My second son, a high school senior, is taking an FLVS class he needs to graduate. We've had to work out an uneasy time-sharing HP laptop schedule of daughter-in-the-day, son-in-the-evening. Good thing school is almost over for the year.

My oldest son just finished his first year in college and is starting his summer term classes. He's majoring in Computer Science, with a Business minor, and one of his classes–one that he started today–is an introduction to computer applications. In that class, he'll learn to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Powerpoint. Seriously? You have to take a class for that? A COLLEGE class?

Anyway, he has a MacBook Air that he received as a high school graduation present. It's been a great laptop for him. When he tried to log in to the website for this class, though, he learned that the class requires Windows, even though Mac OS X runs Word, Excel, and Powerpoint just fine. Not only does the class require Windows, it requires Internet Explorer: the interactive site that you must use for assignments, discussions, et al uses an ActiveX control. We're having to shove him into the HP laptop schedule: he gets the late-at-night shift.

In my house, I have a Linux desktop, two MacBook Airs, two MacBook Pros (both are mine–work and personal–and I admittedly don't share) an iPad 1, an iPad Retina (is that the 4? the new one), and an ASUS Transformer, and the education of 60% of my children is threaded through a single Windows laptop. Windows. We're relying on the former Metro for grades that count.

I'm aghast. It's another symptom of an ailing education system.

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https://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-Tyler-His-Senior-Year/560967097269111?hc_location=stream

Here’s the email I sent to Mason Davis (davisw2@duvalschools.org) and Jason Fischer (fischerj@duvalschools.org).

I have known Tyler Anderson since he was an infant. I was in the hospital with him the night the aneurysm burst in his brain. I watched his parents face his near-certain death. I saw the stitching on his head, after his operation, that made his head look like some grotesque, over-stuffed softball. I couldn’t imagine much hope for him.

I’ve also seen Tyler defy the odds, ignore his death-prognosis, and grow up. I’ve seen him fight for life. I’ve seen him learn social mores, adjust, and progress. Here’s a young man living on half a brain, and he continues to learn. He reads. He writes. He converses. He integrates with normal society. I’ve spent time in his home. He’s been at my children’s birthday parties. I’m a youth leader at church, and he’s there at Sunday services, at youth activities, and at scouting activities. He socializes with the other youth. He socializes with adults. He socializes with younger children. He leads the music as he sing hymns as a men’s group. He listens. He contributes. He BELONGS.

Most times that people write letters to express views, they swerve toward hyperbole to make their points. I’m not doing that, because I don’t need to. Tyler, and I’ve said this many times before, is as kind to others as we all wish we were. He is the kindest person I know. He is hilarious. He is enthusiastic. He loves others, and it shows. He knows he is loved, and that shows as well. Everyone that knows him secretly thinks he or she is Tyler’s best friend, because Tyler makes them feel this way. He is conscientious and he learns and progresses. He always adds more than he takes away, and I mean that. Any situation I’ve ever been in is better with Tyler in it.

You can see some of the love felt for Tyler on this page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Give-Tyler-His-Senior-Year/560967097269111?hc_location=stream

Tyler isn’t some problem to be dealt with, shuffled off and away from normal society. Tyler should not be robbed of his senior year. He will make better use of that year than many other seniors, and those around him will be enriched for the experience of a year with Tyler.

Many other people are being caught in this same battle–students with special needs who are being ripped from their schools and pushed to a special school for, as I understand it, hardcore special-needs cases. The niece of a woman I work with is also being shoved aside, being returned to an experience that before was abusive. I have heard, but not confirmed, that Tyler and the rest have been caught in a numbers game: they’re trying to improve graduation rates in Duval county, so suddenly creating a mass of graduates boosts the numbers considerably. I don’t know if this is true, but it makes sense that it is. And it’s deplorable. 

Tyler’s parents, Blaine and Shelley Anderson, are amazing advocates who work tirelessly for Tyler. He needs more advocates and fewer people discriminating against him. Please take a moment to like the Facebook page. If you feel so inclined, send an email in support of Tyler. Tyler deserves it.

(Via. @lars on App.net)

When I was young, I remembered everything. Now I am old, and I remember nothing. And I’ve surrendered to password madness. I’ve stored all my passwords in safe since 2007, with my encrypted data file in Dropbox, so I can access it from any machine that runs Ruby. This way, I have to remember only one password, which is long and complex and just onerous enough to type that I feel safe without feeling overburdened.

Unfortunately, neither my iPhone nor my iPad can run safe, so I bought 1Password and supplement my safe usage with that. I even use the same onerous password for 1Password that I use for safe, but for some inexplicable reason I used a different password on my iPhone that I no longer remember, so it’s useless to me. I should delete everything and reload, but I’m ashamed to admit I did that once before.

For the website I work on for my employment, we have several different environments with different user IDs and passwords that expire more rapidly than I can type, so I just reset them everytime I log in and mash the keyboard like a Whack-A-Mole for my new passwords that I’ll never remember.

Our new lunchroom food system got smart, though–the automated checkout system eschews passwords for thumb scans. No passwords stand between me and Coke Zero!

In other words, your work, itself, is the inspiration.”

Stop thinking about it. Stop reading about it. Stop talking about it. Just start doing. You can go back to the thinking, reading, and talking after you’ve done something about what you’ve thought, read, and talked about. 

I saw this link in a tweet from @jeffscottbrown, and it points to the impact JavaScript is making on web development, whether with rich client apps or node.js on the server. Better to see them acknowledge and embrace the shift.

I did some Grails work a few years ago, and really liked it. Reading this post made me realize I miss doing Grails and Groovy–I’ll have to find an excuse to get back to them!

BTW, however much this domain’s name seems to derive from Grails, I’d never heard of Grails when I registered grailbox.com in August of 2006. Some web poking reveals that work on Grails got underway in 2005, but I didn’t hear about it until much later. My vision for grailbox focused on office productivity tools: (holy) grail + mailbox. I guess I haven’t done much on that front, though!

Although Steve and Allan, Lords of LessConf, have stated clearly that 2013 marks the last LessConf, they haven’t explained why the run ends today. Is it too much work? Are they just tired of it and ready to move on? Does it drain them emotionally, physically, financially, or otherwise? Too burdensome on their families? Too much distraction to their core business? Have they tired of trying to top themselves, year after year, and fear the pity given to aging athletes who hang on too long? They may explain someday — perhaps even today — but they may not even know themselves.

So, we celebrate LessConf, which has paraded a diversity of speakers that have inspired, instructed, explained, confessed, pleaded, and slammed us out of our comfort zones. It has brought together creative, bright, friendly, successful, and passionate minds. It’s afforded experiences pleasant, jarring, and decidedly memorable. Thank you, Steve. Thank you Allan. Thank you, Anna. Thank you speakers and sponsors and organizers and entertainers and all who gave of themselves to scream to us that ordinary sucks. Boring ain’t acceptable. Be great. Do something that matters. Change the world.

And, um, thank you, Hampton, for taking us to the moon.

May the spirit of LessConf live on!

Well-crafted line.

That’s the best line in a great article.

I’m astonished at how little people value software these days. “Didn’t have feature X! Complete waste of a dollar!” Yet they waste dollars willy-nilly by leaving lights on when they walk out of rooms. Great software can only be produced by great skill and great effort. Use great software, pay for it, and you’ll be happier.