Why Is It So Challenging To Estimate Time?

February 20, 2017 by MlleD

I mean specifically time as it relates to tech activities. Maybe it takes longer than you think it will to buy groceries, or fill out your taxes:), or even go for a run. But it definitely almost always takes at least twice as long as you think when it comes to anything that touches tech.

Why is it so hard to estimate time?
Is it some kind of optimism bias I wonder?

Scenario: It’s just a minor upgrade.

Oh Sure, I can do that is, say ~4 hours.

Tick.
12 hours later, a widget that used to work doesn’t work anymore because it’s no longer compliant with the upgraded piece of code that, oh yeah, had to be updated as soon as you logged in. Your shoulders have started complaining. Really they are shouting. Stop. But there’s just one more little thing you can try.

48 more minutes go by.

Productivity Measures, Techniques, Hacks…

I try them all.

My favourite is the pomodoro technique – this is roughly the 80/20 rule. (ie: you only wear 20% of what’s in your closet). So you put a timer on for 25 minutes and work without distraction and then put a timer for 5 minutes and take a break — do jumping jacks, breathe deeply, drink water, check emails…

Oh wait 18 minutes went by.

Ok, no that technique does tend to work. I find it’s perfect when you have a specific list of tasks that are executable. ie: All (ha ha) that needs to be done is

a – Add this bit of content
b – Change the background image(s) here and there
c – Re-style all the headings….

When the elusive flow is required… for creative stuff, for troubleshooting problems, for composing just that oh so quintessential email whose job it is to attract/repel/impress/tell them to buzz off whoever it is; I find the buzzer going off at 25 minutes breaks the flow, even though it does help with that shoulder problem. For those types of tasks, it’s better to get a whole heap of it done and then go for a walk.

Being Realistic About Priorities

I think it was Merlin Mann (mr inbox zero) who said, you can only have one priority at a time.
I’m paraphrasing him — If you’re not sure what a priority is, then notice what happens when you’re attempting to juggle a few tasks at once, and your kid or loved one cries out because they slipped. Even imagining the best case scenario and there’s only hurt feelings at stake, you probably dropped everything you were doing and ran to the rescue.
That’s a priority.

I love lists. I try (yes Yoda I hear you) to keep it to 3 major goals (aka priorities) per day. Those goals have tasks attached and I love it when they all get crossed out. If they don’t they move onto the next day’s goals. And generally on Mondays and Fridays, that’s aok. The rest of the week, those carried over tasks – grrrr:)

I’m a recovering perfectionist. I have a spreadsheet I created to keep track of time. Of course, there’s an app for that. I used to use iBiz but they moved on to greener pastures, and the idea of putting my time and tasks out in the cloud caused me to object internally, thus forcing me to edit spreadsheet formulas to come up with what I want. It has colour-coded graphs and everything so I’m happy.

But whilst it might tell me I spent 6 more hours on that client project than I estimated, it doesn’t tell me that in advance. I can see why though. Essentially I generalized and lumped into one task what really should have been broken out into a series of tasks and then I would know that even firing up all the various software, files and notes already takes up 15(!) minutes.

So, yeah, if you’re still reading, sorry to disappoint. There’s no perfect formula. All I can say is that it’s probably best to double, triple or quadruple right off the bat how long you think something tech related will take and then if it only takes 1/4 of that time, you’re both pleasantly surprised, and maybe you even made a , gasp, profit.

Then you can go for a walk and throw a frisbee, cause, you know, your shoulders don’t hurt.

If I Could Save Time in A Bottle…

April 21, 2015 by MzD

One of the biggest obstacles I face with blogging is wrestling with time. Perhaps quantum physicists or master yogis have figured out that time is an illusion, and even have wonderful equations or quotes to relay this concept, but for the rest of us mere mortals, time pretty much goes by the clock, and lately, it seems like it zips by at the speed of light.

Getting around to blogging, as important as everyone knows it is – to growing your website presence, conveying your expertise and values…:) – can be tough in that it’s hard to carve out the time.

In X-Men Days of Future Past, in arguably the best scene of the film, Quicksilver is shown running through the kitchen of the Pentagon in uber slow-mo motion. Jim Croce’s “If I Could Save Time in Bottle” song plays at normal speed as Quicksilver dashes about. It was brilliant, funny and sad at the same time.

It inspired me to re-consider time and some techniques for putting it in a bottle.

Relax. Take Some Time. Have Fun.

Even though the heat is on, bullets are firing, Quicksilver is taking time to do kooky, goofy things, like taste a spoon of sauce.Instead of thinking of blogging as a must-do, high-pressure, homework kind of task, start re-framing it as time to brainstorm a few ideas, be a little goofy, have a little fun.
Put on the Big Girl Goggles.

Peter (Quicksilver) wears (swimming?) goggles as he prances around the kitchen to protect his eyes from debris. I like the the gesture. Donning these goggles signfies he’s about to take action. Lesson – put on the goggles, keep yourself protected from distractions and get going.
Once in the rhythm, pay attention to the details.

The details are important – Peter makes sure to cross the arms of the security guards in just the right way so that the bullets fall away harmlessly.
Set a Time Limit.

I agree and must write for 30/45/60minutes, or 3 minutes, if you’re Quicksilver and can get the job done—micro-blogging anyone? Then I can go do all that other “important stuff.”

5. Publish or Perish and Don’t Forget to Smile.

I love the last bit is him picking the bullets out of the air and moving them methodically to the right or left, and then he grins.
This task is blogging, I’m sitting in a chair (oh – Terra standing desk, wherefore art thou?), my feet planted on the ground, I’m not in a high-adrenaline, sci-fi scene, so if Peter can smile, I can smile too.

OTHER

Anchor

I was feeling the (self-imposed) pressure to blog and rather than choose from a list of “7 Tips for ……” subjects, I thought about what had recently left an impression on me. Netflix (Canada’s) release of the X-Men film and that scene had done just that. I decided to use that scene to frame or anchor this post.

What inspires you?

Set goals and deadlines

Be ambitious but realistic.
eg: 2 x / month – not 2 x week. My last post was in March 2015, so twice a month is already double the volume. Once every 2 weeks is a stretch goal. Once I get there, I can revisit the goal.

Bullet Points

Begin with draft posts that lay out ideas in bullet points. This is less overwhelming than having to flush out a full idea in whole sentences and long paragraphs.

Death, iPhones and Celebrity

February 5, 2014 by MzD

Death

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman. At first it seemed the Super Bowl coverage eclipsed your passing, but no more. You will be well remembered at the awards, I trust.
Your death was a tragedy. I read a blog post that said your death affects us depending on our circumstances. So though, of course, I barely knew you, you are of a similar generation, and thus every man’s death diminishes me.

My iPhone 3Gs (yes you read that correctly 3G) is dying a slow prolonged death. First it started with quirky behaviours, and obstinance. It refused to download certain Apps, telling me the OS was too old. Then the alarms would all disappear all at once and I would no longer know what to do with my time. Then it refused to charge. It will still connect to iTunes and so all is backed up. This happened on the same day that PSH died, which is already four days ago, and in terms of iPhone life is surely a ridiculously long time to wait to do something about this death.

I delayed as it came to life on Monday evening and charged to 100%. So Tuesday was a half-day of use. It has not sprung back yet. Hope does spring eternal.

iPhones

At the same time I’m about to beta-test an app I’ve been collaborating on (an art project) and that means I had 3 iPhones (4s) lined up all charging at the same time, showing exactly the same time on the screen. Soon they all merged, like women whose menstrual cycles follow the same schedule and the green bar showed 100% full.

The time was completely in sync as well. Soon everyone will be on the same schedule. Except those few analog hold outs who wear wrist watches, with those long arrow things, I don’t what they’re called. En Guard!

Celebrity

Facebook is 10. Everyone is getting their 15 minutes of fame with those videos. I want to say they are cheesy, but that doesn’t quite encompass the spirit of the thing. Andy Warhol is probably delighted and begging to come back soon embodied as an iPhone 6. Instead of Siri we will hear his delicate timbre dictating where to go and who to hang with.

Decisions

Forced Obsolescence. Obsolescence is a hobby of mine. I did a year long blog (every single day kids) about stuff that was obsolete.

This iPhone 3Gs was obsolete about 2 years ago, but still I held on to it. It worked. Crappy pictures, but I’ve got an obsolete Nikon D5000 for those. Texting was fine. Talking (don’t do much of that). Emails – managed to juggle 5 accounts. Apps – fitness tracking check. financial tracking check. miscellaneous crap to waste time on check.

I also resisted because on our shared business plan, the other phone still has 5 months to go before an upgrade. And here in Canada, it’s only very recently that the switch has gone from 3 to 2 year contracts. Even that seems like too much time.

I like pushing things to their edge. I will repurpose the 3Gs into something. Only the battery is dead.

Old Websites – Are They Obsolete or Not?

November 8, 2013 by MzD

What To Do With Old Websites – Retire or Realign…

A few years ago, a friend of mine announced she might retire as an artist, at the ripe old age of 36. Another friend back East made a similar pronouncement, although he was a few years older than her. Neither have retired, but both took a hiatus. I recently remembered their dramatic statements and started thinking about retirement of a different sort.

For just over 10 years, from 1999-2010 I was very active in the net-art community, producing dozens of art websites. If the lifespan of a website is akin to the doggie years metaphor (1 dog year = 7 human years ), then these sites are seriously out of date. Last year, in 2012 I created a year-long daily photographic blog [The Obsolescence Project], considering things that were out of date, but I (gasp) used a free wordpress.com site and thus didn’t design the site, so I exclude it from these musings.

Currently I have about six public web projects that are still active online (there are more, but they were produced anonymously, which is another story, so they can choose their own blissful retirement). Almost all of the sites rely partially on Flash, some completely. Flash is basically obsolete. While not technically so, especially where compiled code (as opposed to visible html5 code) is desired, and for games, for projects I’m referring to it is done and dusted. Those sites just aren’t viewable on the iPhone, iPad and who knows where else. So I have to make a decision. Do I retire these sites completely – press delete – and leave documentation (screenshots/text) behind, or is there a way to re-align them with today’s contemporary web standards?

3 Case Studies:

Screenshot from Excerpts From An Archive

Excerpts from An Archive, 2001) is partly related to how one searched the web in 2001. Excerpts considers the nature of digital archives, history and fiction. Hand-coded with HTML using tables! At that time I used to get emails from folks asking me for information about their relatives – it was quite touching. The site only uses a wee bit of Flash, so it still hangs together. But it’s not mobile-responsive, it’s looks quite small – in those days you had to be quite conservative with images, dial-up internet might have even still be around, can’t remember.
Screen Shot of Translations/Traductions: L’Historia Mi Absolvera

Translations/Traductions – produced as a result of a residency at La Chambre Blanche in Quebec City, a series of Flash vignettes created from open source archival movies and texts. Texts translated in google, imagery ‘translated’ (vectorized) in Flash. Blend of interactive and non-interactive animations. 2007 launch date. This one is all Flash – hence invisible on many (read Apple) mobile platforms (including the iPad).
Screen shot of Bird

Bird (2004) – A petit homage to Dizzy Gillespie + Charlie Bird Parker. This one is all Flash too. Looking back, I have a fondness for the effort that it took to create. The excerpt from the song repeats and the archival video that has been modified shifts each time. Does nostalgia merit a redesign?

STATUS PLAN

Excerpts from An Archive – This site gets a lot of traction. It has been featured in two books, one grad thesis, and various festivals. It merits a re-design/re-alignment to bring it up to speed. However, some of the little nifty (in 2001 terms) features that were part of it will just have to be lost. This also means a loss (which is already there) of some of the internal logic. C’est la vie.

Translations/Traductions: There are five animations which each are their own story. I still like them.
The non-interactive ones I will look at converting to video. The interactive ones, like the one I featured will, alas, have to stay as is. I don’t see how html5 can handle it all. Of course, I’m open to suggestion. Put up stills for those who can’t see Flash.

Bird: Given this one is all Flash, but non-interactive, it could easily be reborn as a video. The only loss would be the full scalability that the vector format allows. There would a gain too – in that viewers could pause to actually read the text that scrolls by, I didn’t fully recognize the speed then.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The three other still live sites I haven’t mentioned are probably going to shift towards documentation only, as their internal logic involved a process of getting input from the public and that process is done.

My rationale for choosing to resuscitate, to whatever degree, these sites has a lot to do with perceived value. Do I still think these works have any value to me as an artist? With the Archives, given that it is still out there, and receives active traffic, it’s not really a question of should, but of when and how.

For TT and Bird, it’s more of a personal reason – ie: I like them, they stay.

For the rest, if I had more time/energy/_______, I might revamp them. But probably it’s best to document, archive and let them gracefully fade away.

If you have old (or ancient) sites that you are wondering if they should be re-purposed for the “mobile web”, here are three questions to ask to help you decide:

Does the site still receive any traffic?
Does it still speak to the heart of your practice/business?
What technologies does it use and how challenging would it be to migrate them?

If the answer to 1 is zero, it’s probably easiest to delete. It’s done, then it’s no longer clutter. Documentation is always a good idea (copy as text, or take screen shots).
If it’s yes, that’s a good hint to bring it up to speed.

If the answer to 2 is no, then I vote for document and delete. Again, why have stuff out there that is attracting people who are interested in content that is obsolete to you.
If it’s yes, that’s probably the most important reason to import it to a new format.

For number 3, technologies: Depending on the type of content, you’re either in for a fairly easy, smooth transition or in for a rocky ride if the content is video in some archaic format and you no longer have the original files (or the original files are no longer readable!) or if it uses Flash animations etc, then the amount of time it will take to re-format creeps up and up. Then you have to ask yourself if you really have the time / money / interest in this thing they call the mobile web.

p.s. Always document.

Email Send Limits – or Why Spammers Should Be ….

November 9, 2012 by MzD

This week I spent about 8 hours wrestling MailMan to the ground. I got an A in wrestling during my first semester at college, which means I should be good at this, eh?

MailMan is free software for managing electronic mail discussion and e-newsletter lists. I started down the garden path of looking at MailMan for a client was sending out a mass email and bumped into the send mail limit of the hosting provider.

I’m not sure exactly when these limits have been applied or more accurately, strictly enforced, but it seems that they apply pretty much across the board on most web hosts, and even with gmail. The average is about 100 emails per session, or email. We’re talking about number of emails sent from a mail client, if you send from within gmail it’s a higher limit.

MailMan has a lot of features and is pretty decent, all things considered, but as the tech support on the phone told me “it’s not my favourite software”. Mine neither. It feels very dated, like something from the 90s. The 90s were great, but not so elegant.

It seems to me when you are sending through an authenticated account, that you should have a higher limit than 100, but I’m presuming this is the way to keep spammers at bay.

I think I’ve lost a year of my life to dealing with incoming spam, blocking spam, writing SPF records, sifting through junk mail for valid emails, handling comment spam and the like.

There was a bill passed here in Canada, Apparently the fines are intense, up to $10 million dollars for corporations, but if it’s had an affect I don’t think anyone’s noticed.

I wonder how many individuals and/or corporations have been fined for sending out spam here in Canada, and what are the stats like for our neighbours in the South? And, when they have been fined, how much was it for, and was the money received?

Canadians receive 68.5% of spam.