Michael Carøe Andersen

Category: Misc

  • Counting Cells

    About a year ago I had never heard the term Flow Cytometry, and I still cant say that I know a lot about it. But I do know that it applies to research in fields like molecular biology, pathology and immunology and so is used in places like cancer and AIDS research. CFlow, the application I worked on when I was at Menlo Innovations and the first client project we had at Arb Design was launched this Friday, which for us is really exiting. This is the first large scale product I have worked on and it is great to see what it has become.

    CFlow [tm] - Accuri Cytometry

    Accuri Cytometers is the company behind the cytometer, they built the hardware and used Menlo to build the software. What I find really cool is that this product will most likely change the accessibility of cell analysis. Based on some new ideas for the hardware implementation, Accuri can build cytometers at 1/5 of the competitors price. And with the use of Menlos High Tech Anthropology the user interface is a lot more intuitive than that of the competitors. Having a system that is cheap and easy to use will mean that students will have easier access to this tool during education and hospitals in developing countries could be able to afford a unit.

    In Denmark I ran into the application of flow cytometry when I visited Dansire, another of our clients. They use it to do sex selection of sperm cells for cattle breading – an interesting concept which is possible because sperm cells with the X-chromosome contains 4% more DNA and reflects laser light from the cytometer differently (article in Danish).


  • Lets Go Blue!

    IMG_0776

    Tonight is the night of The Game – the biggest game of college football – University of Michigan against Ohio State. This is the last game of the season and both teams are undefeated so the loser will head to the Rose Bowl while the winner plays for the National Championship.

    Oh, I wish I could be in Columbus or Ann Arbor today to follow the game and fell the vibe. To give you an idea of the magnitude of this game, tickets are sold for this game at an average of $835 which is more than tickets for Super Bowl or the World Series in Baseball.

    It is quite difficult to follow college football from Europe – first off games are played Saturday evening so there is usually something else going on at the time and unlike NFL, college football isnt getting any airtime over here. In Denmark NFL is getting shown on Danish channels but after having lived for one year in a college town I prefer college football over NFL. Sports Illustrated has a piece about some of the differences between NFL and college football.

    Here is a couple of interesting links if you want to know more about this game and the rivalry.

    And if you like American football let me recommend Friday Night Lights (the movie) and Friday Night Lights (the TV Series).

    Update: And michigan lost :(


  • Arb Design Photos

    Several people have told us that they want to see some photos on the Arb Design website – and we are now ready to comply :) Together with Søren Sunnyboy Sohl we went out to the streets of Copenhagen and shot a lot of rounds. We started out at Danish Design Center and continued past the parliament through The Royal Library Gardens and ended up by The Black Diamond.

    At the turntable

    Show us some teeth

    Femi and Michael

    Femi and Michael

    Corner of The Black Diamond

    Arb Design guys

    We had a lot of fun running around and posing for these photos, See more photos from the session here.


  • The Virtually Free Office

    In setting up our business we pushed our office online by using a couple of the free tools and services to get started.
    gmail hosted sollution

    Starting a company means spending a fair amount of money up front before the money (hopefully) starts rolling in. Every penny counts and what you least want to do is spend a load on software were you only use a fraction of the functionalities. Using Microsoft Windows with Office will usually get the job done but if you want to stay legal you end up paying a lot of money for software.

    During our initial months we have used Writely, Googles hosted mail solution, Google Spreadsheet, Google Calendar and Thumbstack presentations in running our company.

    Our experience has been mainly positive but there are still some shortcoming in these online application that prevents a complete switch away from desktop apps. Here are the experiences we have had using different free services.

    The tools we use

    Writely
    This is an online alternative to MS Word owned by Google. It has basic word processing features like spell checking, text formatting, inserting tables, images and links. There are more advanced features like sharing and collaborating a document as well as posting to a weblog.

    Update: Writely is now known as the first half of Google Docs & Spreadsheet writely

    Gmail for Your Domain
    This feature is wonderful for a small company like us. We get the GMail mail client interface for our own domains and send email from our own domain while having all the benefits of GMail. That means that there are no need to run instances of Outlook or Thunderbird or a slow Horde.
    gmail hosted sollution

    Google spreadsheet
    An alternative to MS Excel. We havent used it extensively but it seems to have most of basics spreadsheet features working and there is a feature for importing and exporting to Excel. Macros and other more advanced features are not provided.
    Google spreadsheet

    Google Calendar
    In the suite of cool Google Apps there is also their calendar. It integrates with Gmail and it is very easy to share calendars and events. There is a new feature that sends you a SMS message when you have events.
    Google Calendar

    Thumbstacks
    Create presentations online using Thumbstack. This is the least mature of the online apps we have been using. Yet again it provides basic presentation features but this one also still has a couple of glitches.
    thumbstack

    Apart from these free online tools we have been using these hosted (so they are not free) open-source solutions:

    WordPress
    For creating our website because it is just so easy. There is a big variaty of plugins avalible and with the size of our site WordPress works great as a CMS.
    wordpress.png

    ActiveCollab
    For project management we use this clone of BaseCamp that easily lets you manage a project with a set of workers and stake holders.
    ActiveCollab

    Positive experiences

    1. Sharing is very easy
    There is no need to attach files and email them back and forth – these online tools lets you share your documents very easily. Its easy to pull people in and out for reviews or collaboration on projects.

    2. Revisions are easy to keep track of
    No more need for obscure file names like proposal_edit_michael_3-02.doc. Writely has a revision feature that lets you see the changes and lets you browse them easily.

    3. Simultaneous editing
    We can work in the same document at the same time. As long as we are not working in the same paragraph it works pretty well. This enables for getting things done faster if necessary.

    4. No lost data
    My laptop broke (f!ck!) but since everything was online I just needed a new (old) computer and I was back on track.

    5. Organize using tags
    Instead of a folder hierarchy files can be tagged. With tagging things can still become disorganized but so far its worked for us.

    6. Low learning barrier
    Unlike Office XP these applications are very simple – and that is most often a good thing.

    7. Easy to get started
    For most of these applications it is very easy to get started. Sign up and you are going.

    8. Accessibility – Work from anywhere
    Documents are accessible everywhere you can get online all you need is a computer with a steady connection. Having a broken laptop and an old box I cant bring my stuff with me, but when I visit my parents in the other end of the country I can still work on documents on my dads computer.

    9. No upgrading
    These products are still quite young and new features are added regularly usually without any action needed from me.

    10. Its free!

    Negative experiences

    1. Security and confidentiality
    Putting your data out there on the Internet can be a scary. How can you be sure nobody is snooping? How can you garantee confidentiality?

    2. No Internet – no work
    As if it wasnt already true, your Internet connection become just as vital as your power plug. If you loose connection you cant get any work done.

    3. World of Beta
    Features might come and go, and the interface might change overnight – tho usually to the better. Some might become premium features once the application has matured.

    4. Lack of features
    I dont miss a lot but there are essential features that I still really need in order to do everything using these tools. So I still need to pull them out into a desktop application to make them look pretty.

    5. Lock-in
    Can I get all my data out the day I find a better alternative? Most of these tools allow you to export the single document but so far there are not a batch functionality for it.

    6. Missing localization
    The spell checking is only in (American) English, number and date formats are also only available in English standards.

    7. No possibilities for audit of changes
    Since we are only two people this hasnt been an issue – but for a bigger group the option of approving/auditing changes might be a necessity.

    8. No linking to other documents wiki-style
    Writely is not a wiki-tool but the ability to create relations to other documents would be a very useful feature.

    9. Exporting to .doc creates some layout issues
    Exporting a document to Word/OpenOffice for further editing and layout inherent some layout issues. It inserts some blank lines and you need to do some clean up of the document before it looks ok.

    10. Its free
    So what can I expect/demand from the supplier?

    Conclusion

    Overall this has worked out fine for us and we continue to use these apps – tho still with the backup of desktop apps. It will be interesting to follow along on the scene of online applications to see what they have evolved into in a year or two.

    Further reading


  • Working online and off site in an Agile environment

    Femi and I recently finished a three week gig for Menlo Innovations. We left Ann Arbor about three months ago so it has been great fun and an interesting experience working with them again. We were working with the same team we did back then. But instead of sitting right next to them we were now 4,000 miles away and the only thing connecting us was Skype.

    Menlo developer team
    The Menlo development team at the pair programming pods

    Since we knew the processes it was not difficult getting into the rhythm again but there was still a couple of things that made the experience very different from being there in flesh.

    First of all our kitchen is not close to being as interesting as Menlos and we do not have a coffee shop next door providing java for the Java.

    Snackbar
    This is Menlos kitchen – Im not showing ours

    Another thing that we could not really participate in was the daily stand up meeting. We tried doing it over Skype conference phones but it just isnt the same experience. Every day at 10 AM the dart board on the wall makes a noise, everybody stands up in a circle, and pass a viking helmet or another toy around telling about the activities you have planed for the day and any problems you might have. It sounds weird – I know – but once you get used to it and the many other seemingly crazy things Menlo do they make a lot of sense. They got this plenitude of practices that supports cross-company communication, collaboration, standards, project management and development.

    Standup meeting at Menlo
    Richard the CEO has the token at the daily stand up meeting

    But apart from not being immersed into this crazy, loud and yet very productive environment it was a lot of fun being back on the team – pair programming from our small flat in Copenhagen. The amount of team communication was not nearly as high as when we sat next to our peers and Skype isnt perfect but it still worked out pretty good.

    Femi and Michael ready to start on the a Menlo project
    Femi and me working in Copenhagen on the first job as company owners

    This will not be the last time we have worked for Menlo but since we ended this current gig we asked for a quote for our website and Richard the CEO wrote us a nice piece.

    As you probably have figured by now I am a big believer of the way that Menlo do things. And for right now I cannot quite stop talking about the experience of working there. I ran into Alexander of Positive Sharing at a Copenhagen Bloggerdinner and talked to him about what a cool place to work is, I of course started speaking of Menlo. Yesterday he made a post about Menlos Extreme Interviewing which I had the fortune to be a part of during my stay.

    Alexander does a good job of describing the way the extreme interview works so Im just refering to him and the original white paper. Id just like to add my two cents as this was the first time in my life I was a job interviewer. First of all it didnt feel like an interview at all – but being an observer of the exercises really gave me a chance to see the dynamics when two people work together. Some people just click, most people are polite and attentive, some are controlling and a few are obnoxious. Watching others was a great way of becoming aware of my own behaviors.

    Menlo Extreme Interview
    After we had 20-something through the interview the Menlo team sat down and evaluated each interviewee

  • From talk to action – an idea becomes real

    Most of the decisions that have defined my life up until now have had their beginning in the small hours after a good night out – and this is no exception. My one year internship in Ann Arbor, Michigan was coming to an end and it had been a most amazing year – a very interesting job, lots of cool friends and lots of greats experiences. One night on the way home from the bars I walked with a fellow intern and we were talking about the ever-more threatening return to The Real Lifeâ„¢. Both of us graduated from our academic programs just before coming to the States so on our imminent return home we would be looking for jobs and settling down and all that stuff.

    As we were walking home that fateful night the discussion turned to how sad it would be to get into the everyday life after this incredible year we had just experienced. And then my friend said – “we should start our own company together, do stuff we want to do and use all the great things we’ve learned here”. The talk got intense and we had a lot of crazy ideas (as only drunk friends on the way home from the bars can have). We promised each other that we had to try to start our own company – if we failed then to hell with it – we are still young. No matter what it will be a great experience.

    Five months later my friend Femi packed one bag and flew from Belfast, Northern Ireland – his home town – to Copenhagen, Denmark were I am living now. Our company Arb Design was made official September 1st. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, sometimes I wake up and think “what am I doing?!” and I’m not sure we fully understand what we set in motion here – but trust me we are having a lot of fun :)

    Stay tuned for more on the story of the life as an entrepreneur.

  • Geotagged – putting your images on the map

    A couple of days ago flickr announced that they (finally) had added geotagging to their feature list.

    Geotagging is a way of adding meta data to photos so the location they are shot at can be used in their representation.

    Geotagged

    I have been using some greasmonkey hack that worked pretty good. I played around with it for a week and got 26 pictures geotagged

  • American roadtrip #2 Litteratur

    American roadtrip #2 Litteratur

    Drømmen om at krydse det amerikanske kontinent er nok lige så gammel som guld feberen. Målene har været både guld og grønne skove, flugten fra noget eller det dragende ved det derude vestpå. Men oftest er det ikke destinationen der er det vigtige, det er selve rejsen, eventyret og menneskene undervejs. Her er min liste over rejsebøger, der for mig på bedste vis beskriver følelsen af rejsen:

    • Amerika Maxima af Tom Buk-Swienty – Buk-Swienty er Weekendavisens korrespondent i USA, og i denne bog tager han sin kone og søn med på tur på tværs af USA i en lejet Nissan Maxima. Bogen er en fortræffelig beretning om en road trip, og samtidig er der masser baggrundsstof om amerikanske forhold set med en danskers øjne. Jeg læste bogen i gymnasiet, og den var med til at give os ideen til vores egen rundtur. Buk-Swienty skriver stadig for Weekendavisen, og jeg sætter stadig stor pris på hans rapportager fra USA.
    • On The Road af Jack Kerouac – Beat-generationens stodder-konge. Bogen handler om en college-knægts sommerferie i 50erne, hvor han krydser kontinentet for kicks. Hovedpersonen Sal Paradise tager den på stop og beskriver oplevelsen af hans rejse. Bogen er er delvist selvbiografisk og skrevet på én lang rulle papir i løbet af 3 uger. En meget inspirerende bog, som jeg læste for et par år siden, og som var med til at få mine øjne op for det at rejse på tomlen.
    • Led by Destiny af Kinga Freespirit. Kinga og Chopin er fra Polen og har over en femårig periode blaffet hele jorden rundt. Led By Destiny er Kinga s dagbog fra turen og beskriver deres oplevelser undervejs, når de prøver train-hopping, blaffe på mississippifloden, bor hos indianer i Sydamerika, fusker sig ind i Tibet og meget andet. Deres tilgang til deres rejse forbløffer mig. Med et åbent sind, en afslappet holdning til hvad der skal ske i morgen kombineret med deres gå-på-mod, kommer de vitterligt hele jorden rundt.
      Kinga har selv fået bogen trykt og står selv for at tage ud og sælge den, så hvis du vil have fat i et eksemplar (25) må du besøge bogens hjemmeside.

    Det er ikke meget skønlitteratur jeg får læst, så hvis du har nogle anbefalinger i genren, må du meget gerne give lyd. På min to-read liste står der for tiden Hunter S. Thomson og Ernest Hemmingway, men jeg ved ikke hvornår det kommer til at ske.

    Whee. Sal, we gotta go and never stop going till we get there.
    Where we going, man?
    I don’t know but we gotta go.

    Jack Kerouac in On The Road

  • Rock 'n' roll!

    Ind af brevsprækken er i dag væltet en sending rock ‘n’ roll/retro/western – mums 🙂

    1. Den nye Raveonettes skive hvor supercoole Sune Wagner og Sharin Foo har gjort det igen! Jeg har været med siden ‘Swell’ og der kommer altid noget nyt og spændende, når Wagner har været i gang. Hans musik har for mig altid haft en nerve og overlegen attitude som få.

    2. Efter en rigtig fed koncert på Studenterhuset måtte jeg simpelthen have en Tremolo Beer Gut CD til lidt prærie-surfing.

    Der er en anmeldelse og link til en livekoncert hos DR. Fandt også en ftp-server med Raveonettes bootlegs.

  • Menlo Innovations

    Andreas, som er i Ann Arbor i øjeblikket, var forbi min fremtidige arbejdsplads og tog dette billede.

    Menlo Innovations

    Man kan ane et skilt hvor der står Menlo World Headquarters. 🙂 Lidt sjovt taget i betragtning at det er en virksomhed med <50 ansatte.

    Andreas ligger forøvrigt engang imellem billeder fra Ann Arbor på Scatter Joy.