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Unofficial, but some fantastic information on scouts and scouting.

New lines with Google Voice

I really like the Google voice to text transcription, but it is a bit lacking on new lines. Back in the day I used to be able to dish out new line new line and get two new lines.

Now, I have to put a period at the end of the sentence and then carefully say new line and wait. Once the first new line I showed up then I can say the word phrase new line again and get the second new line.

For someone who likes to break their paragraphs up with white space between the paragraph this is kind of a frustrating feature on Google Voice.

Slate 8 - Great media device - Sprint Product Ambassadors

The Slate 8 isn't going to win any awards for fastest, most powerful or highest resolution tablet. But what it does have is a super clear IPS screen and enough horsepower to run Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Google Play Movies. So what you have here is a fantastic kids or back seat media device. Or, in my case, a way to catch up on Top Gear during my lunch break! And bonus - it's basically free for existing subscribers and only few dollars a month for new customers!







Both LTE and WiFi playback kept up with the clean resolution on the tablet. I found no lag, stuttering or buffering problems watching full episodes or jumping from clip to clip on YouTube. I'm really impressed with the screen on this tablet - it's nicer than the Galaxy S2 tab I have. Brighter, clearer and wider angle of view.



Now all I need to do is find a stand or case for this to properly prop it up on my desk!







Disclaimer: The Product Ambassadors are Sprint employees from many different parts of the company that love technology. They volunteer to test out all sorts of Sprint devices and offer opinions freely to the Community. Each Product Ambassador shares their own opinions of these devices, therefore the information in this post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprint. The PA's do not represent the company in an official way, and should not be expected to respond to Community members in an official capacity. #sprintemployee

Ad Blocking - it's the users way of saying enough is enough!

I've been running ad blocking software since, well, it first came out on Firefox.  Then Chrome and now it's available on iOS handsets now.  Why?  This snippet from the Adobe Digital Marketing blog sums it up quite well for me: 

Users are fed up with bad advertising experiences. Every install of an ad blocker is a statement against annoying ads, security risks, slow browsing, and ads’ consumption of computing resources. With ad blockers, users have taken back control of their browsing experience. Now, it’s up to publishers to adjust.

Exactly.  The ads are annoying - slow - and stop me from seeing the content I want to see.  By using the ad blocker, I can see the content without the overlays, popups and junk.  I want to support the publishers, but the content people and publishers are going to have to make some changes.  Again, suggested changes from the Adobe Digital Marketing Blog:

How publishers can adjust
If bad ad experiences are causing users to flee to ad blocking, good ad experiences can help decelerate this trend. Here are nine ways to ensure a good ad experience:

1. Make sure the ad load to content load is fair to the user.
2. Match audio and video ad experiences to user expectations. In-stream ads can automatically play video since the users expects this. In contrast, in-banner ads shouldn’t automatically play audio or video because it interrupts an otherwise quiet browsing experience.
3. Prevent ads from obstructing content.
4. Screen ads for security risks.
5. Optimize ads for speed.
6. Optimize ads to consume the least amount of computing resources possible.
7. Seek out deals with advertisers or intermediaries that have a vision for well-designed, useful ads.
8. Ask users for feedback on your ad experiences. Look for insights in the feedback that can make the ad experience better.
9. Apply the “does this work for me” test. Give your audience the experience that you would enjoy yourself.

Do you block ads when you are browsing the web?  On your phone?  What's been your experience as a consumer, and as a publisher of content?

What are the best jobs for work life balance?

Balancing your career and your home life seems simple when you're young - work all the time, play later!  But as life and a family come along - or you realize you may want to do something more than your paying job - work life balance starts to become important.

Do you have a job with a good work-life balance?  What make that important to you? 

Glassdoor took their survey data and compiled a list of the top 25 job titles for work-life balance, along with their availabilty and salary data:

1. Data Scientist

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 4.2
• Salary: $114,808
• Number of Job Openings: 1,315

2. SEO Manager

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 4.1
• Salary: $45,720
• Number of Job Openings: 338

3. Talent Acquisition Specialist

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 4.0
• Salary: $63,504
• Number of Job Openings: 1,171

4. Social Media Manager

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 4.0
• Salary: $40,000
• Number of Job Openings: 661

5. Substitute Teacher

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.9
• Salary: $24,380
• Number of Job Openings: 590

6. Recruiting Coordinator

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.9
• Salary: $44,700
• Number of Job Openings: 446

7. UX Designer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.9
• Salary: $91,440
• Number of Job Openings: 338

8. Digital Marketing Manager

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.9
• Salary: $70,052
• Number of Job Openings: 640

9. Marketing Assistant

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $32,512
• Number of Job Openings: 384

10. Web Developer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $66,040
• Number of Job Openings: 2,117

11. Risk Analyst

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $69,088
• Number of Job Openings: 208

12. Civil Engineer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $65,532
• Number of Job Openings: 809

13. Client Manager

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $71,120
• Number of Job Openings: 503

14. Instructional Designer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $66,040
• Number of Job Openings: 782

15. Marketing Analyst

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $60,000
• Number of Job Openings: 341

16. Software QA Engineer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $91,440
• Number of Job Openings: 457

17. Web Designer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $53,848
• Number of Job Openings: 500

18. Research Technician

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.8
• Salary: $36,525
• Number of Job Openings: 299

19. Program Analyst

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $71,120
• Number of Job Openings: 524

20. Data Analyst

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $58,928
• Number of Job Openings: 1,954

21. Content Manager

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $60,960
• Number of Job Openings: 409

22. Solutions Engineer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $92,456
• Number of Job Openings: 652

23. Lab Assistant

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $27,550
• Number of Job Openings: 779

24. Software Developer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $80,000
• Number of Job Openings: 3,330

25. Front End Developer

• Work-Life Balance Rating: 3.7
• Salary: $75,000
• Number of Job Openings: 1337

Is iOS 9 Content Blocking Fragging Your Analytics?

Last month, Apple rolled out the ability to block certain web content via applications, like Ad Block.  these don't just block the annoying advertisements, they also block important tracking metrics for your website and business.  Two apps have made it into the top 100 of the App Store so far.  So, what impact are they having on your mobile business?

I took a few minutes to check for my employer.  I created a segment in Adobe Omniture for IOS devices running a Safari browser, then set up an Anomaly report on page views and Occurrences.  Turning the dates back a bit to give the anomaly algorithm more to work from, this is what I found:

In a nutshell?  Nothing.  We'd be looking for traffic drops in iOS Safari after September 16th.  What we saw that was out of the norm was traffic peaks for the iPhone pre-order and iPhone launch.  Traffic is trending upward for mobile, expected for the fall device refresh season.

Adobe is reporting similar: "What is the impact of ad blocking apps across Adobe’s customer base? So far, it’s not measurable. [...]   Adobe’s Digital Index team has access to traffic data across hundreds of sites, and they analyzed the Safari traffic trend over the last couple months. How much has Safari traffic dropped since the release of iOS 9? Nada. "

From a web metrics provider and analyst point of view, that's great news.

One in Seven.

On Monday, August 27th, one in seven people in the world were using Facebook.  At the same time.  One billion simultaneous users.

Regardless of your personal feelings for Facebook, that's quite an accomplishment, both from the human connection point of view and from a technical perspective.  

Source.

Best Sprint Direct2You Sweepstakes photo

This one wins the internets:

#Direct2You #Sweepstakes Great service. Everyone should do this. pic.twitter.com/2TD4hrkXcA

— Misty Richmond (@MDRichmo) September 23, 2015

Learning GIMP

Trying to use GIMP to replace Photoshop so I did a basic image, gradient and outlined text on the image for a Facebook post for Boy Scout Troop 387.  Didn't turn out terribly bad...

Updates to Will England - the Homepage

After five more years of neglect, I updated my personal web page for Will England by adding a 'viewport' for a 'responsive design' mobile friendlyness.  Why?  Well, I've dropped nearly below the fold on Google and I'm not on the home page of Bing for a name search.

And, I had a nice meeting today with Chris from iCrossing and the Kent, the SEO expert at Sprint today who mentioned again, that they use my home page as an example of SEO done right.  But I failed them.  :-)  Thanks again for the tips (and the BBQ, Chris!)

So, sometime in 2020, I should plan my next web page update!

Day off

It's nice to get a day off once in awhile. We took the whole family to church. Later we caught up on laundry, paid bills, and had an early dinner before the wife and daughter took off for softball practice.

This weekend was supposed to be a full weekend Boy Scout camp out, but we ended up going to Schlitterbahn water park for just the day. That was definitely a good idea, because everyone was exhausted and burned by the end of the day and camping after that would have been well, painful.

Google Photos Unlimited Storage, At Reduced Quality

SO, I was curious how 'reduced' the quality was going to be on the Google Photos Unlimited Storage offer.  They claim anything up to 16 megapixels is essentially unchanged.

So I posted a photo to the unlimited storage, compared it to an iPhoto export and to the original JPEG.

Google reduced the file size to 1.1 megabytes.
iPhoto Export reduced the file size to 2.2 megabytes.
The original photo was 4.4 megabytes.

All photos remained 16 megapixels in size at 72dpi.

But how does it look at 100% crop?

See for yourself - which image is original, and which came from Googles' compression?

I'm satisfied.





(spoiler: Left is Google, Center is original, right is iPhoto export)

It's raining

Seems to be raining this Fourth day of August.

My First Visit to Bartle

Back in April of 2009, I rode the Ducati out on some Missouri back roads and found a little town at the intersection of C, U and ZZ roads.  Just past there was a scout ranch.  It was early season and I figured they were closed - but I went a bit down the road and shot a photo of the Duc at the visitors center parking lot:

Bartle Summer Camp 2015

Not been blogging much - not sure what to write anymore.  I got busy.  That's it - I got busy doing summer and camp things.  So I'll write about what I was busy with.

This summer was my fourth year back to the H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation - and Alec's fourth year.  Through hard work and a good scouting attitude (at least at Scouts) he was chosen to join the tribe of Mic O Say - the honor camping program at Bartle!  (Alec is on the left)

I wasn't even sure about camp this year - I'd just completed a week as Daycamp Director; Nikki had been out for 3 weeks at the Bahamas and Powederhorn training class and I was feeling a bit fragile.  And Nikki had signed me up for the Outdoor Leader / Assistant Scoutmaster classes while I was at camp.  So I had to pack for Hunter, Alec, and two sets of gear for me - one for in camp, and another for the 36 hour outdoor skills class.

To top it off I'd dropped tobacco cigarettes on July 1, switching to electronic vaporizers, so I had more stuff to concern myself with.

Packing was a cluster fuck to say the least, just jamming random crap in the bag and leaving the garage a bloody mess.  3 weeks back from camp and I still haven't put that back together.  Sleeping was optional at camp; hot and damp to begin with and I decided to go cold turkey from the prescription and liquid relaxation devices for the week of camp.  First few nights were spent awake, listening to the wild life.  Then up at 5:30 to get coffee and clean up trash that the raccoons had scattered.

But all turned out well - the OLS class was excellent, with superior leadership from Dave Allen, Chieftan in the Tribe and Nick Badgerow, the train-the-trainer wizard from the council.  He's also a hard core backpacking guy so I was able to pick his brains for tips and ideas for the upcoming Yellowstone trek.

The other students in the class were almost all first year parents.  I volunteered as patrol leader, and the other class members taught me something important - as a leader, it's not my job to do all the work, but to simply ensure it gets done.  Delegate, supervise and contribute only where needed.  They were offended when I tried to help - it implied to them that I didn't think they were able to get the job done on their own!  Excellent lesson in leadership.

After getting through OLS, I seem to have begun to relax and slept more at night.  Alec survived his two nights in the woods contemplating his obligations and completed his brave ceremony successfully. I even had some quiet time and made a new friend or two!

A good year at H. Roe Bartle.  I will be back next year as Assistant Camp Master.

Photos Test

A geek in a cube.

Same geek.  Same mirror.  Different cube.  10 years later.  Inspired by this post of October 2005.

Spring Break - Day 6 Thursday

Rainy day,  kids budget busted.  Indoor play most of the day while Nikki and I went up and bought a 2004 Nissan Frontier pickup. Old,  reliable and one owner.  Matches the van. 

Nikki and Robyn went to an Archery event with their Venture Crew, and Hunter, Mason and I took the new truck to Merrybelle's to get her trash taken out.  Then up to the pool for an hour of swimming, followed by Quick Trip donuts. 

Home,  worn out and down to bed.

A good day.

Spring Break, Day 4

Wednesday. A blur of a day.  I remember we sold Nikki's 2011 CBR for the asking price to a nice young girl from St.  Joseph, MO.  Beyond that - it's right fuzzy. I think I got the  turntable set up in the garage.  Played Pink Floyd, A Momentary Lapse of Reason as the first record on the new setup.

Hunter had friends over and rode bikes around the neighborhood. Alec had Chris over from across the street.  Mason had Lizzy over,  also from across the street.

Full,  fantastic family busy day.

Spring Break, Day 3

Today - mainly focused on maintaining hardware.  Took mom's Honda mower to the shop for the hard starting problem. Changed the oil and plug on the Toro and sharpened the blade.  Cleaning the garage - 2 boxes of stuff to moms for long term storage. Got a small bit of progress toward setting up the turntable in the garage for analog playback over the Klipsch La Scala's.

Nikki is nearly done with stripping and repainting her Trek bike! Looking great...

Loaded up the family for  ice cream -  supposed to be free cone day at Dairy Queen but the lines were too long.  Russell Stover serves Blue Bell ice cream and with the current Listeria scandal,  they aren't serving ice cream.  So  off to A&W  for root beer floats!

Kids rode bikes all day up to the school and back and up again.  They sure like bike riding...  Finally finding some freedom and empowerment.

Dominick came over tonight to visit Hunter - without parent! Rode his bike all the way up here -  nearly a mile from his house.  They watched some movie and Nikki took them back home.

Several calls on the CBR's -  mostly broke folks trying to jaw me down  but two real people who'll be over tomorrow to check out the bikes...

Speaking of bikes,  Mason,  the youngest,  made a great YouTube video about why to wear a helmet when riding a bike!  Helps him complete his Cub Scout Bicycle Pin!

Found out the times for Rich's wake and service.  Alec will get to drive up to Chicago with his great Aunt and Uncle - I'll run up on near saddlesore pace to crash the wake on  the FJR.  Good way to memorialize Rich - a solid 1k ride. 

Today was a good day.

-will england

Spring Break, Day Two

Day two.  First time in a long time I have slept past 6am. Up at the crack of 9. Coffee first then sort out the mess of bills that stacked up the past two weeks. A bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul,  and we're off to the church to help the Clinton Cub Scout Pack unload and return the Pinewood Derby track.

Back from that,  fielded some calls about a family emergency - more on that another day - and then off to take inventory on the Cub Scout Daycamp storage unit.  We have more than we'd hoped - good news there,  finally!

Back home and work to catch up on laundry.  Somewhere in there I forgot to eat.  But the kids have clean clothes and clean dishes to eat from.

30 minutes and I  pick up oldest son from his mom's,  then raise a glass to a good man taken too early.

Perhaps tomorrow I shall make time for the family, instead of focusing on the world around them that they just expect to happy magically.

- will