Leah Culver's Blog

New Year's Resolution 2016

Hope everyone has been having a great 2016 so far! Here's my resolution for the rest of the year:

When I think something nice, say it aloud.

For example, I recently told a startup founder that I thought she is building a really great product. My resolution also works for more trivial things, such as telling someone I like their shoes or jacket (I've done both this week!). For social media, I've been trying to Like more posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (why not?).

Last year I tried to not say anything mean on social media... which proved rather difficult and I certainly failed a few times. It turns out social media seems perfect for griping and complaining! I really didn't stick to the goal as much as I'd hoped, but will continue to try to only say positive and interesting things.

So this year I'll try to say nice things when I think them (honesty! not just saying nice things for no reason) and to refrain from posting anything negative online. I hope it works out!

Happy 2015!

Happy 2015 everyone!

Last year I resolved to run more races. While I didn't quite reach my goal of running a race every month, I did complete quite a few:

• Commitment Day 5k (January)
• Kaiser Permanente 5k (February)
• Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon (April)
• Bay to Breakers (May)
• SF 2nd Half Marathon (July)
• Portland Half Marathon (October)
• Manchester Road Race (November)

Today I'm flying to LA to run the New Year's Race and am also training to run the Phoenix Marathon in February.

I've decided not to make any resolutions this year. I'm looking forward to 2015, thinking about all the things I plan to do, and it doesn't make sense for anything to be a goal. I'll continue to run regularly, travel, and blog (I have to blog for the Dropbox developer blog, it's my job!) but I'm going to take it easy this year and wait to see what adventures come my way.

Have a great new year!

New Year's Resolution 2014

It's that time again... blah.

Here's a quick update on last year's resolutions:

Writing a post a month for The Pastry Box Project - done! I was late on quite a few posts (eek! sorry.) but I managed to get all 12 done. You can read them all here.

Fixing up my open source projects - nope. Sadly, I didn't do very much open source work this year :(

Running 1000 miles this year and 100 miles a month - done! I also hired a running coach (Angela Tieri) and ran my first marathon in Honolulu (Dec 8), both of which really helped me stay motivated. 

Here's the breakdown:

January - 103 mi
February - 100 mi
March - 131 mi
April - 118 mi
May - 103 mi
June - 113 mi
July - 129 mi
August - 113 mi
September - 133 mi
October - 143 mi
November - 155 mi
December - 102 mi (so far... I might run more before the end of the month)

Total: 1443 miles

As for next year, I think I only have one resolution. I'd like to keep running and I'd love to run more races. I'm going to try to run at least one race a month (any distance!). I have the first few months already lined up.

January - Commitment Day 5k
February - Kaiser Permanente 5k (ran this one last year too)
March - The Color Run 5k (all fun, no work, yay)
April - Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon

Come join me if you like!

The Pastry Box Project – Sunday, 29 December 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

I love this time of year — between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s generally a quiet and productive time for me. I’m able to get lots of work done on projects while eating leftover Christmas cookies and candy.

I wish you all a productive holiday quiet-time and a happy new year!

The Pastry Box Project – Tuesday, 26 November 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

After dropping and cracking the screen of my iPhone last month, I bought a new iPhone 5s.

I soon became obsessed with Touch ID.

Touch ID allows you to press your thumb to your device to unlock your phone. You can also purchase items from the App Store, iTunes, and iBooks. It’s a convenient way to quickly authenticate on the iPhone.

What if you could also use Touch ID as auth in other apps?

Imagine being able to sign up for a new app just by pressing your thumb to the phone. No more entering your email and password.

You could also log in to existing apps or provide additional auth for banking, stock, and credit card apps. Auth is one of the largest barriers to smoothly using apps on the iPhone.

Obviously, access to Touch ID would need to be supplied by Apple. I’m imagining it could be included as a framework for use by any developer. Apple (or the device itself) could store and supply the user’s credentials to 3rd party applications with the user’s permission.

Of course, Touch ID isn’t without security faults. Unlike a password, you can’t really change your fingerprint if someone happens to get a hold of a copy.

Currently Touch ID is used as a convenience rather than a primary form of authentication. When your iPhone is restarted, your 4-digit passcode (not just your thumbprint) is required.

I’ve been thinking through some ways that Touch ID could be used in conjunction with a second form of identification (device ID, confirmation email) for authentication. I’m not sure I’ve got it completely figured out yet, but it’s fun to speculate.

I’m still fascinated by authentication and new user registration in general. The whole signup, login, logout process is nothing new. However, it is something that can continually be improved and the results can be dramatic.

The Pastry Box Project – Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

Fear.

What’s the worst that could happen?

(Thanks to @sckain for suggesting the topic for this post.)

Trying out a new social app – Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

Downloaded a new social app. I heard it was interesting and it seems easy enough to check it out. Went to the app store, downloaded the app and there it is on my iPhone home screen.

Okay, nice design. Have to sign up or login to continue. Full name, username, email address. Check. Need a photo of me? Okay I guess I can use this one that I took a couple months ago and still have on my phone.

I wish I had some better photos of myself on my phone. Who ever chooses that option to use the camera RIGHT NOW to take a photo of themselves? Good profile photos take some setup. Duh.

Now let’s find some friends. Connecting with Twitter or Facebook seems dicey. What if this app tweets or posts on my behalf? Facebook Connect ruined everything.

I can search for friends using my phone contacts. Cool. Sadly only a few of my phone contacts are using this app. Oh well, I’ll add them all. I wish I had more female friends to share with. It’s weird to have only early adopter dude friends on this app.

I wish I could invite some friends to use this app. Why can’t I send an email or SMS to invite people? I’m pretty sure Mail and Message functionality is built into iOS.

Okay, so now I have a few friends on this app. Are they good friends of mine or just casual acquaintances? I wonder how these relationships will affect how I use this app?

It would be great to be able to refresh my network at some point. Why doesn’t any app do that? Take me through the friend-finding process again after some period of time?

I’m done playing with the app for now. Closed it out and moved on.

I wonder if I’ll get a push notification soon so I remember that I have this new app?

The Pastry Box Project – Friday, 9 August 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

When I write about my personal experiences I start to think about the reader.

Do my thoughts resonate with you right now? Is this a thought you’ve had in the past? Have you moved on to other thoughts or does this idea still linger?

Sometimes as I’m reading I know that I am not quite understanding the concept on the same level as the author. I credit some of this to inexperience — I’ve never been a parent so I can’t fully empathize with others’ parental sentiment.

Otherwise I’ll wonder if what I’m reading is simply a thought that hasn’t occurred to me yet. Or maybe I’ve been thinking about the idea in a completely different way.

It’s amazing how reading can shift our perspective and give us a more complete view.

Does this resonate with you?

The Pastry Box Project – Sunday, 28 July 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

I tell people that I chose to work with Django and Python because of the great documentation. That’s not the whole truth.

I believe now that I chose Django because it is a well-documented convention for building web applications. Every Django app I’ve built looks like a stereotypical Django app. I didn’t have to make any difficult decisions about coding style, how code relates to other code, or where code resides in files.

I recently joined a team of iOS developers tasked with building a brand new app and was nearly blindsided by having to choose a coding style for the first time.

At first I went along with other team members’ decisions, deferring to their expertise. However, when team members disagreed I began to examine my own tastes and preferences.

I’ve probably thought more about code style in the past month than I have in my entire career.

For me it’s a nice hobby to think about code as a concept. I’m usually very focused on building applications and writing code is just a means to an end.

I’m not sure that I can force myself to care too deeply about code.

Why I Love iOS 7 (or What’s your tintColor?) – Sunday, 23 June 2013

Originally published on The Pastry Box Project.

I love the new iOS 7.

I installed iOS 7 on my iPhone immediately after it was released to developers. My co-workers thought I was crazy.

“Your primary phone?!” they all asked.

Yup. I like to live on the edge.

But seriously, I have a few good reasons to love iOS 7. First, it fixes my number one gripe — that it’s such a hassle to update iPhone applications.

I wrote a whole post on the topic a couple months ago for the Pastry Box Project. I wasn’t too optimistic about ever seeing the problem fixed.

I think ideally your iPhone would download the latest versions of your apps (and iOS) in the background, maybe at times when you’re connected to wifi. However, I don’t see this happening any time soon.

Well, it happened!!

(If only I could wish features into existence more often…)

My iPhone now gets the latest versions of my apps automatically. John McCain seems pretty excited about this feature too.

Thanks to Tim Cook for the automatic iphone app updates! #apple#wwdc

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 10, 2013

Woot.

Automatic updates seem like such a great idea… but then I worried about the consequences. What if an app updates at a really inconvenient time?

Today I was waiting in the subway tunnel for my Muni train. No Wi-Fi. I was all ready to start reading a book on my Kindle app when I noticed the Kindle app was stuck in the middle of an update. Oh no! Code red! Hypothetical situation has become reality!!

I checked the status of the update in the App Store app and noticed there was an option to “pause” the download. I clicked the button and my Kindle app returned to normal. Phew.

In addition to automatic updates, there are a couple other nice features of iOS 7 such as the Control Center and the camera improvements. However, the thing that’s got most people talking is the new design.

I’m not a designer so I’m not going to get into the layout of the icons or the lack of shadows and bevels. I just wanted to note that I think the design is a huge improvement for developers.

I downloaded Xcode 5 at the same time as iOS 7 so that I could start developing iOS 7 applications. I was really impressed by how much better all the default styling and components look.

I’m super happy to see those ugly blue navigations bars and rounded rect buttons bite the dust. I’m ready for change and I’m re-energized to build better looking iPhone apps with iOS 7.

It’s also just fun to ask, “so what’s your tintColor?”