Leinninger.com

From the field...

For What It's Worth...

November 4th, 2013:
A New Adventure

Gina near the Utah mountain  peak just beyond Park City. Approx. altitude: 10,000 ft.

Gina near the Utah mountain peak just beyond Park City. Approx. altitude: 10,000 ft.

After much deliberation, I’ve decided to seek out a new career opportunity. Having spent 15 years with my former organization, I’ve made many friends and learned so much. I am eternally grateful for my time with them. I had a personal need to work more directly with a smaller team on a "start from scratch" project. My new opportunity provides this.

I am almost done with my 2-week onsite orientation/training/meet-the-team in Utah. It’s very pretty out here… but Gina and I just aren’t into mountains. (My new company flew Gina out for the weekend.) After this onsite visit is complete, I’ll be working from home most of the time, with regular remote work-together days (there are several other software folks relatively close to each other) and occasional visits back to HQ in Utah.

I’m looking forward to working more directly with code, being able to contribute to the design effort and build a new team from the ground up. The side benefit of having more time to spend with my family is pretty nice as well. (I averaged 16 hours per week commuting to downtown Detroit previously.) I’m a little rusty, but I’ve already written a bit of handy jQuery for custom field masking, cleaned up some unwieldy CSS, and generated lots of clean, standards-compliant HTML. Not bad for a few days on the job!

I know I’m being very vague regarding my past and current job history. If you know me (or know how to use social networks), I’m sure you can figure it all out. But really, is it worth your time?

- Duane

October 10th, 2013:
Slacker

I have really slacked on updates this year… a lot has happened and I just haven’t had time to catalog it all here. So, here’s the Cliff’s notes version:

  • I was promoted to Vice President, Software Engineering at the beginning of the year.
  • Since then, I’ve really had no time to focus on code, technology, my hobbies or home projects
  • I have, however, learned a great deal about high level leadership and the complexities of an enterprise organization
  • Our engineers have been cranking out awesome stuff all year long and I’m grateful to be part of their team. We launched the first phase of a revolutionary product a few weeks ago and are already ready to release the next version. I hope this release gets the team the props they deserve from our business leaders.
  • This year’s racing season was expensive and full of technical difficulties and repairs. During the first practice weekend, I hit a wall going about 80 and wiped out all of the suspension on the left side of my car as well as destroying the fiberglass nose. After that I battled with my brake bias, had a few bumps and scrapes with other cars, disintegrated my clutch, pulled the engine and trans, and tried to make my tires last a few weekend longer than I should have. The last straw was blowing up 3rd gear during the last scheduled race of the season. The car is still sitting in the barn waiting for me to pull the engine again. I hope to do that before the winter comes…
  • Gina and I went to Germany for a week… it was pretty damn awesome. Gina allowed me to tag along while she attended a conference. She was honored with a nomination for her work in appetite regulation mechanics. We spent a few extra days in Munich and Stuttgart to visit museums, castles, and more than a few Biergarten.
  • The week after we got back from Germany, we spent a week in Traverse City with our bandmates. Generally, we visited a lot of wineries, drank some wine, played a lot of music and chilled out. There’s no better way to get over jetlag than to chill in a cabin with your friends.

I’ll have some big news soon, so stay tuned. I promise I’ll post the details on this site!

- Duane

December 6th, 2012:
Gaming Season!

Video game season began a few months ago. A group of us at the office decided to invest in PC upgrades and many have been spending more time on PC gaming than console. Apart from the occasional PC pains (crashes, installation complications, weird voice chat compromises, etc.) the PC gaming experience does not fail to impress. Although current gen consoles have come a long way in their capabilities, there is still a significant difference in feature and quality.

Take Battlefield 3 (one of my current favorites)… the PC multiplayer maps are massive in comparison to their console counterparts. The number of players are far larger on each map. The graphics are undeniably better. The physics are more accurate. There’s more details. The quality of player is superior. Argue if you want, but the experience it better.

I’ve been playing the campaign in Dishonored. At first, I was disappointed with the difference in the graphics vs. the teasers in the commercials. However with the help of a few tweaks, I’ve become more than satisfied with the aesthetic of the game. These kinds of tweaks (here and here) are not possible on consoles.

Furthermore, LAN Parties just aren’t the same with a console. Most console multiplayer games require an internet connection and an official internet game server. Most multiplayer PC games allow you to configure your own game server or even host from your own instance of the game. I’ll exclude the controller vs. keyboard and mouse argument. That’s a discussion of its own.

So, am I done with console gaming? Absolutely not. Console gaming is easier. There are fewer bugs, crashes and complications. The Xbox live experience is the best centralized social gaming solution on the planet. I know who is playing what games with whom and can text or voice chat with them even if I’m not playing the same game.

So, what’s the point of my rant? Hmm…

I’m having fun playing PC games. I even enjoy some of the challenges of tweaking each game to their optimal settings. But, I miss the simplicity and reliability of console gaming.

What’s the fix?

That’s a loaded question: Microsoft has all of the ingredients to fix this. Windows 8 plays all nicey-nice with the Xbox 360. They have tablet and smartphone tools (smartglass). The gaming community needs to unite around a common communications platform. Steam is on the right track with their integrations, but most folks don’t want to manually add non-Steam games to their Steam libraries. To complicate things, EA (and other competitors) have started Steam-like services (but they lack the non-sales tools such as central chat, and social integration). Raptr is a great stop-gap solution: it allows you to connect all of your game networks (Xbox live, PSN, Steam, Xfire, etc.) into a single interface as well as keep track of your achievements and trophies. Think of it as Facebook for gamers.

All of that still wouldn’t be enough. There will always be the technical challenges of deploying demanding software onto diverse systems. Gamers love building custom rigs. There is a very active competition between friends to see who can build the best machine. That guarantees diversity in hardware. Which, in turn, guarantees instability.

So, now what? Live in both worlds? Buy 2 copies of each game? Well, some forward thinking publishers (including Steam) have allowed a purchase to work on multiple platforms. This is specifically why I purchased Portal 2 for the PS 3 (my 2nd least used platform). It included activation and cross-platform compatibility with Portal 2 for PC via Steam. Sadly, this is an exceptionally rare occurrence.

I’ve switched between console and PC games every few years. This is the first time that I’ve felt a need to keep a foot in both buckets. I haven’t decided which way to go, but I have a hunch that the next generation of top tier consoles will help me decide.

- Duane

November 17th, 2012:
New Server!

A much needed update to this server was completed. The previous single-core Mac Mini was fighting the good fight, but could not be upgraded beyond Leopard Server (10.5). I needed some of the newer features that Mountain Lion + Mac OS Server provided. So, I purchased a used modern Mac Mini from a friend at work. The specs are impressive for a little machine: 4 Cores at 2.5 GHz and 4GB of RAM. My home automation system is much more responsive and the new text-to-speech voices make the announcements from my house so much more enjoyable! The simplified server interface took some getting used to, but provides all of the basic functionality I need when I don’t feel like jumping to a terminal interface.

Additionally, I replaced the NIC in my media center server to address strange performance issues (only getting ~5 megabit of throughput). The media server is a relatively new 6-core replacement for the aging dual-core machine that it replaced. The network issue was the last remaining performance concern. (I nearly mistook it for hard drive problems, but a few tests helped identify the real issue.) I swapped out the Intel NIC for a Broadcom chipset and all is much improved (up to 950 megabits of throughput)!

- Duane

April 16th, 2012:
Ferndale Drama of 2012

Today rivaled the great blizzard drama of 2005. Gina and I originally planned to visit Hodges Subaru for some scheduled maintenance on both of our cars, visit the zoo and take a relaxing day off of work. It got a little more complicated than that.

We were up at 6, out the door at 7 and at Hodges by 8am. We dropped off our cars for service (mine was due for a lower control arm recall inspection and Gina needed to have her steering rack replaced). We walked to Toast for a savory breakfast treat, then headed back to Hodges to see where we stood. Not only did my lower control arms fail their punch test, but the subframe assembly was rusted out. Hodges service crew deemed my car unsafe to drive and in need of at least the LCA replacement. Gina and I decided that it was time to try to find a new car.

Bill Garcia, who hooked Gina up with her last two Imprezas, overheard our situation and we asked if he could help us find my dream car: 2012 Legacy GT with navigation. The catch? The GT is no longer available for order and the last time I checked there were none available anywhere in the US. That didn’t stop Bill: he called around until he found a lead on one in Texas. We applied for financing (and were approved), then got the quote for the new car. We were pretty sure all was good to go… and then headed out to the zoo with a loaner Forester from Hodges.

Just down the road is the Detroit Zoo (actually located in Royal Oak, MI… go figure). We figured we would burn a few hours while checking out the zoo. Though the zoo was without power in some buildings due to the high winds, we were still able to check out just about everything we could stand! Three hours later, we had lunch then headed back to Hodges for an update.

It seems that the winds were causing problems for more than just the zoo. The power was out at Hodges’ auxiliary service center and our cars wouldn’t be done for a bit longer… So, we headed of for an afternoon showing of The Hunger Games at the Royal Oak Emagine Theater.

Thoroughly entertained, we returned once again to Hodges. This time, the work on my car was complete… but Bill had some complications regarding the Texas-based source for my potential new car. Without boring you with the details, we’re not sure if the ’12 GT is going to happen, but I can’t thank Bill and the guys enough for all the work they’re putting into try to make it happen. The power was still unrestored to their auxiliary service location, so I assume my car was assembled without the help of a lift or airtools. Gina’s car, however, could not have the steering rack replaced without a lift.

Hodges made arrangements for a loaner and Gina headed off to get her parking pass from her car while I signed off on the work for mine. I picked up my car and called Gina to locate her. However, she didn’t answer the phone! A nice lady, Veronica, found Gina’s phone on Woodward and held onto it for us! Crazy! I found Gina, headed over to Marygrove College (where Veronica works) and picked up here phone. We returned to Hodges one more time to pick up Gina’s loaner then went home.

All in all, today was a collection of miscellaneous little things adding up to one big tangle of craziness. We’re still not sure if the Legacy GT is REALLY available in Texas and Gina needs to pick up her car from Hodges after their aux. service location power is restored and they get it up in the air.

At least there wasn’t any snow involved this time.

- Duane

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