Mathematical Adversion and Perfecting Websites

Given that there is only 24 hours in a day, if it takes years to develop quality programming, how long will it take Tim Cason to create a successful website. Good question.

Before jumping into the developing of my first business project, Collideascript.com, I had no idea the amount of mathematical calculations that I would be doing. In college, I went up to Calculus 2 before I decided the mathematical field was for brainiacs that wanted to design fighter jets and crash the stock market. However, taking the programming into my own hands, I began diving into the great abysmal land of computer language.

My first time:
She was gentle and kept it very simple. It was a January morning and I was seventeen years old. We had both just woken up and we were about to start our day. I remember Mr. Cornett instructing us, he explained it the best he could (he was more of a sports coach, you see). I was trying to focus on her, but it was difficult to concentrate with the other 25 people in the room doing it to. I'm talking about my first time coding in high school, of course. And she was C++.

It was then that I learned how much mathematics really tied into computer programming. From a 'yes' or 'no' being written as '1' or '0' to defining a variable that computes a task a certain amount of times, the Pandora's box of knowledge and ability had been cracked open and I didn't know what I was getting myself into.

X Number of Ways to Solve for Y:
When I committed to learning web programming, I figured it would be much easier than learning C++. In some ways, I was right, but in many other ways, I couldn't be more wrong. Now, learning computer programming or web scripting isn't the same as learning a foreign language if you know another programming language, but I would argue that your first language is just as difficult. Where do you start? Plus, do you know how many programming languages there are? It is ridiculous: Way too many to count.

After you do decide on the most practical languages for what you want to do. The first thing you should understand is that there is countless ways to do the same thing. There are a number of commands that process an action the same way "book" and "text" can be synonymous or the urban legend on how Eskimos have 15 words for "snow" (which is not exactly true). No one cares about lexemes anyway...

Correlation and Connection of Code to Graphics:
First, here is a great video on the concepting of graphics and layout vs content:

Something that I began to discover from a few conversations with Joey Sikes is that there needs to been a mathematical symmetry in the design and layout of web sites. For instance, graphically intense sites can be robust and eye catching but if there lacks a numerical balance of distances between pictures or words, it may appear too 'heavy' on one side. Artistic execution in even the most simple things can make a minimalist work appear vivid. Consider the use of the Fibonacci sequence in magazine layouts or media sites like AOL's Moviephone. There is certainly a psychological correlation between importance and desire of the content to a reaction of the design.

So, in order to create a strong (though invisible) connection between my code and design. I researched a series of base number sequences that I could use in both my code and design.

Theory of Base 8 in Less than 100 Words:
Adopted as an easy way to group binary number, the Base 8 or Octal System, is commonly used computing and hexadecimal formats. The main reason why is it was used is because the limitation of early computers and symmetrical properties of Octal math. Today, with computer systems advanced years beyond old limitations, base 8 is almost archaic.

Why the Mayans used Base 20(5):
Though many people say the Mayans had a base of 20 in their math, I think it was more of a Base 5 with five being the most common symbolic derivative. I think that this may line up more with a binary system of programming, where the entire system is divisible by the lowest unit (5) and the remainder is either '5' or '0' . With only two remainders, a base 5 system is better for higher computations of large numbers and is Boolean.

Stay with me on this...

Base (5) in Code and Design:
In order to create an overall flow of code and design, I would suggest using a base five in computations and layout. My theory is that by implementing similar base systems, you create a better work flow, usability and symmetry. For instance, a search results displaying a maximum of 20 searches with each search allotted 25 pixels of space gives you a height of 500px all of which evenly divisible by 5 and the code correlates to the design promoting higher symmetry.

...MATH. It's a thing of beauty.

Sorry, about the way technical post.

Thanks for reading.

.tpcjr

Rules to Live By.......

After looking into what makes people happy, confident and successful, I started drafting up my own rules to live by, based off of common principles that I found in strong people. It has been several months since I started with the first rule, and I have found that though these rules are quite simple, it much more difficult to follow than I imagined.

Currently, I am writing this to do two things: share what I have learned, and remind myself to continue with these rules, even in tough times.

Rule 1 - Always be positive
Not knowing what I was looking for, I drove into the realm of what makes people confident. The first place I looked was several great Hollywood actors. What gives them the confidence, the organization and drive to continue despite the odds being against them. Hollywood is one of the most difficult industries to break into and "making it" doesn't happen by chance. Searching the Actor's Studio for interview and Wikipedia biographies, I began uncovering a laundry list of people that continually proved success in their multiple endeavors. Many of these people were confident to a level of almost zen-like proportions. How is this possible, and what do I have to do to get it?

A general them began to emerge with each person, one after another. They were all superstitiously positive about even the most dyer circumstances. Ironically, at the time, I was also diving into the book, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. In Frankl's book about his experiences in concentration camps of WWII, he stated that it was quite easy to tell the people who were not going to survive much longer. The hope had shifted. All the thoughts about a positive outcome had withered and they became like walking dead. But the people who remained positive despite the innumerable amount of days they would spend imprisoned were the ones that were healthier and happier.

The rule began as "No Negativity" but everything I told myself that it pointed out the fact that I was being very negative. So to lighten circumstances, I constantly told myself to "Always be positive", never taking in consideration the tone of the situation - good or bad.


Rule 2 - When you feel it, act.
This rule began playing a part in my dreams several years prior. I was constantly ignoring my emotions and the signs of pressing situations that needed my attention. Looking back these situations could have been avoided if I had just acted sooner. Problems left unattended began to fester like unclean wounds.

When I was youngster, my Nana taught me the term, "preventative maintenance." This idea was somewhat foreign, given the way my immediate family treated situations. My parents were always busy and rarely took the time to maintain the health of their possessions and sometimes relations. It became time to fix the problem only when the situation interfered with everyday status quo. Their cars broken often due to lack of maintenance and we all considered it just bad luck.

I have found that your emotions and thoughts are often indicators of the changing world around you. They are meant to cue your attention and pique your awareness, so that you will make course changes and decisions that can better your situation and often avoid negative outcomes. If we showed a little TLC to our own life everyday, I think we can drastically control each situation to the result we want.

Rule 3 - Attack your fears head on.
The most difficult rule in my mind, and the reason why I am even writing the posting. Confronting you fears is often the hardest thing for anyone to handle. I'm not referring to your fear heights or dark alleys per se, but your everyday happening that keep you from progress in you life: that phone call you avoid making, that meeting you don't want to have, that person you are afraid to confront. Our lives are waiting for us to take a hold of the reigns and direct where we want to go. Unfortunately, many of us are insecure with the unknown and build a wall around that fear thinking we can just avoid it.

I always used to tell myself that the only way I could fail is if I never showed up. Even if you crash and burn in a situation, you will still take away that knowledge from it, which will help you the next time around. If at each fear we asked ourselves what exactly we are afraid of, often reality dictates that those fears are unfounded and never played a role in the circumstance at all.

For all these rules, I sincerely hope it helps someone, if not just myself. As for me, I aim to practice what I preach. Today, I am tackling Rule 3, and by the end of the day, I hope I will be wondering what I was worried about.

Thanks for reading,

.tpcjr

STRTGY: Hierarchy of Work, Projects and Accomplishments

Recently, it has become clear to me that there are three distinct levels of hierarchy with works, projects and accomplishments. Each are important as the next and with them you will not accomplish your goals.

The different levels are as follows:
Upper level - Adequate decision makers
Middle Level - Processors of information
Lower Level - Producers of core work

Each level is equally important as the next, all of which combine to bring a task to successful completion. Let's consider this on the most basic level of understanding with the individual person and a common task.

Imagine that you have to take your car in for an oil change. You could take your car to a random mechanic and have him to the oil change. There are several processes working that take you from thought to completion of the oil change.

1. You must evaluate the status of your car and choose to take your car in for an oil change
2. You must process the various mechanics to decide which is best, which is closer, etc.
3. You must physically take the car to the mechanic to change the oil.

Though seemingly minor, these processes are dependent on one another and require that all are completed for the oil change to take place. On a more complex level, consider the mechanic who you took your vehicle to. The same processes are happening, most of which behind the scenes of the work.

Now, your car comes into the shop and must receive an oil change. You are greeted by the desk attendant (a processor), who evaluates your needs and sets up the work for the mechanic(a producer). Your car is taken in, and the work is performed on your car.

Wait... where is the decision maker?

Well, who hired the attendant and mechanic? Who chose and ordered the equipment necessary to perform the work. Who setup the location or the advertising that brought you in? .....the decision maker.

Let's look more in-depth at the different levels:
Decision makers - Upper level - Overarching direction of work, project, or accomplishment. Decision makers are the most responsible for whole job and often have the most to gain or lose from the situation.
Processors - Middle level - Management of smaller, independent tasks which compound to reach the overall goal. Processors organize information and develop pertinent data to help the decision makers make better choices. They also direct the flow of work for the producers.
Producers - Lower level - Actively completing the flow of work organized by the processors. Often, producers are specialized in trade or skill which is necessary to the overall goal.

I have recently discovered the importance and the mutual benefit of each level in the this spectrum. As a business owner, we often start will no one else to fill these positions of processors and producers. By taking on a business or job, we take on new responsibility as Decision maker to fulfill each level of the spectrum. And if each level is not fulfilled, it will be impossible to reach your goals.

Let's say you want to create an online business. Where do you start? Well, you need something to sell, you need a website, and you want it to look good. You decide on selling shoelaces. Great! Do you make the shoelaces or is someone else making them? Are you starting to see the difference in power differential? The skill of 'building' the shoelaces are completely independent from the running of a business that sells the shoelaces. In the same respect, are you a graphic designer or a web programmer? Chances are that you are not able to fulfill the needs of the graphic designer, web programmer, and shoelace weaver. There is a significant difference in the skill set and decision making processes. Your graphic designer or web programmer may not know much about selling shoelaces.

Using the game theory decision making, start with the result desired to understand how to construct an efficient spectrum of work. Jim Collin's From Good to Great touches on the subject of constructing the team first. Collecting the right type of people for each position is often more valuable then then collecting the right skill sets. The right people will learn the skill set and have better understand and oversight because of their passion for the goal. The workers with just the right skill set are not as passionate about the overall goal of the group, and will often hold you back.

Recently, with my business, I am starting to understand several key concepts:
- Decide to fulfill the needs from the bottom up
- When creating a business, all the needs are equally important.
- Begin with the intent of understanding or fulfilling all the needs yourself.

.tpcjr

STRTGY: Preparation for Launch

Welcome back! Imagine you a getting ready for a new phase of your life, or perhaps a starting a new hobby or business venture. Not a bad thought, right? Well, here are a few things that to that you may expect...

The Scenario: Over the past few months, I have consumed myself with an idea for a content development platform for creative writers Collideascript. Hours are spent planning and developing an idea for commercial use with the intention of entrepreneurial success, monetary incentives, and overall benefit to users (always think WIN-WIN for sustainability). However, after the initial push to take planning to implementation, there are number of snags that are dying to say "Hang on a minute." This may sound like something that you are going through, or have been through. If so, don't fret. You are not the only one (Thanks Matt). Below, I have outlined, more or less, the stages of taking a idea to fruition both personally and professionally.
Let me know what you think.

_______________

The process has two facets - Personal (emotional/mood) and Professional (skills/direction/progress). You will be to differentiate between the two by the way people ask you, "How's the business going". Your personal stages are somewhat dependent on your personal stages. If your personal development takes a negative turn such as cold sweats, the 'shakes', meaningless chanting, etc. chances are that your professional stages of development are quite lackluster. (Matt likes to compare PHP programming to running down a dark hallway, the type of guided path the can soon drive you nuts) Stay positive. Conversely, your personal process can be set ajar if your professional stages continually bear no fruit. Mostly the depends on your persistence and ability to live objectively, staying focused on the positives. Viktor Frankl talks about this in "Man's Search for Meaning", an ability to live unbounded by personal expectations that you cannot control. Once one breaks their own spirit by dissapointment, it is almost impossible to fix. Consider those who fail at their own expectations. Be prepared to try again indefinitely, and you will get it.

Ideas to ideals -(Insert Anticipation Here)
The first stage of Professional development is: Ideas to Ideals.
If you are like me at all, you get caught up in the many possibilities of a situation. While this can be extremely beneficial to discover new and innovative aspects of life, it can often lead you astray if it is not focused and reviewed. Our minds will lead us from location to location without allowing us to stop and check under the rocks faults. Every new idea seems like a good idea (like my stickshift cupholder)because its fresh and different and we created it. I promise you, when you look back it, it not the best until its refined. These ideas must be refined with a core set of ideals to refer to. This is more than just a pros and cons list. Create a constitution of your objectives, not of what you are going to do, but how you are going to accomplish them. This how-to constitution should be ambiguous and personalized to you. In Personal Development, you are going to filled with more ambition and anticipation that normal. However, always take a step away and plan your moves.


Spinning the Wheels -
We are all reactionary creatures. When we begin something, we desire positive feedback almost immediately after we start, else the new experience becomes uncomfortable and we give up. After the decision to take action, it often feel like we are spinning our wheel and not making progress. This is where our skepticism begins to grow. Since there is little to show for our efforts, we believe that what we are doing is not working. It is too easy to quit, but if you do, you will never see the results of your actions. Even in our 'lightning-fast' age of technology, feedback and results are never instantaneous. So, push through your inner skeptic and the non-believers around you, and before long you will see the scenery begin to change to new terrain. You will be glad to make the journey. I relate to this through the learning of Japanese. Every time I watched a movie in Japanese, it was disheartening to see how much more I needed to learn. Soon, the words turned into phrases that became conversations which started to make sense.

Traction - Celebration
This stage is more a reflectional stage. You don't feel it when it happens, but when you look back you know it happened. I think that it is very hard to distinguish a specific point of when progress happens. But celebrate when you see it. When you are done...get back to work. You still have a ways to go.

We are moving too fast.... - Persistence / Eagerness
Woah, nellie! Suddenly, you are whizzing past checkpoints and objectives honing your skills and bursting with development. If this is happening to you, then you have hit what I like to call a "groove" or what some professionals call "the zone". These instances will come and go, but the feeling is unmistakable. A do-no-wrong feeling of accomplishment that, I believe, can only be found in higher focus of persistence. Imagine that, persistence will help you accomplish what you set out to do. Soon, you will be asking yourself, if you are going to fast and should slow down. You will want to stop and smell the roses. Such as when building the user section of Collideascript, I wanted to constantly learn a new technique in programming or design that had little to do with what I was working to complete. It can be dangerous or helpful. You must distinguish whether it will benefit you overall cause.

Where is the map?
Since you pace will be ever increasing, you must have a proper map of where you are going, else, as mentioned before, you will get caught in a different path than the one you initially set out. You will begin to highly use the constitutional map of how-tos that you created in the Ideas to Ideals stage. The faster you progress, the more snags and problems you will have. Your personal map will be vetted and altered slightly to better suit each situation that arises. Hard decision will be made. But overall, this is where lasting change comes from.

Minutes like Hours - Eagerness
You have been traveling quite some time, and there are no more 'rest-areas' before your destination. You acceleration is weening, but you velocity remains constant.
The time spent seems less fruitful. Arnold Schwarzenegger, when asked how he became Mr Universe at the age of 22, he said that it was the last few pushes that create lasting development. Why quit now when you are soo close.

Begin at the Finish Line - Elation
Congratulations, you {insert your goal here}. I knew you could. This once impossible feat is now conquered by will to continue. You have started a track to lasting change, now when you want to do it again. Pick a goal. "Rinse and Repeat." Each goal seems incredibly possible from the other side. Visualize the end before you begin and it will lead you the right way.
____________________

Keys to Remember:
Know where you want to go and don't be afraid to ask for directions
Ask yourself the right questions
There are no Critics, only critiques

.tpcjr

CHPTR1: Subject to Change

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. "
~Martin Luther King, Jr.


"BEGIN with the END in mind," my sale professor exclaimed, quoting the notable Steven Covey's Seven Habits.. By the fourth year of business school, you were certainly an outsider if you hadn't familiarized yourself with the philosophical agendas that many of the educators often had. However, it was easing to know concepts that the lesson plan had in stored for us. A feeling that in our early twenties, we falsely believed, the few studious had outgrown the institution and was more than prepared for the experiences life had in store for us. We were pushed out of the tree too soon and expected to fly, and with just cause.

It's March, a year after school, and although the road ahead is unsure, I am finally taking the first steps in discovering what life has in store for me. On Monday of this week, I leaped into the unknown, leaving my job for a strong dream and unsteady footing. While the rest of the nation seeks for employment (Florida's Highest Unemployment Record - Feb 2010), there are the few that still wish to make their own path. Yet collecting my own thoughts this week, I believe that all the things experienced in my life is leading to this next step.

So what is this end that I have in mind? Success. Financial success. Personal success. Social success. It seems trite to desire something that everyone wants, but I don't think that this is true. Let me specify. I want to create a highly profitable business that secures me financially for the rest of my life. I want to breach the personal boundaries I have set for myself where I can look back and say, "Wow, I did that. I didn't think that was possible." I want numerous experiences that shape me into not only a great storyteller but also a perceptive and learned man.

This cannot be possible unless I set some specific guidelines to follow. So, with the my few experiences and knowledge, I have narrowed the my personal creed for the next year to 4 things:

PERSONAL GUIDELINES
- No negativity (negative thoughts, actions, people)
- If you feel it, act immediately
- Never lose sight of your objectives
- Hard work trumps wishful thinking

And though resembling other ideas and philosophies, I think that personal guidelines cannot be adopted from elsewhere, by must be created by each individual (being based on individual understanding and perception).

In the past few days, I see myself unconsciously positioning myself for the next few steps toward my goals. The environment around is altering, more than just the scene-scape but also my mentality. And since I have committed to both my goals and guidelines, a voice inside me is cheering me on, growing in depth and intensity each day, so much so that my excitement keeps me from sleep.

This is the First Step....

FRWRD: To Whom It May Concern

A year from now, my life will be fully transformed. The people that know me will search for ways that can they still recognize me, and the close friends and family will constantly ask what I have been doing differently. Debts and money woes have all melted away and my confidence and self security will be hard to a match for comparison.

To better understand the journey's destination, you must see the origin. And although this transformation seems to be all to common among the book-selling Self-Help Gurus, I assure you that each word in this blog is true (save my own mental curves, asides and opinions). This blog will follow the day to day, week to week journey that I take over (at least) the next year. It will change with me, as it is a reflection not only of my life, but the way I perceive each experience.

There are three parts that I intend to focus on: Social Development, Professional Developments, and Personal(self) Developments. Though I can see that the mix of each aspect in one place can have detrimental effects on one another (ie -Social pitfalls effecting professional development), I believe that I (and others) will benefits from seeing how these intertwine with the transformations of one's self.

I encourage you to leave your own thoughts, opinions and feedback. Unfortunately, I cannot respond to them all, but know I am driven by the feedback that I receive around me.

This blog will catalog a number of personal thoughts and insights revolving around my competitive market and business development. So, stop by from time to time and see how I'm doing. Read what's one my mind, and who knows, you might learn something.

To view personal summaries and reflections search "CHPTR" as they will be in somewhat of a book format

To view topical strategies and business perceptions search "STRTGY" as they will be in a periodical layout

.tpcjr