Chris J. Karr, January 20th, 2009
When I really begin working on Audacious Software as a full-time endeavor, I wanted to post regular blog entries to describe some of the projects underway so that readers and potential customers could have a good idea about some of the work that I do. I had hoped to post this earlier, but such is life. *shrug*
Some details on current projects:
Shion: As the previous blog posts describe, I’m hard at work on Shion, working to get the application ready for the end of the month release. I spent a good portion of the afternoon working on improving the reliability of the X10 components. Other than some minor bug fixes and feature enhancements, the major task ahead is rigorously testing the app before release and incorporating the licensing code. The deadline’s coming up, but I’m confident I’ll meet it.
Jarvis: In addition to my work on Shion, I’ve also continued my research into context-aware computing by porting the Pennyworth application to Windows XP & Vista. I’m calling the new application “Jarvis” and I’m looking forward to releasing an early beta sometime in the next several weeks. For the curious, Jarvis is a complete re-implementation of the Pennyworth context-sensing architecture on the .NET 3.5 runtime. The next major step is to re-implement the C4.5 decision tree in C# and do some UI polishing.
Toolkit for survey research: I’ve been working for a researcher at Northwestern University to create a research toolkit for understanding how respondents complete surveys. This information becomes useful for survey designers as they seek to build more accurate survey instruments. I found out yesterday that the system will be demonstrated at the 2009 conference for the American Association for Public Opinion Research in May. I’m not making the trip out to Florida (far too much to do in the next couple of months) but my client will be there talking about the system and how it fits within her research agenda. I am building this system on the Flash 9 runtime (ActionScript 3) with a standard Apache Tomcat backend.
Other Projects: Between the major projects described above, I am still getting Audacious Software up and running. This involves a number of small (but important) things to do, and I’m getting through a couple of them daily. Some of the more notable mentions includes building the new Audacious Software website, putting into place customer service tools, and reaching out to potential clients & users. This has taken longer than I originally expected, but I’m confident that the foundation I’m building will serve me well for years to come.
If you have any questions about any of the work that Audacious Software does, please don’t hesitate to post a question in the comments. I may not be able to talk in detail about everything (especially client work), but I welcome the opportunity to discuss how my company might be of service to you and your organization.
-Chris