Week #783
This week we took delivery of two hardware security cameras. These are for a project where we need to create an iPhone app that scans the QR code on the bottom of the device, connects to that device’s WiFi network and issues commands to both set the RTMP stream URL, but also transfer WiFi settings so the camera can join the local network. We took care of our part, but now it’s back to someone else to get the server component all flushed out.
For our school surveys, we sent out around 10,000 SMS reminders, the a few days later we did our Robocalls. We’ve written about our use of Robocalling and how effective it can be to get our response rate up. The surveys continue until the end of the month, when we shift gears to reporting and starting another two surveys.
On Monday, we met with a small team that’s beta testing our time tracking software. We’ve been working on web-based time tracking and project management for a while. Now we’ve put all that knowledge together into something we think is unique. After this beta test, we’ll know a lot more about where to take things next.
Our Australian Concreters started a spin-off company selling Screw Piles. Over the last few months, we’ve forked the web app and changed the logo and colors in a few places and updated some fields to either be more generic or wrap them in conditionals depending on the company. What we thought was two companies, is now sort-of three. There was some confusion in the naming, but we fixed a that and a few bugs this week.
We managed to get a few meetings in with friends and old colleagues. We have a few projects stirring that we’re trying to get off the ground. Getting everyone in on a meeting helped start that ball rolling.
Week #784
This week we started to plan a few more social meet-ups. We’ve grab morning coffee with some folks and lunch with a few more. Lots of emails have been sent and we’re trying to reconnect more with the local tech scene. This is all in the name of “Dig your well before you’re thirsty”. We’re in no dire need of work or projects, but given the shift in geo-politics in our industry with the rise of AI and globally with the US, we wanted to make sure people know about us closer to home. We’ll continue to meet-up with folks. We’ve been learning a bunch, validating some of our ideas and having a great time catching-up with old colleagues we haven’t seen in years.
We have a pretty good back-up regime in place, but this week one small backup disaster occurred that we managed to avert (no thanks to our setup)! One on iPhone we had several old email accounts setup from previous projects. They’ve been long over for years, the login didn’t even work, so we deleted it. Then a day later we realized that half our contacts were gone. Somehow, that old account was the default for all new contacts created. Normally this wouldn’t be a big issue since they would be sync with the server, but since that connection was broken those contacts ONLY existing on the phone and now they were gone. We looked in Time Machine backups for the computer, but they were never synced there. We looked on iCloud but they were not there either, since they were never synced there. The laptop didn’t have a back-up of the iPhone since that’s now managed by iCloud. iCloud DOES have a backup, but only the most recent, and that’s already lost all the contacts.
It was only by luck that a few months ago, we upgraded the only iPhone 12 to a 13 and the 12’s backup was still in iCloud. We did the dance of backing up the 13, restoring the 12’s backup, getting the lost contacts saved to iCloud, and restoring the 13’s backup again. It took a few hours and we probably only lost a few contacts, but it did shed a light on a few areas of improvement in our backup regime.
Between all these tasks and meetings was more survey work. We send out emails and robocalls to our current surveys and survey prep another one to start in March and yet another to start in a week or so. That requires minor changes to the questions, but more importantly to how we are converting the list of potential participants to a stratified random sample of actual participants.
Bric-à-brac
On Thursday, Star Wars SpellStruck finally was released. We’ve been quietly working on this update for a while now and we’re happy it’s live.