Graffiti for the workplace. Plus, a FrogPad update.

I work on vital statistics software. The software is used by several States to process birth and death events. Perhaps I will talk more about what I do some other time, but it's not important right now. What matters is that we are the "Vital Statistics team" where I work, and often we are just called "Vitals".

From my office, there is a Chevron visible across the street. This Chevron closed down several months ago (how it managed to stay open for so many years is a mystery to me... the place seemed very poorly managed). Naturally, when a building is abandoned it becomes needful for said building to be covered in graffiti, and so soon the local talented midnight artists thoughtfully and tastefully turned this eyesore of a building into a beautiful monument to illegible scribbles. Sadly, the city didn't appreciate such fine art, and so they painted over the tags. But they missed one.

Over the months, the tagging has continued, only to be painted over every time... except for that one tag that still persisted.


One day, my colleagues and I were looking out of my office window with some binoculars (why is not important...), when we decided to get a better look at that one tag that always managed to stick around.


It appeared to say something about "vital". So we got a closer look.


There was some disagreement about the first word -- "ks", "its", "pi s", "ns" -- but we decided that the tagger was trying to pay tribute to us, and to recognize all the hard work that we do every day. And so, it was decided that the words said: "it's vital". And that, of course, is some clever wordplay.

I went over and took a photo of the graffiti (which is where the above photos came from), and I then proceeded to chop the letters out so we could print it as a banner. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to use the full width of the paper roll when I printed it out, so we were only able to make it about nine feet wide, but now we have a glorious banner that proclaims who we are, how important we are, and also shows that we have serious street cred. And even though we have to tell everyone who sees it that the first word is not "ks", we still feel pretty special... and also vitally important.

Here's how it looks as you enter our section of the office

I can even see it from my office

Also, there are barn swallows living outside our office this year, which are a new addition to our surprisingly diverse wildlife outside. Naturally, I'm particularly pleased since swallows are my favorite bird... not that I'm biased or anything...

Here they are right outside my office window - I apologize for the poor photo, but I had to hurry and they flew away right after I snapped this shot.

FrogPad update: I'm making fairly regular use of it at work now. I hardly ever need to look at the pad, unless I'm using some symbol that I haven't used much. I'm still not super fast with it yet, but my most frequent typing error now is actually due to typing too fast...

The pad has fifteen letter keys, each of which can generate five characters, plus they all have at least one "function" -- arrow keys, page up, esc, and so forth. So, to type anything besides the fifteen main letters, you have to push one or more of the five "modifier" keys. The most common of these is pressing the space key at the same time as one of the letter keys. So, for instance, you can type an 'e' by just pressing the appropriate key, but pressing it at the same time as the space key produces a 'z'.

The problem here is that there is a built-in delay in the algorithm, so if I'm typing, say, "the pad", it will often come out as "thzpad", because I type the space too soon after typing the 'e', and it changes the 'e' into a 'z' and the space doesn't get output. This happens a lot to me now, and it happened in that last sentence in fact ("it changes the" came out as "icchangegthe"). So there is definitely an upper limit on how fast I will ever be able to type. This error is a common one since the space key is easy to hit, and I can quickly type it after any character, even though I'm not that fast with the keyboard itself. So I need to train myself to be slower with the space key...

Today's typing speed (based on TypingTest.com):
Frogpad: 33 WPM
Standard keyboard: 93 WPM

I take my new FrogPad for a test drive.

Well, I finished posting all of the old MySpace blog stories... and now here comes my first real blog post ever. Bleh...

So I just received my new and functioning FrogPad today. What's a FrogPad, you ask? Why, it's a small, one-handed keyboard, of course! I'm using it to type this, in fact... and it's taking a lot longer than usual. It doesn't use the qwerty layout that we're all used to, so I do a lot of hunting and pecking now... plus many of the keys require chording, which doesn't seem to be too bad, but it takes some getting used to. I'm just not used to having to look at the keyboard, and it can be frustrating typing so slowly; when I'm not coding, I can usually type over 100 words per minute (it took me a full minute to find the semi-colon key -- I almost gave up and used lesser punctuation instead).



In case you haven't figured it out yet, I've been typing this mainly to get practice with the keyboard, and it's actually been very helpful. I'm already getting a pretty good handle on where the keys are, although I still have to look at the keyboard a lot. But I'm pretty happy with how quickly it's coming along. :)

Anyway, you may have noticed that I mentioned that this FrogPad is functioning. See, i previously received a FrogPad that had a minor malfunction... the Bluetooth pairing button didn't work. Try as I might, I couldn't get the pad to enter discoverable mode. Eventually, I tried too hard, and I accidentally snapped the Bluetooth pairing button off of the internal circuit board. Fortunately, they were very nice about it and replaced the pad for free. Of course, I had to mail it back to them. As my broken keyboard headed back to its makers, and as I watched the tracking info update online, I eventually noticed that it had been "left by doorstep". That made me a bit uneasy, since FedEx doesn't normally leave packages sitting in front of businesses. So I looked up their address on Google Maps:



Not only does that look like a residential area, it also looks like the address is a house that has been flattened! I worried that I had sent this (overly) expensive keyboard to sit in front of some crackhouse, to be misused and unappreciated, and perhaps even introduced to a life of drugs and crime -- which I understand is highly competitive.

And so I lay awake at night, fretting over my poor, lost keyboard. When I managed to sleep, it was filled with nightmarish images of atrocities all committed by a slightly damaged, one-handed keyboard. But then, at long last, the FrogPad arrived this afternoon while I was at work! With much joy, I was able to successfully pair it with my PC at work, and later with my Mac when I got home. And so here I am, several hours later, typing a long and boring report about it... and it's taking FOREVER!!! Hopefully I'll start making some serious progress with my typing speed soon...

Today's typing speed (based on TypingTest.com):
Frogpad: 15 WPM
Standard keyboard: 99 WPM