A quick(ish) update on the past week of work at the collective (I'm in a writing mood rather than coding on a sunday :)
* Casey has been staying up late and creating more robust way to ensure CS code stays in good shape by providing a way to have another set of eyeballs on the code before pushing it on the live site, along with improving the code distribution system and kicked the ass on some major irritating bugs (Atlanta, anyone ;) as well as many minor ones. And staying on top of his emails in many many CS organizational issues (hereonafter mentioned as Leadership stuff :)
* Chris has been moderating Volunteer agreement group and coordinating our efforts (as well as being approachable for some feedback) to keep the ball rolling (Chris says he's been working on awesomeness!), plus the leadership stuff
* Jim has been busy with the backstage stuff of verifications and member services along with the leadership stuff
* Weston left Tuesday morning and we all miss him... the coding guidelines are now in good shape thanks to him :)
* Maija came by for a couple of days to see us all in action, attach faces to emails and profiles, and we hope to see her back in action after her trip is over!
* Walter has been working on a day job (how he does it, I don't know, with people coding all around him at all hours!) but has been active in providing us feedback on more efficient methods for working with the database (which I personally think is excellent as the occasional reminders and more education for application developers would help to ensure site stays up during the busy summer travel months)
* I've been busy with coding the ambassador applications software for the ambassador management team, so more flags can be distributed faster than is possible under the current system (note: I'm just helping them by creating the tool, not involved in the process myself). After an in-house "go for it" I started a brainstorm about providing secondary addresses on the site (a genuinely awaited feature that just hasn't been implemented yet) - more to come soon after some technical solution options are discussed within the tech team. I've also kept an eye on the groups as usual and helped out a bit here and there. And attempting to act as (sometimes) reasonable "community voice" within the house....
* Duke is not one of the coders but has been very gracious in allowing our presence at his house. He's working for some video tutorials for CS - yay for that :) along with ensuring good vibes in the house
* Tiina has been an excellent hostess for us all, making sure we're all well fed with the (infamous) Finnish salmiakki, reindeer meat, smashed potatoes, and dragging us out of the house every once in a while :)
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Monday, July 9, 2007
Moikka!
(Moikka = Hi in Finnish!)
Hmmm.. not quite sure what to say so I'm just going to say it :)
I arrived to CSC Rotterdam today, after quite a few weeks on the road, meeting excellent folks on 3 continents and almost without having to resort to a hostel (in fact, a month in the US I didn't even need to have a backup plan due to meeting many of my long-time online CS connections). This, if anything was a motivation-booster to keep working on the site to the best of my abilities despite not always seeing face to face with how some things have been handled.
Enough about the fun stuff, I did come here for a reason after all - some projects I will most probably be working on for the next few weeks:
(DISCLAIMER: these are the initial thoughts, subject to change due to re-priorization at some point)
* On-site software for ambassador applications (should make it much faster to go through and approve the applications, yay!)
* Secondary address for folks who are verified and have a second home, or live more nomadic lives. This is necessary for at least Nomadic Ambassadors who are SUPPOSED to be on the road most of the time, and will need more localized support for handling their tasks, and a good to have for anyone on an extended trip with intermittent periods of sticking by in one place
(I should know, been there, done that, and would like to remain Finnish even though wandering somewhere far off :)
* Upgrading tools for people who greet new members
* More information about who's who in developers' group
* Misc tiny bits on the site that need coding
* Misc bug fixes
Hmmm.. not quite sure what to say so I'm just going to say it :)
I arrived to CSC Rotterdam today, after quite a few weeks on the road, meeting excellent folks on 3 continents and almost without having to resort to a hostel (in fact, a month in the US I didn't even need to have a backup plan due to meeting many of my long-time online CS connections). This, if anything was a motivation-booster to keep working on the site to the best of my abilities despite not always seeing face to face with how some things have been handled.
Enough about the fun stuff, I did come here for a reason after all - some projects I will most probably be working on for the next few weeks:
(DISCLAIMER: these are the initial thoughts, subject to change due to re-priorization at some point)
* On-site software for ambassador applications (should make it much faster to go through and approve the applications, yay!)
* Secondary address for folks who are verified and have a second home, or live more nomadic lives. This is necessary for at least Nomadic Ambassadors who are SUPPOSED to be on the road most of the time, and will need more localized support for handling their tasks, and a good to have for anyone on an extended trip with intermittent periods of sticking by in one place
(I should know, been there, done that, and would like to remain Finnish even though wandering somewhere far off :)
* Upgrading tools for people who greet new members
* More information about who's who in developers' group
* Misc tiny bits on the site that need coding
* Misc bug fixes
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Long time, no see
Hey all,
sorry for keeping you in the dark for such a long time. I will try to update a little more often, since I feel really bad about slacking :(
So, what has been going on in the past week?
Naz: He finished the new groups look and we released it. The release process has not been as flawless as we would liked it to have been, but this just showed us that we really need to work on it :) The layout itself has improved a lot, and in the last few days Naz also reintroduced the chronological view that was not released earlier. He is currently working on reintroducing all the other features that went MIA during the first release, so stay tuned while they reappear.
Unfortunately, Naz left the collective on friday. We begged him to stay and it was really hard for him to go. I would hereby like to thank him so much for all the incredible work he has done for us, and the good times we had with him in our group!
Weston: now officially dubbed "Bug MasterBlaster 5000" by Jim, Weston has continued to solve a whole bunch of bugs. He is also taking the lead in professionalising our processes as he has soem good professional experience with these kinds of things. I think we're going to have to physically force him to stay here soon :(
Casey: Was working on getting the sysadmin team ready so he could actually go to switzerland for the weekend. Except for some minor glitches that would have happened otherwise as well, we made it through the weekend thanks to our amazing sysadmins Diederik and Nico! Furthermore, Casey has been fixing some bugs and of course he is always busy with his regular cs-work being an admin and a founder and all.
He went to Switzerland to see his girlfriend this weekend and is now back with us with refreshed energy, so we are preparing to see him work 22 hours a day again ;)
Jim: while working on more verifications stuff and admin thingies, Jim and me cleaned out the mantis together. We're about halfway through by now, and are hoping to finish "the big sweep" by the end of the week.
Chris has also been solving some bugs as well as managing the tech team and communicating with the leadership team. He has also been working on creating some long term goal docs and some other stuff.
I myself have been extremely busy with work again, and all the time I have left goes to cleaning out mantis :)
So much for this update, whoever is reading this!
sorry for keeping you in the dark for such a long time. I will try to update a little more often, since I feel really bad about slacking :(
So, what has been going on in the past week?
Naz: He finished the new groups look and we released it. The release process has not been as flawless as we would liked it to have been, but this just showed us that we really need to work on it :) The layout itself has improved a lot, and in the last few days Naz also reintroduced the chronological view that was not released earlier. He is currently working on reintroducing all the other features that went MIA during the first release, so stay tuned while they reappear.
Unfortunately, Naz left the collective on friday. We begged him to stay and it was really hard for him to go. I would hereby like to thank him so much for all the incredible work he has done for us, and the good times we had with him in our group!
Weston: now officially dubbed "Bug MasterBlaster 5000" by Jim, Weston has continued to solve a whole bunch of bugs. He is also taking the lead in professionalising our processes as he has soem good professional experience with these kinds of things. I think we're going to have to physically force him to stay here soon :(
Casey: Was working on getting the sysadmin team ready so he could actually go to switzerland for the weekend. Except for some minor glitches that would have happened otherwise as well, we made it through the weekend thanks to our amazing sysadmins Diederik and Nico! Furthermore, Casey has been fixing some bugs and of course he is always busy with his regular cs-work being an admin and a founder and all.
He went to Switzerland to see his girlfriend this weekend and is now back with us with refreshed energy, so we are preparing to see him work 22 hours a day again ;)
Jim: while working on more verifications stuff and admin thingies, Jim and me cleaned out the mantis together. We're about halfway through by now, and are hoping to finish "the big sweep" by the end of the week.
Chris has also been solving some bugs as well as managing the tech team and communicating with the leadership team. He has also been working on creating some long term goal docs and some other stuff.
I myself have been extremely busy with work again, and all the time I have left goes to cleaning out mantis :)
So much for this update, whoever is reading this!
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