When I first started developing for Palm I was a bit skeptical of the framework because it seemed thrown together and needed a lot of polish. The most annoying part was (and is) the lack of accurate documentation. Yes, I said accurate. Palm’s Developer website doesn’t offer complete documentation on everything, and even less of it is actually accurate. Often times if you copy-and-paste the sample code into your project it will not work due to either a typo in their code or the fact that the code is from a previous version of the framework and no longer works.

Palm’s own developer forums often are a frustration. If you take a look around you’ll notice a trend: most people’s posts have many more views than replies—which tells me nobody else can help them either. This isn’t to discount the webOS/Mojo ninjas out there—it just grows both aggravating and disappointing. I am currently trudging through writing a follow-up app for my last one, with progress alternating between very quick and very aggravatingly slow (as in, spending an entire day trying to figure out a problem no one has the answer to, and eventually deciding on another path that actually works).

Although this post sounds like a rant, I wouldn’t classify it as one. I haven’t lost faith in Palm. I understand it’s very early in webOS’s lifespan (indeed, the App Catalog itself is still in Beta), and being a developer I can accept that 1.x software is seldom perfect. Although being in the Palm camp this early on is a bit frustrating, seeing the ratings and feedback from your users after your app has finally shipped makes it all worth it.

Well, I’ve decided to do away with Peacefully Adrift altogether and migrate all of me to my namesake domain here. I’ve got a lot of further stuff I’m going to do to this site that I haven’t finished yet. This is just day one of fleshing out the new Thesis 1.5.1 and creating a new theme for my site on top of it. Expect minor things to change. This is a work in progress.

Designing

Typically if I’m designing I’m listening to ‘creative’ music. Typically these are the songs that would get me the weirdest looks by people if they were around. Admittedly, a lot of this music is weird but that’s exactly why I choose to listen to it: it’s different. When I’m designing I’m obviously trying to think creatively and flowing. Metaphorically, I enjoy the creative, flowing avant-gardé nature of the music, but also appreciate the underlying structure which typically adheres to the rules of music. This is exactly the way good design is! Refreshing, flowing, and different, but while adhering to the standards of design—both social and natural laws such as line-width and -height.

Typically when I get an album that inspires me, I stick to it for a while until it doesn’t. For a while this was The White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan, which is still a monumental album in its rawness. For a while it was Jack White’s other band The Raconteurs and their second album. It truly depends on my mood at the time but others I’ve listened to while designing: Chevelle, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, The Derek Trucks Band (check out their new album Already Free now), Evanescence, Five for Fighting, Hootie & the Blowfish, James Morrison, Jamie Cullum (this is a relatively new find for me), John Mayer, Kings of Leon, and even Tenacious D.

Coding

Writing code is another story. Arguably, the process of writing code is typically not as creative as designing, assuming you are coding an existing design. Coding is often simply repetitive tasks. Music I listen to during this phase of development typically reflects this. Often I’ll listen to music that, though sometimes repetitive, has a driving force that “pushes” me along. Examples include: NIN’s Ghosts albums, Blue Man Group (haha, yes), Deftones, Kasabian, The Killers, Rage Against the Machine, She Wants Revenge, and System of a Down. You’ll notice most of these are “heavier” than the ones I listen to while coding. Quite literally, I need that extra drive to fuel long, boring coding spells.

Feedback

What about you? What inspires you to creativity, or pushes you to develop your work?

I’ve received a couple suggestions via Skribit but I’ve yet to act on any of them—something that will be fixed shortly. In the meantime, be sure to make some post suggestions by using the Skribit tab on the right. You don’t need an account to suggest topics.

Some things are going to change around here.

For one, there will be some design changes, but that’s just typical for me to change a perfectly fine design for another for no reason. Don’t expect anything too drastic–just some minor realigments.

Second, and most importantly, content shift. Next month I start my Music Production Technology program. Obviously music and technology interest me—both things separately, and in all places where they intersect. In the past I’ve written about different music I was listening to and about things such as how to plug an electric guitar into a computer, and from the statistics these topics have spurred the most attention. I tend to get at least 10 hits from Google a day from the guitar article. There’s obviously interest in this area, and it is my area.

Because of this, starting soon this blog will become, although still my personal blog, largely covering technology, music, and the spaces they intertwine. I don’t know if I’ll ever come up with a new name and move those posts to a site more accurately named or not. For the meantime I’ll just do all of that writing here. We’ll see what happens.

Went to Mulholland Drive yesterday. Quite the view, I loved it. Click photo to see it on Flickr.

Like millions of others, I snagged my own vanity URL at Facebook Friday night. I had planned to be there right at the beginning and try to snag just “zachary” but I ended up forgetting about it until it was too late. I knew I’d have no problem getting my usual username, but I thought it would be neat to just have my first name. No luck there—congratulations Zach McNaney! I ended up with my default:

http://www.facebook.com/zacharytamas

This kinda reminds me of the movie Final Destination, where the main character has a vision that his plane will crash and gets off the plane at the last second with several of his friends. The plane crashes just as it had in his vision, except he and his friends survive. As the rest of the movie pans out, his friends slowly die in strange accidents in the order they would have died on the plane. The idea of the movie is that you can’t cheat death. If the universe decides it’s time for you to die, you will die.

I just thought it was odd.

http://batteriesfeelincluded.blogspot.com/2009/05/309.html