Category:

Jones, Karl

Sun 6 Jan 2008

Handy Vandal’s Almanac

Sunday, Jan 6th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Categories: Games; Arts; Jones, Karl; Handy Vandal
Posted by Administrator
No Comments 

I designed a new logo today for the Handy Vandal’s Almanac:

Handy Vandal's Almanac Logo

For the uninitiated: I used to be the Handy Vandal, celebrated for my Almanac — a collection of tutorials and links for Half-Life developers.

The Almanac has been sitting dormant for several years. Today I went on a housecleaning binge — fixed some code bugs, culled some dead links, and so on. (If I’m going to leave the thing dormant, I at least want to leave it relatively tidy.) In the course of all that, I got inspired to create the new logo.

There’s an alternate version in the Half-Life 2 section.



Tue 6 Nov 2007

Going Native Among the End Users

Tuesday, Nov 6th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Categories: Philosophy; Software; Jones, Karl; Anthropology; Jones, Arthur
Posted by Administrator
No Comments 

Here’s a story I like to tell:

I started programming when I was fifteen. (Actually, I wrote my very first BASIC program when I was ten years old, but that’s another story.) I’m now forty-six, so you can see I have some experience. Anyway, when I was fifteen, my dad taught me the rudiments of structured programming. He was a programmer himself, for the Star-Tribune.

Something he said has always stuck with me. He said, what usually happens is this: Management issues some directives; the programmers fulfill the directives; the end users try to use the programs — and things go wrong because the end users were never consulted about what kind of tools they need to do their jobs.

The successful programmer, dad said, is the one who first goes and sits down with the end users, talks to them about their jobs, finds out what they really need — then integrates this knowledge with Management directives. He called this “going native” (before he was a programmer, he took his degree in anthropology).

I’ve always taken this to heart, and in this sense, I’ve got something like thirty years experience in good interface design. Of course, I don’t actually say this on my resume, it’s kind of silly. But it’s a great story, and I think it illustrates the approach I take to my work.

- Karl Jones



Thu 19 Oct 2006

Karl and Kilgore Meet Jabba the Hut at a Party

Thursday, Oct 19th, 2006 at 5:25 am
Categories: Mirth; Family; Jones, Karl; Mashups
Posted by Administrator
No Comments 

It really happened, and you can believe me because I was there and here’s the proof –

Karl and Oliver Kilgore Meet Jabba the Hut at a party



Mon 4 Sep 2006

My Guitar Work Online

Monday, Sep 4th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Categories: Music; Jones, Karl
Posted by Administrator
No Comments 

Muses: Karl Gregory Jones

RealAudio tracks — thanks to Tom @ Trancer Software:

I played everything on my beloved Guild acoustic guitar, with various effects. Some songs have two or more guitar tracks. All of the mistakes and fluffed notes are mine alone.

This post is really a stopgap while I hack WordPress page handling code. When everything is right, the real page will be located here –

http://www.karljones.com/index.php/music

Copyright 2006 by Karl Gregory Jones


$