Josh Evnin

runTracker Additions

Check out the additions that have been made to the runTracker on the left side of the screen! If you’re a friend or family member, you’ll soon be receiving more information about my marathon training, and the cause that I am supporting, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Even if you’re not a member of my family or a friend, feel free to help me out. Click the links under the Team in Training logo to find out more!

In other news…I’m working on a project right now in which I will design a system for gyms or workout facilities to get rid of paper-based organization. It should be fun, and relatively easy, considering all the time I’ve been spending in the gym lately.

I have a presentation next Tuesday on External Cognition and PowerPoint. I need to get to work on it soon, and perhaps will post the presentation here when it’s done.

Design Club is going well…yesterday we outlined an experiment we’ll be doing next Monday. We’re working on an Experience Prototype for an alarm clock. That means we’re going to put some people on our team in the shoes of people who wake up every day, in order to gain insights on how to design a better system. Hopefully it will work out well, but if not, at least we’ll have fun in the process.

Back to work…

February 8, 2005
It’s Tami’s Birthday!

tambday

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

Shout out to my sis, Tami, on her 18th birthday…HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAMI! (and welcome to adulthood 😉

February 7, 2005
Note the new runTracker!

I’ve put up the new runTracker utility that I built this evening! In case you didn’t notice, it’s on the top left area of the screen. It will let you know a little about my last five runs. At the bottom you will note the number of total miles I have run throughout my training. Improvements are coming soon! (I needed to start somewhere… 🙂

February 5, 2005
P to the R

cdShuffle

Originally uploaded by josh.ev9.

For those of you not hip to competitive running jargon (or maybe even for those of you who are…), this post’s title refers to one’s PR or Personal Record. When you run a race, or even in practice, you’re generally always against the clock, aiming for a new record. I recorded a new record today. It wasn’t really a lifetime record, because I used to be a lot faster when I was in high school, but it was a recent memory PR: 15:57 for 2 miles…not bad says I. Sub 8 minute splits is good news. Now I only have to work on that patience. 😉

This great time can probably be attributed to a few different things. There were two confounding variables in my run today: I used a different (older) treadmill, which may not measure correctly, and the fact that I used my *brand new* iPod Shuffle! I’d like to think the Shuffle helped me take my mind off the everyday aches and pains and tiredness, so I’ll stick to that story.

I bought myself the shuffle a few days ago, but didn’t open it until today. Three weeks ago I told myself that if I had good runs 4 days a week up until February 5th, then I’d buy myself an iPod of some kind. When I checked the Apple store at school the other day, I had to buy myself the shuffle, even though it was still two workouts prior to my goal, because I was afraid that when I finally hit my goal the store would be sold out. That would have been horrible…to have to wait a few more weeks. I did hold out on opening the new toy, though, which was good of me. Nice job, Josh.

As you can see in the picture above, the iPod shuffle is many times smaller than my old CD player, and it holds literally 20 times as many songs at one time. Technology is simply amazing. The iPod is also skip free, which is the main reason I bought it…so I can take it running without missing a beat. The thing I will miss about my CD player is the fact that it plays the radio. There’s nothing like listening to NPR in the afternoon, and now when I do it I’ll have to be either in the car or at a computer. In any case, the Shuffle is a beautiful little machine, and hopefully will help as I continue to run! (By the way…the construction of “Josh’s RunTracker” software will commence at some point today. Perhaps I’ll have a beta version up tonight…but don’t hold your breath.)

February 4, 2005
ActionScript, etc.

I’m now 16/24ths done with my ActionScript seminar. That’s right, two days down…and I’ve learned a lot so far. I’m not very thrilled with the seminar format. Basically we are just going through examples from a book…spending a lot of time simply typing code from the book into Flash and figuring out what it’s doing. I think what I’ll have to do is think of a fun project to work on and code up a work of art. That seems to be the best way to learn a programming language…or at least that’s what E says. I’d agree. I became proficient in PHP and MySQL in a week or so just by making a project for myself…hopefully I’ll get some free time to mess around with ActionScript in the same way.

So far I prefer PHP to ActionScript. I know they’re used for different things, but I just feel like PHP gives more control in a straightforward manner, whereas Flash is pretty but is harder to use. Perhaps I’ll get used to it as I continue working…

I think I’m starting to get in shape. I just ran more than 3 miles…and it felt good. It’s weird, I’m getting in shape, yet I’m sleeping with less regularity than normal. I would expect it to be opposite. I’ve been waking up at weird times…2 AM & 6 AM in the last two evenings. I think it’s because I didn’t run those days, so my body did feel like I deserved (needed?) sleep. Either way, it feels good to not be completely tired after 2 miles. I can feel my body stregthening, and that’s exciting.

I think the part of my marathon training that I really need to pay attention to is training myself to have some patience. I constantly up my running speed so I can get to the finish line sooner…but that won’t work when I run a really long distance. I need to train my legs to slow down a little bit and save energy for the long haul. Sometimes taking it slow is the hardest part…

In other news, I presented a paper on State-dependent memory in aerobic exercise this evening. I think it went well. I’m sure I said some things the professor didn’t agree with, but I think playing devil’s advocate is good to a point. It wasn’t my best presentation ever, but I’m happy with my performance. It leaves room for improvement on the final presentation.

I feel like I’ve been so busy lately. I think things will start to clear up after my presentation next Tuesday. Sometimes I’m just really antsy, and I need to tell myself to calm down. So, calm down! 🙂 I’ll be back with more in a few days…

February 2, 2005
Going to SIG CHI!

So I’m headed to the SIG CHI Conference! My team’s project was a winner in the first round of the student competition. The best part of it all is that all four of the teams from the School of Informatics were accepted…meaning a whole bunch of us are going to be travelling to Portland together. I’ll be there for my birthday! This means a whole bunch more work will have to be done in the coming months, but I have a feeling it will all be worth it.

Tomorrow’s the first day of a three day seminar on ActionScript, the programming language used with Macromedia’s Flash package. I’m really pumped. Flash is ubiquitous on the web and makes it really easy to build beautiful pages. There is a downside, however. Flash pages are not as usable as they should, or could, be. Because web designers can simply create web pages from vector images, many do not hold the same web standards as pages built in HTML. This means beautiful web pages that are not usable. Flash must do something to fix this. They could implement a Flash style guide that makes it easy to keep web standards while making pages look good, or something like that. Whatever the case, after Thursday I’ll know my ActionScript, and will be able to make beautiful and useful webpages (but that’s only because I’ve taken classes that cover usability).

I’m due to build a piece of software in the next few days that will let you all know how my marathon training is going. I ran 2 miles this morning in 16:28 (8:14 splits!). Not bad, considering I only started training a few weeks ago, and that was following a 3 mile (long) day. The next step is to not catch the flu/cold that is going around the halls at school. That would be greatly detrimental. Good thing I’ve been taking my multivitamin.

Ok, time for bed…long day of coding tomorrow… 🙂

January 31, 2005
Reading backlog

I haven’t told you what I’ve been reading in a long time…here’s a backlogged update:

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm by Tom Kelley

Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Software For Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision by Jim and Michele McCarthy

Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss

The Humane Interface: New Directions of Designing Interactive Systems by Jef Raskin…slowely but surely

I’ll give a further update when I have all my books in front of me (in the office)

Hope the weekend is treating everyone well!

January 30, 2005
Swamped…
Time to offload some aggression:

Grade suffering, so I need to pay attention to Design Wiki

I’m leading a discussion Wednesday night on “State Dependent Memory Produced by Aerobic Exercise”

It would be great to get an internship…anybody have tips?

Need to write letters to Informatics-related organizations for Iota Nu Phi, the National Informatics Honors Society

Presentation a week from Tuesday on “PowerPoint and External Cognition”

Need to fill out Paperwork for Team in Training so I can run my marathon!

While I’m at it…I should (and am) still be running regularly

Hosting a party tonight…”A night of Spice” (Indian Food, etc. cooked by Apurva)

Wanting to be at Sundance…that would be fun.

Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. In fact, I’m actually great now! I’ll just be a whole lot better in a week and a half.
January 29, 2005
Changes…
There are going to be some changes going on around here, so don’t get used to anything…

Following the creation of my new website, I have decided that I’m gonna make some changes to the look of my blog. They’ll come slowly, but surely. The most important thing is that if you do not like a change I have made, you must let me know, for there is a deeper moral to this story:

Often when designers, engineers, inventors, etc. make a creation, they are absolutely blind to the negative aspects of their systems. It is soooo easy to get married to one of your ideas, which causes a honeymoon effect where you can see no wrong with it. The moment someone points out a fault in the system, one of two things happens:

The designer takes the criticism personally, and is upset by the critic

The designer realizes the critic is right, and quickly reiterates the design of the system so that it fixes the faults.

I hope to be this second type of designer. If you don’t like something, call me on it. If I get enough complaints, or I agree with the original comment, I will make changes. Critics are often too polite in their assessments, I ask you not to be so.

For starters, what do you think of the new background color, off to the sides of the screen? Critique me! 🙂
January 27, 2005
It’s ugly…but at least it exists…

Microphone check it:

My new website!

Leave comments if you will…(I’ve been working on it for waaaay too long…yesterday evening and this morning…)

January 26, 2005