Dear Bebepool Community,

Thanks
I want to start by extending my thanks to you for being part of bebepool.com, by using it to add that extra bit of fun for all your family and friends excited with you for the new child entering your life.

Trouble in the Engine Room
If you’ve stopped for a visit at the site either last Friday or Monday this week, you probably noticed some bold, red typeface status message saying the site is “Offline for Maintenance.”

Initially, the technical problem began and was resolved Friday. There was an application performance issue that boiled down to one database query seriously lacking optimization. All pool accounts were being selected yet only one record truly needed to be. With the sustained growth of bebepool.com, memory consumption reached a point whereby the inefficient code became a noticeable problem. I made the necessary code changes and it was back online within about two hours. There’s been little to no downtime in the four plus years bebepool.com has been live and kicking, but even so I do everything I can to keep the ship constantly on course so everyone can enjoy the ride.

So Monday rolls around and there’s a problem again. But this time it’s really a human to human communications issue – there was an incorrect assumption between me and the the bebepool.com hosting service provider regarding file permissions and moving files around. That was sorted out soon enough. The only thing left before returning to normalcy was to rewrite some code which, upon a deeper look, was impacting the User Sign-up / Create a Pool function. That was ironed out by late evening Monday.

Stay Aware and Informed
For future reference, you can visit:

• The Blog: http://wittman.org/tag/bebepoolcom/ (using the bebepoolcom tag) for site status updates.
• @bebepool – follow on twitter for important updates.

Once Again…
Thank you again for choosing bebepool.com to celebrate your kids. I had so much fun building this technology for the birth of my own sons, I simply had to share it with others.

Please feel free to leave comments or questions at the bottom of this blog post. Your feedback really is valuable to me and the success of this resource.

Micah
bebepool.com creator / administrator

Recovered Journal. December 12, 2006.

Tonight my middle-born son asked something to which I said it was at our home.

“Why?”, he inquired.

“Because home is where you will always be loved, and where it’s safe.”

To that he replied, “Well, not _that_ safe.”

“Oh, you have brothers—that’s right.”

“Yeah.”

I was stopped by the cops while walking/jogging my neighbourhood at night just this evening.

QUICK! — what’s the first thing that went through your mind? (that you imagined went through mine).

Whether I want to admit it or not, I’ve been influenced by the popularity of police behaving badly news stories (I’m looking at you, youtube, digg and reddit). So, benefit of the doubt on my part? Nope.

My instant thought was, they’re going to hassle me about something. The next mind spasm was, what could they possibly suspect anyway? I’m in workout attire with a Nano and earbuds firmly in place in a quiet neighbourhood on a Thursday night before 10pm. I’m on a public sidewalk!

#

Here’s what happened:

I see the police cruiser pass me. I hear it stop. Then that winding-up sound of traveling in reverse gear. Now the car is parallel to me.

Bright white lights.

I unplug my ears and step toward the light intensity, my pupils frantically constricting. When closer I can finally see two females inside. The one passenger side then says in a sincere, concerned voice:

“Excuse me, we’re looking for a mentally challenged adult wearing blue jeans and a tan shirt; he probably has slippers on. Have you seen him?”

I say, “No, I’ve been down that street one block over and now this one, and I haven’t seen anyone outside actually. Sorry.”

“If you see him, could you call 911?”

“Yes, I sure can.”

“Thank you.”

We part ways.

#

I’m no runner. Not even a power walker, but somehow I just started a new exercise habit three days ago, so being present in the streets of my own neighbourhood at night is, strange as it sounds to me, a new experience.

So what reason did I have for expecting an RCMP encounter that was based on anything other than doing what a good, capable and resourced neighbour would do given the opportunity and a uniform — even searching the night to find a loved one who has innocently wandered away?

I have unreasonable reasons, but that’s about it. A fight or flight nervous system is a reality for creatures, which includes me; I get that. I just don’t want it to be all that I am. Tonight was a step forward in that quest.

#

Postscript
I approached a neighbour (of 2 1/2 years) who’s across the street from us. He stepped out to take his wee dog for a walk. I had breaking local news, so I brought him up to speed. The blue jeans. The shirt. Most importantly, the slippers. Then the leash tugged him onward, and I retired home. It was nice to meet Gary for the first time tonight. Hey! I even remember his name, a memory skill that usually evades me.

I’m liking this new habit.

Microwave Ovens: Failure is not an option.

In our household if the microwave breaks down, I have less than 24 hours to relieve the crisis. And by 24 hours I mean 24 minutes. Kiefer Sutherland has (or had—I have no idea) a whole television season to work things out. I have no such luxury (nor budget). Our kitchen/meal-making workflow keeps three boys and two adults ready for action every day. It’s kind of a big deal.

Here’s the problem. I don’t need a 42-button cockpit control panel just to heat food and beverage. I want to see two dials. That’s right, no buttons, just two large, easy-grip dials. Power and Time. Really? YES. Leave the worst of the worst to pure software, thank you.

The diagram at the top of this post is a shot across the bow of the microwave oven product design and manufacturing frigate. *the sound of a pee-shooter pellet plinking against a steel hull*

This 2-dial diagram is my rather rustic (i.e. pathetic) rendering of a microwave user interface (UI) concept. Many a kindergarten student could draw something superior to my sketch, but here’s the point: This ubiquitous home appliance needs a consistent, familiar face to interact with.

In today’s world, when I walk up to one at work, or Aunt Betty’s house, or a school, a hospital—you name it, they’re everywhere—I know I’m about to be reduced to an idiot pressing buttons in random formation.

Is it digits + power + digits + start?
Or digits + power~power~power + start?
Or maybe time + digits + (power optional) + start?

Aiiiiiiiiiihhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Maybe it’s just me.

Where to go from here?

1. Standardization: Every standards compliant microwave oven features common UI (the 2-Dials or whatever the ultimate design is).
2. Customization: Add all the secondary features (set time, cooking programs, etc) you wish to meet product line/model goals, but don’t infringe upon the standard, prominent Time/Power UI.
3. Dialog: Get the appliance end users talking about points 1) and 2) with industrial designers and manufacturers, their reps, their rep’s lawyers and their lawyer’s lawyers—don’t leave anyone out, and stir things up. VCRs are finally dying out and taking the “blinking >12:00<” debacle to its shallow grave. The Microwave is not a lost cause, but if we wait for expensive, next generation touchscreen models to roll out into the mainstream, it will be too late. The shiny new things will be, predictably, overly complicated and each brand-component partnership will design it be impressive as a store demo (i.e. virtual/real button bloat and focusing on how many pie chart shaped whirling LED activity indicators are present).

So maybe the iPhone quickly becomes the snap-in UI faceplate to your breadmaker, blender and yes, microwave, and indie Mac developers sell you a no-nonsense interface from the App Store for $0.99. But this won’t happen to the low-end models which are the ones you mostly see outside your own abode. High tech fantasies won’t help here (do they ever?). Although, while we’re on the topic, the iPhone-can-plug-into-anything ruminations were, joke or not, well under way over a year ago (*waves to Matt* <— with a simple little invite I could make that a Google wave, hint hint).

Dream Come True

The dream, the vision even, is you step up to a microwave at a friend’s house, a cafeteria, a dormitory, the office lunch room, you reach for the standards-based common UI and operate it by muscle memory. Wait for your piping hot morsels. Done. Microwaves for human beings.

So, take the diagram and clean it up, improve it; or crumple it up, shoot for three points and share a completely different design that is the definition of simplicity and effectiveness. Or wordify your thoughts: write a comment here or an entire blog post of your own; leverage those internet-borne social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed Facebook) and join a wider conversation.

I won’t rest until the Microwave Oven UI Standard (MOUIS) Project is fully baked. But I need your help.

I’m not worried about the realization of Skynet, you know, the total domination by autonomous machines. I’ll just be devastated that the robot overlords will think our microwave contraptions were designed for them, and not for us.

Some bebepool.com stats (courtesy of Google Analytics):

Visits

• First half of 2008 compared to same in 2009: +181%

Pageviews

• First half of 2008 compared to same in 2009: +195%

Traffic Source (referrer): Change in % of Visits

• Google (organic search): -21%
• MySpace: -16%
• Facebook: +231%

A bookmarklet and greasemonkey script that translates friendfeed posts and comments from one language to another (e.g. Farsi to English, German to French, English to Simplified Chinese, etc). Source language of each entry/comment is auto-detected and converted to chosen destination language.

Bookmarklet (bookmark/favorite script) & User Script (greasemonkey/greasekit)

Note: the bookmarklet is currently only packaged to translate from language X (as detected by the code) to English. The user script (below) is configurable, which means you can change the destination language as needed.

UPDATE 2009-06-27: All supported languages are now pre-packaged in user script and bookmarklet form.

UPDATE 2009-07-02: Real-time translation now possible! Translate both individual posts as well as the friendfeed stream as it live updates.

UPDATE 2009-07-03: Alternate configurations for user scripts and bookmarklets now available. By default, translations performed on a stream will only show the translated text and in single post view (click the timestamp), the original and translated text is shown. The alternate configuration
keepOriginalTextInRealtime ON causes the original text to be shown in single post and real-time stream mode.

Screenshot – “friendfeedTranslate“

Google Translate service utilized for language detection and translation.

Each comment on a friendfeed post is analyzed individually, so it’s possible to convert a mix of languages all in one thread. For example, if languageCodeTo is configured for English (‘en’); and there were German, Farsi and Simplified Chinese comments, each would be translated respectively to English.

Instead of using auto-detect languageCodeFrom, you have the option to set it explicitly in the Configuration section of the script. When viewing a single friendfeed entry, near the upper right corner by “Tools”, the link to perform the translation will appear (e.g. Translate Farsi to English).

Links

Script Installers: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedtranslate/install/

Script Project Page: http://wittman.org/projects/friendfeedtranslate/

Script hosted on userscripts.org: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/52225