Louis Kessler’s Behold Blog

As good as yesterday was, today was even better at #RootsTech.

I didn’t expect much from the Keynote speaker Josh Coates. He was to talk about cloud computing. But from the moment he made his somewhat preemptive entrance, he was enthralling. The humor and the manner of his presentation was perfect. I’d like my daughters to watch this. It might even be something that they might watch to the end. It says he’s a BYU prof. Lucky students.

Ancestry Insider has a great review of Josh’s talk.

The winners of the Developer Challenge were then announced.

From there I went to Dovy Paukstys’s HTML5 and Ajax talk. The title of the talk seemed to indicate a tutorial in how to use HTML5 and Ajax. But I knew Dovy wouldn’t do that and he didn’t let me down with his exciting talk on how to make the most out of HTML5 and why you need it. He gave a tremendous set of “what to do’s” that I am definitely going to look into. Just take a look at what HTML5 can do. Part of the idea was to use HTML5 in your applications, but Behold is a desktop application, so I’m really interested in where it might help my websites. Excellent marketing hints were an added bonus.

Next was Robert Raymond with “Citation Principals for Tech Creators”. The talk was exactly the information I was hoping to hear. He confirmed and clarified my current thinking about how citations should be displayed. One interesting point he stressed that I didn’t know was that Evidence Explained is the only citation style that has derivatives (source of the source). Behold already has that programmed in. In Behold, you can have a link in a source to another source. That is possible and easy because Behold displays the source details with the source. I have tested it and it works. I thought I saw a few GEDCOMs that have it, but I can’t recall. At any rate, that will be a capability in Behold when editing is added in Version 2.

Noon hour came, and it was time for lunch and then the “poster demos” for the BYU Family History Technology Workshop being held at the RootsTech conference. This was mostly BYU people with posters about something genealogical and technological set up on easels, such as the following:

I never knew Cemetery Headstones were noisy.

Meanwhile, adjacent to the easels were tables where many of the Developer Challenge participants were set up with their computers, myself included, making ourselves available for one-on-one demos. This was the only part of the day that disappointed me, because it was crowded and those milling around were more attracted to the easels than the tables which were lower down. Over 40 minutes, I only had two people come for 5 minute demos, but they were both suitably impressed.That at least was a good warmup for my demo on Saturday in the Exhibit hall (reminder: at 12:30). But I would sooner have gone to the FSISO meeting, which I missed because it was rescheduled to the same time.

I did manage to have a nice conversation though with Brooke Ganz who developed LeafSeek and came 2nd in the Developer Challenge.

In the afternoon was Ron Tanner and Joe Martel and their Report Card for the Genealogy Software Industry. They developed a Genealogical Workflow by studying dozens of genealogists and seeing what they do right and wrong. Then they evaluated how various genealogy programs did at the various parts of the workflow. The best product got 2.8 out of 4. The average was 1.4 out of 4. That constitutes a mark of D. They rated their own PAF at only 0.4 (fail) and new FamilySearch at 1.4 (average).

This was a superb analysis, but it was their Genealogical Workflow that I really loved. They challenged developers to rate their software and to try to improve them. I see this workflow as an excellent way to judge the worth of all future enhancements to Behold. If it contributes to the workflow in the things Behold is designed to do, then I’ll do it. Otherwise, why bother?

One quote from Ron in response to a question: “Genealogists never make mistakes. … Well they never admit mistakes.Just change the data quietly. Make up a new source.”

Yesterday, I only saw a third of the exhibit hall, I now had an hour free and that let me see another third.

At 4:15 was the “Sources, Citations, Metadata” panel moderated by Ancestry Insider, I was on the panel with Ryan Heaton (FamilySearch), Robert Gardner (Google.com), John Vilburn (Real-time Collaboration), Dallan Quass (weRelate.org), Bruce Buzbee (RootsMagic) and Robert Burkhead (FHISO).

Before it started, I heard some wonderful stories from Jim Raleigh, who was the chief engineer for mission control during the moon landings. I was 13 years old when man landed on the moon, and that made me forever fascinated in space, astronomy and the space program. I might have even become an astronomer if I wasn’t (at the time) afraid of the dark. I encouraged James to get a biography made with his stories – they need to be remembered. If not, make sure he records them for his grandkids and great-grandkids.

The discussion forum went very well. The room was quite full and there were lots of questions. I was surprised when I mentioned that I planned to implement source-based genealogy data entry and it resulted in a significant amount of applause. I will have to move that up a step in importance in my future plans.

At the end of the panel, Russ Worthington, one of the originals of BetterGEDCOM made his way over to us, and we all had a nice talk.

It was now 6 p.m. and time to head over to the Family History Library that was staying open until midnight for RootsTech. I was there once, back in 1980 for one day. But this time, something seemed wrong. I guessed my directions got mixed up because I thought it was on the other side of the street when I was here last. To my surprise later in the evening, one of the employees told me the library was moved in the late 80’s to this location from across the street.

The Family History Library was packed with all us RootsTech-ers, but its 5 floors were enough to handle us. I couldn’t go without doing something, so I picked my Kessler/Katkow line (2 people) from Saskatchewan who I know almost nothing about. There was nothing there … except a book written in 1910 by a person who lived in the area that I knew of that might contain something of interest. I took digital photos of all the book’s pages

There was not much action in the Canadian section on the 3rd floor.

In a board room on the 3rd floor, Thomas MacEntee, Dear Myrtle and Jill Ball were hosting a session of Geneabloggers live radio and doing interviews with some of the attendees and organizers.

I also got to meet Christine_E at the library – the last BetterGEDCOM person at the conference that I hadn’t yet met. I also got to see Jan Gow again – my Behold user from New Zealand.

To add to the great news for the day, Tamura Jones just posted his review of version 1.0 of Behold. Tamura is a superb evaluator of the technical quality of software and doesn’t hold anything back. His review of Behold is as good as it gets, and in his conclusion, he has this interesting statement:

I do not recommend buying Behold 1.0, nor waiting for Behold 2.0, but looking out for version 1.5. Behold 1.5 will still sell for the same price as Behold 1.0, but promises to offer a killer feature. Behold 1.5 will include GEDCOM export, and if the quality of the exported GEDCOM is as high as promised, its flexible GEDCOM import and quality GEDCOM export will combine to make Behold a must-have GEDCOM to GEDCOM conversion utility.

A long but great day. I got back to my hotel at 12 midnight to write this post.

More tomorrow.

The first real day at #RootsTech and it was chock full of stuff. So this will be a somewhat longer post.

The day started with the Keynote by Jay Verkler. I won’t talk about what he said because it was all live streamed, so those of you who are interested can see it. But I should say I was much more impressed than I expected to be. They made it interesting, amusing and though provoking. They definitely have vision. If that can be carried forward even though Jay’s leaving the helm, then it will be very good for the genealogy community. But it will take time and there’s a lot of work involved. If so, Emma from the future year of 2060 will benefit

I sat right behind the “VIP” section, mainly because I like to be as close as possible because it’s easier to see, hear and get involved. Many of the notable people in the genealogy community were there. In the pic below, you’ll see Dear Myrtle, Dick Eastman and Curt Witcher among others.

Following the Keynote, I briefly met and talked with some of the geneabloggers I knew from mutual blog commenting, including Geniaus (Jill Ball from Australia), Dear Myrtle, Randy Seaver (Mr. Myrt took a pic of her, Randy and me) and Dick Eastman. I’ll be giving away a free lifetime licence for Behold at Dick Eastman’s lunch on Saturday night.

Then it was off to the Expo hall. I only had an hour and there was too much and too many people to see. Some will wait until tomorrow. But I took pics of many of the vendors’ booths.

I finally met Luc Comeau (above right) of Legacy Family Tree. He and I emailed when he was still back in Nova Scotia working on GenViewer. His program, like Behold, was programmed in Delphi. I asked him the secret as to why his program reads GEDCOMs so blazingly fast … and he told me.

I talked to Gaylon Findlay of Ancestral Quest, and congratulated him on Ancestral Quest getting the highest rating of all programs in the GenSoftReviews User Choice Awards last year. To me that’s an amazing feat – that he’s kept his program usable and liked since he first built it almost 20 years ago. The very popular PAF was based on an early version of Ancestral Quest.

I met and talked to Gordon Clarke, who was a hard man to track down because he was so busy in charge of much of RootsTech. That’s Gordon and me.

And two of my three Behold users I knew were going to be at RootsTech found me. Jan Gow who came up from New Zealand for the Conference.and Bart Brenner who was with his son. Below is me with Jan Gow

Next up was the talk on FamilySearch’s new GEDCOM. This was where three of the BetterGEDCOMers would be gathering for the first time. Below are Robert Burkhead, me and Wesley Johnston. Dear Myrtle would be joining us later and we still have to get together with Russ Worthington and the mysterious Christine_E. The two of you better find us.

Ryan Heaton’s New GEDCOM talk was very interesting. They are really trying to do it and they want community input. They have been working a year and have code and a design available, but also have a ways to go. I took a lot of notes. I told Ryan I need 15 minutes with him because I want to go over their plans for “levels of conclusions” and persona. Ryan gave two talks. One an intro before lunch, and the 2nd was more detailed getting into the model after lunch.

This was the key slide (the Vision) of Ryan’s 2nd talk:

I had a nice lunch with Robert. I also got to talk to a number of people I didn’t know while I was at lunch and at other random times. They’d see my name badge and ask what’s Behold. I’d say it’s a genealogy program. They’d ask what does it do. I tried to explain the concept. But Behold’s simple idea (output-based, no forms) is so foreign to everyone because there’s never been anything else but forms-based that they can’t conceptualize it. I don’t know what I can do to make that easier. Same with the idea of using source-based data entry rather than people-based. But for the few that did get it, they were quite impressed. One who didn’t understand did say that she loved my enthusiasm. I’ll keep experimenting and see what I can do to express the concepts better. Other than my two users, I did not find one non-developer here at RootsTech who had heard about Behold. I’ll have to get some viral marketing going … but I’m not in a real rush. It can wait until Version 2.

Just before Ryan’s 2nd session, I squeezed in the first half of Gilad Japhet’s demo on My Heritage’s Super Search Engine that they were announcing.

After Ryan’s session, I heard Steve Morse explain his site for creating his one-step search tools. This was a refreshing change. Steve’s laid-back style exemplified his knack for taking something tedious to program and making a simple front end for it. I can see ways I could use his tool to easily set up an online search tool for my local genealogy society’s cemetery photos.

Then I went to hear Daniel Horowitz talk about MyHeritage’s Family Graph API. Ultimately, I love the games and small apps MyHeritage is asking developers to build. These include things like Memory game (turn over pics of your ancestors to match two at a time), calendars (with pics of birthday, anniversary people), trivia (guess who’s oldest, guess who has most kids), puzzle (put the tree back together with the right people).

I went from there to catch the end of a Family Memories discussion panel moderated by Gordon Clarke.

Following that, I got to spend some time with Dovy Paukstys of Real-Time Collaboration, who are developing AncestorSync. I’ve had many conversations with Dovy over the past six months and I love talking to him. He reminds me of myself 25 years ago. Below is Dovy with Gordon Clarke.

I can eventually see Behold importing the data from all the various sources, including the new GEDCOM (i.e. FamilySearch), MyHeritage, and these and maybe others and exporting back as well by using AncestorSync. Behold can already import any version of what I call “Extended GEDCOM” and Version 1.5 will be able to export valid GEDCOM 5.5.1. So that would be a way to get any old GEDCOM loaded up to another system, or another system loaded down into valid GEDCOM 5.5.1, or for that matter, displayed usefully in Behold’s Everything Report.

The evening had the headline comedian. The best jokes of the night included:

“I’m not a fan of Facebook. It’s just Internet crack.”

“I don’t know who decided to put genealogists and tech people together at the same conference. There seems to be an age gap. Have you noticed too?”

“I went to this hotel and asked for a wake up call. In the morning, the phone rang and said ‘You make $18,000 a month and you haven’t had a date in months.”

“Technology is so great. That’s why you’re here … Well that’s why half of you are here.”

Long day. It was a good day. Lots more tomorrow. Good night.

I’m now in Salt Lake City for #RootsTech 2012. The city is flat but there are beautiful mountains surrounding it and d’ere’s snow in d’em d’ere hills. But no snow in the city. The downtown streets are all very wide – 3 to 4 lanes each plus a parking lane – sometimes with diagonal parking - and the blocks are long. They have light rail trains on their main drag. The airport is 3 times the size of Winnipeg’s. Likewise the Salt Palace (their convention center), is 3 times the size of Winnipeg’s.

I went to the Palace to check out the rooms in advance, pick up my registration package, and see if there’s anyone I know. The registration area had about a dozen volunteers working there. 

The registration package included a very nice bag, the conference guide (which is available online), A ticket to the Thursday night comedian event, info about the Friday night library event, info on how to get a free t-shirt and how to enter the iPad giveaway, and your name badge, which I replaced with my custom version.

The main exhibition hall for the keynote speaker was huge! They had thousands of seats set up.

In the hall, one of the keynote speakers was doing a dry run. But I couldn’t get close enough to see who it was.

The other rooms for the various sessions were bigger than I thought from the map, which shows them as tiny boxes. Each room must hold 200 people. Still, with 3,000 attendees, you’ll probably have to get to each session early to get a good seat, so it will pay to be organized and know where you’re going next.

There was lots of activity in the Exhibition Hall as the various vendors were all getting set up.

And there were lots of electronic boards showing the #RootsTech twitter feeds as they were happening. So all you twitter people: even if you’re not here, get your tweets out with the #RootsTech hash code and we’ll see them.

As far as looking for people I knew, I wasn’t too successful. There was a group of 20 or so genealogists from one society in Ontario who were on the same plane as me. I ran into them again twice more. They were hard to miss because they migrated together.

There was also someone who looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t remember from where. It was someone I hadn’t met but had seen his image on the Internet. I went up to him and asked. It happened to be Curt Witcher, who I understand from my Internet sightings that he is a most wonderful genealogy speaker. I didn’t think I saw him among the speakers and I know I would have wanted to hear him if he was speaking. He confirmed to me that no, he isn’t speaking this year. He’s come as an observer and to learn. We’re all still learning, no matter how much we know. Even Curt.

Unable to find anyone to spend time with this evening, I decided to head back to my hotel and get a good night’s sleep so I could be fully fueled for the busy 3 days ahead. On the way, I found there were hundreds of people walking along as well. I asked what was going on. They were heading to the Utah Jazz game that was playing at their arena just a block away. I could quite easily have got a ticket, but decided it was already a bit late for me (lost an hour) and I wanted to get this blog post out.

Over and out for day zero. Tomorrow’s day 1.