NorthStarNerd.Org

YouTube Test

I decided I had to take the plunge and post a video to YouTube.  Years ago I attended a presentation by Guy Kawasaki during the early days of the net.  He challenged his audience ... if you've never sold on eBay, how can you claim to understand eBusiness? At the time I went home, accepted Guy's challenge, and sold two lots of accordion music for over $100!

Anyhow, I decided that if I wanted to truly understand YouTube (the social phenomenon), I needed to post a video ... and see what happens. My video is a satire of box opening videos. Here is the YouTube link. If I learn anything of interest, I'll update this post, and point back to it in the future.

• Rapala Box Opening Video
• Date Posted on YouTube: April 27
• Views as of July 26: 851
• One Five Star Rating
• Two Comments
• Now listed on first page of "Rapala" YouTube search results

As a fyi, watching my video via my earlier post will not drive up my YouTube stats.  My blog hosts a higher quality Flash version, which links directly from Typepad.
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Teaching Technical Concepts

There has been quite a bit of buzz about a screencast tutorial which teaches RSS concepts. Even if you understand and use RSS, you have to watch RSS in Plain English. The developers have taken a difficult concept, and explained it without the use of any computer screenshots, such that the non technical computer user will understand the concept ... and just an importantly, who one should use RSS.

If you work for a training department, you must watch this video.  It demonstrates how one can simplify difficult ideas. I look forward to more tutorials from Commoncraft.

IBM Adds Gaming Chip to Mainframe

IBM announced today that their mainframes will now have a gaming chip. This has very interesting implications from the vantage point of simulations and virtual realities. Dr. Dobbs Software Journal has a good analysis of IBM's announcement:

• PlayStation Meets Mainframe (In Second Life?)

Rapala Box Opening Video

You think I'm nuts?! Believe it or not, there is a new trend on the internet ... box opening videos. The idea is that when you receive something cool, you have a friend video your experience as you "open the box"! Thus, I bring you two examples ... one from c|Net (techie examples)... and one from me!

• The Northstar Nerd's Rapala Box Opening Video
  (may take a moment to load ... 2 minutes 45 seconds in length)

My thanks to my camera man ... my son, Erik, who helped me create this satire. Finally, see my updated post which turns this video into a YouTube test.

The Monster: Managing Software Development Projects

When we were children, we were scared of monsters. These horrible demons would appear in our dreams, and our imagination ... it was frightening! Managing software projects have often been described in terms that approach these childhood fears ... scope creeps, cost overruns, or just plain lack of effective communication between software geeks and "normal folk" (not sure where I fit on this spectrum!).

Even though I may make light of this problem, this issue is very serious and costs organizations huge amounts of money. If you ever get involved with managing software projects, take some time to listen to at least one, if not both of these podcast interviews with the author of the new book: Dreaming in Code.  The byline for this book states:

"Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software"

As the book's author, Scott Rosenberg, is actually a journalist ... as much as any journalist can be described as "normal", this would describe Scott; he is not one of the "geeks"!

• Podcast #1: Dreaming in Code - Open Source Conversations
• Podcast #2: Dreaming in Code - MP3 - Posting (scroll to bottom)