Category Archives: Computers

Tweeku Launches

March 9, 2010 – 9:34 am

Congratulations to my friend Greg Pierce, who launched Tweeku today, a super-nifty iPhone app he wrote for composing Twitter messages and other short-form texts (including haiku)! I’ve been testing it off and on for a few weeks, and am really impressed with what he’s done with it. Here’s the company line:
Tweeku is a twitter writing [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Friends | Comments (0)

You Have Unlocked an Achievement: Prognostication

February 24, 2010 – 2:09 pm

A while back, I wrote a post on Workplace Motivation and Game Mechanics, where I speculated on the efficacy of using game systems, like achievements, awarding points, high score lists, etc., to help motivate people in the workplace.
Last week at the DICE Summit, Carnegie-Mellon Assistant Professor of Education and Technology Jesse Schell gave a terrific [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Games, Politics | Comments (0)

VoiceBand for the iPhone

January 29, 2010 – 9:52 am

And while I’m rambling on about music software, this is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long while:

VoiceBand is software for the iPhone that lets you do multi-track recording using your voice as a controller for various instruments. Very clever indeed.

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Music, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Magnolia Conference 2009 Report

September 24, 2009 – 11:18 am

This is a lightly tweaked version of the report I submitted to the University after returning from Magnolia’s first-ever conference, in Basel, Switzerland. I realize I need to write up a more general-interest trip report, but have been dreadfully short on time since our return. I have, however, recounted our adventures often enough now that [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Travel | Comments (0)

On Software Testing

July 23, 2009 – 8:29 am

Over the past several years at the University, we’ve had to hire for a variety of programming and programming-related positions. One of the interviewing practices we’ve adopted is to give candidates a programming assignment which they can complete at home, at their own pace using any resources they can muster. Because these conditions approximate the [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Work | Comments (0)

High Ed Web 2008 Talk (or “A Cure for Insomnia”)

June 29, 2009 – 2:20 pm

Last October, a couple of my coworkers and I presented at [High Ed Web 2008]. The conference organizers have, at long last, posted the transcript and audio recording of our session. The quality of the transcript is fairly rough, and they didn’t include the visual aids (which, by the way, I put a good deal [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Travel, Work | Comments (0)

Planning Poker

May 19, 2009 – 3:40 pm

One of the things about writing software for a living is that customers are rarely happy when you tell them “It will be done when it’s done.” Even though development is fraught with uncertainty, it’s still incumbent upon us who practice this craft to be able to give people some idea of what kind of [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Games, Work | Comments (1)

Situational Awareness

March 10, 2009 – 10:29 am

I’ve long been fascinated by the prospect of wearable computing devices. Having ubiquitous access to information — movie times, news stories, restaurant reviews, product information, word definitions, novels, friends’ locations — seems like such a compelling idea that any talk of such things rivets me. As cellular phones have become more powerful and capable, they’ve [...]

By SeanMcTex | Comments (1)

Hooray for Google!

January 14, 2009 – 5:48 pm

This afternoon, I noticed that one of my Google Calendars had utterly vanished. I tried all the troubleshooting steps available in their help forum, but it was still gone. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get any real help, based on some of the posts in the forum, but I sent them [...]

By SeanMcTex | Also posted in Commerce | Comments (0)

Making Money with iPhone Software

December 12, 2008 – 9:49 am

My friend David Barnard, who runs the iPhone software company App Cubby, posts an interesting piece on the financial realities of running such a business. Well worth a read if you dabble in such things.

By SeanMcTex | Comments (0)