steve kwan user experience designer

24 might be moving to a new time

(February 26th, 2006 - 10:23PM)

I just saw a notice that 24 is being moved to 10:00PM. I've looked on Zap2it and it appears that Fox (channel 28) will continue showing it at 9:00PM on the West coast. However, Global (channel 11) will now be showing it at 10:00PM PST.

Hopefully, this means we'll now have two options for watching 24. I'm a little confused and unsure of whether or not the show is going to be moved - Zap2it might not be accurate. For you 24 fans on the West coast, you should know that the show may not be shown at 9:00PM tomorrow. If it's not on, don't freak out - check the TV listings. It might be on an at 10:00PM.

We are Venom

(February 24th, 2006 - 9:16PM)

Oh yeah, here we go! The poster for Spider-Man 3 has been released, and guess who got a new suit!

I'm not going to talk about the backstory behind the black Spider-Man suit here, or I'll sound like even more of a geek than usual. Suffice it to say that it's a big deal.

Read more here: The black suit revealed. They've got the poster in high resolution.

Thanks to Ryan for the link.

Flattery will get you everywhere

(February 23rd, 2006 - 6:38PM)

Eloquent posted a really glowing press release discussing my work on the company website. And no, I didn't write it!

Webinar Wednesday

(February 22nd, 2006 - 11:17AM)

This week's topic was hierarchical data and batch entry. Please try not to get too excited.

The most disgusting thing I saw today

(February 20th, 2006 - 9:24PM)

A guy in the Fitness World locker room who was spraying his underwear with Axe body spray. That'll impress the ladies.

Back to the Jack Bauer Power Hour.

Current non-manly thought

(February 19th, 2006 - 8:44PM)

It's really difficult to keep hardwood flooring clean. Because dust and dirt doesn't sink into hardwood like it does into carpet, when you walk around barefoot you get all sorts of dirt stuck to you.

Cellular weirdness

(February 18th, 2006 - 1:00PM)

For some reason my cell phone doesn't always ring when people call. I get messages on my voicemail, despite the fact that the phone never rang. If you need to phone me, be sure to leave a message on the voicemail or I may never know you called!

I've got a ton of homework that needs to be done this weekend, and I haven't really been applying myself. I'm going to attempt to read chapter eight of Fundamentals of Management now. What a great weekend.

Enough of this!

(February 16th, 2006 - 5:35PM)

I had no idea that my stupid little corner of the Internet would attract so much attention at once. If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's probably for the best!

I removed all the flames from my comments, and I also removed the offending post from my blog so as to deter people from posting their two cents.

I've got a lot to say, but I just don't feel like talking about it in detail right now. I will post my thoughts later.

I am sick of this. As many of you know, the past week has been extremely difficult. Just when I think my life is getting back on track, everything goes sideways again. I just want everything to be simple.

For those of you who haven't been in touch and don't know what I'm talking about, you must think I'm a raving lunatic. That's fine. I'll explain later.

The old man across the street thinks I'm the cat's ass

(February 12th, 2006 - 3:06PM)

One of the good things about being robbed is that it gives you a chance to talk to your neighbours. I'd never spoken to most of them before, so I got to meet a lot of new people when I went door-to-door asking if anybody saw people stealing my stuff.

Apparently I made quite an impression on the old guy living across the street. My Mom was visiting me today, and when she left, the old guy - who was out front doing something to his lawn at the time - told her that I'm a wonderful young man. Aww.

Shooting a 78-year man? What a Dick!

(February 12th, 2006 - 1:04PM)

It's being reported that American Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a 78-year old man on a hunting trip.

To that I say: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Maybe gun control isn't such a bad idea after all, Dick!

The 80-20 rule

(February 10th, 2006 - 11:43AM)

According to Wikipedia, the 80-20 rule (aka Pareto's Principle) "states that for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes."

The 80-20 rule is everywhere. Let me give you some examples of the 80-20 rule from my experience in software.

• 80% of bug reports come from 20% of your users.
• 80% of users only use 20% of your system's functionality.
• 80% of your time is spent on 20% of your tasks.

Really, who uses all the features in software products? The 80-20 rule's pretty accurate in this respect; I probably only use 20% of the features in Dreamweaver as I'm writing this post. But surely there are people out there who absolutely love the other 80% of features that I don't even know about.

So if 80% of my users only use 20% of my features, am I better off focusing development on those 20% of commonly used features? Or should I work on the other 80% of relatively unused features, which could lead to a niche market or give me an edge over competitors?

I suppose when you're making business decisions like this, you can choose to make either a "common" product that focuses on the 20%, or a "niche" product that focuses on the 80%.

I think Eloquent makes niche products. There's a tremendous amount of power under the hood of our software, but most of it is likely irrelevant to most users. However, when we do find the odd user who cares about these features, they're amazed.

Perhaps this is something to think about next time you're in a meeting deciding which features are going to make it into the next version. Are we aiming for the 80% or the 20%?

Bush expects us to believe that he has foiled major terrorist attacks

(February 9th, 2006 - 2:01PM)

According to Bush, a major terrorist attack on the Liberty - err, Library - Tower in Los Angeles was thwarted in 2001.

Some very insightful comments were posted on Fark about this. A most unlikely of sources! Here are some gems:

"If they'd actually stopped something, they'd have been cheering from the top of the Washingon Monument for weeks." -Eat More Possum

"I'd be inclined to believe him if he had not already showed a pattern of dishonesty and obfuscation in his dealings with the American people." -Slackfumasta

Webinar Wednesday

(February 8th, 2006 - 1:52PM)

Today I hosted a re-run of our original webinar.

In other words, I talked.

This one wasn't nearly as exciting or well-received as the first, but whatever. At least I didn't screw it up.

24 predictions for the fifth season of 24

(February 6th, 2006 - 4:52PM)

1. Audrey Raines will die, because Jack Bauer isn't allowed to be happy.
2. That other chick who lived with Jack in a trailer will die too.
3. Bill Buchanan will get fired, because the show's producers will realize he's boring.
4. Jack Bauer will take Bill's job as head of CTU.
5. Tony Almeida will wake up from his coma, grieve for Michelle for about thirty seconds, then get his gun and kill some bad guys.
6. The "mastermind" behind this season's terrorist attacks will be played by a celebrity.
7. It will turn out that the reason the "mastermind" terrorist has it in for Jack Bauer is because Jack beat up said terrorist in elementary school.
8. An Intel-powered Mac will be strategically placed in one of this season's episodes. Chloe O'Brien will probably use it to thwart a terrorist hacker. Or Photoshop something.
9. Curtis will do absolutely nothing of significance.
10. Jack will have to go to a foreign country, probably Canada.
11. Nobody will sleep.
12. Jack Bauer will kill someone with a fire axe.
13. The kid from season four whose parents were terrorists will somehow be involved.
14. There will be a scene where Chloe O'Brien and Edgar Stiles are discussing something technical, and will be throwing around geek jargon with total abandon. "Did you check the TCP/IP protocols?" "Yeah, I did. There was minor packet loss." "We can't trace the terrorists if we don't have those packets!"
15. At some point a hardcore terrorist will be captured by CTU. In a discussion outside the interrogation room, everyone will say that the terrorist is too hardcore to crack. Jack will walk in and find a way to make the guy talk.
16. President Logan will crack under the pressure and will go AWOL - perhaps he will go on vacation in Crawford, Texas.
17. Audrey's dad, the secretary of defense, will assume the Presidency.
18. Chloe O'Brien will shoot someone. Probably Spencer.
19. Edgar Stiles will get fatter.
20. Jack will not use any firearm except a pistol.
21. Jack will tell a total stranger that "you're going to have to trust me," at which point the stranger will immediately trust Jack.
22. Kim Bauer will show up in the last five minutes of the season finale, ruining the whole season.
23. Richards will be called in to torture someone.
24. Before the end of the season, Jack Bauer will cry.

Site was down, power was out

(February 4th, 2006 - 9:33PM)

My attentive fans probably noticed some downtime this weekend. There's been a major storm in Vancouver and it knocked the power out in my neighbourhood, killing my server. But we're back in business for now.

I've been occupied with homework this weekend, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I've got a little more to go, and then I'm out of trouble until next week.

Drowning in a sea of homework

(February 3rd, 2006 - 1:14PM)

I've been taking two courses through correspondence at BCIT. I've been doing a good job of neglecting them. I got around to checking what's due this weekend, and it turns out I've got four assignments. I also haven't finished the reading for those assignments. It'll be a busy weekend.

What do you think some of your best attributes are, from a professional standpoint?

(February 2nd, 2006 - 7:41PM)

"I'm good at conducting satirical interviews during which I make the interviewee, or 'patsy,' feel tense, awkward and often foolish." -Ed Helms

Go to Ed Helms videos on The Daily Show's website and select American Resolutions: New Job. A work of comedic gold.

What's wrong with my butt

(February 2nd 2006 - 10:12AM)

This is quite a personal topic to discuss on my blog, but here we go. There's something wrong with my butt.

For a while I've been having serious digestive problems, to the point where I was in constant physical pain. It looks like the problem is that I have hard poop. I don't think that's the technical term, but it works.

The doctor gave me some laxatives and butt-probing medicine for the problem, and it seemed to subside for a while, but it's getting worse again.

As part of my mission to get softer poop, I will be eating a lot more fruit and drinking a lot more water.

Here's an irritating website

(February 1st, 2006 - 12:21PM)

Kate Bush is a great musician; in fact, if you haven't heard her new album Aerial, I recommend you buy it. Unfortunately, her website is a disaster. Here are some of my complaints.

• The site is one big Flash animation. This causes several problems, namely:
  
  
  1. the site requires a third-party extension
  2. the site pages can't be bookmarked because all the sections are contained in a single application
  3. the site text can't be indexed by search engines.
• The site has background music, which is just irritating. There's no way to turn it off.
• I have to wait for all the images on the screen to slowly fade into existence before I can do anything.
• The navigation menu pops in and out of existence and is extremely difficult to control.
• The text does not have enough contrast with the background, making it difficult to see.
• There is a "View site in HTML" option, but unfortunately it's embedded into the Flash animation. If you didn't have Flash, you couldn't see that option and might have difficulty finding the HTML version.

Cindy Sheehan's side of the story

(February 1st, 2006 - 10:24AM)

For those who haven't heard yet, Cindy Sheehan was arrested last night for wearing an anti-war t-shirt at Bush's State of the Union address.

Cindy Sheehan has posted her thoughts on Common Dreams.