Windward Studios

Our open source contributions

In the course of creating Windward Reports we have written numerous general library classes, many of which would be useful to others. Where possible we want to provide these libraries as open source so others can make use fo them too.

We first did this by participating in the J by J# project. We created the log4j -> log4net wrapper, participated in the JFreeChart conversion, and have tested and made minor bug fixes and performance improvements in the iText conversion.

We have now started an ongoing effort to publish modules from our code. This effort will be slow because each library has to be broken out, the unit tests must be broken out with it, and the entire module has to be well documented on it's own. We would be doing no one a favor if we just dumped the code out.

Our first two libraries have been released and are available on our open source page.

The first provides a way to handle time zones other than the default time zone in a .NET program. The WindwardTimeZone project gives you the ability to get the time on any day in any timezone. We use this for the report scheduling part of our portal product so if you want a report to run at 7:00 am Mountain Time, it will run every day at 7:00 am Mountain Time.

The second provides some additional functionality to the ADO.NET API. The Kailua project adds 7 capabilities to ADO.NET connectors. It has fully functional drivers for Sql Server, Oracle, DB2, and MySql. It has partially functional drivers for ODBC and OleDb as some of the desired functionality cannot be generally applied to those drivers.

With the above we are now giving back to the open source community, both on the Java side with J by J# and the .NET side with the two libraries. And as time goes on we will keep adding.

Oh the joys of running a film contest

Well this is turning out a lot different than I expected. But that is probably due to my reasons for creating the contest. I didn't create the contest to generate buzz for Windward. Rather it was the converse - I wanted to create a way to pay some of the people making good videos and made it a marketing effort for Windward because the money has to come from somewhere.

The biggest disappointment has been the low interest in the contest. Both in the small number of films over the first 6 months which required us to keep extending the deadline for entries and now the low interest in voting. What really amazed me was the 6 films that received 0 votes in the first round (one of which was one of my favorites). How can someone make the effort to create a video for the contest and then not vote for theselves?

And its not just our marketing efforts that have received an underwhelming response, two of the entrants are making a concerted marketing effort for their videos, strong efforts in my opinion, and yet those efforts also are receiving a small response.

This is my big disappointment. Windward will have put in close to 40K for the contest bewteen prizes, marketing efforts, and other expenses. And a lot of time - not just mine but that of several people in our marketing department. But with vote totals this low the winner will be decided as much by who has the most friends voting as it is by the quality of the entry. And there is no point in having a film contest that is decided that way.

I would also like to answer the comments made against my first post on the contest.

• Why is Cubicle War in the contest? We hired them to create Cubicle War to "seed" the contest. And for the first month it was the only entry. As to those who said they did not know it was going to be in the contest - it was entered in the contest about 1 week after the contest was announced so all you had to do was look at the existing entries.
• Is having Cubicle War in the contest is unfair? If the way you want to compete is to make sure that no one better than you is in the competition, you are not going to be successful in film. It is an intensely competitive business and the only way to make it is to go up against the best in the business and do better than them. This contest is open to anyone. George Lucas is welcome to enter and we would love to have him do so. I don't want to encourage mediocre film-making, I want to encourge exceptional film-making.
• Why do we have X rounds instead of Y? When you have your own contest you can set it up any way you want. We said from the begining that this would be multiple rounds voting off the low entry each round. And we need these rounds. My primary objective is to make this successful enough that we can do it again. And our only chance is to have enough rounds that there is time for interest to pick up.

We are making 3 final marketing efforts for the contest. Amazingly, I have asked for high quality copies of each entry to show at the marketing efforts we are making (over 6,000 people at the last one) and only 3 entrants sent me a copy of their films. So we're trying yet we can't get most entrants to send us a copy of their film. (Note: I am happy to get even ones that have already been dropped as we presently show just 3.)

And to all of you - advertise! How do you think films win the Oscar in Hollywood. They don't sit back and wait for people to vote for it. The spend millions on marketing efforts. Yes quality matters, but so does getting the word out. (We have the same problem with Windward Reports - a great program but we have to market it to get people to take a look at it.)

There is still time to make this successful enough that we can have a second film contest. And that gives everyone, both people who entered this time and new teams, the chance to improve their efforts and try again. Unlike American Idol, if the contest continues we would be thrilled for you to enter each time.

So as my dad would tell me all too many times when I was growing up - "quit bitching and get to work." Being able to repeat this contest again and again would be a great thing for all the people making short videos. But it requires a lot of people getting many others to vote and to pass the word on.

thank you - dave

Update:

Thank you to the three contest entrants who each sent me a very nice email in response to this post. It reminds me that most of the emails I have received have been very positive. Thank you.

First round of voting has completed

Well round 0 (we're programmers so we start with 0, not 1) of the voting is complete. THere were 6 films with 0 votes and they were all dropped. It is sad that for 20% of the films they did not even get a single vote from the person that created it. Including one of the films I thought would make it to the top 5.

We found 4 IP addresses that were very questionable and dropped all votes from them and will not allow any registrations from those addresses. We also found a lot with 3 - 5 registrations but those looked like roomates or families and left those. There was a 5th IP address that looked questionable but it's registrants voted for a wide variety of films so we're leaving it for now but will continue to watch it.

The biggest question I get is about allowing the Cubicle War video in. When we commissioned it (and we were in talks with 2 other film-makers about also doing films) it was partially to seed this contest. And for the first month Cubicle War was the only entry so it was needed. So yes it's in the contest and we intended that from the begining.

But keep in mind that while Cubicle War is very very good, there are several other films entered that are also very very good. We are very lucky to have a contest between several top quality entries.

Don't forget to vote - every week. And good luck.