No… this isn’t about being environmentally conscious – although that is a good idea. 

Everyone remember my buddy Shelly?  She’s got a small video thing going – and from time to time she hits me up for ideas.  This time its a small Halloween Zombie flick and she’s been having problems getting a good clip of a virus growing out of control.  So I ask her to get online and I share my desktop so I can see what’s she’s been doing.

Let’s go over what she’s tried so far… clips of blood cells floating and even going disease ridden.  Good – but they look a bit too much like the same clips of blood cells floating by you see all the time – and very… 1960’s Fantastic Voyage – not really able to build any tension when you see them – because you expect Raquel Welch to float by in scuba gear any second.  Then… there’s Clips of viruses from CDC and other places …which… looked a bit too much like something from a High School Health Class once again – about all the menace of well… virus videos from health class.  She tired zooming in to make the virus grow, adding filters, colorizing – all kinds of stuff and it just didn’t get the menacing look she wanted.

We talked about it – and I pointed out maybe what she needed was just a good animation of an organic texture that grows.  We started out with … and yes she told me I was nuts… a fireball. 

Now, why a fireball?  Because they have this lovely growing and snarling growth pattern.  There’s something incredibly feral about fire – so we started with a fire.  We opened after effects – and we added a solid, then added the fireball footage I had, and used that as a texture on this lovely blood red solid.  So that the texture grows incredibly fast in all it’s firely furry. 

Now – when you make fire a texture you get this very 2 dimensional flat almost sandstone look… and at this point Shelly’s pretty much decided I’ve lost any touch I ever had… and here’s the 50,000 dollar tip for the day about making a slick organic from a texture.  The glass filter. ‘)

Glass filter has this wonderful ability to smooth and add a sheen to the texture.  Makes it very blood / liquid like.  Now she sees what we’re up to…  organic looks are really all about this very uneven growth pattern that looks – controlled.  Flames do that very well – as do water – even explosions – heck try several things and play around with it you’d be surprised at the results. 

Now – here’s the full sequence for those who want to try this… I used a flame – but you can choose any video clip you want.  I’m totally about playing around with different clips and see what kind of weirdness you get.

1) Video Clip (Fireball)
2) AE Solid > Color it how you like.
3) Texture the Solid with the Video Clip.
4) Apply the Glass filter to the Solid.
5) Apply Color Correction > Curves and adjust to your taste.  (Higher contrast gives a lot of drama)
6) Apply Text and other filters of your choice…. enjoy.

As you can see this gets you a very nice organic look – like flesh growing out of control.

In this case – I added a very simple timer and slapped the name of the virus for text, then added a video camera look to it using scan lines… and as the virus grows out of control we flare the light, adjust the focus with a blur, and eventually – even drop glass shattering like it’s broken the slide it’s under from growth.   An effect that I always loved – going back to old 1960’s movies like… the Fantastic Voyage… okay it’s hokey but it’s fun – and as long as it’s very short it works.  As with almost everything here – this is a project that will take about an hour of your time, it’s quick, and its from nothing but reused / recycled footage – which I’ve preached the glories of several times.  (Always keep your old stuff – even if it’s not useful for the project because you never know what it’s good for!!  :D)

Here’s the final:

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Everyone's talking about money these days.  How much the salaries have dropped and how much companies have dropped in what they’re offering prospective hires.

And the fact is – companies are offering less… for re-hires and we’d expect that.  The economy has tanked, and after all a company’s gotta make a profit.  Or… is that actually the real picture?  Good question.  Here’s some actual numbers for what’s been reported in for the IT sector anyway when it comes to what I do (and no… I do not make anywhere near what Salary.com reports and never have.  In fact I think I know 3 people in the business who make even close to the middle of that … and they’re some major names.  The reason why Salary.com’s numbers are inflated is they take into account benefits and stock options and so on… many of which really don’t exist anymore, but Salary.com is counting them as part of the salary.  Thinking that having 800 shares of Lucrative technologies stock is worth $42k of salary is laughable since I think they’re offering a lot of stocks for them out there in boxes of cereal as a free prize.  But that’s why Salary.com’s numbers are so high.)

If you look at the chart below from Indeed you’re looking at actual salaries reported over the last year.  It shows the period of the worst of the economic crisis – and that’s pretty clear.  The #’s dropped to the floor – and anyone who could get a job at that time basically took whatever they could get.  Then an odd thing starts happening just recently – the totals start to trend up. 

And they trend up almost as sharply as they dropped off.  The reason for this isn’t because the economy got better, or because employers suddenly had an epiphany that they were really underpaying… or that suddenly half the overseas and outsourced workers getting 1/4 of the wages here dropped out of the running.

It’s because well qualified, well skilled employees couldn’t afford to live off the salaries being offered  – and they started actually saying “I’d love to take the job but I’m already in the poor house with my mortgage, my car payments, the fact that I have an insurance bill that’s insane… so the answer is no.”. 

Bottom line – is people in the IT industry hit their bottom line.  Companies began to realize that if anyone was paying what they should have been paying for these jobs – then the employees they have were flooding out to the smaller shops which were willing to drop the dollars for rock stars.  Fortune 100 and 500 companies had to start playing match the dollar figure.  Let’s face it – working for Microsoft is cool and all but it’s not as cool if working there costs you your house.

So the players began to do what they do best… which is get in play.  That’s where we’re at now.  I’m seeing more and more offers coming across the table here at close to my old wage of a year and a half ago.  Which is good – because taking a 20%-25% cut in pay was killing me and everyone else I knew.  We’re not back to where we were and I really don’t think we ever will – but we’re getting to where we can survive without selling everything we have just to do the job we love.

I mentioned that Salary.com’s numbers were inflated – because of the fact that they’re including bonuses and other incentives.  This scales regardless of the size of the company.   Basically – the salary increases, based on the size of the company.  Mom & Pop shops paying the least – and megacorps  with 15,000 employees or more paying the most.  But… if the salaries themselves that get into your paycheck each month (see the Indeed.com numbers) don’t scale based on pay then where does that money go?  Why is it that the money you make as an employee from a Mom & Pop matches relatively closely to a MegaCorp according to Indeed but Salary.com says the MegaCorp pays you more?

Technically it does.  Just… you don’t see the money because it’s in bonuses or it’s in other “incentives”.  Just so we’re all on the same page here … I did check the bonuses offered, etc., and yes Megacorps do offer more perks.  But not that many.  There is one perk they offer (which due to their size they can offer this) that Mom & Pops can’t.  It’s insurance.  The bigger the company – often the more they pay on the employee’s plan.

Insurance offerings in most of the better IT firms offer great health care that they match in whole or in part.  So if you factor that in – you can see the difference between the totals above from Indeed – and the totals from Salary.com.

In the 10% category you’re seeing a difference between a company that provides basic health care – as you scale up to around the 75% scale you’re seeing health care benefits that are paid almost in full across the board.   So as the healthcare debate heats up you can see why so many insurance companies are fighting a public option.  They stand to lose billions.  Not just from IT but also from every other industry because these numbers tend to track pretty closely with other occupations.  Where the company pays more health care – the salary goes up.  But the employee never actually sees that money – the health care providers do.

Imagine half your salary – one way or another going to Health Care companies.  Think about that.  I did some number crunching.  Over my life I’ll pay out not one – but at least 3 million dollars in health care insurance.  I’m hospital phobic (seriously) – you can’t get me near an emergency room unless I’m dying… but I’ll pay millions.  As we all will – unless something is done to curb these costs.   Over 75% of the cost of healthcare in America is not the actual care of the patients.  Its for administrative costs… which is basically the filing of paperwork.  Endless paperwork (another phobia of mine) – which often leads to coverage denials.  So essentially you’re paying someone to refuse you service you just paid for.  That’s insane.  

If the economy is to improve, the cost of health care has got to be reined in.  It’s killing the small businesses – it’s killing the larger businesses – and it’s killing the people that work for them.  Just… my thoughts for what their worth.  My research is hardly scientific and there’s most likely a few holes in it I’m sure.  But based on what I’m seeing there’s something to it.

Anyone remember the Kings Row Taxi Service?  Of course you don’t.  Well you probably don’t unless you were playing City of Heroes on the Infinity server a couple years ago.  They were a group of superheroes in the City of Heroes MMORP that I used to hang with.  To say that the Taxi’s were awesome to hang with is an understatement.  But the problem with COH was it’s basic limitations. Eventually between work and other pressures I stopped playing.

The main limitation to CoH and what led to a lot of players leaving (myself included)–  was the role that the NCSoft the parent company had in constant “balancing'” and driving game design decisions of the game not on playablity but what became obvious as business decisions that had less to do with balance than wringing more dollars in player time.    This led to a series of nerfs followed by a series of power ups – well it’s an old story with any MMO that if you’ve played one we’re all familiar with.  I got to the point where it was the same battles over and over, the same powersets, and I’d been through every variation on every powerset and no complex banking/auction crafting was going to make up for the boredom of play.

Some urged me to get into WoW, others this or that… but frankly the whole having superpowers thing was fun and it gave me something to connect to my son with. 

One of the coolest things about CoH was the incredible accessibility of Jack Emmert – who wasn’t just one of the primary architects of the game but a regular player.  Jack and his team “knew” what people wanted even if they didn’t always let him give out his full vision.   He – and the rest of the team at Cryptic had legitimate gamer cred being old school all the way back to the RPG Champions.  In short, had NC left Jack and his team alone – CoH would have grown into something brilliant that would have given WoW a run for it’s money.  In many ways all CoH really needed was more of the design teams understanding of play mechanics – and a good solid reboot in design to get rid of all the trappings that NC had brought to the game putting more effort into playability and less effort into figuring out how to make everyone play another 15 minutes more.  Cryptic clearly had a vision – but they were stupefied by the framework they were forced to work with, the very limitations of how CoH had grown.  This isn’t to say CoH isn’t fun – it still is. Most players, like myself would leave for several months and come back.  But the doldrums of having “been there and done that” over and over would wash over us and we’d leave again.

Recently Cryptic entered into an agreement between Microsoft / Marvel Entertainment and Cryptic to create the Marvel Universe MMO.   Due to the nature of legal agreements it’ll probably be years before anyone knows the full story of why Marvel Universe never got out of the gate – but their loss was Cryptics gain. Since Cryptic had sold off it’s interests in City of Heroes many assumed that they’d be out of the SuperHero MMO game… but in true superhero fashion they pulled off a last minute reversal against the powers of boredom and dropped the bomb that since they’d based CoH on the online rights to Champions … they still owned those rights. 

And Jack’s one time vision of creating an MMO unfettered and to the fullness of the Champions RPG was going to come into being.   Using much of the knowledge they’d learned doing work on the ill fated Marvel Universe, and their vast knowledge of the Champions RPG, and experience in real world game mechanics for heroes learned from CoH… Champions Online came into being. 

Now… everyone who’s ever read anything about MMO’s knows that Cryptic has the ULTIMATE in toon creations – with more features, more options, more customizations than any other game design.  No one – from WoW to most standalones touches the character creation options you get with CoH, and since this is Cryptic – if you’re into customizing your toon you of course will not be disapointed.  If anything – it’s a bit too much now.  Just creating your character can take a good 2 hours.  

Champions – true to it’s RPG roots does not limit you to specific roles like “Tank” or “Blaster” or “Healer”  - your ability to pick and choose like menu items for powers I really I have to be honest didn’t think was going to work.  But the detail of thought that Jack and the Cryptic people have injected into things really shows here allowing people to literally get as wild as they want – not just with looks but with the powers themselves allow you to totally customize your character.  Looks, powers, you name it. 

I’m currently up to level 11 – and the play feels less like grinding but not a “Monty Haul” give away that others had thought might happen.  Part of this is due to a couple of very unique design options that Cryptics put into the game – the first is tossing away the concept of “leveling”.  Yes, you still level – but in a way you’re leveling constantly – so you add new powers or boost existing abilities constantly.   Add to this the crafting skills that allow even more character power and appearance customizations and you really get a game where leveling isn’t the goal.  The concept of “drops” is still there but it’s cleverly hidden as something you can build yourself – very powerful add-ons to your character cause no two toons to be cookie cutters of each other with different costumes.

This goes way beyond just appearances like being able to customize your powers and abilities colors and animations

  The way you slot your abilities based on drops and crafted items completely alters play.  Being able to mix and match builds on the fly – even between battles changes this up even more.  There’s tons to this very vast world that Jack and the team have created.  As I progress through the game I’ll keep updating and discussing features… but right now it’s late  - I’m tired – and the servers are down for maintenance.  :D

had someone ask me why they hadn’t seen me do anything with video or actually “post” anything but writings and musings in a while – and rest assured I will post more stuff very soon – so here’s the beginnings of some of the effects for a side project I’m working on. 

This is a bit of the standard glowing warping portal – and this is the pt 1 version – before all the toys have been added so to speak. 

It’s really only 4 layers – 2 particle layers that have had turbulent displacement applied, one which has a shine effect applied to generate the white/wispy/glowy globlets – the other uses the turbulent to give it the liquid look.  In this version – it’s appearing before it’s cover effect so you can see that early on in the shot.   If I didn’t have a cover effect coming – I’d probably drop in a gradual progression so that it kind of fades in – possibly even with a dissolve like Star Trek transporter type look to bring it in gradually.

Just for reference – I’ll probably be using a variant on that as a cover effect – or perhaps a ground pounding blast – hard to say – I want to see what I can bring out of the image and I’ll know more.  Since I’m dealing with a realtively bright natural light shot it makes it more difficult to sell effects.  Go too much – and they get cartoonish – go too little and they lack impact or look cheesy.  It’s a hard balance in unforgiving light values.  The upside to doing effects with natural light is of course that they also can help you sell the effect. 

In this case, I’ve duped the video layer with Haakon and I – created a nice matte, and then applied turbulent displacement to that, and by varying the opacity and using an expression to handle that layers turbulent displacement – we use the natural light to help sell the effect by warping whatever comes into the “field” of the portal.   Notice how we’ve got that nice '”pop bottle glass” warping illusion as I enter the portal?  That’s all that is. 

In fact all of the effects work on this clip here was done in about 30 minutes or so – using some footage I had been playing around with of just Haakon and I on the drive in front of the house.  To remove the shadow of me as I enter the portal (yes my shadow warps and fades out too) was nothing more than using a gradient alpha on the photoshop’d still frame I used to cover me up.  I use another photoshop element here – and you can see the momentary bump – to freeze Haakon and hide me walking back to the camera.

Mind you the finished version of this will not use this footage.  In fact, the finished version of this effect will most likely be stored as an object I can reuse for a variety of effects – but the finished version of the demo here will be completely different footage.  The effect – I’ll be able to basically drag and drop on to footage and use when i need a portal or something along those lines and I’ll keep repeating that until I see it happen.  :-D

All joking aside – I realized that much of the video effects I’ve done I can reuse on other footage so I’m trying to create a small library of good effects that can be reused and this is one of them.  I’ll get them posted when I’m done so people can play with them if they like.

Just when you thought it was safe… I drag you back into cXML validation! Hey – put down the torture devices…. it’s not what you think!  Remember a few posts back – we built a quicky validation tool?

Well had someone ask if I actually use that, and the truth is – no I don’t.  The actual tool that I use is the one shown here.  But all of this began as something very similar to the code you saw here.  There’s a lot more exception handling – and slew of features added into it since we / I use this for all kinds of cool eCommerce tests around work.  

As you can see the initial purpose of the tool remains the same, which is to validate cXML documents.  With this I can load the documents into the tool – and using any of the pre-populated addresses – it is capable of process an actual file, which is to say round tripping where we begin with the PunchOut set up request and go all the way through the Purchase Order (OrderRequest) and even the POOM (PunchOutOrderMessage).

It was built completely on the free VB Express system from Microsoft so it cost literally nothing to build.  Were I to sell this – I’d probably charge around $500 to $1200 depending on the added features I’ve put in there and people would I have no doubt pay that for it.  (I know because I’ve been offered that much for it).  So there’s no reason that with a bit of ingenuity someone looking to really add to their portfolio or even just make a few dollars can’t do this. Which is kind of the point to the exercises that I put up here. 

With the economy currently in shambles for the tech industry there’s a lot of things you can do for very little cash that can reap some good rewards.   You don’t have to spend $$$ or have a lot of start up cash, software or hardware.  What you need is to sit down and say, “What tools need to be built?”, “What do I need to do my job better?”. 

There is always a better mousetrap out there – and even if your budget is nil – all it takes is some very basic coding skills to make something that you, your department, your boss really needs.

Thats the root of it really using your skills to their best advantage.  If you happen to make a really great whatever so much the better.  And you’ll note I don’t use some exotic code – I use the very basic, very simple Visual Studio Express and a bit of code here and there to really  create a tool I need for my job.  This one was built because we didn’t have any test tools like this where I work.  Once again – you see a need – you build a tool.  The more you build the more indispensable you become.  Don’t wait for your job to out pace you  … out pace the job.  Create things.  Get messy.  Have fun.  It’s when we do this that we stand out form the crowd and get noticed.

Just some food for thought… take care until next week.

Haven’t spoken much on building just your basic website in a while and I thought I’d share a few quick and easy tips on what you can do for next to nothing.

Went out on www.mineeds.com and found myself someone looking for a new website – and I have to be honest the prices being quoted to this guy were pretty off the wall.  Granted, he wanted a shopping cart with a 50,000 song catalog… but I have to say $4,500 is a pretty steep bid (since the shopping cart does most of the heavy lifting and he’s already picked one out).

Had to ask myself – if I were starting a business could I really afford that?  Probably not.  What I’d be looking for is something a bit cheaper… like FREE.  Now most people don’t have the ability to do free – but many web builders can work a lot on prices to help small businesses by using a free template, a bit of ingenuity and a decent eye.

Here – on the left is what our guy started with.  Which… is pretty barren, and looks a bit retro-web 1990.  They want obviously a very upbeat pro-site – and those are not cheap.  But I figured I’d see what I could do with FREE just for fun.

(BTW – definitely check out the site here in a bit when the catalog is up sounds like they have got some good stuff there.)

I went to a number of free template sites – and finally found one or two that actually were free.  (Which is rare these days it seems – but that’s another rant for another day.)

Now, after some perusing I selected two free templates in PSD format that didn’t look half bad for something that said “Youth, Fun, Hot, Music” to me.  The author is listed as http://www.free-templates-download.com/?id=25 and you can get this one there.  It’s not bad – there’s a kind of music DJ flavor and it’s a clean tech design – menu on the left – company name at the top – and we can use this page to replicate all the other pages we need.  All in all it’s not a bad choice. 

Which is what you want to look for in templates – something that you can replicate for each of the pages, that allows room for catalogs and shopping carts in the center where it catches the eye – and with a nice big logo to get you that branding that every business needs.

It is however … for all it’s hip attempts… about as bland as vanilla ice cream with the cold blues solid colors and grays and and sharp edges and we need to change that.  We need hotter – we need louder – and we need something that says using the site will make you cool.  So for that we need to do a bit of Emmeril on it and do a Salsa BAM!! to it…. when we do… we get the page on the left here.

Really all we did was bring it into Photoshop, do a bit of playing with the color overlays, give them a nice readable logo… and suddenly we have something cooking there.  Duplicate a few of the image layers – give them a standard gradient overlay, set that to a color burn.  Do a corona flare on the girl – a bit of beveling to a layer with the DJ… and we have a bit of a smoking site design from nothing that cost us nothing.  (Which… I would recommend that everyone read the “nothing” and “free” carefully these days.  Just grabbing a template does not make you the owner necessarily.  ALWAYS read the fine print!)

Now… off the same website I found… this design which is very very dark skateboarder.  But… for some reason I saw something different.  I saw not the dark moody gray and black but a very fluid motion between the skateboarder and the tendrils above him that said, “Hey this catches an eye” but it needs to say “HOTTER” and “LOUDER”.  Which in some ways … is a shame because it’s such a nice simple design.  So … I did my best to make it loud and fun.

  And this is what I got.  I got flowing glowing tendrils of the night and flames coming off a glowing logo as a raving dancer dives into the heat of a party.  

Okay… that’s the schpeil I’d use to sell it – but the truth is the same design as above with a bit of “BAM” and you’ve got something recycled into a very cool look.  All of which – is essentially free, just takes a bit of elbow grease to unlock the look into something very unique.  Which is important.

Just grabbing a free template which has a decent design for a small business isn’t enough.  If the design is even half way good someone else has it.  You need to take it and make it your own.  How?  Simple.  Do what I did.  Don’t look at the design from “What can I make out of this?” but “What can I make this INTO?”  - basically what can I create from this that isn’t there.  Well – I figured music – I figured party – I figured South Beach – hot nights, good times, and smoking good toons.  Thats what they need.

The catalog is the easy part.  It’s just something displayed on a page.  The hard part is knowing what the page needs to say or do or look like to really sell.  It’s the difference between the 1990’s retro-web page with the simple text and links … and really hot links that sell items.

I was talking with my son the other day about summer jobs.  He wants some extra cash – and with us in a bit of a rural location it’s a little harder to wander up and down he street with a mower and offer to mow someone's lawn for $5. 

As we talked I started to realize how many jobs for kids are now gone.  Paper routes – the mainstay of child cash, have been killed by the internet like the newspapers themselves – well the internet and overall lack of humans reading at all.  Bussing tables is still popular but child labor laws prevent that at the age of 15… and you also have to fight with adults who are vying for the positions.  Same with McDonalds, stocking shelves, and many of the traditional minimum wage jobs of American youth. 

Not to be less than politically correct or insensitive to migrants – but the adage used by congressmen who applauded the opening of restrictions on immigration is that most of these jobs Americans don’t want.  Which may be true.  But there is a difference between not wanting a job, and not having them available to you due to excess competition.  Which isn’t to say the woes of American youth rest where they are because of illegal immigrants or any other such nonsense. 

No the woes of American youth rest where they are simply because we’ve systematically dismantled a number of jobs which, economists refer to as “long tail indicators”.  You have to wonder how many kids who wanted to buy 3 comic books can only afford to buy 1.  How many kids who wanted to buy mom something nice for mothers day, or spend a little cash on some bottle rockets or even an extra Hershey bar… aren’t doing that.  If they aren’t – then what effect does that have on things like candy bars and comic books and summer movie tickets and even… summer bonnets or cheap mothers day gifts. 

Humans react financially a bit like squirrels.  You cut off that long tail and yes, they can survive.  But not well.  The balance is gone, they can’t leap as far or as fast and they don’t recover very readily when they fall.

Just some food for thought.

“Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved.  The real milestones are less prepossessing.  They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave.  Our lives are measured by these.”  ~Susan B. Anthony

Sue – was not the hottest chick that ever lived.  In fact most people only remember her for being on the dollar coin with the stern faced babe that we all thought was a quarter half the time.  But, she was very wise.   We mark our lives by the events.  By birthdays and special days and things that happen once.  But the real milestones are the moments we have locked away inside us.  My first memory of my daughter is not of her birth.  I was most definitely there – I cut the cord, mine, were the first hands of our family to hold her.  But those are just a few of many precious memories – not my first memory of her.  Because at that moment in time, at the moment of birth - she was not the woman I know today.

My first memory of my daughter, was the day she grabbed my hair and grabbed my ear – and sucked on my nose and giggled.  As moments go it’s not the prettiest.  I’m pretty sure she has no recollection of it.  But that is my first memory of her as a person, unique and defined, and fully capable of making a decision, and mischief all her own.  That is a memory.  I'll always have it, and it will reside along side her first steps, her first words, her first day of school, her first playhouse, her first pet, her first dead pet, her first … you get the idea.  Her giggle was the sound of someone who knew what she wanted and knew she’d just gotten it.  No compromise.  No caring what anyone else thought on the subject… it was going to happen and there was nothing I or anyone else on this planet could do to stop it. 

That was the first time I really met my daughter – and it was wonderful. 

We, as a people have an obsession with someones “firsts”.  In fact, even graduations – which are actually celebrations of what has gone and what we have accomplished and completed – focus not on what the person has done but what they will do in the future now that they’ve graduated.  What new firsts will they have is apparently the gist of it.  When we’re supposed to be honoring the achievements that brought them to this brave new future.  We’re supposed to be honoring the journey – not the destination.  Often, with graduations we forget that.  Any journey worth going on is not easy.  If everyone could go there – why bother?  Well, Robin, was never one to take the easy road.  Not that she ever went out of her way to make her life more difficult – she didn’t have to.  She’s just never been one to let an obstacle get in her way.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”  ~Henry Ford

Robin, not everyone knows didn’t come into this world with the best of health.  She was born with a strep-b virus and for almost a week she required constant care, IVs, and a lot of work from doctors and nurses.  Often – these were not her assigned doctors or nurses, in fact the doctor that saved her life through this period stayed up with her for several days.  Changing from one vein to the next as they collapsed and he fought tirelessly to make sure she had the fluids needed to help fight the infection and survive.  We had very little money at the time, so you can imagine my surprise when the only bill we received from this doctor, was for the syringes and fluids.  I think from the time she was born, everyone knew that she was special.  She was not then, nor is she now, a child who dotes on “firsts”, she focuses instead on results in life and always has.  Her goals over the years have changed.  She for example, has not wanted to grow up to become a sled dog in Alaska named “Gus Yoshi” for many years.  :-D

Nor does she still want to be a veterinarian, or an architect, or … well she is a teenager.  The world for her is still a moving target.  For now – she wants to go into International Studies with a Business Major.  Which is incredibly practical, and incredibly pragmatic… and I have to admit… I sometimes wonder if she wouldn’t be  happier if she still wanted to be “Gus Yoshi” the sled dog, or Babe the big blue ox.   She has always achieved goals and often even if they were hard.  So her wanting to join the ORCA program while still in high school  was not a big surprise to me.  Her completing it – also not a surprise.  ORCA is hard.  My daughter – is harder – always has been, always will be.  She has a strength – a depth of character that I’m pretty sure even she has no idea how deep it goes.  It goes beyond passion, and beyond perseverance,  and beyond stubborn.  When Robin decides she wants something – well – something gets done.

For 17 years I have watched this child become a girl,and the girl become a woman.  I have seen her succeed, and fail, and live and love and laugh.  There is nothing more incredible that to be able to say that this woman, is perhaps one of my best friends – if not my best friend. 

I have seen her triumph and seen her tears.  She has been my rock – my anchor – my life. From the first time she climbed on top of me and grabbed my hair and my ear and chompped down on my nose giggling it has been a lesson every day for me.  If I had to pick the one lesson that she has taught me it is the lesson that you have to be true to you.  To live your own course, your own path.  She has taught me to live.  So today … is her day.  The day she graduates.  And I, am faced with the knowledge that soon… she’ll be on her own and gone full time.

But she will never be alone.  She will always have the very best part of me – my heart - with her.  I am not sure what course she’ll take over the next few months.  Whether its studies here, or somewhere else, what I can tell you is that where ever she goes, whatever she does, whatever life she chooses to lead… it will be, without a doubt a life without compromise. 

“There is just one life for each of us:  our own.”  ~Euripides

I had a couple calls this weekened from friends who are going through some rough spots.  Naturally we talked about things to bring in a little extra money.  Now one thing that always happens when people go through rough times is there is this tendency to not think about what resources they do have.

For example – a few months back I did a blog about how to do set-extensions.  A video set extension is a relatively simple illusion used on almost every TV show.  If the look isn’t right – the buildings wrong – the sky’s too this … you need a castle next door – you do a set extension.  It’s basically like doing a photo-shop for video.  Here’s an example…

Which – if you’re looking to add a few dollars to your pocket and have the skills – is a pretty simple trick. 

Go out – find some “Future Home” of signs, do some video of those locations.  If possible get some good images of the proposed site with buildings on it… offer your services to help sell their sites.  Show off your presentation skills. 

Believe it or not – this is the sort of work which can bring in a good $50 - $150 a month for very little work.  Include PhotoShop files as well as video in case they don’t have it.  The idea is to allow them to sell better.  Realators, Construction Companies, Architectural firms – all have a need for this kind of service.

Naturally, no promises but yeah, I do know that this sort of thing does help pay the bills.  So there’s my tip for this month - - and for everyone hoping I’d do a update on the cXML work I’m doing … I promise – that is coming.  But I’ve had a lot on my plate so – have had to work at … well, work. 

Okay… so had a few minutes this weekend and my son had asked about how the demons do their warps in the tv series “Charmed”. Ironically enough … Andrew Kramer had on his blog this week a bit that’s very much like the old “staked” flame away from Buffy and Angel.  So this is my way of giving and unabashed plug to Andrew and his site… and I would be really evil – if I didn’t mention he’s got all kinds of updated video tools you can buy there. 

Anyway – after a bit of telling my son that these effects weren’t as hard as you might imagine led to me grabbing some old video footage… And here’s a couple examples I did in After Effects to show him how easy these effects are to do.  Very fun – and surprisingly easy – they just take time.  My only complaint is I really need to break down and get a better quality camera because it’s sad when the CG work has better quality than the original footage. 

Now – admittedly the warping / warbling warp in on this is largely to cover the fact I was too lazy to go out and shoot any new footage so I took a bit of garbage footage lying around and used that as a quickie bit for the burn effect.

A better copy of the burn – is below.  Here I’m using a simple image of a penny and you can really see how the right media really makes the effect. 

So… let’s get down to how the effect layers out – and that is really the secret to making it work, a lot of layers each one over lapping the other. Now this is explained a whole lot better in one of Andrew Kramer’s tutorials and since I don’t do tutorials – and Andrew Does I’m going to refer you to him here. 

The only real twists I’m adding to this is – I don’t use any pre-comp’d smoke which he does, and I’ve simplified this up a bit so we’re not using several layers that he is.  Remember I’m doing this for just a very quick effect on some very grainy footage and Andrew’s outputting HD level.   For a lot of work (web for example) this is good enough and it’s very quick. 

So – we take a simple comp shot of just the woods – and another shot of me walking in these same woods.  If you have a green screen you can do this very quick – but if you’re just using raw footage it won’t take long for you to matte the woods out – and then overlay these shots.

Now – we apply the layered burn effect which is really just a combination of linear radiant's on a texture – that is then applied with color.  As this transitions across the layer it causes it to glow.

The next set of layers uses a similar radiant and glow effect on a texture – that we’ve boosted to a point where it’s pretty much a very jagged linear ramp that as we transition this across – gives the effect of it erasing or burning away what is below. 

We add over this a layer of smoke and some particles that pass over it. You can see that we need to do this on a very semi-transparency to the overlapping layers that are placed over the footage.  But that’s really how easy this effect is to pull off.  It’s not complicated – it’s just a bit of repeating the same effect with slight variations one over the top of the other, and then applying them in a set order.

Once again – you can get a great detailed video tutorial on this over at Andrew Kramer’s VideoCopilot.net site who is pretty much the definitive guy for any After Effects effect.  Any of us who do anything with video from your basic beginner to long time pros can learn a lot from him – so even if you’ve never used AE that’s the place to go if you want to learn these effects.

I’m taking a breather from the next installment of eCommerce talk.  Not that discussing the glories of PunchOut catalogs and on line supplier services isn’t hoot – but I needed to add a little color so I

grabbed a bit of video I had lying around and I did just that.  If you take a gander at the clip here ther’s a couple tricks that are pretty easy to create some very dramatic and colorful footage out of well, kind of drab footage. 

The clip here has the original footage, first – just a simple few seconds of the back yard around the house here on a typical Seattlish late afternoon.  Meaning – it’s overcast and dark.   And that’s not a bad thing – in fact the nice thing about it always being overcast here is that it’s easy to light a video shot, and you seldom ever have to worry about over exposing the shot.  But life isn’t always about various shades of grey.  Now, the original footage isn’t all that bad – there is some color there.  But as you can see its a bit washed out.  So one of the first fun things you can do to boost the color is to replace the sky entirely.  So I did – I spent a few minutes out there on Flickr and got a very nice flaming red sunset. 

¹Fun tip for Video and Design:

Which … btw – is under a creative commons license that allows it to be used.  Flickr has a very nice feature that allows you to do a search for works that are under the Creative Commons – so keep that in mind.  It’s under the Advanced Search settings – scroll to the bottom of the search options and check the boxes for Creative Commons reuse policies.  You can even have it search for stuff that you can use commercially – which – is pretty cool.  (Be even cooler if you could download actual video instead of flash videos – but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.)

Anyway, like I said, I got on on Flickr and looked around for a very very dramatic flaming red sky since I really wanted to give the shot a vibrant dramatic boost.  Now the trick to doing this with a shot that’s very effective and very quick is not to roto-scope all the frames but to do a color matte.  What’s a color matte? It’s really simple to do in After Effects and it’s very useful.  First things first – is to duplicate the shot, and then desaturate it completely.  Then hit the levels and totally boost the sky so it’s got a really almost black and white look.  Then, last but not least bring in a good luma key.  Drop the photo in behind it so it shows through the key – and wallah – you have a very dramatic sunset.  Now, you may have noticed that it’s ALL black where it’s not colored sunset… so drop a mask across the area you want to show at the bottom and pin to that the original footage.  Do a little color correction on it and you have the very dramatic scene you see here.  (A little more work and we could get the little color spots out of the edging – but this was done very quickly  - even still its very dramatic.  Got a nice vibe to it and the colors' literally scream at you. 

What it is not however … is particularly realistic.  And the downside of this technique is that you really make the fine details get blocky and pixelated. So its really good for less than photo realistic effects but you need to use it wisely or it really will drown out any moments that need to be done subtley.  So … how do you color it up without losing detail and without making it… blah?   Color correction gel.  What’s that?

Simple – the way you’d get a similar effect is to use Andrew Kramer’s free AE plugin – the Colored Gel Effect.  It takes a bit of getting used to and tweaking to get just the look you want – but the results are awesome.  If you look at the detail of the trees – they keep that very soft pine needle blur, and when they move in their own way they’re very … cabin on the lake.  I was tempted to play around with a mask or two on the barn down there – but decided to leave it be – basking in the golden sun.    You know they say that Lighting sets the mood for a shot quicker than anything – faster than sounds, faster than anything in the shot.  So play around with some color, have some fun with it.  I will.

Nope… not a mis-spelling – that’s POSR, as in Punch Out Setup Request.  As part of this current set of postings on cXML and the magic that is eCommerce that’s the subject dujuor.  The totally awesome and completely cool … POSR.

Now, a POSR is probably the single most important part of the eCommerce step by step.  It’s what authenticates and allows and online catalog to be sent to you. 

Here’s what one looks like  courtesy of www.cxml.org…

The first section of a POSR handles the Doctype and how to handle the document…

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE cXML SYSTEM "http://xml.cXML.org/schemas/cXML/1.2.020/cXML.dtd">
<cXML payloadID=1233444@ariba.com   timestamp="2000-03-12T18:39:09-08:00">

Now the grey line up there has the doctype and you can put all kinds of good things in there but what I’m showing here is the most important part – the DTD.  With this badboy you can write an app that will allow you to validate all your cXML and make sure it works, using some very simple XML routines and a few free tools available on the web. 

TIP:
You can – also find xml validators that can read the DTD – but many will choke on this line.  XML Notepad for example is designed for pretty much XML only and not cXML, and will choke.  The same thing goes for some browser based viewers.  If that’s all you’ve got to view xml – remove this line and you’ll find it’ll load the file fine.

Anyway, you can use the DTD to learn a lot about what’s wrong with any cXML that you’re given (or that you create) by validating it against the DTD.  So if you’re not – do so.  It’ll save you weeks of headaches.  This is especially true if you’re dealing with SAP or some of the Oracle solutions out there that like to write their own versions of cXML, or worse let you output in any fashion you want without telling you there are rules to how cXML is processed. 

<cXML DTD and  Consultant Rant Begins Here>
I would say 80% of the work I’m currently doing is on telling people how to validate their cXML, and fighting with people who tell me, “But we work successfully with dozens of vendors doing it this way…”.  That may be the case – but cXML has rules, and it doesn’t matter how anyone else works – if you’re outputting to cXML you follow it’s rules or you pay.

The reward for following the rules is that if you do have a valid document – cXML is as stable as a rock, and your cXML will process like cannonball from a cannon.  So it is worth the effort to do it right, even if your “consultant” tells you it’s not necessary.  (Clue – if your “expert” tells you it’s not necessary to follow a standard… slap them.  They either don’t know how to follow the standard, have been told by a software application advertisement it’s not necessary, or something but the bottom line is – they don’t know.  I’ve seen a rash of “consultants” who claim this standard or that standard isn’t needed.  It usually is – and the only reason why they don’t or they won’t use the recommended DTD standard is that they assume what they’ve been told by articles or others who are not familiar with them, that a DTD is basically the same thing as an XSD schema.  

They hold many things in common, and often have a degree of interchangeability – but there is a reason why a DTD and an XSD exist and we don’t just use one or the other.  The subtle nuances in how they work allow them to perform different degrees of use for different types of uses.  For cXML the DTD is the model you need to be using, and one of the reasons is that certain required fields within the cXML DTD file enforce rules needed to make cXML work efficiently and correctly.  When consultants try to slip around these rules, or try to get loose with the rules – it may work fine on their local system, but when they try to connect to anyone else, it becomes costly and time consuming.
</End Rant>

Before move on, it’s important to point out one thing in the DTD.  DTDs are versioned.  Each version has it’s own requirements and rules.  If you find that you’re not validating – check the version which you’re validating against – it does make often a very big difference.  You can read more about each of the versions, and get copies of them at www.cxml.org.

So… let’s get back to the POSR.  What this does is it handles the hand shaking between the customer who is “Punching Out” to the vendor who has the catalog of goods that they will punch out to us.  Now the concept of the “PunchOut” is very simple.  A customer may have a massive catalog of items, but we don’t want all of them, or we may have rules regarding certain items in the catalog.  (Joe the Janitor probably isn’t allowed to buy the same things that Victor the V.P. does at a company.)   This can be controlled by the catalog that is “punched out” to the customer.  And all of this – begins with the POSR, where we authenticate not just the company but often the employee at the company who is requesting access to the catalog. 

This is done at the header of the POSR.  Here’s what a header looks like:

<Header>
        <From>
            <!-- Supplier's identity -->
            <Credential domain="NetworkID">
              <Identity lastchangedTimestamp="2000-03-12T18:39:09-08:00">AN01333333333</Identity>
            </Credential>
        </From>
        <To>
            <!-- BCE's identity -->
            <Credential domain="NetworkID">
                <Identity>AN01222222222</Identity>
            </Credential>
        </To>
        <Sender>
            <Credential domain="AribaNetworkUserId">
                <Identity>admin@ariba.com</Identity>
                <SharedSecret>bce's shared secret with AN</SharedSecret>
            </Credential>
            <UserAgent>Ariba Network v20</UserAgent>
        </Sender>
    </Header>

The area you need to pay closest attention to is the one that reads “AribaNetworkUserId”, which I’m going to break from things here and point out that cXML is a standard developed by Ariba, and so – you’re going to see a lot of cheerleading for them in it.  But you will probably have to change this for some eCommerce companies who… ahem… have competing products.  But what you should never deviate from – is the use of a ID and SharedSecret.  These will generally be supplied to you – from the vendor doing the punchout.  These are the most important part of the punchout.  Without them… you won’t authenticate, you won’t get a catalog and you will most definitely not pass go and collect $200.

Now if you’re familiar with earlier versions of cXML you’ll note that up in the Suppliers Identity – there’s a lastChangedTimestamp and you may not have seen that before.  The truth is cXML (even with all those DTD rules) is very flexible.  And you can actually put in your own Identities in this section so if your internal cXML processor needs other names to identify it – go to it.  I’ve actually seen cXML where there were up to 15 Identities here.  So long as the Identity that you and your vendor have agreed upon is in here amongst the others you can get pretty creative and this is a good place for you as an organization to make use of multiple identities.

The next part of a good punchout setup request is … the request itself.   It contains a cookie, and if you have to do debugging something really handy… the BrowserFormPost.  If you can locate this you can discover exactly here it originated from – and often this can help with network an connectivity issue resolution.  So – keep track of that. 

<Request>
    <ProviderSetupRequest>
        <OriginatorCookie>c546794949</OriginatorCookie>
        <BrowserFormPost>
             <URL>http://service.ariba.com/returntome</URL>
        </BrowserFormPost>
        <Followup>
             <URL>http://service.ariba.com/laterUpdates</URL>
        </Followup>
        <SelectedService>BCE.Edi</SelectedService>
        <Extrinsic name="user">
           <Identity>user234</Identity>
        </Extrinsic>
        <Extrinsic name="url">
           <URL>http://service.ariba.com/anotherurl</URL>
        </Extrinsic>
    </ProviderSetupRequest>
</Request>

Also up in there… are the extrinsics.  Now I’ll let you in on a secret.  Most of the stuff you see up there?  Look up in the DTD – you’ll find a lot of it is not required.  Remember that rant on DTDs I had up above?  The DTD – will tell you exactly what fields are required and which fields are optional for cXML.  Now, some vendors may have rules over and above those – but the DTD is core.  It speaks – the world listens.  So – check to see what you need and what you don’t need. A good rule of thumb for efficient processing is that if you don’t need to be sending  it – don’t.  All that does is make the systems on the vendor’s end have to read through it and figure out if it’s needed or not.

Put into a cXML document only those things you absolutely need for the best performance. 

And that leaves us to the last part about the POSR… the closing tag. 

</cXML>

I won’t go into a rant over tags here – but I will say that a well formed document with complete tags is essential.  Don’t get sloppy.  cXML is not forgiving when it comes to tags.  It’s not chopped HTML where an unclosed tag will let it slide through.  It may work on your system – but validate, validate, validate. 

Get a tool which handles DTD validations, or roll your own.  Either way – validate your stuff.  If you use a tool like SAP or Oracle, find out how to get your output – even if you have to get it from the server logs and validate that.  Make sure the application you’re using actually does churn out valid cXML if you’re sending it to a vendor.  The time you save on that one chore – may save you weeks of arguing back and forth which of you has the problem.  Don’t just assume your cXML output is good – KNOW it’s good because with the flexibility in some tools that I’ve mentioned it will actually let you create very bad cXML that no one can run no matter how forgiving their system is.

Well this is a larger post than I meant – but I’ve been behind on my postings… so seemed I should make up for it here.  Next we’ll look at the PunchOutSetupResponse (the return to the POSR) – the OrderRequest and the POOM.  (Yeah, yeah… I can tell you’re all shaking with anticipation.)

See you next week.

Been a bit busy… so I figured I’d give everyone a taste of the somewhat promised cXML eCommerce toy I’m working on.  So here are a few screen shots.  As you can see – it’s designed to load cXML or XML and perform validations.  It also allows the tester to actually POST the cXML PunchOut and OrderRequests directly to the server.  This retrieves complete header information.  The tester can auto-generate OCI HTML web forms that can be sent to customers for their own testing.  

You can also verify Authentication Tokens, Session IDs, and perform HostName / IP Address checks. 

The cXML validation allows the user to validate against any of a number of DTD files, from cXML to those used by OSN or even 3rd party or local files.  Anyway… that’s what has been keeping me from Posting.   In the next week or so – I’ll get some code up and discuss how eCommerce procurement systems work a little more directly. 

Until then… you’re just going to have use these shots and wonder.  (And for the record … yes I have removed any sensitive info from these screen shots.  The cXML displayed is a generic OrderRequest form. 

So I’ve been pretty bored of late.  Over at work I’m working on eCommerce issues – mostly dealing with the various choices vendors have in linking to our network and they all involve XML based products.  You’d be surprised how many top notch IT departments have grown so reliant on tools by Oracle and others for their procurement solutions they literally click buttons and fill in forms without knowing how their tool really works. 

Not that I’m an expert on procurement (well actually I suppose technically I am) but it seems to me that any time you’ve sufficiently automated yourself to the point that you don’t know what kind of XML you’re pumping out, how it gets to the other guy and what kind of an output you need to put out… your over adapted to your technology and now dependant on it.  Which is never a good thing.

So naturally – since I handle a lot of post-production troubleshooting these days… I automated things with a few tools.  I’ll detail these out in a future blog since I’m pretty sure most people have never had to deal with cXML or understand the difference between it and standard XML, and I’ve encountered several “Oracle Gurus” who keep insisting that what Oracle pumps out is “XML”… it is – but not in the classical sense anyone else would expect.

So I’ve started a couple projects there to make it easier for people and those are forth coming…

I also… decided to do a bit of video fun and that… is how I fought off boredom this weekend.  Did two bits you can find here

and here…

I think by now everyone knows – I’m a fan of Alan Moores the Watchmen.  I also think that there’s a fair chance a lot of people have seen the movie.  Experienced it. 

The graphic novel is a very powerful story that you either get – or you don’t.  As they went to the effort of creating the world of the Watchmen on film they were so very careful to keep the detail of the visual.  Zach Snyder the director – is great for those kind of details.  And he did – he pegged it visually almost perfectly So where the movie works best is in replicating that world. 

Where it fails is in those areas that don’t fit on film.  The subtle nuances that can only come from a book.  What we are left with on screen from his efforts can best be described as a visual feast – an optical orgasm – a color filled three dimensional… turd.

(If you have not seen the movie – turn back now – spoilers ahead)

I am not a purist.  When I heard that the original ending wasn’t used I kind of wanted to cut Zach a break because all of the visual elements of the film were done so well in the pre-release scenes we got to see.  Now I have to admit that by removing the original ending and substituting Doc Manhattan as the “big evil” that the world must fear to draw us together.  Now not only didn’t this work as a plot device but there is a rule about monkeying with a classic story – if you’re going to change the plot – change it for the better.  So – all of that was a waste.  Zach’s attempt to provide us with the message that the only reason we’re decent humans is our fear of Dr. Manhattan (substitute “God” for Dr. Manhattan and you’ll see what Snyder was shooting for and missed) – this message almost everyone missed who wasn’t watching for Dreibergs lines at the very end.

And the hinting that – perhaps – maybe – there could be “more of the story” a … sequel?  That’s just incredibly poor taste.  For those who missed these hints – trust me it’s all there.  It was blended carefully … hidden, almost like a subtle threat - but it’s there.  Snyder sold any die hard fan out with that ending.  The original, would have made far more sense.  I had to ask several people if anyone else caught the supposed logic of tying the nukes to the death of the inmate Rorschach “greases” in the film. 

With the supposed logic that when he died – the prison would go insane – and this somehow would be the trigger for Dr. Manhattan's global attack.  Umm… yeah… that… is a lot more believable to the world and will bring them together than being attacked by an alien life form which wipes out all of New York, and causes madness for miles around. 

The film was rushed – and although visually detailed – the story was so lacking as to cause a feeling as if we, like Dr. Manhattan, are merely observers to this world and have no real emotional stake in it.   And I can’t blame the actors who did amazing jobs on this.  Each understood their characters so well and brought them to life adroitly – with the exception of Ozymandias.  Who was, card board – a cut out of the book’s character and not a very good one at that. 

If it were not for Jackie Earle Hailey’s stabilizing presence of the character Rorschach this film would not even merit discussion.  It’s his complete and total ability to sell the character of Rorschach that allows the film to work even on a basic level.  He’s supported of course by the other performances that are damned good, but it’s his time on screen both with the mask on and off that really sells this movie. 

Even the death scene works without going over the top, and he brings to the role the sensitivity and an empathy needed for us to buy the meaning to his death.  This is where the film really works – in the scenes with Rorschach.  Here Snyder can wring out of the story something close to what the story really is, his attempts with Manhattan, and NiteOwl are well intended but they’re only “good”.

This is not a movie that can get away with “good”.  You either have bought into the premise presented and are going along with it or you haven’t.  Which frankly is where it fails and falls flat. It’s the insecurity of Snyder’s need as a director to reinforce the world he’s created that moves it from allowing us to accept it to rub it in our faces.  It’s in his need to keep beating us over the head with “Hey this is an alternate 1985” or “Hey did you notice I can put yet another blue penis into this shot in spite of the fact that it wasn’t in the book… I just thought it’d be cool to show a blue man’s penis so you’d know he has not concept of or the need for clothing…”.  So instead of just having these details where they belong – they become a gaudy display, they rub our noses into this world. 

Instead of acceptance it becomes a struggle to accept.  The actors have given us their all, the sets, the crew, all have provided us with a perfect replica of the world needed for us to fall into this reality … and then the Director has to screw it up by forcing this world on us rather than letting us see it, accept it, and not need to have storied aesthetics that add nothing and make us go “Huh?  What? – Why… Wha?” and before we can digest it – have the story move on again to a moment which seems not to make any more sense than the words before.  As a result … It’s a long movie that ambles all over the place trying to make a point and in trying to make so many points - it’s doubtful if it ever does. 

Others may judge this film differently but to me – this was a film that needed to be made in 3 films – and to take your time.  But that’s not what we got.  It was pretty.  It was kind of deep.  But it was not… the Watchmen.

In a bit of a hurry this morning so this’ll just be a cap up of what’s going on.

The Job Market in the Pac Norwest for software development and IT has definitely taken a blow – but there’s still a lot of work out there.  I still receive about 4 or 5 job requests per week (my resume is unusual as I have job skills that are uncommon).  But most of these for the last three weeks are not ones I’d really look into unless the economy is bad.  The practice of sending out contact emails for positions with unrealistically low or unrealistic job requirements (usually both) for the purposes of being able to say, “We couldn’t find anyone here in the USA qualified” is still pretty rampant.  I’ve seen about 6 of those in the last month.  (When was the last time you saw an honest request for a Program Manager with a background as a Sr. Developer with 10 years experience for $25/hr??  Yeah – they seriously want to fill that position.)

It’s insulting and disgusting that companies will go to that length to justify hiring outside the US, and it’s more annoying that the offers come from respected legal and recruiting firms.  I won’t say who I’ve seen use this the most – however you might be surprised their one of the longest and major supporters of Open Source software and similar initiatives.  I’ve said it before that one of my core dislikes of the OSS community is it’s naiveté regarding the fact that their largest supporters exist because they’re too cheap to pay for software and have always felt software had no value.  It becomes pretty obvious when a companies true motivations for greed and being cheap are so thinly veiled behind the cloak of “We’re one of the good guys!”. 

Let’s face it – if you’re not making your money off the development of the software that people use, then you have to be making it off the process of selling it or supporting it.  In a model such as that the guy on the low end of the totem pole will always be the guy who created it in the first place.  They are the ones who’s efforts are not perceived as having value because it’s their efforts they place as having little or no cost associated to them.  (If you’re not charging anyone for the hours it took to develop  product – which is where that model places the cost recoup at – then the developers and creators are effectively valued at ‘zero cost”.)

So where do these companies place value?  They place it on the management end of things and the sales end of things.  The sales of the software, and over a long term the sale of the software support, or the sales of the software as a service.  Bottom line – the jobs they really care about are managers and sales people.  For the people who come up with the software, who spend the hundreds and thousands of man hours to code it to test it and to bring it to life?  Well, they’re a necessary evil – one which if they can find anyone to do it cheaper – they will.  Which is why yes… they do send out emails to people here in the USA looking for jobs, people they’ve often

The HR departments of these companies can sign up for (and line up for) classes to learn how to do this.  And this doesn’t burn you up – the fact is this is not the “American Job” vs “Overseas Job” issue that drives this, and those probably hardest hit are – as incredible as this may seem – overseas wokers.  Overseas, in places like Hyderabad, Beijing and the former Soviet Republics you’ll find the amount of fraud based job services there is a full blown industry not all that different than Coyote hustlers that tell immigrants they can sneak them through the American border but take their money and leave them, often with no hope of survival.   Now, if you say, “Hey we’re cracking down on these bastards”, I’d like to point out – they busted 11 people and companies.  11 of them is not even a band aid on this gaping wound.  11 busts isn’t even lip service to the literally billions being spent on this.  The fact is that as long as it’s profitable for these companies to treat the people who create products you use like dirt (and for many of us – that person is us) they will continue to do so. 

So – hey – support the open source movement - make software free to everyone.  It is after all, just someone's idea – it’s not like has value right?  Anyone can do it, and with the right sales model we can recoup the loss by selling maintenance, and services.  While you’re at – you may want to head down to Walmart and buy a nice coat made by children overseas to keep warm in on that unemployment line.  Just some food for thought. 

Several years ago, my then very small daughter, wanted a dog.  I didn’t want another pet.  We had too many pets then, and adding another was, well, just nuts.

So naturally – we got another dog.  Not just any dog… but a 2 time loser.  A dog who, as a puppy, was so unable to be house broken or trained it had been returned to the animal shelter twice.  It was actually marked by animal control to be put down on site if returned again.  My daughter saw her at the animal shelter on the day of her final return.

There was something between that dog, and my daughter that clicked.  My daughter didn’t pick her, so much as the dog picked my daughter.  Which, frankly was how that little dog’s mind worked.  So it came to our home.  When I was told about the dog’s history, my only request was that I got to name it.  I told my wife that if we kept it the dog’s name would be “Alimony”.  And if she brought home anything else it was going to be named “Child Support”.   So – in part out of spite – and in part because it was cute – the dog was brought into our family and was it really was registered with the name “Alimony”, or “Allie” as we came to call her. And for most people, and for most dogs, that would be the end of the story.

But this story is a long one, the dog’s uncanny bond to my daughter was such that for a dog that was to be put to sleep for it’s unwillingness to be obedient – my daughter could get it to do seemingly anything.  It would ironically become my daughter’s 4H project, and a show dog, go to State Fair and receive a blue ribbon, not once but twice, showing for my daughter.  It would win many ribbons, and it would dance and come alive in front of crowded stands, never once taking it’s brown eyes off my daughter… except for those occasions when it was trying to pick a fight with dogs much larger.

It became my daughters friend, and in many ways a mentor. There is a spirit, a stubbornness, that comes with being a very small terrier.  It allows them to take on animals much greater than themselves and never flinch.  Genetically, her breed was meant for fighting badgers and large rats.   They have, no idea that they’re little, they have an objective - and they don’t give up.  Size, shape, condition, odds, none of that matters to a terrier.   And they project an odd set of qualities that causes them to think they can win, and often do, against all odds.

It’s part courage, part bravery, part determination, and part just incredible stubbornness to never give up, never give in, and never think the battle is lost, or worse – not worth winning.  I suppose, if dogs are like their masters – well perhaps that’s where my daughter gets that quality.   You have to develop that kind of heart from somewhere, that drive.  It doesn't’ come naturally to humans.   

My daughter if she learned to be that way, well it was from Allie.  Whose loyalty to her was incredible, and whose love, was boundless to the very end.  Alimony out lived two of her younger dog peers (of course we had more dogs after we got her… this IS our house… if animal is lost, hurt, bewildered or just plain strange it winds up here… and for all my grumbling… I’ve yet to say no.).  She got to be loved admired and adored by many, many people. 

Admiring people aside… she had something that was the most important thing in the world to her – and that was my daughter.  So despite the fact that she when given any chance would raid he garbage, or commit a dozen unspeakable acts to my things, all she had to do to get my approval was see my daughter – and wag her tail.  There was a level of love there – that frankly – it wouldn’t matter what she did, for being that loving and loyal to her master… well, what’s a little garbage right?  It picks right up off the floor y’know??

Allie developed some lumps a while back, in places where, well, dogs shouldn’t have them.  And as she got older and older her arthritis kicked in,  and on the not so good days, hopping up to lie on the bed wasn’t really something she was up to either.  So, we’d help her up to her favorite places.

But she still, even on her worst days, would pop up, hop off where ever as if there wasn’t a thing wrong with her… and trot after my daughter whenever she heard her.  She would grow older and more and more senile – often I’m fairly sure she had no clue who I was and I’d double the bet that she wasn’t really sure who she was, but she was cheerful about it.   On several occasions we’d take her to the vet thinking maybe it was time.  But it wasn’t.  She still had things she wanted to do.  She still had just a bit more enjoyment out of life, a few more tail wags, a few more barks, a few more French fries to steal and garbage cans to knock over. 

But even the most vivacious of lives, comes to an end.  Allies was very much like her entire life.  It was cheerful, and full of zest, and even when you’d have thought she was gone – she heard my daughters voice, and her head came up, and her tail wagged one more time.  As if to say, “I am so glad to hear your voice, and it’s okay.”, and then she laid her head back down. 

Alimony’s life, was if anything, about what you could do with a life – if someone gave you the chance.  She got her second chance – and she made the most of it.  Doing things no one believed she could, never taking anything from anyone else, never backing down, never slowing down, never giving ground, never giving in.    She was my daughters best friend, best ally, and in many ways, her best teacher about all that you need to learn to succeed in life.

She will be missed.

In keeping with the last post I thought I’d share a few keepers of films I ran across while doing some research.

First up is a fun little flick called “The Seance”  by Arun Vaidyanathan, which is a nice little work.  Two people – very compacted dialog, good delivery and very simple but effective camera and lighting work. 

Its not a film that relies on trickery or abusive visuals – it’s got a very simple story and that’s what it tells.

All in all it’s worth the 6 minutes of your life required to watch it.  The only downside is that quite frankly they had such nice characters and such a good story they never finish it. 

It’s really hard to pace a film down to 5 minutes and keep the quality even.  This is a nice even film – which sadly is just cut 30 seconds short of the blow off for the tale.  Over all this is a great little film and I can see why it was an award winner.  Which… compared to my next choice makes this oscar winning material.  Our next entry was a Sony Award winner.  Why – I have no clue.

 

Burning Life… is first of all – not a film.  It’s not really a documentary and it’s not really a narrative and it’s not really anything more than a guy and his girlfriend burning a small pile of his crap – sorry his life – in his backyard as some kind of protest. 

He then starts to strip and there is a gratuitous use of bad filters and bad video effects for color channels and he breaks most if not all the cardinal rules of even amatuer camera work and … it’s really amazing this won an award of any kind and it just goes to show you that if you toss enough “I’m clueless” around people can, and will assume you’re some kind of artist.  Hate to say it but … it is largely true.

Which… leaves us to … the gem of the post.  A short film that is done soooo well you almost can see this getting the Oscar it’s been nominated for.  Our Time Is Up… is funny – it’s actually way past funny.  And at the same time there’s so much more going on with this film. 

This film … sheesh – great – just… shut up and go watch it.  All I can say is … this is what people who do short films need to set as a bar to shoot for – and let’s face it… how does that make you feel? 

And may Shakespeare forgive me for that unbridled paraphrasing of the immortal Hamlet in a blog title, but like so many things in life, it had to be done.

See I just got back from a weekend of rummaging through youtube, hulu and several other video outlets for amateur videos out there and I was amazed, amused and befuddled by how many really talented people there are out there making videos.  I was also feeling a bit like Simon Cowell after a bender with Paula Abdul at how many talented people there were making videos that really didn’t need to be made.  Kind of reminded me of my mothers sage advice that “Just because you can do something… doesn’t mean you should.”.

I began this quest because for some time now, I’ve said I wanted to get back into doing at least some small projects with film.  Nothing fancy but some good stories.  So … I stated out by seeing what others had done.  I won’t slam anyone out there for making an amateur film.  Anyone who does get to the point of where they’re actually shot something deserves props. 

But I will say that before I even shoot a frame – I’m going to have a good story. 

Not a good script… because there are a lot of really great scripted videos out there that, well let’s be honest here, they are not going to win any awards.  Actually I’ll take that a step farther there are a lot of great videos out there that have won awards that really are almost painful to watch – and all the awards on the planet won’t change that.

What every great script / bad film out there seems to be missing is a good story.  I don’t mean they aren’t well written or clever or artistic.  I mean to say they have no story.  A 3 minute film can have a great story.  A epic length movie may have no story at all. 

The story is the key.  It’s what it’s about and it doesn’t matter the genre or or the words.  It’s what is happening.  Does it grip you?  Does it make you care about the character (no matter how bad the acting is)?  I mean, look at “The Happening”.  Really its not bad acting on the part of Wahlberg and company and the script … well the script is horrid but where the real horror started was with the story itself.  There isn’t one.

See most people will say the story is about Wahlberg and the world having to survive mother nature’s culling of the evil humans on the planet.  No… that is the plot of the movie.  The story – would have been about the relationship between Wahlberg and Zoe Deschanell, or the story would have been about some other character.  But to say that any of that existed beyond even the most anemic form is to give credit where there is none.

A plot, and the dialogue support the story.  But the story needs to stand on it’s own or everything is just window dressing.  To make a great little film or a great epic film… one needs a good story or you’re just wasting video.  So… before I start this little project of mine… I need a good story.

Here’s my story short list of what I need to keep in mind while I work on it.

• I have a really limited budget.
  (Not gonna be able to rent equipment, locations, or people.)
• I have a really limited shooting schedule that is impacted by environmental conditions. 
  (Rains here a lot, I work a 40 hour week, and I can’t guarantee who I’ll have available.)
• I have a very limited cast.
  (Depending on the story – it may even only be me).
• I have a very limited amount of quality equipment.
  (One – two cameras, lights are very limited, going to be hand held or limited amount of boom and stationary shots.)

Now that I have that list … I can file it under “NOT IMPORTANT”.  Because none of that will affect a good story.  A good story … doesn’t need a budget.  It doesn’t need to worry about schedules.  (See: American Graffiti – for decades it held the record of dollar for dollar being the highest grossing film ever made. Lucas shot it for next to nothing, on a schedule that no one would have considered.)

And cast frankly – doesn’t matter.  A great story makes up for bad acting.  In fact, a great story often covers up bad acting.  Limited equipment and a lack of shot choices… pfffaw.  Look up the Seventh Seal some time.  Look up anything by Hitchcock or Howard Hawks.  Look up Treasure of the Serria Madre or the Maltese Falcon or Casa Blanca. 

And then … go hit Yutube… and Hulu… and Atom… then sit down with a big cup of coffee and a empty note book, and a clear head… and think of great stories.