I'm heading out to Kansas after Labor Day weekend, to start a new chapter - my employment with Garmin International where I will be a Software User Interface Designer.

Most of you are probably familiar with Garmin because of their GPS devices - for cars, fitness, golf, marine, cycling, and aircraft. I will be working within their Mobile/Hand-held Device group.

I now have a link to my public profile on CreativeHeads.net, a job forum provided by ACM SIGGRAPH.

Here is a link: http://www.creativeheads.net/jsprofile.aspx?j=308821432f&spi=0

"And now it's time to say good-bye to all our company."

As I finish up packing and prepare for the commencement ceremony tomorrow morning to cap off my graduate studies at Purdue University, a whole flurry of memories came back to me as I drove around campus this evening. The past six years at Purdue have been full of excitement, surprises, frustrations, joy and challenges. I can still remember being the in-coming freshman arriving at Cary Quadrangle for Boiler Gold Rush ready to tackle college and my major of Computer Graphics Technology.

As part of this post I've decided to put together a list of all the things I've been apart of on campus as well as internships during my time here:

• Undergrad
• Cary Club (too many great memories to all call out, but definitely being apart of the first Rock the Quad was awesome - especially seeing it continue as an outstandingoustanding tradition with WEtheKings this past spring).
  
• Emily Mauzy Emerging Leaders Program (Bridget Golden - thank you for all the support my freshman year, you've been missed ever since your family moved to Vanderbilt)
  
• WCCR (oh, "Frankie G and the Mafia" was an awesome show, thanks Christian Hall and Billy Castrodale)
  
• Purdue Student Government (thanks Will Delozier)
• Purdue Admissions Office Tour Guides (I'm still can walk backwards)
  
• ACM SIGGRAPH at Purdue
• Purdue Athletic Promotions and Advertising (hey - being a freshman and getting to be on the football field and basketball court during games was awesome)
• Disney College Program (definitely the best summer of my life and a vast amount of great memories)
• ITaP Student Advisory Council (funny how back in 2005 we wanted to get rid of the Purdue Webmail and still in 2010 they are talking about getting rid of it... oh Purdue)
• Disney College Program Campus Representative (Alana Partridge - you were awesome to have worked with!)
  
• Belle of Louisville Marketing Internship
• Resident Assistant at Cary Quadrangle (I've enjoyed seeing my former residents go on and be successful at Purdue)
• Bank of America (my first look at the cubical life in corporate-America)
  
• Staff Resident at Cary Quadrangle (definitely my favorite of all my memories - lots of valuable lessons learned - don't play card games with staff during trainings, ha ha; Thanks to my all my former staff members and to Bob Brophy; funny how you can be accused of being a "ring leader of a coup" when you try to bring an issue to the attention of administrators)
  
• F9IB (ha ha, good times & long story)
• Mortar Board (a fun group of student leaders to have had the honor to work with)
  
• Iron Key (definitely my second favorite of all my memories - go team PTC!)
• College of Technology Undergraduate Student Grade-Appeal Committee (it's amazing how an appeal system can be corrupt - very long story)
  
• Adobe Lighthouse Program & attending Adobe MAX conferences (cold calls can certainly pay off)
• myPurdue Portal Advisory Committee (they ask for a CGT student who has studied user-interface design to serve on the committee but they were too afraid to make changes to the out-of-the-box system to improve the UI, oh well)
  
• Graduate School
• Adobe Dev Connection Content Contributor (I greatly appreciate the support from the Adobe Higher Ed team and allowing me to be a contributor on the Dev Connection site)
• IT Summit 2008 at Purdue University Poster Competition
• U.S. Provisional Patent (who would have thought a web/graphic user-interface guy would get a patent for designing a piece of hardware, it still makes me laugh inside)
  
• An overall summary, being a grad student doesn't necessarily also mean being a teaching assistant or a research assistant... but being a "black sheep" can be fun too, ha ha

On a side note, I figured it was appropriate to start this post with a Disney quote since it has had such a large impact on my Purdue experience.

Also, I find it funny to look back at what I learned my freshman year in some of my technology classes and laugh since that is out-dated and even deprecated terminology and processes now - got to love the technology industry and how constantly things are changing/evolving.

To all my friends, thanks for everything - hanging out, football & basketball games, movies, Knight Spot Grill, Harrison Grill "Thirsty Thursday" Nights, Cary SE Staff Nights, Nine Irish Brothers get-togethers, Unfinished Block P, ...and anything else I haven't been able to recall.

So now it's time to start a new chapter in my life, while I will miss Purdue, I'm also ready to move on. I'm anxious to see what lies ahead...

"Of all the days we've spent with you, All Hail our own Purdue!"

I had a unique opportunity to participate in a test exercise for Purdue Police, Fire and EMS emergency services on campus today. The simulation was designed to replicate several scenarios, including an "active shooter" (to replicate the unfortunate incidents at Virgina Tech a few years ago).

I played as a professor who had class outside between two buildings in which the "active shooter" and moved between. For the scenarios, members of my fake class were gunned down and deceased, while others were severally wounded.

For more details about the event, take a look at:

• Purdue University Press Release: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/general/2010/100706WrightExercise.html
  
• Journal and Courier newspaper article: http://boilerstation.jconline.com/article/20100714/NEWS0501/100714010/1122/boiler
• News Channel 18 WLFI story: http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/local/emergency-on-campus-at-purdue
  

Below is a reflection of my experience as a Staff Resident at Cary Quadrangle from 2007 until 2010. For those who don't know, a Staff Resident is a live-in supervisor position for University Residences at Purdue University, whom directly oversees a staff of resident assistants. Take these thoughts for what they are worth - they're just purely based upon my experiences (successes and failures).

Motivation

• Staff Dinners - regardless of having a breakfast, lunch or dinner, get your staff together on a regular basis besides staff meetings. Make it optional, but highly encouraged. I have witnessed how this social aspect helps to build a strong connection among staff members. A large part of supervising a staff is the human resources side - the soft skills.
• Personality Sheets & individual specific rewards - having a brief survey to ask your direct reports about their favorite candy, ice cream, movie, song, holiday etc helps to provide you with information to reveal who they are and what makes them "tick." Also asking how they are motivated as well as how they prefer to be recognized is beneficial information to know. By collecting a list of their favorite candy, cookie, soda, etc this can help when rewarding your staff by giving them specific rewards that you know are their favorites - such as regarding everyone who turns something in on-time and rewarding them each their favorite candy bar.
• Sometimes there is a fine line between being a friend and a supervisor, especially when both of you are still students in college; in addition to living and working in the same building.
  

Administration

• Don't be afraid to ask questions - ask "why?" I thoroughly believe a good manager should not be afraid to have their direct reports question why things are being done / implemented. On a side note, I thank Bob Brophy for having an open communication channel going both up and down the chain of command.
• Come to the table with possible suggestions/solutions, when you disagree with something. This shows that you have at least started to think about what might work better, rather than just showing up and complaining.

Progressive Discipline

• Acknowledge the issue that had occurred, and then focus on preventative / corrective action to keep the issue from occurring again.
• Look for a pattern of behavior - which then definitely needs to be addressed.
• Document everything - even if it means keeping a separate notebook or an Excel spreadsheet.

Confrontation with residents

• Ask questions - to some degree, just like the Socratic method.
• Don't make assumptions, again: ask questions.
• My personal favorite: If there is a large group of residents doing something they shouldn't - say "Gentlemen" (I worked at Cary Quad will all male residents) in a loud tone to get their attention, then ask them "what are you doing?"
• If confronting intoxicated residents, especially those who are uncooperative, tell them that you are concerned about their well being since they are unable to cooperative with you. Call the paramedics and tell the Purdue dispatcher that you have reasons to believe the individuals are intoxicated. Then 90% of the time a PUPD officer will show up with the paramedics.
• From my observations, most people today lack the skill of confrontation. They prefer to avoid confronting someone else about an issue they have. The skills that you can develop as a RA and feeling comfortable confronting others, I personally believe will be a valued asset to have in your profession as well as personal life.
  

Building a community for Resident Assistants (originally written August 2009)

• Building a community is your #1 goal. But how do you do that? Through offering programs to residents, it gives them opportunities to get to know one another as well as establish a rapport with each other and with you. From Day 1 through at least Week 3, you need to focus a large amount of attention on your floor and be accessible to your residents. Get them together for floor dinners each night. Take a group to the fitness center to play basketball or Wally-ball. Initiate a video game tournament. There are several things you can do to determine the interests of your residents, such as passing out a survey to them. Once you know what interests them - you can plan programs around their interests. When you plan programs around their interests, hopefully you will have a larger attendance at the program.
  
• Since community development isn't necessarily a tangible item that can be easily accounted for, the Programming Model exists to help us determine if you have created a community on your floor. The model quantifies the effort you have made to build a community for the sake of performance evaluations. Granted there can be the best RA ever with a floor of residents that don't want to have anything to do with their RA, which is why the model allows you to plan programs for your residents but also invite residents from all across your hall and even other residence halls. Be in communication with your Staff Resident to keep them informed on how the community is evolving on your floor - they can provide suggestions and tips to develop it further, thus making you more successful.
• These first few weeks are crucial to establish the community now while most of your residents are adjusting or re-adjusting to campus. If you are able to establish the community now, it should make the rest of your school-year easier.
• Looking long-term, obviously being a RA isn't a life-time career however by building a community on your floor the skill sets you develop can provide you with an added value once you are out in the workplace.

Additional Overall thoughts

• Residents are the customer, not the parents (even though they may be paying the bill).
• Keep your staff informed and updated as often as possible - this will keep everyone content. Time and time again I've seen too many problems occur because people weren't aware of the most accurate information available.
• Give credit where credit is do - if a direct report of yours makes a large accomplishment that catches the attention of others, don't take credit for it just because the staff member works for you. I've seen some managers take credit for what their staff has done, just because they supervise them.
  
• "Experience is something you gain after you needed it" ~unknown, and to expand upon that: every situation you encounter will be slightly different from the last (again, don't make assumptions) but hopefully you can call upon your past experiences as a rough set of guidelines to determine the best course of action with the current situation you may find yourself in.
• Have fun - and stay positive. Laugh at yourself when you make mistakes.
  

I'll add more to this if I think of more thoughts to share.

In a letter Steve Jobs released discussing Apple's "Flash distaste" (http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20003742-264.html), he states the following:

Flash was designed for PCs using mice, not for touch screens using fingers. For example, many Flash websites rely on "rollovers", which pop up menus or other elements when the mouse arrow hovers over a specific spot. Apple's revolutionary multi-touch interface doesn't use a mouse, and there is no concept of a rollover. Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?

Now as a designer / developer for multi-touch interfaces with the Adobe Flash Platform, I may be a bit biased here, but I disagree with his statement on several points. Most technologies were designed during the PC age, including Flash, the Web, HTML, and even several products from Apple. The mouse at the time was the most cost effective input device to replicate actually clicking and selecting items on a computer screen/display. Now with the continuing evolution of multi-touch devices, there are several new interface advantages and disadvantages emerging.

"Rollovers" can still occur in a multi-touch interface to help indicate to the user what element of the UI the user has selected. While I do admit, with multi-touch there is a blurred line between a "rollover" and a "single-tag/touch," so depending on the interface these may need to be coded differently to acknowledge a touch vs a mouse click.

As for the "modern technologies like HTML5" - we've seen time and time again with various Internet browsers slightly different implementations of web standards created by the W3C and I doubt HTML5 (http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/Overview.html) will be any different. The challenge with this to web designers / developers is creating a consistent user-experience across all Internet browsers and computer operating systems. At least with Flash, a consistent, engaging experience can be achieved.

I saw this a few years ago, but a friend of mine - Matthew Broadfoot - brought it up today and shared the link with me to the YouTube Video... it kind of puts things in an interesting perspective.

A friend of mine, Ben Doll, sent this to me the other day... I found it to be quite funny and very true.

But, I'm still waiting for the release of the Adobe Flash Player for my Android phone. I've signed up to be notified when the beta release is available (http://www.adobe.com/go/fpbetaandroid).

I attended a film screening and presentation today at Fowler Hall (on Purdue's campus) by Purdue Alum and former Disney Studios Executive, Peter Schneider. The documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, showcased life inside the Walt Disney Company Feature Animation division in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The film talked about teamwork, triumphs, failures, egos, anger, movies and magic. It was inspiring and motivating.

Some of the quotes that I jotted down from the film are:

• "Can't play the game unless everyone is firing off on all cylinders." ~Unknown
• "Humility is the ultimate virtue." ~Frank Wells, Former Walt Disney Company COO
• "Got to any institution and you'll see, it's not about the bricks and mortar, it's about the people." ~ Michael Eisner, Former Walt Disney Company CEO & Chairman

The documentary gave me thoughts of needing to cherish what you have, work hard to achieve what you desire, build strong friendships along the way, and to always remember what matters most in life.

This is awesome...

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.

I originally saw this on Michael Lebowitz's Blog at http://lebowitz.net/amazing-pixels

You can now add comments to blog posts through Facebook, directly on each blog post page (instead of having to create an account with the blog).

I originally saw this as a tweet on Twitter by @cloudenslager: "Video: Sonar on Vimeo (via Vimeo) http://tumblr.com/x5a7q7eeb"

Sonar from Renaud Hallée on Vimeo.

Found this article to be very helpful about how to utilize the features of an Android phone as well as useful apps to install on the phone. Written by JR Raphael of PC World, the article "Master Google Android: 40 Tips and Tricks" can be found at http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/184659/master_google_android_40_tips_and_tricks.html

5 Leadership Imperatives (by Barry Posen, with extra remarks from Purdue Board of Trustees Chairman Keith Krach):

1. Challenge the process
• challenge the status quo
• change
  
2. Inspire a shared vision
• the keyword is "shared"
  
3. Enable others to act
• empower teams
• keep it simple
• delegate the authority
  
4. Encourage the heart
5. Model the way
   

So I've had my Motorola DROID now for 3 days (it arrived on Tuesday, Nov 10th). Upon receiving the device, as usual you have to wait to fully charge the device before using it. The power cord that comes standard with the phone includes a USB cable with an adapter to plug into a wall outlet that has a USB port (for the cable). Waiting for the device to charge fulling was like telling a child they can't open a gift on Christmas morning after rubbing in their face. Once the device was charged, getting it up & running with configuration was very easy with Android 2.0.

I previously used the Motorola Q from Verizon (which I had for the past 3.5 - 4 years). This device synchronized with Microsoft Outlook (contacts and calendar, not e-mail since I don't have an Microsoft Outlook Exchange e-mail account just POP 3 e-mail). This was a very nice feature which I enjoyed... for example adding a new contact while talking to someone I could then go back to my computer, plug in my phone and it would add it to my desktop computer MS Outlook contact list.

For the DROID I was able to export my existing contact list from MS Outlook as a CSV file and import that into Gmail through the Google web site. Then once I had my DROID up and running, I simply input my Google account details when prompted and my contacts from Gmail were automatically sent to the phone. Then once I signed into the dedicated Facebook app, it checked my contacts against my Facebook friends and linked the contacts to the Facebook profiles (I think it's cool, even though some of my friends said it sounds "stalker-ish"). I was able to easily set-up my POP 3 e-mail accounts on the DROID which even provides a shared inbox to view e-mails for all your accounts at once with color coding for each account. My only concern is keeping my contacts synchronized with my Microsoft Outlook contacts. I do have the plug-in for Google Calendar installed on my desktop to sychronize my Microsoft Outlook calendar with my Google Calendar. Now if only there was something like that for the contacts (if there is and I don't know about it, please let me know).

Yesterday I took a ride out to Wal-mart. On the way back I decided to test out the Google Maps Navigation (which is currently in BETA). It provided turn by turn directions pretty well (it had trouble determining that we were in the Wal-mart parking lot initially - but that is minor). Heading home, once we arrived at our destination it provided a "street-view" image of the destination which was a pleasant surprise. The Google Maps Navigation is provided for FREE. It seems that having the GPS activated is resource intensive on the battery.

I've downloaded a few apps from the Andriod App Market. To give you an example, I downloaded the Barcode Scanner app. Then I saw that there was an Adobe Photoshop.com app for Android. On the web site for the Photoshop.com app (http://ow.ly/APBx), there was a barcode to scan for the link to download the app. Initially it was difficult to get the scanner to read the barcode on my desktop monitor, but once it detected it - the URL was provided and prompted me to verify that I wanted to browse to the URL. I was overall pleased with the experience.

I was able to get my 3 home screens customized. At first I had trouble determining how to get an app widget to display on the home screen. Then I read somewhere (I think it was actually a tweet) that you had to tap and hold in a "blank" area of a homescreen to have a menu display with options to add a widget.

The physical QWERTY keyboard of the DROID has keys that are all flat and small which with your thumbs seem to be difficult to accurately press, but perhaps with some practice would be alright. The on-screen virtual keyboards are ok as well. I've never owned an Apple iPhone and my Motorola Q didn't have a virtual keyboard, so I'm still getting used to accurately pressing the virtual keys. I do like the small tactial response of the device when you press buttons to acknowledge the press (which can be turned on and off in the device settings).

I've played around with the 5 mega-pixel camera a little for both pictures and video. I haven't tried out the music player (with the 3.5 headphone jack yet).

Overall, I've been very pleased with the phone. I did purchase a few accessories for it - including a Body Glove protective case.

This past week Motorola and Verizon announce a new touch phone using Google Android. I was intrigued by some of the commercials (iDon't Commercials | Stealth Commercial) for the phone so I decided to take a further look into what it was.

After reading and watching several reviews (cnet review | talk android | boy genius report) about the device, here is the break down of its features including benefits and disadvantages:

DESIGN / HARDWARE

• Thin profile
• Slide out QWERTY keyboard with a D-pad (buttons are all flat and small)
• Virtual Keyboards in horizontal
  
• 3.7" screen (which is bigger than Apple's iPhone)
  
• 480 x 854 resolution
• Capacitance touch screen with an accelerometer
• Double tap, but limited gestures
• Customizable home screens
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• 5 mega-pixel camera with a dual-LED flash
• Micro SD card (16GB card included)

SOFTWARE

• Google's Android 2.0 (first phone released with the 2.0 version)
• Native Microsoft Exchange support
• Gmail, POP 3 and IMAP e-mail support
• Dedicated Facebook app which syncs with your contact list
  
• 3-pane Home screen that is customizable
• Adobe Flash 10.1 support (not Adobe Flash Lite)
• Google Maps Navigation (in a beta), which provides turn by turn directions included for FREE
• Google Android App Marketplace
• Lacks World roaming capabilities

Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/motorola-droid-verizon-wireless/4505-6452_7-33783559.html?tag=centerColumnArea1.2

So I ended up purchasing one on Saturday, Nov 7th.

by Dr. Kent M. Keith

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

© Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001

Disney to buy Marvel... very interesting. Fantastic Four, Adventurers, Spiderman, and Mickey Mouse - what a combination. Yet doesn't Universal Studios in Florida have several Marvel-themed rides - I wonder what will happen with those. Here is the article from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8230504.stm

Here is my real (e-mail) interview with the Exponent Sports Editor - August 17th 2009. I will try to find the actual article online and post a link to it.

Questions 1 - Basically just state your situation and the problems you have with the rule.
Answer: My initial reaction was that I was upset that the Football student section would no longer have reserved seats... however, I can see some positives with it - such as being able to sit with different friends for each game - but I still would prefer reserved seating for students with season tickets.

Question 2 - I know some of the reasons they changed the rule, but do you see any constructive positives that will come from the rule change?
Answer: I can see that the administration will now want the most passionate fans to be closer to the field and those students who show up late to sit in the back.

Question 3 - Currently there is no rule against camping out like they do occasionally at Mackey--would you consider that an option.
Answer: If they allow camping out for football games, there isn't a student organization - like the Paint Crew for basketball - to monitor those camping out and ensure there is an organized line. Especially for some of the bigger teams that we will play against at Ross-Ade, I foresee students wanting to camp out for those. I'm curious to see how administrators will handle this.

Question 4 - Breakfast club/tailgating conflicts?
Answer: My concern is that students who will go and partake in breakfast club, will try to push their way through the seats to get closer/better seats. Breakfast club is a long standing tradition at Purdue and changing how students sit at a football game won't put an end to breakfast club. I just foresee more problems for security guards at the games. I have tailgated before several games with friends and family, and have enjoyed being able to show up right before kick-off to go to my reserved seat - that won't be possible this year.

Question 5 - State your year and your major please
Answer: Graduate Student, College of Technology.

xOpen AIR Chat is the creation of a senior-design project in the Department of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University. Members of the team are Kristeen Hudson, Will Grauvogel, and David Auble.

Built with Adobe Flex and XMPP, the application also uses custom Flex compontents created in Adobe Flash. The application runs on the Adobe AIR runtime.

For more details visit http://www.xopenair.com/