Category: Business yammerings

Tablet Ordering: The Future of Restaurants?

Anyone who works in the tech industry knows just how quickly a single new piece of technology can change the way we function, and there’s probably no example that better illustrates this than the way the mobile industry has changed how we do just about everything. We’ve gone from only being able to send short messages with our phones to being able to control drones with them, and now, reports are saying that mobile phones have made gadgets like calculators and alarm clocks obsolete.

That’s not all they’re slowly making obsolete, though. The popularity of mobile devices has skyrocketed since the invention of the smartphone, with Gaming Realms, a company that specializes in designed mobile-optimized slots with no-deposit free spins, has reported that there were 1 billion smartphone users in 2012, and this number is expected to double by the end of this year. For years, people have been talking about how e-books might be killing paper, and though all research points towards the opposite, mobile seems to be starting to trump paper in another field: restaurant menus and warehouse checkouts. Businesses in the US and the UK have begun establishing tablet-ordering systems, and results and feedback have been favorable.

The motivations for using tablet ordering systems are quite universal: they were expected to improve the efficiency and accuracy of order picking while saving in labor and paper costs. When Chili’s implemented tablet ordering with the help of Ziosk, they reduced service wait times, and boosted overall satisfaction with their services because the tablets also allowed children to play games like Z-Trivia, keeping them entertained while they wait for their food to be served. Chili’s is a prime example, because they’ve tried to strike a balance between convenient ordering through tablets and interaction with service personnel, as even though appetizers, drinks and desserts can be ordered through the tablets, main course orders are still taken by a server in person.

Casual restaurants are also starting to look into devising a similar system. According to Adam Rapoport, Editor-in-Chief of Bon Appetit, “I think the casual dining places do it for two reasons: One, it sort of expedites the whole process and gets more people in and out the door quicker. And two, it cuts down on labor costs and it’s more efficient.” It also helps that there are now several different companies that offer tablet-ordering services at competitive rates, but there are still some issues to contend with. For one, tablets, unlike paper menus, have a short lifespan of a few hours before they need to be charged, unless they stay plugged into consoles, which would then limit their portability. This system seems to work for Chili’s, however, as they’ve seen a 20% increase in dessert and appetizer sales since implementing tablet ordering.

The mobile industry has changed the way we do most of our business, and the restaurant industry is no different. With technology rapidly evolving and becoming even more accessible, it’s likely that tablet ordering will soon be in many restaurants across the world.

Backing up your Photos – A Cautionary Tale

A recent article appeared on Petapixel regarding a Montreal photojournalist having all his photos stolen by burglars:

A photographer’s worst nightmare just happened to a well-known photographer: on Monday, Montreal-based photojournalist Jacques Nadeau returned home to find that burglars had stolen all the photos he has taken during his life and career.

CBC News reports that Nadeau, a photojournalist for the newspaper Le Devoir, walked into his home find that five of his hard drives had been stolen.

They contained an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 photos captured over the course of his 35 year photography career.

This is a terrible story, and absolutely devastating to the photographer.  My heart goes out to him.  But we can take a lesson from this…

Embrace the Paranoia.  Always ask “What if….”

Take a look around you.  At your life, at your belongings, at things you hold dear.  Ask yourself “What would happen if this were lost or destroyed?”  If the answer is “This is irreplaceable”, then move on to the next question “How can I protect these things in a way that makes sure they’re never lost?”

For anyone in the digital world, the answer is simple.  Backups.  There are myriad sites singing the song “Always do your backups!” and “Here’s how to back up your things!”  I won’t go into detail here.  But people should extend that idea to other things of value.  Important documents.  Printed photos.  Artwork.  That doll from your youth.  Look at these things of value and be a little paranoid.  “How could this be destroyed?”  Some china inherited from a relative – is it on a shelf that can be knocked over easily?  A doll you once cuddled as a child, perhaps putting it out of reach of the dog would be a good idea?

Yea yeah, okay.  So how do YOU do it?

I’m glad you asked!  This article happened to appear while I was in the middle of backing up my photo library!

Currently, I do all my photo work in Aperture.  Apple has announced that this product is being end of lifed, so no matter what, I’ll need to do a bunch of work migrating photos.  I keep my photo library on an external 1TB USB3 drive, and I’m acutely aware of how fragile that is.  Hard drives fail constantly, and having all my eggs in one basket is never a good idea.  The challenge is, photo libraries are BIG.  Hundreds of gigabytes of data.  If I were to try to back up my Aperture library onto DVD+R DS (the largest ‘consumer level’ long term storage medium available at 17G per disc),  I’d need 31 some odd discs.  That’s too many, and cumbersome as heck to work with.

I considered Dropbox, Box.net, Google drive, and Amazon Drive, but I feel these are targeted at a desktop user who just wants a drive out in the cloud.  While I use Dropbox extensively for making photos available to customers, it’s sync mechanism is quite tricky if what you’re storing on Dropbox is much larger than what you can store locally.  I’m also not confident these systems will last, unchanged and accessible, for the long term.  Google, in particular, has a dreadful record for keeping products and offerings available for the long run.

In the end I decided to use a pretty technical solution:  Amazon S3 storage.

Backing up to S3 and Glacier

Amazon has a bulk storage system called S3, coupled with a ‘long term storage’ system called Glacier.  S3 is in essence a big storage bucket where you can drop files and retrieve them at will.  Glacier allows you to take S3 elements and put them in, as you might guess from the name, ‘Cold storage’.  The costs for S3 storage is extremely low ($0.0240 per GB per month, or for my 600G of photo data, about $14/mo).  If I move those files into Glacier, it drops to $6/mo.  The difference is that restoring data from Glacier may not be immediate – it may take a few hours for your files to be available.  For this sort of long term storage, that’s fine by me!

This is not as cheap as current offerings from Amazon Prime (Unlimited storage free with Prime and Amazon Drive).  But I’m still very skeptical of the ‘drive’ offerings from the big players.  Everyone is trying to get into the “cloud drive” market with custom clients and apps.  My storage needs are exceedingly simple.  About 300 very large files (copies of each of my photo projects).  S3 is extremely well established, and used widely in the industry.

With S3, to back up my library, I go through these (for me) straightforward steps:

  • In Aperture, I select a project, and say “Export to library”.  I locate that library on my external drive.  This is an exact copy of my original masters / RAW images, as well as all the ‘versions’ I may have created (all in JPG form).  It’s also including metadata and Aperture edit notes.  While I know Aperture is not long for the world, I at least have things backed up.  This results in a directory that contains a mini ‘apilibrary’ containing all my files.
  • From the command line, I make a ‘tgz’ of that directory.  This compresses the directory down into a single file.  If I were so inclined, I could do this on the Mac just by selecting the directory and choosing ‘Compress’ – that will create a .zip file containing the entire library.
  • Next, I copy the file up to S3.  Because I’m a super-geek, I do this right on the command line using my Amazon credentials I created a while back.  If you’re a GUI person, you can use any number of S3 clients for the mac or PC.  For me, I do: 
    aws s3 cp 2014-09-23\ CA\ Over\ 15k.aplibrary.tgz s3://daveshevettphotos/ --profile personal

After some time (some of the libraries are quite large.  A 25gig wedding archive took 85 minutes to upload) I have an offsite backup of that photo library!  Hurray!  At any point I can go to the Amazon S3 console and put these files into Glacier for long term storage, or download them as needed.

I realize this process is not for everyone.  I share here to simply raise awareness that in the modern age, many of our most important things are stored in an ephemeral, easily lost way.  Take the time to look around and see what you could lose if something were to happen.  Something as simple as your laptop being stolen,  a broken water pipe, or even a home fire.  Always ask.. “What if…”

Dear @Evernote – This was a bad decision.

skitch screenshot
Skitch gives an ‘upload’ warning

I’m a rabid user of Evernote and it’s associated screen capture tool, Skitch. I use it for just about everything, and regularly snap screenshots to share what I’m seeing with coworkers.

I’m aware that my screenshots are stored in my Evernote account, and there’s a disk space limit there. I’m okay with that, free services have to put limits on things. If I start running low on space, I go into my notebooks and start deleting things.

Yesterday though, I was suddenly stopped from being able to share screenshots via an alert from Evernote that I was over my monthly upload limit, which would reset in 9 days. There is absolutely nothing to do to fix this except wait, or pay money to release it.

This smacks of ransomware. My service has been interrupted unless I pay up, a service that up until now has been free. I have no way of ‘getting out of jail’ unless I cough up some dough, or wait over a week – and if I just wait, it may happen again next month.  In addition, everytime Evernote tries to sync now, I get a modal dialog box that says “Cannot sync [Learn More]” – you can’t dismiss this box, you must click on Learn More, and get their little ad asking for money.   Thanks guys.

I’ve been considering paying for my Evernote Pro license, because I find the service quite valuable, but this… come on guys, this was a bad decision. You’re already limiting how much data I can store with the free version. Now you’re limiting how many I can upload, even though I have plenty of storage space? Ung.

CONGO is going GPL.

(This announcement is also being posted on stonekeep.com)

Over the last 12 years I’ve been working hard to develop CONGO into the best convention registration system I can manage. Since 2002, CONGO has been used for many events of all sizes, registering and printing badges for tens of thousands of attendees. There have been many successes and a few bumps, but all in all it’s been a great adventure.

Several events now rely heavily on CONGO for year-to-year attendee tracking, allowing online registration, keeping up-to-date history, managing thousands of attendees, as well as the relationship CONGO has to Zambia, the scheduling system.

Continue reading “CONGO is going GPL.” →

CONGO Update – The road to 2.1.

I’ve set a goal for myself. Have CONGO v 2.1 released by June 1st. It’s an auspicious goal to be sure, and recent career shifts have either made it more likely (more time to work on it) or less likely (new job) to have time to dedicate to coding.
But goshdarn it, I’m going to try.
congov2-eclipse-screenshot.pngWhile coding away last night at a particularly recalcitrant chunk of the new ‘Links’ system (I’ve been… instructed… by my pesky users, that ‘Friends’ is really too ‘social buzzy funtime networking’ for an event management system), I was curious how big CONGO had gotten. So a couple greps got me some quick stats:

Total lines of Java : 13,412
Total lines of XML : 5,492
Total lines of JSP : 5,543

This makes CONGO the largest application I’ve ever written completely on my own. Oh sure, I’ve worked on larger systems, but that was part of a team with other coders. This one (with some small help from 1-2 folks – accounting for around 2% of the code) is all mine.
I’m always looking for alpha and beta testers. Interested? Lemme know. Continuous build / QA testing is working, so there’s always new builds and bugs that need to be tracked.

The Ten Commandments from IT / Sysadmins…

Thou shalt not release software to production on the eve of a weekend or a holiday.
Thou shalt not use corporate email servers to distribute full page pictures of your kitten, or your child, or your horse, or your hamster.
Thou shalt not browse porn from your work computer or laptop. Ever.
Thou shalt use corporate / IT mandated applications for corporate related work, regardless of whether you think RandomFinancialTool is better.
Thou shalt choose Microsoft products ONLY when all alternatives have been thoroughly reviewed and considered objectively, and using the criteria of “But it’s not compatible with Microsoft products” is usually a red herring.
Thou shalt not rely exclusively on the ‘genius’ or ‘vast experience’ of a single person within the company or organization. They might be wrong. How would you know?
Thou shalt consider a laptop expendable and subject to imminent destruction.
Thou shalt understand that IT and sysadmin staff are employed to HELP the users do their job. We may know what we’re talking about.
Thou shalt not page a sysadmin at 2am because you’ve forgotten your password. Next time be more careful.
And last but not least…..
Thou shalt respect us. We’re people too.

Fun with Server Uptimes

At ${dayjob}, we were doing a system audit when an alarm came up on a pair of servers we rarely had any interraction with. One of our new monitoring tools was showing these servers were not answering correctly, and should be investigated.
Investigate I did, and found… four machines in a full sized rack that were doing absolutely nothing.
It turns out these were used for 3 customers we no longer supported. The applications were still there, the appservers were running, just… no one had connected to them in almost a year and a half.
What’s more entertaining is the uptime on these boxes:

09:23:08 up 992 days, 19:15,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

The current plan is to let them roll over to 1000 days, throw a little party for them, and shut ’em down.
(For the true geeks, these are dual opteron Rackable servers with 8gig RAM running CentOS 4.4)
Update – Just found the database servers these machines have been using. Also idle, but the uptime is even more impressive:

 09:43:08 up 1304 days, 19:49,  1 user,  load average: 0.22, 0.09, 0.02

Quicken Online Shutting Down – One Guy in Mattawan Surprised

Quicken® Free Personal Finance Software, Money Management, Budgeting, Personal Finances

Well THIS will come as a shock to absolutely no one:
>Dear Valued Customer,
> For the past several months, we’ve been working hard to combine the best features of Quicken Online and Mint.com into a single online personal finance solution–Mint.com. With the improved Mint.com, you can enjoy the features you love in Quicken Online, plus new benefits such as connecting to over 16,000 financial institutions, including Canadian banks–as well as tracking your investment and retirement accounts. There is also a new Goals feature that takes the tool you enjoyed in Quicken Online to the next level.
> As a result of these changes, Quicken Online will no longer be available as of August 29, 2010. Creating a new Mint.com account is easy, but for reasons of security and accuracy, we cannot create one for you. Once you’re signed in, you can add your accounts and see your financial picture in just a few minutes.
Color me shocked. NOT.
It was obvious from the beginning that Intuit was never going to make anything serious out of Quicken.com – they’re far more interested in Quickbooks. When they announced the aquisition of Mint.com, the writing was on the wall.
I recently switched my online accounting over to Mint.com, and I have to admit it’s a helluva good system. Fast, very well designed interface, and good integration with my other finances.
So, there ya have it folks. If you can’t code it, acquire it.

CONGO Available for Download

Well, I said it and said it, and promised I’d do it, now it’s really here.
You’ve heard me chatter on about CONGO, my Event Management System for running conventions, meetings, and the like – well, now you can download and run it yourself.
Details are available on the CONGO home page. If you’re a fandom or gaming event, and you’re looking for a tried and trued registration system for your con, this is the place to go.
Enjoy!

Paypal is driving me nuts.

Why is Paypal so disorganized?
If you’re a developer, there are something like 6 different sites that are for use by developers. x.com, paypal-community.com, something called custhelp.com (which I was referred to, and sure as hell looks like a phishing site. Or something written by a 12 yr old).
All I want is an answer to why I’m having a problem posting an invoice to their ExpressCheckout, and I’m getting attitude and BS back.
Unbefrigginlievable.

Article on the State of Microsoft – “The Lost Decade”

Joe Wilcox of Betanews writes an excellent article on why Microsoft is stumbling, and how they lost their initiative after the major gains in the late 90’s and early aughts…

Microsoft executives and product managers — Chairman Bill Gates, above all of them — showed great technology vision for the new millennium. The company was right about so many trends to come but, sadly, executed poorly in bringing too many of them to market. Microsoft’s stiffness, perhaps a sign of its aging leadership, consistently proved its foible. Then there is arcane organizational structure, which has swelled with needless middle managers, and the system of group competition — and in the new century compensation — that worked well for a growth company but not one trying to manage mature markets.

Read the entire article over at betanews.com…

Mail.app vs Thunderbird – Which one?

It’s been about two and a half months since I got my Macbook Pro, and all in all, it’s been a productive, happy relationship. The Mac functions beautifully for all the things I need to get done, and from my side, I haven’t had to spend any time yak shaving. In fact, I can’t think of a time where I really had to dig into the filesystem or look up tech articles to get something configured on the machine. Everything just plain works.
Somewhere along the line I decided to complete the Kool-Aid conversion, and switched from using Thunderbird to using the Mac’s native mail application, collectively known as Mail.app. Why? Well, part of my philosophy on tech platforms is to try to not carry over preconceived notions of “how things should work”, and immediately critiquing a new environment simply because it doesn’t exactly mirror the one I’m used to.
I’ve been using Mail.app for about a month and a half now, and… I’m not impressed. It works, it talks nicely to my personal IMAP server and to Exchange at work, but… sorry Apple, the UI has some pretty painful choices.
In a recent Facebook conversation (based on a tweet I sent out), folks asked what my issues with Mail.app were. So, here they are:
1. The ‘file to folder’ function is irritating to use. Shortcuts change regularly (F3-space-foldername-enter – BLEAH) – it’s better than the default non-existent methods, but still difficult. (Note this is in reference to using Act-On, a plugin for Mail.app that brings some of the functionality of the super-awesome Nostalgy plugin for Thunderbird)
2. Window management is poor. Composition windows are not floating in alt-tab rotation. If I want to flip back to my Inbox to view something, I have to mouse (no KB shortcuts to switch between inbox / composition / whatever)
3. No identity management – I can’t say “Compose this mail, but it’s business mail, so use my Biz address, footer, etc)
4. The thread management is WEIRD. So, If I have a single message, it’s one row in my inbox. If I have 2 in a thread, its’ THREE rows in my inbox. That makes no sense.
5. I can’t find anyway of skipping to the next unread message in the inbox. So I’ll see Inbox(1) and have to scan where in my inbox that one message is.
6. And who the heck determined that control-shift-D means “Send message” ? What, Control-Enter, a keystroke that is nigh on universal, wasn’t appropriate?
I haven’t come up with a good reason to stick with Mail.app yet. One thing I do worry about is contact management. I’m not sure how to manage that path yet, or how Thunderbird contacts will interract (if at all) with the contact manager on the Mac. That being said, I don’t know if I’ve been using the contact manager at all, so it may be a moot point.
The UI issues in Mail.app though are enough to have me close to jumping ship. Any reasons I shouldn’t?

I own a Mac. Hades Ice Skate Order placed.

I’ve blogged before about being tempted by Macs, and in some ways my iPhone could be considered something of a ‘first taste’ of Apple products. But until now I’ve fought hard against really going whole hog into the Mac world.
I has a MacBook
Until now.
I’m the proud owner of what can arguably be called Apple’s top of the line laptop – a Macbook Pro 13.
This is a huge step for me. I am not only investing a significant amount of money into a small device that could easily be considered a ‘toy’, but I’m changing over to an environment I only have a passing familiarity with – OSX.
I’ve owned it for about 24 hours, and I will say – I’ve never worked with a sexier implementation of high end computing in my life. This is by far the fastest computer I’ve ever owned, let alone as my personal workstation, but with all it’s screaming horsepower, it is beautifully designed, with an operating system and environment I find… different, but not irritating. There are things I don’t know how to do, but I’m figuring them out. I have not had a single “oh that’s just plain idiotic” moment. I’m sure they’ll come, but so far it’s just been a series of “Hmm, that’s interesting… what if I… ah, that did it. Cool.” moments.
I’m still installing things, and still setting up my tools. This machine will be my life and blood for the next 3 years, so there’s a lot of work to do to bring it into full functionality. So far I have mail and chat and web stuff working fine, next will be my development environment. After that, virtual machines for running some of the business apps I’ll be using.
A particular thanks to all the people I talked to while making this decision. There was a lot of fantastic feedback and good commentary. It helped me affirm that I’m making the right decision.
Now, off to download Eclipse and get things set up so I can work on CONGO !