alvincrespo

Professionalism and Happiness

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:57:38 -0500

Let me start by saying that becoming a professional is a very difficult thing to do for many people - including myself. I wouldn’t say that I am a professional at what I do, instead I am on the path to becoming a professional. To become a professional one must form several core values, and these should help you along to achieving your professionalism - whatever that may be.

Being happy with what you do.

Whether you are an artist, graphic designer, developer, software engineer, scientist, anthropologist, chemist, psychologist or a plumber - the work you do to sustain yourself is a job. “Job” usually has a bad connotation for many, and that is completely natural. Would you really want to paint another canvas in order to buy your next meal or support your children, or would you rather spend time with your children playing frisbee at the park?

Only a very few people actually gain happiness with the work that they do. It was interesting to me that I was very interested in computers until I had my very first job. Working 60+ hours a week, sitting a computer and staring at a screen while wanting to be at home with my fiance cooking, laughing and sipping on wine. I would have never known that life would be that way. The question isn’t whether your job makes you happy - its about you making the decision to be happier with the work that you do.

Professionalism - What does it actually mean?

If you’re an artist, someone buys your art because it provides some sort of stimulation. Similarly if you are a designer, developer, scientist or any other field - someone pays you to provide the best quality service you can provide.

Since I am a developer, I get paid to make the best code possible while delivering a product on time, at budget with no bugs. These are services my employer and previous employers have paid for. However, this is a small scale view of professionalism.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines professionalism this way:

characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace

Lets analyze the above definition carefully. First it says that a professional is characterized as someone that conforms to technical or ethical standards of a profession. This essentially is telling us that as a professional we are sticking to standards set within our profession. What does this mean? Well, we all strive to do the best at work and when we do the best work - we feel amazing and these feelings of quality and completeness help us become happier with what we do, thus extending such feelings to other parts of our lives.

The second part of the above definition states that a professional is courteous, conscientious and “businesslike” in the workplace. This struck my profoundly as I would never have imagined that professionalism would indicate that I need to be courteous and conscientious towards others at work. We don’t see this very often within the workplace - especially in my field at startups and traditional agencies alike. This of course is changing for the better and I greatly welcome it. We want to be treated generously and we want others to feel for us, especially when times are difficult, and to be professional we extend and received courtesy and conscientious behavior. It is the only way to be happy about our work and happy about the people we work with. This helps build bonds that last during the happy and sad times at our jobs - bond that help contribute to our happiness as it extends our social circle.

Here we can see that becoming a professional means two things; one, we must follow the technical and ethical standards of our profession and two, that extending courtesy and conscientious behavior is essential. These two properties of being a professional strengthen our feelings of accomplishment and extend our social circle at work.

Core Values and Professionalism

As I mentioned before, core values help us achieve professionalism in many ways. But let me tell you - for a very long time a core value of mine was money and that was all. If you think money is your core value - you should reset shift your view.

When I first started to work I was excited, being a fresh graduate I was excited to stop eating pasta and looked forward to the money so I jumped into my first offer. There were no Health Benefits but I was working off the beach. It was terrible. Little did I know that one should never sacrifice their own self being for money and the pleasure of seeing the Pacific Ocean. On top of that I was working for some really inconsiderate people who thought working 80+ hours and developing a five flash sites over 3 days was the way to go. In the end I was fired, not not because I did anything wrong but because I had E.Coli, and the best part was that the CEO didn’t know what E.Coli was.

Good thing I got fired, but I still stumbled with the first few jobs I had. There were many misconceptions in my head about my field and where I wanted to go. This all changed when I set core values for myself. Some core values I have are:

Love (Love what I do, Love the work that my colleagues do)
Respect (Respect others opinions and views and respond with Respect)
Openness (Communicate openly and be transparent)

I am not perfect at these core values, but they are there to guide me and my work. This has helped me along the way achieve bigger and better projects and work with really fantastic people within my industry, and overall I have become much happier about the work, people and my family.

So whats the deal with this post? Well its the first of a series of posts I would like to talk about in terms of being a professional within any industry. This interest has been provoked by two books I have been reading:

Both books are wonderful and helped me shift my view recently and definitely go along with my personal and professional growth within the last two years. I recommend the read as I am sure there are points within these books that can help you out.

Introducing filer.js

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:24:18 -0500

ericbidelman:

Some 1300+ lines of code, 106 tests, and a year after I first started it, I’m happy to officially unleash filer.js (https://github.com/ebidel/filer.js); a wrapper library for the HTML5 Filesystem API.

Unlike other libraries [1, 2], filer.js takes a different approach and incorporates some lessons I learned while implementing the Google Docs Python client library. Namely, the library resuses familiar UNIX commands (cp, mv, rm) for its API. My goal was to a.) make the HTML5 API more approachable for developers that have done file I/O in other languages, and b.) make repetitive operations (renaming, moving, duplicating) easier.

So, say you wanted to list the files in a given folder. There’s an ls() for that:
var filer = new Filer();
filer.init({size: 1024 * 1024}, onInit.bind(filer), onError);

function onInit(fs) {
  filer.ls('/', function(entries) {
    // entries is an Array of file/directories in the root folder.
  }, onError);
}

function onError(e) { ... }
A majority of filer.js calls are asynchronous. That’s because the underlying HTML5 API is also asynchronous. However, the library is extremely versatile and tries to be your friend whenever possible. In most cases, callbacks are optional. filer.js is also good at accepting multiple types when working with entries. It accepts entries as string paths, filesystem: URLs, or as the FileEntry/DirectoryEntry object.

For example, ls() is happy to take your filesystem: URL or your DirectoryEntry:
// These will produce the same results.
filer.ls(filer.fs.root.toURL(), function(entries) { ... });
filer.ls(filer.fs.root, function(entries) { ... });
filer.ls('/', function(entries) { ... });
The library clocks in at 24kb (5.6kb compressed). I’ve thrown together a complete sample app to demonstrate most of filer.js’s functionality:
Try the DEMO
Lastly, there’s room for improvement:

Incorporate Chrome’s Quota Management API

Make usage in Web Workers more friendly (their is a synchronous API).

I look forward to your feedback and pull requests!

Learn ze Javascripts!

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 09:35:30 -0400

Javascript is pretty amazing, to say the least. I’m not saying that just because it is my favorite language, only Ruby occupies that space, but because its actually pretty damn easy to learn and apply daily. There are three things that make javascript amazing today:

The community
The frameworks
The support - browser support of course

Now I started learning javascript back in college - Introduction to the WWW - at RIT. It was a great class, not because of javascript itself but because it was the first time I’ve ever had to program, not compile, and see results instantly. Yes, the fact that you get to see what you’ve programmed instantly without having to build your code is amazing. Instant satisfaction baby, thats what counts and thats what clients love.

Javascript itself is amazing; its elegant, simple and just damn great to read - thats if it was done right. When you read javascript, it makes sense. Not like other languages like c++ or objective-c, where honestly if you picked it up and read it, it would be a WTF moment. Now this doesn’t disqualify the language; especially since they are used to build the environments and technologies we use on a daily basis. And if you’re a gamer, you should know that c++ is being used to smooth up those nice little polygons on your TV. So yeah, javascript isn’t everything but at the same time it is.

It comes down to using the tools you need, when you need it the most. Javascript comes to the rescue for most web based applications as it allows you to hit the ground running. Its great for amateurs and a miracle for pro’s. So, learn it today, tomorrow and the next day until the end of the internets. But for now, here are some resources to get up to speed; for both amateurs and pros:

Updating...to Tumblr!

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:14:56 -0400

Updating my site to tumblr. - Wordpress was just getting to complicated for the simplicity I demand.

"A good analogy to software design is the process of building a home. You would not expect the..."

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 11:56:18 -0400

“A good analogy to software design is the process of building a home. You would not expect the builder to start working on the house without detailed plans supplied by an architect. You would also expect the architect to talk to you about the home’s design before creating the blueprints. It is the architect’s job to talk to you about the design and functionality you want in the house and convert your requests to the plans that the builder uses to build the home. A good architect will also educate you as to what features are reasonable for your budget and projected timeline.”

- Beginning C# Object-Oriented Programming by Dan Clark and published by Apress

Verizon your Exchange Policy Sucks

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 05:36:54 -0400

Verizon’s exchange policy sucks, and I’ll tell you why.

First, a little background information always helps.

I was a satisfied AT&T customer for the past two years, with an iPhone 3GS. Yes, dropped calls would happen here and there, and I wouldn’t get reception everywhere I went. Especially when I visited friends and family in the shire of New Hampshire, yes it is a magical place beyond normal human comprehension.

No, AT&T was not perfect, however they successfully helped me out in times of trouble; especially when my fiance and I went over our allotted minutes by 2000. Yes, we had a phone bill for about $400, something we couldn’t afford since we were planning our wedding and calling from the West Coast to the East Coast. As responsible customers we went online, increased our minutes the same day. We then called AT&T and simply asked - “What can we do to alleviate the situation?” In a matter of minutes, our bill was returned to normal and we started paying the monthly amount of the new plan - $180/month.

That was just one instance where I had trouble and simply took the steps to be a responsible customer and then find a solution with my carrier. There were many others, and to be fair, I was already half way into the contract when these issues appeared, but my new carrier, Verizon, has yet to demonstrate this sort of integrity.

New isn’t always better.

Recently I chose to switch to Verizon, based on reviews from friends and family that they offered great service, customer service and coverage for the New England area. That last bit is quite important since we will be finding ourselves up in Maine often for vacation. The process, however, was not that simple.

Remember, I was an avid iPhone user, in fact all my hardware now is mac based and I didn’t really want to switch since my needs were being met. Yet, I decided to try out the Motorola Droid 3 with my fiance - and I instantly fell in love with it. Great operating system on a solid phone, at least thats what I thought.

We chose to get the Droid 3, since they were offering a “buy one get one free” deal and I honestly felt it would be a good purchase since we would be saving money and getting a solid phone at the same time. Yet, fate decided to spite us. Turns out the phone is backordered and they didn’t have it at the official Verizon Wireless store. In the end the guy said that we would be getting the phones in two days. Keep in mind this would be perfect since our contract with AT&T would end on a Wednesday and we purchased the Verizon plan and phones on a Monday.

In the end, the phones never came that Wednesday - forcing us to be prorated by AT&T, which is what we wanted to avoid. We call, and were told that the information was not explained well. The phone would ship within two days and that it would take seven days for the phone to arrive. At this point, im pretty upset because I feel like we were lied to so that they could sell us the phones and plan. However, thats ok, I chose to accept that and wait, I really wanted to try out Verizon, the new phone and trust in my friends and families recommendation.

Patience is a virtue.

Turns out the wait was definitely worth it. We received our phones and instantly started playing around with them before activating the plan. All in all the Motorola Droid 3 is a great phone with tons of features that iPhone users are lacking. Not only does the Droid 3 offer the best quality in hardware right now, but it also supplies the most current version of Android - which is by far the most flexible OS out there for mobile devices. This is something I only came to realize after playing with the phone for about a week. I’m sure for iPhone users out there, this is very difficult to understand - but it is the truth.

So, the phone is awesome. But whats not so awesome is having a lemon. No, this is not Verizon’s fault and probably not Motorola’s either. Here are a few issues I found in my lovely lemon device:

Unable to connect to any Wi-Fi network
Google Maps unable to locate me
Low reception
Screen Freezes
Speaker phone is unable to be used

This is unfortunate, since my research has confirmed that not many people have come across these issues. In fact my fiance’s phone works perfectly! She didn’t experience any of the issues above, even when we were standing next to each other trying to see what was going on. So I decided to take the next logical steps.

Taking the appropriate steps.

I did my research and pulled up the official Motorola guides for Droid 3. Reconfigured my router for the specs on the website. Tested, and no luck. I visited several Paneras, Starbucks and Barnes and Nobles with no luck. Meaning, I could not connect to the internet in any of those venues.

I then decided to do what any logical user would do: hard reset the motherfucker.

Still no cigar. I couldn’t even see the networks at this point. My data plan was getting up there and I just could not afford to be on a phone that could not connect to the damn internet.

Taking it to Verizon.

Before I go on, let me explain how I view this situation. Neither Verizon nor Motorola are to blame for this. Both companies are trying to serve a purpose; Verizon is offering a cellular service and Motorola is providing a tool to tap into that service. The phone is defective, for some reason or another it just doesn’t work. From my point of view, all I want is to exchange my device. I don’t want another phone and I want to stick with Verizon.

However, heres the problem. Since I am a new customer, I need to pay $199 to my credit card to get a new phone. When I get the phone, I then return the defective one, and once they receive the defective phone - I get credited the $199 to my credit card. Oh, and they take out the money immediately but I dont get credited for about three weeks.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/footer/returnProcedure.jsp

Explain to me, how this makes sense? I make a purchase, receive a defective device and then have to pay? This doesn’t make any sense to me.

Now, to give the full story. I wouldn’t need to do this if the phone was stocked at the store. But because they are backordered, I’m forced to take this method. Now, I ask the question:

Verizon, because you fail to stock your shelves, and provided me with a defective device, why is it that I need to pay for something that is completely not my fault?

Answer: I am a new customer. - Customer Service Rep.

Yes. There you go. They can’t trust me. I might be a thief, even though I’ve taken all the appropriate steps as a responsible customer/consumer.

Resolution

After four calls to the Verizon customer service center and receiving conflicting responses from about 12 people in one day, I decided to just do it. Why? Well, to tell you the truth, I was close to canceling the contract and returning the phones and only paying Verizon for the service I used within the first 14 days. However, I came to realize the following:

I am a new customer
One man vs. a corporation is impossible
It is not Verizon’s fault
It is not Motorola’s fault
They do offer a wide area of coverage
I want to stick with Android, and Verizon offers the best phones for that OS

No, I am not giving up. This is why I wrote and posted this. Now its up to you to comment and give your experiences, opinions and general thoughts on the matter. Remember Verizon is a company, they make these decisions based on best business practices. They also it base it on what their customer wants. The more these situations are exposed, debated and disputed - the more voice/power the people have.

Strength to Carry On

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:39:32 -0400

Ill make this short. Or maybe not, depends.

My life was taken away from me when I lost my best friends to a very unfortunate circumstance. Since then I’ve become who I am now, a person lacking the ability to maintain faith in what I was raised in. This is mostly due to not trusting people because we all make mistakes, but I have learned to forgive and forget.

Its times like these that I can barely get a grip on my own reality. Reality doesn’t seem real to me but what I do and how I do it does. This is specifically to working extremely hard and long hours everyday for the past 14 years. I over compensated, contributing to my success in High School, College and Career.

Some may say this good, others may say this is sad. I don’t care about the opinions of those “some”. What I do care about is having the strength to carry on, despite the realities, disappointments, and errors I have made and those around me have made.

Thats really it. There are no heroes or villains, only people. These people affect us and change who we are, even when we don’t want to change. So, have the strength to carry on and do what is necessary for you to become yourself - because you are the only one who can ever surpass the trials and tribulations.

Reconnecting with an old friend

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:56:34 -0400

I’ve reconnected with an old friend of mine. Its been so long that I’m actually kind of shaky. The rush of emotions of this is like a tidal wave knocking you off your feet and losing your breath before you even hit the water.

The Struggle for or against 'Fair Use'

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:02:37 -0400

The Struggle for or against 'Fair Use'

Wes Borland is great at what he does.

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 20:45:17 -0400

Wes Borland is great at what he does.

Delicious!

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:41:00 -0400

Delicious!

Photo

Sat, 18 Jun 2011 20:26:57 -0400

Your Startup Sucks: How to (Fucking) Hire Developers

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 16:48:28 -0400

Your Startup Sucks: How to (Fucking) Hire Developers:

startupsucks:

This is a fairly coarse article. There’s a gentler version posted here.

This is a topic that has really gotten out of hand. There are all sorts weighing in these days — along with far too much jowl waggling by middle managers and idealist super hackers.

So let’s cut the shit and get…

Fuck Bees!

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:51:11 -0400

Fuck Bees!

this is fucking amazing

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:48:40 -0400

this is fucking amazing

SAM Busker Fest Experience

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:21:49 -0400

Last night I attended the SAM Busker Fest here in Long Beach, CA. Overall the show was quite spectacular, with many artists coming out to showcase their best. As usual there were the one or two bands that really didn’t stand out, lacking dazzling performance and musical innovation. However, the main event turned out to be spectacular. I had the delight to be in right in the front, dancing myself away to the psychadelic groove of Crystal Antlers and the sensual expressiveness of Delta Spirit. Both bands are wonderful and pumped the crowd up to a pleasurable experience of mind, body and soul. If you get a chance, check them out, they will definitely give you a musical orgasm.

http://crystalantlers.com/

http://www.deltaspiritbydeltaspirit.blogspot.com/

Psychology and Post Secret

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 21:51:00 -0400

http://www.postsecret.com/

One of my favorite websites ever. This is probably because I am very interested in our inner personality. I feel that society resctricts us so much that sometimes we feel that we would not be accepted by our family or friends. Although, there is much debate about why this happens, including religion or societal beliefs, this is a problem that deserves much attention.

Many would say “I don’t care what/who you are, I will be your friend”, but that doesnt make any sense. I do care who and what you are, but I wont judge you. I may disagree and sometimes display my disagreement with pout’s but I will stand up for what you believe in and why you believe in it, as long as it doesn’t cause pain or harm to someone else.

Currently I am taking psychology and it astounds me how much we don’t share our true selves with the people we surround ourselves with. Don’t mistake me for a Freudian follower, because that I am not. I am only interested in who you really are, not what or who you want to have sex with. Through these studies I hope to understand why we do such things and, more importantly, why we feel we must portray ourselves differently to our peers.

As an end note, yes this may be a rant of a sort, but I hope you visit Post Secret and feel that it is not a secret but rather a revelation that we are truly not alone.

wasabisunshine: Invading your sofa

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:43:18 -0400

wasabisunshine:

Invading your sofa

Initial ActionScript 3.0 Library for Facebook Platform Review

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:34:50 -0400

Lately Ive had to do alot of research into the Facebook API or rather API’s. At the moment two API’s exist, the old Rest API and the new Graph API. If you are new to the platform and have found this review, I can tell you right now, all Facebook developers feel your pain. It is a very immature and unorganized architecture, and looks to be lacking direction for improvement.

My adventure begins with the Adobe Flash Actionscript 3.0 library dedicated to integration with the Facebook Rest API, otherwise known as ActionScript 3.0 Library for Facebook Platform. You will find that this library is extremely difficult to work with, and the documentation most certainly lacks the information needed to create effective applications quickly. Unless you follow the tutorials, you will be last from the very start. I do highly suggest you start with these tutorials and follow them step-by-step. If you are not familiar with Flex, the tutorials will be difficult to follow along with but it is easy to grab the actionscript 3 code and modify it accordingly.

At the moment, I have been able to follow the tutorials on the Adobe Developer Connection pretty well and be able to login/logout and bring in user data as a desktop and in-facebook app, using the REST API. My next step is to integrate the new data model, as it will be forced upon developers to use as of June 30, 2010. Then, I will create a simple Facebook Connect application. I’m looking at releasing my code pretty soon on snipplr.com.

I do hope that this mini-review helps those who are just beginning with the Facebook API in Flash/Actionscript 3.0. I will be writing more as I go along and releasing more code for those of you interested in acquiring knowledge into integrating your apps with the social networking world.

Please let me know more of what you would like to see, this way I get a good idea on what to do for my next written review.

Thanks!

Mass for the Dead

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:20:41 -0400

Lately Ive been listening to Requiem Mass in D minor by Mozart. Requiem stands for ‘Mass for the Dead’ or ‘Mass of the Dead’. In my opinion, this is the best work completed by Mozart, right before his death in 1791.

Mozart is my favorite composer of all time because his music speaks to my past and future. As I listen to Requiem Mass in D minor I can’t help but feel lost in today’s music. So much of the hard work that used to be put into music has been stripped away by the misuse of technology. Although I do have bands that I love greatly, including Nine Inch Nails, A Perfect Circle, The Doors and of course The Beatles, I feel that today’s music is lost to generations that lack the integrity to push forward.

I look forward to what future musicians will be able to do with the technology we have today, but I do hope that today’s musicians find the source that Mozart once had to create beautiful and outstanding art that will last generations to come.