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5am…

Friday, October 5th, 2012 at 5:03 am

I went this whole week without screwing up my sleep schedule.

I’d sleep at 4am and naturally wake up around 12. And not sleep the rest of the day. Not bad.
Last night I slept at 4am and woke up at 9:30am this morning. Couldn’t fall back asleep and dev’d til 1-ish…then took a nap til 2:30pm.

It’s 5am now…and I’ve done so much deving in the last 2.5 days…I’m really proud of myself. Definitely did a lot this week and I’ll soon reveal the work I’ve done.
I wanted to do a lot more dev by Tuesday next week but it doesn’t look like I’ll have the time to.
I have 2 thanksgivings dinners, 1 lunch, 1 wedding…within the next 3 days. So it’s pretty busy.

Mental notes for me for tomorrow:

  • Newest to Oldest
  • Print functionality and CSS
  • Contact right information
  • Loading image on gallery and Checklist

All of these things should be relatively easy…so maybe I can finish after all. We’ll see!

Also: I made shake and bake chicken for dinner tonight and it was SO GOOD. WAY BETTER THAN I REMEMBER. So….yeah, I have a new, easy go-to!

Hi. It’s been a while…

Friday, September 21st, 2012 at 12:00 am

I’m so behind on my posts this month.

I’ve been working like crazy the last fews days…despite a mild fever. I’ve been pulling 12 hour~ days.
I’m trying to finish two projects by this Friday so I’m working really hard to meet those timelines (though one of them could be late).

My weekend was pretty busy and relaxing…but my Monday was rough.

See, every once in a while (I’m talking 2-3 times a year), I get this feeling of depression. I don’t know what it is, I wake up and I’m just not seeing things positively. It’s a temporary phase though, I know that I’ll feel like this for x amount of time and once this has passed, I know I won’t even be able to feel like this again, even if I were to try.

Anyways, Monday was rough. I knew I wasn’t feeling great so I decided to get myself a coffee (I don’t usually drink coffee anymore). Caffeine wakes me up and also generally turns my grumpy demeanour into a more pleasant façade. Usually. But again, sometimes coffee has an alternate effect. Sometimes it makes me jittery and anxious. Well, guess what it did to me on Monday. The jitteryness and anxiety, coupled with a full day of production issues, one after another, and not being able to work on my projects (that have impending deadlines), and a developing fever….and it was like a perfect storm of sh!ttyness.

I could feel the caffeine in me, the jitteryness, all day and night Monday. I could feel it on Tuesday. I only got rid of that jittery feeling Wednesday. Not sure if it was the caffeine but I also had a bit of stress/work filled insomnia the last couple nights. I slept early on Tuesday but woke up wired, stressed, and worried in the middle of the night. I ended up deving for 2.5 hours from 2am-4:30am, trying to use my insomnia-tic time effectively. Because I know that the more productive I am, the easier it will be to fall asleep (because I feel like I’ve accomplished something), and the less stressed I’ll be the next day or so.

I’m in a decent place right now work wise. My deadlines seem reachable. My fever is pretty much gone and I don’t feel the caffeine anymore, nor the stress/anxiety/insomnia or depression.

Even as I write this, it’s difficult trying to describe, or feel my depression. Had I written this on the day I was actually depressed, the words would have come much easier.

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One of the things that really depressed me, which is still somewhat lingering in my mind is: is my future in (web/application) development?

I’ve tried so hard to believe it is. I’ve spent so much time the last 3 years focusing on development in my future. But I know…I’m not a natural developer. I don’t have a born gift with it, it’s not something that comes as naturally to me as it does for others. And I use my uni comp sci friends as a comparison. Some of them were excellent programmers. A born talent I couldn’t hope to achieve. Even now, with all my learning, my understanding is below theirs. It’s…depressing. Many of them don’t even develop anymore. And some of them, of whom I felt superior to back in those days have since surpassed me.

I’m not using my time effectively.

But the thing is…in my own way, I am. Compared to my co-worker peers (who walk the same path as I), I develop far more than any of them. And, compared to my co-workers, it shows as I’ve risen to the top. I’m ahead of a dozen of other developers. But I still feel inferior. If I were to go to any other more technical company, I would be junior/intermediate…I believe. And I know that staying here stunts my growth…but I’m also terrified to see what else is out there. Because I’m comfortable here, I matter, I’m important. But out there…I’m just a dime a dozen.

I think the only way to get over my fear, while still staying at this company, is to improve on my free time. Which is what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been trying to learn this and that, the things I don’t learn at work. Development is an interesting thing: you can get better at it on your own time. I would say that in most jobs, you can only improve while you’re at work. Development is not so. I feel lucky this way because I generally have more “free” time than the average person due to my antisocialness. But I can’t forget many other developers with similar personalities also have this “advantage”.

So in all this time I’ve had, why have I progressed so little. Is it that I try to surpass genius with hard work? But I’m finding that no amount of hard work can surpass natural talent (totally thinking of Rock Lee VS Neji here). Am I not challenging myself? Am I not reading enough? I spend much of my time developing…developing warrenshea.com, secretproject kb…but none of that is really challenging. I spend so much time but I’m not learning enough. I’m still staying in my comfort zone.

I enjoy development but I want to be great at it. Not just good. I want more for myself. But I don’t feel confident that I have the skill to back that up now. And if not now, then when? I feel that I’ve already past my…age when something great should have happened.

I wonder…if this isn’t my natural skill…then what is?

People think I’m a great artist.
People think I’m the anime king.
People think I’m the cartoon god.
People think I’m the computer whiz.
People think I’m the hardcore gamer.
People think I’m smart.

But as good as any of my skills are, I’m not that good at any of these things. I don’t have an exceptional talent at any of these things. I personally know people who are better/more into any of these things. I’m a jack of all trades, master of none.

So where is my genius? Where is my natural talent? What is that one thing that I’m exceptional at and why haven’t I found it yet? Or will I live my life never knowing what that skill could be.
(I wrote this in a prev blog post but it’s relevant now) – I look at those rock balancers at the CNE. They’re exceptionally skilled at what they do. But how would one discover such a skill? How many people go through life never knowing what their exceptional talent is? Am I one of them?

I’m been contemplating if development is the right path for me. I’ve been so sure for years now. I love it. Honestly, there is almost nothing that can pull me away from a good developer groove. I thrive on those rare moments. I’m not working 12 hours a day lately and hating it. I’m working 12 hours a day and going to sleep, excited for what I’m going to do tomorrow. The only reason I sleep is necessity. So if I love it so much…why am I still not as strong as I’d like to be.
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I had a job interview a few months back. It was for a job that I wasn’t qualified for. But I wanted to be qualified for it. I’m a senior front-end developer. But I also do PHP and ASP.NET…so my resume lists me as a senior web developer. So the job I was applying for was for that. But that’s not me.

And even in the interview, they said that I had progressed quite far and quite fast given my experience. Even at my current job, I feel that way. 6 years ago I was just entering the work force but I’m at the head of department on a technical level. BUT I STILL FEEL SO BEHIND.

It’s stupid. I want to get a job I’m somewhat unqualified for. One where I get the time and environment to catch up. But no one wants to hire an unqualified person. I keep having headhunters call me because of my awesome warrenshea.com website and the fact that I’m listed as a senior web developer. But when we discuss, on a technical level, what is required for the prospective job, I always come up short. Because…I’m not qualified to be the senior web developer, despite my current title/role.

I think I’m going to change my resume to Senior Front End Web Developer…but then I’ll only get contacted for people looking to do Senior Front End Web Development. But I want more, I want PHP and ASP.NET………sigh, such a stupid situation I’m in. I could purposely sell myself short and say I’m an Intermediate Web Developer…but that’s not really true to me either. I’m senior now and I’ve earned it. (any advice would be helpful please)

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So this has been what’s been on my mind this week. This, and that I’ve been developing ridiculous hours all week…a difficult project too so I’m having a lot of fun, and thus have no desire to blog.

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Usually I feel so together. I’ve spent a lot of thinking figuring out where I want to be. But right now, I feel unsettled. Unsatisfactory. I don’t feel I’m living up to my potential. I want to be great. Some people are born with greatness, some people have greatness thrust upon them. So if neither of those are/will be true for me, how can I become great. Will I be swept up in fate or will I create my own destiny? Can I still be great? I don’t think it’s too late. But what can I do to get me there?

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Motivation

Thursday, May 24th, 2012 at 12:15 am

I realized today that, as I showed other people my site in the last day or two, some of them had gotten motivated to work on their own projects.

I didn’t realize it, because I’d been working on this site/project so long, but it was a small project that is actually “complete” now. I can’t speak for everyone but if I were in their situation, suddenly seeing a project being completed, I would think “this makes me wanna work on my own hobbies”. I think at least a couple of people’s reaction had been this (as mine would have been). And I think it’s great. Not because I’ve motivated them, but personally, seeing them motivated to work on stuff motivates me even more. Like, the “I don’t wanna be left behind! If you’re doing this, I’ll do that” feeling.

Granted, it’s often a passing feeling for some.

But personally, I’ve always thrived on competition between my peers. I felt really motivated today to keep working.

I’m going to spend the rest of my night working on Secret Project KB…hopefully I can make some progress…maybe even show some of you what Secret Project KB is (when I’m further along), so you can join me in my journey. I’d rather have that than all of a sudden say “Project KB is released everyone“. I think having others join me will help me stay motivated. I would want to keep working on stuff so others, who are watching my progress, don’t get disappointed when I haven’t done anything in a while. I think that’s also a great motivator. (It’s also a major motivator for blogging…cuz I don’t like users coming to my site and being disappointed that I don’t have anything new to read).

On a separate note, of the people I asked to look at my site, I was pretty disappointed that most of the comments were “great job” or “looks good” type comments. The reason I asked people to see my site was more for critique and things I could fix. I wasn’t looking for praise, I was looking for issues and concerns. I guess I should have made that more clear…I think I only got real feedback from one person. I know it’s delicate to bring issues up, my pride is so high right now, but I’ve generally, for this kind of stuff, always preferred the “this is a mistake that i found, that you don’t know about…so this is me telling you” response. It’s one of the best ways to learn because it’s not that I’ve purposely done something in error, it’s more so that I’m oblivious to the error. That is, if I’ve done something wrong, it’s generally that I don’t know I’ve done something wrong than I’ve knowingly done something wrong but chose not to fix it. And without knowledge of my error, how can I ever hope to improve? I’ve found this approach to learning seems only unique to me though. Most people don’t like when their flaws are brought up. Too much pride I guess? Arrogance? I don’t know….and I find it ironic cuz I’m full of pride and arrogance…and yet, I’d still prefer the blow to those things if it will help me improve. But again, most people aren’t like that. Most people hate it.

One of the things I have to learn is that what I’ve found best for me is not always best for others. Because thinking my ways should apply to others often leaves me with less friends. It’s like people don’t like the blunt truth. WHY NOT?! ?_?

Anyways…off to work :)

Source Control? No thanks.

Tuesday, January 31st, 2012 at 11:59 pm

I prefer to live life DANGEROUSLY.

I’ve never been a fan of source control, checking things in and out, locked files, merging files, etc. I always found it more tedious than beneficial. After all, I make my own backups during project milestones. And I was one of the 5 or so developers that didn’t properly use Source Control at my work when they tried to implement it, and if one person doesn’t use it, the whole thing crashes down. LOL so basically, I ruined it for everyone else /flex. And no, I don’t feel bad, our team still got along great without it.

I know I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I know Source Control is good. There are few drawbacks and using a few seconds here and there can save hours if something goes wrong.

I think it’s basically just that I’m arrogant, so arrogant in fact that I don’t believe I’d ever make such ridiculous mistakes. After all, I’m perfect. Or at least close to it. Or…more accurately I just try to be. But I guess WE ALL make mistakes…..and when those mistakes happen (as they have in the past), I won’t be ready cuz I’m too arrogant to have used Source Control. Sorry, that was some kind of cyclical argument. Basically, I admit I’m flawed and my arrogance is one of my downfalls.

I was in a meeting last Friday and wrote down “Source Control” and “Arrogance” (beside my doodle of Cyclops from the X-Men) I guess as something to blog about. So here it is. :/

/just wanted to write something

…in two years…

Saturday, January 7th, 2012 at 7:15 pm

To recap…today is a special day for me. It’s the 2 year anniversary since I quit World of Warcraft. I know, it seems stupid in retrospect or hindsight that I would celebrate something like this. But World of Warcraft was an addiction of mine…and life’s been great since kicking the habit. I wrote another post last year on this day about the one year after I quit WoW. This is a followup post to that….tradition, if you will.

What did I ask myself at the end of …one year ago…

How much will change by Jan 7, 2012?
What will I accomplish?
How will my life have changed?
What will I have figured out?

What I’ve done in the last year

worldofwarren.com (previously warrenshea.com)

  • New Google+ Theme on worldofwarren.com
  • Got worldofwarren.com domain and moved content from warrenshea.com to worldofwarren.com
  • Heavily cleaned up code on worldofwarren.com
  • Fixed old themes on worldofwarren.com

I was able to separate my site into 2, a personal and professional site. Just what I wanted to do this year :) Not that it was hard…and this…

warrenshea.com

  • Almost done

….yeah, this is almost done. :D

Blogging
187 posts between Jan 7, 2010 and Jan 7, 2011. On average, roughly 15.58 posts/month. The number actually falls almost too perfectly inline with my hope of 150-200 posts this year (that I wrote I wanted in my …in one year… post). FYI – Last year’s stats were: 300 posts since my first one, on Jan 26, 2010. On average, roughly 25.25 posts/month.

Twitter
2831 tweets since Jan 18, 2010. 1345 since Jan 7, 2010. Just shy of what I did last year (1486). As expected.

Improved development skills
I definitely did NOT improve my ASP.NET C# skills and only improved my PHP by a little bit.
I had a good amount of improvement on HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery while building warrenshea.com
I’ve also learned quite a bit about Web Accessibility knowledge due to a large project at work.

Reading

  • Dragon Ball Z Vol 1 – 26 [Manga]
  • Bakuman Vol 1 – 2 [Manga]
  • Hikaru no Go – The Neverending Road – Chapter 1-79 [Fanfiction]
  • Azumanga Daioh [Manga]
  • Street Fighter: The Ultimate Edition Book 2 [Comic]
  • Street Fighter: The Ultimate Edition Book 1 [Comic]
  • Get Backers [Manga]
  • L, Change the World [Short Novel]

This is obviously not a complete list of all the things I’ve read as I’ve got so many comics and random mangas in the list too. This is just from my accomplishments post.

I haven’t read that much this year…and that’s okay. Steve Jobs book this year…and we’ll see what else.

Gaming

  • Super Mario Kart 7 [3DS]
  • Kirby: Return to Dreamland [Wii]
  • Kirby Mass Attack [DS]
  • New Super Mario Bros [DS]
  • Super Mario 3D Land [3DS]
  • Star Fox 64 [3DS]
  • Catherine [PS3]
  • Zelda: Ocarina of Time [3DS]
  • Zelda: Ocarina of Time [N64]
  • Super Mario Bros. [Wii]
  • Hard Corps: Uprising [PS3]

Last year was pretty quiet but this year was…not. More on that here

Art
Is it still okay to say this is a hobby of mine? I don’t think I did a single art piece this year.


What I hope to accomplish this year

worldofwarren.com
I’m going to get rid of the Blogger theme I have. I guess that one’s never really been mine anyways….not that the GMAIL or Google+ themes are really mine either though >_< I want to make a professional theme still...I guess that would be next on my design plate. warrenshea.com
I’m going to finish this..and soon!

[sideproject].com
I still plan on making this. It’s not my epic project. It’s a blog that won’t be updated too often. It’s based on a product line of toys I really like. Anyways, I’ll get this made this year, for sure! Right after warrenshea.com! I’m kinda waiting on my new camera for this because I want to take photos of my toys FOR this site.

Blogging
I’m getting a bit tired of blogging to be honest. I think blogging once every 4 or 5 days is a good amount…maybe a bit too little though? That would only be like, 7 posts a month! I really like having 10-15 posts a month…anyways, we’ll see.

Reading, Gaming, Art
I don’t care so much about reading or art. As for gaming, I would still like to continue gaming…but maybe game less than this last year.

Improving development skills
I’m not going to set any really high ambitions for this this year. I learn best and most when I have a practical project to work on….so I guess I’ll really try to focus learning through working on my current site and projects, worldofwarren.com, warrenshea.com, [sideproject].com, and [epicsite?].com.

I guess what I learn will all depend on the projects I do. I’m try to focus less on learning, and more on working on practical work…and let the learning come naturally and automatically.


How I’ve changed professionally this last year

To be honest: At this point, I think I’m at my lowest point of motivation ever. Part of it happens to be my work friends. It seems like the new friends I’ve made at work really affect my productivity. Not surprising. All I want to do nowadays is chat. It’s been really bad (professionally). Personally it’s been really fun and great lol.

Part of it is being on these super really long projects. They’ve been delayed and delayed. I’m afraid to take on new projects that will end up going and then falling at the same time as these big projects, and physically and mentally stressing me like they did earlier this year. I hated it. All work, no play. And then I got sick. I don’t wanna go through that again. To be honest, I’ve been avoiding projects for what seems like a long time. I guess it’s only been since Sept/Oct though.

How I hope to change professionally this year

I need to get out of my rut. Should I volunteer for more work projects? Maybe new job might help. But I dunno. I guess I’ve been in this job/role for about 4 years. Maybe it’s time for a change? I just need some motivation…


…in two years…

I’ve done a lot since I quit WoW, two years ago today. I like where this is all going. I like the websites I’ve done. I like the friends I’ve gotten in touch with again and the new friends I’ve made this year. I like that I’ve watched a lot of new shows, listened to different music, played lots of games. Basically, I’m really happy with all the things I’ve done since I quit WoW. I can’t imagine doing 1/2 of these things had I still been playing.

Let’s see what this next year brings :)
BRING. IT.