Journal

  • Scarlco Menu Build Note

    Scarlco Menu is a reminder that content tools need two interfaces. There is the public display: clean, readable, and attractive. Then there is the editor: practical, understandable, and forgiving for the people who must maintain the content. It is easy to focus on the display because that is what everyone sees. But the editor determines…

  • Scarlco Events Build Note

    Scarlco Events is a generalized event information and schedule display concept. The interesting challenge is not simply putting events on a screen. The challenge is making the display reliable, readable, and appropriate for the environment where it runs. A browser on a desktop computer is forgiving. A signage endpoint may not be. That difference changes…

  • Tools I Wish Existed

    A surprising number of projects begin as complaints. Not angry complaints. Just quiet, repeated observations: "Why can't I see all of this at once?" "Why is this schedule so hard to display?" "Why can't I go back and verify what was on that stream?" "Why is this configuration trapped in one machine?" Eventually the complaint…

  • The Long Way Into Software

    Some people enter software through school. Some through startups. Some through computer science programs. My path wandered through technical theatre, live entertainment, production systems, operational troubleshooting, and a long habit of asking why a workflow had to be so painful. That background changes how I think about software. I am less interested in elegance for…