For some years now I have adopted a philosophy based on a quote by Samuel Clemens "... you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do...Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”It is this powerful desire for exploration that drives my approach in almost everything I do. In 2012, I cofounded the Kansas City Open Hardware Society (KCOHG) which has held to successful conferences, along with several educational outreach programs. Through both national and regional resources we work endeavor to continue this forward movement. KCOHG has grown to establish itself as the inaugural branch of the national Open Source Hardware Association.The remainder of my professional time is divided among volunteering, mentoring and learning. As a perpetual student, I believe we each must travel through our life in a state of constant observation, taking mental notes of the opportunities around us. However being simply a passive observer is not sufficient, anyone can do what everyone else is doing, we must act on these occasions less they be missed.My personal time is spent first with family enjoying time relaxing at home with my wife, reading or simply playing with our two psychotic cats. Remaining time is spent working on personal projects in my many areas of interest; robotics, 3D printing, photography or development. The balance of my professional time is spent development large scale telecommunications strategies for global customers. The fraction of time left remains for sleep, eating and creating the perpetually growing list used to begin the cycle anew.
Authored Comments
Thank you Don, I appreciate your feedback. I agree that at least for me one of the most important things is it just has to work (now at home that's different, there I can "Make" it work) but when dealing with a classroom and time constraints it's by far more challenging.
I would have to second that comment, making software that is both accessible and meets the needs of the user is not as common place as it should be. Props to you for highlighting this as it relates to Open Source, which will eventually raise awareness as a whole. The issue though isn't limited to application development of client / server or client side applications, it's a fundamental flaw in our thinking. We believe that everyone should do as we do and at deep brain level that can be seen extending to our abilities.
You mention in your article as an example, a Q/A team could increase its scope to test more advanced accessibility requirements, do you have any examples of some of those requirements?
I am aware that groups such as WAI (http://www.w3.org/WAI/) are working hard to create similar standards and objectives from an Internet purview; however I'd be interested in your thoughts from a more localized software perspective.