Studio711.com – Ben Martens

CascadeSkier Telemetry

As I ponder moving all of my web stuff from GoDaddy to Azure, one of the big pieces is the backend infrastructure for the CascadeSkier line of apps. There is the Windows 7 gadget, Windows 8 modern app, and Windows Phone app, each with slightly different but mostly similar requirements.

Moving the code over is actually pretty simple, and this is a good opportunity to clean up a lot of things. However, one major difference is that GoDaddy gave me free unlimited bandwidth but I’ll have to pay for it on Azure. So how much data was I using from GoDaddy for these apps?

I finally set up a bit of telemetry for my apps on the server side, logging every request that comes in. That gives me a bunch of interesting stats:

  • The most popular resorts that people subscribe to are unsurprisingly Crystal, Stevens and Snoqualmie. Those are the resorts that are closest to the main urban areas.
  • Almost nobody cares about the Oregon resorts that I have in my app. If I was out to make money, targeted advertising in those areas would probably pay off.
  • Only about 30 people are still using the old desktop gadget.
  • While I’ve sold a few thousand copies of these apps, it looks like only about 400-500 of them are in regular use right now. Then again, given that it’s still summer time, maybe that’s more impressive than it looks. I wonder how these numbers will change in the winter?
  • Right now I’m using about 150MB of data per day to service these applications. Azure gives you the first 5GB of traffic for free so that would just fit under the cap. I expect it to increase in the winter but I’m not going to be blowing through terabytes of data or anything like that.

If/when I do move the service over to Azure, I’ll probably take the opportunity to update all the apps and add even more telemetry so I can see which features people are using, etc. My job at work now focuses heavily on our telemetry pipeline so it has me asking lots of questions that I can’t answer about my own application.

benmartens September 11, 2014 Site News

Fantasy Football – Week 1

Welcome back football fans! It felt great to see football on TV again, especially with the Seahawks delivering a solid victory over the cheese heads.

Our league did not continue the way it ended last year. Logan and Andy finished first and second last year with pretty dominating seasons. They started out this year with a loss. It looks like I’m starting out the season on top with Tim, Dad and Luke also winning their games.

Now on to the weekly awards. You’ll notice that I added a new bullet point for our league record to help put this season in perspective.

  • Highest Team Score
    • This Week: Ben had 137.85
    • Season: In Week 1, Ben had 137.85
    • All-Time: In 2013, Tim had 195.50
  • Lowest Team Score
    • This Week: Jim had 82.00
    • Season: In Week 1, Jim had 82.00
    • All-Time: In 2011, Jim beat Luke by 83.79
  • Biggest Blowout
    • This Week: Luke beat Jim by 41.27
    • Season: In Week 1, Luke beat Jim by 41.27
    • All-Time: In 2010, Luke beat Andy by 113.02
  • Closest Win
    • This Week: Dad beat Austin by 27.16
    • Season: In Week 1, Dad beat Austin by 27.16
    • All-Time: In 2012, Jim beat me by 0.12
  • Highest Scoring Player
    • This Week: Matt Ryan scored 37.42 for Dad
    • Season: In Week 1, Matt Ryan scored 37.42 for Dad
    • All-Time: In 2013, Peyton Manning scored 60.28 for Andy

I’m also adding a new weekly section for Seahawks fans. I need a good name but basically it’s going to be a shot of the opposing QB looking dejected after the Seahawks defense makes a great play. Last year both Manning brothers had great “Mommy!!!” faces that inspired this.

benmartens September 10, 2014 Fantasy Sports

Stages of Learning

Having just switched into a new role at work, I’m keenly aware of the various stages of learning that I’m progressing through. I think it can be broken down into three stages:

  1. What? I look at this list of things you want me to do and I have no idea what any of them even mean.
  2. How? Ok, now I understand what you’re talking about but I don’t know how to make progress on these tasks.
  3. Why? I’m a productive member of the team, but I don’t really understand the history and philosophy of why we’re doing these tasks.

I’d say with my job right now I’m generally in stage 3 (though there are some areas where I’m still borderline 1/2.) Jumping into a brand new group is disconcerting, but it sure feels good to learn new stuff!

benmartens September 9, 2014 Commentary

Woodworking Plans

There is a site for everything on the internet. It’s nearly impossible to come up with an idea that doesn’t exist already. But I’ve got one and I’m giving it away for free. As best I can tell, there is no good website that has downloadable (either free or for purchase) woodworking plans along with user reviews of the quality of each plan. Think about having a shopping experience like Amazon.com except it’s all woodworking plans. You could have customer submitted images of each project, reviews saying how good or bad each plan is and a catalog that is both browsable and searchable. Creators could upload their plans and get money from people who buy the plans.

There are actually some sites out there that attempt to collect plans but they are ancient at best and generally they’re indistinguishable from spam sites. They’re flooded with dead links.

Why doesn’t this exist? Somebody please take the idea and run with it! All I want in return is a link to the finished site so I can use it.

benmartens September 8, 2014 Commentary

Birch Bay Camping

Tyla’s family was camping up at Birch Bay State Park over Labor Day weekend. They had their trailer parked at the state park and had also reserved a room at their timeshare/condo place down the street. Tyla and I ended up staying there with Elijah at night and then hung out at the campsite during the day. It’s not exactly the most hardcore camping trip I’ve ever had, but it’s a nice area and we had better weather than expected, and it was nice to get away from the house for a while. There was a pretty nice sunset the first night too.

benmartens September 5, 2014 Outdoors

Throwback Thursday – Tyla

This is the last Throwback Thursday for a while. Next week I’ll be starting the fantasy football recap and I don’t need two scheduled posts per week so we’ll drop these photos. And since it’s the last one, I decided to mix it up and show a picture of Tyla instead.I don’t know much about this photo except that she appears to be on a horse.

benmartens September 4, 2014 Throwback Thursday

PVC Bath Toys

My son loves to play with water from hoses and tubes. While watching him splash around in the tub the other night, I got an idea for some PVC toys. A quick search revealed that lots of other people have had this revelation too. Here’s how to make your own set:

The project is simple. Grab an assortment of PVC elbows and T’s from your home improvement store. I chose 2” but go with whatever looks good to you. They’re a couple bucks each so you might want to start small and see if you like the idea before buying a bunch of them. While you’re there, pick up a some suction cups. I found them over by the picture hanging hardware. The little ones that hold 1 pound each work fine.

Drill two or three holes in each PVC piece that’s just big enough to hold the suction cup. I then used white Gorilla glue to hold them in place because that’s what I had on hand. So far it is holding up to tugs and pulls.

Once the glue has set, stick them to your tub wall and pour water in them. It’s not perfect but with a little practice you can get water to fall from piece to piece. I might also pick up some tubing to connect them, but this is plenty of fun for now.

benmartens September 3, 2014 Family

Parenting And The Scientific Method

There have been a lot of surprises and lessons learned from being a first-time parent. One of the biggest that I keep coming back to is how impossible it is to apply the scientific method to parenting. The scientific method basically says that you ask a question, do some research, construct a hypothesis, test it with experiments, analyze your data and then draw conclusions. Surely solving a parenting challenge could be approached the same way?

In theory, yes, it would work, but when you’re only dealing with even just one kid, the problems come at you so fast that it’s impossible to isolate one problem at a time and experiment with solutions. Your child isn’t sleeping well? Try making the room warmer or colder, putting him to bed sooner or later, feeding him more or less during the day or at night, sleeping with white noise or without noise, and the list goes on and on. The first night you pick one experiment and try it. Ok that didn’t work. But before you can try the next experiment on your list, you have a new set of problems like your kid missed a nap or your kid is teething, etc. The experiments start compounding until it feels like you’re just struggling to keep up, much less making any progress on the problems. And even if something you try does work one day, it doesn’t mean it will ever work again. Or just because it didn’t work today, it doesn’t mean it won’t work tomorrow. Instead of driving the boat, it’s easy to feel like you’re getting dragged behind it.

So far the only “solution” I’ve found is to just go with the flow as much as you can. Pick your battles and let the rest slide. Ignore the mountains of “advice” that come from every book, website, and Facebook post and do what you need to do to survive and raise a healthy, well-behaved child. If you succeed then you did it right.

benmartens September 2, 2014 Family

Happy Labor Day

I don’t remember where I heard it, but somebody once said: “If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, it would probably be Labor Day.” Technically I guess this holiday is about celebrating unions and the labor movement, but I’ll just enjoy a beer and some meat on the grill.

benmartens September 1, 2014 Commentary

Privacy: You Have None

A while back somebody commented that the emailed receipts from various physical stores feels like a privacy concern because they know your email. Umm… let’s take a step back and think about all the ways that you are being tracked today:

  • Do you have a credit/debit card? Each individual store you shop at is able to track all of your purchases through that card. And then on top of that, your credit card company knows a LOT about your personality, your purchasing habits, where you shop, what time of day you’re shopping, and much more. That data all gets aggregated up and most likely is sold off to advertisers etc.
  • Do you have a frequent shopper card? Why do you think that the grocery store gives you discounts if you use their frequent shopper card? It’s because they are able to make more money off of you if you know your buying habits. If everyone used their credit card every time they shopped, they wouldn’t need these cards.
  • Do you use the internet? Your internet service provider knows everything you do online unless you’ve taken steps to use encrypted sites or a VPN. But even then, almost every website you visit is dropping a tracking cookie onto your computer so they can understand your browsing habits. And have you seen things like the Facebook Like button showing up all over the web? Anytime you even view a page with a Like button, the fact that you saw it is getting sent back to Facebook. Facebook and ad networks have huge amounts of data about what sites you visit.
  • Do you walk around? That cell phone in your pocket is a huge tracking beacon. The cell phone company knows where you are at all times because they can tell which cell phone towers you’re connecting to. And when you walk through stores, they can watch for the completely unique WiFi signals that your phone is putting out and then track your path through not just that store but other stores that they are affiliated with.

The list goes on and on and on. You are the product. Companies are buying and selling your information, and thankfully, it’s almost always a benefit to us. We get discounts at stores, cash back on our credit cards, better store layouts, coupons targeted at our interests, and free websites. But if the fact that a company knows your email address creeps you out or you’re paranoid about why ads show up on one site for something you searched for on another site, then you better take a huge step back, educate yoursef and rethink your approach to all aspects of your life. Stop carrying a cell phone. Pay cash for everything. Never sign up for a frequent shopper card. Don’t use the internet. Do those four things and you’re off to a good start (but you’re not even close to done.) You might want to add a tinfoil hat to the list too.

benmartens August 29, 2014 Commentary