Friends

I'm writing this so other developers can share in the laughter (ha!) and designers/managers can learn.

I've seen this a few times. It feels like there's a mad-libs form that designers/managers use to communicate things in a software project.

Hey:

$normal_behavior_of_our_product_for_the_past_year, $insulting_phrase, $client_need_never_mentioned_before_this_month, $high_stress!!!!!

Thanks,
$designer_or_manager

So, an example letter:

Hey:

I tried changing my password and instead of sending me a new password via email the system sent me a link to a place to change it. This is backwards! No systems work like that. We're about to roll this product out for Wonka Inc. and I'm sure they will kill us for this. Please don't sleep until this is fixed.!!!!!

Thanks,
Manager

Advice to managers/designers/people who write these emails

Here's how to actually handle this:

1. Verify that the decision maker and end-users at client will actually think this is a problem
2. Add a new task to your issue tracker
3. You can even make it critical
4. Have reasonable expectations about when it will get fixed - sure, you can move it to the front of the queue, but it's still in the queue.

Every Christmas we wonder "what do we get for people." For a lot of our friends and family the answer is really hard: We may know their interests but not well enough to have meaningful suggestions. Ultimately, though, we feel like we want to give people more time and maybe a little motivation. Time is the one thing that we all need more of.

Fortunately there is a way to do that this year that is compatible with last minute shopping: Gift Certificates to Lilly's Table.

Lilly's Table: Cook seasonally. Eat consciously. Live well.

For about 2 months now we've been using Lilly's Table to help us plan our meals. Every Sunday we wake up, open our computer, and look at what new items Lilly has sent us. The week's recipes are always seasonal and delicious. The interface shows us general nutrition information and some data on how long it will take to make the item.

The weekly menu has an introductory description from Lilly that gets you excited to make the dishes. You read about ingredients that are in season, which meals should come first or second to take advantage of leftover ingredients, and general foody advice.

We go through looking at the recipes and the beautiful accompanying photos and pick out the items we want. At the top of each recipe are buttons to "add to shopping list" and "add/remove from my recipe book"

On the bottom right of the recipe is a spot to indicate things we've made and provide our own notes.

The recipes are mostly private to paying site members and it costs $12 per month.

Why pay when recipes are free on the internet?

A coworker of mine purchased some reclaimed wood planters for his backyard that were really beautiful. They come from Denver local Randy Rushton who is working in the River North neighborhood to create some really pretty items.

See more at www.custombyrushton.com/

Take a look at this reclaimed fence-post room divider.

Beautiful and very creative!

I have two great friends in Denmark.

Freso - Precision King

Freso is the king of precision. He has helped me out a lot in being more precise in the work I do on open source projects.

The King of Denmark

And Morten is the King of Denmark - a very cool gentleman who you have to hear to truly understand. He has a unique sense of style that melds together aspects of various modern worlds but all mixed with rock and roll. Not unlike the King of Rock (Run D.M.C.? Aerosmith?) Morten is the King of Denmark.

This past weekend I spent a bit of time helping a good friend set up a new site: Silly Ditties For Kiddies.

Sara Gallegos - Teacher, Musician, Entreprenuer

Sara and I worked together almost 10 years ago. While the jobs have long ended, our friendship has remained. She decided to leave the technology consulting field and become a teacher. She also started playing music again (having played flute in high school) and incorporated singing and music into her classroom. She created her own songs to help teach the various concepts in the classroom and it seemed to really help her students learn the concepts.

Silly Ditties for Kiddies - CDs available now

After a few years of using these songs in the classroom and building a big group of well polished songs, Sara sat down with some professional musicians (and friends who aspire to be professional musicians) and recorded the best songs she has for her students. She is now selling them on her website.

About The E-Commerce System: Ubercart and Drupal

Sara and I spent a few hours working together on a weekend morning and built the whole site. We used Ubercart which is built on the Open Source platform Drupal which is the system I use for work. It was really fun to build a simple site like this for a friend when I spend most of my time working on big sites for people far away (not that those aren't fun too...but...variety is nice).

We like Swedish pancakes, we like sweet potatos. Why not put them together?

Sweet Potato Pancakes in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: make mashed sweet potatos.

Step 2: begin to make swedish pancakes but reduce the recipe by a little bit of flour and instead use the leftovers from your mashed sweet potatoes.

Step 3: EAT IT AND BE HAPPY!

This is a pretty simple recipe:

• 1 sweet potato
• 1/2 tablespoon butter
• Dash of cinnamon (to taste)
• Dash of curry (to taste)
• Dash of salt

Peel and cube the sweet potato and then boil the sweet potato for 20 minutes, or until tender. Drain away the water, add butter and potato to a mixing bowl and smash and blend as you would regular mashed potatoes. This serves as a side dish for 2 to 3 people.

You want to have some leftovers so you can make some sweet potato pancakes.