is located on the device even though it isn't. I could also do the same with each cover letter. In my case, I had to create the first one from memory but could then reuse it for each successive company making sure to modify it accordingly.

While everything worked technically, the real proof of success is in the fact that I managed to get three different screening interviews during the trip, one of which is a direct result of submitting an application while traveling. That is equal to my results using my desktop computer at home. I have to say that the Chromebook worked well.

The only problem I had with the Chromebook during the trip is when I couldn't connect to the WiFi network at the Detroit airport. After trying for a few minutes, I turned my phone into a hotspot and connected to it. Then I could respond to e-mails for phone interviews. I only needed it for a few minutes and everything worked fine.

As I mentioned at the start, I would have preferred a true laptop computer. However the Chromebook is significantly less expensive and did everything I needed it to do on this trip. I just needed to plan ahead a bit. If my regular workflow was to habitually keep all of my documents on Google Drive, I would not have needed to do anything differently.

Coding Tests vs. Accomplishments

This week I was asked to take a coding test for a potential position as a Director of Software Development. I looked at the company providing the test and even ran through a number of sample questions. Ultimately I decided that I really don't want to work for a company that asks everyone to take such tests. I understand that organizations hiring software engineers need to gather some level of proficiency but think coding tests are the wrong way to go about it.

If you look at how world-class software organizations like Google gauge proficiency, they do it with white-boarding sessions. You are presented a problem and write code on a whiteboard, explaining your thought process as you jot things down. This allows the job candidate to ask very important questions. It also allows the interviewers to gain tremendous insight into the candidate's thought process.

One of the questions I was presented on the sample coding test was FizzBuzz. The program asks for an upper integer and then prints the whole numbers from 1 to the upper integer. If the number printed is evenly divisible by 3, then the word "Fizz" is also printed next to the number. If the number is evenly divisible by 5, then "Buzz" is printed next to the number. Finally, if the number is evenly divisible by 3 and 5, the word "FizzBuzz" is printed. There are some variations but hopefully you get the idea.

This is a great programming problem to solve as it does not require a lot of code but does expose some fundamental programming ideas. The first is if you understand the mod function, which returns a division remainder and is usually denoted by the percent (%) symbol. The equation "5 % 3" would return 2 as 5 divided by 3 has a remainder of 2. When you find a number with a remainder of 0 when divided by 5 and/or 3, you can print the appropriate word.

Next you have to know how to do loops in your language of choice. The testing software gave me something like 27 different computer programming languages to choose from. My preference would have been to use a FOR loop and I think most developers would start with that as well. For my sample test I used Python and made sure to set the range from 1 to n+1, where n represents the upper integer limit. Why n+1? Well the FOR loop goes up to but doesn't include the upper number. If you put in the upper limit of 15 and run the FOR loop, it will only go to 14 and so you need to add 1 to the upper limit so it goes high enough.

Both of those concepts being tested are fairly simple and an hour of coding instruction should be all that is needed to get that part of the test correct. Now is where it gets complicated. In my sample coding test, I was only going to be given 30 minutes to complete 5 such examples. My first thought would be to brute-force it an get something running. That would look like a nested IF-THEN-ELSE statement where you test the 3 and 5 first, followed by the 3, then followed by the 5. Then I would move onto the next question.

The advantage of white-boarding this problem is that the candidate can ask some important questions that show even greater insight in his or her experience. For instance, "Is performance important?" IF-THEN and IF-THEN-ELSE statements are very expensive in today's modern processors. You can write the code to use 2 instead of 3, which can be significant when your upper limit is a really large number. The downside is you sacrifice code readability which makes it more difficult for someone new to come in and maintain your code. Unfortunately in an automated test, the candidate is forced to make a choice without any feedback from the testing software.

As I mentioned, I opted not to take the coding exam. It is not that I felt I would do poorly. Instead I feel like having my code running on over 100 Million PlayStation 3's, over 100 Million PlayStation 4's, and over 17 Million PlayStation 5's should give some indication that I know how to write code. I think it is much better than taking a test that favors trivial details and syntax. Perhaps you may disagree.

Apple's Numbers vs. Microsoft's Excel

For the past several months I have been using Apple's Numbers spreadsheet program since I had to give up my work laptop. On my work laptop, I used Microsoft's Excel and even after almost half a year I have to say that I prefer Excel. I'm sure part of that is because I have years of experience with one versus a few months with the other.

I would have to say that my biggest complaint with Numbers is that a new document with a fixed-size spreadsheet. The default is a table with only 7 columns and 22 rows. Sure you can add columns or rows but each addition requires the click of an on-screen button. There also is a button that allows you to grab the lower right corner of the spreadsheet and drag it to as large as you think you will need. I actually prefer Excel's way of allowing you to scroll right or down and having new columns and rows appear.

Another thing that takes a bit of getting used to in Numbers is the right-side format bar. I feel like this should give me greater control of how the spreadsheet is formatted. Unfortunately it feels more like wasted space. I like how Excel puts all the format control at the top of the spreadsheet allowing for more visible columns.

Where the two spreadsheet products are similar is with a lot of the calculations and functions. The formula "=sum(B2:B14)" works equally well in both programs and that is important. I would hate to have to learn a new way of entering formulas.

I moved a lot of my personal spreadsheets from my work laptop to my personal computer and Numbers does a pretty good job of reading them. There are some missing fonts that I keep getting errors about but I can deal with that problem easily. The error I get is "This spreadsheet has missing fonts." I think a bigger problem would be functions that are not supported and I haven't seen any of those.

I will continue to use Numbers as I like the price: FREE. It is included with the MacOS and updated regularly. Perhaps I will learn to embrace the differences in the future but right now I see them as annoyances.

Getting More YouTube Views

For the past 5 weeks I have been trying to put out one new video on my YouTube channel every week. The reason is that I wanted to see if frequent posting of content changes the number of views my videos receive. It does and the numbers are interesting.

YouTube provides analytics that I can check whenever I want. Looking at those statistics I see that I used to get roughly tens of recommendations by YouTube for my videos on a daily basis. That means that of all the viewers on YouTube looking for skiing or adventure videos, only ten or so will have the chance to see one of mine. That's not a lot.

When I started posting more videos, that number shot up significantly. As long as I posted weekly, YouTube recommended my content around three to four hundred times per day. Yes some of that can be attributed to the fact that I have more videos to choose from and so I looked at another statistic. I waited 8 days before I posted my video last night. Before posting that video, the number of times YouTube recommended my content had dropped down below a hundred. After posting it, the number of recommendations increased significantly again.

So what does all of this mean? Simply posting content more frequently gets you more views. I am now trying to figure out a way to post more frequently. Evidence suggests that posting daily would dramatically increase my audience. Unfortunately I put a lot of work into each of my videos and a side-effect of posting more frequently would mean a reduction in quality. I hope that isn't the case as that would mean a bunch of short junk videos would gain a larger audience than longer well-crafted ones. I hope that viewers would be somewhat discriminatory with what they watch.

I will see what I can do to post more frequently without a reduction in quality and see if the data agrees with my hypothesis or not. In any event, I am learning a lot and that is the whole reason I am creating videos.

Creating Your Own QR Code

Creating your own quick reader or QR code is actually very simple. I have been creating a YouTube video every week for the past few weeks and in an effort to drive traffic to my channel, I created a QR code and am having them printed on business cards. I can then hand out those cards as I ride up the chairlift with other skiers interested in my Top 5 Ski Areas of North America video series.

A QR code is simply a 2-dimensional bar code that translates into text. You could make a QR code for your name but it is more useful to make one for your website. In my case I looked at the URL for my YouTube channel and dropped it into a QR-Code generator that I found doing an Internet search. I didn't feel the need to add a logo in the middle or anything fancy like that but had the option if I desired.

Once I had the QR code, I saved it as an image file and can now add it to any number of places. I originally thought about making my own business cards and picked up some Avery printable sheets that could be separated into 10 cards per page. Unfortunately my color laser printer jams with thick paper and so I had to print them using my ink-jet printer that I really only use as a scanner. The ink tends to run when it gets wet and so it is not something I want to carry around in my jacket pocket on a snowy day. Instead I went to Vistaprint and had 100 cards printed inexpensively.

Today I spent my morning skiing at Snowbird and handed out a few of my sample cards that I created. When other skiers find out I am making videos they are interested in watching them and having a QR code makes them easy to view. As the QR code is for my channel and not a specific video, I don't need to update the cards every time I release a new video. In a few weeks, I'll be able to see if they help drive any traffic.

Video Quality Assurance

Last week I spent 3 days backcountry skiing with my two sons and one of my oldest son's friends. As I am trying to put out a YouTube video every week, I quickly assembled the footage, wrote a narrative, added some background music and posted the resulting video. In the first viewing, I immediately noticed 3 different errors. One would think I didn't do any error checking of the video while I assembled it but that would be wrong. I had gone through it over a dozen times.

One issue I had is that I had to go back and rerecord the initial narration clip. For some reason it is not as loud as the others and so I had to bump the sound level so that it matches the rest of the video. That is easy to do and by itself would not warrant redoing the video.

The second issue I found is that I have one movie clip where I have my thumb in the lower right. It is not large and easy to remove with a bit of editing. The sad thing is that one of my checks is to specifically look for my thumb as my action camera makes it easy to include that particular digit. Only after posting the video to YouTube did I finally see the problem. Again, that would not cause me to fix the issue and repost a new version.

The real problem came in the closing credits. I like using free background music from Bensound as all I need to do is identify the song and give the URL to the website.  As I created the credits, I hadn't decided which song to actually use. Rather than leave the section blank, I put the word "Something." Unfortunately that really did need to be fixed even though I put the correct information in the video description. I had to go in and delete the old video and re-upload the corrected one. Fortunately that didn't take too long.

It never fails. I think I have done an excellent job reviewing the quality of my latest video. Then I upload it to YouTube and I notice all sorts of problems. Fortunately I caught these 3 issues before anyone other than myself had the chance to view the video. Otherwise I would have lost several video views. Those that post frequently know how important they can be. Especially as one tries to grow his or her audience.